Into Painfreak

by Lee, Edward

Jessica followed him, teeth grinding. She forced her gaze away from the remains of Roulet’s head, but it was no here that Spence directed her attention.

  There was a pen in Roulet’s right hand, and one the bedsheet by his side, he’d written this word: PAINFREAK.

  “Do you have any idea what that is?” the detective asked.

  “No,” Jessica said.

  ««—»»

  Jessica stayed in a motel for the three days the police were examining the house. When she returned, she cleared the infamous yellow police tape off the front door, and found the inside in fair order, though much had been taken: all of Roulet’s computers, a good many books from the shelves, even her own laptop, which she was told would be returned “when the investigation was complete.” Dustings of purple fingerprint powder were evident. Though she only ventured a little way into Roulet’s darkened room, it was clear the chamber had been turned upside down. Several of the murky pictures on the wall were gone, confiscated, and so was the appalling painting on the dresser.

  Oddest of all was that narrow door next to the bathroom, the door sealed, Roulet had claimed, because of a past rat infestation. Police had taken the door down (and made no neat job of it) but no closet exited behind it, just house-frame and very old plywood. No evidence or a former rodent problem could be seen, no old cakes of poison, etc. It was a door to nowhere, and its location made no sense. The uneven carpet just before it had been pulled up, and the cause of the unevenness easily viewed. Not warped floorboards (the bare floor was concrete) but instead an inch-thick layer of salt.

  More salt. He’d had salt spread around the house spread every day, and even took a pouch of it to the hospital with him. A quick Google search on her phone verified her earlier idea: that salt was thought to possess protective properties such as absorbing negative psychic energy and warding off malevolent spirits. Ancient magic circles were made of salt. No unholy being could enter a salt-circle. He blocked that door with it, and kept a circle of it around his house, she reasoned. And the thing he feared the most never got him here. It came to the hospital instead…and got him there…

  Oh, well…

  She supposed she would be able to stay in the house until the power was shut off, or some legal authority sealed it for probate, but the month-plus of salary she’d earned thus far was all in the bank and would cover rent somewhere for several years. Things could be worse, she thought, but not for Roulet.

  ««—»»

  She knew it was some inner-monitor which goaded her to stay for a while: the inclination that there was something she should wait for, which proved correct several nights later, a stormy, rainy night, of all things, and at midnight.

  She came awake in the old four-poster bed to a rustling sound from beyond her room. She felt no inkling of fear when she rose and walked out, wearing only panties. The matter-of-fact thought entered her head, They’ve arrived.

  The front door stood open. A bald oriental man in a black suit was perusing the bookshelves. Jessica had seen him once before.

  “Please excuse this intrusion, miss. I’ll be brief. How this rendezvous concludes is entirely up to you.”

  “You,” she said. “You’re from that place.”

  “Indeed, I am, and here am I, here to reclaim what is mine.”

  “So. The salt around the house doesn’t work?”

  “Well enough, except when it rains.” He smiled sharp as a knife. “Edmund Roulet was steadfast with his locks and guards, but they only suffice here. We knew it was only a matter of time before some necessity forced him to leave this place. And this place, I’ll add, is something of a sacred property, one of many ancient, disused ingresses. The land this house sits on is one of them. To us, time is rather insignificant; however, that portal”—he aimed a long-nailed finger at the torn down closet door—“has existed for thousands of years. Roulet new all about it. He was, you might say, a hereditary member, the last of a long line of valued patrons. But he violated the rules, and that is unpardonable. He took from us, so we took from him.”

  “He deserved to be murdered?” she questioned.

  “Oh, but he hasn’t been murdered at all. In fact, Roulet is very much alive and always will be,” and then the man snapped his fingers, and another man appeared from Roulet’s bedroom, a tall man, cloaked in black, with a face that was a mask of scars.

  In his hands he clasped one of the “helmet”-like objects, a thing like a bucket crawling with glyphs. From inside, he withdrew a wet, skinned skull, complete with lidless eyeballs.

