Saint Death

by Devan Sagliani

  I wonder if he's rough in bed, she thought as the room began to swim from all the alcohol. Will he leave marks on my arms? My ass? My throat?

  The thought sent thrills through her. They'd gotten into the habit of trying to one up each other, so when their new friend Angel had suggested they drive north to an all-night rave in the desert Alexis was the first to say yes. They took Highway 19 north towards Todos Santos. His car, a black Nissan Sentra gone dusty gray like a fading shadow, was so old she felt every bump in the road. Angel turned up the stereo, the blown speakers oozing electronic music into the interior of the jalopy like poisonous gas. After a while they turned off onto a bumpy dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Alexis remembered wondering to herself how he knew where to turn, since there were no markers. They drove in darkness, the sky above a brilliant display of milky stars twinkling down upon them with no light pollution to obscure them. In the distance she could see the ocean, the moonlight reflecting off the frothy churn of spume as the waves crashed and receded again and again. They turned right, veering towards what looked like a small village with metal shacks ringing a communal space and a large barn off in the distance. Alexis could just make out the silhouettes of a dozen or so men and women, like unstitched shadows running wild. They darted back and forth against the backdrop of the largest bonfire she'd ever seen, with flames that climbed like forked demon tongues towards the deep bruise of the foreign night sky, sensually licking at the stars endless shimmer.

  You were more than a little drunk by then, the voice reminded her. You'd been drugged.

  Angel parked the car and motioned for them to follow him up towards the sound of wild drums and rhythmic chanting in the distance. As they approached he and Hector fell behind Christie and Alexis, giving them a clear view of the night’s feral festivities. At first Alexis thought they'd simply arrived at a Day of the Dead themed rave. Men in skull masks watched on as topless women painted like skeletons danced around a tall woman with a headdress made of colorful flowers and bones, whose face had been elaborately painted to look like a human skull. She wore a flowing white dress and was adorned from head to toe in gold, with trinkets and bracelets and rings glistening by the light of the roaring fire. In her skeletal hands she held a gleaming silver dagger with a long, bone handle.

  It took Alexis a moment to see the bound, naked blonde girl on her knees in front of the garishly clad woman, crying and pleading to be let go. The skull-faced high priestess handed the blade to a man in a white shirt and jeans, who looked suspiciously out of place among the rest of them. The man wasted no time putting the deadly instrument to use. Raising the dagger over his head he plunged it down quickly several times, stabbing the wailing girl in her exposed chest. Alexis gasped as the gleaming blade pierced all the way through the helpless victim, sticking out her back momentarily in several places. An unearthly wail of suffering rose up into the sky like something dark and preternatural, the girl shrieking in abject horror and raising her hands to her face to ward off her attacker. It was no use. The high priestess laughed as her evil cohort brought the blood drenched blade down again, hacking the helpless girls left arm clean off at the elbow. The sound of her merciless delight sent icy cold shivers through Alexis, chilling her to the bone.

  Without saying a word Alexis and Christie turned to run back towards the car, but their dates were ready for them. Hector punched Christie hard in the face and she crumpled into a heap on the ground, knocked out cold. Alexis tried to dart past Angel but he seized her by the wrist and began slowly dragging her towards the bonfire while she screeched like a bobcat with its foot caught in a steel trap, thrashing wildly about in her drugged stupor. Hector hefted Christie's unconscious body over his shoulder with a grunt then proudly marched out towards the high priestess, passing them as he went. Alexis scratched at Angel's arm, trying to free herself, but it only seemed to make him pull harder. She tried digging her feet into the ground and pulling back, but it was no use. She was simply not strong enough to fight him off.

