Decker hesitated, sizing up the old man. He was wearing a stained bathrobe and pajama bottoms. Hugh Hefner of the barrio, minus the blondes and charisma. “Are you Del Toro?”
“No names. And I don’t do business in the hallway. Come inside, por favor.”
The scent of clove enveloped Decker as he crossed the threshold, causing him to think of Rachel, who had smoked only clove cigarettes. The smell reminded him how badly he missed her.
The old man closed the door, sealing off most of the light. Flies buzzed around the sweltering room. They landed on Decker’s face and the back of his sweat-beaded neck. It was nearly pitch dark inside the front room. The only light came from the outlines of shaded windows. He took two steps and bumped into a wall of cardboard boxes.
Decker said, “Hey, amigo, how about some light?”
The dealer hummed as he pulled up the shades, allowing in the morning light. Growing up in the ghettos, Decker had seen plenty of cluttered homes in his life, but none like this. Hundreds of wooden crates and cardboard boxes were stacked to the ceiling in organized rows. They covered the walls, the windows, even the back door that led onto a fire escape. Decker walked between the stacked boxes, rounding corners as if wandering through a maze.
“What’s in all the boxes?” Decker asked.
“Merchandise,” the dealer said and offered nothing more.
Decker knew better than to push further. A secret warehouse in a tenement building—there was definitely enough evidence here for probable cause. He nervously tried to decide what to do. The cop in him urged to do the right thing: put the cuffs on this guy and call his chief so the police could put a major dent in Del Toro’s empire. Decker would be a hero. A bust this big could be his opportunity to retire from Vice and be upgraded to a department that would allow him to live a normal life. But that wouldn’t stop the swarm of insects that were slowly eating away at him from the inside out. He licked his lips, wondering if any of the boxes contained glimmer. Following the drug dealer through a labyrinth of dusty boxes, Decker became riddled with shame.
What would Father Mike think if he could see me now? He’d tell me to go inside, find God, pray for salvation.
Sorry, Father, tried that a dozen sleepless nights.
Decker wound through the narrow aisles, feeling as if the stacks were closing in on him. Up ahead the dealer rounded a corner that led into infinite blackness. Decker touched the butt of his handgun, unsure of the situation he was walking into. Maybe the old man had goons hiding in the next room. Decker paused, listening. Tense seconds passed. He was about to abort mission when a lamp turned on. The dealer was standing in the far corner of a bedroom. The windows had been boarded over, sealing off every trace of light. Motioning with his hands, he pointed around the room at all the metal shelves. “Choose any vice you like, amigo.”
Displayed on the shelves was an enormous cache of heroin, cocaine, ice, bags of marijuana, and pills of all colors. All the local favorites: speed, ecstasy, Mexican valium, ludes, yellow sunshine, and black mollies.
Another wall looked like a porn shop, with smut mags and videos for every taste from the typical porn addict to the mentally twisted. Decker felt bile in his mouth at the large collection of snuff films. One DVD titled Beheadings had a photo of a blonde prostitute holding her head in her lap. Decker shot a glare at the dealer. “You make these, old man?”
He raised his palms. “No, no, amigo, I’m just the shopkeeper. I have clients who ask for snuff.” He grinned. “If you’re into children, I can get that too, on video or the real thing.”
It took all of Decker’s willpower not to punch the old man. Maybe I should just bust this sick fuck. Get him off the streets. Decker contemplated this a moment, weighing the pros and cons. But then you’d be right back where you started, looking for another hookup. Besides, Del Toro would just set up a warehouse somewhere else and hire a new glimmer man to do his dealings. The War on Drugs didn’t destroy all the cockroaches of society. It only made them breed more elusive cockroaches.
Decker got down to business. “I was told you have glimmer.”
“Si, excellent choice.” The dealer unlocked a tall vault. The shelves inside were stacked with taped-up bricks. Decker could tell by the way the rock crystals glittered that this was pure-grade gold.
