Johnny Merkin was asleep. A hard sleep. The sleep of the bitterly exhausted. He had been experiencing insomnia for a couple weeks now. Two or three hours of sleep for three days and then a hard crash like this one would wash over him, He normally slept 10 to 14 hours on one of these soul worn thin crashes. But he was only four hours into his slumber when a scratching sound from the window slowly brought him back awake with a profound feeling of regret. Of a dream paradise lost. It took serious effort to open his eyes to see what the hell that noise was. He nearly jumped out of bed when he saw a scarecrow scratching at the window with hands made out of dry straw. Ragged dirty clothes from seasons of dust and rain. Expressionless face with large blue glass beads for eyes. Johnny bolted up right with wide eyes. The scarecrow gestured for him to open the window but Mr. Merkin was suspended in a prolonged moment of shock. A raven landed on the window sill with a joint in it's mouth. It exhaled a big cloud of what smelled like quality. Johnny unlocked and slid the window open. The raven hopped forwards and stuck it's neck out. A big joint, billowing delicious smelling smoke. Johnny pulled the joint from it's beak and he took a long draw. It tasted so good and after holding the smoke in he exhaled and the taste was stronger. He could not even describe the taste, and with a flash a strong high went through him. He handed the joint back and said that he already has had enough. The raven smoked it down to nothing and between big puffs he told him what's up. "This Scarecrow is a shaman. A former human tra.0nsformed to a Scarecrow but not truly dead, for the straw chest contains his mummified heart. And with the solemn apologies the need dictates, you are being put under a geas. A magic order that you have no choice but to follow, or you will die". Merkin could not doubt this, for a talking raven and a walking and really scary Scarecrow where right here and he could feel his will being subverted. Fear and awe flowed through Johnny like electricity.
"What do I have to do?". "You shall go to a abandoned farmhouse in eastern Kansas where a phone awaits on the kitchen table. You will get a text on what to do next when you pick the phone up". "But where is this house?". "Go to the only bar in Ixt Kansas and tell the Man with an eye patch the raven sent you". With that the bird flew onto the Scarecrow's shoulders and the Scarecrow walked away. Johnny watched them til they disappeared in the shelter belt behind his house. He brewed up coffee and cooked some eggs, bacon and toast and ate in shocked numbness. A adventure had begun and Johnny didn't expect he would succeed. But the magic spell left him no choice. He thought about what to bring as he took a shower and dressed in one of his less worn outfits.
Johnny has packed a little gear and he's driving down lonesome country roads in Western Kansas, field and small town country. There are old abandoned farmhouses that have probably stood vacant for decades. A pleasant landscape with dust bowl era shelter belts still beside the road. He takes a few pictures with his phone. Along the way he sees a old beat up truck weaving in and out of both lanes. Johnny gears himself up to swerve and try to avoid a collision but he gives his odds at 50/50. But the truck nearly hits his car head on. He swerves hard right and the redneck swerves hard left. The truck fish tails dangerously regains control and moves on. The driver flipping him the middle finger like it was his fault. Not a good Omen for future events, Johnny thinks. His mind was muddied with paranoid thoughts about having to deal with these ultra right wing small town rednecks.
The bar is not hard to find, in such a small town there's no place for it to hide. A run down bar that probably saw it's glory days in the 1970s,
Johnny had been driving since he left the bar. This abandoned farmhouse is hard to locate even with descent instructions. He had passed the weed over grown drive way that led to a grove of young trees hiding the house in the dark of night. It took a couple more slow drives past the house to find it. The yards trees looked about 7 or 8 years old, the drive way was almost erased by the weeds. The is where that smart phone is supposed to be waiting for him. He parked on the other side of one of the older bigger trees that has fallen onto the driveway. Burned and twisted from a lightning strike probably a few years ago. As his walk neared the house he heard a dog growling behind him. He turned to see a stout Doberman pincer snarling menacingly. He said "Your a nice dog", but the beast wasn't buying it. Johnny backed up slowly cooing to the snarling dog and it began to bark viciously. Johnny glanced at the house, only twenty feet to go and hopefully the door is unlocked or previously kicked in by kids. He turned and ran for the house and the dog howled and charged. He was slowed down by the ajar door being swollen and hard to open. The dog bit him in the calf and the pain was intense. He kicked the dog out of the doorway and close the door. The Doberman was snarling and barking, jumping on the door over and over again. When he was sure the dog was trapped outside he turned and looked around. The abandoned house is thrashed by parting teenagers with beer cans scattered all over. pantry's in the corner covered in cobwebs. Phone on the table as promised, an old Samsung note 2. Sure enough it still has a charge and it vibrates from an incoming text......Meanwhile the dog barks savagely outside.
Congratulations, you have made it this far. Not that you had any choice, sorry but too much is at stake to give you one. Your mission is to drive to the rolling hills of Jestin county. follow the hills alongside the river. There will be a flat space amongst the hills with an old run down depot from the 1920's. You will wait there for a ghost train. There is a ticket to get onboard on the table. Leave the car, take the train to the third depot it pulls up to. Get out there. The phone dies before the next incoming text arrives. Johnny puts the train ticket in is wallet. He has a car battery charger that fits this phone in the car. But first he must get past that vicious dog or wait for it to leave. He ends up falling asleep on the trash strewn couch after pushing the debris to the floor. It is amused to see an old condom sticking to the wall with the reservoir tip hanging down like a bowed head. When he wakes up in the morning there is no sign of the dog. He picks up some rocks that where hurled to bust windows to throw at the dog if it appears. He quickly makes his way to his car starts it up. He plugs the phone he found to the car charger and begins driving to the rolling hills after checking a Kansas map he goggled up. Some of the fields he passes have become feral from neglect and they have prairie grass growing tall in them. Fields with young trees as tall as a Man.
