An Other Place

by Darren Dash

  ALSO BY DARREN DASH

  THE EVIL AND THE PURE

  "The Evil And The Pure is a deliciously dark delight; a gritty, realistic look at the depths of human depravity. The twists and turns have you reeling with shock. A glory to read. 5/5 stars." Matthew R Bell's BookBlogBonanza.

  "A thoughtful and enthralling examination of a society that is seedy, corrupt and painfully uncompromising. Few writers can so easily and powerfully communicate the complexities of people dragged into a world of darkness and despair." Safie Maken Finlay, author.

  "I found myself brilliantly horrified and captivated as I read and was taken along on a dark journey with a range of dangerous, sick and even innocent characters." Chase That Horizon.

  "an amazing read... a book you won’t want to end... It’s got the cast complexity of a Maeve Binchy novel as if written by a violent madman, and I mean that as a compliment! 5/5 stars." Kelly Smith Reviews.

  ALSO BY DARREN DASH

  SUNBURN

  "vivid and unrelenting... the novel offers captivating tension and brutal, gory fun." -- Kirkus Reviews.

  "A well-written and disturbing piece of fiction. The plot reads like an international horror movie, enticing the reader with a series of detailed and comedic chapters before exploding into a vision of blood-chilling gore." Books, Films & Random Lunacy.

  "This demonic masterpiece does not fail to disappoint even the biggest of horror fans." Crossing Pixies.

  "The elements of classic horror are very much present here. Sunburn held me firmly in the moment, demanding my full attention right to the very last page." Thoughts Of An Overactive Imagination.

  "Like the Hostel films, they have a lot of set up and then shizzle hits the fan... and then hits it again for good measure!" Dark Readers.

  An Other Place

  by Darren Dash

  Copyright © 2016 by Home Of The Damned Ltd

  Cover image by Stephen Toomey

  Cover design by Liam Fitzgerald. www.frequency.ie

  Edited by Zoe Markham http://markhamcorrect.com

  First electronic edition published by Home Of The Damned Ltd December 1st 2016

  First physical edition published by Home Of The Damned Ltd December 1st 2016

  The right of Darren Dash to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  www.darrendashbooks.com

  ONE

  I’ve come to Amsterdam for work, not leisure, and have no intention of savouring the seedy pleasures of its red light district until I find myself wandering by a row of garishly illuminated windows on my way back to my hotel during a late lunch break. I glance at the ladies on display out of curiosity, the way every visitor does, and a red-head in a nurse’s uniform catches my eye. It isn’t the saucy outfit – if I go down that route, bunny costumes are more my thing – but the colour of her hair. It strikes me that I’ve never had sex with a red before, and I pause to consider if that’s genuinely the case. She smiles at me and crooks a finger in the middle of that pause, and like a peckish fish I’m hooked.

  “What do you do?” the hooker asks me twenty minutes later, as she’s squeezing back into her white, PVC dress. I’m lying on a mattress, still naked, staring at a large photo of Marilyn Monroe pinned to the ceiling.

  “Hmm?” I grunt.

  “What do you do? she asks again. She’s from Scotland, this lady of the night (well, afternoon), hence the red hair. I’m sure there’s an interesting story in what she’s doing in Europe’s most infamous city, but I’m not in the mood for stories.

  “I’m the King Kong of troubleshooters,” I tell her, smiling at Marilyn, feeling sated and happy after shooting my load.

  The hooker casts me a startled look. “You’re some kind of an assassin?”

  I snort with laughter and consider playing up to her misconception – Yeah, doll, I’m a killer of men, an annihilator of souls – but I’m too tired. “A troubleshooter’s someone who fixes things,” I explain. “I work with computers and sort them out when they go wrong.”

  “Oh.” She sounds disappointed. “Is it a good job?”

  “It pays the bills but you probably make more than me,” I laugh, figuring it’s best not to reveal how well I do, or she might seduce me again and charge more the next time. I sit up and reach for my trousers.

  “Will you be in Amsterdam long?” she wants to know.

  “Maybe another day or two. I’m trying to string out the job that I’m on. Some of my friends are here and I want to hang with them.”

  “If you guys are looking for company…” she simpers.

  “You’ll do me a good deal?” I grin.

  “For a fellow Londoner, always,” she says.

  “You’re from London? I thought you were Scottish.”

  “I am,” she says, “but I lived in London for seven years before I came here.”

  “Soho?” I smile.

  “No,” she sniffs. “I had a proper job, working in a bank.”

  Seems I’m going to get her life story whether I’m interested or not. “So what happened?” I ask.

  She looks at me, considers it, then shakes her head. “Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the details.”

  “I’ll tip you another ten for that,” I chuckle.

  “If you really want to tip me, bring your friends round,” she says.

  “I will if they’re keen, and they almost always are,” I wink. “Do you do group rates?”

  “Of course. I’m especially generous to the gentleman who brings extra punters along.” She’s fully dressed now. I pull on the rest of my clothes and slip into my shoes. “Anything else you’d like?” she asks as I’m tying my laces. She runs the back of her right index finger under her nose. “I can do you a good price.”

