The Damn Disciples (11 page)

“Good day. May your aura be always blue,” a man said as he passed by, tilting his head slightly as if bowing. His eyes blazed
with good cheer, but Stone could see it was all a lie. There was nothing behind those eyes or the lips. Just a recording somewhere
in what was left of the man’s brain, telling him to utter the words.

“Good day,” Stone replied, “and your aura too.” Everyone he passed nodded with the same little tilt of the head, the same
words, everything. It was as though they had come from the same mold. Every one of them. He came to a corner, turned, and
walked down another block—and encountered the same greeting from every man and woman he passed. He saw two more elephants,
which seemed to do all the heavy work around the place; Stone couldn’t see a single motorized vehicle. The citizens all wore
the same sort of gray suit, sort of like the old Nehru style of the sixties, with simple lines and cut-off collar. It made
them all appear to be robots, like something out of Red Guard China. Every one of them seemed so alike in clothing and manner
it was spooky.

Suddenly there were three of them blocking his path. They didn’t act menacing, but clearly wanted to have a few words with
him before he took another step. These had robes on, a brownish-red color, and were clearly of a higher rank than the others.
It wasn’t that they didn’t look spaced out as well, but their eyes had at least a glint more intelligence in them, their mouths
moved a little more freely. Apparently this Yasgar had different levels of mind control. Only problem was, the more control,
the less mind. So he must have had to compromise. That meant that the more intelligent ones might be more open to persuasion—or
threats. Stone filed the information away under “Ultra Important.” And promptly forgot it.

“Hello, welcome to the Town of the Perfect Aura,” one of them said. “It is a lovely day, isn’t it?” The three strained faces
looked at Stone questioningly.

“Yes, yes, it sure as hell is a lovely thing to be here in this lovely town on a lovely day like this,” Stone replied with
as exaggerated a smile as the others had. The three men tried to smile even wider than he, and Stone wondered whether their
mouths were going to split.

“And what might your purpose be here in our fine town, stranger?” the same gray robe asked.

“Oh—just vacationing.” Stone smiled back. “Heard you had some real good guru or something here, preaching a whole lot of gospel.
I’m a man of God, so I come down from the mountains—to see just what was going on. Any man who preaches the Lord’s work—well,
that man is someone I want to hear. Amen,” he added, looking down as if in prayer.

“So you’ve come to hear about the Perfect Aura. That is a wonderful thing,” the man said. “We have Al experienced the healing
pureness of the Aura, have tasted the nectar of transformation. It is a miraculous thing indeed. You must come to our Ceremony
of the Golden Elixir tonight at the Auric Temple. All are welcome, all strangers are welcome.”

“Even animals,” one of them added sweetly, as if syrup were dripping from his tight lips. He reached down to pet Excaliber,
who let out a menacing growl and backed off, his fur rising up slightly. The dog clearly didn’t like any of this crew, not
one bit. It didn’t know what was wrong. It didn’t particularly care what was wrong. Just that there was something out of sync
with them. Like a broken car that you wouldn’t sit in from the sheer sounds of its malfunctioning engine.

“Ah, isn’t he cute,” one of them said. “Our Guru loves animals. And they love him. They flock to him like the legendary St.
Francis of Asissi.”

“Oh, isn’t that nice,” Stone said, hoping he wouldn’t puke over all these “Dices and wonderfuls.” “I do hope your Guru will
be at the temple tonight so I can meet him personally,” Stone said, reminding himself to make sure his .44 and autofire 9mm
Beretta were fully loaded.

“Yes, the Guru and the Priest of Transformation will be there,” one of them said, laughing as if the thought of his absence
were completely absurd. “He
must
be there. That is the whole ceremony. It is he who leads us into the purity of the mind, the nectar of the flesh.”

“Sounds great, I’m telling you. I’m glad I came down here already. It’s just what I’ve been looking for up in them mountains.
Nectar of the flesh, paradise of the brain. Now, those are the kind of things a practical mountain boy like me would pay a
pretty penny to get his grubby hands on.” Stone laughed, the cultees laughed, even the dog seemed to laugh, letting out a
little bark and stretching its own mouth a little farther back. Never had so many lying smiles been flashed so intensely by
so many mouths in such a small space. It would have made the Guinness World Book of Lies—if there were such things anymore.

