The stranger shifted on the stool, crossed his legs. "Well...how do you like it?"
"Pretty damn good." Prescott swilled a generous mouthful of the brown liquid from the plastic cup he held. Whiskey. He closed his eyes, embracing the pleasure of the alcohol washing the tingling powder down his throat, through his mucous membranes. "I've got enough money for a half," he confessed, finessing his nose as if trying to detach it. Good stuff.
The stranger took the mirror from Prescott and placed it on his lap. He leaned back slightly, allowing the shadows to absorb his features.
He raised both hands. Holding the razor in his left hand, he slid the edge of the razor blade across his right palm.
Blood poured forth. Prescott cringed, shuddered at the ghastly sight. The blade and jeweling blood reflected the dim light from above into tiny orange beams, ruby beads dripping onto the mirror. Using the index finger on his injured hand, the stranger swirled the powder and blood into a thick pinkish blend. He licked his finger, then brought the mirror to his face and lapped up every last globule. Once finished, he placed the bloodied blade back into his jacket pocket, the mirror to its place on the crate. As if his actions had been nothing outside of the ordinary, he lit a cigarette and blew out a plume of gray smoke.
Uh shit, Prescott thought. That's damn insane.
The stranger leaned forward, elbows on his knees, tombstone grin on his face. "Mr. Prescott, are you at all aware that life is full of challenges? Millions of them languishing at our fingertips just waiting to be snatched up by ready, anticipating individuals like yourself? Did you know that?"
Prescott fidgeted, fear climbing two steps at a time. A haze fell over his thoughts, the stranger seeming to not make any sense. He managed to ask, "A-are we going to cut a deal o-or what?" as a strange, sudden dizziness filled his head. His fingers trembled as he attempted to clutch the armrest of the couch. Heart thrashing, he simply wanted to get some drugs and get out of there.
"Yes...a deal. That's why you're here, isn't it?" The stranger laughed. "Oh Mr. Prescott, you just don't get it, do you? You follow me home from the club, you don't know my name or anything about me for that matter, and you just expect me to sell you some of that fine dope just because I told you I would an hour ago. Ha! There's a problem with that scenario, Prescott 'ol boy. You see, it just doesn't work that way, it's not that easy." The stranger closed his eyes, hesitated, then said, "Sure Mr. Prescott, we can cut a deal if you want." He leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "But on my terms."
What terms? I don't like the sound of this...
"I don't know if..." In an effort to speak, Prescott found himself with the sudden inability to string his words together. He felt light-headed, off-kilter. "W-Was dis a-aw abow?" The words wouldn't come. He moved to stand. A heaviness pressured his chest. A great wave of dizziness surged to his head, knocking him off balance. He collapsed to his knees like a sinner at the pulpit, reaching out and trying vainly to support his weight against the wooden crate. He couldn't coerce any strength from his muscles.
He slammed to the floor in a limp curl.
Lost in a dark cloud, he rolled his gaze to the looming shadow above, tried to see but could not make out much more than phantom blotches darting about. He did not know where he was, who he was. Alien voices sifted in and about from somewhere beyond the perimeter of his existence:
Time to cut a deal, Prescott...
...on my terms...
Blackness.
Prescott awoke.
He tried to move. And started to swing.
He panicked, eyes wide open but unable to see. He struggled to grasp onto something, but his hands found only cold air. He brought his fingers to his chest and found something there--something thick and cold and rising up away from him.
A chain.
Squinting, he looked out but could not see. Am I blind? Darkness enshrouded him on all sides. No floor, no walls. Just black empty air unfurling away, enveloping him. Again, he tried to move. Pain racked him. Something harsh, stiff, digging deep into his torso. He explored further with his hands...
Rawhide...wrapped around my chest...a steel loop shape embedded into the rawhide...a hook through the loop...
Prescott was hanging.