  “No thanks,” I say. “Not my scene.”

  “Don’t forget to introduce me to your friends,” she says as I head for the door.

  “I won’t,” I promise, but it’s a lie. I won’t be coming back here. I tend to steer clear of hookers who try to sell me drugs. I don’t believe in mixing my vices.

  I don’t return to my hotel but head straight back to the offices. They’re a small but successful firm. They trade in diamonds, or something along those lines. I rarely learn much about my clients. The company I work for sets up networks all over the world, for various businesses. As a troubleshooter, all I need to know about are the systems. Anything else is a distraction. I fly in, do my job, fly out. No time for fraternising with the locals, and to be honest, not much inclination either.

  A virus has crippled the network here. Not one of the newer, nastier strains, but an old, familiar foe. Normally I’d aim to have it sorted by closing time today, so that I could catch a late flight home, but like I told the hooker, I’m in no rush on this one, not since I engaged with Hughie and Battles by chance earlier in the day.

  The three of us go way back. We met in college in our late teens, when we were studying business, and all dropped out around the same time, for different reasons. We rented a flat together for a couple of years and had a whale of a time while we were deciding what to do with our futures. Our paths took us apart after that but we’ve stayed in touch, albeit sporadically.

  Hughie works
for a major international bank, helping wealthy clients hide their money in global boltholes unknown to the taxman, while Battles is a security expert, situated in the Middle East at the moment, helping equally wealthy clients keep themselves from being blown up.

  We only found out that we were all in Amsterdam this morning, when Battles posted a picture of himself on Facebook, standing outside a sex shop, asking the question of his Followers, Where am I? Hughie was among the first to respond, with, No way! Me too! Shall we meet for a small, sweet sherry after work? I wasn’t long in adding, If you fancy making it a threesome, I’m in town too.

  It’s been nearly two years since our last get-together. That was in Moscow, middle of winter, so cold you had to drink half a bottle of vodka a day to stop your piss from freezing inside you. Battles was wearing an experimental device, with electrodes strapped to his testicles. Went to urinate in a frozen fountain after a night on the hard stuff and nearly electrocuted himself.

  Golden memories.

  I get itchy thinking about my friends and those carefree, younger times. I can’t focus on work, so I flick off the screen and stretch. “That’s it for today,” I tell the worried manager who’s been hovering by my shoulder, waiting for a progress report. “A debugging program will run through the night. I’ll check it in the morning and see where we’re at. If all goes well, hopefully we’ll be in the clear by the end of play tomorrow.”

  “What about the other computers?” he asks. “Should we turn them off?”

  “No need,” I tell him. “Work away as normal. The system will be sluggish but you can’t do any more damage.”

  He smiles with relief. “Thank you, Mr Riplan. Have you any plans for tonight? If not, would you like to join my wife and I for dinner?”

  “That’s OK,” I tell him. “I’m going to have a quiet one, do some work from my hotel. But don’t expect me too early. I want to give the program time to finish. No point sitting here for hours on end, staring at a blank screen.”

  “Of course not,” he agrees. “Take all the time you want. We’ll expect you when we see you.”

  “Cheers,” I smile. “I hope you enjoy your meal with your wife.” Then I swing my jacket over a shoulder and text the two boys as I’m heading for the street — Let the games commence!

  I wasn’t lying when I told the hooker that drugs weren’t my scene – I did that shit for a few years, and it was fun, but you’ve got to know when to get out – but partying in Amsterdam and not getting high is like going to Ireland and not getting wet — just isn’t going to happen.

  Hughie and Battles come to Amsterdam regularly, so I leave everything in their hands. They arrange a party in Hughie’s pad – a rented apartment that he uses whenever he visits the city – and ask their contacts to deliver weed, coke and girls, while I pick up a few slabs of beer en route, so that I don’t feel like a complete leech. We smoke a few joints and down several cans, catching up while we’re waiting for the ladies to arrive. They do lines with us when they get here, telling us how handsome we are, that they like English men the most. One girl does a striptease and soon everybody’s naked and we’re fucking on the carpets and the furniture, in the bath and on top of the TV, swapping ladies (a fresh condom each time — these working girls don’t take chances) and betting on who’s going to last the longest before we collapse from the coke and the sex.

  It’s a fast, fun night, a throwback to our hedonistic heyday when we thought we were immortal, and doesn’t stop when we send the girls on their merry way. “I want a bagel,” Battles says, and as soon as the words are out, Hughie and I want one too.

  “God, yes, a bagel,” I gasp. “Where are the bagels, Hughie?”

  “Bagels are your department, Riplan,” he says. “We supplied the drugs and the girls. All you brought were some cans. You owe us.”

  “Come on then,” I say, heading for the door.

  “Bagel quest,” Battles sings, and we take up the chant as we dance through the streets. “Bagel quest, bagel quest!” Soon five or six random strangers have joined us and we’re cha-chaing along, legs flying every which way, “Bagel quest, bagel quest, where the fuck are the bay-gulls?”

