Damaged

by Timothy W. Long

  He tried Twitter for a while but got so pissed he’d taken to insulting fans. Instead of getting pity, the media had focused on his responses and not the people who had goaded him. So he had closed his account and hadn’t been back on since. Fuck Twitter and the little twats who populated the social media platform.

  Wex was bored. Where was Payton? Shit, he had started calling her his girlfriend much to her delight.

  Payton was fun. She was cute. She had tits he could stare at for days. She was also half his age and loved fucking as much as she loved drinking. Either that, or she was the world’s greatest actress. The night she’d yelled for him from the line of fans he’d turned, taken one look at her little upturned nose, crimson bob, and arched eyebrows that shadowed animated eyes, and decided he wanted to invite her backstage.

  He shouldn’t complain. Wex had so much sex, and so many variations of sex, he could write a book. He should write a book. A legacy. What if he had a half dozen kids from here to Philly? He’d tried to be safe in the 80s. Once AIDS was a thing, he and everyone with half a brain cell wore a condom.

  Payton was different. She said she’d been waiting on him and had even produced an STD report showing she was clean. That night she’d begged him to put it anywhere he wanted. He’d obliged. A couple of times, in fact.

  The next morning he’d offered his standard, “Last night was great, babe. I’ll have someone drop you wherever you like.”

  She’d countered by telling him she was feeling a little hungover and needed to sleep it off. Later that day, she’d taken a hot bath in the master bathroom while he puttered around, looking for something to occupy his attention. He’d tossed back a couple of Klonopin and settled on watching her. She had left the tub, closed the door, and then come out a few minutes later dressed a skimpy piece of sheer lingerie. To complete the get up, she wore it with thigh high stockings that were made of something silky smooth. He’d taken those off her tanned legs with his teeth.

  Then she’d managed to get him out on a proper date. On their second night out, she’d met a cute brunette in a bar and talked her into joining them. Two hours later, the three of them had stumbled home and Wex had learned that she was also into girls. After a week, she was stopping by his place in the evenings to offer up whatever he wanted.

  Three months later and she was still fucking here.

  “Hey, baby. What’re you up to?” Payton yelled from the bedroom.

  “Recovering from last night,” he muttered to himself.

  Christ. Those two had just about worn him out.

  He got out of his chair and went to see what she was doing. Walking into the bedroom, he was immediately entranced. Daylight had only enhanced her perfect skin, a slight olive hue that damn near sparkled thanks to some kind of lotion that smelled like strawberry cupcakes.

  “Just band shit,” he said. “Did Chloe go home?”

  “Yeah,” Payton said, her voice subdued.

  She had talked him into buying her a little boudoir with a silver backed chair. The mirror was surrounded by little LED bulbs and had about five thousand tiny bottles on the surface and stuffed into drawers along the side. She had a container of blush open and a brush in one hand.

  “You look hot, babe,” he said with a grin.

  “I don’t feel hot,” she looked into the mirror and met his eyes. “We should talk about what happened.”

  “About what happened?”

  Payton wore a too short Damaged T-shirt and nothing else. It was from the Dead by Dawn tour and his face was front and center with the band’s logo popping out of a pool of blood below.

  “Yeah, she could go to the cops,” Payton said.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “She just didn’t expect you to be so rough. I didn’t either. What got into you?” Payton trailed off.

  “We didn’t get that crazy,” Wex said. He itched to go pop a couple more Klonopin. In case that didn’t do the trick, he had a small supply of Ketamine he was itching to test.

  Payton studied him without saying a word.

  “Last thing I remember was you going down on her. Ropes, yeah, you had her tied up. That was fucking hot, babe.” Wex grinned.

  “Don’t play stupid, Wex.”

  “Babe, I swear I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about.”

  “You’ve been so weird over the last few weeks. Then that thing last night.”

  “It’s like we’re talking in different languages, Payton.”

  “You know what you did. You hurt that girl and you hurt me. Not the way I like it either. That’s why we have a safe word, Wex.”

  “You’re just being crazy,” he said. “Neurotic. You get like this sometimes after an intense night.”

  “Intense? Is that what you’re calling it?”

  “Yeah. Look, babe, I gotta do some stuff,” Wex said because all he wanted was out of this uncomfortable conversation.

  “Fine. Whatever, we just won’t talk about it right now.”

  “Whatever floats your boat,” Wex said.

  “Do you want a mojito? I’m about to make one for myself,” she called. “If you’re going to deny reality I’m going to escape mine, too.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” Wex said. “You’re acting weird and that’s cool. I got stuff to do.”

  Mr. Fuckface came screaming into the bedroom and pranced around for attention. Payton scooped him up.

  “I’ll go feed him and let you get some work done,” she said. “Then I’ll get that drink.”

  “Give him some raw steak. Little killer needs his protein,” Wex grinned affectionately at the dog.

  “Gross,” she said. “Back in a flash.”

  Wex nodded and kept his eyes glued to her ass as she departed. He squinted his eyes because she had marks on the back of her thighs. Red marks. Welts, as a matter of fact.

  “The hell?” Wex scratched his head.