The old man pulled off one of the bricks and looked at it with pride. “My top-selling product. Man’s gateway to the gods.”
Decker didn’t need the sales pitch. “How about a sample?”
“Of course.” The old man motioned for Decker to take a seat with him on a dusty couch. On a scarred coffee table, the dealer used a razor blade to shave off part of the brick into a pile of gold crystals. He placed them in the ball-shaped end of a glass pipe and stuck a lighter flame to it. The glimmer, living up to its name, glowed neon gold as it cooked and crackled. Decker breathed in the potent smell. The second-hand smoke was only enough to tease his senses. His nerves crawled. His mouth went bone dry. His tongue licked lips that were cracked and papery. Even the blood pumping through his veins ached for another escape into perfect bliss.
“Enjoy the ultimate ride, amigo.” The dealer handed Decker the pipe.
Clamping his lips down on the stem, Decker took a long, greedy draw, filling his mouth and lungs with smoke. His throat and chest tingled. He sank back into the couch cushions, savoring the sensations of bubbles rushing up his spine and into his brain. Uncontrollable laughter erupted from him.
The walls began to expand outward, making the dimly-lit room seem cavernous. In the distance he began hearing voices, some howling, some calling his name. Specters formed in the surrounding darkness, moving toward Decker. He felt too at ease to panic from such a miraculous vision. First he saw his mother and Grammy and teared up at the sight of them. Next to them appeared Rachel, a loving smile on her face. The shadowy ether behind her formed into Father Mike, a proud look on the black priest’s face. Then came Vinnie, a former gang brother who had died in a knife fight. Around the five most important people of Decker’s life gathered a dozen other celestial beings who were part darkness, part bodies with shimmering white skin. They must have been angels guiding his lost loved ones back to him.
Decker stood to embrace them, but like a cruel trick, the ghosts retreated quickly and were sucked back into the void.
“Wait. Come back . . .” He chased after them but was stopped by a wall. The euphoria in Decker’s mind and body dwindled, leaving him with the shakes. One hit off the pipe wasn’t enough to bridge his world with theirs.
He reached into his pocket and felt the wad of cash he’d withdrawn from the ATM. Three months pay that he’d been saving. “Okay amigo, how much per brick?” He turned and saw that the old Chicano had left the room and taken the pipe with him. “Amigo?”
Decker weaved back through the maze of boxes. It was suddenly darker. The shades were pulled down. He switched on the small flashlight he always carried. He drew his pistol, wondering what kind of game this asshole was playing. He reached a dead end, probing his beam into a foul-smelling toilet covered in black mold and buzzing with flies. Inside the commode, the dark soup crawling with flies and maggots formed into a face that rasped, “Alexxxxx . . .” An arm shot up from the toilet.
“Oh fuck!” Decker backed away, bumped into a wall of boxes. He ran down a passage, refusing to look back. His mind conjured an image of man covered in black sludge and flies rising from the toilet, wet feet squelching the wood floor as the thing followed Decker through the labyrinth.
It’s not real, his rational mind tried to convince himself. I’m just hallucinating.
As a cop who had tried acid, mushrooms, and other mind-altering drugs, he had trained himself to distinguish reality from fantasy. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that something otherworldly was following him. Endless stacks towered over Decker. Cockroaches scurried over the boxes. He felt them skittering up his legs. He swatted at his jeans, but the bugs only retreated into his flesh and ran along his bo
nes. “It’s not really happening,” he said, trying to maintain his hold on reality.
Taking the glimmer at the drug dealer’s apartment seemed to have adverse effects, giving Decker visions of hell instead of heaven. Did the location matter? He needed to close the deal and return to the sanctity of his home. He’d surround himself with the photos of everyone who had ever mattered to him, then light up the pipe and rebuild the bridge to the spirit world. Maybe if he smoked enough their two worlds would merge and they would never leave him again.
Decker hurried forward, desperate. “Where are you, señor?”
“In the next room.”
