Morgan Sinclair, Chpt. 2

            Demons and ghosts swam in alternating seas of darkness and light in Morgan’s mind’s eye.  Vague flashes of traumatizing memory haunted his sleep, if it could be called sleep at all, into fits of restless unconsciousness.  Between bouts of darkness, light flooded his vision in flurried episodes of faceless doctors and nurses hovering over him, dressed head to foot in blue scrubs and offending the senses with the heinous smell of disinfectant.  After what seemed like an eternity, he finally awoke to the shrill, monotonous beep of an electrocardiograph.  Before he even opened his eyes, Morgan knew he could be no other place than the local hospital.  He absolutely loathed hospitals, but it was a drastic improvement to where he had expected to be going when he was last conscious.

            As his eyelids fluttered open, Morgan was momentarily blinded by the overhead lights.  Black spots dotted his vision, and his first impulse was to vomit.  Fortunately, the doctors and nurses had the presence of mind to plan for that possibility.  A large bucket was placed strategically on the floor next to his bed.  He wretched, though little came up.  Again and again, until he was simply dry heaving, spasming unfortunately in his hospital gown.  Tears sprang unbidden to his eyes from the convulsions.  Morgan wiped them away, and spat the bitter taste of regurgitation from his mouth.  As he lay on his bed, regaining his breath, the pleasant touch of cool skin brushed the crook of his arm.  Again, Sinclair forced his eyes open to see a young nurse checking the integrity of the intravenous needle in his arm.  A hard white cast enveloped his other arm, the one he had broken, from palm to bicep, anchoring it in place.  Christ, he thought, transfixing his gaze to an indiscriminate spot on the ceiling.  She was, in a word, stunning; and she had just witnessed everything.  The young woman looked up from her clipboard.  Her auburn hair was pulled into a severe ponytail, leaving only wisps of bangs to fall and frame her face.  Light brown freckles dusted her alabaster skin generously across the bridge of her nose, cheeks, and lips.  Morgan was sure they were to be found elsewhere on her body as well.  Light blue curtains, a different shade than her scrubs, hung all around, cordoning off his bed.  The small partition of hospital was cluttered with equipment, most of which he could not begin to venture a guess as to their respective purposes.  Everything was a shade of blue, except for the white tile floor.  It was almost maddening, especially when combined with that putrid disinfectant smell.
            “Feeling better?” she asked.  The question seemed sincere, but Morgan thought he detected an undertone of amusement.  He disregarded the notion.
            “I hope you save some judgment for second and third impressions,” he answered dejectedly, answering her question with a small shrug.  She laughed; a sound Morgan could happily get used to.

            “I reserve all judgment while in uniform, Mr. Sinclair,” she replied with a smile.
            “Morgan,” he corrected as he rubbed his face to clear the cobwebs from his mind.  “What’s your name?”
            “Lily,” she replied.  “You had us a bit worried there for a bit.  How are you feeling?””

            “Lily,” he echoed.  “Pretty name.  Put simply, I feel like I’ve been hit by a car.”
            “Apt simile,” she mused.  “The police found your car at the bottom of an embankment over on Route 23 a few hours after you were brought in.  But the aching will be due to the absence of the morphine we’ve been introducing into your system via the IV.  I actually came in to give you another dose, but since you were awake, I thought you might be able to answer some questions while you’re coherent, if the pain isn’t too much to bear.”  The moment Lily mentioned his vehicle, memories began to coalesce.  The fragments that had plagued his dreams, his nightmares, for the extent of his unconsciousness began to piece together.

“Just a dull ache,” Morgan reassured.  “You said I was brought in, how long have I been out?”

She nodded.

“Three days.  Damned lucky too.  You were brought in by one of the locals around three in the morning; a hunter who’d gone out early to set snares.”

“Lucky,” Morgan said with an amused sigh, “That’s one word for it, I suppose.”
            “Well, considering the alternative,” Lily replied with a grin.  He offered a coughing laugh that sent pain shooting through his ribs.  With his good arm he clutched his side, taking shallow breaths as not to exacerbate the pain.
            “Broken ribs,” she confirmed.  “Two broken ribs, to be exact, plus a double compound fracture of both the radius and ulna.  There was also a minor concussion, and extraneous bumps and bruises.”  Morgan took in the extent of his injuries in silence.
            “You’d lost a lot of blood when you were brought in,” Lily continued.  “No transfusion, but a heavy drip to replenish the lost fluids.”  Morgan remained silent, waiting, waiting for her to mention one more thing.  After a brief pause, she did: “And then, there was the bite-marks, almost punctured your left lung.  All in all, some pretty bizarre injuries when combined.  Do you have any recollection as to what happened?”  The dull ache that resonated through every fiber of his being was slowly escalating.  Morgan bit down on his lip, ignoring the pain and collecting his thoughts to continue.  His memory was still foggy, and the pain was dampening his powers of recollection.
            Morgan exhaled sharply, “Might need that next dose here soon,” he said emphatically.  She waited for him to continue.  Lily gazed intently at him, peering through eyes of emerald.  They were as beautiful as the rest of her, with starbursts of brown radiating from the iris, folding beautifully into green.  He could see the intelligence that lay behind them, and also the hunger.  Hunger for what, though, Morgan was unsure.
            “I know how the story starts,” he began, “but the end is really anyone’s guess.”  She remained silent, willing him to keep talking.

