Abomination (15 page)

Without a word, she sat next to him on the couch.
  Rested a hand on his right knee.

Michael’s
 stomach was suddenly revolting worse than it ever had before.  Worse than when he had suffered from a stomach virus two years ago and spent a good part of three days in the bathroom in front of and on top of the toilet.  He suddenly wanted to get up and run.  He wanted to kiss her.  He wanted to tear her clothes off right there.  He wanted to cry.  He wanted everything.  He wanted nothing.

“Looks like you can use a friend, Brian,” she said, her voice husky but playful.

Michael shook his head.  “I have plenty of those.” He looked at his lap, at her hand, at anything but her beautiful face.  
What I need is a psychiatrist,
 he thought. 
And some pills to make my needs just go away. Chemical castration.

A smooth hand took his chin and lifted his head.

He looked into the girl's eyes, took in every exquisite detail of her perfect face.  God, she was beautiful.  She began to chew on her bottom lip in a way that simply made him melt.

“It's okay,” she said in the most natural way, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking because she had been in this exact same situation many, many times before. 

For a moment, simply because she had said so, Michael allowed himself to believe her.  
It is okay.  It’s natural.  It’s only human.
 
Sometimes doing what's necessary isn't always the same as doing what's right. And this is necessary. And that makes it okay, even if it’s not right.
I love my wife.  I'm doing this for my wife.  I’m doing it for us.  Because I don’t want to resent her forever.

The girl let go of his chin, took his hand in hers, and stood up, her body unfolding gracefully from the couch.  “Let’s go discuss this somewhere else,” she said, offering an impish grin.  “I know just what you need.”

Those words were like a cold splash of water across the face, and all Michael could think about at that moment was Leland Gaunt, the villain from Stephen King’s
Needful Things
who
manipulated the townsfolk into committing mischievous and evil acts with the promise of giving them what they wanted most in return. 

It didn’t turn out well for any of them in the end.

But the moment of shock quickly passed.  He stood as ordered and dutifully followed the girl through the throngs of people to the banks of elevators next to the casino floor.

Sometimes doing what was right and what was necessary
were not the same thing,
he reminded himself as he walked.  But for some reason, Jerry’s wisdom didn’t make him feel any better.

Chapter 6

Over the past four years, Glenn had developed a working relationship with Gary Snyder, owner of Gary’s Pawn Shop.  When he started this storage locker endeavor, he knew he needed to have at least one local contact he trusted to sell some of the more expensive items he simply didn’t want to deal with or hold on to for long, like jewelry.  He had met Gary several months into his hobby at an auction outside of Vegas, and they had become fast friends.  They both liked the Oakland Raiders.  They both played guitar.  They both hated Kenny G.  They both loved Japanese food and hated Indian food.  And they were both decent, honest guys with East Coast roots.  Glenn knew that he could trust the Brooklyn transplant to deal honestly with him, and he oftentimes brought small items he found at auctions in California to Vegas with him to sell to Gary.  And of course, when he bought a unit in Vegas itself, he visited Gary the next day if he had anything of value to get rid of.

Today, he had one item to sell:  The gold necklace with the teardrop diamond dangling from the end.  This was the exact type of thing he used Gary for.  He could try to sell it himself, after doing hours of research to find out what it was worth, but he simply didn’t have the time or interest.  It was beautiful, but he didn’t want it.  He didn’t have anyone in his life to give it to.  He didn’t want to have to insure it.  And he could use the money. 

This… this gorgeous thing was way out of his league.  Let the expert deal with it.

Gary would be able to sell it more quickly, and for more money, than he could ever hope to. 

When he left the storage unit, the only thing he took with him was the necklace.  The rest would wait until he was ready to leave.  Bob had given him forty-eight hours, after all.  He was in no rush.  The stuff would be safer here than in his truck.

He glanced at his watch as he stepped out into the twilight.  It was already close to seven.  Too late to visit Gary tonight.  The guy on duty at this time of night wasn’t authorized to buy things like this.  That meant that he would need to keep the necklace, which was stuffed into his right pocket, for another fifteen hours or so.  And that made him nervous.  He was the paranoid type, and he liked to get rid of the expensive stuff as soon as possible.  When he carried around something worth this much, he always worried that there was a target painted on his back.  But there was nothing else to be done.  True, he could have left the necklace in the storage locker, but that prospect made him even more nervous.  He didn’t want it on his person, but at the same time, he felt that there was no safer place for it. So he held on to it but kept alert.

Glenn slid into the driver’s seat of his truck and drove toward the Luxor.  A man needed to eat, and he couldn’t think of a better place to have his final dinner in Vegas.  He was a fiend for buffets, and after dining at a dozen of Vegas’s finest, he had decided that the Luxor offered the best buffet, and whenever he was in town, he made sure to stop there at least once.  Sure, it was in the other direction from the motel where he was staying, but the detour was worth it.

