APRIL 1994
“It’s imperative that this stays between us,” the Doctor said. She addressed us both, but I knew the warning was meant just for me. After all, out of the two of us, I’d be the only one to make it out of that room alive.
My uncle must have been thinking the same thing. In his dry, brittle whisper of a voice, he cracked: “Don’t worry. Your secret dies with me.”
The Doctor didn’t react as she removed a pair of surgical gloves from her leather briefcase and pulled them on; the wrinkled ivory latex hugging her smooth ebony knuckles. Her gloved hands reached into the briefcase again, this time extracting a small glass vial.
It looked like a prop out of a Hollywood movie; a little glass vial containing the anti-venom that would save a rugged action hero from a lethal snakebite.. or the antidote that would save a village of sick children.. or the anti-toxin that would reverse some Bond villain’s attempt to poison the super spy.
But this vial didn’t contain an anti-venom or antidote or anti-toxin. Quite the opposite; the salvation its content offered was the very thing any anti-venom or antidote or anti-toxin was designed to prevent.
Death.
I forced my eyes away from the vial and onto my uncle. There wasn’t much left of him; faded flannel hanging limp over boney shoulders. Like someone had started to build a scarecrow, but stopped before adding the hay.
The curtains were drawn and an old bath towel was draped over the bedside lamp. Even in the dim beige haze, I could see sickness all over my uncle; the hollows of his cheeks, the mottled skin, the remnants of hair turned brassy and clumped together in a single sweat-matted tangle. His breathing was raspy and labored. The electric heater had clicked off, and in the quiet I could hear his lungs expand and contract with each breath, like a wrinkly plastic grocery bag inflating and deflating.
The doctors had given him three months to live. That was nine months ago. They had the audacity to call it a ‘miracle’ that he woke up every morning. My uncle’s response was to ask what, exactly, they found so miraculous about living like this. A man drained of life, drained of dignity, reduced to a withered husk of a human. He had been ready to go a long time ago. Even the three months had seemed too long to endure this suffering.
He begged the doctors to help him let go. They were initially sympathetic in that stiff, sterile doctor sort of way. But over time, as my uncle became increasingly desperate to die, they became increasingly adamant on keeping him alive. Cannulas and ports and feeding tubes and hypodermic needles and pills and pills and pills. They administered every method available to prolong his agony.
It wasn’t just my uncle. The Kevorkian trials began a month after my uncle’s diagnosis, and the topic of assisted suicide had seemed to ignite a renewed fervor in the medical community to keep terminal patients alive as long as possible — especially if it was against their will.
Nobody wanted to be branded the next Doctor Death.
Well, until we found Her.
Her methods were different than the ones we read about in the newspaper. No clunky machinery designed to administer a lethal dose of carbon monoxide. No chemical cocktails that would stop his heart in a final thrash of violent agony.
Just a single prick; just a single vial.
The Somsert Solution. It made Kevorkian’s mercy instruments look like medieval torture.
It had a proper name, of course; a jumble of scientific jargon juxtaposed together. Something something hydra doxy benzo ampheta acetate something. It was top secret, developed by the military to replace cyanide tablets in situations where an agent was captured and needed to quickly self-eliminate.
No government agency would acknowledge the existence of Somerset, let alone authorize it for medical use — especially not for end of life care. But somehow, She had access to it. And with a hefty cash payment, so did we.
My uncle and I both watched silently as the Doctor transferred the contents of the vial into an old fashioned silver syringe.
His breathing became increasingly ragged, and for a moment I wondered if my uncle felt fear or regret. But then his hand grasped onto mine and I met his stare. His jaundiced eyes glistened and, for the first time in at least half a year, I saw his brittle chapped lips stretch into the faintest hint of a smile.
His mouth moved to form words, but none came out. Still, I knew what he was telling me. It was ok; he was ready. He wanted this.
I hadn’t realized I was crying until I blinked and felt my eyelids slice through hot, fat tears.
“Whenever you’re ready,” the Doctor said, the syringe poised in her gloved hand.
My uncle nodded and gave my hand a final squeeze, then let go. He struggled to roll up his flannel sleeve, but I didn’t intervene. I wanted to give him the dignity of doing this on his own.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch, so I kept my eyes locked on the Doctor’s briefcase. Inside the case, I saw the empty vial and a paper box marked with the words ‘Somerset Drug Corp.’ The words engraved themselves into my brain.
