@@DESCRIPT="`Last Days' By Black Sunshine"
                                 Last Days
                             by Black Sunshine


     Sunday night around the first of June was always an
uncomfortable time for church service.  The air conditioner had
not kicked on in hours.  But Reverend Marcus spoke to his
audience anyway.
     "We are nearing the end, ladies and gentlemen.  I must tell
you of the revelations that came to me in a vision last night. 
God spoke to me, and interpreted for me the last judgments."
     No one in the congregation spoke.  
     "The Seven Seals will be opened soon, ladies and gentlemen. 
Our wickedness will be punished:  The Sixth Seal, or judgement
resulting from humankind's willful activity.  We will see the day
of wrath upon us."

    
     Lila's favorite band, "Wrath," was performing outside at the
fairgrounds.  Energy sparked into the air, a rabid feeding-
frenzy, both emancipating and exhausting.  The air smelled of
adrenaline-- electrons pulsing in fresh heat, lightning-swift
guitar riffs, thickness, bodies, sex and sweat, and combined
into something that was nearly visual.  
     Lila observed all of this with a smile.  People slammed into
her, hard enough to break something (her?), but she barely felt
it.  Tomorrow, my skin will darken and swell but tonight I want
to feel the music, she thought.  
     It was several seconds before she realized that the ground
was actually moving underneath her.  Violently.  In that moment,
the sky transformed from it's lazy, lingering yellow-pink into a
blackness darker than any night sky she had ever seen.  Wrath
abruptly stopped playing, looking up into the sky like everyone
else.
     What is it?  
     Finally, she saw it, she understood what had made the sky so
black.  Something burnt and evil, bubbly and black, covered the
setting sun.  And not far away was the moon, seething, red and
bloody, as if preying upon the boiling mass that had become the
sun.  What the hell-- Lila thought.  Desperately, she wondered if
somehow this was all part of the show.  The thought was wiped
quickly from her mind however, as the stars began to fall like
comets to the earth.  
     Suddenly, there was more pushing and shoving than there had
ever been in any mosh pit, as people screamed and scattered,
tripping and trampling, and it was a dog-eat-dog world and soon
there would be no world at all, at least as Lila knew it and
there was a star, a miracle of brightness, falling, falling right
above them, straight over their heads, its destination right into
the fairgrounds, and Lila watched, not able to get her feet to
move, but somehow she didn't think it would matter because even
with all the screaming, she can hear it cutting through the wind
in the night and in two more seconds...


     The preacher continued.  "The Seven Trumpets, ladies and
gentlemen, will be bared in the direct display of God's
unhappiness at our human sin.  The First Trumpet, perhaps, being
the worst."


     "I discovered this place," Dave said proudly, parking the
motorcycle at the edge of the woods.  Karen got off the back and
Dave took her hand and led her to a clearing that overlooked a
small creek filled with running water.  Utter silence filled her
ears, and serenity emanated from the trees around her.  It was
really quite beautiful, except for the overgrown weeds dominating
the area.
     "You discovered this?  You're like the first person ever?"
Karen teased him.
     Dave laughed.  "You know what I mean."
     She let go of his hand and brushed old dirt off a rock.  She
sat down, though the stone was cold and she felt a little
underdressed.
     "Here you go," Dave said, handing her the sack and sitting
down beside her.  "We should have brought a blanket."
     Karen opened the sack and pulled out four chicken sandwiches
and gave Dave three of them.  She began to unwrap hers.
     "It's a little cold for this.  We should have done it during
the day," Dave said.  The sun was setting behind the trees,
making the clearing seem darker and colder than normal. 
Nevertheless, Karen was glad that Dave had brought her here to
this secluded place, that he had shared it with her.
     They finished eating and Dave gathered their trash and set
it aside.  He scooted closer to her. The shadows danced on his
face and his eyes tried to penetrate hers in the darkness as his
hand slid over her arm.  His lips softly brushed hers and she
felt herself sinking into the rock, melting really--
     There was a crackling in the trees from behind her and she
broke away.
     "Dave--" she began.
     Her voice was drowned out by the sudden roar of flames as
all the trees around the two of them were suddenly full of fire,
blazing and hot.  As the flames licked at the darkened sky,
branches, severed from their trunks, fell burning to the forest
floor, spreading the fire all around them...


     Spittle flew from the preacher's mouth.  "The anti-christ
will come.  Many will be fooled.  He will come and his charisma
will be very, very appealing.  He will bear the sign of the
beast, 666.  He is the man of sin, he is Lucifer, he is the king
of Babylon.  How many of you will be deceived?  How many?"


