The Trance Terrors by R.K. Galvez (pdf to ebook reader txt) 📕

 "O.K., Johnny. Thanks for your riddle-scat-chat. I’m assuming that’s where I'll find this Turk fellow and Regor Nocab?"

 "Maybe, who knows?"

Quagga smiled, a crooked reptilian smile, as he suddenly started to fade.

 "Don't go Johnny; tell me something useful. I’m sure I’ve got some aspirin? Don't I need some spells?"

 "Don't go nuts, use them. Use the seeds, Les Barloy!"

 That was the last thing that was spoken to Les. Johnny Quagga vanished. And the dais had also gone -- somehow it mysteriously evaporated -- as if it had been part of another world. In the place of the dais was a huge skull doorway.

 Les felt scared; he had been warned about taking those steps, years ago, on that unknown path. He still got his left-handed and right-handed paths mixed up. He was not that experienced and regretted leaving Shemesh Lodge so early. He always wanted to be experienced....He wished he had least taken that nice looking synth-harp. It was all lost to him.

 The aeons eased by in this earthen realm as Les stumbled through the tunnels that had veered behind the skull doorway. He was trying to remember where he had put his seeds. He felt the world around him ending. Maybe it was a lot of worlds ending.

 Then he saw another little door, much like the little door in the Good Ship. Thank goodness for that. Back to a world he might remember; back to Norky; back to his roots. Maybe he could battle the Blood-Harpies.

 …Les found no weapons but removed his fine Arabian slippers to squash them like flies. He found the dress a tad uncomfortable. And Les had donned a lot of dresses before, so he needed to modify this one to his slight frame. He had ripped off the trailing hem and turned into a snazzy micro-skirt of some kind. He had endless repeats of The Saint running through his brain. He forgot to take his meds again too.  

 Oh well, thought Les, as he pushed through yet another little door…

 Chapter 21: More from The Everlasting Year of The Bracket[…]…Anti-Probe Matter Type 0…

 "So, Mister Barloy, you get a kick out of this?"

 Les Barloy looked up; his face flecked with tiny scars, his mascara running down his small, soft elfin face. He looked like a girl called Florence. He never had any assistance from a machine [the Electrika Carmena might count, though…]… He had never been a nightingale, either; he was alone here…

 …Barloy had grown accustomed to these demons terrorizing him from beyond this foul pzionik ectoplasm; he might just be starting to enjoy it all. Les Barloy feared this. There was nothing worse than demon porn. Les noticed that his anus had already been heavily probed: blood and alien pus dribbled down his legs; the smell of mutated lubricant was strong in the air…It was no secret that Les Barloy loved to be restrained but this was not bondage-lite; he took his probing seriously…Les needed goats blood to finish his own rituals…He needed a sanitary towel, too…

 THE SURGE OF SUFFERING IN THE SOUL CORRUPTS THE SOUL.

 …The mocking laughter continued deep in his mind; the voice tormented him no more. Les felt that the astro-metal bonds had vanished and he was no longer tied to the smouldering plinth. He must be in some other world again; he had dreamed this for a while, it was like some unexplainable recurring dream. Just as well it turned out to take him somewhere. Sometimes Les just wanted a bit of cold fresh air, not all this uncontrolled astral masturbation. He had never been one for networking. The sky was blood red and the sun was blocked out by a giant moon. A moth bigger than Mothra hovered past him, flapping in a confused moth-like way; Les thought he should try to make some kind of connection. The planet was just like hell.

 Les loved it. It was cold, but very quiet. There wasn't much else around. Les was not alone for long, he always found friend, no matter what world he ended up on. The August Ham Man came up with his friend, The Midnight Pharmacy Lemonade Drinker. Les had an idea that this was himself from some other dimensional time space. It all got a bit predictable. Les had always appreciated one love-ism and had known love will always be the law. He was an amateur occultist really and he got lucky with his astral shenanigans.

 Oh what fun he must have had! He was alive on some weird world that he was unable to comprehend. 

 Days of the Empirical Dark Sun [The Unofficial Appendix in B.S.E.]:

 …The appendix was destroyed by C.O.G. agents in 1991 in a crude attempt to censor it. Operation Shut Up and Sleep-Dance Trancers remains active…psychologically speaking, they remained hardcore junglists, raving about all sorts…What would Jung say today, though?

…Those psychotropic ravages of the mind need not be delivered on demand…It would take me much more time to find out…Only fragments of the real article remain [in a hidden location, of course...]...Part of the appendix was extracted from a pickled brain, re-using excerpts from 'The Unbelievable Chronicles of The August Ham Man' by Tommy Tellman (First published in the now defunct esoteric magazine, ‘Dark Masques’, September 1939)... I do not know where this cult started, or how I should start researching it…Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick, but they all give me stick...

 Z.F. Galvez [1750-1820],  Brixton, London, 2010.

 AUGUST HAM MAN SEES THE DEAD WORLD

 by Tommy Tellman.

