Dark Side Darker (16 page)

IT HAD STARTED SLOWLY. First they had sat listening to music, Jurassic Five when Royksopp finished and then Björk. The sky had melted into darkness and candles were lit. No one spoke, lost in their own contemplative thoughts.

Gradually Pete had became aware of a voice in the back of his mind. ‘Is someone speaking?’ He had wondered but half an hour later he was left with no doubt and the flat was full of screaming.

Troy was pacing back and forth holding his head and constantly repeating “Get out of my head,
Get out of my head
, GET OUT OF My FUCkING HEAD!!”

Sally and Candice were in one of the bedrooms screaming, and Pete had locked himself in the bathroom. He wouldn’t answer and no one knew what he was doing.

Sara was frantic. She stood outside the bathroom door next to Dan.

“Pete,
Pete
?? Please answer honey,
are you ok
??”

“Jesus,” said Dan “It wasn’t like this last time.”

Sara turned on him sharply. “Jesus Christ Dan why would you make us take this stuff?? All it does is send you crazy!!”

Dan waved her back. “Seriously, it wasn’t like this last time! We just had a sort of mellow trip and some audio hallucinations, Jesus it was fun, not like this!! I think it’s got something to do with Troy.”

In the living room the cd player was jumping erratically and the lights dimmed at random. Beneath them Troy stomped back and forth yelling. “What the fuck is going on!!!”

Will had left without saying a word and Mary was rocking back and forth holding her head.

The flat had descended into shared madness.

“Oh Jesus, oh Christ, is this happening?
Is this really happening
?” Sara was asking herself.

“It’s just the drug,” Dan told her. “It’s having a bad effect, we’re just having a bad trip. None of this is real! It’s just a hallucination.”

That was the moment they saw the bright red tendrils snaking their way from underneath the bathroom door.Sara screamed.

“Holy shit!” yelped Dan, kicking at the thin tentacles snaking around his ankles. He leapt back.

Sara was instantly hysterical, screaming for her boyfriend. She rushed the door. “PETE!!!” but Dan held her back.

“keep away from them!” he shouted, before himself yelling for his friend. There was no response, but the tendrils withdrew quickly.

Sara was crying. “Pete for the love of God
what’s
in there with you?? Pete for God’s sake answer me! Pete!!!?”

Is this real
? Dan was wondering,
But Sara could see it too... right
??

“I think we should phone the Police?” he half asked, half suggested.

Something was crashing about behind the door.

Dan had to drag Sara away, her eyes full of tears.

In the living room Troy was levitating, suspended in the air as if he had been pinned there. He hung motionless, eyes closed and a look of bliss on his face.

“Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus.” Sara was weeping, her mind close to breaking.

“This isn’t happening??!” Mary yelled at them and then ran from the room.

Dan was half convinced he was tripping, but in truth he knew no drug could do what he was experiencing. He wanted just to run from the flat and the screaming, take Sara with him but Pete was still in the bathroom... with something... wasn’t he?

“This can’t be happening,” he told Sara. “It’s just the drug. I think it’s the drug, right?”

Sara’s mind had reached its breaking point and she could no longer respond in anything but dread whimpering. He was alone.

Cautiously he crept around where Troy was floating, to where the phone rested. With a shaking hand he began to dial the police but the phone began emitting a loud electronic, shrieking sound in his ear and he threw it down.

Sara momentarily returned to the room, yelling, “This isn’t real!”

In the hallway something heavy thumped against the bathroom door and Dan looked about him in terror. Sara was crying in the corner, Troy unbelievably hung suspended in the air and his nerve snapped. He had to get out of there.

He grabbed Sara and dragged her protesting about Pete to the front door. He looked in on Candice and Sally but Sally was gone and Candice wouldn’t move so in his panic he left her and then he and Sara were escaping down the stairs.

Behind them Candice’s screams grew silent.

FLOYD

FLOYD, RUFUS EXPLAINED, wasn’t so much a drug dealer as a professional narcotics testing unit. The only time he was ever in his right state of mind was when he had no money to buy drugs. In truth he’d spent so much time out of his mind, Floyd wasn’t even sure what that natural state of mind was. Assuming he still had one.

Floyd’s philosophy was that reality was a nice place to visit but he sure as hell didn’t want to live there!

