"Tha-" Sal started to say, then collapsed to the ground. Dead.
Tomas fell to his knees. Thunder growled in the sky, and the rain came down. He wept, pressing the gun against his temple. He stared in horror as the rain mingled with the b.l.o.o.d.y scene before him. In the morning the blood would be washed away, and the world would never know what happened here. Tomas couldn"t bear the thought of another day after this night.
He pulled the trigger.
CLICK.
Empty.
It wasn"t going to be that easy. Tomas knelt there for a moment, eyes closed, praying for all this to be some terrible nightmare. He stared at Sal"s body, then down at his own hands. He had never killed anyone before. It was all so surreal. Sal was the first person Tomas had ever met down in the streets that hadn"t judged him. Sure, Sal had been living in the alleys for so long that his mind wasn"t what it used to be, but he welcomed Tomas into his trash-strewn abode without a second thought. Tomas had been at the lowest point of his life. Homeless, penniless, no family and nothing left to live for; but Sal never pitied him, only accepted him for what he was. A man down on his luck. And Tomas repaid that kindness with murder.
Now, Tomas truly had no one.
But this was not the time for a walk down memory lane. Tomas had to do something about the bodies. It wouldn"t be long before Officer Friendly was declared missing, and when his friends at the police station came looking for him, they wouldn"t be very subtle about it. Tomas stuffed the empty gun behind his back and walked over to Sal"s body. As he leaned down to pick him up he saw something he hadn"t noticed before in the dim light of the alleyway. Sal"s face and teeth were smeared with some sort of black dye. It would be hard for anyone to keep up with their hygiene when you lived in the streets, but this was truly filthy even by Sal"s standards.
"I"m sorry buddy," Tomas whispered, "you deserved better than this. No one should die in these streets." Tomas looked back at the mangled remains of Officer Friendly. The rain was quietly sweeping the blood down a sewer drain a few feet away. Visions of his little boy"s funeral haunted Tomas" thoughts. It was a rainy night just like this one when he last saw his son alive. Did Officer Friendly have any children? Tomas wondered, was he someone"s son? Suddenly Tomas felt terrible that he never learned what Friendly"s real name was. He shook his head solemnly. "Not like this. Not like this."
Tomas knelt down and rolled Sal"s body over onto his stomach and started to go through his pockets. He wasn"t proud of looting his dead friend"s body, but living on the streets you do what you have to, to survive. He found a few loose coins and a torn dollar bill that had been taped together. Tomas couldn"t help but grin when he saw that bill. Sal always said that he kept that bill on him for good luck, that as long as he held onto it, he"d never truly be broke. "I always got this," he"d say, "might not have much else, but they"ll never take my last dollar." Poor Sal. He took that bill to his grave, but Tomas wouldn"t let that be the end. He"d hold onto it for his friend until his own time came. It was the least he could do.
Tomas picked up his friend and carried him to the dumpster. Christ, was he heavy. He couldn"t bear what he was about to do, but he had to stash the bodies somewhere, someone was bound to come looking. As Tomas laid his body down in the dumpster, one of Sal"s shoes fell off. There was a plastic bag peeking out of the heel. Tomas picked it up and shoved it in his front pocket, barely giving it a glance. If it was drugs, he didn"t have time for that now. He had to move quickly. He rummaged through the trash looking for something to wrap up Officer Friendly"s remains. He pulled out an old, ripped Phillies jersey and walked over to where Friendly lay. Even in the rain the smell nearly knocked him out. He laid the jersey on the ground beside the corpse and pushed the sickening mess onto it with his foot. Tomas wrapped up the wet remains like some deranged Christmas bundle and carried it over to the dumpster. Officer Friendly seemed a whole lot lighter with most of what was left of him sliding down the sewer drain. This was one night Tomas wished he could forget.
Standing there, the rain soaking him to his bones, Tomas gave one last look into his friend"s dead eyes and nodded a silent goodbye before closing the lid on the dumpster. The metal lid clanked shut like a tomb, the sound echoing down the alley. Tomas was sure that the earlier gunshots had chased off most of the vagrants by now, but before long the alley would be crawling with the city"s forgotten denizens one again, and he had to be long gone when they returned.
