TATER

He parks his car on Roscoe, impatiently playing bumper tag, as he tries to ease his 1986 Olds Cutlass in a spot meant for a Honda Accord.  Glancing over his shoulder, he scans the houses and sidewalks for a witness.  Seeing none, he gives the old bitch a little gas and rams the small car behind him, forcing it back a few inches.  Mission accomplished, he straightens the wheel and comes to rest kissing the bumper of his neighbor.  He pats himself feeling the old familiarity of the rectangular package, resting in the pocket of his jean jacket, the reason for this frenzied excursion.  with shaking hands, he fumbles a cigarette out of another pocket, lights it on the second try, and takes a deep drag.  His eyes  momentarily lock on his reflection in the rear view mirror and he jumps with a start.

Christ, Jason!  Pull yourself together buddy.

He chuckles at himself as he exhales a blue plume of smoke, and shakes his head. He hums,  trying to shake the momentary flash of grey bloodshot eyes he thought he'd seen staring back at him in the mirror, but stops just as abruptly, and pulls himself out of his ride.

He had had to drive all the way to Austin to score, nearly forgetting his way around the streets of Chicago's seedy West Side.  The old players were no longer manning the same corners, the runners he used to know ruled corners of their own now, or were in a cell or a coffin.  He had hunched down in his seat,  his head barely above the wheel, avoiding the suspicion of any curious cops, as he scanned the boulevards for the familiar game.  He had found some shorty's offering up rock, but that wasn't his particular need.  He was seeking a body bag of the finest china white he could get his hands on.  He heard the sing song sales pitch not twenty minutes later, and he was on his way back home, a hundred dollars lighter, with a pocket full of reassurance.

He is jittery and tense with longing, a fine bead of sweat slicking his brow and giving a slight chill, as the  evening begins to darken, kicking up a chill October breeze, like the swishing of skirts.  Chicago.  His beloved town.  One of anonymity and opportunity, a lady of a thousand chances and as many vices, the city which had come on to him so strong,  promising a quiet amidst the clanging and clamouring multitudes.  He glances up and down Roscoe, taking in the nearly deserted street, and sees shadow movements of people ensconced behind warm light, going about their evening routines.  He catches the scent of wood smoke, signaling the onset of the dark months ahead, as he makes his way down the slender walk between houses at 1412, and into the courtyard framing his coach house.

He takes in the details of his living room as he hurries through the door.  He feels oddly out of place as he scans his meager, hard earned belongings.  He had nothing before he had kicked almost thirteen years ago, and it now stands a meager defense between him and the nothingness his life had been.  The past was something he had to revisit and deal with when he got sober, when there was nothing left to dull himself against it. 

His sponsor had shared the tawdry and unsavory aspects of his life, and had helped him through his amends to others and himself, led him to the peace, which finally came with living in the moment.  Most of the time this was enough to get him through his day to day, however, there was something in the life of Jason, he hadn't broached, hadn't shared, hadn't wanted to unearth from the layers of time, drugs, moves, failed relationships, all the refuse he had heaped upon his memory in a futile attempt to silence it.  There was only one sure way.  It was waiting in his pocket, calling to him in that voice he could never quite extinguish.  The voice of memory turned on him, whisking him back to upstate New York, back to the summer of 1981, and the unrequited fear that a shot of heroin could calm but never banish, unless of course, he planned ahead.

He shivered as he heard the inhuman giggle, once again saw the light grey eyes, framed by yellow bloodshot whites, red lines like lightening bolts pointing to those tiny obsidian pupils.

"Does it sing Ja-s-s-s-s-s-on?" he hissed.  He cackled and squealed.  "what's the matter Precious-s-s-s, CAT got your tongue?"

Jason fought the urge to faint, as the room spun and patches off darkness clouded his vision.  He felt the bone chilling cold, and the carrion stench of putrid decay engulfing him, overpowering his will to struggle. He went down to his knees, retching and coughing up the remnants of his hasty dinner, before giving into the darkness.

