Blood and Needles

by Billy Lyon

  Steven wanted to say something that might adequately convey just how much he really loved her, but no words came, so he kissed her gently on the lips instead. Then he turned her away from him until she faced the cot and gently forced her down to her knees, her face pressed against the filthy mattress.

  As Steven raised the axe, he remembered his mother baking cookies in their kitchen, looking happy and young. They were chocolate chip with macadamia nuts, because those were his favorite. As he lowered it, he caught a vision of her putting a Band-Aid on his bloody knee the day he had gotten into his first bike accident. She had kissed it and told him what a brave boy he was for not crying. As her lifeless head bounced off the floor, he remembered how she had cried with happiness the night of his junior high graduation. She had told him that he was going to conquer the world. A couple of years later, he shot up for the first time.

  “I love you, Mom,” Steven whispered. I’m so sorry.”

  4

  Steven picked up his mother’s head without looking down, not wanting to take any chance that its lifeless eyes might meet his own. He stumbled back to the other room, expecting to find it empty, but the strange, alluring creature who had promised him so much was there waiting. He wanted to tell her how much he hated her, but doing so seemed hypocritical at best.

  Hey, asshole, don’t you remember Oedipus? His inner voice chided. You’re supposed to fuck your mother, not kill her. Anyway, don’t blame Anna Marie. She’s not the one who chopped off your Mom’s head. She just gave you the option and pointed you toward the axe. It sure as hell didn’t take you long to pick it up, did it?

  Steven told his inner voice to fuck off and tossed the head in Anna Marie’s direction. It bounced a few inches off the ground and rolled, leaving a snail trail of gore on the floor as it landed a couple of feet in front of her. Anna Marie kicked it aside carelessly and rushed to him. Steven held her tightly, and despite his anger, the embrace felt wonderful. “I’m sorry, Steven,” Anna Marie whispered into his ear. “It was the only way. Now come with me. I won’t have you wait a second longer.”

  Anna Marie took Steven’s hand and led him to the only piece of furniture in the room, a filthy recliner that had seen its better days a long time ago. If the vampire life is as luxurious as Anna Marie makes it out to be, Steven thought, you sure as hell can’t tell from the two rooms I’ve seen so far.

  Steven fell back into the chair, carrying the weight of all his sins along with him. The load was considerable. For the second time that evening Anna Marie pulled a vial of heroin from her dress. This time she didn’t snort it, but placed it unopened on the floor beside her. She then reached inside the pocket of her gown and withdrew an ornate ivory container.

  The container looked like a cigarette case women carried back in the days when smoking was considered fashionable, and was engraved with deep carvings reminiscent of hieroglyphics. Anna Marie lifted the tiny clasp and opened the box. Inside was a golden syringe, also covered with the strange symbols.

  Anna Marie removed the plunger from the syringe and carefully tapped some dope into it. Before Steven could make any move to stop her, she reached up and reopened the cut in the side of his face she had created earlier. Almost immediately, blood began to flow steadily down the side of his cheek.

  Steven stared in wonder as Anna Marie chanted to herself and lifted the bottom of the syringe up to his jawline. Once several drops of blood had fallen into it, she sliced open the vein that ran along the inside of her arm. Blood erupted from the gash, and she caught what she needed in the syringe. As Steven watched in amazement, the wound in her arm closed almost as quickly as it had opened, leaving no sign it had ever been there. Anna Marie replaced the plunger inside the syringe and shook the mixture of dope and blood until it was thoroughly blended. Once finished, she lifted his chin until their eyes met.

  “Look at me, Steven, and repeat what I say. If your words are insincere, the magick will be unsuccessful and instead of being reborn into the life that I’ve promised you, you’ll find yourself in Hell.”

  “So there’s no pressure then, right?”

  “This is not the time for jokes,” Anna Marie said. “Repeat what I say.” Steven supposed she was right. If he was really going to go through with this, he should probably take things a little more seriously. As he gathered himself for whatever was coming Anna Marie began to speak:

  “Morphia, my life is yours.

