Chapter
12: Crawling In My Skin
Rebecca awoke the next morning to a very quiet house. She knew something
was very wrong, but she had no idea what it could be. Her eyes quickly scanned
her room, but nothing was misplaced or even tampered with. She got out of bed
and walked out into the kitchen. Still, nothing was wrong in there. Heading for
the living room, she discovered the empty ruffled blanket on the floor.
“Shit!” Rebecca shrieked. “Daniel’s gone!” She quickly ran out
the door and looked to see if his car was in the parking lot. ‘Damn, it’s
gone!’ she thought, running back upstairs to get on the phone with as many
people a she knew.
The first number she dialed was Walter. “Hello?” he answered.
“Daniel’s gone!” Rebecca nearly screamed. “He’s gone! I can’t
find him anywhere. He stayed here last night, and now he’s gone!”
“Whoa, slow down, Becky. What’s going on?” he tried to calm her.
“Didn’t you hear about what happened last night?” she asked.
“About Alexia? Yeah, I was shocked that she would do such a thing. I
wonder what really happened,” Walter answered.
“Yeah, he told me she was a con artist that took him for half a mil. I
don’t know the rest except she came clean with him then killed herself.”
“Okay, now what’s going on with Daniel? What happened?”
“I don’t know! He was here when I went to sleep, and then he was gone
when I woke up. I have no idea where he went. I just hope he didn’t pull
something like Chance pulled when she lost Scott.” Rebecca became even more
concerned now that she thought about what Chance had done. “Oh, God! What if
he killed himself!” she bellowed.
“Rebecca! Calm down! Don’t think the worst possible scenario until it
happens,” Walter rashly stated.
“I hope you’re right,” Rebecca replied. She sat down on the couch
and silently pleaded Daniel was all right.
“Look, I’ll make a few phone calls to various people and see if
they’ve heard from him. If they haven’t, I’ll call the police. I’ll call
you back as soon as I can,” he said, then added, “Bye.”
“Bye.” It was hard for Rebecca to hang up. All she wanted was someone
to comfort her through such a hard time. She was scared not only for Daniel, but
for herself. If he had committed suicide like she thought, Rebecca would go
crazy. He was her friend, and all she could think about was how she could have
prevented him from leaving.
‘I should have taken his keys away,’ she thought.
~~~~~~~~~~
Daniel sat in the airport, his head down and his eyes closed. He didn’t
want anything to do with the crowd around him. In his impaired state of mind,
all he could think about was Alexia’s suicide. He replayed the scene in his
mind, going over every single detail from the moment he woke up to the moment
she pierced her skin with the sharp crystal blade. What stuck in his mind was
the blood that dripped all over his hands when it was all over.
‘Why?’ his mind begged him to ponder. ‘Why couldn’t I save her?
Why didn’t I tell her I loved her more often? Why did she have to take her
life?’
Daniel stood up and headed straight for the bar. He sat down at one of
the empty stools and took out a pack of cigarettes. Taking a drag, the bartender
walked over to him to take his order.
“What’ll it be?” the burly man asked in a harsh voice.
“Budweiser, the largest glass you’ve got,” Daniel answered as he
blew a puff of smoke into the air.
“Something wrong?” the bartender asked.
“Yes, but I don’t care to talk about it,” Daniel retorted as he
took another drag of his cigarette. The bartender handed him his drink and he
gulped half of it down before putting the glass down and finishing his
cigarette.
Flashbacks soon began to take over his mind. The first one was of the day
at the airport where he first met Alexia. She looked so beautiful standing there
in front of him. He smiled sadly as his memory traveled to the first night they
spent together in the hotel. She had been so understanding and so comforting
when he needed it most, but she was gone and there was no one who’d ever be
able to comfort him like she did.
Taking out another cigarette from the pack, Daniel lit it and took a
drag, inhaling deeply. After taking it away from his lips, he stared at it in
his hand and wondered how many more it would take to kill him. He smiled again.
‘Death, such a strange thing. Nobody knows anything about it, yet they fear it
so. Why do we fear death? Is it that bad to die?’ Alexia had said to him just
before she took her life.
‘Why do we fear death?’ Daniel pondered. He picked up the beer and
drank the rest of it down then ordered another one. As he was drinking it,
through the corner of his eye he saw the television screen in the corner of the
room flash a picture of his face along with Alexia’s. He quickly finished the
beer and took a $100 bill out of his pocket and put it down beside his glass
then proceeded to leave the bar and head for his gate.
A crowd of people had already gathered around the gate. Daniel quickly
realized his flight was boarding and quickly searched his pockets for his
ticket. He found it just before reaching the stewardess. Politely, he handed it
to her and proceeded to walk to the plane.
