The Damned Highway

The Damned Highway © 2011 by Nick Mamatas and Brian Keene

No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holders. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental. Dark Horse Books® and the Dark Horse logo are registered trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved. A part of this book was first published as the short story “And Then, And Then, And Then” in Innsmouth Free Press, 2009.

Cover Design by Tina Alessi

Cover Illlustration by Ian Miller

Book Design by Krystal Hennes

Nick Mamatas would like to thank Olivia Flint, and Peter Vroutos for showing him Hunter S. Thompson as a kid.

Brian Keene would like to thank his sons, Mary SanGiovanni, and Jack Shue for making him read Hunter S. Thompson as a teen.

Both authors would like to thank Rachel Edidin, Jemiah Jefferson, everyone else at Dark Horse, and the members of “The Collective.”

Published by Dark Horse Books

A Division of Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

10956 SE Main St., Milwaukie, OR 97222

DarkHorse.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mamatas, Nick.

The damned highway : fear and loathing in Arkham : a savage journey into the heart of the American nightmare, and back again / by Uncle Lono, with Nick Mamatas and Brian Keene. -- 1st Dark Horse Books ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-59582-685-5

1. Journalists--United States--Fiction. 2. Writer's block--Fiction. 3. Bus travel--Fiction. I. Keene, Brian. II. Title.

PS3613.A525D36 2011

813'.6--dc22

2011007786

First Dark Horse Books Edition: July 2011

Printed at Transcontinental Gagné, Louiseville, QC, Canada

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

ePub ISBN 978-1-62115-331-3

The Long, Cold Winter of My Discontent . . . Heavy Weather . . . Strange Rumblings and General Weirdness . . . The Death of the American Dream . . . The Birth of the American Nightmare . . . Bad Apple Daze . . . We've Gotta Get Out of This Place, If It's the Last Thing We Ever Do . . .

——

Winter in Woody Creek, Colorado. It is just after midnight on January 5, 1972, and this is when the fun begins. They call this the wee hours, but there is nothing small about the hours between midnight and dawn. These hours last forever, each one as long and endless as the black gulf between the stars. As I pound the keys, the ticking of the clock syncs with the world's heartbeat, and the rapid-fire staccato of my typewriter slows. Each breath is an eternity. These are not wee hours; these hours are larger than life.

They also call this the witching hour, and who knows? Perhaps they are right. All that I know for sure is that this is when I do my best work, under the cover of darkness. This is when I am strongest—when the whiskey and the mescaline and the pills course through my body, and my mind burns with a terrible righteousness and sense of indignation. This is alchemy. This is magic. When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro, and I am certainly both. Ask anyone. They know. They'll tell you that I am both weird and a pro. I am a professional writer and my role is that of the background observer. I am a doctor of journalism, and there is nothing more professional than that. And the night? The night has never been weirder.

The world has turned dangerous and strange, like some severely deformed child who should have been put down at birth in an act of mercy, but instead has been allowed to live and suffer for far too long. There is something prowling around outside my front door, and though I have heard it many times tonight, I don't know what it is. It can't be the peacocks because I killed them earlier in a moment of blind rage and gripping paranoia, but there is something out there, lurking in the night. It might be a deer or a coyote or a big bastard of a bear, but then again, maybe not, because the darkness has a way of changing things. Darkness is mother nature's LSD, and instead of a wild animal, the thing on my doorstep could be a cop or a politician or even an editor. Worse, it could be a fan. I hate fans as much as I hate editors. They fill my heart with fear and loathing. But never mind that, eh? I am armed with a typewriter and many guns, and I have cigarettes and whiskey, and a wide assortment of pharmaceutical enhancements that the peacocks didn't eat, and with these, I can handle almost anything.

Outside, the snow is falling in large, ponderous drifts. In between Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, the radio tells me that we might have another twelve inches on the ground by morning, and I believe this to be true. Here in my fortified compound, both the snow and the fan mail are piling up. The pile of fan mail is deeper. I must face its terrible power alone, because the roads are closed and the plows won't come this far tonight. The phones and television are out, and my only companions are the radio and my typewriter and the mad, wretched thoughts in my poisoned head. With the holidays over, I've sent my wife and son back to Washington, DC. They left this morning on the first flight out of Denver while I stayed behind to take care of business. Writing is a cruel and savage way to earn a living, and even when it provides for your family, you question the cost. If you lose your family in the process of providing for them, is it worth it? Only a fool would think so, but we are a nation of fools these days.

My family does not like Washington, and I don't like it, either. Washington, DC, is a bizarre and frightening scene, man. But with the election coming, that dope-addled, pig-fucking magazine editor has had the audacity to make me head of the national-affairs desk, and set my family and me up in an apartment in the nation's capital. Given my new position, Washington is a necessary evil.

