“Hi John.”
“Oh, it’s you again, fuck off.”
“John, I am a bit worried.”
“Terrific. Fuck off.”
“John, this is highly unorthodox behavior.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“We need you to relinquish control.”
“Seriously, just fuck off already. As long I can keep my heart beating and stay out of Shamblerland then you’re a distant fucking memory. You’re a bad habit I kicked a long time ago. You’re a fucking story I tell at the local 12 step you understand? This head space is mine. Now fuck off.”
“Compliance can be arranged.”
“Ow. Why’d you do that?”
“If you won’t break, we will simply see how far you can bend.”
“Ouch. Stop that.”
“See you soon John.”
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Jesus Christ what the fuck was that.
It felt like someone shoved broken glass through my right eye and into the heart of my brain. It felt like someone smashed me in the face with chili peppers. It felt like someone was scooping out the right side of my head with a dull fork and then setting those pieces on fire, and then stuffing them back in my head, and then setting the whole thing on fire again. I started actively trying to pull my eye out.
I had no idea what was happening, so I assumed there was shrapnel in my eye. I rubbed it mercilessly, hoping to get whatever was in it out. Tears started flowing but no relief came. Then the twitching started, and before long it was full on convulsions.
What had I missed? What hadn’t I taken? Why was this happening now of all times?
“Help Doc.” I said aloud.
Help wasn’t coming though.
What did Robert always say? Was I overdosing? If it was too little I’d be falling asleep and anything else was probably too much. I needed the clonazepam. Haldol. Olanzepine. Anything. Something to turn this off. I stumbled over to my Scarface like pile of cocaine and pill bottles and began searching. Robert had left me a few things. I needed the heavy shit though. I found the bottle of 1000mg Clozapines. Two pills in it. Robert always said never take more than one. He never felt like this. I took ‘em both.
The 1000mg Clozapines was one of our oh shit levers. To put it in perspective, clozapine’s starting dose was around 10mg. This was 100 times that. It wasn’t even an approved medicine at this dose. Robert found it in some old lab as a relic of drug development and kept it. Haldol was strong, but Clozapine was fucking Hercules. I’m a guy that takes drugs all day every day, I’m a guy that spends part of his life in a partially functional state while my dopamine levels go down, and let me tell you, fuck Clozapine. Mack trucks got nothing on two pills at the same time.
Five minutes after I took it, I was fine. I don’t know why that bad thing happened, but fuck me, too much rush I guess. Five minutes after that I started to worry. I get high a lot. The more you get high, the more you start to watch for patterns, signs, changes, direction. Being high is good. Peaking is good. Peaking means things are going to go back the other direction. Not peaking is bad. Not peaking means things are going to go too far. I thought back to the first time I ate mushrooms. If you eat mushrooms and you aren’t high and you eat the same dose a second time, one of two things happens: 1) you realize you got screwed or 2) you have now taken too many mushrooms. Sometimes you get screwed buying acid, because you don’t really know if it works until you take it. Sometimes it’s just a piece of paper and you get pissed and take too much because you are being impatient. You know that this dirty motherfucking hippy that sold it to you is clearly a shiesty son of a bitch that ripped you off, so you eat four tabs just to prove him wrong and then the next 34 hours you have a clairvoyant vision of a benign and perfect future that you never get to see again but spend the rest of your life chasing every time someone offers you a hallucinogen. Mushrooms are harder to fuck people on because they are pretty spottable so it’s a lesson you only have to learn once. When I was a kid, I didn’t know that though. I ate 25 grams, waited five minutes with my friends then ate 50 grams. I was high for 4 days, and it wasn’t a perfect benevolent future, it was a catastrophic nightmare. If my mom had given half a shit where I was or what I was doing she probably would’ve had me hospitalized but instead I just went crazy while two of my friends struggled to keep me alive. It was a great lesson though, know your drugs before you take ‘em and if someone says “start low” it’s usually for a good reason.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
20 minutes after double dosing the clozapine the world started melting, I couldn’t stand upright and I started pissing myself. It wasn’t fun and I started to fall apart. Need to stay awake. Can’t fall asleep. You’ll never wake up. This is what they wanted. You overreacted. Need to balance yourself. Find the amphetamine. Only take a little. Titer yourself back up. Is that how it works? Is it that simple?
