DARK NEEDS: Three Twisted Tales of Horror Read online

  5 Horror

  Short Stories

  Brian Moreland

  Every vice has a terrifying price...

  In this collection of five tales of horror, award-winning author Brian Moreland explores the obsessions of desperate people who cross boundaries into dark places to fulfill their deepest needs.

  The Dealer of Needs - Addicted to a dangerous new drug, vice cop Alex Decker searches the seedy side of Hollywood for a legendary dealer who can fulfill anyone’s needs.

  Offspring - Driven to get what she wants most, New York journalist Cara Klein travels to the backwoods of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens to a mystical place where whatever you wish for comes true.

  Holomorphs - A lonely man discovers what happens when he goes deep into a new social media app where the “friends” aren’t who they seem to be.

  Beast of Winter - In the remote wilderness of Manitoba, Canada, terror strikes the hearts of two hunters who encounter a deadly predator.

  Chasing the Dragon - Nick Meyers searches Hong Kong’s underworld for his missing lover, a Chinese woman whose life was just as much a riddle as her disappearance.

  Books by Brian Moreland:

  Darkness Rising

  The Vagrants

  The Devil’s Woods

  The Witching House

  Dead of Winter

  Shadows in the Mist

  Dark Needs

  Dark Needs: 5 Horror Short Stories

  eBook edition 2

  Copyright 2017 © Brian Moreland

  Published by Rising Horse Books

  Dallas, Texas

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever, including photography, xerography, broadcast, transmission, translation into any language, or recording, without permission in writing from the publisher. Reviewers may quote brief passages in critical articles or reviews.

  “Offspring” copyright 2017 © by Brian Moreland

  “Beast of Winter” copyright 2017 © by Brian Moreland

  “Holomorphs” copyright 2017 © by Brian Moreland

  Previous publications:

  “Dealer of Needs” as an eBook by Lucky Horse Books March 2011.

  “Chasing the Dragon” as an eBook by Lucky Horse Books March 2011.

  “Beast of Winter” at Pen of the Damned blog

  “Holomorphs” at Pen of the Damned blog

  Cover design by Brian Moreland

  Image fly on cover - © paulrommer - Fotolia.com

  Contents

  The Dealer of Needs

  Offspring

  Holomorphs

  Beast of Winter

  Chasing the Dragon

  Undercover cop Alex Decker sat in his car, smoking a cigarette and thumping his fingers on the steering wheel. A thousand insects crawled beneath his skin. They burrowed inside his head and scratched at the backs of his eyeballs. There was only one thing that could make the madness stop. Decker stared across the street at a long line of hookers and drug pushers selling their goods up and down Hollywood Boulevard. Tonight business was booming. Every so often a car would pull up and, depending on the driver’s product of interest, would drive away with a prostitute, bag of weed or some other party drug.

  “What the hell am I doing here?” Decker asked himself. This wasn’t his assignment. Nor did he bring any other members of the Vice Squad. You know why you’re here, spoke the inner voice that had taken his mind hostage. Don’t kid yourself.

  Decker had suffered insomnia for the past two weeks. At three a.m. this morning, he had been so on edge that he went cruising around the seedy side of Hollywood in search of a fix. He had stopped several street-corner dealers, but none had what he was looking for. He was about to drive home in defeat, when he spotted Hendrix. The scrawny black dealer in a purple bowler hat had a reputation for being able to get his hands on anything.

  Decker got out of his car and crossed the street.

  The flamboyant dealer grinned, showing off his gold teeth. “Yo, need a fix? Just ask Hendrix.”

  “I could use a fix,” Decker said, hating himself for saying the words and actually meaning them.

  “Step right into my office.” The dealer led Decker into an alley where a prostitute was going downtown on a john. Hendrix yelled, “Bitch, get da fuck outta here!” He grabbed her arm and roughly led her back to the street. The john, who looked like a typical middle-aged suburban husband, buckled his pants and hurried away in shame.

  Hendrix returned. “Sorry about dat. Bitches don’t respect my turf.” He grinned. “Now, what you need from Hendrix’s magic bag o’ tricks?”

  Decker looked around to make sure no one was in earshot, then lowered his voice. “You got glimmer?”

  “Nah, you ain’t going to find that around here. But no worries, my man, I got yo weed, yo speed, and some ice for a really nice price.” Again with the gold-toothed grin.

  Decker felt his body shudder as he took a step closer, towering over the dealer. “I only want glimmer.”

  “Well, I’m all out right now. If you come back tomorrow, I’ll hook you up. In the mean time, how about some crack for a snack?”

  “No, I need glimmer tonight. Who’s your supplier? I’ll go get it myself.”

  Hendrix took a step back. “Whoa now, that’s my private business.”

  Decker shoved Hendrix against a wall and pressed his Glock against his temple. “Tell me where you get your merch, motherfucker, or I’ll splatter your fucking brains.”