  A roar of approval rose up from the ghoulish crowd as the girls were brought in. The men greeted Hector and Angel like conquering heroes returned from war with human spoils for sacrificing. The killer with the blade placed it to the poor blonde girl’s throat and sliced it open with one quick motion. Blood sprayed out in thick bursts as the high priestess held out a silver bowl to catch some, her gauzy white gown and golden baubles darkening with a scarlet-tinted shadow in the process. The girl’s eyes rolled into the back of her head, leaving only the whites visible. She choked and sputtered momentarily before pitching forward to her executioner's feet and going limp. The high priestess of death showed no interest in her whatsoever, casually stepping over the dying girl to greet Angel and Hector and see what her good little boys had brought her. She took Alexis's face in her bony hands, examining her the way a farmer might look over newly acquired pig for slaughter.

  “Get your fucking hands off of me” Alexis raved, but the old woman just smiled. She rattled off something quickly in Spanish, the words slurring together in a gloating thrum punctuated by rolled tongue sounds. Hector began moving towards the barn in the distance, Christie's limp body still draped over his shoulder, her wild hair blowing in the gentle ocean breeze.

  Angel dragged Alexis by the arms once more but this time she wasn't going without a fight. She bit his hands and he screamed in surprise, before cocking back his fist and pummeling her in the face several times. It felt like being hit by a Mack truck. Alexis saw stars as blinding pain shot through her skull. She crumpled to the ground but Angel wasn't done with her yet.

  With a predators swiftness he sprung on her, his face a twisted mask of rage and unmitigated hatred as he continued punching down into her face, his hard fists driving her skull into the soft dirt with the force of each impact. She was drifting away, slipping into a blackness ebbing up from deep inside of her, beyond where his fists could reach her. She felt cold, a numbness spreading through her limbs, her lips quivering uncontrollably before she passed out.

  Chapter Two

  Zack came to with a start, uncertain of where he was at first. He glanced out the window to see a rippling layer of ivory clouds rising up to greet him like a quilted comforter made of soft white fluff. He wiped the excess drool from the corner of his mouth and blinked his eyes until the world came back into full focus. He was on a plane. It was coming back to him in pieces. He'd slept through most of the flight, the steady rumble of the airplane engines lulling him into fitful dreams.

  I never sleep on planes, Zack thought, amused that he'd gone under so hard. It's why I always choose a window seat, so I can stare out while we fly and keep myself distracted.

  He felt unusually refreshed for such a short nap. He stretched like a child, reaching out with both arms and yawning loudly with his mouth open. The plane hit a pocket of air that caused it to quiver momentarily like a puppy scratching a flea out of its ear and brought him back to reality with an unexpected queasiness. A moment later an attendant's smooth voice came seeping out of the overhead speakers.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are now making our final descent into San José del Cabo International Airport. Please return your tray tables to their fully upright and locked positions. We also ask that you fasten your seatbelts for arrival and remain seated for the remainder of the flight. On behalf of the crew we'd like to thank you for joining us today and wish you a pleasant trip to your final destination.”

  Zack dug into his computer bag and pulled out his passport out, along with a form for customs and a tourist card. He vaguely remembered filling it out before passing out. He tucked the documents into the flap of his passport and slid them into his front pocket for safekeeping.

  “Rise and shine buckaroo,” an overly eager voice to his right said. Zack turned to see his childhood best friend Dave giving him a wide eyed grin from across the aisle. “You ready to lose yourself in a haze of alcohol and hot chicks?”

  Zack shook his head, his curly mop of unkempt dirty
brown curls waving in front of his eyes. Dave held his hands up defensively as if to ward of the invisible cloud of gloom that had enveloped his friend.

  “I know, I know,” he said before Zack could protest further. “One thing at a time. First we gotta get through customs and over to the resort. Then we'll worry about the rest. This is going to be the best vacation of our lives. We're going to burn Cabo down!”

  Despite Dave's enthusiasm Zack wasn't so sure. The truth was that he wasn't really up to having a wild Spring Break party in Mexico but when Dave insisted that they go, promising to book them two first class tickets on his Gold Amex, he quickly found himself running out of reasons to object. Dave's parents had separated when he was a freshman in high school after it came out his dad had been having an affair with Dave’s unbelievably hot babysitter. Dave’s mother had a self-diagnosed nervous breakdown over what the neighbors were no doubt saying about her, and his dad had moved out and began dating a series of young girls not much older than him. He hadn't seen much of his old man during that time, but he didn't need to hear his dad's side of the story to know how he felt about it.