  Take it freely and grant me rebirth into your kingdom of excess,

  Where I shall know your delights and pleasures until time is no more.

  I will serve you, worship you, and belong only to you, forever.

  I do so swear.”

  Steven solemnly repeated the words. If there really was a family waiting that would accept him along with his many faults, then he would love it and pledge his loyalty without reservation. He glanced up and expected to see the beautiful vampire he would soon call his Queen, but the face staring back at him looked more like a denizen of Hell than anything else.

  Anna Marie’s icy blue eyes were now black ingots, and the curly blonde hair that had previously covered her head like a mane was mostly nonexistent except for sparse patches here and there along her scalp. Her lips had receded into narrow slits that covered a mouth filled with row after row of teeth that looked sharper than any needle Steven had ever stuck into his arm. The cuspids were significantly larger than the surrounding teeth and hung all the way to her chin.

  “Look at me,” Anna Marie said, but Steven couldn’t. Fear had replaced optimism, and he was reduced once again to nothing more than a cowardly, strung-out junkie.

  “LOOK AT ME!!”

  “Please, Anna Marie,” Steven whined. “It hurts so bad.”

  “Only a few moments more,” Anna Marie said in a softer, more compassionate voice. Steven made himself look at her. “Focus on the pain, Steven. I want you to direct every ounce of your attention to the sickness and agony you feel at this moment.”

  “Why, for God’s sake?”

  Anna Marie said nothing, so Steven did as commanded and somehow shifted his attention toward the terrible pain that surged through his body. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, as ten years of living on the streets had conditioned him to avoid this state of being at all costs. Despite his reluctance, he forced himself to let his defenses go and allow the withdrawals full reign. He curled involuntarily into the fetal position and cried out in equal parts pain, fear, and anger.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” Steven screamed. “Haven’t I done everything you asked? Is my mother’s head not enough, you sick, twisted bitch? How much more do you expect me to endure?”

  “None,” Anna Marie replied. “I only asked you to concentrate on your agony so it will make the pleasure that awaits you even more pronounced. It is my promise to you that you will never know such pain again.” As she spoke these words, Steven finally felt the prick of the needle that had eluded him the past twenty-four hours, along with the relief that came with it.

  Well, here we go. I don’t know if I’m headed to Heaven or Hell, but at least I’m finally getting a fix.

  Anna Marie wiped the tears from Steven’s eyes. “Having sworn fealty to your Queen and Family, I welcome you into the Clan of Morphia.” She pushed the plunger and Steven was on his way.

  5

  What every junkie craves above all else is The Rush, an extreme wave of pleasure that assaults the user on all fronts as heroin crosses into the brain. It is a feeling so intense that it permeates the junkie’s very being all the way down to the subatomic level.

  How desirable is The Rush? Well, let’s see. So far, Steven had destroyed every personal relationship that was once important to him, stolen anything remotely of value from those who had once trusted him, and endured being locked up in more than one rat-infested jail in its pursuit. Oh yeah, he had also decapitated his mother. Can’t forget that one.

  Steven had believed Anna Marie’s promise that once he had successfully
passed her test she would give him a fix to beat all others, so it was with great anticipation that he watched her push home the largest amount of dope that had ever gone into his body.

  The first thing Steven felt was a familiar warmth, the kind of warmth one might experience while sitting beside a blazing fire on a cold winter’s night, drinking a steaming mug of cocoa while a supermodel and her twin sister give you head. After a few seconds, the warmth transformed into a wave of pleasure that intensified exponentially and hit Steven so hard that he felt it all the way from the inside of his eyeballs to the rim of his asshole and back. It was everything that Anna Marie had promised and more, so he carelessly gave himself over to the feeling, body and soul. Just as he did, however, things took an unexpected turn and instead of enjoying the rush, he found that he could no longer breathe.