"Hello Mr. Prescott. How was your nap?" The booming voice, familiar, burst through atop a cushion of white noise, suggesting a speaker. "You most certainly have quite a headache right now. That's from the codeine I put in your drink. Not to worry though. It'll wear off. Now listen close. It's time to cut our deal. All you have to do is find your way off the hook, and I'll supply you with a lifetime supply of cocaine. Simple enough, eh? And quite fair I think you'll agree. Just get off the hook and find your way out, and a lifetime supply is yours."
The speaker went dead. Prescott struggled to hold himself. The harness burrowed deep into his armpits, producing a great burning pain that stiffened his entire upper body. Sucking in a mouthful of stale air, he reached his arms up, grabbed the steel chain, and pulled.
His body rose. His muscles screamed. His skin burned.
The bulky leaden hook slipped from the loop.
He was free.
Now what?
Holding the chain tightly, he pressed his face against the cold links. His muscles and bones screamed at the gravity hungry to claim his body. He stretched his right hand over his head, pulled himself up another notch. He repeated the technique with his left.
He held on for dear life, staring out into the darkness that seemed to go on infinitely. He recalled the evil horrors watching him from behind the closed hallway doors. Now they lurked in the shadows below, waiting for him to slip into their hungry grasp.
He shifted his body, allowing the harness to drift down his torso, over his legs to his feet. He hovered his right foot out over the abyss, let it fall.
He waited, heard nothing. No thud on the bottom. It vanished into the black, forever ceasing to exist.
He blew out a thin breath of air. Felt weak, ill, scared. He forced himself to look only skyward and soon found the will to continue and press on, climbing the chain, hand over hand, his raspy breaths cutting through his thoughts like a rusty razor.
A draft from above blew across his face, chilling the sweat on his face and body.
With no warning a torrent of water came down on him, slashing his skin like a thousand icy needles. His hands slipped on the chain, his thoughts fixed on the hungry distance and the evil things writhing in a massive orgy below, mouths open in anxious anticipation for his body. The water trickled between his fingers, prying them from the chain. It flooded his eyes. He screamed in unison with his muscles, felt himself slipping, slipping...
The water stopped. The hiss of the amplifier darted through the chamber, and in the far distance a maniacal laughter sounded, evaporating into the heavens like a rising plume of steam. Prescott coughed and gagged. His body shivered. Nausea riddled his gut and he tasted bitter bile in his throat. He squeezed the chain tighter, hands cramping up so badly that he simply wanted to end the agony, even if it meant his death below.
Then, a hint of light from above.
Like the sun tweaking through the clouds after a torrential storm, a faint glow appeared. Using every last bit of strength, he found the will to continue, pained hand over hand, sore eyes affixed to the light as he grew closer and closer. His heart and head pounded, blood raced, nerves tearing at his skin. He barely had a breath left in his body when he realized his asylum.
An elevator access just beyond his reach, the doors wide open.
I'm in a damned elevator shaft.
He climbed to eye level, and then further so that the landing met him at waist level. He could see an abandoned office, clouded morning sunlight filtering through filth-encrusted windows. Broken desks and chairs littering the landing, large stacks of papers left behind to await their fate with an incinerator.
Fidgeting, he slowly brought the chain to a swinging momentum, more and more, little by little until he managed to catch h
old of the carpeted floor with one trembling foot.
Blood pulsing, fighting all elements of panic, he threw himself at the landing.
A lifetime of fear besieged him as his foot slipped back into the shaft. The surrounding darkness and gray light winked away and spun around him in a disarray of monotone, forming new worldly shapes that molded around his body in swirling spirals. As a last instinctual effort, he thrust his arms into the merging backdrop, and somehow, dear Lord, found the edge of the landing.
He hung there for what seemed an eternity, fingernails digging into the worn carpet, coarse breaths echoing towards freedom. As terror and pain twisted every inch of stamina in his body, he miraculously unearthed a previously untapped inner strength, a last reserve utilized only in instance of life and death, and pulled himself up onto the landing.
He crawled clear of the shaft, collapsed next to a chair, exhausted, pained, sucking air through his mouth in desperate wheezes.
Suddenly, a shadow looming over him.