     Kyle unlocked his apartment door and plopped down onto the
couch, unconsciously reaching for the remote control to the TV
set.  It had been a hard day.  He'd just gotten out of a four
hour chemistry lab, and had half a novel to read before the
following morning's classes.  But for now-- he just had to relax.
Just for a few minutes.
     Flipping through channels, he unwittingly found himself
stopping on Mtv to watch "The Real World."  He discovered that he
was getting interested when Puck and Judd start to go at it,
so he sat up.  Then all of the sudden the screen went black.
     "What the hell?"
     Frustrated, he flipped channels, but they were all blank as
well.  ESPN?  HBO?  Fox?  HSN?  Gone.  Damn cable company. 
Suddenly, the beautiful, buxom Mtv VJ Melisa appeared on the
screen.
     "Oh thank God," Kyle said.  One last thing he had to worry
about.
     But that was before he realized that the television wasn't
even on the Mtv channel.
     And something was wrong with Melisa's eyes.  They were
glowing, a deep, blood red.  He tried, but he could not seem to
look away from them.
     Her mouth opened.  "You are mine."  But the voice was not
hers.
     Panicking, his heart pummeling, Kyle switched channels, but
there she was.  She was still there, staring, mocking, laughing.
     "I have your soul," she said through blackened lips.  Kyle
felt a cold, commanding hand on his shoulder.  He screamed and
jumped up, turning around.  
     There was no one there.  
     The voice continued.  "Now you must serve me.  You will
receive my commands from these videos."
     Her mouth contorted into a grin that was not the beautiful,
sexy one he remembered.  Her teeth were white, dazzling white
against the sharp contrast of her blackened lips.  The screen
went black again before the first video began.  There was nothing
but a pentagram on the screen, but the images that filled Kyle's
mind made him whimper.  There was no sound but that which was in
his mind, the loud screech of guitars, sounding like human souls.
     Kyle blinked and shook his head, trying to release the
trance-like hold on him.  He raised the remote control to switch
channels, but a voice in his mind spoke, "Wait."
     And then... he remembered nothing...


     The preacher went on, consumed with a mad desire to instill
fear and belief in the crowd.  "The Anti-Christ will be a leader
of many beasts; he will own and control the beast which rises up
from the sea:  a monster with seven heads-- each having a name of
blasphemy, ten horns with crowns on top of them, the body of a
leopard, the feet of a bear, the mouth of a lion.  This creature
will serve as an aid in the resurrection of the Anti-Christ."

     Liz strapped her son, Jason, into his stroller outside the
gates.  He giggled and kicked his legs excitedly, the light
glaring off his golden head.  As Liz wheeled him up to the
entrance, she saw several other mothers pushing their children in
strollers.  It was a beautiful evening, the sun having gone just
far enough down to cast a soft golden light over everything and
let the air cool down a bit.
     The first exhibit was always the cats, and as Liz pushed her
stroller towards that area, she noticed several people hurrying
away from it.  One young woman put her hand on Liz's arm as she
passed.
     "I wouldn't take him back there," she said, pointing to
Jason.
     Liz looked at her, confused.  "Huh?  Why?"
     The woman shook her head and ran off.  Liz watched her run
out of the gates of the zoo.
     Confused, Liz looked around at the people moving around her. 
When she noticed a man moving away from the cat exhibit, she
stopped him.
     "Excuse me, sir?  What's going on over there?"
     The man stopped and looked at her.  "It's the most amazing
thing.  I'm going to find my wife.  She has the camera."
     "Well, what is it?"
     "I have never seen anything like it!  It's.. well go see for
yourself." 
     He hurried off before Liz could ask him anything else. 
Curiousity burning inside her, Liz pushed the stroller forward
and walked past the dens holding jaguars, leopards and tigers. 
All stared at her with hungry, miserable, weary eyes.  But Liz
saw nothing out of the ordinary.
     Until she reached the last cage.  The lion exhibit.
     That was no lion in there.  It looked like a mythological
mutation.  It had more than one head, which seemed to be fighting
for control of the beast, snapping at one another with their
jaws.  The crowd of people around Liz gasped, as one of the heads
bit savagely into another's neck.  Liz tried to back away from
the exhibit, but she was in shock, and couldn't get her body to
obey.  
     The thing down in the cage suddenly looked up, and it's
fourteen eyes rested on Jason.  Jason's little pink mouth formed
an O and he pointed at the creature.  Before Liz could even
blink, the monster had leaped fifteen feet into the air, its paws
catching the wire fence that was merely inches away from her
son's head.  
     Another second and the beast had her son's head in one of
its mouths...

     
     The preacher's eyes glowed with enthusiasm.  "Then will come
the" great harlot," or the Harlot of Babylon.  She will ride on
the seven-headed beast, wearing purple and scarlet, bedecked with
gold and precious stones and pearls, golden cup in her hand,
drunk with blood of saints and martyrs.  She will be beautiful,
oh don't think she won't.  But on her forehead will be written
these words:  MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS
AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.  And that is how you must
recognize her."