“I remember the car crash.  There was a car in the oncoming lane, swerving all over the road.  Drunk, I think.  I swerved to avoid him and ended up going over the edge and down the bank into the woods,” he told her.  She jotted notes on her clipboard.

“When I came to,” he continued, “I remember my arm felt like it was on fire.  The door was jammed and I had to kick it open.  I grabbed my jacket from what was left of the back seat and tore it to make my sling, and wrapped my arm to try and stop the bleeding.  My first thought was to get back to the road and signal for help, but after a few tries, I found that the embankment I’d gone over was too steep to climb, especially crippled as I was.”
            “That’s when you came up with the idea to trek through the woods?” she inquired.  Morgan gave a brief laugh and scratched his head.
            “Uh, yeah,” he responded.  “In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea.”  Lily shrugged.
            “Maybe, maybe not, but either way, you’re alive, and that decision might be the reason for it.”  He pondered her statement for a moment before she prompted him to continue.
            “After that, God, I had to be walking for an hour or two at least; kept tripping over random stuff and stumbling.  It was cold as hell.  I came to a clearing in the forest, and that’s when I was attacked.”
            “Attacked by what?” she asked as she kept writing, not looking up.  Morgan blew out a long sigh.
            “I’m not quite sure.”
            “Can’t remember?”
            “That isn’t it.”
            “Then what’s the problem?”
            “I don’t know if it was the pain making me hallucinate, but I’m pretty sure it was a wolf,” he told her hesitantly.  She shrugged, “That isn’t unbelievable, there have been wolves recorded in the area, though they don’t typically attack people.”

“Yeah, but this was unlike anything I’ve seen.  It was huge.  Enormous.  As I remember it, it was bigger than anything I think science would admit exists.”  Lily looked thoughtful for a moment, and then replied, “Perhaps the fear and injury did exacerbate your perception of what attacked you, but something got to you, no doubt.”
            “Yeah,” Morgan replied absently, his mind wandering elsewhere.  He couldn’t explain what he’d seen, and he wouldn’t try, lest he sound crazy.  Nothing more was said on the matter.  He left out the frightening things he had noticed during his struggle with the monster: the creature’s grotesque claws, the bright eyes of ice, the height and bipedal capabilities, the sinister intelligence he had seen beneath the monster’s gaze.

A throbbing pain brought Morgan back from his reverie.  The dull ache had intensified to a roar of agony that coursed through his body.
            “As lovely as it has been, Lily, having our chat, I think I could really use some pain killers right about now,” Morgan requested through gritted teeth.  She nodded, “Of course.”  She left to retrieve the anesthesiologist.  A young man stepped through the blue curtained veil a few moments later, bearing a syringe and vial of, what Morgan assumed to be, Morphine.  With the deft skill of someone who had routinized the procedure, he depressed the plunger on the hypodermic needle and withdrew the liquid.  Any bubbles were tapped out before he introduced the drug into his intravenous feed.  Within moments, a warm, euphoric feeling of contentment began to spread through his body.  Morgan felt his eyelids grow heavy.  Lily stepped back into the room as the anesthesiologist exited.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” she asked gently, laying a cool hand on his forearm.

“Your number?” Morgan requested with a drunken slur.  Lily laughed.
            “I think that’s the morphine talking,” she replied with a bright smile.  Morgan made the effort to shrug before falling silent.  The last image he recalled before closing his concrete eyelids was that of the fiery haired angel he had awoken to, and her piercing emerald eyes.

