Dead Roots (The Analyst)

by Brian Geoffrey Wood

  “Tom, drink this,” Artie said. Tom looked down. Artie had thrust a shot glass right under his nose. Tom's nose crinkled as he grimaced.

  “What is it.”

  “More tequila.”

  “What's so special about--” Artie tilted the glass and Tom allowed it to be upended into his mouth. “Blaaah-- more tequila?”

  “Don't mind if I do,” Artie said with a chortle.

  “You boys should buy us drinks,” asserted Artie's new friend. Tom groaned privately, but his resistance to the situation was swiftly eroding under the tequila haze.

  “Sure,” Artie said, grinning broadly. “What do you girls want?”

  “You should get us some glasses of wine,” insisted Yuriko. Tom noticed she was running her finger along his bicep.

  “Let's see a price list first,” Tom said. He indulged himself in a burp.

  Yuriko reached across the counter, and her hand returned with a laminated menu. Classy, Tom thought. He was perusing the numbers on the left side of the menu, when another thought occurred to him.

  “Hey, hey. Don't you two work here?”

  “Yes,” Yuriko drawled. Tom lifted a finger accusatorily.

  “Then why do we need to buy you drinks?” he asked shrewdly.

  “Hey, yeah,” Artie said, turning to his own courtesan with a look of feigned anger. “You should get drinks for free.”

  “No, it doesn't work like that,” said Artie's companion. Tom had overheard her introduce herself as Camilla, but hadn't really been paying attention. She leaned over so that they could both hear her better over the music.

  “That's bull. Ladies should get all the drinks they want,” said Artie, taking the menu in one hand. He scoffed. “This is nothing. Harold should be able to cover this, no problem.”

  Tom shrugged. “Go for it, man. Couple glasses of fifteen dollar Pinot?”

  “No way, get the twenty-five dollar stuff,” said Artie with enthusiasm. Camilla and Yuriko looked pleased as punch. “Two glasses of-- of the twenty-five dollar stuff,” Artie barked to the bartender.

  “I only withdrew enough for the bottomless shots,” Tom warned Artie.

  “I've got my credit card,” Artie said back, with a reassuring nod. Artie slapped his plastic out on the counter. Tom resigned himself to keep a mental tally of the bill, but he suspected it wasn't going to be accurate for long.

  Tom ducked out to the bathroom, while Artie made banal conversation with the hostesses. He passed a man wearing sunglasses in a booth, leering at Tom and Artie’s girls, and shot the guy a dirty look. The patron quickly returned to his business-- his business being drinking alone in silence.

  ********

  Tom splashed some water in his face from the bathroom sink. He was trying not to throw up.

  Alone in front of the mirror, the gravity of his encounter with the succubus was only now sinking in. His thoughts returned to the strange dream he'd had on the train.

  Orchard. 'Hank' had said Orchard...

  Tom tried to place it. Where have I heard that before…?

  Nothing was coming to him. He tried to steer his train of thought somewhere more pleasant, or he was going to be in for a rough trip home.

  He scooped some water from the running tap to refresh himself. He realized he hadn't had anything non-alcoholic to drink in several hours, and took several more gulps. It was far too late to wash away the damp cloud hanging over his head-- nothing would fix that now but time-- but he might be able to save himself from a massive headache in his immediate future.

  After some more gulps, he stood with his hands on either side of the basin, staring down. He held in his stomach, suddenly feeling nauseous. He spent a few minutes tossing up whether to go back to the bar now, or try and force himself to vomit.

  Returning to the floor some ten minutes after his departure, Tom wasn't entirely sure which option he’d ended up choosing. What he was sure of, was that Artie had to have blown at least a hundred dollars. Yuriko and Camilla were laughing at one of Artie’s awful jokes, and there was a near-empty bottle of white wine sitting pretty on the counter beside them.

  “Artie,” said Tom, in a theatrically defeated voice. Artie grimaced. He knew this voice. It was the one Tom put on when he was going to apologize and suggest leaving.

  “You getting under the weather, Tom?”

  “Yeah. That... that run-in earlier...”

  “It's cool, I understand. Let’s just finish off these glasses.”

