Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

Lisa, anonymous in her black rain coat and hat, trotted through the night’s light drizzle to the loading docks. Her slim, petite figure danced in and out of the light from the occasional functioning street lamp. He had followed her from her girlfriend’s apartment to the floating club’s latest secret location a week ago, and had watched her enter every night since then. He had not yet gone in after her. The fear in his stomach warned him not to pursue her any further. Guy had said people didn’t always come out from Painfreak.

So far, Lisa had. Of course, Guy had called the both of them tourists, not players, the night seven years ago when he had introduced Tony to the club and they had met Lisa. Players took the real risks. Like Guy, who Painfreak had claimed with AIDS. Tourists just watched, and wished they had the guts to join in the fun. To give themselves up, surrender to their fantasies. Tourists were afraid to go all the way. Guy had been right; Tony and Lisa had given up the club circuit, and Painfreak in particular, after they met. But they were still alive.

Except now Lisa had left him and gone back to Painfreak. Tony didn’t know why. They had started living together the night they met, and had married soon afterwards. In the seven years since, Tony had never been tempted to chase after another woman. Lisa had paid her share of the expenses, never complained or mentioned kids. They had lived quietly, with few friends or family to distract them from their private games. And it was the private games, like the milder ones at Painfreak and the scene to which it belonged, that had kept him faithful to Lisa. They always had sex the way Tony liked it. The way he always thought she liked it. Fantasy not quite over the edge. Love with costumes and devices out of video porn and catalogs; games without points; play with roles and body parts. It had been enough for him and, he thought, for her. He had no idea what other desires had gone unfulfilled in Lisa, any more than he knew the source of the fear that kept him from following her in.

He knew only that he was afraid of finding out.

Tony pressed himself against one of the Parkway’s steel support beams, as if trying to draw strength from the vibration of cars passing overhead. Cold metal stole the warmth from his hands and face. The sussuration of tires on the wet highway pavement overhead whispered urgently to him as Lisa knocked on the steel rolling gate at one of the bays. She waited, perfectly still, looking down. A side door cracked opened. She held out her hand towards the darkness in the entrance for a moment. She nodded and slipped into the darkness beyond the doorway.

Tony shuffled his feet. Thunder rolled in from Manhattan; lightning flashed. Soon, the drizzle would turn to hard rain. Soon, perhaps tonight, Painfreak would move. Vanish from the city altogether, re-settle for a while in Paris, Bangkok, Berlin, Los Angeles, or some other travellers’ city. Guy had said clubs like Painfreak were only an idea that stayed on the mind of a big city for a little while. The various social scenes from which such elite clubs erupted did not have the energy to sustain the kind of activities that went on inside. There were only so many players at any given time, in any given place. Once depleted of energy, the idea simply moved to another mind. Another city.

Lisa might be swept away with the scene and find herself lost in a strange land. Or, driven by whatever pain and desperation that had brought her to the club in the first place, knowing the club might be out of her reach for a long time, she might make the move from tourist to player. And even if she emerged once more, unscathed, and returned tomorrow night to find Painfreak gone, Tony doubted she would come back to him. He would still not know the source of the pain and desperation that had made her suddenly abandon him, refuse any contact with him, and flee to Painfreak. And if he did not find out, then she would be lost to him forever.

The warehouse stood silent in the abandoned business district. No lights escaped its windows. No music, or any other sound, drifted along the street to him. Tony glanced back at his Lexus parked by the service road curb. Water dripped from the highway into shallow pools, splashed on to concrete. The city waited around him, vast and enigmatic, offering neither encouragement nor menace. He had to make his move on his own. Tonight. Or give Lisa up.

He took a step, then another. He left the comforting darkness under the Belt Parkway, crossed the service road, hit the sidewalk at a steady pace. He tried not to think about where he was going, what he was doing. He tried to keep his mind on Lisa: on her strong legs, gentle hands, her wide mouth and full lips, the way she laughed, and sighed, and turned her head away from him after they were both satiated with sex.