Lily had returned just as the anesthesiologist had left to watch the battered form of Morgan Sinclair fall back into the drug addled stupor and sleep that he had lived in for the past three days.  Talking with him had been somewhat enlightening, for she had been curious as to his tale since he was brought in.  She smiled briefly to herself at the sight of his dark hair falling haphazardly about his eyes, and listened as his breathing resumed a slow rhythmic thrum punctuated by the drumbeat of the electrocardiograph.  There was something unique about him, exactly what it was, she could not pinpoint.  Untying his hospital gown, she checked the dressing that covered the vicious bite wound to his torso.  Lily ran a finger across the semicircle of bandages, and thought back to their conversation.  The large beast, he had claimed that assaulted him.  Large, no doubt.  Its size was unquestionable when she observed the spacing of the teeth and the size of the jaw it would have taken to leave such a large area affected.  Was it excitement that began to bubble within her?  She knew it shouldn’t be, but nonetheless, there it was.  This attractive, and unlucky, young man before her.  Undoubtedly, she was excited for what developments would surface within the next few weeks for him, if here suspicions were correct.  A new sight caught her eye, though, as she went to tie his gown closed.  Beneath the light blue fabric, a small necklace rose and fell with each breath.  Lily pulled on a single latex glove and unfastened the necklace—a small silver crooner-era microphone on a matching silver chain—from his body.  Beneath it, an ugly rash had begun to form, flushing his chest a deep red.  The skin that lay beneath, as well as the surrounding flesh, looked as though it was dried and cracking, nearly flaking.  Again, she smiled to herself; this confirmed her suspicions surrounding the bite wound.  In a day, perhaps less, the rash would heal, she knew, but then his troubles had only just begun.  His troubles, or his opportunity, however he chose to see it.

All things aside, Lily was intrigued by this young man, if only by what little she had seen of how he conducted himself.  She wasn’t blind, when Morgan had first laid eyes on her he had been momentarily taken aback, surprised at her beauty.  It was not unusual for her to be visually devoured by amorous men.  Everywhere she went eyes followed her, caressing her auburn hair, toned stomach, shapely hips, and supple bosom.  Lily took no offense to this, nor found it belittling or irritating.  Men were visual creatures, and would ogle, regardless of her wishes.  There was simply no sense in getting worked up over it.  It did, however, irk her when people made assumptions rooted in her physical appearance.  Often, individuals would speak to her as though she possessed the vapidity, the vacuousness, that plagued many a pretty girl.  Morgan had assumed nothing, except perhaps small inferences to fuel his desires.  Whether or not they were true remained to be seen.  He had spoken to her in the manner of an intellectual equal, letting her fill the pigeonhole, should one appear.  She liked that, he was genuine at the least.  Further interaction with him would be worth waiting for, she surmised.

Lily slid the necklace into a pocket in her scrubs, and checked the small digital watch on her wrist.  The numbers turned over to strike four in the afternoon.  Perfect, it was the end of her shift.  The redheaded vixen, as Morgan would have described her, if only in the confines of his own mind, retreated to the locker room to exchange her scrubs for her clothes.  After a vigorous washing of her hands, she clocked out and ventured out of the hospitals automated front door into the overcast daylight.
            Wasting no time, Lily strode to across the street designated for emergency drop offs, to a payphone nearby.  After punching in the digits, the phone rang twice before being answered.
            “Hello,” came the solemn monotone greeting.
            “Father,” she acknowledged.  “I believe I’ve found one.”  The voice on the other end didn’t respond immediately.
            “How certain are you?” the man asked.
            “I am quite sure,” she responded.

“Well done.  Keep a weather eye.”
            “Yes, Father,” she said.  The line disconnected.  Lily hung the phone in its cradle, and walked out into the daylight.

A hundred miles away, a man walked down a long dimly lit hall.  The wood floor beneath his feet clacked and groaned under his heavy footsteps.  Short in stature, he stood at five feet eight inches, and was rather rotund.  A mesh=backed trucker style hat covered a mane of scraggly dark hair.  The man was apprehensive, not scared, but definitely nervous to arrive at his destination.  Sweat slicked the skin beneath his bushy beard.  As he reached the end of the hallway, a heavy wooden door blocked his path.  It was ornately adorned and boasted a large brass knocker.  The man paused a moment before grasping the handle to rap loudly on the door.
            A single word answered him.

“Enter.”  The word was spoken as a command, carrying an air of indomitable authority.  It also was spoken with a heavy Scottish accent.  The man twisted the doorknob and stepped through the portal, shutting the door behind him.  There was a single man inhabiting the small room beyond the door.  He sat, shrouded in shadow, behind a large desk of mahogany.  The Scot behind the desk tapped the fingers of his right hand on the table in a slow rhythm that echoed sinisterly in the dominating darkness.
            “What news do you bring me?” the Scot asked, his voice was deep, bordering on the baritone.  The man in the hat failed to reply at first, his eyes were transfixed to the Scot’s right hand in horror and twisted fascination.  The skin that wrapped his fingers was withered and gnarled, scarred as though he had been severely burned.  His fingernails had been removed, and replaced with silver talons filed to a razor point.  The man forced his eyes from the Frankenstein hand.
            “Sir,” he began with a slight stutter that he quickly rectified.  “A new demon has spawned.”
            “You are certain?” he spoke slowly, menacingly, whether by nature or practice.
            “Quite,” the man affirmed.  “I heard the howls myself.”