  The bitch gave me a hot shot. This was Steven’s last thought as a human being. Almost immediately after, he heard a sharp ‘whoosh,’ and left his body.

  Steven looked down. Anna Marie looked beautiful again, and was no longer the horrid creature she had been while giving him the injection. She held him tightly and sobbed, all the while covering his dead body with fervent kisses. Why does she look so sad? Steven wondered. After all, she just gave me an intentional overdose. As these thoughts crossed his mind, he continued to float upwards. Higher and higher, faster and faster.

  The scene below Steven unfolded like one from a movie that shows a point on the earth in detail but then zooms out until the viewer sees the same location from outer space. The house where he had been imprisoned was a mansion that sat on the edge of an exclusive gated community. As he continued to climb, all the instantly recognizable sights of Orlando soon became visible. Disney World, Universal Studios, and the minimal skyscrapers that formed the Downtown business district all vanished quickly below him as he continued to ascend.

  Soon Steven was soaring high above the Atlantic, watching in awe as the massive ocean shrank until it was reduced to nothing more than a tiny pond. By now his speed had increased so much that he felt sick, and he clamped his eyes shut in an attempt to turn off the nauseating vertigo that held him in its grasp. When he opened them again, he screamed from the shock of what he saw. The Earth, now far below him, had become a blue and brown marble that was almost completely consumed by the totality of the black space that surrounded it.

  Seconds later the Earth melted away, and Steven entered a tunnel of light, the one that would take him to Whatever Came Next. He flew through it at light speed, and just when he felt that he could bear it no longer, the sensation of movement slowly began to subside and he finally stopped.

  Steven looked to his left and right at the surreal combination of fog, shadow, and light that surrounded him. At first he could distinguish nothing inside the cloudy miasma, but after a moment more, things cleared just enough for him to pick out some human forms standing in the fading mist. He approached the nearest one and immediately fell to his knees. “Mom, I’m so sorry,” he gasped with a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

  His mother smiled, and Steven inherently understood that in this wonderful place, feelings such as blame, guilt, or anger simply couldn’t exist. A Bible verse came to mind, one of the few he remembered from his Sunday School days. “For neither shall there be no death, neither pain, nor sorrow, for the former things have passed away.” He knew then that he was standing in heaven.

  Steven looked past his mother to those behind her. Standing there was everyone he had ever loved. There was his grandma, standing proudly upright, her body no longer ravaged by disease. Holding her hand was Grandpa George, who had passed away just a few months before Steven’s birth. Grandma and Grandpa smiled in welcome. Steven returned their smiles, but looked past them as he searched for the person he wanted to see more than any other: his twin brother, Allen.

  Like almost all twins, the two boys were extremely close. Whether they were out playing ball, getting into trouble at school, or just hanging around the house bugging the shit out of their parents, you never saw one of the Jameson boys without the other.

  Everything went to hell a couple of months after the brothers’ fifteenth birthday when they came down with chicken pox. Thanks to advances in modern medicine, the disease is little more than an inconvenience for today’s children, and it started out that way for Steven and Allen. They hated the blisters that itched like crazy and covered them from head to toe, but they loved being out of school for two weeks and getting to watch TV all day while their Mom brought them bottomless bowls of chicken soup and ice cream.

  On the third day, however, things went south in a hurry. One minute Allen was fine, and the next he was having trouble breathing. Steven’s mom called his dad home from work in a panic and the three of them rushed Allen to the ER. Before you could say ‘rare complication,’ Allen was whisked off to ICU and placed on a respirator. The family didn’t even have time to wonder what the hell had happened before Allen had fallen into a deep coma.

  Three days later a respectful, yet firm, specialist gravely assured the Jamesons that it was extremely unlikely that Allen would ever recover. Steven’s parents deliberated for two more days before making the desperate decision to turn off the respirator and allow their son to die in peace.

