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A thin, black streath of heavy black string had coer under the streas happened at once

First, the shuffling footsteps John thought he had been hearing got louder, and faster They had a hollow tone, like so around on the floor above your apart for the source Then soh the air like a huge, weaponized flying squirrel, coht down on Falconer

John’s brain had a tenth of a second to try to register what he was really seeing when the Soy Sauce made itsthe words--

"FALCONER LOOK--"

--the thin, black string of Sauce coiled around on its own like a snake, in a blink whipping around his finger, over his fingernail, and digging into his skin right at the sensitive spot where a hangnail would form Pain flashed up John’s hand, all the way to his elbow

Then the Soy Sauce took hold, and the world disappeared

Dave once described taking a hit of Soy Sauce as like digging up one of those thick fiber-optic lines that feeds an entire city’s Internet connection and plugging it into your brain All those strea into you neurons at once, so hard and fast that you si at all John always thought his own description was clearer: it’s like an Insane Clown Posse concert where all fifty thousand iven their own microphone and sound syste bad freestyle rap verses

John was introduced to the stuff at a party, when he was barely old enough to legally drink (and had been drinking for eight years) It was given to hi a fake Jauts splattered on the walls of his trailer--the fucker got off easy It was the same sensation this ti you built up a tolerance for

Everything stopped--John was yanked out of his body, out of the world, mind freed from the confines of his eyes and ears and nose and s A wash of alien sensations crashed over hi everyone in that Star Wars cantina scene

John found that he was suddenly sos, avalanches of brick and wood and glass flung across streets, weeds growing up through cracks in the asphalt He had leaped forward in time, he didn’t kno much He looked around--or rather, his view panned around, as he didn’t seem to have eyes to "look" with Devastation and broken structures littering the landscape into the horizon and beyond He saw that the rubble was crawling with life, ss

John walked--or rather, his view floated--toward the re hus of a parasite jutting below the jaw, the parasite wearing theskull like a hermit crab’s shell Another head trundled by Then another Then, another set of spider legs skittered by, this tiuts

They were everywhere John looked around--again without turning a head or a set of eyes--and saw the streets were littered with broken and charred corpses, flies buzzing over spilled guts The head of an old wo rotted out of their sockets, the skull bearing a blunt trau by The parasite inside opened itsshriek Abehind it They started huone, John yanked back across ti by underneath hi thick layers on either side of a fence--the cordon circling city lihway Suddenly he was inside of an RV And there was Auns She was sticking her hand in a box of Golden Graha them dry like they were potato chips John tried to speak to her, but of course he wasn’t really there

Focus Focus on getting back

And then the world isting and flowing around hi past until he found himself back at Dave’s burned-out house, back in his own body, staring at Falconer and the unholy thing that had jumped down at him from the rooftop above

The scene was frozen before hirotesquely inso much as tilted his head up to see it The leaves at their feet were no longer blowing and the world had gone utterly silent Time had simply stopped John looked down at his hands, and realized that he could ers, realized that time had not stopped for him, but only the rest of the world John took a tentative step, found that he could move with no problem Then he looked around, put his hands on his hips and in the stillness said, "Huh"