Archive of Our Own ^beta

I live my life like there's no tomorrow
And all I've got I had to steal
'Least I don't need to beg or borrow
Yes, I'm livin' at a pace that kills.
                                           -Van Halen

The rambling purr of the car's engine is putting Lloyd to sleep, as sweet and efficient as a child's lullaby. After a full dinner and a long shower, just the idea of trying to stay awake is repellent. The only thing that's keeping him up, for the moment, is the presence of the man beside him. Lloyd has never given it much thought, but he's pretty sure he never pictured the devil driving a car. What he imagined was a dark horse with gigantic hooves and flames flaring from its nostrils, maybe even a chariot of some kind; something fancier than an aged Buick, for sure. But the man behind the wheel -- Flagg, with the double g -- is nothing like he would have ever imagined the devil to be, anyway (Lloyd even felt compelled to check for a tail, which earned him a quizzical eyebrow). So he supposes it makes sense as much as anything, just then. Which is to say, no sense at all.

It's dark out, but nowhere near as dark as it got in his cell at night, when Lloyd thought he could be swallowed by the darkness whole, not even leaving a miserable pile of bones behind him. It felt like it would erase every trace of his existence, and who would have cared, really? Nobody, that's who. In a dim sort of contemplation, Lloyd wonders how much of what's gone on in these past couple of hours has been truly real. It seems more likely that he's still hallucinating, still stuck in some hungry fever dream that's spinning out of control. But strangely, the idea that he may still be slowly starving to death doesn't bother him so much. All he hears is that car engine, and the smooth motion of wheels on asphalt.

It feels like heaven.

Flagg sticks a worn-out tape in the cassette player, and a few second later, the opening tunes of Born to be Wild begin to play. Flagg must have noticed that Lloyd isn't in best shape for conversation, because he only shoots him a warm grin before returning his focus to the road ahead.

Lloyd feels the last of his resistance slipping away -- it's a sweet, cottony feeling -- and drifts into sleep.

Las Vegas looks nothing like he remembers it from... Jesus, how long had it been? A month? Less? It feels like twenty lifetimes, and pretty miserable ones at that. The world has ended in that small stretch of time, and this is what's left of it. The new world.

The sunlight is bright enough that Lloyd is worried that his eyes are going to burn and turn into hot coals; he can picture it happening with great clarity, with smoke coming out of the empty sockets. He has to squint hard, trying to remind himself that this sort of thing didn't happen for real. But it's been a long while since he's been out in the sunlight. He feels like a goddamn vampire.

There's a dozen or so people waiting for them; Lloyd doesn't know how they knew they were coming, but he thinks it doesn't matter very much. Weird things happen, especially when they involve the man he got into town with. Lloyd has known him for less than a full day, but he understands that instinctively, without being told.

Lloyd's never been a big guy, but now he's a skinny wreck, and the fresh clothes don't sit right on him. He feels small and insignificant standing there next to his savior, the one everybody's eyes are on, but then Flagg places a warm hand on his back, and all of the sudden, Lloyd feels taller. He remembers the stone in his pocket, and the promise Flagg gave him: Going to put you right up there with Saint Peter; slip the keys to the kingdom right into your hand. What a deal, right?

It is a hell of a deal. Some of the gazes are directed at him now, respectful and expectant. When he gave Flagg his word, Lloyd only had the fuzziest of ideas of what it actually meant. Maybe even less than that.

He thinks he sort of understands, now.

The hotel room is beyond classy; something he would have expected to see on TV, not with his own two eyes. The hotels Lloyd tended to stay in often reeked of at least one bodily fluid, were the roaches' favorite resort, and had bedbugs that were more likely to pass on a disease than a cheap one-legged whore.

There are no bedbugs in the MGM fucking Grand, that's for damn sure.

It might have been more comforting if there had been, because in this fancy-ass high roller pad, Lloyd feels sorely out of place. Like in that story where the prince and the ghetto kid switch places.

There's a fucking mirror on the ceiling, can you believe it?

He tries to distract himself by checking the mini bar. It's full, and he feels like he's come across a small treasure chest. Problem is, he has a feeling that if he drinks even a little, he's bound to throw it all up. So he leaves it alone for now.

He wrestles with a childish impulse to check how springy the bed is. It's a losing battle, and he succumbs quickly enough.

It's pretty springy. Real soft, too.

Lloyd sinks into the mattress, thinking he might grow used to this after all.