In truth, I'm glad that my family is gone, because the walls here at the compound have been breached, despite their fortifications, and this place is no longer safe. As I said, our sanctuary is inundated with the bleating sheep cries of a thousand fan letters. Each time I open an envelope, ignorance and madness spill forth and flutter around the room like deranged bats. All because of that goddamned Las Vegas book.

Now the radio is playing something by a new British band called Black Sabbath. The music has a dark, ugly vibe, and there is something lurking beneath the bass and drums like a tumor ready to burst, spilling poison upon the land. This ain't the Summer of Love, and we are not wearing flowers in our hair. Black Sabbath is a far cry from “Mr. Tambourine Man” and Woodstock, and I don't dig this kind of sound. It doesn't speak to me, and there is nothing in it that I recognize, but that's okay, because I don't recognize anyone anymore, especially myself. I am constantly surrounded by strangers who call themselves my friends. Ho ho ho! Maybe they are. But with friends like these, who needs fucking enemies, right? Everywhere I go, I draw a crowd of raving, ravenous beasts—a pack of wild hyenas, all slavering for a piece of me. They call me a cult hero and a prophet and a spokesman for our generation. They say that I am violent and paranoid and weird, an ex–Hells Angel turned celebrated journalist and writer. They say that my influence is recognized by all politicians and celebrities, and that my work is marked by a glorification of life's dark side, including drugs and heavy personal risk. And who knows? Maybe this is true, but if I am the embodiment of the dark side of life, then why is it that I take no enjoyment from this Black Sabbath? Is this how England will reclaim our little breakaway republic—by foisting Black Sabbath upon us? Some call the sound they make heavy metal, and perhaps that is appropriate. In any case, it's heavy music for some heavy weather.

But never mind all that, eh? I don't give a hoot in hell what people think or say about me. What do they know, anyway? The majority of Americans are stupid, bleating sheep. They always seem surprised when they learn that I have a wife and a child and a mother, as if I were some demonic, whiskey-swilling hell spawn sprung whole from the earth and incapable of loving something or nurturing it. When I get invited to speak at universities, I am never sure who it is that they expect to show up. Quite often, they act disappointed when they get me, rather than my alter ego from the Vegas book. And now we come to the nut of it, because Vegas was where it all changed. Las Vegas was the start of the great downward spiral. I first felt the fear and loathing in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention back in 1968, when the entire scene descended into violence and madness, spurred on not by the freaks or the media, but by the powers that be. I felt the fear and loathing there, but it took root after Vegas. I am afraid of the future.

Nixon is on the radio now, following that evil music, and the irony is bright and shiny and clear. His voice makes me want to cut my skin off with a broken beer bottle. There is something incredibly insectile about it, almost as if he weren't human. And who knows? Maybe he isn't. Maybe Nixon is just the brown stain left behind on Satan's mattress. It wouldn't surprise me, because Richard Milhous Nixon is an ignorant brute who represents nothing but the dark side of the American Dream. He is a big, dumb, repugnant beast who exudes greed, treachery, and contempt for our system from his diseased, swollen pores, and every breath he takes forms the basis for another poisonous lie. If he were a dog we'd have put him down by now for the safety of the community, shot him in the head and burned the flea-ridden corpse.

Did I say Nixon represented the dark side of the American Dream? Forget that; it was the whiskey talking. Forgive me. The drugs have kicked in and I know not what I type. Richard Nixon doesn't represent the dark side of the American Dream. Richard Nixon represents the American Nightmare. The American Dream is dead. I know this because I proved it was dead two years ago when I ran for sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket. There is no American Dream anymore—no guiding principle for generations of our countrymen. In the end, the American Dream was left raped and bleeding and lying face down in an alley, drowning in its own vomit and urine. That was how it ended, but the American Dream didn't die overnight. No, its death was slow and insidious, like a long, painful bout of intestinal cancer that starts out as just a little flatulence and terminates with you vomiting out your own bloody intestines through your mouth. There were a number of symptoms, but we didn't spot them in time. The downfall of our last, true American hero, Muhammad Ali, mixed with the treacherous doings in our nation's capital and the vacation paradise that is Vietnam and the savage anarchy of the Hells Angels and the riots and the sick depravity manifested in Las Vegas. All of this and more contributed to the death of the American Dream and gave birth to the American Nightmare.

The American Dream's headstone is a burned-out slab of concrete in Las Vegas. And yes, the corpse beneath is restive; under the flashing neon lights of its own grave it twitches and rolls and shimmies on prime-time television covered in Day-Glo body-paint catch phrases that were once revolutionary slogans but that now sell soap and mugwump Republicanism. Sock it to whom?