  Shortly after that Dave started experimenting with drugs on a semi-regular basis and acting out in an obvious attempt to get attention from his increasingly distant father, who responded by throwing money at the problem and hoping it would fix things between them. It didn't. Dave dropped out of high school senior year, opened up his own mobile car detailing business on a loan from his absentee father, and quickly ran up an insurmountable pile of debt which he tried to get rid of by adding cocaine delivery to his list of specials along with the wash and wax. It was all working like a charm too until one of his clients, a sleazy Persian mortgage broker with a thousand dollar a week habit, got pulled over with an eight ball while trolling for street prostitutes on Santa Monica Boulevard and ratted Dave out. Feds raided his office, seizing his fleet of company trucks and turning up enough blow to put Dave away for up to ten years.

  Blaming himself for Dave's bad life choices, his father had pulled every favor with his well-connected friends he could, spending a small fortune in the process on some of the best lawyers in the state to get his sons sentence reduced. It worked. In the end Dave copped to misdemeanor possession and ended up spending six months in a posh rehab in the hills of Malibu overlooking the Pacific Ocean. His father, in an attempt to mend their irreparably broken relationship, came to visit him every weekend. By the third month in it looked like Dave might actually be trying to turn over a new leaf – so to speak. He'd begun talking about wanting to go back to school and get his diploma but all that ended a few weeks before he was going to be released when his dad lost control of his Saab heading down the winding canyon on the way back from visiting Dave and plummeted to his death. Dave had become a millionaire overnight and Zack hadn't seen him sober a single day since. They'd grown apart while he was in rehab, owing to the heavy study schedule Zack had taken on freshman year at UCLA, but after his father's untimely passing Dave had grown paranoid of his new friends trying to rip him off all the time and had gone to great lengths to keep Zack in his life.

  “Everyone wants to be rich but no one ever tells you how shitty it is in real life having any kind of substantial wealth,” Dave confided to Zack by his Bel Air pool over the winter holiday break.

  They'd been lounging around all afternoon, drinking hard and reminiscing about the good old days when they'd lived on the same street in Culver City as kids. Zack's parents weren't well off by any means, at least not like Dave's were. His father worked in real estate and his mother in advertising for years before fibromyalgia had forced her into early retirement. But they were comfortable. They didn't flaunt what they had. They kept their heads down and worked and didn't complain. They'd bought into a quiet neighborhood when mortgage rates were low and seen the city explode around them. By the time Zack was getting ready to pick a college they had enough equity in their house and money in the savings account to finance his way through graduate school if he'd wanted to attend one. Zack assured them four years would be more than enough and to save the rest for his little sister Gwen.

  Dave's parents started out just as old-fashioned as Zack's. His father, a software developer, believed it was best for a mother to be home with her kids instead of in the work force. He frequently dragged Dave off to St. Augustine for Sunday services saying there was “nothing more important than family” and that “the family that prays together stays together” – although his mother rarely joined them. Zack remembered how Dave used to have to come home early from batting practice on Wednesday nights during Little League season to have dinner with his parents for family night. Dave's dad was a typical middleclass family man in every sense of the word until he sold his pet software project to Microsoft for several million dollars and retired at the age of fifty-two. They moved to Bel Air but Dave refused to switch schools so Zack still saw him every day. Despite their newly acquired wealth and all the changes it brought with it Dave's family seemed to be doing all right for a while but about a year later Dave's mom walked in on his dad in flagrante with the teenage babysitter on the guest bed. After that everything went to hell in a handbasket real quick.

  “Yeah well maybe if you weren't living like a character out of a Brett Easton Ellis novel you might feel differently about that,” Zack teased.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dave protested.

  “I'm just saying,” Zack said, palms out in mock defensiveness. “You throw wild parties up here twice a week filled with every kind of club trash imaginable like you're Mister-Less-Than-Zero. What kind of people did you think that would attract?”