“Yeah, this guy’s a regular fuck up!” Rufus laughed as they walked down the steps of Josh’s flat with Karen following behind. “This cat’s done every combination of acid,” he looked back over his shoulder grinning widely.

“Someone once told me they saw him drink liquid acid from a bottle.” He shook his head and chuckled to himself. “Crazy fuck! No, but he takes cocaine, heroin, acid, E, uppers, downers, Mary Jane—he smokes stuff, snorts, shoots it! Jesus, the guys a one man drug factory. Only thing he doesn’t do is drink. Says it’s bad for you, get that!” He laughed again.

Josh was too tense to share in his humour. He was still recovering from his conversation with Karen. He looked back and her eyes met his. She looked deeply troubled. It was clear she was having trouble accepting what they had just talked about. Josh wondered if he’d made the right choice telling her about hearing voices but in truth he didn’t think he could have stopped himself if he’d tried. He’d been holding so much mental trauma in for so long that he doubted he could have held it for much longer anyway.

“So he’s not a dealer?” Josh asked largely just to escape his own thoughts as they reached the door.

“Well no, he deals but it’s just to make money to buy more drugs. I don’t know but I always see dealing as a business and Floyd’s no business man!”

Josh nodded. He was already building up an impression of what Floyd would be like. “So is this Floyd guy dealing the stuff?”

“Hell no, by all accounts this Blue stuff’s hard to get hold of. Most folk ain’t even heard of it, a few have tried it and couldn’t find anyone who sold it again. There was some guy called Carter or something but no one seems to know where he is. ”

Josh shivered but he was used to that by now, so he shrugged it off. “Sounds quite exclusive for a drug?”

Rufus nodded excitedly. He always got excited when he was talking about drugs. It seemed to feed his illusion that he was some kind of big league street G.

“Yeah man! Thing is, it’s supposed to be dynamite, I mean out-ofthis-world type highs and shit and it’s expensive too.
Real expensive
. Seems to be quite a demand too. I just don’t know why I’ve never heard of it before.”

“
Yeah strange that, isn’t it
.”

“Anyhow, no one can help me but then I think of Floyd. Thing is the guy’s tried everything and I
mean
everything. There’s always drugs about him, and junkies and dropouts and freaks—I mean I knew if anyone had it or had tried it or at least knew someone who dealt it, it was him. That’s why it took me so long though because Floyd doesn’t even have a phone!”

“No?” Karen asked.

“No,” Rufus confirmed. “He just seems to turn up. I don’t even know where the guy lives, no one does! That is if he’s even got a house! He always seems to be sleeping on someone’s floor. No, he’s a regular fuck up alright!”

“Great!” Josh said and opened the door.

The three of them stood in the darkened street. A defective street lamp was glowing pink above them and the sky had turned midnight blue.

Josh turned to Karen. “I don’t think you should come with us.”

She frowned and despite the fact that she had had no intention of doing so anyway, was now suddenly tempted to come along on principle. “I don’t want to come anyway but are you two sure you know what you’re doing?”

Josh looked over to Rufus who shrugged. “Floyd says they deal out of a house he knows.”

“Yeah? And what exactly are you going to do when you get there? Question them? Arrest them? I don’t think you’ve thought this through!” She had switched attention to Josh now.

“Look, I don’t really have a choice! I need to know what this stuff is so that I can help Sarah.”

“Oh Jesus Josh! She’s in hospital, what can you do for her now? This is all madness.”

“Yeah well Karen you saw her eyes,
what exactly do you think they can do for her
?”

She fell silent. How could she argue against that. “Okay but what about this Floyd, can you trust him?”

Rufus laughed. “Floyd’s a mess but when there’s drugs around he’s one-hundred percent reliable.”

“Okay Rufus, but what about the dealers? you’re going to their home and you don’t even know what...”

“Look,” Josh said angrily. “We’re not idiots! I’m not going to go shooting off my mouth! We just need some information.”

“Yeah, we’ll play it cool!” Rufus added.

Karen looked as if she was about to speak but never got the chance as her mobile began to ring. Josh grimaced at the Linkin Park ringtone but said nothing.

He looked up the street to the dark shape of Rufus’ parked car. Inside he could see the tip of a lit cigarette.