  “All right, all right.” He held up his palms. “The man you want to see is Del Toro.”

  Decker stared in shock when he heard the notorious name. “You know how to find Del Toro?”

  “Yeah. He’s got anything you need.”

  “Real glimmer? Not that fake shit you bagboys are pushing?”

  “Yeah man, the premium gold. And plenty of it. Just tell him, ‘the Glimmer Man sent you,’ and you’re in.” He gave an address in the Barrio.

  Decker released the guy. “You better be telling the truth, Hendrix. I know where to hunt you down.”

  “I ain’t lying. That’s where you’ll find Del Toro.”

  Decker let the dealer walk and then drove like a maniac to a barrio known as Boyle Heights, just east of the Los Angeles River. Ruled by Hispanic street gangs, the barrio was a dangerous place for a lone white guy to be driving through at odd hours of the morning. Decker wasn’t afraid of dying. He’d played Mexican roulette with death a hundred times working ten years as an undercover cop. He had infiltrated some of the most dangerous Columbian cartels, pretending to be a drug importer, specializing in coke and heroin. He had sat in rooms with drug lords surrounded by burly Latinos with machine guns. He had been given personal tours of meth labs and marijuana farms by illegal drug manufacturers who had never suspected that their good buddy Alex Decker was about to put the sting on them.

  Now Decker was just a shell of the man he once was. His whole body trembled as he parked his car smack dab in the center of East LA’s barrio. A bum carrying a bottle in a brown sack ambled past Decker’s car, staring at him with blood-shot eyes. The wino’s face seemed to shake so fast that it turned into a blurry mask, his voice humming like bees, before he angled off and disappeared in the darkness beneath a bridge.

  A dozen voices argued inside Decker’s head as he struggled to decide his next move. He started t
o get out of the car, but then stopped himself. “What the fuck am I doing?”

  He could drive home right now. If he drank some bourbon and lay down, maybe he could fall asleep. And maybe he wouldn’t see the ghosts forming in the dark shadows of the room, surrounding his bed, urging him to cross back into their world.

  No matter how much he tried to will himself to drive away, his body remained seated behind the wheel with the engine off. He nervously smoked his tenth cigarette and watched the gray light of dawn chase the shadows back into the gutters and tenement homes. The night people slunk into the buildings’ crevices like fleeing cockroaches. Again, Decker felt the insects stirring beneath his skin, festering inside his head. He pulled at his hair. His mind and body remained on edge, as he scouted the four-story building across the street. With its graffiti-tattooed walls and broken windows, the apartment building looked like prime housing for the lost and forgotten.

  Could this really be Del Toro’s hideout?

  If Hendrix had told the truth, then Decker had just hit jackpot. Del Toro was the kingpin of the barrio. He had dealers in every tenement house and abandoned building, and trolling beneath bridges, turning the homeless into freebasers. He had warehouses and drug labs manufacturing crack cocaine, ecstasy, heroin, meth and a number of other illegally-produced pharmaceuticals. The V.S. had been after Del Toro for years, but to this day, no cop had ever come close. Del Toro was thought to be an urban legend because no one, except for a few street dealers, had ever seen the drug lord face to face. Even the cartels wanted Del Toro’s head, because he was their biggest competitor in California and had cornered the market on the most addictive drug ever to be sold.

  Decker thought back to two weeks ago when his whole life changed. One of Del Toro’s middlemen, whom Decker had been putting the sting on, lit up some golden crystals in a glass pipe. “We’ve got something new you gotta try, amigo. It’s called ‘glimmer’ because it glimmers like gold, and when you smoke this shit . . . vato, it’s the closest thing to seeing heaven.”

  Decker had known about this new drug for several months now. It was the latest rage with partiers, and a couple of Hollywood A-list celebrities had already been busted with it. Word among the Columbian, Venezuelan, and Mexican cartels was that glimmer had first appeared right here in LA. One day street dealers called “glimmer men” began pushing it, but wouldn’t name their supplier. Eventually, the Columbians tortured one of them and the man squealed that Del Toro was the one producing it all.

  The glimmer man Decker had been “doing business with” offered the smoking glass pipe. It had a potent smell, like burning hash, that hit his senses on the first whiff.

  Decker took a hit off the pipe. Sampling drugs while under cover was part of the job. If he turned down a snort of cocaine or a hit off a bong, trust would be instantly broken and Decker would be found later in a sewer with his throat cut. He had taken pride that he had an iron will and had never been addicted to anything—and he’d tried it all. But the day he had smoked from that glass pipe, the euphoria and hallucinations the glimmer had given went far beyond anything he’d ever experienced on ecstasy or meth. He had seen celestial beings from another world. Had reconnected with loved ones who had passed away, like his girlfriend, Rachel, who had died of cancer, and his former mentor, Father Mike, who had gone missing a year ago. When Decker finally came back down to earth, he had instantly wanted to take another hit off the pipe and return to that state of heavenly bliss.

