Must Be Like Heaven
by Marc Sanchez

It was the best damned microwave popcorn that I had ever tasted, and I consider myself to be a microwave popcorn connoisseur. Not only was it the finest I ever had, but it finished popping a full twenty seconds before my regular brand. Can you believe that?

I was truly impressed.

So impressed, that I decided I had to meet the owner of the Howie Pops microwave popcorn company and shake his hand. The box said they were in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee, I thought to myself, they have breweries there, don’t they? Yep, with beer coming right out of the dad-gum drinking fountains. Must be like Heaven. I’d have to take me a tour of one of them breweries while I was up there.

Beer and popcorn. Man, what a life! So I headed for Milwaukee. Hell, I had nothing better to do. I packed my gear, loaded it into my minivan-no, I’m not a family man-and headed for Heaven.

I like the minivan because it gets good gas mileage.

So, I’m at my local shopping mall picking up a few last minute items for my trip, things like toothpaste, mouthwash-because I believe in proper dental hygiene-snacks for the road, some non-alcoholic beer-because I quit drinking _real_ beer years ago-film for the camera, you know, last minute stuff; when I see this woman heading for her cute little green car. You know the new VW Beetles? Great cars back in the early 70's, but I don’t know about these new ones. They seem pretty popular with the college female crowd, though.

I ought to know.

So I’m watching this perky little blonde jiggle over to her perky little car and I notice she’s parked next to this butt-ugly van. One of those conversions left over from about the time the first Beetles went into extinction. You know the kind I’m talking about; two-tone, curtains with dingleberry valances, flared fenders, CB antenna shooting up twelve feet into the air, ladder on the back door leading up to a luggage rack.

You know the type.

So I’m watching this blonde slip her key into her door and I suddenly have the most wondrous experience of my entire thirty-nine years of existence. There’s this guy in the van. I can’t see him, but I just know that he’s in there. And I can hear what he is thinking...

You fucking bitch! I hate your fucking guts!

Now! Now! Now!...

Now believe me when I tell you that I am not psychic. No way. Hell, I’ve never even called that Jamaican lady on television, mon. But this guy’s voice, or his thoughts, were coming through loud and clear. Now don’t ask me how I knew they were coming from the guy sitting in the van conversion, and don’t ask me how the hell I could hear what he was thinking.

I just could, that’s all.

And it dawned on me that he was going to snatch this perky little blonde. I couldn’t believe it. I sat there with my hands locked on to my steering wheel just watching the girl. Everything seemed to just kind of happen in slow motion, you know? Now, I’ve heard the stories of people placed in life threatening situations and such, when they say that everything just kind of goes into slow motion for them, and well, frankly, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how the hell a person’s perception could be that altered without a good hit of LSD or something. But here it was happening, two supernatural phenomenons for the price of none, and not a mood or mind altering substance in the house.

Then I saw the van’s side door slide open, and before you could say ‘Pop goes the One-Eyed Wonder Weasel’ that blonde was sucked into that van.

And I could hear that guy again...I slapped my hands over my ears, I didn’t want to hear it, but I heard it anyway...

You fucking cunt! I hate your fucking guts! You bit me! You bit me you bitch!

Damn you, you bitch! Here, I smash and smash and smash and smash...

Then everything kind of went swirly on me, you know, like when you’ve had too many Long Island Iced Teas and are lying there watching the ceiling spin. I heard once that when that happens, you just put one foot on the floor, and by cracky if it doesn’t stop the swirls! Of course its been years since I actually had to apply that little tidbit of information to my own life, but I never forget a good tip.

Anyway, the next thing I know this van’s pulling out of the parking lot and I look around and I don’t think anybody saw what happened. Except for me, I saw it. For a half a second I thought I ought to take down his license number, call the cops, and continue on with my Milwaukee trip. But then I thought that by the time they ever found the van, it would be too late for that poor girl. I mean, after all, she’s probably somebody’s daughter, or fiancee, or girlfriend, or some type of family association like that and well, If I didn’t do something I just don’t think a person could look a next of kin in the eye and say that they did all that they could, you know?

Man, talk about your snap decisions. I pulled out, real inconspicuous like.

And I followed him.

Now I don’t own a cell phone. I’ve heard the stories of people who now have tumors the size of baseballs on the side of their head due to talking on them things all the time. They’re radioactive or something like that. Microwaves or some shit. I guarantee you some day the government’s going to issue a statement saying that cell phones are a health hazard, and they’ll be taken off the market. You know how the government is, first they tell you microwave ovens are safe around pacemakers, and after a few old geezers seize up at the local convenience store they say ‘Oops! We were wrong!’, you know, stuff like that. I just know they’re going to issue a statement regarding these cell phones. That’s why I don’t own one. Because I don’t want a tumor sticking out the side of my head. I’ve seen those things, they look like giant pieces of popcorn.