I knew the needle had gone in when I heard a sharp inhale, followed by the sound of my uncle’s weight sinking deeper into the creaky mattress.
“It’s done,” the Doctor said. “I’ll leave you alone.”
I waited until she had closed the bedroom door softly behind her before I turned my gaze back to my uncle.
I was immediately struck by what I saw. He looked more alive than he had in months. Like the bedside lamp, shooting beams of light through a tattered old towel, he seemed to glow; illuminated from within. His eyes were wide open and wet with tears, and he smiled so wide that his chapped lips cracked and bled. Color filled the hollows of his cheeks.
“Dylan!” his glistening eyes met mine, drinking me in as if he was seeing me for the first time.
“Dylan, everything is so beautiful! It’s all so… beautiful.”
His eyes danced around the room, taking it all in with an awed expression.
“I wish you could see this,” he told me. “I wish you knew—”
He froze. His body went rigid, his eyes stuck open but not blinking. The color that had filled his face seemed to instantly drain out.
The light was extinguished.
His shoulders slumped backwards into the pillow as his lungs released his final breath. And he was gone.
APRIL 1996
“Open the fucking door!” I gripped the black security bars over the door and shook with all the strength my puny junkie arms could muster.
I didn’t give a shit that it was midnight, or that I could hear police sirens in the distance, or that it was raining cats and dogs, or that the puddle I was standing in had seeped through the cracked toes of my Doc Martens, flooding my feet in a muddy stew of rainwater and grass clippings.
I was fiending, and all I gave a shit about was the little baggy of salvation that was waiting for me on the other side of that door.
I was about to give the security gate another shake when I heard the hurried clip of footsteps coming from inside the house. I released my grip and listened to the metallic clatter of deadbolts unbolting and locks unlocking and chains unchaining, and finally the door swung open.
“Jesus H. Christ,” James muttered when he saw me. “You’re a mess.”
His eyes darted over my shoulder, quickly scanning the street to see if anyone had noticed the soaking wet junkie screaming bloody murder on his front porch. Then he gripped me by the shoulder and dragged me into the house.
I had barely made it across the threshold when his open palm ripped across my face. I heard it before I felt it; a loud, wet slap that echoed through the tiled foyer. A few seconds later, the hot throbbing pain set in. I licked my lip and tasted blood.
“What the hell were you thinking, pounding down my door in the middle of the night?! If you weren’t like a brother to me, Dylan, I would fucking kill you!”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. It was impossible to take James seriously when he was standing there in a fuzzy pink bathrobe, hands balled into fists on his hips, like a mother lecturing her son for sneaking in past curfew.
Unamused, he wound back his arm to slap me again but I dodged him.
“Dude, I’m sorry,” I held up my hands in surrender. “I’m out.”
“You’re out?! I sold you two bundles yesterday.”
“I shot it all.”
“Jesus.”
“I’m gonna cut back,” I promised. “Soon. It’s just that.. yesterday was the anniversary.”
“Your uncle?”
“Yeah.”
“That was two years ago, man.”
“I know.”
But since when is there a time limit on grieving the man who took you in when nobody wanted you, who raised you, who was the closest thing you ever had to a father?
“C’mon,” James’ demeanor had softened, like a carton of ice cream left out on the counter. “Let’s go to the pharmacy.”
I followed him down the creaky wooden stairs, grateful to feel the temperature drop at least ten degrees as we descended into the damp concrete basement under his mother’s house.
My body was clammy and tense, already entering into the early stages of withdrawal. Stepping into the basement, knowing the next dose was within arms reach, sent a wave of euphoric relief through my veins. It was almost a high in itself. My mouth started to water. I could practically taste it..
“Let me show you this shit I just got in,” James said, pulling open the drawers of a bright red metal tool cabinet.
For a smalltimer, James was always well stocked. He had the basics, of course, but he wasn’t satisfied just offering the same ‘ol tar or snow that you could find on any other street corner. To James, mind-altering substances were an art form, and he took pride in sourcing niche or experimental shit. He presented prescription bottles of expired quaaludes or shriveled up chunks of peyote the way a sommelier would suggest their finest vintage wares.
I watched hungrily as he slid the drawer shut and pulled open another one, revealing an array of vials neatly organized into rows. I didn’t have the patience to see the latest novelty he had to show off; I just wanted my fix.
But as he started to slide the drawer shut, something caught my eye.
I lurched, grabbing the drawer to stop it from shutting.
