Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense

by Fynn Perry

“El Gordito is behind the missing persons. It’s obvious. He’s getting rid of the victims of the bad pills,” John muttered.

  “Hang on, John! As this post states, in New York City an average of five thousand people go missing every year—these cases are just a drop in the ocean. But if people are going missing in El Gordito’s clubs, it seems from the posts, at least, that more are disappearing at Mayhem. . .. Look at this.” She showed him some photos from the club’s webpage. “The club is huge and open to everyone.” She thought for a moment. “You know what? I could pose as a club-goer and check it out.”

  “Jen, it’s too dangerous. El Gordito has some really nasty guys working for him, like the guard I possessed. If one of them finds you sneaking around, he won’t put you in a coma, he’ll kill you!”

  “We’d both be spirits then,” she offered. “Worried that I’ll outshine you?” she joked, but she knew that John was right; she had more to lose right now than he did.

  At 3:43 a.m., Lazlo received a call at home. He had fallen asleep on his couch after finishing off a half bottle of whiskey and the waking up was painful. It was Genna.

  “You’ve got to get down here and see this!” the scientist said.

  With his head throbbing, Lazlo took off in his car to see Genna. The private lab was located in the basement of an office building nestled between a 7-Eleven and a cheap hotel in Queens that offered hourly rates. At that time of morning, the hookers were clocking off and the bakers were starting their day.

  The journey in the elevator down to the second basement level was nauseating, and the bright lights of the deserted lab hurt his eyes. As his eyes adjusted, he saw Genna urgently signaling to him to come to the far corner of the lab.

  Lazlo walked up to him and immediately noticed two cages on a side table, with the lens of a video camera perched on a tripod and pointed at them. When he looked into the first cage, he saw six mice lying on their sides, either dead or asleep, he wasn’t sure which. But it was the view in the second cage that stopped him dead in his tracks. The cage held carnage: severed limbs, dismembered bodies, and blood-soaked fur. The body of a mouse hung from the mesh of the cage. It looked as though it had forced its head through bars that were too narrow, in what seemed like a desperate attempt to escape. Its eyes were bulging and looked manic, its mouth was open and the teeth were bared and bloody. Its once-white fur was bloodstained, and it had a leg and its tail missing. The only thing the two cages had in common was an empty water dispenser showing traces of a milky liquid.

  “Jesus! What happened?” asked Lazlo as he looked again at the second cage of mice. These were also lying on their backs or side, but occasionally the eyes moved and the whiskers twitched on what were otherwise pristine, white fur-covered bodies.

  “You gave me two pills to give to the mice, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So, I took a sample from one pill, suspended it in water and put in the dropper for one cage. Did the same for the other pill and the other cage. Two identical pills, but two very different outcomes!”

  “No shit! Show me the video!” Lazlo demanded.

  Genna placed his laptop next to the cage and ran the film. It started innocuously enough with the six mice in each cage randomly drinking from the dosing bottle. He fast-forwarded through the next ten minutes. The mice had started to go to each dropper more frequently, causing scuffles in each cage as they became very active. Genna fast-forwarded the recording by about thirty minutes. At this point, all the mice in one cage had become less active and some were resting. In the other cage, it was a different story. The energy level of all the mice had dramatically increased. They started running around in a frenzy, only stopping to drink more from the dropper. Tussles at the dropper escalated into bouts of fighting. At this point in the film, a gloved hand appeared, opened a door at the top of the cage and reached inside and took one of the mice away. The chosen mouse could be seen viciously biting and clawing at the glove.

  Genna paused the film. “It was clear, the way things were going, that I had to monitor the effects of the pill on a single mouse in isolation,” he explained. “That little fella almost bit through to the bone.” He showed Lazlo his bandaged finger.

