Read Online Light Before Day by Christopher Rice - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Christopher Rice
Tags: Fiction, General, Psychological, Gay, Thrillers, Mystery & Detective, Horror, Authors, Journalists, Serial Murderers, Missing Persons, Gay Men, West Hollywood (Calif.)
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stucco palace with balconies that ran the length of each unit and a line of tall hedges flanking the entry door. I was half a block away when I saw a half-naked blur come flying down the front steps. When I shouted his name, Nate whirled and almost dropped the dishrag he was holding against his left temple.
He was shirtless and barefoot. His plaid pajama pants were stained down both legs, and he reeked of body odor and lubricant. His eyes were cue balls and his black hair was matted with something that looked thicker than sweat. "Can you take me to the hospital?" he gasped. "See, I've got this oscillating fan and it's been blowing spores all over the place. One of them went behind my eye. I can totally feel it moving around—"
"Let's go back inside, Nate."
"I tried to get it out," he went on, "but I don't think I . . ." He pulled the dishrag from his temple, revealing a welter of oozing scratches that looked like they had been incised with a fork.
A car flew by and I watched the male passenger crane his head to stare at us, his mouth an O.
Several streams of dark blood slid down the left side of Nate's face. He scratched at them as he looked at me with jerking pupils. He had obviously been awake since Friday night and he was about to come in for a crash landing. My facial expression must have pierced his paranoid frenzy. His jaw quivered, his eyes dropped to the pavement, and he started shaking his head back and forth as if I had just told him that his mother had died.
I suppressed my gag reflex and put an arm around his back. I led him inside the building and through a maze of brightly lit stale-smelling hallways. When I asked him where his apartment was, he pointed toward a door that was pounding with bass beats.
I asked him who was inside and he put his forehead against his closed fists. I wondered if the pose was a method for keeping the drugs in his brain.
When I opened the unlocked door, I was hit by a stronger version of the stench that came from Nate. Towels and blankets had been nailed over the apartment's windows. The only light in the room came from a porn film playing on a tiny television set in the corner. The sole piece of furniture was an overstuffed sofa, and there were four naked guys on it. Two older men with stripes of bristle down their lean torsos lowered a rail-thin blond kid onto the condomless erection of the man who sat below him. The kid's flaccid penis spilled from his cock ring like an elephant's tail. It took me a second to realize that the red spots on it were the result of extreme chafing.
"Party's over, guys!" I announced. "I hate to tell you guys this, but I've been watching everything on the camera inside that smoke detector, and I had to call the FBI. They'll be here in five minutes."
The men scrambled to get out. Three of them made for the front door. "Get dressed first!" I barked. Each one of them had shed his clothes in a different part of the apartment, but they were dressed and out the front door in the blink of an eye, which shouldn't have surprised me considering they were speed freaks. Once they were gone, I looked up and saw that Nate was one step ahead of me: the smoke detector had been covered with newspaper.
I walked Nate into the bedroom and dropped him onto the mattress on the floor. The sheet was so badly stained it looked like it had been lifted from an auto body shop, and the piles of dirty laundry gave off a smell like rank water poured over cut grass. It took me a second to realize that the piles were sorted by color. In the tiny bathroom, I found three bottles of Viagra in the medicine cabinet. Crystal meth lights a fire under some men's sex drives, but it also turns their equipment to mush. But there was also a bottle of Xanax, just as I had expected there would be. Two-milligram pills. The good stuff.
I dumped several into my palm and asked Nate if he could swallow without water. He just stared at his laundry. In the kitchen I opened the cabinets and
He was shirtless and barefoot. His plaid pajama pants were stained down both legs, and he reeked of body odor and lubricant. His eyes were cue balls and his black hair was matted with something that looked thicker than sweat. "Can you take me to the hospital?" he gasped. "See, I've got this oscillating fan and it's been blowing spores all over the place. One of them went behind my eye. I can totally feel it moving around—"
"Let's go back inside, Nate."
"I tried to get it out," he went on, "but I don't think I . . ." He pulled the dishrag from his temple, revealing a welter of oozing scratches that looked like they had been incised with a fork.
A car flew by and I watched the male passenger crane his head to stare at us, his mouth an O.
Several streams of dark blood slid down the left side of Nate's face. He scratched at them as he looked at me with jerking pupils. He had obviously been awake since Friday night and he was about to come in for a crash landing. My facial expression must have pierced his paranoid frenzy. His jaw quivered, his eyes dropped to the pavement, and he started shaking his head back and forth as if I had just told him that his mother had died.
I suppressed my gag reflex and put an arm around his back. I led him inside the building and through a maze of brightly lit stale-smelling hallways. When I asked him where his apartment was, he pointed toward a door that was pounding with bass beats.
I asked him who was inside and he put his forehead against his closed fists. I wondered if the pose was a method for keeping the drugs in his brain.
When I opened the unlocked door, I was hit by a stronger version of the stench that came from Nate. Towels and blankets had been nailed over the apartment's windows. The only light in the room came from a porn film playing on a tiny television set in the corner. The sole piece of furniture was an overstuffed sofa, and there were four naked guys on it. Two older men with stripes of bristle down their lean torsos lowered a rail-thin blond kid onto the condomless erection of the man who sat below him. The kid's flaccid penis spilled from his cock ring like an elephant's tail. It took me a second to realize that the red spots on it were the result of extreme chafing.
"Party's over, guys!" I announced. "I hate to tell you guys this, but I've been watching everything on the camera inside that smoke detector, and I had to call the FBI. They'll be here in five minutes."
The men scrambled to get out. Three of them made for the front door. "Get dressed first!" I barked. Each one of them had shed his clothes in a different part of the apartment, but they were dressed and out the front door in the blink of an eye, which shouldn't have surprised me considering they were speed freaks. Once they were gone, I looked up and saw that Nate was one step ahead of me: the smoke detector had been covered with newspaper.
I walked Nate into the bedroom and dropped him onto the mattress on the floor. The sheet was so badly stained it looked like it had been lifted from an auto body shop, and the piles of dirty laundry gave off a smell like rank water poured over cut grass. It took me a second to realize that the piles were sorted by color. In the tiny bathroom, I found three bottles of Viagra in the medicine cabinet. Crystal meth lights a fire under some men's sex drives, but it also turns their equipment to mush. But there was also a bottle of Xanax, just as I had expected there would be. Two-milligram pills. The good stuff.
I dumped several into my palm and asked Nate if he could swallow without water. He just stared at his laundry. In the kitchen I opened the cabinets and
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