“Dude,” he flinched backwards.
“Where the hell did you get that?” My mouth was bone-dry and my hands had started shaking. It wasn’t because of withdrawal anymore; it was my body’s response to what I saw in that drawer.
Five glass vials, neatly lined up in a row. Three words printed on each one, in even black letters.
The Somerset Solution.
“Where the hell did you get that?” I repeated, my voice an octave higher this time.
“You mean the S?” James grabbed a vial, keeping his eyes on me. “You know about this stuff?”
My heart was battering the inside of my ribcage and my palms were slick with sweat.
“Of course I know about it. That shit kills you.”
“No, man!” James slapped a hand on my back. “I mean, yeah. It’s totally lethal if you take the full dose. Legend has it this stuff was developed by the feds during the Cold War, so American spies could off themselves if they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.”
He held the vial up to the fluorescent ceiling light, admiring the liquid inside.
“If you shot this whole thing, you’d be pushing daisies in about sixty seconds flat. But if you micro-dose, it’s the most insane hallucinogenic money can buy. Apparently it’s some ‘see God’ shit. Like, it brings you to the edge of death and then back. That’s why people call it edging.”
I reached for the vial, but he snatched it away.
“Nah, man. It’s not for sale.”
-
It was nearly four AM when I made it back to my apartment, soggy and exhausted and barely coasting on the fading euphoria of my last high. I kicked off my Docs and dropped the fresh bundle I’d purchased on the kitchen table. Already, it felt like too little. Already, I was thinking about the next one.
Then I reached into my pocket again and felt the cold glass of the vial.
I had snuck it out of the drawer when James was packaging up my purchase. He hadn’t noticed, and that’s his own damn fault. He’s too fucking trusting. What kind of drug dealer turns their back on a junkie?
I slipped the vial out of my pocket and set it on the table next to the dope.
When I closed my eyes, I saw my uncle’s face.
“Dylan, everything is so beautiful! It’s all so… beautiful.”
I clenched my fists, nails digging into the palms of my hands.
“I wish you could see this! I wish you knew—”
“Knew what?!” I asked out loud, the sound of my own voice startling me. “Knew what?!”
I didn’t recognize the sounds coming out of my mouth. I was sobbing, and then I was in a puddle on the kitchen floor, a soaking mess of sweat and rainwater and tears.
I looked around the puny kitchen. The shit linoleum that I hadn’t washed once since moving in. The stack of plates growing mold in the sink. The kitchen towel I’d hung over the window.
A pathetic junkie home for a pathetic junkie man.
The vial taunted me from the table.
What the fuck was I afraid of? Death? How could death be any worse than living like this?
I grabbed the vial in my clammy hands. Filling the syringe was easy; muscle memory. I didn’t know what a micro-dose of death looked like, but I took a quarter of what was in the vial. Then, unsatisfied with the size of the dose, I took more. Half the vial was emptied into my needle.
Finding a vein was harder. I’d blown most of mine over the past two years. The sensation of a needle sinking through my skin was like foreplay before an orgasm. I let out a sigh when I felt the prick, my eyes already rolling back with relief as I pressed the liquid into my vein.
I felt.. nothing.
I realized I had been holding my breath, and I released it. Then I pulled the empty syringe from out of my vein and dropped it on the table. With the tie gone, blood rushed back into my arms and then my fingers, and they tingled. I looked around, waiting. But everything looked exactly the same.
I pushed myself up, walking across the kitchen and down the hall to my bedroom. A stained mattress was on the floor, covered with blankets. I flung myself down on my back, staring up at the cracked popcorn ceiling.
Still nothing.
I closed my eyes. If I could manage to sleep most of the day, then I’d be able to stretch out my supply longer.
“Longer. Lonnngggeerrrr..”
Why was I staying that word out loud? My eyes flung open like a doll’s eyes, plastic lids flicking up over glassy orbs. I rose from the bed and stood up, but when I turned around I saw my body still laying on the mattress. Eyes open, mouth agape.
Instinctively, I reached down to touch my other self. But instead of my torso bending down towards the mattress, my arm extended, stretching to several times its original length to close the distance between Standing Me and Sleeping Me.
“What the..”
My extended arm was operating with a will of its own now. The fingers landed on Sleeping Me’s face, then marched, like soldier legs, towards the open mouth.
I forced my shoulder back, but that just made my arm stretch even further.