Prescott looked up. Saw the baseball bat in the stranger's hand.
He couldn't even cringe as the stranger clubbed him on the head.
Prescott awoke on concrete. The sounds of traffic formed. His eyes fluttered open. Bright. Sun. People, dark silhouettes encircling him.
"He's awake," someone said. He shivered, cold, hugged himself to keep warm.
Something felt strange about his body, uncomfortable.
He peered down, saw something sticking out from his chest.
Two people helped him sit up. He looked. Badges. Policemen.
They cuffed his hands, wrenched him to his feet. He looked at one of the cops. From the 13th precinct.
"Come with me," the cop demanded, shaking his head. His face came into view, a look of disgust painted on it. "Sergeant Prescott."
Sergeant Prescott of the 13th precinct blinked. His eyesight cleared and he looked down at his body again.
Oh my God... he managed to stutter.
Taped around his naked torso were five one pound bags of cocaine.
His lifetime supply.
Sergeant Prescott sat in a cell, waited.
After what seemed an eternity, someone came, a guard. "Your court appointed attorney will see you now. Follow me."
He followed the guard through a hallway of cells occupied by sneering felons. Many of his co-workers stopped and stared as he was escorted through. They reached the end of the hall and entered a room with a small table at the center. The lawyer, dressed in a suit, faced out a barred window.
Sergeant Prescott sat at the table. His escort left, leaving him alone with the lawyer.
After an uncomfortable silence, the lawyer finally spoke. "Sergeant Prescott. It's my turn for a challenge..."
Prescott cringed at the familiarity of the voice.
The stranger turned to face him. "To get you off the hook."
One Last Breath
...kill her...
Will Cast was scared. Even more than that, he felt as if the muscles that held his sanity in place were under a great strain, creating a tension he had never felt in his forty-two years of age. And as he pulled up in front of Tanis Petter's home on Stanley Avenue, he knew that if he didn't show someone the pictures, he would go crazy.
There was really no one to confide in other than Tanis. He was a close friend that had been there for Will through all his grief in life, including the mess of a divorce that Leslie had put him through. To this day Will was still dealing with her harassment, her antagonism. He would rather take a shower in Ajax and wipe down with sandpaper than deal with her now. Even though Will had been well-familiarized with her caustic personality before he married her, her beauty beguiled him and ultimately dragged him along for the bumpy ride. Marrying Leslie had been the biggest mistake of his life.
That is, until three days ago, when he tried to save a man's life.
...did you hear me? I said kill her...
He staggered across the lawn to Tanis' doorstep, tripping a bit along the way, nearly dropping the large yellow clasp envelope in his right hand. He arrived at the doorstep and rang the bell. The door opened and Tanis was there.
"Will..." Tanis said, surprised to see his friend. "What brings you here?" He pushed open the screen door to let him in.
...who's the jerk...?
Will nudged past him. "Is Diane here?"
"No...she isn't," he said slowly, stroking his gray hair, seemingly confused at Will's impetuous entrance. "She left about ten minutes ago. I was just fixing myself a drink, and by the looks of you, you should have one too. You look terrible." Will noticed a grimace on Tanis's face, telling him that his friend got a nice strong whiff of his terrible breath.
Tanis shut the door and turned up the lights as they walked through the short hall to the living room. The pallid glimmer no doubt lit up the worst of Will's worn out features: the deep wrinkles, the unkempt beard, the reddened eyes, perhaps the small abrasions on his face. Will was forty-two. Tonight he looked sixty-two.
"I think I will. A big one, if you don't mind."
...yeah, I'm thirsty too...
"No bother." Tanis wandered into the kitchen to fix the drinks.
Without delay, Will spoke out, pacing across the wood floor. "I'm a dead man Tanis. I can feel it." There. He finally said it. Those muscles straining to hold his sanity together relaxed a touch. God bless Tanis. He really needed to talk.
