Brian Keene (11 page)

Emerging from the sewer, Frankie baptized herself in the slick rain, luxuriating in the oily film that it left behind. She imagined the pollutants burning away her old self, revealing the new. She'd just come from hell. "Troll." she whispered.

She shivered, remembering her escape from the zoo and what happened after. The first zombie tumbled down the manhole shaft after her, hitting the tunnel floor and rupturing like a sack of rotten vegetables; its innards spilling out around it. The shattered limbs wriggled like worms, then lay still. Covered in gore, Frankie fired blindly up the shaft, deterring the rest.

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The tunnel was pitch black. She had a flash of memory; from the distant past before the smack and turning tricks to get more smack became her life. A murderer in Las Vegas had once eluded the authorities'

91 dragnet by using a sewer drain to escape. The man was underground for five hours and, according to maps, he'd trudged at least four miles. She wondered how dark it was in the drain, what he'd encountered and what he was thinking. Was the hardened felon frightened? When he finally saw light at the tunnel's end, was he relieved?

What if there was no light at the end of her tunnel?

She slogged forward, fingers trailing along the invisible wall to her right, feeling the slimy dampness.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. Another snippet of the past; from Mr. Yowaski's class, right before she'd started screwing him in exchange for a passing grade in English. She wondered who or what might be lurking down here; crackheads, deranged survivors, zombies. What was hiding in the dark, watching her even now? Weren't there alligators in the sewer? Maybe in Florida, but she didn't think Baltimore suffered from that particular urban blight. But there were rats; of that she was sure. She had no idea how many shots she had left, and couldn't tell in the darkness. How could she possibly fend off a swarm of hungry rats?

She yawned, shivering as the first chills of withdrawal set in. Large goosebumps broke out on her skin. Cold Turkey, they called it, because you looked like a fucking plucked bird when it hit.

She paused. Was there something there, in the dark? A soft padding sound faded and stopped.

She stood still, holding her breath. The sound was not repeated. She shuffled forward, flinching when her fingers came in contact with something round and metallic. After a moment's experimentation, she realized that it was a doorknob.

Unlocked.

Taking a deep breath, she turned it. The door grated open. Particles of dust flaked down into her hair and eyes.

The space beyond the door was even darker than the

92 tunnel. Carefully, she stepped through the opening and pulled the door shut behind her. There was no draft of air. No sound. She could sense walls but she could not see them. A maintenance or storage room of some kind, she guessed. She was safe for now.

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Or was she?

What if there was a zombie in here with her, lurking in the darkness, waiting to lunge out and eat her? She sniffed the air. It was stale and damp, but there was no telltale smell of the putrefaction that signaled one of the undead. There was no rasp of flesh or exposed bone, no whisper of something moving.

Crouching on all fours, she crawled forward. Her hands traced the alien outlines of unfamiliar objects. Then she collided with a wall. She put her back to it and began to twitch.

The hot flashes followed, and though she couldn't see her ears, she knew they were scarlet. Her breathing grew short and jerky. Her eyeballs were getting hot too, and felt like they were going to melt right out of their sockets. She knew they were bloodshot, even in the darkness. She was going to die here, underground. In a fucking storage room. In the dark. With no heroin. She should have let the lion eat her, or let T-Bone and the others scrag her ass. That would have been quicker, at least. She knew she had at least one bullet left.

She thought about the baby.

(It wasn't my baby)

The hot flashes passed, and the chills returned; intense and biting. She knew that the drowsiness would follow soon. She usually slept for eleven or twelve hours when it happened. What fresh horrors of the withdrawal came after that, Frankie didn't know. She'd never made it that far. There was always another dick to be sucked by then; to be milked for ten or twenty bucks that could be converted to junk with ease. She yawned, deep and long.

Sleep. That sounded good.

93 Frankie had no intention of waking up again.

She put the barrel of the gun against her head, and then thought better of it. What if she missed? She'd heard about that. Attempted suicides where the bullet traveled around the brain like a car on a racetrack, horribly maiming the victim but not bringing the desired effect. She yawned again, and stifled it by placing the gun in her mouth. She tasted oil and cordite, and found she preferred them to the man-sweat of the cocks that had been there before it.