Sleeping Me’s mouth stretched open as my fingers marched inside, stomping over the tongue and then down the throat. With my free hand, I gripped my opposite elbow, trying to force it back, but there was no stopping it.
My fingers pressed on down Sleeping Me’s esophagus, making projections that poked through the throat skin as they marched.
As my hand crawled deeper and deeper, I found myself studying the man on the floor. Bruises and track marks scarred both arms. His eyes were sucked and dark. His skin mottled, his hair unclean.
He wasn’t Me. He wasn’t anything; he was just a junkie on a mattress.
My fingers had settled into something sticky and cold. They sunk deeper, grabbing a fistful of it. And then, through no cognizance of my own, my hand withdrew itself from the sleeping junkie’s throat. Like a garden house being reeled in.
Black matter spurted from the sleeping junkie’s mouth as my hand withdrew itself. Tar; actual fucking asphalt tar. The junkie coughed and sputtered, more black pouring from his lips. His back arched violently and his body writhed on the mattress as black tar tears rolled down his cheeks and spilled from his ears.
I pulled my hand back, expecting filth. But somehow, my skin was pristine; unscathed by the filth that surrounded me.
I couldn’t stand to be in that room anymore. I couldn’t stand the stench of self destruction. I flung open the window over the mattress and leaned out. I was falling. No, fluttering. But the street was above me and the clouds were below me. My body stretched in all directions and my eyes rolled back into my head.
I wasn’t falling anymore, because I was the sky.
It was everything all at once; every orgasm, every laugh, every giddy stupid moment of joy, every high, all rolled into one. I was euphoria, and I was everywhere.
And then everything turned white.
-
I was out cold for three days. When I came to, I was on the mattress caked in dried vomit and blood. I stank of my own piss and sweat and my breath tasted like ammonia.
I was thirsty. I pulled myself up onto my feet and stumbled to the bathroom, sticking my head under the sink and drinking straight from the faucet. The water tasted better than anything I’d ever tasted before. I swallowed mouthful after mouthful, until my thirst was quenched. Then I stood up.
My reflection was waiting for me in the mirror. Despite my greasy hair and vomit-stained clothes, I looked better than I had in months. I looked.. alive.
I took a shower, standing under the stream of hot steamy water until it turned cold. Then I pulled on the closest thing to clean clothes that I owned.
The half-empty vial of S was still sitting on the kitchen table. So was the bundle I’d bought off James. I had no use for it anymore; the powder as appetizing to me as dirt. I poured it out into the kitchen sink and ran the faucet until all the clumps had been swallowed up by the drain.
Then I grabbed the vial. Even in liquid form, I could feels its power in my hand. It radiated with a subtle warmth; a soft current of electric energy that vibrated through the glass and into the palm of my hand.
I needed to see James.
-
Forty-five minutes later I was standing in front of his house, pounding down the front door.
“C’mon motherfucker, let me in!”
There was no response. I stepped down from the porch and looked up at the house. The curtains were drawn and his car was parked out front. He had to be home. James was always home.
I kicked through overgrown grass as I walked the perimeter of the house, slipping through the gap in the chainlink fence to get into the backyard. The weeds clawed at my jeans and bugs bit at my ankles and I cursed under my breath.
The basement’s egress window was almost completely hidden by the growth. I had to clear away fistfuls of grass just to reach the steel window well. I lowered myself in and beat my fist against the glass.
“James!”
The only answer to my calls was more silence, buzzing loud like TV static.
I backed my body against the steel walls of the window well, then swung the toe of my Doc Marten at the window. The glass, unimpressed with the effort, barely quivered. I gave it another kick, harder this time.
The third time was the charm. The toe of my boot cracked through the glass and it immediately shattered into millions of tiny chards. I cleared enough space for my hands to grip the window sill, then lowered myself through the frame.
I immediately recognized the smell of death. It was everywhere. I wretched, pulling my t-shirt over my nose. It didn’t offer much relief.
“James?” I croaked, hearing the desperation and fear in my voice. “James, c’mon man. This isn’t fucking funny, where are you?”
The overheard fluorescent strip light had burned out, and all I could see were shadowy outlines: the couch, the toolbox. The body.
He was cold to the touch. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw the needle still sticking out of his arm. In his hand, a glass vial. I knew what it was.
Somerset.
I heard police sirens in the distance. My heart started racing. I had to get the fuck out of there. But first..
I stepped towards the toolbox. I knew exactly which drawer to open. There were only three vials left. They clinked together in my palm, warm to the touch. I shoved them into my pocket, then glanced back at James.
