Bentley Little - Dominion

Psychic? That was a spooky coincidence.

"Turn left here," Penelope said.

He did so, glancing to the right at a grove of trees as he turned. The grove looked familiar to him, and as he looked he experienced a momentary flashback to one of last night's dreams.

Women in the forest, naked, smeared with blood, howling wildly, screaming, begging for him "What are you doing?" Penelope demanded.

The car was half off the road and bumping over the shoulder toward the embankment. Dion swerved quickly, too quickly, and Penelope was thrown against the door as the car reentered the lane.

"What was that about?"

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "Daydreaming."

He felt a soft hand on his arm, and he realized that this was the first time she had touched him without his initiating the contact. "Are you okay?" she asked.

He nodded. "I'm fine."

But he was not fine. His dreams had escaped their sleep-bound confines and had entered the waking world, intruding upon reality, almost getting them into an accident, and that scared the hell out of him. What was happening? He wondered briefly if it could be something like an acid flashback. Maybe, back in the old days when he was a baby, his mom had put LSD in his milk or some thing, and now he was finally experiencing the side effects.

No, even at her worst, his mom would not have done something like that.

He didn't really think it was anything along those lines, though, did he? He wasn't afraid that it was drugs he'd been given as an infant or ultraviolet rays streaming through the hole in the ozone layer or even mental illness. No. He didn't know what he thought it was. But he knew that it was much scarier than any of those possibilities.

"Are you sure?" she said.

"Yeah." He looked over at Penelope and smiled, and he hoped the smile looked more real than it felt.

The Fourth Annual Wine Country New Age Music and Art Fair was scheduled to open at eleven, but when they arrived a little after ten-thirty, there were already quite a few people milling about, browsing amongst the booths, watching latecomers set up shop on the sawdust. The two of them got out of the car and, holding hands, walked across the small wooden footbridge to the fair entrance. The weekend event had been scheduled originally to be held in the park downtown, according to Penelope's article, but an inability to meet city permit registration deadlines had forced the fair organizers to move to an empty meadow near the foothills.

The change of venue did not seem to have affected attendance at all. A

number of people had arrived before them, and cars were continuing to pull into the makeshift parking lot. A sign above the entry booth said that admission was a dollar for children, two dollars for adults, and that picnic baskets and water jugs were welcome. Dion pulled out his wallet, taking out a five-dollar bill and handing it to the cashier.

"Did you go last year?" he asked Penelope.

She shook her head, smiling. "With who? I had no one to go with.

Besides, I'd never even heard of this thing until this week."

"Really up on current events, huh?"

She hit his shoulder, and that spontaneous expression of camaraderie made him feel closer to her than he ever had before. He put an arm around her waist, drew her to him.

Taking their tickets, they walked through the gate, getting their hands stamped by a ponytailed man in case they wanted to leave the fair and come back later in the day.

Dion looked around at the posters filled with pagan symbols, the booth closest to them that was stocked with witchcraft paraphernalia.

"Are you a Christian?" Penelope asked.

He turned to face her. "Why? Are you?"

"I suppose so. I mean, I don't go to church, but I believe in God."

He nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Me too."

She smiled teasingly at him. "Scared you, didn't I? When you heard that word 'Christian,' you thought I wanted to know if you were born again."

"No," he lied.

"Be honest."

He laughed. "All right. Yeah. For a second. I thought maybe you'd been keeping this secret from me, waiting to tell me until you felt you could trust me, and you suddenly decided to spring it on me now."

"Because I was offended by all this heathenism?" He grinned. "Something like that."

She laughed. That's great." They walked toward the witchcraft booth.

"Oh, and I forgot to tell you--I'm a lesbian."

"I've heard that one before."

The woman in the witchcraft booth beamed at them, having obviously overheard them. "We're all lesbians in my coven," she said. "In fact, witchcraft is a celebration of our womanness."

Dion felt a tug on his arm as Penelope pulled him away from the booth.

"We have literature if you're interested," the woman said.

Penelope shook her head as they walked away. "No, thanks."

They stopped by another booth featuring exotic Third World musical instruments. Dion played with a rain stick, while Penelope used a mallet to hit what looked like a log marimba.

The two of them wandered through the fair, hand in hand.

Penelope looked toward a windowless trailer on which was painted the words: afterlife progression.

She turned toward Dion. "Do you believe in heaven?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I guess."

"Have you ever wondered what it's like? I mean, most people think of heaven as this wonderful place where you're reunited with your loved ones for eternity, but I always wondered, which loved ones? If a woman's husband dies and she marries again, is she reunited with both husbands up there? Is there polygamy in heaven? What about first boyfriends or lovers?"

Dion laughed. "I never thought about it that way."

"And what about pets? A lot of people think that they'll meet up again with their dog or cat in heaven. But which dog or cat? Does God make you choose and only allow you to have your favorite, or are you surrounded by all the pets you had throughout your life?"

"That's weird."

"Well, how do you see heaven?"

"I don't know. I've never given it much thought, really."

"I always thought that you'd have this huge entourage. You'd be surrounded by parents and brothers and sisters and friends and lovers and husbands and wives and dogs and cats and hamsters and goldfish and anything you ever loved."

"Sounds crowded."

"That's not all. It's heaven for them too. So each of those people would have their own entourage. All of your parents' friends and lovers and pets and their friends and lovers and pets and on and on and on."

"Sounds like hell."

She nodded thoughtfully. "It does, doesn't it?"

"Well, what do you think hell's like?"

"I don't know. Do you have any ideas?"

"Oh, a hot place where I'm bent over a gym bench and Mr. Holbrook is shoving razor blades up my ass for eternity."

She hit him, laughing. "You're bad!"

"Must be the Kevin influence."

From off to their right, Dion heard the high-pitched sound of feedback from a P. A. system. He looked in that direction and saw a group of musicians dressed in strange costumes atop a small raised platform. A

crowd of about thirty was standing in front of the stage.

The musicians began playing.

"That's a weird instrument," Penelope said. -"What do you think it--?"

Dion stiffened. His hand, gripping her arm, tightened.

"Hey!" she said. "What do you think you're doing?"

And then he was dancing, laughing, running down the hill naked, the women in pursuit. He could smell their ripeness, their hot arousal, mixed with the earthy odor of goat. He knew the women were going to tear him apart, rip up his flesh and drink his hot blood, but that was what he wanted, that was what he craved, and he felt wonderfully ecstatic as he ran from them, wanting to prolong this feeling, wanting to savor every moment of the chase before he felt the glorious pain of their nails and teeth as they killed him again.