He gorged himself that night, eating alone and sampling from all of his favorite foods, ignoring the fat content as he shoveled in mini-burritos, slices of pepperoni pizza, fried chicken wings, and mozzarella sticks.  He was just feeling too good and wanted to celebrate.  When he was close to bursting, tired and content, he stood to leave.  But as he made his way toward the exit, a small voice began to whisper inside his head.  Not a voice, actually, but a small tickling in the back of his mind.  A compulsion.

He looked at the dessert bar as he walked past, a magnificent layout of pastries and ice cream, an altar to sugar and decadence.  Though he had every intention of pushing past and leaving, he found himself drifting toward the soft serve ice cream machine.  He grabbed a bowl from the table, sliced a banana in half, and proceeded to create a massive banana split, piling it high with toppings like he was ten again: sprinkles and wet walnuts and hot fudge and whipped cream and half a dozen maraschino cherries.  He brought the monstrosity back to his table and began to gorge again, feeling an uncomfortable sensation as the food slithered down his throat.  He didn’t know why he was eating—he wasn’t hungry—but he ate nonetheless, as if in a trance, as if this was to be his last meal, enjoying and hating the taste and sensations in equal measures.  Even when he wanted to stop, something urged him on, some uncomfortable need to eat and eat and eat.  Like his life depended on it.  It was only when he heard a laugh inside his head, a sound like a little girl’s
giggle, that the pressure on his mind, the drive to eat, abated. 

He dropped his spoon and began to breathe heavily.  He wiped his mouth with a napkin, removing gobs of fudge and ice cream.  His stomach throbbed uncomfortably, almost painfully, and the sudden need to vomit rose in him.  He felt everything he had eaten in the past half hour begin to climb and climb and climb back up his esophagus until he could taste it on the back of his throat and creeping onto his tongue.  He rushed to the bathroom, burst into a stall, fell to his knees and threw up, feeling hot, caustic bile burn its way back up his throat in a vile wave.  The sounds he made were awful, horrid noises, and for a moment Glenn wondered if he would die unceremoniously on the floor of a casino bathroom. 

After a minute, the productive vomiting gave way to dry heaving.  He flushed the toilet twice and fell back against the stall door, sobbing as he gave his body a moment to calm down.  He wanted water, needed water, or something, to rinse the taste of vomit from his mouth.  He almost considered drinking from the toilet but thought better of it.

Finally able to stand, Glenn made his way out of the
stall, half bent over, and walked to the sink.  Luckily, the bathroom was empty so he wouldn’t have to share his shame with strangers.  He looked at himself in the mirror.  It was amazing what one vomiting fit could do to a man.  His face was suddenly drawn, almost gaunt, and pale, and his eyes were dark, sunken.  His lips still quivered from the effort.  He quickly turned on the water and used his cupped hands to feed several mouthfuls of water into his mouth, using the first half dozen or so to rinse the taste from his tongue before greedily swallowing the second six.  He then splashed some water in his face, and as he studied his damp features, he noticed something.

He was wearing the necklace.  The chain was around his neck and he could feel the diamond pendent bouncing against the hair on his chest.  It burned slightly, and he swore he saw a curl of smoke drifting up from it.  He didn’t remember putting it on, but he didn’t waste any time taking it off.  He reached behind his head to the simple clasp and undid it, though it took some time because his hands were shaking.  But it finally came off.  Without a second thought, he took the piece of jewelry and shoved it back into his pocket, not even bothering to put it back into the little velvet bag.

Utterly exhausted, Glenn left the Luxor and made a beeline for his truck.  He wanted nothing more at the moment than to get to his motel, strip, and sleep for twelve hours.

He reached the Comfort Inn where he had a reservation fifteen minutes later, parked in front of the lobby and, on wobbly legs, checked in.  His room, of course, was on the other side of the building.  He returned to his truck and guided it around the building to a parking spot near the far entrance.  He grabbed his overnight bag and entered the hotel.  His room was on the second floor, and instead of waiting for the elevator, he dragged himself up the stairs. 

Once in his room, he stripped off his shirt and tossed it into the corner.  He was about to pull down his pants but remembered the necklace in his pocket.  He pulled out the piece of jewelry and dangled the diamond in front of his face.  He allowed the gem to spin in front of his eyes, watched as it sparkled and danced as the light from a lamp pierced its surface and was scattered by its sharp angles.  It truly was a magnificent piece of jewelry, unlike anything he had ever seen before, and he wondered how much Gary would give him for it.  After the disturbing experience in the restaurant, with the eating and the vomiting and the laughter and finding the necklace inexplicably around his neck, he wondered how little he would be willing to take from Gary to simply get rid of it.  He knew it was irrational to think that the necklace had somehow caused him to do what he had done, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling that, despite its beauty, there was something off about it.