There's blood on his shirt, and for the life of him, he doesn't know how it's gotten there. He was standing a few feet away, and that should have been far enough. But the kid was putting up a hell of a fight -- more than you'd expect from a scrawny junkie barely out of his teens.

Well, it's not a huge deal, Lloyd thinks; he'll just throws it away and get himself a new one.

But Jesus Christ, why did it have to be so goddamn messy?

He has to stop to breathe, flattening his hands against the wall until the urge to vomit passes. He wonders if it's like this for Whitney, too, but he doubts it. Whitney used to be a butcher before the flu, and those guys couldn't exactly afford to be squeamish. That's the reason he scored this gig in the first place.

But there's a difference between slaughtering a cow and human fucking being.

A few hours later, when the sun begins to set, he knocks on Whitney's door. He thinks maybe they ought to talk about it, or something.

But instead of talking about it, they have a few beers, just enough to put the distance between themselves and the main event of that afternoon; just enough to mute the screams of the kid who'd for some stupid fucking reason decided it would be a good idea to 'borrow' from the pharmacy. It wasn't even Morphine he'd taken, or any of the heavy stuff. It was fucking Aspirin.

Who the fuck steals Aspirin?

But it's important to set an example -- that's what the big dude said.

Lloyd understands, once he leaves Whitney's room, that it's not the sort of thing you talk about. You get over it, that's what you do. And if you can't do that, you fake it 'till you make it. That's the key to success.

The kid looked like a young Tony Curtis, if Tony had come out of his mother's ass and suffered from a terminal case of acne and ugliness. But in Lloyd's mind, his face is blurred and smudgy now; not quite real, somehow.

Lloyd isn't so sure he understands what he's gotten himself into, anymore, but he knows he'll get through this. It's the first time he stops to doubt, but only for a moment, then the moment passes. He was chosen, and he gave his word. There is no turning back now, even if he wanted to. And he doesn't want to.

This is the first time in Lloyd's life he's good for more than a cheap laugh, and there's no way in hell he's going to give it all away because he got a little blood on his shirt.

Besides, he's feeling better already. After all, it's not like he knew the kid that well. He was just a face in a crowd.

Faces are easy to forget. Easier than people.

Las Vegas is a bright light city once again. There have been a few bumps along the way, but they've finally managed it. At night, the city lights up like a giant amusement park.

It looks a bit like Christmas, Lloyd thinks, unintentionally misquoting a furry little cultural icon.

They throw a party. Nothing too wild -- they can't afford to let their guard down, even now -- but the excitement spreads through the crowd, and it's just as easy to get drunk on as booze, if not more. They get a projector going, and for a week straight, there's a showing of Robocop 2. It's rapidly becoming Lloyd's new favorite movie.

The sign welcomes newcomers to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada in its full glory.

Lloyd is certain, for once, that everything is going to turn out okay.

Even when Flagg isn't around, which is often enough, Lloyd carries his invisible handprint on his back. It doesn't take him long to figure that out.

It's how he can be at the table, having a laugh with his buddies, but all it takes is one look, and people turn wary. It's not always the nicest of feelings, but it's an assurance that even when he's one of them, he's still the dark man's number one guy, and that's not a small thing.

Lloyd has always been firm in his belief that masturbation is one of mankind's greatest inventions.

The imagery he uses is simple and efficient, and hasn't evolved a great deal since his early teenage years. Miss January '77 still stars in his fantasies, same way as it did back when he was thirteen, and when he feels the need to spice things up a bit, there's always April '75. Every guy who's done a significant time was bound to have more practice than the average citizen, and Lloyd is no different. He can do it with both hands and isn't bothered by noises, no matter how loud or offensive. One could say that, as far as jerking off goes, Lloyd Henreid is a downright professional.

But every once in a while, the wrong image pops into his head. Some are innocent enough, just random and out of place; others are downright fucking scarring, like the bony face his second-grade English teacher, Mrs. Jones, who he was willing to bet was some breed of demon in barely-human form. The sadistic bitch clearly decided it wasn't enough that she made his life a living hell as kid – she's haunted him all the way through his teenage years, making an occasional appearance to this day. It's pretty damn disastrous when it happens, putting all of Lloyd's hard work to waste and sending him bolting for a cold shower.

But this time it's different. This time it's not Mrs. Jones, and even though the image is way beyond wrong, it doesn't send a wave of revulsion through him, and it sure doesn't make him lose his hard-on.

What it makes him do is squeeze his eyes shut and pick up the pace, his breathing growing ragged and rapid. A surprised, helpless groan tears out of him as he comes, only seconds later.