“Hello?” came Karen’s voice from behind.

“Come on, let’s go,” Rufus nodded and they both began to walk towards the car.

“What?” The shock in Karen’s voice made them both pause.

“When?... No, Dad I’m fine. No Dad, really I’m fine... What? A friend of mine that’s all.”

Both Rufus and Josh were listening now.

Karen looked worried. “They don’t know... you know I wouldn’t... no never. So what did you tell them?... Uh huh, anything else?” She went silent as she listened, when she spoke again she sounded even more concerned. “Er okay? So did they say they’d be back?... Right, thanks Dad. No I’m fine... Me too, bye Dad.” She hung up.

Josh and Rufus stood expectantly waiting.

“That was my Dad. Apparently some cops in suits just turned up at my house. They said they wanted to talk with me.”

“What?” asked Rufus. “Again?”

Josh shot him an annoyed glance. “Oh come on man, you’ve got to admit they’ve got some pretty weird shit to investigate on this one.” He looked back to Karen. “So did your Dad say where you were?”

“No he just said I was probably out with some friends but he gave them my phone number.”

As if on cue the phone began to ring in her hand. The three of them looked at each other.

“I think you should turn that off for a while,” Josh said.

Karen nodded and the blipping nonsense ended. Another long pause.

“So what now?” Asked Rufus.

“I don’t know, I mean I’ll have to speak to them eventually.
I don’t have to tell them anything else though do I
? I mean,
they wouldn’t know
.”

Josh was thoughtful for a few seconds. “Urm, well it was a pretty patchy story. Sarah just turns up at yours, says something about drugs and passes out. I mean I guess the cops who first questioned you probably only accepted it because they were a little overwhelmed by her condition.”

“Hey, what did you want me to do? Tell them my friends rolled over my lawn, dumped the cow on me and ran off again? I mean I guessed you didn’t exactly want to get involved!”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant these next cops, who I’m guessing are higher up the ladder, probably won’t be so easily convinced. That’s all.”

“So what should I do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should just tell them the truth.”

Rufus joined in with, “Fuck that!”

Josh looked ’round at him calmly. “No really! Think about it Rufus, what have we actually done wrong?” Rufus went quiet. “It’s not really that man. I just don’t want to get involved. I mean I ain’t sure how they gonna’ handle the whole er, you know...” He closed his eyes, pained beyond words, “
Cally
thing,” he said quietly.

“
Who is this Cally
??” Karen asked exasperated.

They both ignored her. “Well,” said Josh, “I’ll admit I’d rather speak to them later than sooner.”

“I’m in no rush to speak to them again,” Karen told them. “I mean, I don’t even know what to say to them and,” she added, “I want to know what the heck’s actually going on!”

Josh and Rufus looked at each other.

“Then I guess you’re coming with us,” Josh said.

“Hey man, what’s happening?” were the first words Floyd spoke to Josh as he got into the back of Rufus’ car. His voice was a slow, drawn out, stoned slur. It was hard to see him clearly in the low light, but what Josh could see didn’t fully surprise him. Floyd’s skin was rough and blotchy red, with deep purple sacks beneath his eyes. His hair was an unkempt, skaggy birds-nest, cut and escaping outwards erratically. Amongst the mess, pieces of what looked like coloured string and beads were woven and randomly placed. Beneath his reddened eyes there sat a wide and friendly grin with a few crooked teeth and a single gold tooth at the centre.

In essence, he looked like Mick Hucknel would if he was a fuckedup skag addict.

Josh nodded at him and returned the smile slightly. “Yeah, hello.”

The door opened beside him and Karen stood staring in at Floyd.

Floyd lazily turned to look at her and then not too shyly looked her up and down. His attention lingered slightly on her small chest. “Well hello lil’ lady. I’m Floyd.”

Karen regarded him with considerably less warmth. “Urmm. Karen,” a slight pause and then, “Pleased to meet you. I guess.”

Floyd shrugged and smirked at Josh before turning away.

Karen shot a what-are-you-getting-me-into? look at Josh who also shrugged.

“So where we heading Floyd?” asked Rufus.

“Huh?” Floyd turned his reddened eyes onto Rufus, seeming to have forgotten his presence. “Oh right yeah. you know Crescent Street, my man?”