“Jesus!”
My eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness that I could see his face. I expected to see death written all over it. I sure as fuck wasn’t expecting what I saw. His eyes were wide open, but rolled back so just the whites were showing. Rather than sunken in, they bulged out. His lashes were matted over his eyelids, wet from tears or sweat or both.
But the part that knocked the breath out of my lungs was his smile.
He was fucking smiling.
Something shifted in my peripheral; a blur of black. My eyes scanned the shadows, looking for signs of life. The basement was perfectly still, but I could hear.. breathing.
I wasn’t alone.
Outside, the police sirens were getting closer.
I forced myself back up through the egress window. Once I was back on grass, I used the hem of my t-shirt to wipe away my fingerprints from the window sill.
Then I ran.
APRIL 1998
“Get out here and fuck me, you piece of shit!”
I ignored the intoxicated cackle coming from the other side of the bathroom door. I couldn’t remember her name; introductions were a formality we had skipped when she dragged me out of the bar and back home to her dingy apartment.
She only wanted to fuck me because she thought I looked like Trent Reznor, and I only agreed to do it because I needed help dying.
I was addicted to death. Or, at least, I was addicted to getting as close to it as humanly possible.
The first dose of S was like a freebie. After that, the rules changed. After that, I learned that you had to work for every high. It wasn’t enough to inject and sit back; the S made you crawl on your hands and knees to death’s doorstep and beg for it.
The second time I shot S, I spent hours staring at a wall, waiting for the chemical epiphany to sweep me away. But it never came. In a fit of rage, I had slammed my head against the bedroom wall over and over again, until I saw blood and clumps of my hair stuck in the cracked drywall. When my skull collided with a wooden stud, I knocked myself out.
That’s when it finally kicked in.
It’s a lot of work, bringing yourself to the edge of life but stopping just short of death. I had spent the last two years perfecting the art of almost dying.
Head injuries. Bloodletting. Walking into traffic. Throwing myself down stairs. S was a merciless mistress, and I had the scar tissue to show it.
Now I had some stranger’s panties tied around my bicep and I was using my teeth to hold ‘em tight as I searched for a vein.
When I stepped out of the bathroom five minutes later, she was waiting for me on the bed, writhing like a feral cat in heath. She’d put a Nine Inch Nails vinyl on, but the record player was spinning at the wrong speed, warping and distorting “Piggy” to a slow, gravely snarl.
I still had her panties tied around my arm. I tugged them off with the rest of my clothes, then flung myself onto the mattress next to her. I kept my eyes shut and gripped her hips, barely feeling anything as she pulled up her skirt and climbed on top of me.
She was moving up and down, gyrating to the too-slow version of “Piggy” that was still growling through the crackly speakers next to the bed. She was moaning way too loud to mean it and I felt disgusted by the entire situation.
“Have I told you that you remind me of Trent Reznor?”
“Only five times.” My eyes flicked open and saw her gleaming down at me, biting her lips between her chipped front teeth.
Then I saw a flash of black over her shoulder. I pinched my eyes shut again.
“You look just like him,” she crooned, running her fingers through my shaggy black hair.
“Choke me,” I told her.
“What?”
“Choke me,” I gripped her wrists, guiding her hands out of my hair and down to my neck. I placed her open palms over my Adam’s apple and pressed down, forcing her to grip me.
“I don’t want to—”
“Do it.”
I squeezed my hands over hers, forcing her grip to tighten.
Her hips had stopped moving. I wasn’t sure if I was even inside her anymore.
“I don’t want to!” She was pleading with me now.
“Do it.”
I could feel the blood pulling in my skull, turning red hot then slowly purple. The veins in my forehead bulged with stagnant blood, unable to pump in a fresh supply.
My throat went dry, my tongue went numb. My lips parted, instinctively trying to suck in air. I squeezed her hands even harder.
“Stop! Stop!” Tears rolled down her cheeks and splattered onto my forehead. I was starting to fade out. Darkness was closing in around me. I was spiraling.. spiraling..
Then I was there, but I wasn’t.
My head snapped back through the mattress, and I somersaulted backwards. When I came to, I was in the clearing of a large forest.
There was a road leading through the trees, and rays of golden sunlight slipped through the branches, illuminating the flecks of glitter that fell from the sky like snow.
At the end of the road, there was a cabin. Coils of smoke danced up from the chimney; someone was home, and they were waiting for me.