  Decker and his team had busted Del Toro’s dealer and confiscated fifty pounds of glimmer. Then Decker went home and the withdrawals kicked in, day by day tearing apart the man he had once been. He lost his appetite and his ability to sleep. A strange voice entered his head, urging him to search the streets for more glimmer. For the first time in Alex Decker’s life, he knew what it felt like to be a junkie.

  Now he sat alone in his car, watching the smog-stained clouds roll slowly by. “Well, if you’re going to do this, then do it.” He tossed out his cigarette and squeezed his fists.

  “Alex, don’t do this,” pleaded the voice of Father Mike.

  Decker jerked in his seat. “What the . . . ?”

  The black priest was sitting in the passenger seat, as real as when he was alive. Father Mike had that familiar look of concern on his face. “You don’t want to go down that road, son. Just call it in and go get help.”

  “No, come be with me again,” spoke Rachel’s voice.

  Decker turned to see his girlfriend sitting in the backseat. She looked healthy and beautiful, the way she had looked before the cancer treatments caused all her hair to fall out. His eyes watered at the sight of her. “Rachel . . .”

  Father Mike’s and Rachel’s pleading voices sped up. Both of their heads began to shake violently. The chittering insects inside Decker’s skull grew louder and louder, becoming the shriek of a thousand locusts. He closed his eyes and plugged his ears. “Stop, stop, stop!”

  The car went silent.

  Decker opened his eyes. Father Mike and Rachel were gone. He missed them both so much that his chest ached. He had first seen them two weeks ago, when he had taken a ride on the glimmer’s magic carpet. Ever since he’d come down, their ghosts, along with countless others, kept appearing and talking inside his head.

  You’ll be with us soon, their voices promised. You know what you need to do.

  Before he could change his mind, Decker climbed out of his car and crossed the street. A gang of Latinos wearing blue bandanas were playing basketball in an empty lot. They stopped and challenged Decker with territorial eyes. With his greasy hair and stained sleeveless shirt, they couldn’t tell he was a cop. But they knew where he was headed. Yeah, boys, another cracker’s come to get his fix. He raised an eyebrow. What the fuck you looking at?

  The gang returned to playing hoops.

  Decker knew how to deal with kids who grew up on the mean streets, because he had been one. In and out of jail, scarred from knife-fights, he had been destined to spend a life in prison until Father Mike rescued him. Alex got cleaned up, found God, and began working for the side of the law that strived to make the world a better place.

  Decker entered the four-story building. It smelled of urine and the stink of slum people. He startled a couple of junkies sitting on the steps, freebasing crack. They panicked, trying to hide their spoons and needles.

  “Don’t mind me, Crackheads. Just passing through.” He lunged between them and up the stairs, leaping two at a time. His movements rustled newspapers and fast-food garbage that clotted the dank stairwell. A homeless man was sitting in a dark corner, sleeping with his head on his knees.

  In his rookie days, Decker would have entered such a shithole with caution, fingers touching the butt of the Glock G19 he kept tucked in his belt. But years as an undercover cop had seasoned his instincts. Homeless people weren’t threats. Neither were crackheads or gang members. They fucked with each other, but not with Decker. As an undercover cop, it was his job to fit in with the dregs of society: ripped muscles, tattoos, unshaven face, homicidal glare. The streets were all about respect. And when a man was armored with enough self-respect, he got respect back. The only people who gave Decker any sense of fear were the machine-gun-toting goons who protected kingpins like Del Toro.

  Decker slowed down at the top of the stairwell. He took a moment to catch his breath. Just keep it cool, keep it real. The fourth floor was a dark hallway with one flickering light. Several of the doors were open. He peered into shadowy apartments that smelled of life gone sour. In one of them a baby was squalling. The ragged screams brought up bad memories that Decker immediately pushed back down.

  At the end of the hall, he knocked on the door to apartment 413 and waited, feeling his face twitch. He flexed his fists.

  Beyond the door came the sound of footsteps, the clacks of several deadbolts unlatching. Then the door opened. The room beyond was draped in curtains of gray gloom and smelled, of all things, like clove cigarettes. He expected to b
e greeted by heavily-armed thugs. Instead there was just the silhouette of an old man who stood shorter than Decker, only coming up to his shoulders.

  Did Hendrix just blow smoke up my ass?

  “Hola, mi amigo, how can I help you?” the tenant said in a thick Chicano accent. He seemed too friendly to be a drug lord.

  “Si, amigo, the Glimmer Man sent me. I hear you can fix me up.”

  “Si, si, anything you wish.” The Chicano stepped back, waving him into the apartment. “Come, come.”