Tanis returned with two Dewars and sodas, handed one to Will who hadn't realized he was shaking so much until he grabbed the glass and spilled some whiskey over the lip. Leslie always gave him the business every time he felt like a drink. Have another, Willy, why don't you! she would screech, stalking around the house like the madwoman she was, ranting and raving about how 'Willy' (he hated it when she called him that) never took her out, then would stay out herself until the wee hours at those nightclubs on the strip where all the kids would hang out with their fast cars and loud music.
Tanis stood steadfast in front of him. "Dead? Will, what the hell's going on?"
Will emptied half his glass in two gulps, thinking back to about a year ago when Leslie hit him in the face with a wooden clothes hanger and knocked two teeth out. The pain was excruciating. And then the dentist's bills that followed. He paid for that night for the next six months. But that whole event--the pain, the bills--was a mere tickle in comparison to the dread he felt now.
...thinking about the bitch again, Willy...?
"Sit down, Tanis. You're going to have a hard time believing this."
Tanis sat on a chair across from Will, placed the toes of his slippered feet upon the coffee table between them.
Will fingered the rim of his glass for a few seconds. He hoped that Tanis, the picture of rationality, would be willing to sit through it all. Actually, he probably would. Getting him to believe everything would be the difficult part. Well, he did have the pictures...
"I...just got back from the library, Tanis. Before that I was in the hospital. Came right here after I was done."
"Done with what? Why were you at the hospital?"
Will was silent at first then took a deep breath. "Something...something is very wrong." He held up the yellow envelope he brought. "It's these..."
...oh it's much more than those pictures. Tell him Willy...
Tanis held out his hand, reaching for the envelope.
Will drew it back. "You need to hear what's happened to me during the past three days. It'll help you understand everything a little better."
"All right, start at the beginning."
"Okay. But first, make me another drink..."
Will Cast awakened with the unremitting nausea he'd experienced almost every morning since all the anguish with Leslie's bullshit started.
He rose unsteadily, shuffled to the bathroom and perched himself in front of the sink. He squinted at the face staring back at him from the mirrored medicine chest. The grief of Leslie's tumult had wrought on him features that transformed his face into
an unfamiliar one. He tried to blame the wrinkles, the gray hair, the receding hairline on his ripening age, but knew the stress and anxiety brought on from the divorce played a larger part in his physical decay.
It was Saturday, a good thing because there was no work. Will planned to spend the day by the pool and do nothing, gather some peace of mind, whatever was left of it.
He shrugged into a pair of swim trunks, then breakfasted on a cup of instant coffee and the ends of a stale loaf of bread. As he ate, he closed his eyes and wished away the roller coaster in his stomach. A day relaxing in the sun would definitely do some good.
He retrieved a towel from the hallway closet then roamed to the backyard via the sliding doors in the living room. Like a cat nuzzling the leg of its owner, he snuggled into the lounge chair on the patio, drew a deep breath and realized as he looked ahead to the tranquil waters of the pool that today, regrettably, would not be the day of rest and relaxation he looked so forward to.
A body was floating face down in the pool.
"Was the body clothed?" Tanis asked.
A full moon had risen in the sky by this time and Will couldn't help but be spooked at the pale light silhouetting his friend from the window behind. "Yeah. They were puffed out and kinda looked as though they were keeping him afloat." Will downed his second drink and remained silent until Tanis returned with two more full glasses.
...another drink, Willy? My, aren't we exciting tonight...
Tanis sat back down, pushed his spectacles up and twirled his thick graying moustache. "Well, what did you do?"
"I checked to see if he was alive..."
Will, pool skimmer in both hands, thrust the netted end into the water. He gave the body a nudge, almost as if he were trying to wake the man from a nap. The body floated to the opposite side of the pool.
He dropped the skimmer in the pool and ran to where the body came ashore by the patio. With all the strength he could muster, he hauled the body up onto the concrete and turned it, face up.
The body was that of a man, probably in his early forties--close to my age, Will thought--with blond hair and about a week's worth of growth on his face. The features were soaked and starting to bloat. Will thought that maybe he didn't have it so bad after all. The wrath of Leslie was a more acceptable purgatory than death by drowning.
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