The cabin was at least a mile up the road, but I was at the front door in a single step. The door opened for me as my body slid inside. I was in a kitchen. It was warm and full of golden light.
“There you are!” My uncle turned to greet me. He was standing at the stove, swirling a ladle around in a giant simmering pot. “Supper’s almost ready!”
His skin was shiny and smooth, and the rosy flush of life colored the plump apples of his cheeks. His eyes twinkled as he raised the ladle from the pot, filling a bowl to the brim with something steamy and hot.
“Your favorite,” he brought the bowl to the table, where a placemat was already laid out for me. “My firecracker chili.”
My uncle’s chili. I tried to remember the last time he had made it. Instantly, my memories unwound before my eyes like reels of translucent film. I saw a scene animate in front of me: it was Super Bowl Sunday, the year before his diagnosis. We were sitting on the couch wearing the losing team’s jerseys, and we couldn’t lap our chili up fast enough.
The memory ticked away, slipping out of sight as my uncle sat across from me at the table.
“Careful, it’s hot.”
I didn’t head his warning. Instead, I plunged my spoon into the steaming hot bowl and shoveled chili into my mouth. The taste brought tears to my eyes. It was even better than I ever remembered. I took another bite and another, devouring the bowl like I hadn’t eaten in years. My uncle just laughed, watching me.
“There’s plenty more. Help yourself to seconds.”
I clambered up to the stove and grabbed the ladle, pouring more chili into my bowl.
“Eat up, I want you nice and stuffed,” my uncle said.
I paused, ladle in midair, and turned slowly. He was sitting at the table, his bowl of chili untouched. His legs were crossed at the knee and his fingers were laced together.
Something wasn’t right. The pitch of his voice, his posture, the way his shoulders were pressed back into the chair, the crooked grin on his face..
He wasn’t my uncle.
“Is something wrong?” He asked. “Did you not like the chili?”
I released my grip on the ladle, and when I did, I saw with horror what was boiling in the pot of chili.
There, in the center, surrounded by cherry red broth and chunks of tomato, was my uncle’s severed head. The skin was boiled red and peeling, and his features were bloated and distorted. His eyeballs had popped free from their sockets and were floating along with the carrots and beans. His lips, red and boiled through, were curved into a smile.
From the table, the monster wearing my uncle’s skin cackled. I tried to move, but my feet were rooted to the floor. He was slithering closer and closer; I could feel his cool breath on my skin.
My eyes were sealed shut. I didn’t see, but I could hear him shedding my uncle’s skin. His voice deepened into a hiss.
“You think you’re God?” He snarled. “You think this is a game?”
He sucked in a breath, and all at once it took every ounce of air from inside my lungs. I choked for a breath, falling to my knees.
“Look at me!” His voice boomed, like a vortex vibrating through the cabin walls.
I felt myself fading away.. fading to black.
-
I didn’t remember where I was when I woke up. The room wasn’t familiar, especially not in the daylight. I sat up, wincing in pain. My neck throbbed and my head was pounding.
I heard a soft whimper and my eyes shot across the room. She was huddled in the corner, staring at me through wide unblinking eyes.
“You wouldn’t stop screaming,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. You wouldn’t stop screaming..”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “It was just a.. bad trip.”
I took the train back to my apartment, slumping into a vacant seat that smelled like piss and cigarettes. Even on the filthy metro, I must have been a sight. A mother sitting across the aisle caught one look at me, and immediately dragged her son into the next car over.
I didn’t give a shit; my brain was still replaying the scene from the cabin.
Usually, S was beautiful. But every hit was a gamble; any dose could deliver the best dream you ever had, or the most harrowing nightmare imaginable. And when S was ugly, it left you feeling smaller and emptier than you ever thought possible.
After one particularly bad trip, I had almost ended things for real. That was almost a year ago. I still had the scar on my wrist.
The train slipped into a tunnel, and at that exact moment, the lights all flickered out, plunging the car into pitch black. There’s no commotion; no noise from the other passengers. In the darkness, I glance around and realize everybody’s left. It’s just me.
Me and Him.
Even in the pitch black train car, I can see the unmistakable flash of black. He was darker than darkness itself.
The Reaper.
I started seeing him after my very first dose. He was there in James’ basement that day. At first he was just a flash of black in my peripheral; the soft sound of breathing over my shoulder. With every dose of S, his presence grew stronger.