  “Sure, sure. Get me another shot,” Tom said in consolation. Artie handed him a new tequila, putting on a cheesy grin. Tom took it down and hacked his throat. At least I’ll get to sleep quickly.

  “You want private room?” Yuriko asked the both of them. She and Camilla were both standing up now, and Tom felt himself being ushered. He shook his head fervently.

  “Uh-uh. We need to get a train back to the hotel.”

  “Trains always leaving from here,” Yuriko said. “You go a little later, come on.”

  “Hey. Don't you-- don't you order me around, you vile temptress.”

  “Whaaat?” She was genuinely bewildered.

  “Come on, Tom, fuck it, when's the next time you can say you saw strippers in Tokyo?” Artie stuffed his no-doubt-melting credit card back into his jacket pocket. Camilla was pushing Tom towards a door at the back of the bar.

  “How much?” asked Tom, stopping her.

  “Seven thousand yen, fifteen minutes,” she replied.

  “Ugh. Alright, come on,” Tom said to Yuriko, and they were off following the other two shortly.

  One hallway later and Tom was slouched in an armchair, with Yuriko grinding on his lap.

  She has an alright ass, he thought, but too skinny. Artie seemed to be doing alright. He had a pair of big saggy breasts in his face, sliding up and down not altogether enticingly. Tom leaned back and watched Yuriko's rump moving back and forth across his crotch. Even if he’d been drunk enough to think sleeping with a stripper was a good idea, he was too far gone to get wood.

  Another couple of minutes, and the panties were off. Yuriko had turned herself around to straddle Tom. He idly brushed her shoulder with one hand, as she slid her hips back and forth against his midsection. A vague thought floated through his mind, about what this girl's father must have been doing at that moment. Maybe sleeping in preparation for another day at the cubicle. He kept the joke to himself, knowing Artie would just call him a buzzkill.

  The headache was starting. As the girls got up and got dressed, Tom eagerly stood up and stretched, bracing himself as his head swam for a moment. He'd gotten up too fast. He wasn't at the point where he needed Artie to shoulder him on the way back to the train but he wouldn't have minded.

  “Very nice. Thank you, girls,” Artie said, in a mostly gentlemanly fashion. “Can we pay at the bar?”

  Camilla nodded. They were led back out into the club. The man in the suit had returned, much to Tom's dismay. This time, he was accompanied by another pair of gangly black guys sitting in one of the booths--one wearing another cheap suit, and one wearing what looked like a full Sean John jumpsuit with a tilted cap. Yuriko and Camilla made a beeline over to them, finally leaving Tom and Artie to pay their bill and get out.

  “Check,” Tom requested of the bartender. A small leather folder was passed to him. He opened it up and looked it over.

  His eyes popped.

  “What the fuck is this? Artie, did you buy all this?”

  “Huh?”

  “Three bottles of Moët...? A bottle of thousand dollar sauvignon.”

  “What?”

  “Artie, this fucking bill. This is like three thousand fucking dollars.”

  “Um. This is someone else's bill,” Artie said, leaning over the counter to the bartender. “I didn't buy all this. This is someone else's bill.”

  “This yours,” the bartender said sternly. “Two hundred fifty thousand yen.”

  “Bullshit it's ours. We bought the bottomless shot glasses and s
ome wine, this isn't ours.”

  “This yours,” the man repeated. “You try to skip?”

  “No, we are not trying to skip the God damn bill,” Tom said, entirely too drunk and ready to leave to be dealing with this. “Count it up again. Artie, what did you buy?”

  “Um... I got the glasses of wine. They said the bottles are cheaper...”

  “How many did you get?”

  “Uhh, two,” Artie groaned. “They kind of slipped the second one in without me knowing.”

  Tom swore. This wasn't helping.

  “I mean. Harold can cover us for this, right?”

  “He's not our fucking sugar daddy, Artie. And you still need to float it on your credit card, you can't do that. But that doesn't matter, because this isn't what you bought, and we are not paying for it.”

  “You need to pay,” the bartender said. He began tapping the bill in agitation.

  “We are not paying,” Tom said with narrowed eyes.

  “Hey, what's going on here?”