[Editor’s note: About 90% of the manuscript was destroyed but there remained a few pages, before Tommy Tellman went on holiday with the great Anton Szander LaVey…]

 …I looked up and saw the crystal city melt away. I didn't want to be a mushroom man with a watermelon head. I don't get it. Why did I turn to fungus again? I refuse to be a bogeyman! I reckon it must have been that defective foot powder. I hate getting athlete’s foot so much but when you’re on the town as much as me, something’s got to give! Yep, I needed to get a grip and keep living it up after all those kid-spores in that other dimensional. It was quite near Jupiter (via Arnos Grove, as you do on the Friday rush hour drivetime…).

 …You do not know how tough it is for a failed person -- such as myself -- to start moulding all over again. I keep living for all these cycles…Buggo they call me, Herbie, Ratty…All these daft beings I have lived through… I even tried my hand at every kind of silly occupation: from doing work as a bit-part actor; cleaning multi-millionaire politicians' offices; pleasing super-rich people with sexual favours; being a disc jockey[my hairdo is still the Eldon-esque ‘disc jockey’]; a depressed stand-up comedian (…You should have seen it when I hanged myself on stage, that really brought the house down…Soho does that to you, though…); and, of course, a sailor (Steady on soldier!...).

 I cannot recollect why I transformed into this August-Ham Man fellow…I think it seems to be a poor superhero name… No branding can be attached to it; the marketing department and associated advertisers immediately committed suicide by crucifying themselves on crosses made from wooden spoons from fast food outlets…The lifeblood of advertising hordes…The only point of worth and power of this curious being was having hallucinogenic blood…And the old head swells up to the size of a watermelon…Both ends, of course…

 …I looked out at this foul hell-realm. The shopping malls had turned to blancmange; excremental blancmange… The insect-dog-fiends seemed to be upon us; the battle had ended a century ago; it was futile to keep fighting for the sake of it.

 These odious cretins seemed to be like some kind of on-going plague. Just like the ten million deluded people that keep voting Tory. Hypocrites...Thankfully, it does not get worse like that earth-realm. 2457AD was the year of Eternal Hope; humans were allowed to be adopted by giant aliens called the [censored]…

…I needed to do something to help Les and Norky. Another world was going to end again; the C.O.G. was stopping this idyll before it seeped through to all realms. I noticed the insect dogs were decomposing as they took small bites out of my fungoid flesh…My only assistant was my benefactor the Midnight Pharmacy Lemonade Drinker who was dressed like some kind of Victorian gentleman. His creaky tight catamite breeches made him stand still like a statue…

…It was a weird time for doing fancy-dress in space, but this guy was as cool as a cucumber person. We all like cucumber people. He had just been to a Whirligig which led us rain dancing; we needed to find another slip-portal called XoX and avoid any more Tyme-Pyres...In the moonlight they don chromium sheaths…I turned to that laconic Midnight Pharmacy Lemonade Drinker…I did not have any new information for him…He had a good idea what was going on; he was pleased he had lysergic bubbles in the lemonade…As you know, it has always been fashionable to dance under the moon… 

"Any ideas?" I asked him.

 He smiled, shaking his head whilst lighting a gold-seal cigarillo. He looked a little bit queer, pouting to puff out smoke rings. I decided not to be funny about it. Thank goodness it was not the fifties, I thought. And I liked the cut of his jib, too…He always had a secret smile. There was some chemistry there, but I do not want to be making a fool of myself. These moments can be slightly [semi]sonic. It made me feel warm inside. We passed the time comparing our bushes, although stomach felt like a suitcase full of razorblades. At least we laughed it all off!

 “Let’s just see where we get too,” replied the Midnight Pharmacy Lemonade Drinker.

I was starting to secrete poisonous fluids again. Only Norky was immune to this fluid. The Midnight Pharmacy Lemonade Drinker's real name was Johnny. He had also been called Les. When my poison touched him he turned back into this strange tramp-like character called Johnny Quagga.

The insect-dogs fizzled away into piles of bubbling detritus. It was turning into an insect-dog holocaust. Johnny Quagga had returned; I would have to wait years for the Victorian costume to appear again…Now he was a grubby, crusty, hippy…  

 THE AUGUST HAM MAN TRAVELS WITH THE QUAGGA GURU TEC:

 The Midnight Pharmacy Lemonade Drinker did not re-appear for another one hundred and fifty years. It was always a century-long problem with these cyclical folk…The sun never shined, the weather was [censored]… That always gets to be the problem with time: who knows what these realms hold for any of us entities? We are all entities at the end of the day.The world-realm had not died instantly; it was more interested in creating a tough, hostile, environment for all of the current life-forms in situ, through a series of freak mutations…Insects spliced with decomposing komodo dragons; komodo dragons copulating with tapirs. Anarchy was in the air. The planet was a mutated custard doughnut…They were intoxicated upon that invincible euphoria a dying planet can radiate. Only the dry wit of the Quagga-Guru baffled them.

 "They won't do a thing, this poison's lovely!" he belched.

 "I think you're trying to use my poison, aren't you?”

He looked at me with a stern expression. His erudite word-play was falling flat…Many of these mutants were hooked on my poison. Maybe I was in denial; I was not use to being known as a source. I tried some of my poison and dreamed I was a pop star called LaDy Buba HoTek. Her real name was Jinny… I do not know why I ended up in this body…She must have ingested something funny, too…