Tomas walked away from the scene, tossing the empty gun into the sewer and pulling his weather-beaten jacket over his head as the rain tapped its incessant tune. He didn"t know where he was headed. He just had to keep moving. The night opened up and swallowed him as he walked off into the dark.
In the morning, Tomas awoke with a pounding headache. As he opened his eyes he could feel the sun blaring down on him. Autumn mornings in Philadelphia were bright but cold as h.e.l.l. He was laying propped up at the corner of a building, the morning crowd milling about on their way to work, stepping over him like he wasn"t even there. Like so much in the city, everything looks different with the lights on. The slums seem to disappear in the light of day, and the homeless become nothing more than a nuisance to a bustling morning commute. Tomas could feel the stares upon him. He looked like s.h.i.t and smelled even worse, yet it was only a few months before when he had been one of them, another morning warrior who spit on those less fortunate than himself. It disgusted him to think of how shallow he once was, that if any of those heartless b.a.s.t.a.r.ds knew what was going on down in the ghettos at night they wouldn"t dare judge him.
He was starving, but Tomas knew better than to rely on the kindness of strangers in the city. Most were unwilling to part with a moment of their time let alone a dollar, and the rest couldn"t even bear to look at him. The alleys beckoned him home once again, and who was he to argue? Tomas stood up and half-heartedly dusted himself off. He had to find some food.
In a trash can behind a deli, a half-eaten cheese steak was a banquet. Tomas quickly took his find into an alley nearby and sat down to enjoy his meal. After picking off the sc.r.a.ps of newspaper stuck to it, Tomas attacked the sandwich with abandon. He couldn"t remember ever being this hungry, he didn"t even mind that it was loaded down with onions, he didn"t care. He devoured it like it was his last meal. As he sat there, he remembered the baggie in his pocket. He never did get a chance to inspect it. He pulled it out and shook its contents. It was full of black powder, and reminded Tomas of all the nights he and his mistress had spent frolicking in the copy room at his office. It looked for all the world like a bag of copy toner. Suddenly the dye on Sal"s face the night before was not so strange.
Tomas laid down the last little bite of his sandwich and popped open the baggie. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed at it. His entire body convulsed, his very bones rattled under his skin. He quickly pulled the baggie away and shook his head violently to shake off the stench. Tomas nearly choked on his tongue at the smell of it. It smelled worse than death, as if the mouth of h.e.l.l itself had vomited its most foul offering unto the world. But it was strangely familiar. It was the same stench he smelled on Officer Friendly. It wasn"t something he could ever forget, but why would Sal have a baggie full of the stuff?
"What were you into, Sal?" Tomas muttered to himself.
There were voices in the shadows. Tomas looked around. There was no one there.
"h.e.l.lo?" Tomas said, almost afraid to hear a reply.
The shadows were silent.
Tomas looked down at the bag of black powder. He had barely even took a breath of whatever it was, and already he no longer felt like himself. His head was swimming in and out of lucidity, and he found that he had to keep shaking his head every now and then just to stay conscious. The voices returned. They were less than a whisper now, but voices he knew. His wife, his son, his mistress. They taunted him with secrets, tugged at his senses, begged him to surrender. He reached into the baggie, drawing out a small pinch of the powder and brought it up to his face. Transfixed by the voices in his mind, he breathed in deep, letting the pungent aroma overwhelm his senses. It knocked him back against the wall. His eyes went wide with rapture. His chest heaved and fell. He dragged the pinch of powder across the inside of his lower lip, his tongue probing for a taste. It was sweet but gritty, like sugar sprinkled over wet earth, and tingled against his tongue. Tomas surrendered to the shadows, and their rewards aroused his very soul.
Come, the shadows commanded in his mistress" alluring voice, come to us.
Tomas could not have refused. He rose to his feet. His entire body danced under the pleasures of the black powder. He knew not what it was or where it came from, and he didn"t care. The world as he knew it had abandoned him long ago, and he no longer had any desire to return. He stood there for a moment, his senses burning on the edge of sanity, and suddenly the world was gone. He couldn"t even remember his name. Did he have a family? Would he be missed? None of that mattered anymore. He was home. Truly home.