  Tom recognized the voice. It was the tall dark-skinned guy from before. He and his two friends were now looming over Tom and Artie, trapping them between the bar and the very angry looking thugs.

  “Your bullshit friend here is trying to charge us for three grand U.S. worth of shit we didn’t buy,” Tom said, standing up straight.

  “It's okay, Tom, we can call Harold...”

  “No. These fuckers are scamming us, and now they're getting uppity because we're wise to it.”

  “You'd better pay your fucking bill,” said their guide. His smile had vanished. He was practically spitting his words now. “Brunette is run by the Yakuza. If you don't pay up you're dead, motherfucker.”

  “My ass,” Tom snarled, trying to push his way past. The three guys blocked his path.

  “You'd better fucking pay, or you're dead.”

  “Here, just let me sign this thing,” Artie said, taking the check and a pen. Tom smacked the pen out of his hand. Artie visibly gulped.

  “I eat fucks like you for breakfast,” Tom rasped at the lead thug. “I could tell you were a shitheel the second I saw you. You want to try your luck, shit-for-brains?”

  “You're dead, asshole,” snarled their chaperone. Tom saw the guy's hand go into his coat. A knife, a gun, Tom didn't care. Tom’s own hands flew out to grip the guy's forearm. He was drunk as a skunk, but most of this was down to muscle memory. He twisted to the left, shoving the thug’s weight forwards and locking his arm behind his back.

  “Jesus Christ,” Artie cried, putting himself between Tom and their other two assailants. Artie was not a bulky guy, but he put his weight into the ground and gave Tom room to swing his prisoner around, so that they were facing the bar. A second later and the sunglasses broke on the counter, along with the bridge of the gangly black guy's nose. He crumpled to the floor.

  “Try me, you fucking cons,” Tom growled through gritted teeth. Artie was doing all he could to keep the other two off of Tom. His efforts were wasted, as Tom grabbed a nearby wine glass and nabbed the guy in the jumpsuit by his collar.

  “Tom, don’t,” Artie pleaded, while standing his ground. A fleck of blood hit Tom's cheek as he broke the wine glass on the guy's temple, and punched him twice in the stomach. The bartender was hurriedly yelling into a phone. Tom dropped his latest target, and blearily noticed more dark-skinned gentlemen emerging from the door to the private rooms. He quickly figured they were some sort of gang, and decided it was time to leave.

  “Go, Artie,” Tom commanded, pushing him out of the way and shoving the other suited thug hard into a booth table. Artie scrabbled in his jacket. He pulled out his credit card and threw it over the bar in appeasement before bolting for the exit.

  “Shoot them,” Tom heard as he followed Artie out into the stairwell. Suddenly he was feeling considerably less intoxicated. Adrenaline flowed into his legs.

  They burst out onto the street. A sheet of rain hit Tom in the face and sobered him. He heard footsteps thundering behind him in the stairway, and pointed down the road. Artie gripped his hat close to his head and followed Tom in a sprint.

  Tom's eyes darted back and forth, searching for a side street or an alleyway, or anywhere to hide for a few minutes, before the thugs lost interest or went looking somewhere else. Tom shot a look behind him and saw at least four pursuers, one of them sporting a bloody nose and a ruined shirt. Their friendly tour guide from earlier.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Tom spat.

  “What the fuck was all that?” Artie cried, panicking. He was aching as he pushed himself to keep up with Tom.

  “Some CQC shit I picked up in basic, are you jealous?” Tom said through panting breaths.

  “You're nuts-- Those guys have guns…”

  “How do we get back to the main road?”

  “This way I think,” Artie yelled, grabbing Tom's arm and pulling him into a side street. They kept running, and Tom could hear the pounding footsteps after them, but if they could just reach the main road, there might be some police, or at least some more crowds--

  “God dammit,” Artie said in a wavering voice. They had come to a dead end. The last flecks of drunkenness had washed out of Tom.

  “Who the fuck do you guys think you are?” came their tour guide's voice. There were five of them. Tom was ready to start looking for weak points, but instead slouched his shoulders and raised his hands up, once he saw that two of them were aiming pistols. The guns looked cheap, just like their suits, but it wasn't enough to hope that they'd jam or backfire, by a long shot.