Sasquatch 2012: The Experience

               It is three in the afternoon and my palms are sweating against the steering wheel.  Since crossing the mountains, the temperature has only increased steadily.   I have been waiting with my passenger for over an hour in a seemingly endless line to arrive at our destination.  The line inches forward, thousands of attendees piled into thousands of vehicles wait before and behind us.  This is the beginning of the mass bonding experience we are about to undergo.  At this point, the 315 dollar price ticket I paid for the festival seems like a gross overcharge.  Little did I realize that, in retrospect, the culminating four day event would be well worth the hundreds spent and more.
                The first obvious aspect to leave attendees awestruck was the view.  The enormous stage, positioned precariously on the face of the cliff overlooking the Gorge.  Expanding and twisting for miles, it is a sight to behold.  Even after darkness falls, there is a feeling of immensity, of vastness, that lingers, making the spectacle on stage even more epic.
                The first night, for us, held performances by STRFKR, Explosions in the Sky, and Pretty Lights.  STRFKR took the stage first, playing in the Banana Shack, the giant tent that was home to the majority of the electronica performances.  With strobes flashing and giant screens flashing flowing warping visuals of neon color, the crowd, comprised mostly of heavily inebriated individuals, was transfixed and transformed into a single mass of movement.  The night calmed down as we meandered across the path to attend Explosions in the Sky at the Bigfoot stage, the second largest stage at the festival.  The ambient rock that ebbed and flowed from the stage, accompanied by an equally great visual light and fireworks, was universally impressive.  Not just in the quality of the music, but the emotion it imparted upon the crowd.  It flowed over the barriers of culture and language to touch everyone attending.  Even this, however, paled in comparison to the headliner of that night, Pretty Lights.  Upon the immense Sasquatch stage, a single individual choreographed a show that ventured to turn the entire crowd, several thousand at least, into an extension of his stage.  Stage lighting, strobes and colored flood lamps illuminated the roiling, boiling, sea of people that was the audience.  From the beginning of the show, the audience took the show into their own hands.  With each drop of the bass, thousands upon thousands of glowsticks were thrown into the air to rain down all around, again and again.  After the show concluded, the party did not, into the early morning people raged, elated, drunk, and undoubtedly under the influence of various other substances.
                The next day the campsites were abuzz, many people recovering from the intoxicated stupors they had survived the night before.  Many abided by the mantra, there are two ways to avoid a hang over: Don’t drink, or don’t stop.  And so the inebriation resumed early in the morning, and would carry on through the rest of the weekend.  It was a time and place to disregard all inhibitions.  The second night was another immense show, culminating with the performance of Jack White, a man who has reincarnated himself in many a musical fashion: The White Stripes and the Raconteurs, amongst many others.  I was struck with a thought, during his set, that he could truly be considered a Rock Star, in the most hardcore sense of a grungy, possibly drug addled individual, that lives and breathes music.  Starkly contrasting many of the prima donnas that take the stage these days claiming rock star fame.  He was brought to life under the glow of teal lights.
                The third day was spent wandering, alone, walking and observing.  Taking in the surroundings, the beauty, the people, who were almost as entertaining to watch as the shows themselves.  That afternoon and evening, such acts as Beirut and Bon Iver took stage.
                The fourth and final night, however, was another night of extraordinary performances.  Tenacious D took stage to be greeted by a wild crowd, yelling and screaming approval and excitement.  They did not disappoint.  The majority of the audience, myself included, sang along to timeless classics such as Tribute, Fuck Her Gently, and Double Team, while behind the duo stood a giant phallus painted as a phoenix.  And the end of the show, it lowered its head and ejaculated confetti across the front few rows of attendees.  It was a phenomenal performance, followed up by the equally spectacular Beck.  No better set of bands on the ballot for Sasquatch 2012 could have culminated the event.
                Sasquatch was an intense event, from which I had no preconception of what to expect, but left having had a more spectacular experience than I ever would have expected.  The hundreds of dollars sacrificed were worth it twice, three times, over.  The only thing I can admit to being disappointed about is having to wait a whole year before I can experience it again.