He slid back across the floor of the van and didn't speak to her for the rest of the night.
In the morning, with white light coming through the van's window, pummeling her with its heat, the van slowed down and went off road. Nilla felt it jounce and shudder and throw her around like a rag doll before it finally came to a stop. When the door opened and she could see outside again she was looking at the entrance to a cave. Warning signs covered the entrance:JUKEBOX CAVE. OFF LIMITS! A barred iron gate covered the entrance sealed with chains and a heavy padlock.
Mellowman stretched and groaned as he got up from his narrow bed. He stepped out of the van and reached deep into the front of his pants as if he was playing with himself. Eventually he pulled out his hand and revealed a steel key, which fit the padlock perfectly. He wheeled the gate open and the van backed into the burnt orange darkness of the cave. This, Nilla realized, must be his special spot.
Darkness collapsed on top of her as the van pulled further inside.
Monster Nation
Chapter Five
This smacks of Vitalism but' I can't deny those results. Repeatable, if you follow the extended lab instructions' teaching the cells to grow? The force that makes the grass run green? Come on. I'm looking at magic here, plain and simple. Somebody bring me my pointy hat and my wand. [Lab Notes, 7/21/03]
'We're about five miles from the old Air Force base at Wendover. Just across the border into Utah.' Mellowman stood silhouetted against the bare purple light at the mouth of the cave. Inside wasn't total darkness'a Coleman portable lantern painted a rough circle of yellow on the floor perhaps a dozen yards away. Nilla's eyes weren't in great shape, however, and she couldn't make much out.
'Back during the war,' he went on, 'World War II, I think, the airmen used to come up to these caves with girls they picked up in town. The girls didn't want their daddies seeing what they were doing. It got to be such a popular passtime that they brought in a cement mixer and put down the floor your are currently drooling on. It's tough to enjoy yourself with stalagmites poking you in the back. Somebody else figured they'd give the place an air of legitimacy by rigging up a jukebox in here, and that's where the name came from. Jukebox Cave. They had some great parties, my grampa used to tell me. He was one of those guys. I've always loved this place. Can't you feel it, the vibe in here? The feeling, that low-down, that dirty feeling. This is ground zero for getting it on. This is fuck heaven. I brought some girls here myself when I was a young Mormon, back when I used to have ninety-nine sex. You ever had a ninety-nine? You know what that is?'
She didn't dare answer.
'That's when you do every last bit of dirtiness you can to the girl, short of squirting up her skirt. No, if you spill it on the ground well that's not adultery, no ma'am, that's just the sin of Onan and that has got to be at least one per cent less sinful, now don't it? And sometimes one per cent is all it takes to get you into Heaven.' Mellowman laughed maniacally. 'Shit, there was a time when crap like that actually mattered to me.'
'Are you' going to' rape me?' she asked. It was just a question. Her injuries wouldn't let her summon up the rage she needed to turn it into an accusation.
Mellowman's face fell all the same. 'Aw, shit,' he said, and scuffed one boot on the floor. 'Aw, c'mon, Muffin, you really think I'm like that? Me and Mike, we're the laid-back type, real gentlemen, the two of us. We don't pay for *, and we don't beat up women just to get laid, at least not most of the time. Consensual sex is the best kind, we know that.'
He laughed for a moment, the sound banging off the roof of the cave.
'On the other hand, the Termite is probably too far gone to care. And he's taking the first watch. You have yourself some pleasant dreams, now.'
He strode away, leaving her there in the dark.