Shadows poured out every crevice in the alley, drawing to him like a tide of vermin. The writhing dark crawled up his body, enveloping him in its deathly grasp. Know us, it whispered in his mind, though the voice was unknown to him. Be us.
Tomas opened his mouth and breathed deep. The darkness drained into his mouth like he was inhaling a long cloud of black smoke. His eyes went white. He fell to the ground unconscious.
The Dark had never known such ecstasy. Tomas" mind was so fertile. Of the hundreds it had taken, the Dark had never before found a more willing host. Tomas had surrendered completely; his body, his soul, all were at the Dark"s very behest. He moved if it demanded he move. He saw only what it compelled him to see. Its very whisper was his edict, and should it demand he lay down and die, he would do so graciously.
Tomas rose to his feet as he was commanded to. He set out from the alley, his precious baggie in his black-smeared hands, walking straight into morning traffic. Screeching tires and shouting pedestrians a.s.saulted his every move. As he looked at their faces, they seemed to twist and distort into blathering visages of madness. Their eyes were empty black pits, their skin sloughed off of their faces like a sticky paste. If they were speaking English, Tomas could not tell, it was all a garbled mess of incomprehensible sounds. He stopped in the middle of the street, growling to himself and bubbling a thin black ooze from his mouth. A curious crowd had gathered around him. They looked at him like a wild beast on the loose, but in his eyes they were the animals. Their eyes smoldered in their grotesquely twisted heads. They cackled and spat at him like h.e.l.lish hyenas.
An older man approached him with his hands out.
"It"s ok, young man," he said, "We"re gonna get you help. It"s ok."
Tomas" eyes were wild. The old man"s face melted away like candle wax. His bony jaw swung open and fell from its hinges. The words Tomas heard were the Devil"s own, and he was powerless to shut out the horrors in his mind.
"No!" Tomas gurgled, shoving the old man backward. The baggie flew from his grasp and rained its contents over the crowd like a hail of ashes.
People were screaming and digging at their own faces. A few of the crowd fell into a weeping hysteria, while others descended upon each other like rabid animals, biting and clawing at one another and shrieking in tongues. In the confusion, Tomas ran off, disappearing into the bowels of the city. He didn"t know what was real anymore, but he had to get out of there.
Later that night, Tomas found a quiet spot in a place that felt familiar, only a few doors from where he once called home, if only he could have remembered such a time. It was a nice neighborhood. Clean driveways, fresh paint and tailored lawns. Tomas felt safe here, he only wished he knew why. That life was another world, but the longer he stared into that pristine place, memories began to wash over him. His eyes twitched and strained at the sight of a small brick home just at the end of the block. He walked closer. There was a white SUV in the driveway and flowers on the lawn, lit dimly by a line of lights running up to the front door. On the facade, the numbers 1 5 6. This was home. This was my home. Tomas thought to himself. He need only knock on the door. Redemption was a mere stone"s throw away. A woman crossed in front of the dining room window and sat down at the table. She held her face in her hands.
"Susan..." Tomas whispered to himself. The name sounded almost alien to him, like it was someone else"s memory. If only he could talk to her, he thought, if only he could say how sorry he was. His feet rooted to the ground, he reached out in vain, grasping at something he could never again have.
Tomas looked at his outstretched hands. They were still caked with black powder and felt like oily sand paper. He brought his hands in close and stared into the indomitable blackness of it all, hypnotized by its ebon beauty. The darkness was calling out to him. He glanced longingly at his wife in the window. She was crying. His heart sank. He looked down again at his hands. The oily black had begun to drip from his fingers like tiny black tears, and suddenly Tomas couldn"t resist a taste. He brought his hands up and breathed in the sweet, earthy aroma. His body shuddered. All around him, the darkness came alive. There were faces in the shadows, horrible, suffering faces; and for a moment, Tomas saw his own family swirling in that d.a.m.nable black. They called to him in hideous supplication, begging for death or pleading for his own he did not know.