Anyway, no cell phone, so no call to the cops. I needed to follow this guy and try to get the girl myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no superhero or anything like that, just a plain old regular guy in a minivan, you know? But I couldn’t stand to think of what that guy in the van would do to her if I didn’t try and get to her first.

He got onto the freeway and I stayed right with him. And I’ll be damned if them psychic waves didn’t blast that guy’s thoughts right into my head...

Shut your pie hole back there, damn you. Am I gonna have to gag you? Am I. Fuck! I'm pulling this thing over.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I could hear the girl or anything. It’s not like I was there inside the van with them, seeing everything that was going on. But I could hear what this guy was thinking, or maybe it was just what he was yelling at the girl. Hell, I don’t know. Freaked me out, though. Really messed with me. And I saw him flip on his blinker and head for the exit.

It was just one of those rest stops. One of those places with the bathrooms that had wet concrete floors that smelled like piss, and the little patches of grass where varicose-veined women in shorts smoked cigarettes while watching their little lap dogs squat at the end of their leashes, and where truckers pulled over for naps, and where you could usually score some pretty good dope, if you knew who to look for.

Anyway he pulled to the very end of the parking lot, and me, not wanting to be obvious or anything-you know how I am about that-I pulled up to the bathrooms. And then I could hear him again...

Now shut your little mouth you bitch! I hate you! This'll keep you quiet! If this don't keep you quiet then nothing will.

I always like to say that...that and ‘fuck 'em’...

And then it cut out. Kind of like a radio transmission, it just went dead. I looked over at the van and saw it kind of rocking back and forth a little, like there was something going on inside, but I couldn’t hear anything inside my head, you know? Made me think of those old bumper stickers that read: If This Van’s a Rockin’ Don’t Come a Knockin’.

Now, sitting up there on the curb, not ten feet from where I was parked, were a couple of pay phones. Nobody was using any of them, heck, the rest stop was practically deserted. Not even your regular squatting lap dog. But I wasn’t about to get out of my minivan and take the chance that he might run off. Then where would I be? And where would that perky little blonde be? Up a dad-gum creek, that’s where.

I was her only hope. Her only chance.

And by cracky if the van didn’t reverse out of the parking space and head back onto the freeway. So I followed him. I tried to stay a car or two behind so that he wouldn’t catch on to me. I started wondering what this guy had in mind, and well, shit, that really didn’t take no stretch of the imagination. I’ve had my share of perky little blondes and so I know what this guy had in mind. Unless he was some kind of sicko or something. Which, when I thought about it a little more, figured he probably was.

We drove for probably another good half an hour. We were just cruising up I-5, hay fields whizzing by, cows, farms, that kind of thing. The freeway between Sacramento and Redding is pretty much a straight shot through good old Hay Bale and Cow Manure City.

My head was quiet for a long time, and then all of a sudden, just jolting me awake like my Mama’s leather belt strap, this guy’s thoughts busted into my head again. This time I got kind of scared...

Aw, what the fuck is this shit? Is this numbfuck following me? What the fuck? Who the hell does he think he is? Dick fucking Tracy? Fucking Superman? This fucking guy. Who the hell is this? Batman?

Shit. If you are following me, boy, you be in a heap of shit. A big hairy, stinky pile of mother fucking donkey shit...

At that point I had to make a decision. I mean, really, what had I been thinking? That I was going to follow this guy to his lair? That I was going to just jump out the next time he pulled over and rescue the girl?

I had to make another snap decision. Was I really going to go through with it? Or not?

Then he changed lanes without blinking. Just zipped across the freeway and headed for the exit ramp.

I decided to follow him. When we were off the freeway and onto what the sign said was the Scenic Route, his voice boomed inside again...

Yeah. You is following me, ain't ya?

Ain't that right, sweetheart?...

Then he pulled over. We were out in the middle of nowhere, really, and there was nothing but rolling hills of green grass, hay bales, and the musky aroma of bovine manure all around us. The sun was gone but it was still light out. Some people like to call it Twilight, but in my family we called it The Gloaming.

I pulled over right behind him.

