The Seven Habits Read online

  And once they’ve totally broken you… then they rebuild you into the perfect marine. They can form you like you weren’t nothing more than a little lump of clay.

  That’s so negative though, ya know? Me and Johnny, we wanted a more positive experience. I never wanted to kill anyone. I never wanted any of this shit I’ve been through. But you know what they say about the best plans of mice and men, right?

  Anyhow, there was one small difference between Johnny and me. See, he was trying to do all this with just the drugs alone, but me, I’ve always been into the great mysteries, ya know? Astral projection, mysticism, astrology, mind over matter. I didn’t really identify myself with any one particular belief system or practice. The way I see it, all these different schools of thought are like that parable about the blind Indians who stumble across this elephant. One of ‘em touches the tail and says, ‘Oh, it’s a rope’, another touches the leg and says, ‘Oh, it’s a tree’ and so on and such.

  Well, God is that elephant, man. Everyone thinks they’ve got the one clear picture because they’re limiting their understanding to a fixed set of perceptions. I wanted to see the whole damn animal, dig? So yeah, I did it all—Santeria, Golden Dawn, Freemasonry, Thanateros, Wicca. I panned each of them for the little nuggets of truth hidden in all that other worthless silt, and eventually, it all came to a head.

  See, there was this dude Johnny knew. Real lanky guy with long hair and these little John Lennon glasses. I never could remember this cat’s name and wouldn’t tell ya if I could. He supplied most of the valley with their shit, but he was a good guy. Wouldn’t sell to kids, stayed away from the really fucked up stuff, and always smoked one out of his own stash with ya. Quality fuckin’ individual. He’s forgotten more about drugs then your whole narc squad ever knew, man… a walkin’ fuckin’ encyclopedia, that dude was. Which is why I just called him Professor Weed.

  So anyhow, Professor Weed stopped by our pad this one night to hook Johnny up with this new shipment of chronic sativa that had come into his possession. He’s got the baggie out on the coffee table and he’s hunched over the tray, rolling up a nice fat one with his bangs all down in his face, when he looks up at Johnny.

  “I’ve got something The Dude might be interested in as well.”

  See, that was one of the funny things about Professor Weed. He always spoke to Johnny as if I wasn’t even in the room. And he always called me The Dude because he said I reminded him of Dude Lebowski.

  What’dya mean, who the fuck is that? The dudester? El Duderino? Ain’t you ever seen The Big Lebowski? Shit, you guys gotta get some fuckin’ culture… .

  So anyhow, like I was sayin’ before I was so rudely interupted, Professor Weed says he’s got something I might be interested in. Says it’s a new strain of acid that’s brewed up by these monks out in the Mojave desert. Called it Liquid Enlightenment and said that through every step of the process these dudes were performing rites and rituals to instill it with arcane properties. Told Johnny he could hook me up with two or three hits if I was interested.

  So I told Johnny ‘fuck yeah, I’m interested, man’ and he relayed the message like a kid caught between bickering parents. Two days later, I’ve got three tabs with these little infinity symbols watermarked in the middle of each one. I put two of them on the tip of my tongue and just kinda leaned back, smokin’ a cigarette and waiting for the doses to dissolve. Johnny, he took the other one. I’d offered to halve my second one but he had to work in the morning and didn’t want the acid to cancel out his pre-shift joint.

  About thirty minutes later, that shit had really kicked in, man. By this time, I’d moved out onto the front porch and was just stretched out on the couch we had out there. I was watching the leaves on this old tree that stood in our front yard and they were so awesome. It was like I could see this faint aura around each one, like a golden glow that pulsed with the energies rushing through that elm.

  Everything was so clear, so fuckin’ hyper-real. One point, I’m racked out there—just kinda controlling my breathing and meditating—when I begin to hear this beautiful music. It was like there was this angel hovering just over our roof and it was ringing tones and textures from the atoms and molecules of everything, man. Each note hung in the air with this perfect clear pitch, trilling and droning into eternity, overlaying the next note, and blending together into a chord that seeped down through my body and vibrated my soul.