Tomas licked the powder from his fingers. He craved the darkness now, yearned to feel its deathly grasp and bask in its unspeakable horrors. If he ever had a life before today, he no longer cared to know. The dark was the only drug he desired; he longed for its depravity, begged for its acceptance, and the Dark was pleased to oblige.
He walked on, the darkness beckoning him into the night.
The night was growing long. He had no idea how long he had been walking, but his feet hurt and it was starting to get cold. Two men were huddled around a burning trash barrel near an overpa.s.s not far away. It looked very inviting to Tomas" cold bones. He rubbed his hands together, smearing what remained of the powder into his palms and along his fingers. He moaned at the feeling of the ichor coating his flesh in a second oily skin, could feel it writhing along his every pore.
Tomas walked over to the burning barrel and held out his hands to warm them. The fire was singing to him, its warmth bathing him in its aura. The two men looked at each other, then back at Tomas. They were filthy as the day was long, and if they weren"t homeless, they sure looked the part.
"Hey man, do you mind?" said one of them.
"Yeah, find your own spot pal," said the other.
Tomas looked them both on the eyes. Flies were buzzing from the blisters bubbling out of their sickening yellow faces, and when they spoke they dribbled rotten teeth from their lips. They were dead already. Both of them.
Tomas raised up his hands and dragged his fingers down each of their faces, marking them both with lines of warm black ash. They fell upon each other in a frenzy, tearing at each other like a pair of flesh-starved zombies. They screamed and howled, spitting blood and cursing the darkness as they fed on one another. Tomas just stood there and grinned a devilish grin, enchanted by the fire"s song and the rasping sound of rending flesh.
The darkness carried the melody well into the night.
It was early when Tomas woke. He could remember nothing of the day before. He must"ve spent the night drinking again and pa.s.sed out in the alley. He was filthy and he stank. It must"ve been one h.e.l.l of a night.
"Mister?" a voice was saying.
Tomas strained his eyes. His vision was cloudy and dark, but he could make out the figure of a boy in front of him, silhouetted against the dim light of the street beyond.
"Who is that?" Tomas begged, "Who"s there?"
"You shouldn"t be down here," the boy said, "the cops been crackin" down on the b.u.ms "round here."
"I"m not a-what? I don"t even know where here is," said Tomas, rubbing his eyes. "What are you doing here anyway?"
The boy slapped a big red sack that was slung over his shoulder.
"Paper route," the boy said, "Early to rise, momma always said."
"Papers? s.h.i.t. Is it morning already?" Tomas sat up. His eyes struggled to keep focus, his head was pounding and the stench that was rolling off of him was horrible.
The boy leaned in and sniffed at him.
"It"s got you," the boy whispered.
Tomas stared back at him. Darkness swirled all around the child, shadows grasped at the boy"s face with long, smoking fingers, curling around his hair, stroking his skin. He knew that face. Tomas" heart thudded hard in his chest. He felt his throat clenching shut.
"Ja-Jakey?" Tomas choked. His world was collapsing all around him. No. It couldn"t be. He tried to speak again but the Dark demanded he be silent.
"You"ve got the taint on you," the boy told him, "I can smell it from here."
Tomas" eyes bulged from his head, his throat burning to speak, but the words would not come. Whatever that boy was, it wasn"t Jacob, but something hideous lurking in the guise of a child. Tomas could smell the sulfur on him. The boy took a paper out of his sack and tossed it down at Tomas" feet. It landed half in a puddle. Tomas looked at him dumfounded.
The boy stared at him for a moment. Tomas looked like he had been drinking in a grave all night, or worse.
"Well it ain"t free," the boy told him.
Tomas just stared blankly.
The boy stepped up and dug through Tomas" pockets, pulling out a single dollar that was taped down the middle. Sal"s last dollar.
"That"ll do," said the boy, as he walked away with a whistle.
"W-Wait-" Tomas managed to groan, but the boy was already gone.
Tomas reached for the paper and pulled it out of the puddle. He unrolled it, straining his eyes to see. The letters squirmed on the page like soggy black snakes, the headline smoldered as smoke twisted around the edges of the paper and suffused into his nostrils.