  “Well excuse me for not having weekly symposiums with Elon Musk on how to fix the world's homeless problem,” Dave said, topping off his now empty martini glass. “In case you didn't notice, those parties are my way of meeting new women. You were the one who said I needed to find a good girl and settle down.”

  Dave had been through a series of wannabe models and actresses over the course of the last year, each more terrible than the last. So far the only thing he'd had in common with any of them was a mutual love of getting wasted. His last attempt at romance, Kendra, had been the worst by far. A failed model with aspirations of Hollywood superstardom she spent half of her time talking about what she was going to do once she “made it” and the other half name dropping.

  “I'm pretty sure you know that wasn't what I meant,” Zack laughed. “You'd have better luck finding your soulmate on a reality television date than you would with one of these chicks.”

  “Funny you should mention that,” Dave said. “Kendra just got booked on a show where the contestants get naked and go on blind dates on some island. It's part of why we broke up. She didn't want the producers to find out she was seeing someone. She was afraid it would hurt her chances.”

  “You know what I mean,” Zack said.

  “I don't know who I can trust anymore,” Dave sighed, looking suddenly older and more tired than Zack had ever seen him before. “Everyone is trying to get something from me except you. These days you're about the only one I feel safe around.”

  Zack had made it clear that he didn't want anything from Dave but his friendship, but Dave kept trying to lure him into adventures with his newfound wealth. They took a trip to Vegas a week later that turned out to be one of the best vacations Zack had ever had in his life. They ate in five star restaurants, partied in the VIP section of some of the best nightclubs the dazzling city had to offer, and saw a UFC fight so close Zack was worried they'd get sprayed with the fighters body fluids during the match. On their last night Dave surprised Zack by ordering several high priced call girls to their suite and offering him first pick of the bunch. Dave tried patiently to explain for what seemed like the hundredth time that he had a serious girlfriend, Lily whom he'd met in his excruciatingly dull class on Milton, and that he wasn't going to cheat on her no matter how tempting an offer it was.

  “Have you seen these girls
?” Dave practically shouted, a devil's halo of white powder ringing both his nostrils. “They are some of the hottest chicks I've ever seen in my life. They cost five thousand dollars an hour. That's why they look like super models bro. If you don't get in there and pick at least one of them you're going to regret it the rest of your days my friend.”

  It had taken Zack nearly a half an hour after that to convince his old friend that while he appreciated the generous offer he wasn't going to ruin what he had with Lily.

  “What's so special about this girl?” Dave demanded.

  “I don't know man,” Zack shrugged. “She's just different than other girls I've met. I think she might be the one. And if she is, and I cheat on her tonight, we’ll always have this secret between us. It just wouldn’t feel right.”

  Dave shifted gears after hearing that, slapping him on the back and telling him what a truly good person he was.

  “You see? This is why I don't trust anyone else but you,” Dave roared in a drugged-out stupor. “Every other guy I know would be in the master suite right now with at least two of those girls doing all kinds of depraved shit, even the married ones. No. Wait. I take that back. Especially the married ones! But you, you've got morals man. You've got heart. I can't tell you how much I fucking respect that.”

  Too bad Lily didn't think the same way, Zack thought, doing his best to fight back the bitter feeling rising up in him again like a deadly viper. Despite his unyielding fidelity and devotion his beloved 'new center of the universe' had been sleeping around with several guys and using her friends to keep him from finding out by having them cover for her whenever Zack got suspicious. There was a distance that had grown between them as Lily became more brazen about her dalliances, and more callous and emotionally withdrawn from him. Right before Spring Break she'd decided to unload her guilty conscience on Zack. She told him that she had found Jesus, with the help of her newest lover no less, and that he had convinced her that it wasn't right to continue to lie to Zack. It was the last time he'd spoken to her since she'd headed back home to Missouri right after breaking up with him to see her parents and consult with her Methodist pastor about her budding new spiritual life.