‘Ah, first class,’ Daniel sighed. He was glad to be far away from the
ordinary people on the flight. Within half an hour, the flight was on its way to
Tokyo.
~~~~~~~~~~
‘So this is Tokyo?’ Daniel wondered when he stepped out of the cab
that took him from the airport to his hotel in the center of the city. Bright
lights were everywhere, flashing, blinking, and buzzing with electricity. His
first thought was to head for the hotel lounge, but then decided to go to his
room and drop off his luggage, the small backpack he still had from two days
before, but now overloaded with cash.
Downstairs again, Daniel went to the reception desk and asked the clerk
where the nearest nightclub was. She pointed across the street to a forming line
in front of a small window. He thanked her and proceeded to head for the club.
As he walked into the line, he stared at the many different people standing
there, talking amongst themselves until the club finally opened. They were
black, white, Asian, and many other races from around the world all coming
together through the universal language, music.
Daniel smiled and decided his life wasn’t all that bad. Music had
always been his escape, and now, more than ever, was that escape needed. The
constant reminder of Alexia’s death always seemed to be on his conscience.
There was nothing that could clear it except getting wasted at some foreign bar
or nightclub like this one.
The line suddenly started to move prompting Daniel to look towards the
door where a big bouncer appeared and was letting people in. The closer Daniel
got, the more freedom he felt from his worries. He finally reached the bouncer,
graciously handing him a hundred dollar bill.
Stepping past him, Daniel entered a darkened room filled with people
waiting to cram into a small door that led into the heart of the club. He could
already hear the music thumping through the door. His heart began to race with
the excitement of finding such a wonderful escape. He pushed past the chattering
people and moved into the pulsating lights of the club scene. The music was
louder than he expected, and he quickly began to feel his head begin to spin
with the combination of music and smoke.
Daniel headed for the bar at the far end of the club. He sat down at one
of the art deco stools and ordered a martini, extra dry. As he waited for the
bartender to return with his drink, a pretty Asian girl walked past him.
She sat beside him and said, “You’re not from around here, are
you?”
“No,” Daniel yelled over the music.
“You look like you have a lot on your mind. Maybe this’ll help
you,” she replied, handing him a small funny looking pill. “Take that with
your drink and I guarantee you that you’ll have a really good time tonight.”
“Thanks,” he said as he took the pill from the girl.
“If you need anymore, I’ll be around again. And if I miss you, my
name’s Lee. See you around,” she replied, standing up and heading away from
the bar and into the crowd of dancers on the large floor.
Daniel stared at the pill in his hand wondering what it was. He knew it
had to be some kind of illegal drug, but being in the state he was in, he
didn’t care much and quickly took it with his martini. In half an hour, he had
no idea what hit him. He was up off his seat dancing as if he had the strength
of ten people. His mind was far away from anything that involved Alexia and
instead concentrated on the rhythm of the music swirling around him.
Bumping into someone accidentally, Daniel turned to find Lee behind him
with another potential costumer. His smile came as a goofy grin, but she
understood his state of mind. She smiled back and snidely crept up to him.
“So, are you enjoying you time here?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Daniel replied.
“Ready for another dose?”
“Tell me what it is and I’ll tell you if I want anymore,” he
compromised.
“LSD, baby, and only the best. This stuff is the purest you’ll find
in all of Japan. The first one was on me. Another hit will cost you five
hundred,” Lee said.
“Hm… Let me think about that,” Daniel replied. “What the hell,
give me another one. This stuff is great!”
Lee grinned. She reached into her pocket and pulled out another pill. She
handed it to Daniel and gingerly took the money in his hand. “Enjoy,” she
said, disappearing into the hoard of people on the dance floor.
~~~~~~~~~~
A sharp, piercing pain in the lower abdomen awakened Daniel the next
morning. Slowly, his eyes began to open and adjust to the morning light. He
stared out into the blurry world around him to find he wasn’t in his hotel
room. There was a trashcan at his side and a box beneath him. He looked up to
see a man hovering about him with a stick in his hand. Again, the piercing pain
in his lower abdomen came, but this time Daniel knew it was from a swift kick
from the man’s foot.
“Where am I?” Daniel almost mumbled.
The man replied to him in a language Daniel didn’t understand, but held
out his hand for him to take. The man hoisted him up and pushed him against the
wall he had been sleeping on. He searched Daniel then pulled him out of the
stinky ally. Once more, them man spoke to him in another language.
Afraid that the man would kick him again, Daniel began to walk away from
the ally and out into the street where the hotel was. He walked through the door
thankful to still be alive. He headed straight for his room to change his
clothes and take a shower. As Daniel searched his pockets for his key, he found
his money was gone and had been replaced with tiny multicolored capsules
containing the drugs he had gotten high on the night before.
