Downtown North Side Avenue 1989
“I’m having premonitions about this one. Maybe we should wait till tomorrow,” Franklin said as he scratched the stubble on his face. He stared at Bill’s tape deck in his BMW and thanked God it wasn’t playing. Although he didn’t mind some of his music, Franklin preferred silence, especially after last night.
Bill looked down at his watch and said, “It has to be tonight. This isn’t the kind of appointment you bump to the next day. Besides, I’ve got a badminton class tomorrow.”
Franklin smiled and pictured a group of uncoordinated forty-something men and women decked out in sweatpants and legwarmers, watching a badminton instructor demonstrate the finer points of the game.
Above them, the sky lit up with lightning, and the rain poured down. Although it was early evening, the tornado-like glow in the sky and coal-colored clouds made it look much later.
“How much did you pay to become a badminton wizard?” asked Franklin.
“It’s only $150 a month, but Susan’s a world champ. She can hit anything with a shuttlecock. It’s funny, but she got into trouble a few years back when she blinded a dude in the stands when he wouldn’t shut up. Instead of the shuttlecock, she served up a small rubber ball she always carried in her match uniform.”
“It was a good luck charm her grandpa bought in a gumball machine, but I bet he never would’ve believed his gift would someday pulverize a guy’s eyeball. . . but, wait a minute, why don’t you think we should visit these guys, again?”
Franklin looked over at Bill and tried to crack a smile before he started but couldn’t. “It started a few weeks ago but really fried me last night. Tanya has been out of town with her mom, but I don’t think this has had anything to do with her absence.”
“You know, until recently, I hadn’t remembered a dream in years. But in the last two weeks, I’ve probably had ten dreams that all have the same theme.”
“And not like the ones I had as a kid. They terrified me but were made up mostly of monsters, carnies, Joseph McCarthy, and dead people, and they were nothing like the ones I’d been having lately. These don’t seem like dreams, and the sounds and lighting all look real.”
“In your dreams, have you ever been attacked by a guy wearing 3-D glasses and swinging a cleaver in one hand and a broken whiskey bottle in the other while Creature From the Black Lagoon plays in the background on a giant projection television?” asked Franklin.
“Please don’t tell me about your dreams, man,” said Bill. “I’d rather hear about a boil you got lanced or a venereal disease that’s taking over your body than one of your dreams. . . and maybe even that story, and it’s a true one, of your cousin and that poor, defenseless sloth.”
“How did his wife sneak that sucker into the country anyhow, and what was his name again? Not the sloth, the peterbeast. I’ll never forget the sloth’s name: Roger Waters.
“I guess old Roger couldn’t block the tour in ’87, and he couldn’t stop David Gilmour from carrying on, but still, the guy’s a regular horse-faced genius.”
“The only problem is that he’s kind of a prick. The other guys in the band are cool, but sometimes I regret listening to the ones Rog wrote because he’s the heavyweight champ of shitheads.”
“Just a regular scrotum-lipped, sour-brained weirdo. A real toilet clogger, I think, is a good way to describe him.”
“He hates the fans, and he hates the world, but at least that baboon-faced crooner inspired a young woman to name a friendly sloth before your cousin raped him.”
“And back to your cousin, no, it’s coming to me. It was Rueben! Reuben, the violator! He stole pour Roger the sloth’s innocence, and the thing is so slow, what could he do about it?”
“This is different, and I want you to hear about the dreams ‘cause they’re gonna affect you if the dirtbag up there is playing a sad song,” said Franklin.
“What?” asked Bill with a blank look on his face.
“See, you’re a little interested. I know it sounds nutty, but lately, I’ve dreamed of us walking into apartment buildings like when we make collections, but it doesn’t go very well. And. . . from the outside, the apartment looks a little depraved or evil.”
“You mean I’m in it too? You sick bastard!”
“No, man, it’s nothing creepy. I mean, except for what happens to us every time. You see, we’re walking through the halls, and that’s usually about the same in every dream, but the interior rooms and the song are always different.”
“Last week, the first one I remember was playing Sing by the Carpenters, and while it may look inspirational on the surface, it’s sad and devilish as Hell. We walked in, and the guy wouldn’t pay up or turn off the music.”
“He finally said he’d be back with the money and walked back to his bedroom, and the whole time, that stupid song was blaring through his system at full blast.”
“At least his setup was top-notch. His primary speakers were five feet tall. Well, the little troll strolled back from his bedroom, wearing a Spiderman mask and holding a flamethrower.”