LOCAL WOMAN DIES IN FATAL LATE-NIGHT CRASH.
The headline read. There was a photo of a white SUV that had crashed into an overpa.s.s. The entire vehicle had been horribly mangled and a black tarp had been thrown over the driver"s side door. Tomas stared at the headline for a long time. Susan. If only he had knocked on that door last night, Tomas thought; if only he could"ve swallowed his pride and resisted his own demons, she might still be alive. His body shuddered with despair.
The ink was bleeding from the page, sliming his hands. Tomas shook the paper to throw off some of the water but managed only to splash himself in the eyes. He threw the paper down and rubbed his face rigorously. Before he knew it, his face was smeared with ink.
He knew that smell.
He tried to stand but the darkness pulled him down to the ground. The shadows cackled and spat at him, hurling curses and laughter. He would have screamed had he a voice. He would have run had he the will to move. He would have fought against the Dark, but this was no longer his world. Another nameless soul swallowed by the bowels of the city. Another headline for tomorrow"s paper.
Somewhere beyond the alley, a little boy was whistling.
Back to TOC.
A lot of stimuli are-or seem-perfectly innocent. Ask yourself what"s worse: to be hooked on booze, heroin, meth or any combination thereof...or to just have a song you like a little more than what would be considered normal?
Before you answer right away, read the following tale by Armand "Hammer" Rosamilia.
Obsessed With a Song.
By Armand Rosamilia.
Jim Vanolden watched the new guy, uneasily, as he leered at the picture on his desk. "Who"s that, your girlfriend?"
At first Jim tried to ignore him. When the guy wouldn"t stop looking at the picture and was reaching out to touch it, Jim had had enough. "Don"t touch my property or I will alert H.R. and they"ll deal with you accordingly."
"Seriously? I"m just trying to make small talk. Since this is my first day up here in the rafters at this job, and since you"re the only other person up here on the top floor, I thought we might as well get along."
"I"m not here to get along. I"m here to do my job and then go home."
"That sounds absolutely...pitiful. I"m Cullen."
Jim eyed him. "My father"s name was Cullen."
"See? Already, we have something in common."
"I didn"t like my father." Jim went back to sorting through invoices. If he stopped sorting he"d get behind and have to work through his lunch. He never worked through his lunch unless he had to. "Why are you here? I"m the only one left up here." Since downsizing the corporate offices of A.R. Miller department stores in April, a good two-thirds of the staff had been let go. Jim had held onto his job because he"d never missed a day in sixteen years, never been late, had never taken any of his vacation time, and often worked off the clock until he was finished.
"I"m here for the same reason as you. Money." Cullen pointed at the picture on the desk. "You want to talk about her?"
"Not to you." Jim knew he was being rude to a fellow a.s.sociate but he didn"t care. The man was being downright rude in the first place. The workplace wasn"t the appropriate venue to be discussing non-work related issues. "I"m trying to get my work done. That"s what I"m being paid to do, not chitchat on company time."
"Sorry, buddy. Again, just trying to be friendly." Cullen walked to the office door which led to the stairs. "Maybe I"ll see you tomorrow, I think I"ll go and ask Mister Croce if he has another s.p.a.ce for me to work."
Jim said nothing, shuffling invoices into neat piles.
"By the way...I know who that picture is. Took me a second, but when I saw that it was just a photocopy from a magazine, I knew it."
Jim"s hand hovered over a pink copy of an invoice. He held his breath.
"Kimmi Klub. See you around, Jim."
The door closing was like a gunshot in the silence of the office. Jim picked up the picture frame and stared into the eyes of Kimmi Klub. Her blue eyes and bright smile filled him with love. Her strawberry blonde hair flowed over her shoulders, a small red polka dot bow on the left side of her hair. Jim had stared at this picture every day for the last sixteen years of work and for the ten before that. Kimmi had gotten him through his teen years, through the terrors and the evils of his father.
"Vanolden, how are the third quarter reports coming?" Mister Croce was a slight man who seemed like he was dressing in his father"s suits. Rarely did he venture to the top floor. Come to think of it, no one usually came up here except for Jim.