  “Brother Roulet will be with us always, in a very special place,” said the oriental man with a grin. But then he turned solemn. “You are an innocent, and it’s my deepest wish that we need not use our device on you, in which case you would be joining your former employer forever.”

  “I think I know what you want,” Jessica said. She disappeared to her room then returned, the SD card tweezed between index and forefinger.

  She placed it into the man’s opened hand.

  His eyes deeply searched hers. “How rare and wonderful, to encounter someone genuinely honest.” His hand closed over the card. “Thank you,” and then he made a silent gesture to his escort, who took Jessica’s left hand and pressed something against it. As precisely as she stared, she could not visually decipher what that something was. There was intense, momentary pain, a sizzling like a red-hot brand, but when she jerked her hand away, no mark of any kind could be seen on it.

  “Think of that as a tourist passport,” said the oriental. “You are always welcome among us in our domain.”

  Now the tall, scarred man was wielding an ordinary broom and sweeping a path through the salt before the opening where the closet door had been taken down.

  “I sincerely hope to see you again, Jessica,” and then the oriental and the scarred man stepped into the oblong opening and melted away until all that remained were the old two-by-fours of the wall-frame and plywood.

  Jessica blinked. She rubbed her hand. She was pretty sure she would be entering very soon.

  | — | — |

  Painfreak

  ————

  Gerard Houarner

  Fear knotted Tony Lambert’s stomach as Lisa hopped out of the cab which had stopped in front of the closed Brooklyn warehouse half way down the block from his hiding place under the Belt Parkway. Once again, she was going to Painfreak.

  Lisa, anonymous in her black rain coat and hat, trotted through the night’s light drizzle to the loading docks. Her slim, petite figure danced in and out of the light from the occasionally functioning street lamp. He had followed her from her girlfriend’s apartment to the floating club’s latest secret location a week ago, and had watched her enter every night since then. He had not yet gone in after her. The fear in his stomach warned him not to pursue her any further. Guy had said people didn’t always come out from Painfreak.

  So far, Lisa had. Of course, Guy had called the both of them tourists, not players, the night seven years ago when he had introduced Tony to the club and they had met Lisa. Players took the real risks. Like Guy, who Painfreak had claimed with AIDS. Tourists just watched and wished they had the guts to join in the fun. To give themselves up, surrender to their fantasies. Tourists were afraid to go all the way. Guy had been right; Tony and Lisa had given up the club circuit, and Painfreak in particular, after they met. But they were still alive.

  Except now Lisa had left him and gone back to Painfreak. Tony didn’t know why. They had started living together the night they met, and they had married soon afterward. In the seven years since, Tony had never been tempted to chase after another woman. Lisa had paid her share of the expenses, never complained or mentioned kids. They had lived quietly, with few friends or family to distract them from their private games. And it was the private games, like the milder ones at Painfreak and the scene to which it belonged, that had kept him faithful to Lisa. They always had sex the way Tony liked it. The way he always thought she liked it. Fantasy not quite
over the edge. Love with costumes and devices out of video porn movies and catalogs; games without points; roles and body parts. It had been enough for him and, he thought, for her. He had no idea what other desires had gone unfulfilled in Lisa, any more than he knew the source of the fear that kept him from following her in.

  He knew only that he was afraid of finding out.

  Tony pressed himself against one of the Parkway’s steel support beams, as if trying to draw strength from the vibration of cars passing overhead. Cold metal stole the warmth from his hands and face. The susurration of tires on the wet highway pavement overhead whispered to him as Lisa knocked on the steel rolling gate at one of the bays. She waited, perfectly still, looking down. A side door cracked opened. She held out her hand toward the darkness in the entrance for a moment. She nodded and slipped into the darkness beyond the doorway.