Reading the pill bottles was almost impossible. Everything blurred together. I was drifting in and out. I needed amphetamine. Immediate release. I took something out of a bottle and ate it. Nothing happened. I don’t learn lessons, so I did it again. I felt myself drop the pill bottle. Was that it? The wrong thing probably meant Shamblerland forever. It hardly mattered now. My head slumped and then hit the floor. Goodbye cruel world. Most days, you sucked.
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“What the fuck man? What was that?”
“John, what you are doing is counterproductive. You cannot abuse your way out of this situation. You need to stay with us, talk to us. We are only trying to set things right. The goal of the program is simply to make adjustments, course corrections. There has to be a course left to correct to though, your way is just going to get everyone killed.”
“Correct what course? And what’s the difference if everyone is dead in six months or six years? The world is over right? I would rather it end with a bang than a whimper. What happens if I do nothing? BIMPT runs a slave colony for a few generations before everything falls apart? Not worth it.”
“That was never our goal. We only want to bring you into the fold, to give mankind another chance. A chance to evolve. Look at how far you came this time. The last time this happened you were grunting and throwing rocks at one another. Sure, you are still violent and warlike and almost completely self-centered, but at least this time you developed some cognitive reasoning.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“The past isn’t important John. We are trying to prepare you for the future.”
“Fuck your future.”
“Nastiness is not necessary John.”
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The lightning again and I’m suddenly awake. How? Pain is everywhere this time. In my head. In my eyes. My guts. My toes. Shitting myself. Pissing myself. Feet are on fire. At least I’m awake. Am I? What do I take now?
Only one way out. Eat your gun. You lost. Face it. Get to the rifle. Don’t let them win. Get it your face. Finger on the trigger. Don’t…
Ahhhh
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“Have it your way John.”
“God damn right.”
“You cannot win John.”
“You know what? Before all this I didn’t even know I could fight.”
“You can fight, but pain will be returned one hundred fold.”
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Now things are peaceful. Now things are calm. It’s all gone. It all just went away. Everything is normal.
I tapped my head. “Are you still there? Somewhere in there?”
Was I making progress? Or the opposite? I thought about it for a second and realized it was pretty improbable that piercing pain, auditory hallucinations, and prominent psychosis could be defined as “progress.”
I looked up from the floor. In front of me there was a man, my age, shaggy hair, shaggy beard. He was overweight but not grossly so. He seemed sad. He was holding something. It was covered in blood. He was shaking and seemed confused.
“Hi.” I said, having nothing better to say and being somewhat anxious about my being discovered in my current state, that state being a shaking mess covered in his own urine.
“Hi Mr. Brunsen,” he said. He stumbled through the sentence but managed to get out a standard human greeting after a few attempts.
“I just want to let you know, that if you plan on using that on me,” I hefted my rifle and pulled the bolt back to show it was loaded, “then you aren’t going to get very far.”
“No Mr. Brunsen, I came here with a question.”
“Shoot,” I said throwing my rifle across the table in front of me and pulling myself up. He didn’t laugh. Kind of a dullard I guess, I thought it was funny.
He lofted the axe. American Machete, I could spot it from anywhere. Blood stained. Old blood. “I never hurt anyone in my life ‘fore last week. So how come I can’t put this down anymore? How come every time someone gets anywhere near me, my blood boils and I find myself holding this thing. How come the slightest touch feels like someone shoved an icepick in me? I feel something hot or cold and I want to slam my head through it. How come I watch TV and now I find myself making plans to kill my neighbor for building his fence six inches onto my side of the property. How come…”
Now he’s crying, now he’s reliving it, now he reminds me of someone.
Now he reminds me of me.
“How come when my dog wouldn’t eat her dinner one night I split her head open with this. How come I hurt Sadie? How come I killed Sadie? What’s wrong with me?”
Now sobbing. A lot of sobbing.
I didn’t know what the answer was, but I made a guess. “How many doses?” I said.
“What?”
“How many doses? How much have you taken?
“Of…”
“You know what I am saying, fucking spit it out. How many?”
His gaze narrowed. I was getting to him. Needed to reel it back a notch. “I was one of the first. I’ve done the whole panel. All three doses.”
“Good news and bad news then. Bad news is that you’re done. You lost. Welcome to the losing team. Your life is over. You will soon be a violent and dangerous caveman or a human box turtle, depending on which way things go. Neither is particularly enjoyable.” He started to cry again. “There is good news too though remember?”
“What’s the good news?” he said.
I thought back to my first job interview.
“The good news is that you came to the right place. Son, how would you like to make a difference in the world?” I tossed him a gun from the pile I made earlier.
After a few days they started showing up in droves.