  Before Allen’s death, The Jamesons got along with each other, hardly ever fought, and didn’t seem to be plagued with the issues that caused so much trouble for their contemporaries. Not long after Allen’s funeral, however, everything changed. Steven’s dad sought refuge at the accounting firm where he had been a senior partner for almost a decade. The office became his second home, and Steven and his mom rarely saw him. Steven tried to be there for his mom, but it didn’t take very long for their once rock solid relationship to reach an insurmountable impasse.

  When they sat together on the couch watching old movies, Steven’s mom would stick a thermometer in his ear three or four times before the first commercial break, “Just to make sure you’re not coming down with a fever.” When he sat soaking in the bathtub reading Batman comics she would barge in, make him get out of the tub, and pour over his naked body, looking for lumps, bumps, or any other early warning signs of impending illness. “You have to catch these things early, Steven, if you want to have any chance of stopping them in time.” He couldn’t even escape her after lights out. Almost every night, she would wake him three or four times to ask him if he felt okay.

  He complained only once, when she walked in while he was jerking off to a Nicki Minaj video. He was only seconds from hitting pay dirt, and way past his fail safe point, so he had no choice but to keep on pumping. His mom was considerate enough to turn her head at least, but as soon as he was finished she went to him, as if walking in on your masturbating son was the most natural thing in the world. “Oh dear, Steven, you’re sweating all over! Let me go get you a nice cool washcloth. I’ll be right back.”

  “Jesus Christ, Mom! The reason I’m sweating is that I just came all over myself, not because I’m coming down with a case of malaria, Ebola, or the bird flu! Now would you please get the hell out of my room so I can clean myself up? Her reaction was a flash flood of tears, accompanied by a loud, sorrowful wailing that made Steven wish he had kept his cool.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” she said, once her tears were spent. “I know how crazy I’ve been acting, but I just have to make sure you’re okay. If I lost you too, I just don’t think I could go on.”

  “I understand, Mom,” Steven said, his anger gone. He wiped his hand off on his blanket and reached out to her. “It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t. Steven understood perfectly that his mom’s endless smothering was simply her way of dealing with loss, but he had grief issues of his own, and had also reached a breaking point. He began to avoid home as much as possible, spending most of his time with friends. Unfortunately, some of those friends had cultivated interests much unhealthier than those he was used to.

  One day Steven stepped off the school bus into a jet bla
st of Orlando heat and walked to his buddy Jackson’s house to hang out. He didn’t expect the two of them to get into anything more serious than maybe smoking a little weed and playing Xbox One, but it seemed that Fate had other things in store.

  Instead, Jackson pulled a tiny plastic baggie filled with a grainy brown powder and a needle out from underneath his mattress and (as nonchalantly as if he were showing Steven his new iPhone) asked him if he wanted to try some heroin.

  Minutes later Steven was encased warmly inside the horrible comfort he had been unconsciously seeking and was instantly transformed from Steven Jameson, teenager, into Steven Jameson, junkie. There was no incubation period and no turning back. He was hooked.

  But now Steven was standing in Heaven, and none of that mattered. He immediately recognized his brother, who looked as happy and healthy as ever. Allen stood smiling, dressed in the uniform of their Little League Team, The Tomcats. He beckoned for Steven to join him.

  “So you finally made it,” Allen said. “Well, it’s about time, because nobody up here can hit a curve ball worth a damn. Get over here and let’s go play some ball!” Standing in front of Allen was Buster, their beloved Border Collie, who had died from old age a year ago. Now he looked as young and spry as a pup, and was jumping up and down uncontrollably, barking his head off.

  Steven’s mom reached out her hand, her blue eyes shimmering in the sunlight.

  “Let’s go, Steven,” she said happily. “We have so much to show you.”

  Steven walked forward with a lightheartedness he hadn’t felt in many a year, but before he could take more than two or three steps he tripped and fell backwards. His ass made a loud thump as it hit the ground.

  Way to go, Genius, Steven said to himself. You finally make it to Heaven and the first thing you do is fall all over yourself.