Johnny has to win a living spider eating contest in order to win the junk car the people throwing the keg party are giving away. He needs it to escape the town before the town is destroyed by a train derailing that is holding tons of toxic waste. He got a text warning him about this upcoming event. The town is filled with pastel yellow butterflies who seem to have gathered here to mate. The locals claim they come here to mate once a year from "Other here's". Entering the town a large group of stray dogs followed him acting aggressive. Now these strays will not allow him to leave the town. On foot they will kill him the only way out is in a vehicle. The people are creepy here. They seem to all be on some drug, probably Meth. Turns out its this strange swamp root that grows in the area and people have been using it for generations. It's a crazy drunken night when the living spider contest goes down. Lots of free beer that Johnny don't know is mixed with that odd wet lands swamp root. the man presiding over the spider eating contest is local send me famous personality Daniel Fergis. He gets pretty deliriously high on the root beer. All kinds of spiders in jars with dipping sauces like barbeque and ranch and soy in plastic bowls to help the squirming biters go down. Johnny somehow wins and eats a nightmarish amount of spiders. He vomits after winning but that is allowed. The people cheer the victorious stranger and offer him more root beer that he declines. He is so fucked up and still feeling sick but he has the car, quickly signed over and the keys. He just needs to come down enough to drive in a straight line. So he watches the main event. The car race going circles around the town but centering on the main street. Breakneck speed. One guy gets clipped by a out of control car but he gets back up limping claiming he is Ok. One bad wreck, the driver pulled out bloody and unconscious. The contest ends and the driver emerges victorious, they hand him a gold coated sword and attack him. He runs and swings, injuring a couple dudes and killing one guy. It's all the losers attacking him with tire irons and fighting knives. No guns permitted for this contest. They end up ganging up on him and killing him brutally. Ok, Johnny is fucked up but still ready to go. He sputters the car to life and drives out of that small town. The coywolves are still standing guard but they part when he car speeds by them. The engine ticks and the car sputters often making him pump the gas to keep it going.
After escaping the feral dog pack in the spider eating contest town Johnny only makes it about four miles before the junk car he won sputters out and dies. He gets out and walks and a banged up truck pulls up and asks if he needs a ride. So he gets in. The driver, a red neck young Man with a shaven head says he is going to Lawrence to catch the Black Circle concert. Along the ride he gets a text from the raven warning him not to get into the truck he is riding in with the simple message its a trap. Johnny uses the opportunity he gets when the man stopped by a liquor store to get a 12 pack Whilst the guys getting the beer inside the store Johnny fleas the truck and hides in town he notices the guy is driving all over looking for him.
Johnny drives through the beautiful rolling hills following the instruction from the text on the phone he got from the abandoned house. This landscape has an ancient energy to it. Johnny drives with the windows down taking in the fine fresh air. He has a incomplete message but it should get him to the depot, hopefully the signal is not dead there. He sees a bald eagle dramatically dive to the field below and rise again with a long green snake in it's claws.
Jestin county's a beautiful place. It looks the backdrop of a old western where cowboys and Native Americans faced off in battles. The dirt road gets fucked and more fucked up as he goes. Rattling his teeth with harsh bumps that can't be good for the car he won. Smoke curling out from underneath his hood. The heat gauge is near the burn out level. He pulls over and starts walking.
When Johnny's phone connection dies midtext he only gets that he is to go to the rolling hills and get on a ghost train. So he does, but 10 minutes into the train ride the phone that is so old it didn't save the text gets it back. Make sure not to get on the first train, because that one is the train to hell. Get on the second one. The doors won't open he can't fit through the windows. The train is full of the damned riding to hell. But they seem unaware that they are hell bound. At some point a fight breaks out between the right wingers and the antifa. A guy gets thrown into the wall of the train so hard the wall breaks and the Man's body rolls out gets caught under the wheels and is ripped apart with ghastly screams. Johnny escapes through the hole escaping serious harm by the cushion of massive jimsonweed plants. He is near a river with big gently rounded hills all around. No sign of human life, no buildings, no sound of cars or planes. To fail the Geas is to die, and Johnny is really frightened he has lost his way. Johnny is lost in a alternative reality Kansas. Goal: to escape the train before it takes him to hell.
After escaping the hell bound ghost train Johny ends up in an alternative world Kansas which he is trying to get to Kansas proper again. Tall sandstone cliffs with massive geogylphs of stange creatures and ceremonies, manually carved caves, sometimes high up to the cliff wall, probably there was a wooden walkway stairway system here once. once along his walk he hears an eerie flute of some unknown culture echoing through the Sandstone Cliffs we never discovers who made the sound. he finds Flint Spearhead while sleepwalking this strange wilderness. finally in the distance he hears a sound of traffic and he walks that way to an interstate using Google Maps Define season Kansas in can figure out how to do the long walk back to the depot P text the raven a few times so far no answer Goal: Get back to his version of Kansas.
Now that Johnny is back in this Is dimension of Earth and Kansas He sets himself about the long walk back to the abandoned depot. He catches a ride But they argue about politics and the guy pulls a gun and stops the truck ordering Johnny out.
Just the difference of a few steps and suddenly Johnny can hear traffic coming from over the tall round hill in front of him. He turns around and the landscape behind him has changed. It's standard fields of produce and cows when before it was a mostly untouched landscape. He walks up the hill to see a four lane road ahead, a few cars speeding this way and that down it.