She steeled herself and then, before she lost her nerve, squeezed the trigger.

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There was an empty click.

She screamed in frustration and flung the pistol into the darkness. There was a metallic clang as something fell over. Frankie sobbed, and the tears did not stop.

She was still crying when she passed out.

When she awoke she wasn't aware of it at first. Lying in darkness, she opened her crusted eyes and saw more of the same.

The cramps seized her almost immediately, and she barely had time to turn her head before the vomiting began. Her stomach was empty, and turned itself inside out, savagely heaving what little fluid she had left. Warm bile spattered her shirt and clung to her hair. She was sweating profusely, and her ragged clothes quickly became drenched. There was a brief respite, and then another cramp stabbed her abdomen. Her bowels erupted, and everything below her waist grew warm and wet. The smell made her gag, causing another round of dryheaves. She groaned, biting through her lip as a third wave of cramps set in. Blood trickled down the back of her throat,

94 and was thrown up a second later.

She cried out, struggling to sit up. Sweat ran into her eyes, stinging them. Her muscles began to twitch, legs convulsing as she 'kicked the habit.' Each jerk sent a bolt of pain through her bones, rocketing up her spine where it exploded into the center of her brain. She was still moaning, eyes clenched tightly shut, when the doorknob turned. Frankie gasped, fear overriding the lack of opiate her body was protesting. The door inched open, revealing a flickering torch.

"You're not one of them." The voice was deep and quiet, and spoke matter-of-factly.

Trembling, Frankie squinted, trying to see beyond the light. The pain grew worse and she fought back a scream as another spell of watery diarrhea hit.

"I've seen this before," the voice whispered. "I guess we'll have to wait, won't we?"

The door closed softly and then Frankie was alone with the fire and the voice.

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"Wh-what are you?" she whimpered.

"I am a Troll."

She laughed; a fragile, wilting sound that was interrupted by a hacking cough.

"Don't suppose you happen to have any methadone on you?" she asked weakly. Then she traded the light of the torch for the darkness behind her eyelids, and she knew no more.

Grinding her teeth. Hard. Hard enough to feel them wiggle, to feel the blood well up between decaying tooth and receding gum line. Sweat oozes from her dirt-clogged pores like pus from a zit. It stinks. The reek makes her vomit and then the smell of that makes her vomit again. She lays in her own shit, feels it covering her quivering buttocks and

running down her spindly legs, coating her lower back too, like a warm blanket.

She finds comfort in this.

Comfort in shit. Comfort in Hell

The baby is here with her, somewhere. She hasn't seen it yet, but she can hear it. T-Bone and C and Marquon and Willie and the others are here too, whispering promises of pain and death. She welcomes these promises; holds her arms out expectantly, but death never comes and that makes her cry. The doctors and the nurses whisper in the ether. A John undoes his zipper, and the sound makes her violently shudder.

In between the madness (for she knows that's what this is) the Troll is there. He cleans her face with a cool, wet rag, and whispers assurances, and makes her drink hot chicken broth from a rusty coffee can. She curses the Troll because she didn't ask for chicken broth; she asked for skag. The chicken broth just churns in her stomach and is rejected but he continues giving it to her anyway. She can see bits of debris in his unkempt beard, and perhaps even some pieces of the chicken broth she threw up. For a moment she feels sorry and she sees the concern in his kind, grey eyes; and then it hits again-THE NEED-and she hates him all over again and wants to die. She begs him to kill her, but he doesn't listen.

There are minutes and hours and days of hot flashes and cold flashes and she can't breath (she doesn't want to anyway but it still bothers her that she can't) and cramps-twitches-convulsions-nausea-tremors-and her nose and throat feel like mucous factories and Frankie screams.
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And screams.

And screams.

And screams...