“We both bolted for the door, but he blasted us before we got there. We dropped to the floor and tried to roll out the flames, but he ran over and roasted us again. Then, as we burned, he poured some kind of blueberry sauce over us from a gold saucière. I could smell it sizzling on my back.”
“Smelled like blueberry cobbler coming out of the oven. That’s when I woke up. The crazy thing is that it’s always overkill with these guys in my dreams.”
“Anyway, the second night was Perfect Day by Lou Reed. And on the third, it was Now You’re All Alone by David Hess. On that trip, the killer . . . and this time he was six-foot-five and had long black hair; he charged us and sliced us up with a scythe.”
“At least, that took less time than on Wednesday when a sumo wrestler used a giant hammer. He kept smashing me in the face with the thing, and it seemed like forever before I woke . . . wait, what are you smiling at?”
Bill chuckled and said, “It’s time to go up there head case. Do you want some earmuffs?”
“No, thanks, but one more thing. There’s always a rabbit in the dreams; sometimes, it’s a chocolate bunny or a calendar with a bunny. It’s never a live rabbit. The sumo wrestler was wearing a white bunny ring with ruby eyes, and besides the hammer fracturing my skull, those shiny red eyes really freaked me out,” said Franklin.
“Who the hell wears a bunny ring anyway?” asked Bill. “Anyhow, I appreciate the warnings, but I’m not afraid of rabbits, sad songs, sumo wrestlers, or psychos with flamethrowers.
“But I have to admit that our target’s apartment over there looks a little off in this rainstorm. You’ve got your number two stashed on your ankle, right?”
“Always,” Franklin said.
Bill looked over at Franklin and snickered at the seriousness of his voice. “Well, good. You wanna share an umbrella, comrade . . . just kidding, let’s go.”
The Requiem
In the elevator, Bill and Franklin didn’t say a word. When the door opened on the fifth floor, Bill poked his head out of the door and looked in both directions. “We’re okay so far, angel britches. And I don’t hear any gloomy tunes.”
They turned left and walked down a dimly lit hall decked out in dark-green carpeting and wallpaper. The crown molding was gold but looked dented and dusty.
“Wow, you have to be an odd duck to live in a place like this,” said Franklin. Deep inside his worried mind, he was happy about the silence.
As they turned the corner, the sound of a solo violinist backed by an orchestra and completing only three notes filled the hallway and made the fake crystal under the light posts on the wall jingle.
The gray and brown hair on Franklin’s neck stood at attention, and his gut sank. “I know this. It’s in the movie, damn it! We’ve got to go, Bill. We’ve got to get the hell out of here!”
The sound of the choir from Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D Minor (VIII. Sequentia: Lacrimos Dies Illa) thundered through the hall and shook the brass light fixtures above them.
“We’ll be fine, man. We don’t even know if it’s coming from his apartment, but I have to admit, it’s not a happy song. Pretty loud, though,” shouted Bill.
He put his hand on Franklin’s shoulder and yelled, “Calm down. It’ll be over soon. It’s right up here. Number 57.”
They were getting close to the source of the noise, and when they reached 57, Bill said, “Uh, sorry, man. It’s loudest right here. Let’s pray for no bunnies.” He pounded on the door and pulled out his revolver.
“Come in, sweethearts! Bout time you turds scraped your way out of the porcelain bowl,” screamed a voice behind the door.
Franklin moved closer so his face was almost touching the door. “Turn that music off right now! We’re not coming in till it’s off!”
“I’m having a moment, so I don’t think I’ll do that. Wolfy helps ease the pain, so you either come in and deal with it or take off! Anus for brains!” screamed the voice with a laugh.
With his face burning bright red, Franklin started pounding on the door. “Turn it off! Turn it off! Are you insane, man? It’s got to be 120 decibels!”
He screamed like a child having a tantrum and pummeled the door harder with his fists. Bill grabbed him by the arm but fell back when Franklin’s head exploded from buckshot and sprayed him with blood and pieces of brain.
The door opened halfway, but Bill didn’t notice as he leaned against the wall and slowly wiped his face with his left hand. A grenade wobbled out into the hall and bounced against the gold floorboard.
“Sorry, Franklin. Should’ve listened,” said Bill, with a tear dripping down through the blood and gray matter on his cheek. He looked at the doorway and saw a Cottontail rabbit, wearing a red collar with the words Belezebunny emblazoned in black, twitching its nose at him. The rabbit took off and dashed down the hallway.
As he sped toward the stairwell at the end of the hall, the force of the explosion knocked him against the door of an apartment. He was stunned but hopped away slowly as the hall behind him filled with smoke and dust.
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