  So eventually I open my eyes, right? And I see this little night bird sitting in the limbs of that tree and he’s just warbling away. The bird was the angel, dude. His song was the music of the spheres and something about this knowledge made me feel like every cell in my body had just been stroked with the finger of God.

  I rush into the house and Johnny is there doing this chalk and charcoal portrait of his mind on butcher paper. He was always trying to map out his psyche, see, because he had to understand where each of the roads lead before he’d be able to divert them. So I snatch away this piece of white chalk and run back out onto the porch and I felt so fuckin’ alive, man, so fuckin’ connected.

  I get out on the porch and I start scrawling these veves all over the floorboards… a veve? It’s this complex symbol, man. Voodoo houngans draw ‘em in cornmeal to represent all these astral forces that are spiraling around out there and they kinda act like beacons for the loa. See the, loa are these spiritual beings that….

  Shit. You’re getting me totally off topic, man. The point is, I drew these veves all over the damn porch and I was channeling my energy into each line, each dot and swirl. After a while, I realized that I wasn’t just drawing the ones I knew. I’d branched out into these geometrical shapes and patterns that had just as much power, just as much energy… only these were coming from somewhere inside me.

  Finally, I stood up and started calling on the Watchtowers, man, the directions, the elementals. I invited them all in and could feel myself opening to them, unfurling like the petals of the moon flowers that crept all up and down our hillside. I could feel the energies surging into me, manifesting in my blood and coursing through my entire body. It was like a black hole had suddenly opened up somewhere within me and it was pulling everything in, man.

  About this time is when I noticed how these dark clouds had crept across the sky and they kinda flickered with the glow of lightning that was just out of view. A wind was blowing and it felt like the universe was kissing me softly, running its cool fingers through my hair. I could feel the moisture in the air, could smell that fresh scent that pre-rain spores release, and I knew that this wasn’t just something that was happening to me.

  I was part of it, man. I knew that I was just this little strand in the giant web of everything, and I wanted to experience it all. The cool grass between my toes, the wind rustling my pubes, the feeling of bare skin when those first, fat drops of rain finally started falling outta the sky.

  So I took off all my clothes, right there on the porch. Left them in this rumpled pile and went running down the steps, across the sidewalk, and into the backyard. You’re never really free until you’re naked, ya know? You’ve never really experienced life until you’ve done it without all the hang-ups and impositions society tries to choke us with. If you’ve never danced nude to the rhythm of rain pattering on leaves, then you’ve never truly been alive.

  Anyway, I’m out in the backyard, doing this little tribal two-step, when I hear howling way back in the hills. Sounds just like some giant wounded beast and it stops me in my tracks. I’m standing there listening to this sound, ya know, and all of a sudden all that zen just vanishes. I’m like Adam in the Garden of Eden, realizing his nakedness for the first time and feeling the shame warm my chest and cheeks. I wanna run to the porch, put on my clothes, go back inside where its bright and safe and protected, ‘cause I’ve got The Fear, now.

  I’m listening to this moaning sound coming down off the mountains and it seems like it embodies every fucked up thing that’s ever existed. Violence, doubt, rage… it�
�s all there, whipped into a frenzy by the coming storm and fueled by the anger of the Earth and how her children have betrayed her. I can see the pines way back there swaying back and forth, the wind is really blowing now, driving these little stinging bits of dust into my eyes and peppering my bare skin with what feels like tiny pinpricks.

  But I can’t move. It’s like roots have spread out from the soles of my feet and anchored me to the ground, ya know?

  And then I hear this really loud popping and cracking, like the world’s largest .22 had been set to fully automatic somewhere back in those woods, and it just keeps getting louder and louder. That old wind is blowing stronger now and the pines are all bent toward me like they were bowing before the approach of some fearsome demon. So this image forms in my head, man. I see this dark and formless force racin’ down the hillside. It’s leaving splintered trees in its wake and kickin’ up these little tornadoes of dirt and dead leaves. All the forest animals are scurrying away, running and hiding, seeking shelter from the evil that crackles like static in the air.