  Had things really gotten out of control? He didn’t even remember when he had decided to call it a night and go to sleep.

  “No, that’s too hard,” Chloe flailed beneath him while he waved a small knife over her back.

  Wex stumbled as the vision flashed through his head. He pulled the blanket off the bed and then the top sheet. Underneath he found bloodstains.

  Wex closed his mouth and went to dig out out his bottle of Klonopin.

  Wex spent another hour dicking around on the internet before going downstairs to make a sandwich. There was pancetta imported from Spain had about the same flavor as his personal shopper found at a local Safeway. It wasn’t the taste, it was the cool factor. He could eat the cheap stuff, but why do that when he could blow six hundred bones on this shit. Then there was the goat cheese because he was trying to go Paleo. What was more metal than eating like a caveman? Later tonight, he planned to toss a two pound hunk of skirt steak directly on the coals. One minute per side and that shit was supposedly as smooth as butter. Hopefully his shits, later that night, because he couldn’t tolerate fat, were just as smooth.

  Wex had once tasted the still beating heart of a six month-old lamb. Why a goddamn lamb? Because the letter had demanded it. He’d also been forced to consume duck liver while it was still warm. Sunny had been the only one capable of eating it without gagging. It was a wonder he still enjoyed eating meat.

  He was sick and tired of the letters. Sick and tired of the demands. And sick and tired as fuck of Damaged. He wanted to go out and do something original. They’d played “Tools of the Devil” so many times it made him physically ill to contemplate ever playing it again. But with a tour approaching, he’d have to suck it up and pretend like it was still the best song ever. Plus, he needed the money. He had chatted with Marty, his accountant, last night, and things were looking dour.

  “What’s this letter?” Payton asked.

  She strolled back into the room with his drink in hand, an envelope in the other. She’d put on a pair of pink yoga pants and wore four inch heels.

  Tw
o months ago, it was a wonder if she wore anything at all. Now, she’d somehow taken up residence in his home and had no plans to leave. He should really kick her ass out. There were women lined up for a chance to fuck Wex. He could literally hop on Tinder and have someone here in thirty minutes because he’d done it before. Now she was talking crazy. The marks and blood, he hadn’t done that. Probably the two girls had gotten too frisky with each other.

  “Just leave the mail on the dining room table. I’ll look at it later,” he said.

  Mr. Fuckface pranced around her feet, yapping.

  “Okay but it looks old. Like it was mailed from a foreign country or something,” she said.

  Wex sighed and took the large envelope. Unlike normal letters, this did indeed look like it was from a bygone era. The paper didn’t feel normal. If he had to make a guess, it was made by hand. The writing had his name and address without any return label. The writing was cursive and flowed beautifully.

  “I need to go out for a while, Wex,” Payton said.

  “Uh huh,” Wex turned the envelope over and found a piece of string stuck to the back in a dollop of red wax. An arcane symbol had been pressed into it.

  “… So if you don’t want to go, that’s totally cool.” Payton finished whatever she had spouted.

  “Sure. Have fun, babe.” He said and wandered upstairs, sandwich hanging out of his mouth, taking two stairs at a time. He turned the letter over and over as he studied the weird paper.

  “Right. See you later,” she said as she moved to the front door.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled.

  “Have a nice day,” She said and departed.

  It was only later Wex realized she hadn’t even kissed him on her way out of the house, a ritual she insisted on whenever they were apart.

  7

  Visions in Black

  Michael

  Michael Blackstone shot out of bed at 2:37AM. His pulse raced and he knew for a fact that his blood pressure was out of control. Got so you could feel it when you had dealt with the disease as long as he had. It wasn’t the good kind, either. He had full blown, make your Doctor gasp, high blood pressure. He’d ended up in the ER one night, on the second leg of the Dead by Dawn tour, only to learn that he was rocking a 215/165 BP. That’s when the meds started. Since Giselle had gotten him clean and sober it was way down, but that didn’t mean he was close to being cured. He would be taking the medicine until he passed from this earth into whatever awaiting him on the other side.

  The images from his dream slammed into him again.

  Giselle slept on, peaceful, and serene. A slice of moonlight struck the upstairs bedroom window and winnowed in through the partially drawn drapes. She had a few locks of hair over her cheek and had curled one hand under her chin. Giselle had the smoothest skin he had ever touched and a complexion that wasn’t marred by a single blemish.

  He leaned over and listened because Giselle was a silent sleeper.

  She was breathing. He gasped because he’d been holding his own breath.

  Michael touched his forehead and found sweat. Then he noticed his T-shirt was drenched all the way through. He swung his feet off the bed and tossed the shirt into the corner.

  The dream.

  Michael rose on shaky feet and staggered to the door. What he wouldn’t give for a few stiff drinks right this goddamn moment. He even considered hopping in one of his cars and making a run to the liquor store. With his luck, he’d run into some asshole with a cell phone who couldn’t wait to snap a picture of Michael Fucking Blackstone falling off the wagon. It would hit Blabbermouth.net’s website in hours. Then it would be all over TMZ.