  Belly full of delicious bagels. I’ve three more in a bag for breakfast. We’re back at Hughie’s. We picked up a couple of replacement girls along the way but couldn’t work up the energy to start banging, so they’ve scarpered. Just the three of us now, getting high, talking shit.

  “Made a couple hundred k last week,” Battles boasts. He has crazy, spiked, blond hair, looks like the bastard love child of Sonic the Hedgehog. “A guy I was supposed to bust for one of my clients, to keep him away from the client’s daughter. A smuggler into everything you can think of — drugs, weapons, white slaves.”

  “Fuck off,” I jeer. “That’s newspaper bolloxology. White women don’t get kidnapped and sold into slavery, not in the real world.”

  “Of course they do,” Battles snaps. “Most operators focus on girls from piss-poor villages in Russia, since it’s like picking apples in an orchard, but shrewder, braver guys like my one target pretty little Westerners and ship them off to some leery old Arab or African.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I laugh.

  “It’s true,” he shouts. “On my mother’s grave. He showed me photos.”

  “How much does a French or Italian lady cost?” Hughie asks, eyes hooded as he brushes a few fingers through his impeccably styled hair to check that every lock’s in place. Always the banker, maybe he’s wondering if he can afford to buy a white slave for his boss for Christmas.

  “Dunno,” Battles says. “He was tight-lipped about that. Said he only discusses prices with people who are serious about paying. Anyway, he was hot for my client’s daughter, so I was hired to…”

  Battles tells us how he put together a file on the smuggler but allowed himself to be bought off when the smuggler got wind of what he was up to and made him an offer. “Would have been easier to kill me,” Battles says, “but I’d left copies of the file with different lawyers, so he knew I’d have screwed him from beyond the grave.”

  “What about your client?” I ask.

  “Still paying me,” Battles beams. “I convinced him that the creep was a gent of the highest order and had plans to put a ring on the daughter’s finger. They’re going out for dinner this weekend. Wouldn’t surprise me if the old guy offers to make the smuggler his partner.”

  The dapper Hughie starts up with his success stories when Battles runs out of steam. The way he talks, half the currency of Europe passes through his hands in an average week, and he always takes a slice of the action. He’s bought a small yacht, keeps several mistresses, is buying shares in promising startup companies.

  To keep pace with the big boys, I tell them I’m planting dormant viruses on the quiet, every time I work on a system, and that over the next several years I’m going to activate them one by one and demand a king’s ransom from the companies I’m currently in the act of helping. A load of horseshit, and they know it, but they pretend to be impressed.

  In truth, while I’m not enjoying as much success as Hughie and Battles (at least judged by what they say they’re earning), I’m not doing too badly. Twenty-eight years old and well on my way to my first million. Of course a million doesn’t mean that much in this day and age but it’ll still be nice to rack it up. Another two years, maybe three, and I’ll be able to launch my own company. I could do it now but I’d be small fry. I want to wait, build up my profile, so I can start on a high. Everywhere I go, I see losers who went for broke too soon. I’ve no intention of ending up like them, bankrupt and out of ideas by the time I hit thirty.

  NRE is what I’ll call the company, Newman Riplan Enterprises. My parents named me Newman after some character on that old Seinfeld show. I’ve never watched it but it was their favourite programme back when they were young and in love and in the business of banging out babies.

  “NRE,” I murmur, but only shake my head when Hughie asks
what that means, not wanting to reveal too much for fear one of the buggers would copyright the name to piss me off. I know I’d do it to them if given the chance — anything for a wind-up and a laugh.

  Hughie rolls another joint and it makes the rounds. We’re well stoned by this stage. I tried reading the time a few minutes ago but the numbers on the clock kept swirling and blurring.

  “I’ve got to stop soon,” I mumble. “I’ve a virus to shoot down in the morning.”

  “Fuck viruses,” Hughie snorts, forcing a tumbler of tequila into my hands — he must have picked that up when we went out for the bagels.

  “Rock ’n’ roll!” Battles hisses, and I understand him well enough to know that he’s challenging me to match them. Since I was never one to duck a challenge, I gulp, forward my regrets to my morning self in a mental email, and drink.

  Later. Or sooner. I can’t remember. Time’s all screwed inside my head. I close my eyes. Next thing I know, I’m standing over the toilet. Have I pissed or was I about to? I look down but the dirty brown water tells me nothing. Fuck it. I tuck myself away. I can always return if my bladder starts stinging.

  Battles is on the phone when I get back. “I love you, Mum,” he’s bellowing. “I’ve always loved you. You’re my main squeeze. I’d marry you if I could, I swear it. I’d kill Dad and take you for myself, only…”

  “How crazy is that bastard?” I laugh.

  “Not as crazy as you think,” Hughie cackles. “It’s not his mum he’s onto — it’s yours. That’s why he’s using your phone and your accent.”

  It takes a few seconds for that to sink in. When it does, I leap across the couch and rip the phone from Battles. “Hello?” I groan.

  “Newman?” my bewildered-sounding mother says. “Is that you? What on –”