Killing the Addiction

The constant sound of dripping woke him from his dreamless sleep. His eyes had a hard time adjusting to the small amount of light in the room. It was as if he was in a room of crimson red curtains, and the ceiling dripped its red paint onto the floor.

When he fully awakened, the smell of copper hit him full force nearly gagging him. He looked around trying to find something that would jog his memory as to where he was. It wasn’t the first time he had woken up with no idea where he was or how he got there, and this would be an item on his long list of ‘things not to do again’ that he never looked at.

He slid his body to the edge of the wall mounted metal bed and put his feet on the floor. The floor was sticky and semi-wet. Where are my shoes? he thought to himself as he raised his foot away from the floor.

He looked down at his foot and saw the crimson paint dripping from it back to the floor from which it came. He wiped part of the crimson away from his foot and wiped it on his pants. He looked back at his hand and brought it closer to his face. The smell of copper was originating from the paint itself.

Some of the crimson got on his lips when he smelled the paint, and instinct kicked in by licking it. The taste woke him up full force. It was not paint that he tasted, it was blood.

His heart began to race as he tried to remember what happened the night before. The last thing he remembered was popping the last of his xannies and drinking a fifth of Jack. Someone was with him last night though.

It was as if there was a shadow in the back of his mind that wouldn’t step into the light. If he remembered who it was, then he could call them and ask them what was going on. He was scared to call the cops, there was something urging him not to do so, but he couldn’t tell what.

His eyes, finally adjusted, could see dim light filter through a small window. He stood up and walked to the window, his feet making suction sounds as he walked through the sticky wetness. He looked out the window to see a concrete wall, painted a bright yellow with a lamp hanging over it. He stepped away from the window to see what else was in the room with him.

He looked to find a door or another window, but found nothing of the sort. As he started to panic, he noticed something under the bed he was lying on. The bed itself was suspended in the air by wires on each side, with one of the edges bolted to the wall. Under the bed was something that he couldn’t make out. He almost made it to the bed before his foot slipped and he fell into the sticky blood. A small light was under the bed, but covered by the shadowy item.

As he grabbed the item, he felt something solid under the softness of what felt like cloth. He pulled out the cloth and whatever else was there, and screamed. The head of someone came with the clothing, eyes unfocused and staring at him. The face of his pills dealer was pale, void of blood and meaning. The night’s memories came back to him as quickly as the head fell back.

He left his house to get more pills from his dealer. He had 20 bucks which meant he couldn’t buy the good shit this time. As he walked to the dealer’s house, someone pulled up beside him in a nice luxury car.

“You heading to the pill head?” a voice asked him as he continued walking.

“Mind your own business dick.”

“If you are, I’ve got a hundred dollars for you if you can get him to come outside so I can talk to him. I need some too.”

A wad of green flew out of the window without seeing the hand that threw it.

I unfolded the wad and found a crumpled hundred-dollar bill. “And all I have to do is have him come outside to see you?”

“That’s all you have to do.”

I nodded as we approached the dealer’s house and walked up the stairs. I knocked on the door, using the coded knock he taught me so long ago, and he opened it. “Hey man, I need some xannies. I got a buck twenty…that’ll get me a couple dozen, right?”

The man nodded and looked behind me at the waiting car. “Oh yeah, and some guy wants to talk to you. He needs some too. He gave me that buck to tell you to talk to him.”

The dealer looked up and down the deserted street and shrugged. He walked down the stairs after handing me a baggie of pills. I counted them out as he bent down to talk to the man in the car. 26 pills…that’ll get be through tomorrow for sure. I won’t need them after tomorrow. I’m quitting the pills.

The dealer walked back toward me and smiled at me. “Hey this guy wants to give us a thousand a piece if we help him play a prank on his buddy at a warehouse in the industrial park. You in?”

My mind immediately started calculating how many xannie bars that could buy. “Done.”

We both climbed in the man’s car and found ourselves surprised when we saw we were alone. The doors locked as we pulled away from the curb.

“Good evening gentleman.” a voice said through the speakers in the car. “I want to play a little game. For this game, I have to give you both a taste of your own medicine.” The back of the car smelled like chemicals before the voice spoke again. “What you are breathing in is a psychotic. It seems you both are quite fond of antidepressants and antipsychotics, so let’s see what happens when you take the reverse. It’s quite a fun game, and I hope it plays out the way I would like it too.”

I looked over at the dealer as he fell toward the door in a limp slump. “You should both be passing out any time. We’ll talk again soon.”

I had passed out before I knew it and I woke up in a room with no door and only a small window with a bright yellow painting. There was a loud chug-chug-chug in the room and when my eyes finally adjusted I could see the limp form of someone in the corner. They, too, soon woke up. When they raised out of the corner, I could see they had a knife and was heading towards me. I ran around the room before I tripped over the thing that made the chugging noise. It was a chain saw. The man was still chasing after me with the knife in his hand. He slashed at me as I picked up the chain saw.

He cut into my arm before I pulled the trigger to spin the sharp chain. The man screamed as the chain bit through his chest. The chainsaw ripped through the other side near his arm and started digging into it too. Blood sprayed everywhere and yet the man was still slashing at me with his knife.

I kept bring the chainsaw back to the body over and over before I let go in horror. The chainsaw fell to the floor with a thud, killing its chugging.

The voice spoke up again, “You kept saying you wanted to quit taking pills from this guy…and now you will. Congratulations, you won the game. Your prize will come soon enough.”

I crawled to the bed and curled up into a ball, crying myself to sleep before waking up without the memory.