  He slipped on a pair of boxers and shook out his long hair. When it felt like the ground had stopped swimming, he left the bedroom and went to the kitchen to find something to snack on.

  He turned on the light. Even thought he’s seen his wife a minute ago, he was half sure he’d find her here. Butchered.

  He also didn’t see himself sitting in a corner with a razor sharp knife, cutting little furrows into his arms.

  Michael shuddered.

  The dream had been so real that he’d been unable to come out of it. First he’d cut her. Knife in the neck. She didn’t go down easy, either. She gurgled as crimson ran down her chest. She tried to stay on her feet but collapsed to her knees. Her eyes had been pleading, but also filled with hatred. Why? Why had he done this to her?

  He pulled the knife out, slowly, the sound sickening as it slid out of the meat.

  More blood. An ocean of red.

  He reached out for his tribute. Taking her left hand in his, he yanked her index finger so hard it came out of the socket, then he worked at an angle and used the knife to cut through the mutilated digit. He had to saw a couple of times until it came off. That led to even more blood.

  She twitched, and Michael, sure she was dead, got his tribute. He backed into a corner and sat with his knees pressed into his chest as he ate her finger. Tough going, too, because of the little bones. He cracked them with his back teeth, spit out shards, but swallowed the flesh. When it was all gone, he went back for an ear.

  She twitched again and blinked rapidly. Her pupils dilated and his beautiful Giselle was gone, but not before the recrimination in her eyes burned into his soul. He didn’t care. In the dream, they had told him to and he had to comply.

  The insidious little voices back there, thrumming away like stones being ground together. The voices made him follow their will. When he tried to resist, they made him cut off his own dick. He wanted to scream in agony but they didn’t let him. They forced him to watch from the back of his mind.

  Then he’d simply sat there and sliced away chunks of his skin until he thought the anguish was going to drive him mad. But slice and dice, once more `round the merry go round, faster and faster.

  He bled out and collapsed next to his Giselle so he could stare into her eyes.

  They turned yellow and her mouth opened wide. The scream was unholy, a gurgling buildup that culminated in an ear-splitting roar. Michael wanted to press his hands against his ears but they would not let him. Even if he had free will, he would not have been able to because he had managed to cut too many tendons.

  Then he had awoken screaming, only the cries had been in his head.

  “Jesus fucking wept,” he whispered to himself.

  Something smashed into the window that overlooked the pool. He jumped and let out a little screech of terror.

  Michael put his hand over his beating heart, willing it to stop its gallop.

  He approached the sliding glass door.

  Something flapped on the ground outside. The automatic light hadn’t kicked in and that was strange. Michael thought about just going back to bed, covering his head with a pillow, and cowering until the night was gone and sunlight greeted him.

  But the struggling shape continued to flutter around out there. He gulped, unlocked the door, and peered outside.

  Something, no, several somethings thumped. He waved his hand but the automated light still didn’t illuminate the back deck.

  Michael shivered and took a step outside. What could it possibly be? He wasn’t scared, Damaged didn’t allow him to be a normal human being with feeling. When he took to the stage there was an attitude. A confident swagger. Head high, arms away from his body like a body builder. Long hair in his face. He didn’t take shit because he was the fucking man.

  That was the heavy metal lifestyle and some scary noises in the night weren’t going to get to him.

  Something touched his foot and he squealed.

  The bird was nearly dead, it’s head at an odd angle. Just a seagull, that was all. A flying rodent.

  The light finally kicked in and illuminated the back of the house.

  There were dozens of them, and they all flapped feebly. Crows, robins, more seagulls. Each had impacted with something and fallen, bloody and broken, to his back porch.

  8

  Wake Up Dead

 
Seth

  Seth parked his plain old Mercury sedan under an old, ratty tree a block away from his real destination. Its branches hung out over the street and nearly touched the asphalt, scraping up the paint on the roof of his car as he eased under them. Seth didn’t give two shits.

  Unlike that primadonna Wex, who had a car for every damn day of the week just about, Seth hoarded his money and bought a couple generic pieces of shit so he could cruise around town unnoticed. No one would take a second glance, let alone a first, at the battered, rusting heap he was driving. With the windows tinted, he might well have cast an invisibility spell like he was fucking Harry Potter or something. Rockstarus Disappearus, or some shit. He’d only watched the first movie anyway. What the hell did he know?

  He killed the engine and leaned back in the driver’s seat, exhaling loudly as he kept an eye on the street. Just a short while before midnight, the residential, mid-to-lower class neighborhood might as well have been a cemetery given how quiet it was. No one was out on the street and all the houses were set back from the road, the dull gleam of their porchlights doing nothing to illuminate the sidewalk that slithered through the area.

  That was perfect.

  The last thing Seth wanted was for someone to spot him traipsing down the street. With his newly shaved head—Mother Nature having already lawn-mowered the shit out of the back of his scalp—and a black baseball cap, no one would know who he was, but he still didn’t want anyone realizing he was even there. Especially not considering what he’d come to do.

  Much as he’d drawn the line at killing another human being, he wasn’t being given much of a choice in the matter anymore. When the Devil told you to slit someone’s throat, you asked how deep and went about getting it done.