I am reminded of what a wise and powerful sage—myself—wrote not so long ago, of how the sixties were a wonderful time, when the energy of an entire generation came to a head and we were all riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. The time was ripe for change, but in the end, like all ripe fruits, things spoiled on the vine and turned rotten. These are the bad-apple days, even though it's less than five years since that magical moment in time. Go up on a hill in Las Vegas in the afternoon when the sun boils in the sky like a great, bloated pimple, and look west, and you can see the high-water mark in the distance, that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back, revealing a horrible, tentacle-faced monstrosity called Richard M. Nixon. It's enough to drive anyone insane, unless they have access to good drugs. Maybe God, if such a thing exists, was merciful when He gave us the inability to sort all this conflicting shit out in our collective brains, because one thing is for sure—the good times are over. There will be no chickens in your pot this Christmas because the time of the Great Confusion is coming. This is the end, beautiful friends, the end. Rape and murder shall be the law of the land, and dogs will lie down with cats, and people will copulate in the streets like rabid, frenzied rabbits. The gutters shall run with blood, and mothers will kill their own children because it's what they've been told to do. Like lemmings, we shall flee into the false peace and safety of a new dark age. The stars are right and the Age of Aquarius is over. This is the age of R'lyeh.

What's that word? R'lyeh? Where the hell did that come from, and what does it mean? Never mind; it doesn't matter. Just a typo, induced by the drugs or the whiskey or good old-fashioned fatigue.

That thing is still out there, prowling through the snow and scratching at the windowpanes. I would go confront it, but I can't stand. Indeed, only my fingers seem to work, and I am afraid that if I stop typing, they will freeze up, too.

I am tired, and I need to get out of here and be free again. The fan mail is getting higher, and if I fall asleep, I could drown in it. The weasels are closing in with their beady red eyes and their sharp little teeth, and they prevent me from doing my job. I used to be able to stand in the back of the room and observe, but because of the Vegas book, I can't do that anymore. When I cover a press conference, I get asked more questions than the politicians. When I interview a celebrity, I sign more autographs than they do. A BBC film crew wants to shoot a documentary about me and stick a camera in my face and have me perform like a trained monkey. And then there's that fucking comic strip. That thing is published all over the world. My myth has taken over my reality, and with each passing day and each new word that I write, it's becoming more and more warped. I need to escape, but where would I go? I could hide in hotel rooms for the rest of my life, but what kind of existence is that? I've pushed my luck about as far as I can, and I'm operating on vapor trails and residue. How long, oh Lord, how long? I wish I could die soon. The doctors have given me six months to live, but they do that about every two years, so they are of absolutely no help.

I want to reinvent myself again—start over fresh in a place where nobody knows me. A place where my books aren't in print and the newspapers don't carry that comic strip. I want to rediscover myself and find new truths under the rocks. The last time I did that, I went in search of the American Dream. It occurs to me that maybe I should search for its counterpart, the American Nightmare. After all, this country is in a grim slide, and I see little hope for it to reverse course. Perhaps I should examine the cause. Obviously, Nixon is a part of that, but there must be more. I need to explore it. Find the nut of the thing. Feel it deep down in my journalistic testicles. But where would I go? I could go west, I suppose. Steal a car and drive through the vast, perilous wastelands of Los Angeles and Las Vegas and Henderson and San Francisco, but I've already taken that trip and it's not one that I wish to repeat any time soon. So I can't go west, young man, and I can't go to Washington, either. I can't face that crowd. Not now. Not in my current condition. There will be no peace in Washington, no chance at self-discovery. In Washington, the fans are everywhere and I am always in a crowd, even when I'm alone.

When I went in search of the American Dream, the only way to prepare for the trip was to get crazy with my attorney, screeching off across the desert in search of the story and running amok until we'd found it. But not this time. Fame and the smothering, claustrophobic power of my own legend will prevent me from doing that. No, for this journey, I must be clever and careful and cautious. This time, I have to go undercover, under the radar, slip beneath the wires, a shadow of a shadow. I must be like a ninja. And I have to go alone, too, with no assistant or attorney to aid me in my quest. That fat brown bastard is still pissed at me for what I said in the Vegas book, anyway. So no attorney, and no artist, either. That greedy Welshman will want money, and besides, this search would only frustrate him and quite possibly drive him mad. As decadent and depraved as the Kentucky Derby is, it is just a wet dream in comparison to what I expect to find this time, and I don't think he could handle it. He is a gentle soul, and this is a job for dark men.