  And me? I’m right there in its path, man. It’s chargin’ through the woods, howling so loud I can feel it reverberate in my chest and head, and I know… I know… that within seconds it’s gonna be all over me like a skunk on peanut butter. It’s gonna slam into my body and poison my spirit with all that malevolent energy. It’s gonna wither my soul, drink my tears, and feast upon all that succulent fear and pain. It’ll consume me within seconds and scour the earth for more hapless bastards to feed on, growing stronger as its darkness claims the land.

  Fuck that.

  I broke through the paralysis and took off like a spooked deer, running straight across the yard. Took the porch stairs in two strides, and forgot all about my pile of clothes layin’ over there. I streaked by Johnny and ran to my bedroom, slamming the door shut behind me only seconds before I dove into bed. I pulled those sheets up over my head and I was shakin’ so bad I coulda washed an entire load of laundry if someone had tossed me into a tub of water with some detergent.

  I just wanted to close my eyes and go to sleep, ya know? To pretend like none of this had ever happened and wake up in the morning to tell Johnny all about the fucked up dream I’d had.

  But you can’t sleep on acid, man. Everyone knows that. So, instead, I tried to picture this protective ball of white light encircling me like I was a baby chick inside an egg of pure energy, only every time I started to get a fix on it in my mind, the white light was shredded into these long strands and pulled away like cigarette smoke through a fan. I’m shivering, sweating, crying, and my heart is hammering in my chest so loudly that I can only faintly hear Johnny on the other side of my door saying, “Dude, you wanna hit this? Hey, man, you wanna hit this?”

  I feel like a damn fool now. Hindsight being twenty-twenty and all, I realize there wasn’t some all-powerful, dark entity willing itself into existence back there on the hill. I was just having a bad trip and letting all my negativity bubble to the surface where it tainted my perceptions, man. No, I realize now that what that was—the howling, the wind, the trees snapping like they were nothing more than dried twigs—I realize that it was just the Eye of Aeons opening up for the first time.

  So that’s why I’m so fuckin’ special, man. That’s why it swallows me time and time again. Because I opened myself to it. I sought it out. I called for it.

  If it hadn’t been for that night, if it hadn’t been for Professor Weed and his Liquid fuckin’ Enlightenment, I never would have known about The End. I never would have known about Ocean. And I most certainly wouldn’t have known about the seven signs, man.

  What’s that? Oh yeah… right. I haven’t mentioned the signs yet, have I? Well, as you can probably guess by the clever name, there’s seven of ‘em. They’re like guideposts or even a checklist, if you will. These days, just about everyone exhibits at least a handful. So you gotta be sure. You gotta be positive. ‘Cause only the true infected display all seven traits, see? And that’s how you can tell who’s gonna spread the contagion that levels our world, man.

  Ocean may seem like she’s out there in some distant point on mankind’s timeline. She may seem to be this hazy spot somewhere in the future, but she’s not. She only fifteen or twenty years away. Tops.

  The virus is already among us, see? The seeds of apocalypse have been sown and, even as we sit here having our little rap session, those microscopic buggers are out there, dividing and subdividing, slowly changing our genetic blueprint through mitosis. It’s spreading faster than you can imagine, infecting more and more people every day. The end really is nigh… the human race really is doomed.

  And Clarice fuckin’ Hudson? Well, she had all seven signs, man. See, she was dead a long time before she met ‘ole Bosley Coughlin. You can write that in your little black book in big, block letters and underline it.

  She was a dead woman walking. And I’m simply the man who recognized it for what it was.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ocean’s mother drove the shard of metal down with a growl. Summoning what little strength she had, the young girl rolled her shoulders with a savage jerk, throwing her attacker’s center of gravity off just long enough for the weapon to clang ineffectually off the concrete. Seizing the opportunity, Ocean raked at her mother’s eyes with her hands, feeling a soft squish as her index fingers drove into the moist orbs.