                                                             * * *

He looked down upon her lifeless corpse dismissively, as a cold rage engulfed him.

"Savannah, you always looked so pretty in red!  It's a pity I didn't happen upon you a little earlier sweety, It would have  been so much fun filleting you slowly.  I wouldn't have started at your throat you prissy little bitch."

The thought caused a wretched metallic giggle to escape his flat grey lips, briefly cracking the rictus of his dead face in a frightening grimace, to give life to everything except his empty grey eyes.  With a fingernail as long and sharp as a penknife, he popped her right eyeball out of it's socket and left it dangling upon her cheek.  His mood brightened a little as he watched the bloody orb settle on her once handsome face.

He hummed to himself as he admired his handy work, and then set about rummaging through her apartment.  He wiggled the mouse on her desktop, bringing her imac to life, and took in the files on her desktop.  He concentrated on the screen, and the computer clicked and whirred.  Files opened and closed with a sickening rapidity, the reflecting light splashing the walls of her study like a strobe.  He concentrated as the data entered his mind, quickly sifting through the sordid banalities of her personal and professional life.  He grew more and more agitated as it became clear to him that she had been careful about what she had recorded on her hard drive.  Not finding what he was looking for, he slammed the screen with the back of his hand, sending it crashing and exploding into the wall across the room. He would have to do this the old fashioned way, would have to sniff out their fear across the country and latch onto them as he had once so long ago.  It had been a relatively easy task when they were children, and their thoughts had not been so layered and hidden.  He smiled as he warmed to the task.  He had always enjoyed a foxhunt, and now the game was in motion, was it not? 

He spun on the heel of his weathered black boot, and strode gracefully to the door.  He stopped to listen, his head cocked like a hound.  He realized that he had been seen and heard.  Mrs. Farley in 6D had heard something which caused her pause, but she wasn't of any concern to him.  It was the nosey pig in 5D that had had her eye at the peephole.  He could sense her moving about her unit, could smell the fear that was emanating from her worried mind.  She had seen him stride by, and the visage had left her cold and shaken.  He stepped out in the hallway, and quietly clicked the door to Savannah's apartment closed behind him.  He casually walked over to the door of 5D, his boots clicking as he went, and brought a cold grey eye to rest on the peephole.  He saw a blurry shadow leap back, and he let loose a maniacal cackle.  He whispered to her in a barely audible whine.

"Nosey, nosey, nosey, pocket full of posies, ashes ashes we all fall down!"

He placed his right hand on the metal door, and using his yellow claws, scratched softly down it's surface, letting loose a grating metallic screech.  He heard a whimper from behind the locked door, and broke into a hideous grin.

"Have yourself a good night now Gina, you horrid sow!  Think of me while you diddle yourself to thoughts of Brad Pitt, suns-s-s-hine."

He continued down the hallway to the fire escape stairwell, and headed down to the brownstone's exit.  He paused to listen again on the second floor landing, his face a mask of concentration.  He heard the scratching and patter of little feet wafting to him from inside an air shaft, and he started to "sing",  inhuman and barely audible, a series of whines and clicks ghastly and unbearable to the human ear.  Within moments, a fat brown Norwegian rat came fearlessly towards him, its nose twitching and sniffing out his caller.  The man in dark boots, halted his aria, and held out his flat palm.  The rat leapt up to the offered platform, and awaited his master's song.

Five minutes later, he had made it to the fourth floor and had chewed through the phone line to 5D as his master entered the dark limo and commanded his driver away from the leaf strewn curb.  He listened, enchanted by the hypnotic opera flooding his tiny mind, and was filled with a sense of bliss and purpose he  was wholly unfamiliar with.  He scurried through the wall to the bathroom and set about his instructed modifications to Gina's electrical outlet. 

Gina never knew what hit her when she went to dry her hair and her body danced and smoked across the mildewed tiles of her bathroom floor. the Coroner would have his hands full within the week, after a neighbor called in the strange rotting odor, emanating from the fourth floor of the charming and historic, Manhattan brownstone.