Join My Cult - Original Falcon Press

just too shocked to recognize my own car. I still
dunno how the bastards got my keys.”
Despite his efforts, the pair of suspects exited
the establishment and left in an early 90s Nissan
Maxima. Any citizens who think they know the location
or identities of these individuals should immediately
contact the Times-Herald anonymous tipline at 555-
INFO.
A colony of ants scrambled about his feet, carrying little bits of a discarded,
half smashed Twinkie back to their nest. He lit up a cigarette less
than a minute before the belching behemoth, otherwise known as a
“Septa Bus”, lumbered to a halt in front of him. Long ago he discovered
that the best way to call this peculiar animal was to light a smoke.
The plastic, steel and rubber doors slammed shut. There was a throaty
hissing, like a snake—amidst the confusion, Johny looked up the short
flight of stairs, black and ribbed for traction. The bus was filled with
people, strangely back-lit pig-pen alcoves, the thin and yet cloying smell
of fear. The interior of the bus was claustrophobic and cage-like. He
nervously glanced at the driver, who seemed thoroughly uninterested.
“Hurry up,” he said. His voice was slow and distorted, muffled and far
away.
Johny nodded and fumbled for some coins in his pocket. The driver
motioned towards a metallic face near the front console. The face chattered
and made hungry slurping sounds. He could feel the people behind
him growing irritated. Blinking and shaking his head, he crammed the
coins into the hungry face. It gobbled noisily, swishing them around in
its mouth, thick with corrosive acid—Johny was sure—and swallowed
them.
He shuffled toward the back of the bus as it began to move. He caught
a snippet of conversation as he passed “…we should start a band called
‘isolation booth.’ …yeah, all the musicians can be locked in a padded
room and kept on a steady thorazine and morphine drip…”
The bus started with a low rumble, pitching him back two aisles. He
found himself half sitting, half lying on a pair of hard orange seats. As he
sat up he felt the gooey suction of a piece of recently chewed bubblegum
peeling off one of his hands.
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