Somebody like the Trashcan Man would probably consider it sacrilegious or something, but fuck Trashy -- the guy probably gets an instant hard-on the second Flagg enters the room. And it could have been worse, Lloyd assures himself solemnly. He could have been jacking off to Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

He tries to wipe it from his mind altogether. But in the shower, he glances down at the stone, and feels his throat becoming drier than the Nevada desert.

He doesn't think he'll be forgetting anytime soon.

The next time he goes up to give Flagg a progress report on Indian Springs, something goes wrong. Very wrong.

The report itself is fine -- Flagg seems pleased enough, if a little bit bored by the whole procedure. It's when Lloyd is about to leave when things change. Flagg moves forward, and suddenly there's only a small breathing room between them. Lloyd doesn't move a muscle. Flagg leans closer. His thumb and forefinger catch the top button of Lloyd's shirt, linger there for a few seconds, then turn it in a playful little motion, and slip it out of its hole. His body heat is radiating off him in waves, infecting Lloyd's skin, threading into his heartbeat, strangling any attempt at speech.

"There," Flagg says and moves away again, as if it's perfectly normal, what he just did. "Now, was there anything else you wanted, Lloyd?" There's a glimmer of mirth in his eyes, teasing and knowing, like he and Lloyd are sharing a secret, just the two of them. His expression seems to say: Go on, don't be shy.

Lloyd is frozen in place for a small eternity. His limbs must have floated off somewhere, because he can't feel them at all. Finally, he moves his head, slowly, from side to side. "No, I'll just--" he has to stop to clear his throat, but he can't get rid of the monstrous lump of saliva stuck in there. "I think I'll just go, if you don't mind."

Flagg doesn't mind.

Lloyd all but sprints back to his room, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process, and then over his pants in a struggle to get them off.

It's only a matter of time, he think, in the small part of his mind still capable of rational thought, before he works his way up to a full-blown heart attack.

Flagg has been away for over a week now, which Lloyd considers an immense relief, and right now, he's got other important business to take care of.

She has a tight, athletic body and a bright smile that makes Lloyd's dick want to stand at attention and salute. And it's him she's smiling at. He doesn't even need to look over his shoulder to make sure some Patrick Swayze type isn't standing right behind him.

Lloyd's record with women has been spotty, and that's putting it generously. Sure, there's a certain crowd he appeals to, but usually, it's the sort of crowd that a toothless, unwashed bum would appeal to if there was enough alcohol in their system. He's got some two-bit charm, he supposes, but that's hardly enough, in this day and age.

But he's a big man here in Vegas, and that changes things.

He walks over and strikes up a conversation. It goes smoothly, almost unbelievably so. She laughs at his jokes, even the lame ones. Thirty minutes later, they end up in his hotel room, and Lloyd can't believe his luck.

It's not easy, being the devil's right-hand guy. But the perks are pretty damn good.

The sun is baking into the back of his head, and Lloyd stumbles, losing his grip on the round object.

Again.

It rolls a few feet, then stops. Lloyd is out of breath and sweating like a pig; at this rate, he thinks he's going to have a heatstroke or a heart attack, maybe even die out here, and wouldn't that be something?

He pours gasoline on the headless body, trying not to look, trying to be anywhere but there.

She had it coming, he tells himself. She brought it all on herself, that lying bitch was using him -- but...

Why the fuck did he have to tear her fucking head off?! He didn't have to do that. He didn't. She didn't do anything bad enough to deserve that, and Lloyd can't stop his hands from shaking.

He almost catches fire when he lights the body up.

Right. So much for perks.

There are times he wakes up with an overwhelming stench flooding his senses, jammed up his nostrils so hard that he can taste it, deep in his throat. Most times it's subtler than that, though. Like a faint whiff following him around, a smell he can never seem to wash off, no matter how hard he tries.

He's pretty sure he's the only one sensing it, though.

These days, the smell of rotting flesh occasionally comes with the smell of gasoline.

Ding Dong, the Wicked Witch is dead.

That's the word on the street, anyway. To Lloyd it feels a little disrespectful, somehow, though he isn't exactly sure why. Maybe it's because he doubts the leader of the people over at the Free Zone was any kind of witch; just an old lady with a few screws loose. But who wouldn't have them, at that age?

Flagg once assured him that if it had been one of them who'd come across him in that jail cell, they would have left him to rot -- to snack on rats and roaches until he became rat-food himself -- and Lloyd had no trouble believing it. For a while, he hated those God-fearing freaks at the Free Zone more than anything.

