THE DOOMSDAY DEATH CULT ORGY part 1

Dylan passes the Ballantine's into the front seat. I knock back a slug, and pass it to Martine. She's driving, so only has a quick snort. Women drivers. They're so responsible. I hand the bottle back and study the map by the glovebox light. Outside, dark trees lean in, whisking by our windows, as rabbits make their sudden, manic-depressive lunges for the wheels of our speeding car. The full moon flashes between the treetops on its inexorable path towards a lunar eclipse.

"It's on Saxon Beach Road," says Bing, taking a slug and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He passes the bottle to Lorenzo. Bing, the Googlemeister, has isolated the exact position of our destination using Google Earth. It appeared on the computer screen as a strange, circular shape with short spokes radiating from it like thick leaves. An exotic succulent, it sits atop the contour lines of the satellite imaging, sublimely imposed at the centre of a topography that takes in a river, an inlet, and a long, pristine beach that runs the length of a national park to a granite-peaked mountain.

You've got to love a Japanese doomsday cult. When i heard about the cult waiting patiently for the end of the world on a remote beach east of Albany, i thought it best to lay hands on whatever mind-altering substances i could find, grab some mates, and head on out there. If the world is to suddenly and literally go pear-shaped, we might as well have a scoob and catch the spaceship with the sushi people. Such was my reasoning.

According to the locals, this mysterious Japanese sect has calculated that this remote wilderness site is the only place that will survive the impending global cataclysm. Just how they arrived this conclusion is not known. Perhaps they have laid hands on Japanese translations of the works of Immanuel Velikovsky. Or perhaps they have read it in the stars, in the elliptical orbit of some far-out comet or asteroid. Either way, they are quite serious. The cult compound has been constructed. It shows up on the satellite imagery - and there's no arguing with that fact.

"Take the next left, Dempster Road," i say.
"It's on Saxon Beach Road," repeats Bing, passing the scotch.

The possibility of raiding the doomsday cult compound arose over a few pints of beer and chicken parmigiana at The Hurl. After a few more pints, we were resolved. We gathered supplies and equipment. A waterproof torch. A map, a notebook, and a bottle of whiskey from Dylan's cheap motel room. And at the last minute we stopped by my apartment for some of New Zealand's finest.

Last week i had a visit from a Maori musician, whom i last met at Mr Moon's party. A large man with an imposing personality, Ray always wears an immaculately pressed white suit with wrap-around dark glasses. Day and night. Ray came to my apartment after the pub, with my flatmate Catherine the Great Artist and Sarah Toa, the Warrior Princess. We put on loud music, danced, smoked Ray's stash, and went to a nightclub. With impeccable etiquette, Ray left behind on the kitchen table a sample of New Zealand's second biggest export to Australia - the first being, of course, New Zealanders - from which i selected for safekeeping one bud, leaving the rest to that unrepentant bohemian, Catherine the Great Artist. Never know when that might come in handy, i thought, putting the little green bomb away in a small, carved stone container. There it lay quietly for days before it became, tonight, the most necessary of our supplies for the raid on the death cult.

It's always good policy to get thoroughly loaded before storming a doomsday cult compound. Temporary insanity is the best defence, should push come to shove.

As we head out along the winding gravel of Dempster Road i begin rummaging in my coat pockets. Hello. The carved stone container is no longer there. I grab the torch and scan the floor of the car. Queens of the Stone Age. PJ Harvey. A point-and-shoot Olympus film camera. Notebook and pen. No drugs.

"Stop the car!" i yell. Martine pulls the car up in a cloud of dust on the gravel road.
"What's wrong," asks Lorenzo.
"I can't find the smoke," i say.
"What the fuck!" yells Lorenzo, launching himself out of the back door. "It must be there somewhere!" He pulls me bodily out of my seat, grabs the torch, and begins a desperate search of the interior of the car. The torchlight flashes wildly, like a laser at a Chemical Brothers gig. "Have you looked under the seat? Have you looked under the seat?" The four of us, Martine, Bing, Dylan and I, stand by the car and watch as Lorenzo's head angles upwards awkwardly, his face set in a grim expression, eyeballs rolling to and fro. His free arm waves about as he thrusts his other arm deep into the space under the front seat. "Fuck! Fuck! Have you checked your pockets?" he yells. "Check your pockets!"

He's a dark horse, i'm thinking. Never seen him like this before. "It's not there, man," i say. "I must have dropped it back at the apartment."

I take a swig of the Ballantine's, and pass it to Dylan, who takes a vehement pull on the bottle, shakes his head, and passes it on to Bing. "Let's just go," says Bing, and takes a long gulp. "It's on Saxon Beach Road." Lorenzo emerges from under the front seat and checks under the car with the torch, clearly the act of a desperate man. He straightens and stands, staring, at the offending vehicle. "We'll have to take it apart," he says.

A few kilometres later, and we are through to the main highway. The whiskey bottle continues its slow circuit of the car's interior. I offer it to Martine. "I'm driving," she says, taking the bottle. She takes a swig as she pulls out onto highway one and passes it back as she accelerates. The pine trees run by us in the moonlight. Some of them have been snapped like twigs. Last month's storm. Now THAT was a storm. I wonder what we will do when we get to the compound. The combination of a full moon and a bottle of scotch is beginning to get us fired up. This could end like Waco, i'm thinking. I make a mental note to leave the matches in the car.

"Fuck man," says Lorenzo. "Maybe it's in the hood of your jacket." He and Bing begin to tug at my jacket. I push them away. "You drug-addled fools," i say. "How could it have fallen from my pocket into the hood of my - hey! That's the turnoff!" Martine locks the brakes and puts the car into a four-wheel skid. The gears whine in protest as we reverse. The signpost glows eerie in the silent moonlight, pointing southeast. Honeymoon Road. The map clearly shows it leads down to Saxon Beach Road. With some late-night cross-country scrambling through steep terrain, we should be at the doomsday cult before midnight. Martine looks at me askance. I nod. She shifts into gear. I hear the bitumen crunch as we turn southeast.

to be continued