  “Man, all this over a couple grand?” Artie said with his hands up. “Just let us go home, man. I left my credit card, don't do anything dumb.” Tom had to admire Artie sometimes. At least he wasn't bitching out.

  “You're going to die, fuck for brain,” said broken-nose in his thick Nigerian accent. Tom took a deep breath, and stood very still.

  *

  “Tom? Artie?”

  Tom almost pissed his pants, he was so grateful. It was nothing short of a miracle.

  The thugs turned around. The pistols stayed leveled.

  “The fuck you want, white bitch?”

  Tom could not mistake Harold's frame at the end of the alley. He watched Harold step deliberately, slowly, towards the group. Suddenly Tom realized Harold was alone, and wasn't entirely sure what the big man was planning to do about this. He had already passed the point where he could just run and call the police.

  “Step away from my friends, leave this alley and be grateful.”

  “Fuck you, white bitch. Aryan fuck. You'll die too, these guys owe us.”

  “I'll be merciful, and consider paying their note. How much?”

  “Two hundred fifty,” said one of the assailants. “Plus another hundred for this bullshit.”

  They advanced on Harold. Tom wasn't sure what to do, or what Harold was going to do, but he hoped he thought of it fast.

  “Absurd. I won’t pay it. Leave.”

  Tom heard a safety being clicked off and his heart jumped.

  Harold sighed loudly.

  “Alright, then.” Harold raised his arms to the sides.

  Tom suddenly felt his balance waver. He knelt down and looked to his right. Artie was pressing himself up against the alley wall, and had gone white as a sheet.

  “Artie?”

  “I hope you haven't had any chems,” Artie said sharply. Tom's mouth went dry.

  ********

  Tom couldn't tell if it was incredibly bright here, or pitch black. It felt as though the world changed its mind every few seconds.

  Artie was nowhere to be seen. The ground was dead sand, but somehow Tom felt as if he was walking in the gut of some long-dead beast that was croaking its way back to life, through some horrible magic. He sensed a breathing, a necrotic pulse, underneath his very feet.

  He heard screams.

  Tom looked off to his right, and saw some huts some half-mile away. Some had grass roofs, some were made out of crude w
hite brick. The grass huts were on fire, and smoke was billowing out of the doorways of the others.

  Looming over the roofs of the small dwellings were tall, outstretched black things, shaped vaguely like people, with fingers the length of rope and no eyes. They were living shadows, cast over the village. They bent down, peering into each hut in turn. When they found a person, they pulled them out, and impaled them on their fingers, or simply bit their head off.

  The world shifted again. He was not on the plain anymore. Now there was barely space to breathe. The walls were blackened wood, the ceiling thick with mold. ‘

  Tom could feel the humid breath of the creature filling the room. Its stench corroded his nostrils.

  In front of him, Tom recognized the man in the Sean John jumpsuit. The big man’s strength had left him. He was bent forward, screaming low and long like a wounded animal. His pants were pulled down around his knees.

  A twisted figure was hunched over him, forcing itself on him. Its body was little more than dark muscle, splotched red and brown. It took Tom a moment to notice its dark-skinned face. The monster resembled its victim, but older, its face lined and hair graying. Flabby jowls were twisted up in a hateful scowl while the beast ploughed into its captive.

  Tom felt sick as he realized what he was witnessing. A memory--or at least a twisted vision of one.

  “Harold. Stop this.”

  Tom’s plea fell on deaf ears. A loud sound, like a deep, moaning breath, invaded his ears. The room grew hotter. He felt like a searing breeze had blown into his face.

  The world shifted and fell away, yet again. Now he was in midair. A scream broke his concentration. To his right, their chaperone, now naked and face peeled back in a terrified mask, was falling with him.

  They fell through a void. Tom saw nil but a vast pit below him. He didn't know how high up he was, but as they fell, there was nothing beneath to grow closer.

  As some seconds passed, something finally came into view. The pit was filled with bodies, but not dead ones. They reached up, a sea of hands grasping, waiting for them to arrive. Tom couldn't make out their features from this distance, but their skin was gray.