“Hurry up and sit your ass down here baby doll!” I say to my current joy partner.
I pat the spot on the mattress indicating for her to sit next to me and the small wooden drug box filled with miscellaneous paraphernalia. She jumps up on the mattress with a bag of chips and a couple of sodas. She is like an eager child awaiting the ice cream man to hand out his multi-colored rocket pops on a hot summer day. But the only treats that she's going to find with me will be the kind that make life easier to handle, the kind that take away all her inhibitions and release the bounds of reality on her small mind. I smile at her…like a lion smiling at the gazelle just before he sinks his teeth into her jugular.
I take an expert hand and help her tie off the rubber band around her upper arm. I've already prepared the black drug. The needle slides easily into the egg white skin of her arm. She jerks ever so slightly. I soothe her to help her relax just a bit. The vein drinks it up like a man dying of thirst. The effect is almost instant. Her eyes roll back in her head and she languidly lies back onto the pillow I've placed behind.
Before I partake of the magic medicine I watch her begin her journey. How innocent she seemed less than an hour prior to this. We were watching some late night B movie about some crazed beast that was terrorizing the sweet town folks. I wonder what her trip will be like. I envy her. This is her first time, and I hope it's as good for her as it was for me.
My turn, I use my teeth like I have so many times before to tie the band off. I take one last look at my new partner before I accept the instant dream this syringe in my hand has to offer. I feel that familiar prick and the sudden ease of pain as I release the tightness around my arm. Just to help the lucidity along, I stare at one of the nearby candles that my partner has lit. I feel it coming on and lie back next to her. She feels my presence and cuddles up next to me in a pseudo fetal position. How strange, I look over into her face and it contorts. I close my eyes. It's just the drug playing tricks on me.
I just need to relax. But something isn't right. I don't feel the same as usual. I open my eyes slowly afraid of what I'm about to see. She no longer has a face. My fears are confirmed; she no longer means anything to me. I need to get away. That's the fleeting thought I have just before I fall prey to the drug and pass out completely.
What is happening, I can't seem to wake up. I feel the room closing in on me, no wait I'm not in the room any longer. I'm somewhere else, somewhere tight. I feel a sudden rush of heat and I realize that I'm alone. I can't open my eyes they seem to be stuck shut. It's getting worse. I feel a liquid form around me. My skin is ablaze with the torrid pain of a white-hot fire. My eyes sting with the acid wash that has crept past my eyelids. My minds eye sees nothing but red and orange starbursts of pain as my body begins to go numb. I must wake up from this hellish nightmare.
My teeth clatter together like rocks being shaken up inside a jar. I rip away at the flesh on my stomach trying to get inside of my own body to tear at the pain from the inside out. My brittle fingernails bend back at painful angles and tear away from my fingers. The pit of my stomach churns and tries to wretch the last remnants of bile. I cannot die, because I am asleep. I cannot awaken the torment will not allow it. I feel my soul melting away into the abyss that is the final release. I hear a fiendish voice speak to me.
“You are mine now, I have partook of your body and have swallowed you whole!” cods the voice into my mind.
How could this happen? I've been down this path a million times, how could this one be any different? I must take myself another direction. Images of my childhood pass through my pain stricken mind. Happy memories of a time of pure innocence, a time when the days were filled with running bare foot through dew filled grassy fields. Playing army like any regular kid would. I try to build a wall between these memories and the pain that I'm feeling. If I could just lock these precious memories away in a mental panic room, I might be able to save them from the devouring mental prowess of this beast.
I must not give in. I must fight on. How did this happen, how did I submit to this torture? My ears are punctured by the sound of my own screams, but that cannot be…for my lungs are filled with the fervid thick raunchiness that is the air of this hell. If only I could escape the pain.
I reach out with my right arm and try to move forward. I can't tell if I'm upside down or right side up. I feel a spongy surface press against my face and chest as I pull myself along. The slime is acid eating my flesh, making me one with the bowels of this beast.
I feel something biting at my feet. The teeth of this creature sink into the pulp of my flesh, chewing to the bone of my ankle. The same feet that I used as a child to carry me across the fields of green, are now being consumed by this demon. I try to open my mouth to scream again. But as I part my lips my mouth is filled with gore and blood choking the last of my breath from me. I can no longer bare the anguish of this place. I submit my body, spirit, and mind to the appetite of this beast.
NO! I will not go easily. But how can I fight something that envelops me whole? If only I could see...wake up, wake up, WAKE UP, WAKE UP! My mind is screaming. There is a rumbling all around me. This must be it, the end is near. But then I feel something, something comforting. I feel fingers grab my arm. They are fingers of desperation. They need the same release that I crave. How did this creature find me? I reach out to it. It is feeling the same hell that I am. I paw at what I can only imagine used to be a face. I feel a jelly like substance where eyes used to be.
I use the last of my strength to reach out with what's left of my soul and embrace this mass of flesh in my arms. I feel a strange coolness embrace me. The tendrils of my muscles reach out to this being and I feel us become one. We are lovers in the belly of the beast. I will not let this monster take us alone. If we are to be eaten, it will be together. Man, woman, or creature, at least it will die knowing that it has someone to share the anguish. I use what's left of my mouth to smile. Fuck You Hell Beast…your belly will not have the pleasure of the taste of my soul. Together we will release ourselves from this Hell. That is my last thought as I feel my lover plunge a clawed hand into my chest and rip out my heart. Now I know what this feels like.
The paramedic shakes his head as he realizes that his patient is gone.
“Okay, time of death 12:29 am Oct. 28th 2000. Let's wrap this one up,” says the man in the white jacket as he puts the defibrillators back into their portable case and turns away.