But now, he just doesn't know anymore. People are people, no matter where they are, or what side they're on. Lloyd can't say he would have liked to meet the Wicked Witch of Boulder, but he still feels something that's almost like… loss.

They should be celebrating. After all, their troubles are about to be over. With the old lady dead, the Free Zone is going to collapse like a flimsy tower of playing cards. But for all the murmuring going around, little of it seems honestly cheery. Where there should be relief -- a sense of victory, maybe -- there's restlessness. People seem skittish, like frightened rabbits scenting a wolf in their midst, but too scared to do anything about it.

Lloyd doesn't feel any kind of relief, either. The witch may be dead, but there's a damn good chance that the guy he's working for is none other the Wizard himself -- only not the great and powerful dude, but the little guy hiding behind the curtain, running a paper-thin scam. It's not a good thought; it's not a thought Lloyd wants or ought to have. But it's there, and so is a growing feeling of unease.

Even when everything else in Vegas seems to be heading straight down shit creek (or is it upstream? Lloyd isn't sure, but either way you look at it, it's pretty shitty), there's one thing that never fails to cheer him up -- little Dinny McCarthy. It's almost like having a little brother, and Lloyd's always wanted one. He would've settled for a big brother or, hell, a sister, crazy a thought as that was. He doesn't remember ever being terribly picky, but he does remember being lonely.

Dinny lost both his parents to the flu, but who isn't an orphan, these days? He'll forget all about them, soon enough. Lloyd's mom died when he was around his age, and he doesn't remember her at all.

Lloyd makes sure to always have some sort of candy on him in case he runs into the squirt; usually it's chocolate, and who the fuck cares if it's good for you or not? Sometimes, you just got to live a little. When he gets a little time off from the big business, he likes to spend it with Dinny; they play soldiers, and Lloyd makes funny noises and sound effects, and imitates a cartoon characters or two. He even tries to teach the kid a few of his favorite card games, but he's probably still a little young for that -- so Lloyd saves it for when he's older, thinking, pretty cleverly, that it never hurts to have a couple of aces stashed up his sleeve.

Dinny is the only reason Lloyd ever cracks open a book, even though they're the sort of books that tend to have more pictures than words. He particularly likes the one about Alexander and his crappy, messed up, amazingly shitty day.

Lloyd has had plenty of days just like that.

Sometimes, he thinks that this is all he really needs, that maybe someday he could give up the stone he's wearing and...

...and what, play house?

It's a stupid idea, and easy enough to shove away before it's even fully-formed. There's no point thinking about things that will never happen.

There are days he wishes he was more like the Trashcan Man. He could do without the psycho bomber bullshit, but Lloyd is sure that even now, if he's even alive, Trashy believes. He believes wholly and without reservation.

Don't stop believin', hold on to that feelin', isn't that how the song goes? Well, Lloyd's having some trouble doing just that. What he thinks he's having, is an honest to God crisis of fate.

Lloyd may be dumb, but he's not blind. He sees plenty; it comes with the position. Matter of fact, he sees too much.

And now he's thinking that Flagg has never had much of plan for Vegas to begin with. He's thinking that he's been playing it by ear all along, only now, it turns out, he's also tone-deaf.

Lloyd has never put much stock in God or his best buddy Jesus -- those two assholes were never there for him when he needed them most -- but now he know what it's like to discover that your whole religion is a crock of shit; that you've been worshiping nothing but a tacky statue all along.

It's disquieting feeling. Worse, it's hollowing, like having your insides scraped out with a spoon.

He wants to tell Flagg how bad an idea it is to pursue some retard into the desert when Trashy is still running wild somewhere, but giving advice is not his place, and Lloyd sure knows his place.

In a way, he thinks with sour amusement, he makes a better wife than that Nadine chick ever did. He's sane, for one. As sane as can be, all things considered. And he doesn't have a habit of jumping off balconies, leaving the cleaning crew with the unpleasant task of scraping bits of him off the pavement.

Lloyd thinks that if he looked at it long enough, he could see every pattern imaginable. Sort of like lying on the grass watching clouds go by, seeing sheep and dragons and cowboys and Indians. But he must have not been looking long or hard enough, because all he sees is blood, bits of brain, and more blood.

He ought to get somebody to clean up the mess, but he can't seem to tear his shoes away from the concrete, or his eyes away from the corpse.