  Tony shuffled his feet. Thunder rolled in from Manhattan; lightning flashed. Soon, the drizzle would turn to hard rain. Soon, perhaps tonight, Painfreak would move. Vanish from the city altogether, re-settle for a while in Paris, Bangkok, Berlin, Los Angeles, or some other travelers’ city. Guy had said clubs like Painfreak were only an idea that stayed on the mind of a big city for a little while. The various social scenes from which such elite clubs erupted did not have the energy to sustain the kind of activities that went on inside. There were only so many players at any given time, in any given place. Once depleted of energy, the idea simply moved to another mind. Another city. Lisa might be swept away with the scene and find herself lost in a strange land. Or, driven by whatever pain and desperation that had brought her to the club in the first place, knowing the club might be out of her reach for a long time, she might make the move from tourist to player. And even if she emerged once more, unscathed, and returned tomorrow night to find Painfreak gone, Tony doubted she would come back to him. He would still not know the source of the pain and desperation that had made her suddenly abandon him, refuse any contact with him, and flee to Painfreak. And if he did not find out, then she would be lost to him forever.

  The warehouse stood silent in the abandoned business district. No lights escaped its windows. No music, or any other sound, drifted along the street to him. Tony glanced back at his Lexus parked behind him by the service road curb. Water dripped from the highway into shallow pools, splashed on to concrete. The city waited around him, vast and enigmatic, offering neither encouragement nor menace. He had to make his move on his own. Tonight. Or give up Lisa.

  He took a step, then another. He left the comforting darkness under the Belt Parkway, crossed the service road, hit the sidewalk at a steady pace. He tried not to think about where he was going, what he was doing. He tried to keep his mind on Lisa: on her strong legs, gentle hands, her wide mouth and full lips, the way she laughed, and sighed, and turned her head away from him after they were both satiated with sex.

  Tony hunched his shoulders against the rain and the breeze, which had chilled and grown brisk. Cold rain trickled down his neck. The warehouse loomed over him, but he still was not at the loading docks.

  Thinking about her reminded him of the barren apartment, the loneliness he felt sleeping alone. He missed her sitting on the sofa, reading, while he watched television. He missed her cleaning up in the kitchen after he cooked their meals, and coming back from the laundry with their clothes bundled in sacks, and pulling out coupons as they shopped in the supermarket. He missed the click of her high heels on ceramic floor tile, the play of muscle under skin when she tightened straps and flicked a crop or whip, the way leather and latex hugged her body. Without Lisa, he was empty. He could not give her up.

  He realized suddenly, as he put his foot on the concrete step leading to the loading dock, that it was emptiness driving him into Painfreak. The hollow feeling within him had been growing since she left without a word days ago. Each failure to re-establish contact with her had sucked another piece of his inner self away. She had not gone to work in a week; Tony had called her line and waited outside her office building. She had run away from him outside her girlfriend’s apartment building. She had the doorman warn him the police would be called it he persisted in trying to talk to her.

  He wondered how he had coped with the terrible, raw and aching hole at the center of his being before he met her. It was the pain of that emptiness that was overcoming his fear, making him return to Painfreak to find what he had lost.

  On the loading docks, Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Though he was afraid, the desperation of pain was stronger. And now he had something to tell Lisa. He understood there was more than fear inside him. Surely, she could relate to his emptiness. Perhaps, he thought as thunder rumbled nearby and the rain suddenly began to pour, she felt the same way. Empty. Missing something essential. Perhaps he had failed her in some unknown way. Perhaps he had driven her to Painfreak with his failure.

  He had words, now, other than the pathetic: please come back, don’t leave me. He had questions: are you as empty as I? What are you looking for in this place? How can I fill your emptiness, as you’ve filled mine?

  Fist trembling, Tony knocked on the gate. The steel rattled. A gust swept rain across the open dock. The side door opened, and Tony approached the darkness.

  Shadows stirred; then a tall, wide form separated itself from the blackness and blocked the entrance. A thick-necked, bald-headed man crossed his arms over his chest and looked down on Tony.

  Tony reached into his pocket for money, then stopped and stared at the doorman. He had a few more scars on his face and hands, and he was dressed in gray and black instead of the more colorful styles fashionable on his first visit, but there was no doubt the doorman was the same as when Guy had brought him in. It did not seem as if he had aged.