  Her mama’s hands flew instinctively to her face as she yowled with pain. Adrenaline gushing through her veins, Ocean found a strength she never realized she possessed and she thrashed on the ground. Her mother toppled over as if she were nothing more than one of the glass figurines in the car, and now it was Ocean’s turn to grapple for dominance. As she pulled herself over her mother’s squirming body, she drove her knee between the woman’s sagging breasts, throwing as much of her weight into the blow as possible. The air whooshed out of the woman’s lungs and left her gasping for breath… but it wasn’t enough to drive the fight out of her entirely.

  She grabbed a handful of Ocean’s hair and yanked so hard that it felt her scalp were about to be pulled right off her skull. At the same time, the other woman’s free hand was scrambling across the concrete, her fingers clutching and grasping at the empty air.

  Tears streamed down Oceans’s face, cutting paths of clean skin through the filth and grime. She was vaguely aware of her own shrieking voice. “No, Mama, No… stop it! Stop it!”

  “Bitch! Slut! Little fuckin’ whore!” The woman’s hand finally found the object it sought and, with an inhuman roar, she rammed the end of the twisted scrap of metal into her daughter’s arm.

  Ocean screamed as the pain shot from her elbow to shoulder. Undaunted, her mother continued to stab again and again as blood spurted from the puncture wounds, to spatter against her face.

  She’s going to kill you, she’s going to fucking kill you, you have to do something. DO SOMETHING!

  Ocean buried her face into her mother’s neck, just as she had done when she was very small and had awoken from a nightmare where the rotters were about to get her. Only this time, there was no comfort to be sought in the warm skin, no reprieve from the anxiety and fear; there was only one last chance at survival.

  She sank her teeth into flesh, clamping down so tightly that her mouth was immediately flooded with the metallic tang of blood. Her mother screamed and thrashed, still jamming the metal into her daughter’s body.

  The pain caused Ocean to throw her head back and there was a wet, ripping sound as the skin seemed to peel away from her mother’s throat. Something warm and sticky sprayed over the girl, but she was terrified to the point that the most real thing was that voice in her head chanting: she’ll kill you, she’ll fucking kill you, you know she’ll kill you….

  Spitting the rubbery chunk of tissue from her mouth, Ocean plunged her face toward her mother’s throat again. Chewing, ripping, snot bubbling from her nose as her tears mingled with the blood, she tore away flesh and muscle again and again until it dawned on her
that she wasn’t being stabbed any longer. In fact, her mother was sprawled motionless across the ground, a dark pool seeping away from the ravaged remains of her neck.

  At that moment, all of the fear and rage that had propelled her simply seemed to vanish. She collapsed over her mother’s body like a cast off rag doll, her back hitching with sobs as she pressed her face into her mother’s chest.

  “Mama… Mama, talk to me… please, Mama. Please!”

  She wasn’t sure how long she laid there, clutching her dead mother in her arms as though she could somehow squeeze life back into those now useless lungs. Eventually the crying tapered off and the throbbing pain in her arm seemed to fade; Ocean’s entire body, even her mind, felt numb. It was like all of her thoughts had poured out of her head with the snot and tears. She was nothing but a hollow, empty vessel as she stared into the distance, seeing nothing.

  At some point she must have drifted to sleep; the next thing she knew her body was covered in dew and thin tendrils of fog crept across the ground like miniature phantoms. She could see through the windows of some of the wrecked cars encircling her and the fog was thicker on the other side. It was a roiling, gray veil that made the ruined city appear fuzzy and indistinct. She thought she could see a dark silhouette out there, beckoning to her with outstretched arms.

  “D-daddy?” Even cloaked in the morning mist, she could recognize his general shape and outline. “Daddy!”

  Her heart fluttered with hope as she raised her head and a smile crept over her face. The smile faded however, as quickly as the image of the man in the fog, and she was left with only her mother’s cold, still body beneath her.

  Ocean scrambled backward and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms tightly around her knees as she rocked back and forth. She was shaking her head, silently saying no again and again, and she could feel the tears returning. Mama was gone. Mama was gone and now she was entirely alone in the world.