He took the necklace and slid it back into the velvet pouch, then walked over to the closet where he knew a safe would be.  He only stayed in hotels that had safes, not only to protect any valuables that he found, but also to store his keys and wallet overnight.  He knew that the small metal box built into the wall of the closet, with its sleek digital face, offered the illusion of security more than security itself, but he liked to have it.  Sure, if somebody somehow snuck into his room at night and pilfered what was
accessible, any valuables in the safe would be, well, safe.  But if someone came at him with a gun, demanding all of the wealth he had on his person, he would empty out the safe himself.

Glenn rested the bag, along with his car keys and wallet, onto the carpeted floor of the small safe.  He closed the door, punched in a code (4169, his birthday) and listened as the locks engaged with a mechanical whine.  He pulled on the door to make sure it was locked, then closed the closet door and went to the bathroom.  He pissed, brushed his teeth with a disposable toothbrush with the paste impregnated on the bristles (what would those fucking geniuses at Oral-B come up with next?), then collapsed onto his bed.

With the lights still on and his jeans still secured around his waist, Glenn found himself quickly and eagerly falling asleep.  As the Sandman came for him, the smell of smoke filled his nostrils, heavy and cloying, and as he licked his lips one last time before sleep, he swore he tasted ash on his tongue.

Glenn dreams every night, and when he wakes in the morning, he is usually able to capture a sliver of his nightly escapades and hold on to the quicksilver memories for several moments before they are gone.  He usually dreams normal dreams.  Oh, his life may be different over there, on the other side of the veil, married to different women and having different jobs and sometimes doing things that would be considered extraordinary or impossible in the real world.  Like flying or fighting crime with super powers.  But his dreams, when he examines them in the morning, are always timid, modest pieces of fluff.  Even the nightmares are never really that scary, and they rapidly fall apart when he wakes, their substance disintegrating within minutes. But that night, in the Las Vegas Comfort Inn, with a gold and diamond necklace tucked away safely in a hotel safe not too far from his bed, Glenn dreams dreams that he knows are not wholly dreams.

He dreams in black and white and shades of gray.  He dreams a world without color.

He dreams of sex.  He is a member of a giant orgy with too many members to count.  He is having intercourse with numerous members of both sexes. 
And enjoying himself, regardless of the gender of his partner at the moment, which shifts from frame to frame, never the same for more than a few seconds.  Sometimes he is above, dominant, sometimes he is on his back or on his stomach, submissive, in pain but savoring it.  The smell of sweat and musk and sex fills his nose, along with the sickly smell of smoke which hangs thick in the air.  Smoke from cigarettes or joints or something like that, he assumes at first.  But the smoke doesn’t smell like that type of smoke.  It’s not the raw odor of burning tobacco or weed.  It smells like… like… and he doesn’t know how he knows it, but he knows that it smells like the odor released when a body is being cremated or simply burned.  The smoke of flesh being charred.  It should make him ill.  It should turn his stomach.  But it doesn’t.  It just drives him on, and he can feel the orgy coming to some giant climax as all of the members suddenly explode as one and every one collapses into one giant heap of quivering, sweaty flesh below a gray cloud of smoke that carries the smell of death and human suffering.

If that was where the dream ended, maybe Glenn would have been able to shrug it off in the morning, chalk it up to the decadence of Las Vegas.  But it doesn’t end there.  The sexual orgy, it is just the beginning. 

The pall of smoke, carrying the acrid scent, begins to drift lower during those languid moments afterwards, those moments when the hundreds of participants in that night’s activities take a collective sigh.  But when tendrils of the stench invade the noses of the men and women, it clouds their minds and opens something primitive in their brains, something previously only accessible to the most primal of creatures, to demons and beasts and men with no moral fiber, driven to kill for enjoyment only. That smoke that smells so much like corpses set to flame unlocks something inhuman in the gathered people, and as one they rouse from their gentle slumber, their minds infected and their vision red with one simple need.  To kill.  Not for food, not for defense, but for the sheer enjoyment of the action.  For the sensation of teeth tearing and nails rending and fresh blood flooding their palates.

Those that come alert last are the first to die, those who wake to the hunger quickest pouncing on the most defenseless of the group.  Animalistic grunts and growls and howls of glee fill the air, mixing with the awful sounds of people being slaughtered and torn apart.  Glenn is one of the lucky ones, if anyone there could be considered lucky, burying his teeth in the neck of the man lying on top of him, tearing out his throat and ending his life in a wash of blood and awful gurgling sounds.  From there, he simply fights, flailing with hands and tooth at whatever he can, his naked body slick with the fluids of sex and slaughter.