     Sara knocked on the door and waited patiently for her best
friend to open it.  She didn't have to wait long until Tina
opened the door.
     "Happy birthday!" Sara said and hugged her quickly.  "I'm
here to take you on a surprise shopping spree."
     She pulled back and it was then that she noticed Tina was
wearing a new scarf already.
     "That's pretty," Sara continued. "Did you get that for your
birthday?"
     Tina laughed, a little nervously, and fiddle with the edge
of the scarf, gold and purple fluttering through her fingers.
     "No, no, I found this at a flea market last week," she said
and tried to smile.
     Sara shrugged and pulled Tina out of the doorway towards her
car.  Twenty minutes later, Sara pulled up outside of the local
mall and the two went inside, stopping in their favorite
department store.  They were in there less than a hundred and
twenty seconds before Tina was fingering a beautiful scarlet silk
blouse.
     "Go on, go try it on," Sara urged her.
     Tina grinned and took the shirt to the dressing rooms.
     Sara tried to amuse herself by going through the racks of
clothes around her, but when ten minutes went by, she started to
get a little annoyed.  Five more minutes and the feeling had
shifted to concern.  When twenty minutes had passed, Sara
strolled back to the dressing rooms to look for her.
     She found Tina in the last stall.  The cheap wooden door was
not completely closed all the way and Sara could see Tina
standing right inside, staring into the mirror and holding the
red blouse.  She had it up to her chin, as if she were trying to
imagine how it would look on her.  The red contrasted sharply
against the purple and gold of her unusual scarf. 
     Sara opened her mouth to ask her if she was okay, when she
suddenly noticed the red, oozing etchings in her forehead and the
glitter of metal in her other hand, dripping blood.
     Tina had carved a word into her skin.
     
     
     The preacher's voice lowered a bit.  "And finally will come
the Seven Bowls-- the  Final Judgment of the Great Tribulation!
The contents of these bowls will be poured our for all to see.
The First Bowl Judgment will spread like a plague through the
earth.  There will be no escaping.  All those who worship the
Beast will be exposed." 


     Ronnie sat in the emergency room waiting area, trying to
decide which was worse:  the pain in his hand or the
embarrassment of sitting there in his work uniform.  He was
currently working for a local fast-food restaurant and the
required work shirts consisted of colors that he wouldn't have
been caught dead in outside of work.  Only in a situation like
this.
     He removed the rag from his forefinger and looked at first
the blood on the towel then at the cut.  The towel had once been
white.  It would never be that way again.  The gash he'd put in
his finger was red and swollen, and looked like the gill of an
ill trout.  Blood still seeped timidly out of the cut, as if just
waiting to be wiped away.  Ronnie didn't make it wait long.  
     It was going to take stitches, and Ronnie was dreading them. 
He'd had stitches once before.  Once at a local club, he'd made
the mistake of leaning over the headbang in the dark and had
banged hit forehead on the back of a metal chair.  Four hours and
ten stitches later, he'd looked like Frankenstein.  It wasn't so
much the stitches, it was the shot they'd use to deaden his hand
first.  He hated needles.
     He'd been sitting in the waiting room for almost an hour,
and was starting to get a little annoyed.  There were two more
people sitting on the other side of the room, but Ronnie had been
there longer.  I'm going to bleed to death, Ronnie thought. 
Right here in the hospital.  He glanced once more at the vacant
registration desk.  Any minute now, he knew they were going to
call his name.  Any second.  
     He heard the whirring of the automatic doors from behind
him.  Someone else was coming in from outside.  He didn't turn
around, however, to check on who it was.  He was surprised when
he heard the whirring again, however, as the door opened once
more.
     The third time it opened, he turned around.  
     A swarm of people was coming through the door, bursting into
the waiting room, bringing the night outside with them.  
     "What the hell?"
     The one who had entered first passed by Ronnie and Ronnie
cringed to see the look in his eyes.  And the huge, bubbling,
bloody sores covering his flesh.
     "Oh my God, what happened to--"
     The rest of the people turned at the sound of his voice. 
Ronnie saw the same wounds on their skin.  The people began
crying, moaning, moving towards him.  Ronnie stood up in
surprise, his red-stained towel falling to the floor, his
dripping finger cut forgotten...


     "These are the last tribulations of our times, ladies and
gentlemen.  These are the manifestations of Lucifer, the angel of
hell," the preacher continued.  "And so it has been said; this is
the Word of God.  We are down to our last days.  Mark my words. 
Prepare yourselves."
     He pulled out a navy blue handkerchief and swiped it across
his shining forehead.  
     "Now let us bow our heads in prayer."
     The congregation did not move, but their eyes were full of
Reverend Marcus.  


     And the sun set on this, the first of the last days of the
earth.
     







 