With every dose, the flash of black came closer and moved slower. Now, he was sitting directly across from me in the darkness.
He never spoke a word to me, but he didn’t need to. I understood why this shadowy entity was stalking me. I understood why, every time I cheated death, he came one step closer. And I knew — I was almost certain, anyways — that one day, he would eventually win.
I stared back through the shadows, where I imagined his eyes would be. All I saw was hollowness. He drew closer, so close I could feel his breath on my skin.
Then the train emerged from the tunnel and the lights flickered back on, and he was gone.
Not tonight. Not tonight.
APRIL 2000
The metal folding chair snapped open with a rusty screech. I shoved it down, marking my spot in the disjointed circle in the middle of the gymnasium.
Deathchasers Anonymous. That was the name of it. How fucking stupid is that?
Well, I guess it can’t be anymore stupid than repeatedly trying to off yourself just to get high.
I looked around at the goons occupying the other chairs. There was Tony, who shot off his own jaw with a pistol and now had to carry around a chalkboard to communicate. Next to him was Delia, a goth girl in a Dir En Grey t-shirt with white scars ribbing the flesh of both her arms. Of all the people who edge, the wrist-slitters are the edgiest.
In the middle there was Cecil, our fearless leader, who quite literally gnawed his own leg off with a chainsaw because he couldn’t think of a more imaginative way to almost kill himself.
I had a hard time understanding how he had managed to get himself elected as the team captain of us misfit toys.
In the next chair over, there’s Claire, who, at the moment, couldn’t stop starting at Cecil’s stump. Her edge of choice was overdosing on acetaminophen, which explained her jaundiced pallor. Her skin was the same color as a Simpson’s character, and at last week’s meeting she had informed the group that she was in the final stages of liver failure. The doctors had given her a month, maybe two.
That’s awkward news to share with a group of people who are addicted to death. I wasn’t sure whether to offer condolences or congratulations.
“I bought a vial,” she had confessed. “When it’s time to go, I’m gonna full dose.”
Going “full dose” was deathchaser speak for going all the way. Getting to the edge and not stopping; letting death win.
I’d been off S for six months, but just the thought of injecting again made my mouth water. I had to remind myself of how bad it had gotten. There weren’t good highs anymore; just bad ones. No more good dreams; only nightmares.
And there was the Reaper. After my last hit, he had gotten so close I felt his lips press against my skin. For someone that repeatedly knocked on death’s door, I decided I wasn’t ready to make formal introductions just yet.
I found out about the support group in an AOL chat room. I was surprised to learn there were others; everything about S felt so shrouded in secrecy, that it seemed strange to talk about it out in the open.
But here we were: a battered and broken group of people that had survived.
I was lost in my thoughts, and I didn’t realize it was my turn to speak until I felt the room go silent and all eyes land on me.
“Dylan, is there anything you want to share this week?” Cecil prodded. “Maybe a significant anniversary?”
I pressed my teeth into my tongue until I tasted blood. Part of me fantasized about firing up the chainsaw and hacking off his other leg, then turning it on myself. But what was the point of dying without a full dose?
“I lost my uncle six years ago today,” I said, keeping my gaze locked on a knot in the gym’s waxy hardwood floor.
One thing I appreciated about the group was that they didn’t bullshit. There was no chorus of “I’m sorries,” no contrived sympathy. No hollow words. Just silence.
I was getting better at that; being comfortable in silence.
-
I drove home after the meeting and showered. I didn’t need one, but something about sitting in that circle and talking about S left a dirty film on my skin, and I couldn’t wait to rinse it away.
The hot water beaded up on my skin. I was getting my color back, slowly but surely. I looked more alive every day. No more bruises or mottled complexion. Even the track marks on my arms had started to fade.
I stood under the water longer than I needed to. When I stepped out of the shower the bathroom had filled with steam and the mirror was fogged over.
I stood in front of the sink, my hand resting on the vanity drawer. I knew what was inside. I could feel its warmth, even threw the wood, drawing me in.
I slid the drawer open. There was only one object inside: a single glass vial.
The final dose.
Every day I made the choice between life and death. And today, I chose life. I slid the drawer shut and let my eyes drift up to the mirror. It was still shrouded in steam, but I could see the blurred outline of my head and shoulders. Behind me, the familiar flash of black.
He’d always be there, waiting. Someday, eventually, he’d win.
None of us make it out alive in the end, right?
But not today.
Not today.