  He resumed playback of the film. The fighting in the cage reached a flash point, and then the carnage commenced. Within a matter of seconds, the cage quickly became a bloodied scene of dismembered rodent parts. In the end, only one mouse remained. With its leg and tail missing, and its body badly bitten, it raced up the side of the cage with unnatural speed and slowly forced its head through the bars toward the other cage. The body of the mouse went limp almost immediately.

  “It must have been trying to get to the mice in the other cage....to kill them!” Lazlo exclaimed, horrified. “And it crushed its own skull in the process,” he added as he inspected the mouse.

  “If they hadn’t killed each other through fighting, they would have died anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The female mouse I isolated died about ten minutes after the guy with his head stuck.”

  “From what?”

  “From what I could tell, the brain simply crashed. All the other organs seemed unaffected.”

  “Christ! What is in that stuff they’re drinking?”

  “So, this is where it gets complicated. Pay attention.”

  “OK,” Lazlo sighed, Genna was always very teacher-like in any kind of reporting even when it was unofficial, but that was one of the things that made him such a good forensic scientist.

  “I’m going to talk first about the composition of the pill that I gave to the mice who are still alive but, as you can see, clearly intoxicated,” Genna continued. “The analysis of the pill’s content revealed it to be a mixture of the strongest, purest heroin and cocaine I have ever come across. It’s unusual in that it seems to have some kind of yeast base.”

  “So, these pills enable the user to take heroin and cocaine together—what is known on the streets as speedballing, right?”

  “Yes, but these are in a different league to the amateur stuff out there. Each pill contains a precisely calculated dose of cocaine, as the stimulant, and heroin, as the depressant. As you saw in the first cage, the stimulant wears off quicker than the depressant leaving the mice in a relaxed state. Get the mix wrong, and the user would get the heart attack risk of a cocaine overdose or respiratory failure from a heroin overdose.”

  “So, what caused the mouse Armageddon in the other cage?”

  “That pill looked the same as the other one. It also had a pure form of heroin but was much weaker in strength. No cocaine. Instead it contained two synthetic drugs. One closely related to the street drug PCP, known as angel dust, and the other closely related to a pharmaceutical drug named Tiroflen. I’m guessing these came from China, where there are hundreds of places making counterfeit and designer drugs.”

  “So, the PCP-type ingredient caused the savage behavior?”

  “Yes, brought about by classic PCP symptoms such as dissociation, paranoia, and an inability to feel pain.”

  Lazlo thought back to the fight he had witnessed in the alleyway when he had first discovered the pills, and the force of the beating the victim had received from someone much smaller than him.

  “And the other drug, the one related to Tiroflen?”

  “Tiroflen is a pharmaceutical drug that was supposed to treat heroin addiction but in fact has been found to give similar feelings of euphoria and also becomes addictive.” He shrugged, acknowledging the irony before continuing. “But of greater concern is that an overdose of Tiroflen causes the brain to mimic brain-death. And this version of the drug is strong enough to cause the same symptoms.

  “But didn’t these mice die as a result of the violent behavior toward each other caused by them taking the PCP-like drug?” Lazlo asked.

  “Yes, but remember the mouse I took out of the cage?”

  Lazlo nodded.

  “After about thirty minutes of aggressive behav
ior, she keeled over with brain-death symptoms and without the brain working as it should, she stopped breathing.”

  “Would the same have happened to the other mice if they hadn’t killed each other?”

  “I’m convinced it would.”

  “So, there’s an original and a counterfeit version of the drug on the streets that look identical. Be unlucky and take the rogue one, and it’ll cause you to go into a savage rage and then kill your brain?”

  “That’s pretty much the size of it. Except I have my doubts that the counterfeit one is made by a different manufacturer. The heroin is so pure in both, and the look is so exact, that I think the pills could have come from the same place.”

  Lazlo pondered this for a moment but was unable to find any good reason why anyone would want to produce a dangerous counterfeit of their own product. He looked at Genna, who by his expression had clearly also drawn a blank. “Good work, Richard. Send me a copy of the film, please.”