Everywhere he walked, Stone was greeted by the smiling, blank-eyed faces. There were other outsiders around town, Stone could
see as he moved deeper toward the center of town. La Junta had a thriving salt and fur business along with a number of other
small stores. Apparently there was a certain amount of free commerce in and out of the place. But by God, the cultees sure
as hell came on strong to all passersby.

“Your aura needs cleaning,” a couple of bright faces said as Stone walked on.

“Thanks—I’ll drop it off at the laundry,” he answered without stopping.

“Happiness is just an inch away,” a pimply-faced teen spoke up in front of him as Stone tried to avoid him.

“And nirvana is just a silly millimeter longer.” Stone smirked back. But he didn’t slow down. Once you slowed for a cultee,
they were on you like a wolf on a corpse. First the guts, then the brain and heart. They attacked from every direction. Even
the dog let out a growl now and again as they approached, which seemed to work quite well as a defensive maneuver. For these
here, like the men out in the woods, didn’t seem to like dogs too much.

As he walked along the main street, Stone was amazed at how many little stores there were. More than most towns these days
had, to say the least. These people sure as hell were an industrious lot. Suddenly he heard some drums, some kind of commotion
up about a block ahead, and he walked a little faster. A crowd was gathering as he came up and he heeled Excaliber in closer
to his leg, not wanting there to be any trouble. It was drums—of a sort—huge tin washtubs upside down, being banged on with
long sticks. It made quite a sound. But it was the sight that impressed him.

For down a ramp in front of one of the larger log buildings, an elephant was being led out by one of the robed figures. Stone
watched in amazement as he felt the pit bull tense up by his leg. The animal didn’t like things that were a hundred times
bigger than it was. It made it feel insecure. The huge beast was led right up to the center of the square, where Stone could
see as he craned his neck over the now-crowded street in front of him there was a man down on his knees kneeling in front
of a large wooden block. Stone started getting a sick feeling in his stomach.

“This man stole from the Temple of the Perfect Aura,” a robed figure was bellowing out as he paced around the kneeling, crying
man. “He took what belonged to Guru Yasgar—and to the entire community of believers.” There were murmurs and chatter among
the crowd, about half of whom were cultees, the other half outsiders, at least as far as Stone could make out.

“He took the Golden Nectar—and sold it to outsiders as a crude beverage to get them drunk,” the robed man, whose face Stone
couldn’t quite see as the oversize brown robe kept flowing around him, billowing around his face and body so he was always
in shadowy motion, just a blur without real features. “Nothing can be so blasphemous—other than an attack on the Guru himself.
For this.” The robed man paused and held up both hands dramatically. He wanted the crowd to get a good show. This was, after
all, for their benefit. Should some other madman get the idea to steal anything—even a paper clip from the Temple—they would
meet the fate that was quickly approaching this hapless sobbing slob.

Though the man hardly seemed to know who, or where, he even was. He had the same semiretarded kind of look that Stone had
seen on most of them now. It was hard to believe that the fat little slug could have even planned out a whole thievery and
sale operation. But whoever ran the show had their reasons for what they did. And though Stone didn’t know what the motivation
was, he suddenly realized what the punishment would be. And he wished he hadn’t eaten so much meat at breakfast that morning.

“Put your head down on the block,” the gray robe commanded.

“No, no,” the bound slug pleaded, his face covered with grease and snot, his mouth a dribbling stream of saliva.

“Down, worthless cur,” the robed man screamed again, and this time walked over to the kneeling man and kicked him hard on
the back and neck, forcing him down though it took a good dozen blows. The man’s head was now down sideways on a yard-wide
square of wood. The robed man raised his hand and the handler began leading the animal forward the few yards toward the victim.
There was a sudden silence throughout the entire crowd in which you could hear a pin drop—or at least the footsteps of an
elephant. The handler led the mammoth beast right up to the wood and then tapped the elephant on the right leg. It lifted
the leg high, a good six feet in the air.