And through it all the Troll is there by her side, shushing her and promising that everything will be alright, that it's almost over and maybe he's right95 1

96 -because the baby's cries aren't so loud anymore. She can't hear them anymore. Something inside her dies, and finally, Frankie sleeps. Frankie opened her eyes. Her bones and muscles ached, her head throbbed, and her nose was running, but she'd never felt better.

The Troll sat in the center of the room, reading by candlelight. When she stirred, he looked up in surprise, smiled, and closed the book. Frankie glimpsed the front cover-The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Frankie licked her lips and tried to speak. Her tongue felt like sandpaper.

"Thought I was going to die. I wanted to."

"I was just reading about that," the Troll replied. "Nietzsche quotes Silenus; 'What is best of all is beyond your reach forever; not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you-is quickly to die.'"

Frankie said nothing. The room was surprisingly warm, almost homey.

"How long?"

"Were you out? A little over seventy-two hours by my estimation. Can't be sure because my watch stopped working weeks ago. You're not out of the woods, of course, but you're past the bad portion. Heroin withdrawal usually lasts about ten to fourteen days, but the first three are the real killers."

"How did you-?"

"I used to work at a clinic. I was a counselor. Are you thirsty?" She nodded, and he brought her a canteen.

"Here, try to sit up," he urged, and placing a hand under her back, he helped her sit forward. Her spine popped, and it felt good.
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She took a drink of water. Cold and clean and

97 t

revitalizing, it imbued her with life as it traveled down her raw throat.

"That's enough," he cautioned, stopping her from gulping. "You've thrown up quite enough. You need to start keeping something in you."

"Thanks," she gasped. "I guess I owe you my life." He laughed, then patted her leg.

"You owe me nothing. You only owe yourself."

"My name's Frankie," she offered, extending her hand, noticing as she did that the trembling had subsided.

"People called me Troll," he said warmly, clasping her hand. "Welcome to my home."

"You live here?" she asked, not surprised, but feeling a little guilty that she'd trespassed. In Frankie's world, people lived where they could; in alleyways, under railroad trestles, cardboard boxes, anywhere there was space.

"Not this particular room, no. But down here, yes. Been here for a while. Long before things went bad up top."

"You got hooked yourself, didn't you?"

He laughed, a short, brittle, humorless sound. "Not hardly. What makes you think that?"

"I'm sorry. You just seem like a smart guy. Reading philosophy and shit. And you knew about smack. I figured you got lost in your work."

"No," he said, and grew silent. He stared at the flickering candle flame, and it was several minutes before he spoke again.

"My daughter started snorting heroin. Fifteen years I worked with this, and I was the be-all end-all of drug counseling, wasn't I?

Accommodations on the wall, testimonials on file from former junkies that I'd helped. But when it came to my own daughter, I was blind. I never saw it coming."

Frankie said nothing, listening.

"I don't know why she started. Maybe the divorce,

98 maybe it was trouble with a boy. I thought we were close. Thought she
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told me everything. But I guess fourteen-year-old girls aren't really Daddy's best friend, are they?"

He paused, fingers trailing through his scraggly beard.

"She was at a party. Snorted it. The junk had been mixed with some kind of household chemical. I never found out what, but I'm sure you know how it is."

Frankie nodded. She'd seen friends go out the same way. It was brutal.

"She died on the way to the hospital. My ex-wife blamed me. And I couldn't disagree with her. So I came down here."

"I'm sorry," Frankie said.

"Don't be. It's not so bad. You'd be surprised at the types of people you find underground. Stockbrokers and lawyers and medical school dropouts and Liberal Arts majors. People live anywhere they can, and there are worse places to bunk down for the night, believe me. And surprisingly, not all of them are running from something."

"They are now."

"Yes," he agreed. "I suppose they are. But it's not just up there. They're down here too. Not a lot of humans yet, but the rats are pretty bad."

Frankie shuddered, remembering the zoo.

"It's going to get worse down here too," he continued. "I was actually on my way out when our paths crossed." He motioned to his backpack and gear. "Figured I'd follow the tunnels out to the harbor, and then take a boat somewhere."