  Lazlo left the lab. Despite the effects of the drink still not having fully worn off, he now had a moment of clarity: Mark Kendrick must have taken one of the rogue pills. His sister’s account of witnesses reporting his aggressive behavior at DNA, together with the signs on his body at the crematorium, that he had been violently restrained seemed consistent with this theory.

  Fifteen

  John waited until 11:00 p.m., before setting off to Mayhem. He had been to the Meatpacking District before and knew it to be an area of Manhattan where former slaughterhouses had been converted into trendy bars and shops. They appeared edgy, vibrant, and exciting because some of the old buildings were still there, standing shoulder to shoulder with the new, reminding visitors of the murderous, crime-ridden history of the place. And its spirit legacy was thriving amid the nightlife buzz.

  He felt his heart racing, as he had no choice but to go through the crowded streets, avoiding the possessed and threatening spirits that seemed to appear at every turn. He needed a host in order to feel safe, but he had to first get closer to the club to pick a host who looked on the point of entering it.

  Mayhem deserved its description as one of the largest clubs in New York. Another former meat-production facility, it was located on a corner, with its brick façade extending nearly a block in each direction. He walked closer and saw a queue had formed outside the main doors. It was still early and the serious club-goers hadn’t joined yet, so the line wasn’t long. He didn’t want to possess anyone right there and then on the main drag, so he looked down one of the side alleys and noticed a couple walking toward him with no spirits nearby. They looked dressed up, in what was mainly preppy attire, which suggested they were heading to a club. John moved closer to them to find out for sure.

  “So, you definitely told them Mayhem?” the woman asked.

  “I did,” the guy said, his tone sour with annoyance.

  John had heard enough and possessed the guy a second later. His new host’s back stiffened momentarily.

  It happened just long enough for his partner to notice. “What’s wrong with you now, Mike?”

  “Nothing!” John’s host retaliated. John could feel that a sense of resentment towards his partner was emerging.

  The couple weren’t well-known enough to get in without queuing. The only positive about this was that it gave John enough time to assess the doormen and to ascertain that they were not possessed.

  After fifteen minutes of waiting, they finally were let into the club. The previously muted sound of energetic dance music now hit them in bursts, at full volume, every time someone passed through a set of swinging doors at the end of a brick-lined passage, where John’s host paid the admission fee at a small window.

  On the other side of the doors was a darkened, expansive area marked by a row of enormous, connected screens running along its perimeter walls––all showing the same abstract pattern of white lines on a black background which seemed to change in rhythm with the sledgehammer bass that reverberated through the floor. The huge dance floor was already over half full with a mass of bobbing heads and raised arms, illuminated by the sweeping beams of overhead searchlights. Above the crowds of dancers hung a gigantic neon sign. It was a depiction of an ascending Christ but with one significant change–––instead of displaying open palms, this messiah was holding an Uzi machine gun in each hand. John would have found the blatant nod to El Gordito’s criminal activities amusing had he not thought immediately of Juan Santiago and Jennifer’s description of his features as being Jesus-like.

  John’s host and his girlfriend walked along the edge of the dance floor and through a doorway to a quieter side area with better lighting and an extravagantly long bar. The walls were bare brickwork and the floors and ceiling covered in reclaimed wood, which Jennifer had read had originally come from one of the iconic water towers in the district. Hanging from the ceiling were rows of antique meat hooks, each carrying a soft-glowing lightbulb, and the bar itself seemed to be made from salvaged wooden butcher’s blocks. More of El Gordito’s black humor, John thought.

  Perching themselves on wrought-iron stools, the couple ordered drinks. John tuned out from their mundane discussion, taking the opportunity to look around whenever Mike sneaked a look at other women.

  A text arrived on the guy’s phone, announcing that their friends were late and would arrive in forty minutes.

  An hour passed and there was still no sign of them. John’s host needed to go to the restroom and both he and John were glad to avoid further conversation.