Holding them out in his hand, he wondered what to do with them. He
couldn’t throw them out, and he damn well couldn’t sell them. Instead,
Daniel slipped them back into his pocket and headed upstairs to his room to
figure out what to do now that the night was over.
After reaching his room, Daniel flopped down on the bed and found sleep
to be his most comforting state. He didn’t know how long he had been out, but
when he awoke later that day, he realized that the sun had faded behind thick
black clouds. Rain poured down from above as he stared aimlessly out the window.
‘Now what?’ Daniel wondered as he headed to the bathroom to take a
shower. He looked into the mirror to find deep purple rings around his eyes,
cuts and bruises all over his face and arms, and a bloody lip. ‘What the hell
happened to me last night?’ He lifted his shirt over his head to find another
surprise, a black and blue welt in his lower abdomen where the man had kicked
him.
Lightly touching it, Daniel realized it was still sore and needed medical
attention. Instead of getting it, he searched his pockets for the LSD pills and
popped one without water. Within minutes, he was in a dream like state of mind,
but not the same one as the night before. He wanted a more intense high, so he
popped another pill. Finally, he was in the same place as the night before.
Yet there was something different about the high Daniel was experiencing
now. He felt more fearful and irritated that the night before. Dizziness and
confusion soon took over his normal train of thought and he began to see the
colors in the room melt into one big puddle in front of him.
The more he stared at the puddle, the more his fear grew. Daniel soon
began to see a human form emerging from the blob. It seemed so familiar, almost
as if he knew the person coming to life in front of him. As it formed more
features, he began to realize that the creature standing in front of him was
none other than Alexia. She looked different, though.
‘Oh, God!’ Daniel thought as he stared at her. Alexia had the deep,
bloody gash in her throat, and her eyes seemed so distant. ‘She’s coming to
get me!’ his mind screamed as he tried to close his eyes to get rid of the
image in front of him. Daniel opened them again to find that she was still
there, only closer now, and her arms were outstretched as if to grab him when
she got in range.
Daniel began to run around his hotel room, pleading with the reincarnated
image of Alexia not to kill him. He dove for the bed and nestled himself under
the covers as if to try and hide himself from her. The strange and frightening
experience carried on for over two hours until the drug had finally passed
through his system. He fell asleep with a racing heart and a high temperature.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Now boarding flight 1820 to Los Angeles,” a woman’s voice came
loud and clear over the intercom in the small Japanese airport where Daniel had
found a flight to LA two days after his terrifying overdose. He sat in the bar
drinking a tall glass of beer, his third that day, and was relieved that no one
had noticed him. Wearily, he stood up from his seat and placed a fifty on the
counter for the bartender. Slowly he walked to the gate and handed the
stewardess his ticket.
“Enjoy your flight,” she said in perfect English. Daniel glared at
her and proceeded to walk to the plane. After nearly twelve grueling hours on
the horrible flight, Daniel was finally on solid ground again, but drunk to the
point of being unable to comprehend where he was going. As he wandered out of
the airport, he found himself walking down the streets of LA and looking into
the windows of the little shops he passed as he searched for something to keep
him occupied for the rest of the day.
In the window of an electronics shop, Daniel saw a picture of Chance
beaming on one of the television sets being advertised. He stared at it
wondering what she was up to and how she was doing. Feelings of blind hatred
began to build up in his mind. After all, she was the cause of all his pain. He
couldn’t help his hate. After finally being able to control it, he realized
that more information had appeared on the screen. It was something about her
getting a part on a TV show and she had moved to Malibu with Darren.
‘Wouldn’t it be weird if we ran into each other?’ Daniel thought as
he walked away from the television sets and into a small liquor shop down the
street. He bought a six-pack of beer and began his trek through LA in search of
his “best friends.”
After walking for most of the day, Daniel finally reached the baked sands
of Malibu. The six-pack was almost gone with only one beer remaining. He
staggered down the palm-lined street until he reached the steps of a modest
looking complex. He sat down on the ground and drank from the bottle in his
hands. Watching the sun slowly go down, he wondered if anyone would ever spot
him. No one seemed to come near the complex in the hours that he sat on the
steps.
Daniel heard the distant rumble of thunder and looked up to find a patch
of thick black clouds cover the moon. The darkness enveloped everything around
him. He soon felt the drops of rain fell from the sky and onto his head.
Everything seemed to be getting worse. All he hoped for was someone to take him
in that night.
In his deep depression, Daniel didn’t realize that two people were
walking down the street towards him. The next thing he knew, someone screamed,
“Danny!” and rushed over to him.
A young woman knelt down beside him and gently placed her hand over his forehead. Daniel looked up to find Chance staring at him with concerned brown eyes. Darren walked up behind her with surprise written all over his face. They helped him up and brought him into the warmth of the condo.