The maze finally opened up to a long straight passage. In a dark room ahead came a sudden pop-crackling-hiss. A white light, bright as fireworks, flashed like some kind of magician’s trick. On impulse Decker ducked behind a wall of crates, his pistol aimed at the ceiling. He crept along the passage, disbelieving what his eyes were seeing. The old man stood before a portal of white fire. No smoke. No spreading cinders. Only a contained ball of flames the size of a window. At its center, a hand with claws reached from some hellish realm and touched the old man’s head. Impossible. The dealer’s back was turned. His head bowed as if in prayer.
Decker tapped him on the shoulder and the demon hand retreated from his head. The fiery window closed. The dealer turned around. His face wasn’t there, just a writhing, pulsating mush. The man’s features shifted, re-shaping the flesh and bone, eyes and teeth. Above a giant twisted mouth, two smaller mouths chomped inside the eye sockets. Black tongues circled their rims.
Decker stumbled backwards. His shaky hand aimed the pistol. This isn’t real. The glimmer must have been laced with acid and this was all some bad trip. “What the hell kind of drug did you give me?”
“The glimmer has opened your eyes to other worlds,” the mouths said in multiple voices.
Decker shook his head. “This isn’t happening.”
“Oh, but it is, Alex Decker.”
The floor seemed to spin beneath his feet. “How do you know my name?”
The dealer’s face returned to that of an old man. “It is my business to know the needs of my clients. You suffered as a toddler, screaming in your crib while your mother ODed on crack."
Decker shook his head as the childhood traumas he had tried to suppress came rushing back. His mother’s old apartment took form around them as if he and the dealer were somehow transported to his childhood. A child’s wailing pierced his ears. In a corner, a toddler stood in his crib, sobbing. Suddenly, Decker felt like he was inside the child’s body, painful tears rolling down his face, his throat aching as he cried, his full diaper sticking to his skin. Decker’s young mother lay on the floor, thin as a skeleton, blank eyes staring at nothing, her nose and mouth foaming with blood. The last heroin needle she had ever injected was still stuck in her arm.
Baby Alex continued to cry.
Decker plugged his ears. “Make it stop!”
The Chicano put a hand on Decker’s shoulder and the baby’s pain and discomfort left his body. The crying ceased. “For two days you suffered from hunger and thirst while your mother’s corpse rotted five feet away. Thankfully, your grammy found you just in time and took you in. She did her best to teach you good morals, but the streets taught you that you have to fight to survive.”
Decker saw visions of his teenage years running with a street gang . . . holding his best friend, Vinnie, in his arms as he died from a knife wound . . . confessing his sins to Father Mike at the Church of the Madonna . . . at the hospital, gripping Rachel’s hand the moment the cancer finally took her.
Decker gripped his own hair. “Why are you showing me all this?”
“Only to prove that I understand your needs, my friend. Your whole life you’ve been cheated. Everyone you ever loved was taken away too soon. This has left you hollow and bitter. I can replace that emptiness with a chance to be with your mother and grammy again. Rachel and Father Mike and Vinnie, too.” The dealer pulled the glass pipe from his robe pocket. With a silver lighter he kissed a flame to the end and inhaled. He blew out smoke and offered the pipe. “Would you like another hit?”
Decker was a teenager again, lost and confused. He gazed at the smoking pipe in the dealer’s hand.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Alex. I’m the salvation you’ve been seeking. Even Father Mike, with his desperate search for a god to believe in, eventually came to my sanctuary.” The old dealer raised his sleeves. Both arms were tattooed with dozens of faces. Among them was the face of Father Mike. That tattoo’s mouth came to life, speaking in Father Mike’s voice. "It’s okay, Alex, you can smoke it if you want. Remember how good it felt to see everyone you love?"
"Yes. . .” Decker licked his lips.
“Rachel’s here with me,” Father Mike said. “We’re waiting for you.”
Decker reached for the pipe, but the hand snapped it back.
"No, no, amigo,” spoke the ancient voice. “Not without payment."