  Someone reached out and grabbed Tony’s right wrist while he was pulling out his money. Strong fingers wrenched his hand back and twisted, paralyzing him in a painful joint lock. Tony knelt to escape the agony of tearing muscles and ligaments, then looked up. A slightly built Asian man dressed in a dark suit and turtleneck regarded him impassively while the doorman, his arms still crossed, stood behind him. Tony’s money fluttered away on the breeze.

  “Referrals only,” the Asian man said softly. “Please leave.”

  “My wife just went in—” Tony began, but then gasped as the Asian man twisted his hand a fraction more.

  Wrong answer, but what was the right one? Guy had led him in the first time, talked to the doorman. No money, but what? The hand. Like Lisa, he had shown the doorman his hand. There had been a hand stamp, with invisible ink, to allow patrons to leave and return the same night. Both Guy and Tony had been stamped, but that was so many years ago. Stupid to even think—

  “Been here, Guy brought me, long time…”

  The Asian man released him, and the doorman gently helped him to his feet. They gazed at the back of his left hand. The faint outline of a bone mark glowed on his skin. Tony searched for a UV lamp, but found only blackness beyond the two men.

  The Asian man stepped back while the doorman pressed a stamp down on the back of Tony’s left hand. His flesh tingled, and he remembered the sensation from his first visit. The doorman stepped aside and motioned him to enter.

  “Always show the mark,” the Asian man said reproachfully before melting into the darkness.

  Tony nodded and hurried into the warehouse, his heart beating fast and his wrist still throbbing. All those years he had worn Painfreak’s mark without knowing it had been burned into his flesh. Lisa had worn it as well. He had no doubt she had known about the invisible bone on her hand, just as she had always known how to find the club. A pair of secrets she had kept from him, like the unfulfilled dreams that haunted her, like the pain that was driving her back to Painfreak. He wondered how many marks she wore on her hand.

  The narrow corridor he followed was dimly lit at the opposite end by a single bulb over a tight, winding set of metal stairs that led down. Seeing no other way to go, Tony descended the sta
irs. Bass pulsed up the stair well from the club’s speakers, sending tremors through the steel hand rails. A repetitive, mechanical tune echoed through the wider hallway he found at the bottom of the stairs. He headed toward another distant bulb, and the music became louder, bass beating inside of him like a second heart; cold, synthesized notes drawing his thoughts into an endless, pointless loop. At the steel double doors under the bulb, Tony shook his head, wiped his palms against his thighs, and pushed a heavy door.

  The music washed over him like a cold wave of water. Something in the music, like the combination of electricity crackling and a faint feedback whine, made the short hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Things had changed since his last visit. The music was different, for one thing. And he didn’t remember seeing so many cages.

  Seven years was too long away from Painfreak to return.

  Tony walked to the long bar — battered tables of different heights and widths set end to end, behind which two naked barkeepers patrolled — and found an empty storage drum to sit on. Something whimpered inside the drum as his weight made the walls pop. He shifted uneasily on the warm metal. Nails or claws scratched feebly at the barrel walls. A new variation in Painfreak’s perversions, he decided.

  The male barkeeper came to him and set down a tall Styrofoam cup of what looked like frothy fruit punch. Tony reached into his pocket and remembered he had lost his money. He turned to hold his empty hands up in a gesture of apology. The barkeeper shook his head, wiped his palms together in a gesture of dismissal and moved away. Tony didn’t remember paying for any drinks the last time, either.

  He took a careful sip of the concoction, aware from news reports that drugs might have been mixed in with the punch. The sweet scent of tropical fruit masked for a moment the warehouse basement’s stale odors. Tangy flavors danced on his tongue, before a slightly bitter aftertaste and a spot of cold numbness told him there was a potent spell hiding behind the drink’s seductive enticement. Shaking his head, he put the cup down. Cocaine had been the drug of choice in his day, when things had seemed simpler.