So there we were, on the shoulder of this long stretch of potholed byway. Me, the psycho with the van conversion, and the perky little blonde. And do you know I had another psychic flash at that moment? I didn’t hear anything inside my head, but I actually _saw_ something. I saw him pull a tape out of his tape player. And you know what? I’ll be damned if it wasn’t an eight track. Hah! Don’t that just beat all? This psycho with the van conversion and the perky little blonde had a fucking eight track tape player. Man! All these high school memories flooded back into my head. Summers cruising in the Nova, listening to Boston, or Van Halen-the old Van Halen, the first album, you know, Runnin’ with the Devil and Jamie’s Crying and all those classics-and I remembered what a pain in the ass those eight tracks were. There you were, rocking out to a great guitar riff by the master himself, and then it fades out. Right in the fucking middle, it fades out! Then you had to wait, while the track changed with its fucking loud click, and then the riff faded back in.

Man I hated that.

That’s probably why this guy was crazy. You would be too, if in this day in age-the age of the compact disc-you had to listen to your tunes on an eight track tape player.

And then he gets out of his van, and starts stomping toward me. Well, you know the first thing I did was look to see if he had anything in his hands, a gun, or a bat, or something. But he didn’t. He just starts marching toward me. Big fucking grin on his greasy fat face. He was completely bald with a tatoo of some kind of bird right on the top of his head. Can you believe that? That must’ve hurt. He tromped over and I saw his chain swaying back and forth from his biker wallet. He didn’t have a shirt on, just one of those leather biker vests.

A real intimidating guy. If you’re easily intimidated.

I’m not. I just smiled at him as he came back to me. He stood outside my door with his hands on his hips and motioned for me to roll down my window, so I did.

"You following me?" he barked at me. His voice was nothing like the one I had been hearing inside of my head this whole time, and it really threw me for a loop. But what was really funky was this dude’s breath. Smelled like shit. Really, smelled just like shit.

"Yep," I said, then added, just as an amusing afterthought: "You smell like shit."

He reached over and tried to yank my door open, but I’m not a stupid guy, it was locked. So he reached for me through my window.

And I pulled up my .44 and stuck it into his mouth.

Hah! I’ve never seen such a look on someone’s face before. Boy was he ever surprised.

"Step the fuck back," I said to him.

So he did.

And I shot him in the face. Man, what a mess that was. Dirty Harry was right. You ever see that movie? The original Dirty Harry? The one where he tells that poor guy lying amidst the garbage cans that the .44 would blow his head clean off?

Well, he wasn’t lying.

Old Baldy the Biker Wannabe with the van conversion and the eight track player found that shit out real quick that evening. That tatooed bird done flew the coop in about eight pieces.

So I got out of my minivan and hopped into the van conversion and there was the perky little blonde lying in the back, on the floor, while Baldy the Biker Wannabe was lying out in the street with his head splattered all over the Scenic Route. She was all tied up and kind of bleeding here and there. She looked at me with such gratitude. I’d never seen a look like that in anyone’s eyes before.

Then again, I’d never rescued a perky little blonde from the big bad wolf before, either.

I took her gag off and she thanked me and asked if I would please untie her. She said that her arms were numb.

"Nope," I said to her. "Can’t do that." Then I hopped out of the van, looked around and made sure that we were all alone out there, just me and her and what was left of Baldy, and I threw her into the back of my minivan and took her home. I ended up having to gag her before we reached I-5. Bitch wouldn’t stop screaming.

Do they ever?

When we got back to my place I took her down into the basement and introduced her to the other girls and showed her her new spot. And I’ll just bet you can’t guess who she was replacing? Another perky little blonde! The last one just sort of withered on me, and she was starting to stink, so I had to get rid of her. Man, this one screamed and screamed and screamed. If she wasn’t gagged, the neighbors might have heard something. But she was. And they didn’t.

I went upstairs and made some microwave popcorn.

You know, I haven’t had any type of psychic experience like the one I had with old Baldy the Biker Wannabe since that day. Once in a while, if I close my eyes real tight, and concentrate real hard, I can hear the girls downstairs screaming through their gags. But then, that ain’t no psychic experience, that’s just good ears.

Man, I really gotta take a trip to Milwaukee and personally visit the guy who invented this new brand of microwave popcorn. Howie. Yeah, that’s his name. It really is good. And while in Milwaukee I’ll just have to visit that brewery with the drinking fountains that dispense beer.

Must be like Heaven.

©2002 Marc Sanchez

Since his first tale was published in September of 2001, three of Marc's stories have been recommended for the Bram Stoker Award and two have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His works can be found in Zines like Alternate Realities, Art of Horror, Bewildering Stories, Dark Legacy, Dark Moon Rising, Deviant Minds, Expressions, Gothic Gossip, The Haunted, Horrorfind, Morbid Musings, Nightscapes, ShadowKeep, Sinisteria, and The Swamp. He recently completed editing the anthology "Fresh Blood: Unfamiliar Wounds on the Body of Horror" and is working on his new novel "Skinny Lions." Marc lives on the Oregon Coast with his wife, Kari and their daughter, Acacia.