Decker pulled out the wad of cash. "You can have all of it. Just give me the damned glimmer. As many pounds as this will buy me."
“Keep your money. What I’m looking for is an even trade.”
Decker felt his nerves bouncing. “Fine, what is it?”
The old man opened his robe. Tattooed across his tan chest was the head of a bull. Above the horns, gang-style letters spelled out DEL TORO. “Praise my name.”
“What the fuck?”
“It’s a simple request.” The old man dragged a boney finger beneath the name tattooed on his chest. “Praise my name, and you can have all the glimmer you can bear.”
Decker paced. “This was a mistake.” He shined his flashlight beam back into the maze. “Show me the way out of here.”
“What have you got to go back to, Alex? More sleepless nights curled up in the corner of your apartment, scratching at hordes of insects festering beneath your skin? They’ve been steadily driving you mad, haven’t they? They will never go away until you smoke the glimmer.”
Decker rubbed his temples. He stared at Del Toro’s piercing gaze. Decker felt woozy, feared he might pass out.
“It’s not your fault, Alex . . .” the dealer said in a hypnotic voice, “. . . that your mother loved heroine more than you. Or that you had to earn your battle scars on the streets. Or the one woman you allowed yourself to love abandoned you like all the others. All your pain and suffering, your cravings . . . I can make those feelings go away with a single draw.” He stuck his pipe into his mouth and took another drag. The golden ball at the end brightened.
“Okay, okay, I praise your name,” Decker said. “Del Toro. I praise Del Toro. Is that what you wanted?”
“That was perfect.” The old Chicano gave him the pipe and lighter. "But understand, Alex Decker, that with every vice there is a price."
“I’m not afraid of ODing, if that’s what you mean.” Decker’s thumb uncapped the lighter, rolled back the igniter, and the most beautiful blue flame he had ever seen danced on the end of it. He lit up the glimmer inside the pipe’s bowl, then inhaled deeply. His face and brain tingled, then his lungs, torso, abdomen, and legs. He felt alive again. The insects moving beneath his skin finally settled. He stared at the old Chicano and smiled. “This is what life’s all about, isn’t it, amigo? Fulfilling our needs.”
“Indeed, indeed.” The old man started to laugh. First just the mouth on his face, but then other mouths opened up across his torso, each chuckling with its own rhythm.
The sight was pure madness, but Decker didn't care. He had what he'd been longing for and took another hit off the pipe.
“You got your needs met,” Del Toro said with multiple voices. “Now, I get mine.” He leaped, knocking Decker to the floor. Strong arms pinned him down and slapped the gun from his hand.
Decker stared up, dizzy, perplexed.
Del Toro was no longer human, but a gray-skinned beast with a dozen chomping mouths. It hugged his body tight, and Decker fe
lt several mouths chewing through his clothes. The orifices of its head bit into his neck and cheeks. Decker dropped the pipe and threw the creature off. His flesh tore away in several places where clenched teeth had taken bites. Standing, he saw his body was covered in patches of blood. He looked up. “Motherfu—!“
The thing leaped on him again. Lips, teeth, and probing tongues found the bloody patches. Decker collapsed back against the wall. His instincts kicked in and he fought back, slamming punches into the side of its head. The creature clamped down tight, sucking his blood. Decker screamed and shoved the small attacker away, kicked it in the ribs.
Breathing heavily, long red tongues jiggling from dozens of holes in its face and body, the creature grinned. "I have vices too. A deal’s a deal." It pounced again.
“Get away from me.” Decker dashed down the passage. He pulled down stacks of boxes. They avalanched behind him, clogging the aisle. The gray demon leaped upward like a baboon scaling a cliff and ran on all fours across the tops of the stacks. Long toad-like tongues shot out from its many mouths, striking the back of Decker’s head and neck. Wet and sticky. The fast-moving shadow crawled directly above him. Decker threw his shoulder into the wall of cardboard boxes. The stacks tipped over and the thing went crashing down with them.
DARK NEEDS: Three Twisted Tales of Horror Page 2