“Down,” the handler said, “down!” and tapped the beast’s leg with a stick. The elephant’s chair-size foot came down fast and
made contact with the head. It was a grisly sight, which repulsed Stone—but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. The elephant dug
down hard, like a smoker stamping out a cigarette, and the head just sort of crunched beneath it, exploding out suddenly.
The face, the hair, everything just disappeared as it all shattered and shot out from beneath the elephant’s crushing foot
like an egg in a blender. The elephant pushed all the way down and then turned the foot several times until it was completely
flush against the wood.

“Up,” the handler commanded, and the great gray leg lifted again. The elephant pulled back and stood there surveying what
it had wrought.

“Yes … see—this is what befalls those who betray Yasgar. This!” the gray robe shouted. He walked around the block, pointing
down. Not that you needed to look all that close to see that there was nothing left above the shoulders except a paste that
wouldn’t have been enough for a good soup stock. The body of the dead man slid down the slide of the block and lay on the
street. It didn’t even twitch, so dead was it.

Suddenly the elephant reared back as a crow shot down and pecked at the flakes of skin on the wood block, frightening the
big beast. The handler snapped a stick against the creature’s side, and the hood flew back. Stone gasped in simultaneous horror
and joy. It was his sister. It was April who was handling the elephant. It was his sister who was the executioner.

“Jesus, God,” he muttered, forgetting in spite of all his training exactly where he was—and what was going on for a few seconds.
For he suddenly circled around the back of the crowd and came up to her through the masses just as she got the great beast
quieted down.

“April—April, it’s me, Martin! What have they done to you? What—”

She stared at him with cold, dead eyes.

“Oh, Jesus, you’re—one of them,” he gasped in horror.

“Yes, Martin, I am,” she answered mechanically with that same taut, lying smile that they Al had. “And soon you will be too.”
She tapped the elephant on the trunk and stepped back. Suddenly the animal whipped around and grabbed him in its trunk, instantly
lifting him twelve, fifteen feet in the air as it shook him this way and that. Stone felt like a an in a baby’s rattle, as
if his brains were being pounded within his skull to the consistency of porridge.

He saw the gray robe approach her. And they were both looking up at him, the man smiling, then laughing as the elephant shook
Stone this way and that so that the whole world was flying by around him as if he was in a washing machine. Then it lifted
him suddenly very high so he must have been nearly twenty feet up—and then dashed him quickly down again, releasing Stone
as its trunk was pointing straight out, so Stone flew through the air and crashed into the cracked pavement of the street.
There was a loud honking sound as the elephant trumpeted out its powers. And then Stone was slammed into a darkness that didn’t
feel good at all.

When Stone came to, he was coughing up a thick sticky liquid that was being poured down his throat. He coughed violently,
as they’d given him a lot, and the hacking woke him suddenly from the black pool he’d been floating in. Shapes were dancing
around him, dozens of them. Robed, so he could see only their bare feet running around him on a wooden floor. He Looked down
and saw that he was tied hand and foot to a pole, standing in an upright position. His clothes were still on, but his boots
were gone and—

“My dog,” Stone sputtered suddenly, looking into the face of the black-robed figure who stood a few yards in front of him.
“Where’s my fucking dog?” He began yelling. If the bastards had done anything to Excaliber, he’d … he’d.… He’d what? He couldn’t
even move more than an inch in any direction. The black-robed man raised his arm and the robe draped off of it, making it
Look like a skeletal arm was pointing at him. Two nearly unclad women in jewel-encrusted loincloths and minuscule silver cups
over their melon breasts came forward and held a large golden goblet up to Stone’s mouth.

He tried not to take any in—but they just kept pouring it, and as he at last gasped in for air, Stone took in one, then several
more mouthfuls of the stuff. He could feel it already. A hot tingling sensation that ran from his tongue right down his gullet.
Whatever the hell it was, it tasted fiery, wonderful in a way. And he knew something else—it was drugged with enough junk
to put King Kong on the floor drooling. Within seconds Stone could feel his vision getting blurry, with an almost golden haze
to it.