Devil's Playground by D. P. Lyle Page B

Post Office, whose lot was an ocean of gold. Swinging the car door open, he gingerly stepped onto the golden surface. It bubbled and spewed as if it were molten. Astonished that he did not sink into the cauldron, he walked toward a cobalt blue air conditioner compressor. The liquid gold beneath his feet leaped around his ankles and released puffs of golden mist with each step.
    He leaned over the compressor and swept his hand behind it, searching. For what? He had no idea, but he knew it was there.
    The mist crept up his arm and sinuously encircled his head. He inhaled deeply, relishing its cool, sweet taste.
    His hand brushed against something. That’s it. He lifted the plastic bag. It emitted an intense scarlet light that caused him to squint, turn his head away. His fingers played over the bag, feeling the hard object inside, no recognition.
    He returned to his car.
    West of town, he left the paved county road and followed an unnamed dirt road, used mostly by the four-wheeling, dune buggy crowd, for a mile, before parking near a rocky escarpment. He stepped from the car and scanned his surroundings. The iridescent orange sky painted the desert floor a rich rosy color. Brilliant blue clumps of sagebrush, tangerine tumbleweeds, black Cholo cacti, and large emerald boulders dotted the landscape.
    His numbed senses did not record the chill of the night air, nor the yips of young coyotes secreted in a nearby lair, nor the scratching of the scorpion that scurried across his boot.
    His focus moved to the south, where a cluster of thirty homes draped over a slight rise in the flat terrain. The sleeping community displayed few lights and no signs of activity. To his retinas, the houses appeared as splatters of ocher and dark green with dollops of navy blue, smeared in elaborate swirls as if in motion, each structure losing its identity into the next.
    From the Technicolor chaos, a single home retained its identity, a blood-red beacon in the storm of hues. He didn’t recognize the house though he knew he had been there many times. He wound his way through the blue Sage and black Cholos toward the pulsing ruby light.
    One part of his brain screamed at him. Turn back, go home, it pleaded. He wanted to, sensed that he must, but he couldn’t abandon the mesmerizing beacon, which pulsed in time with the thumping in his chest as if it paced his heartbeat, controlled every vital function. Without it, he feared his heart would stop, his body would wither. He would cease to breathe, to exist.
    Yet, he knew he must turn and flee. If not, he would be irrevocably changed. How, he didn’t know, but he sensed his mutation would be profound, miring him in a web of unspeakable horror and sin.
    He stopped, took a step back, then another. The scarlet beacon seemed to tighten its grip. With great effort, he managed two more steps of retreat. Another. Two more. Tears streamed from his eyes as he felt he might break free. He thought of home, of Margo, of his son and grandchildren in Chicago. Another two steps. The beacon’s hold on him weakened even as his own strength grew.
    Then suddenly, he stood before the throbbing crimson house. How did he get there? He must have walked the 400 yards that had separated him from where he now stood, but he had no memory of doing it.
    As the realization that he was powerless against the magnetic force that held him, that drew him, he began to tremble, resigning himself to whatever fate awaited him.
    Why was he brought here? He had no idea. Whose house did he stand before? He knew, but right here, right now, couldn’t recall who lived there.
    An hour later, he returned to his car, retraced his route through town to the post office lot, into his neighborhood, and suddenly found himself standing in his bathroom, staring in the mirror.
    The brilliant colors that had invaded his world dissolved into drab reality. Gone were the red orange walls that pulsated and wheezed like a dying man. Gone were the flashes of