  The club had filled up now and Mike was in closer proximity to more sweaty bodies, and John to more spirits than they would like, as his host approached the corridor to the restroom. To one side of this corridor, pressed up against the wall, John noticed a guy in a long coat carrying out a succession of what looked like hand-to-hand dime bag transactions with a queue of willing buyers. The handover was fast and the drugs remained well hidden each time until one less-dexterous buyer dropped his purchase and John spotted it as it lay on the ground for a moment. It was a small, plastic-wrapped pill with a red spider stamped on it––the same type of pill John had seen being made in the fulfillment center.

  The men’s restroom had dark-gray walls and virtually no lighting except for some tiny bright spotlights over the washbasins and stalls. It wasn’t obvious at first, but in the far corner there was a man dressed in black with his back to John and his host.

  His actions quickly made his presence known.

  Cursing softly to himself, then increasingly loudly, the stranger barreled from one wall to another, punching through the drywall. He spun around when he became aware of John’s host entering, clearly not welcoming the intrusion into his space.

  As he approached Mike with a slow, threatening pace, the light from a small spotlight in the ceiling caught his bald head, slick with sweat, and revealed blood dripping from a cut. His eyes had the shine of a madman.

  John felt his host’s legs petrify, and he immediately recalled Jennifer reading about the violent drug-related behavior some users of the Spider’s Bite pills had experienced. He had seen the pills being sold right there in the club, and so there was more than a good chance this guy had been affected by them and, more worryingly, was about to beat Mike senseless.

  Now swearing loudly at John’s host, the man unexpectedly caught sight of his reflection and changed direction. He charged headlong into a full-length mirror, smashed his forehead into it, punching and kicking it until he had to stop to wipe the blood from his eyes.

  Someone entered the restroom behind him and exclaimed “Fuck!” in astonishment and immediately left. Seconds later, two heavyset bouncers pushed past John’s host and grappled with the drugged-up man, who was doing his utmost to land as many punches and kicks onto them as he could.

  “Get the fuck out!” one guard shouted to John’s host.

  Mike didn’t have to be told twice. His muscles suddenly twitched into action and he left as quickly as he could, still shaking.

  Ne
ws had spread, and a crowd had gathered outside in the corridor. Feeling safety in numbers, John’s host joined them in waiting for the show to start. They weren’t disappointed. After a few beats, the door of the men’s room burst open and the bouncers staggered out, holding the arms and legs of the man’s writhing body. Their steps faltered with the sudden, erratic twists and contractions.

  At one point, their captive broke free and started punching one of the monkey-suited goons. Several female club-goers gasped, and some men cheered. It wasn’t until a third guard arrived that the guards could subdue the guy again. Even then, he somehow had the strength to oppose his arm being twisted behind his back by one of the bouncers. But not when a second guard assisted. There was a grotesque shriek of pain and then a look of even greater anger came over his face as his arm suddenly went limp. John realized with horror that the guy’s shoulder must have dislocated. With one arm immobile and his ability to resist compromised, he could no longer defy the guards and they seized the opportunity to carry him away, announcing to the crowd that they were taking him to the first aid room. John’s host followed, along with some of the crowd, to see the men disappear with their captive through a door marked STAFF ONLY.

  John noted that the bouncers had not hesitated for a moment in their actions to subdue the young man, as if they had seen it all before and knew what to expect. Would an ambulance arrive to take the man to the hospital, or would they just kick him out onto the street somewhere? He had to find out, somehow.

  John suspected that in a club of this size, it was likely that the room they had taken the guy into had an exit to a private external area––an area that would be used for deliveries or the discreet arrival of the emergency services. If the guy was to be taken by ambulance, John could hitch a ride and find out if the behavior had resulted from him taking the spider pills. The guy may even still have some pills on him.

  John recalled the layout of the men’s restroom and the windows, high up, on two of the walls. He figured if he passed through the wall against which the stalls had been built, he would find himself outside, close to the back corner of the building and the hoped-for outside delivery area.