Here lies Glen Bateman, sociologist, Free Zone Committee member... Lloyd can't remember the rest; he can barely make sense of what it all means. All he sees is the body of the man he just killed. Just an old guy with a big mouth.

He remembers what Dayna said, about them being happy over there in their Free Zone. Something about a good feeling. But what he can't remember is the last time he felt good. Maybe it's staring at a blood-splattered wall that's screwing with his head.

Flagg has kept his promise all right. But it all seems so faded and insignificant now; as petty a revenge as Julie Lawry's stupid little grudge.

No, Flagg is no Wizard of Oz, thinks Lloyd, because all that guy ever did was pretend to give you something you already had. The scam Flagg runs is much nastier than that. He gives you what you want, but afterwards, you realize that maybe you didn't want it as badly as you thought, and that what you gave in exchange -- even if it seemed like nothing at the time -- was worth a whole lot more.

Be careful what you wish for, right?

The stone is dead weight around his neck. Like a rock chained to a drowning man's feet to drag him down. He is loyal, sure. But so what? So are most dogs, lousy street mutts included. Still, he's made his choice, and there's something to be said for sticking with it 'till the end.

He wonders how much time it'll be before it's his brain splattered on a wall someplace. He doesn't think it'll be long at all.

As a boy, Lloyd had a few unusual heroes, on top of the usual ones: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, the Wild Bunch, those sort of heroes. They got to blow away everybody and their grandmas, and while they weren't the type who tended to ride off into the sunset like John Wayne, at least they got to go out in a hail of bullets and a blaze of glory.

They didn't stick around for the corpses and the memories and the nightmares.

Lloyd realizes, and that realization is cold and empty, that maybe Poke got the better deal.

When he goes up to Flagg's suite that night, he wants something. There's an ugly, boiling mixture of rage and guilt and need inside him, and he doesn't say anything, but Flagg knows. He looks pleased, like the cat that ate the canary, the cream, and whatever the fuck else cats ate.

Soon, he's pressed against the wall, and there are teeth sinking into the juncture between his neck and shoulder. Thankfully, it's not the sort of teeth that poor ol' Bobby Terry got.

It's a bitter point of pride to him that he only cries out once.

Later, there are deep bruises on his waist. He thinks he isn't the only one with bruises, though -- almost certain he isn't. He remembers reaching back and digging deep into flesh with his fingernails; remembers a sound that might have been surprise.

He doesn't know why it matters to him; especially now, when nothing seems to matter much, anymore. He just wants, desperately, to have left a mark.

On the last night of his life, Lloyd dreams about his dead rabbit.

It's not one of those where he gets chased by a giant, nightmarish version of it. It's a real simple one.

He's a young boy again, about eight years old. He's crying, stroking the dishevelled fur, naively hoping that the small gesture would bring the rabbit back. But he doesn't really believe it. He's just a dumb kid, doesn't even know how to unclasp a girl's bra yet -- sure as hell doesn't know what a tough old world it is he's living in -- but he knows what a point of no return is.

It's when it's too little, too late.

"--got no love, no love you'd call real..."

The rifts of Eddie Van Halen's guitar bring Lloyd's drowsy consciousness back. It's a good song, and real honest, the way Lloyd likes it. It occurs to him that Eddie Van Halen and all of his buddies are probably lying somewhere with maggots crawling out of their eye sockets. It's a gruesome image, and it would have been enough to turn Lloyd's mood sour under any other circumstances, but now, it's just sort of… factual. He thinks that maybe there'll be a new band now, signing about how Eddie Van Halen got the flu; circle of life, or whatever you call it. It's a little depressing, Lloyd supposes, but that's also all right, because he's still alive.

"There's a whole world out waiting there for us, Lloyd," Flagg says, and he sounds like a child who's just found the playground of his dreams, with huge slides and an amazing carousel that spins so fast that the world becomes a blur of color. "Can you feel it?"

That feeling is infectious, and yes, of course, Lloyd can feel it. He can smell it in the air, now that they're far from Phoenix -- far from the rotting bodies. He could get addicted to this smell.

The roads are wide-open. Right now, the whole world belongs to them.

For the first time in Christ knows how long, Lloyd feels free.

He knows without question that he will follow Flagg to hell and back. Only, if he thought about it hard enough, he would know, deep down, that there wasn't going to be a way back. The realization comes and goes, slipping his mind like so many things had before it.

But really, what difference does it make? It's not the destination that matter, anyway.

It's the journey.