Radu-Chapter XXXV (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)

Previous Installments-
Part One
Prologue and Chapters I-X
Part Two
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
PartThree
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Radu-Chapter XXXV (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)
8 pages approximate
While Toby strutted back and forth among his background singers he entertained the same question as usual-which one of these hos is going to set me back a bunch of money tonight, and how much Viagra will it take? He settled on Felicia Rashad-not only because she was, after all, his favorite, but precisely because she was his favorite, he saved her for special occasions. He did not want to wear a good thing out, and that rack had a lot of potential.

He felt much better over the last few months after dropping more than fifty pounds, and this was an inducement to him to lose even more. Still, as he rapped to the background music of My Way, he could feel the potential of what might well lie ahead. He finally had the makings of a big hit-not just a regional but a national, maybe even international chart buster. Things were looking up.

He was glad this night was over. He finished the encore performance and prepared to exit the stage. His posse was ready to leave the club, and Felicia was ready, it seemed, to accompany him. He only hoped he was ready. He made his way back to the dressing room and popped the Viagra. Soon, he and Felicia walked side-by-side toward the limousine that waited to take them to the Hyatt.

He felt so good now he even considered popping the question. The only thing that concerned him was the prospect that since she would no doubt agree it would be impossible to back out later. The hell with it, he decided.

“You and me is gonna have us a serious discussion,” he promised her.

“Oh, what about?” she asked with a winsomely delighted smile.

“That’s as far as you go, Mr. Lecher,” a voice suddenly announced. “You are Dwayne Lecher, aka Toby Da Pimp, correct?”

Felicia backed away in obvious fear. Toby always told her there was a danger that someday he might suffer the fate of his idol, The Notorius Mr. Big, alternately known as “Biggie Small”. Mr. Big supposedly died, by gunfire, in retaliation for the earlier murder of rival gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur.

“That’s life,” Toby said often, a refrain that was now to all intents and purposes his signature line these days owing to the rising in the charts of his latest single, the first to receive national airplay.

“It could be worse,” the late Spooky Gold said once. “You could end up like Vanilla Ice. That wouldn’t be good, because I don’t think anybody could hold your fat ass out a window by your ankles without dropping you.”

As Toby considered how good it was to be out of his old gang leaders shadow, for once, he found himself concerned now as to the strange man and his partners who, having so addressed him, now approached him with what appeared to be an outstretched identification badge.

Until he saw this, Toby was relieved to see most of the men were white. Now, he wished they were all black, and the FBI identification could transform into a handgun. He knew how to deal with the pain of gunshot wounds, having experienced this on three different occasions. Actually, he wanted to go out that way-a hero, like Biggie.

“Who the hell are you, fool?” one of the posse members asked.

“Cool it, James,” Toby said. “What’s up, dog?”

“You’re under arrest,” the man said. “I have a warrant here, to take you in on suspicion of interstate commerce violations and suspicion of terrorist activities, and murder, in connection with the bombing of Johns Hopkins University.”

“Say what?” Toby demanded. He expected this for some time, and now projected what he called his dumbfounded look, one he practiced to great extent. This time, however, the practice turned out to be unnecessary. He was truly dumbfounded.

“Interstate commerce violations?” he demanded. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Before he could further process the implications of what he heard, the agent ordered him to turn around and place his hands on his head. He knew by rote the rights read to him by the FBI agent, a man named Fifer, who then cuffed him and lead him to a waiting sedan. He knew enough by now not to talk, or even to engage in conversation. He would not lower his dignity by sitting back here and professing his innocence. His lawyer would arrive soon and straighten out this mess. All Toby had to do was dummy up.

It was no more than a ten-minute drive to the Federal courthouse where Fifer led him to a large interrogation facility that looked, ironically enough, like a board room with large, swivel chairs surrounding an oblong oak table. For the time being, there were only four of them, until a female agent entered.

The woman, with long blonde hair and somewhat tight grayish blue slacks, entered into what appeared to be a DVD player a copy of his latest recording.

“I wonder what Frank would say about this?” Fifer mused.

“Maybe you can ask him one of these days-soon,” Toby replied. “Now, where the fuck is my lawyer? If I’m being charged with-“

“Just calm down, Mr. Lecher, he’s on his way,” Fifer said. “Believe it or not, he knew about this before you did. See, we try to do things by the book around here. We make sure we have everything all lined out before we take somebody in on a specific charge. You are more than just a person of interest, you know. Ah, you know what-I think we should skip all this and get to the good stuff.”

Fifer paused the DVD, and then fast-forwarded immediately to Strangers In The Night.

“I guess you know this girl’s name, right?” he said.

“Yeah, her name was Susan Chou,” Lecher said. “I know all about her being murdered, and I had nothing to do with that, nor did I have any knowledge of it. So, can I go now?”

The woman now approached Lecher, still handcuffed, and she peered down into his eyes.

“At sixteen years old, what she is doing might well be described as lude and lascivious conduct, which you seem to be encouraging here.”

“She lied about her age and showed my agent a false ID. What can I say-kids these days? What happened to her had nothing whatsoever to do with me and my boys.”

“My, look at how her crotch is glowing.” The woman replied, ignoring Toby’s protests of innocence. “I wonder what would happen if you was to click on it?”

“Right at the time, it would probably gush cum,” Toby said in a cold, steely voice. “Right about now it would probably gush maggots. I don’t really care, then or now. Like I said-it ain’t got nothin’ to do with me.”

Before he finished, however, the female agent managed to click on the area of the girl’s strangely glowing crotch, an act that opened a new screen. Toby’s eyes widened with horror as he saw what happened next.

“You know, this might come as a surprise, but this is the first actual snuff film ever found and verified. You’re quite a guy, Mr. Lecher. When this version hits the internet-and you know that is going to happen any day now-I would be willing to wager it will make sells of the original CD go through the roof. Of course, all you have to do is say you didn’t know anything about this. You’re a real clever guy.”

Fifer listened to this in silence, until he suddenly lurched forward and peered into Toby’s face.

“He would have been a lot cleverer if he had made sure her body wasn’t found,” he added. “Let’s see, what was the cause of death? Oh yeah, I remember, now, in fact, I think we have it right here. What was it again, Bridgett?”

“Loss of blood and shock from internal injuries due to profound physical trauma caused by dog bites, if I remember right,” the female agent replied.

Toby met their gaze in obvious apprehension.

“Those were Spooky’s fighting dogs,” he said to their surprise. “I swear to God, I didn’t know anything about this.”

The two agents shot each other a surprised look, but quickly recovered from this unexpected and seemingly sincere utterance from the reputedly arrogant gang leader, whom they both felt was guilty of more crimes than they would probably ever know about.

“Mr. Lecher-you don’t really expect us to believe that, do you?” the woman, whose name was Bridgett, asked him.

“Hell no, I don’t expect you to believe it, or to admit you believe it if you do, but it’s the truth,” he insisted. “Why the hell would I put something like that on one of my DVD’s? Are you nuts?”

“Crazy as a fox, Mr. Letcher,” Fifer answered. “Pretty clever, seeing as how you can make a ton of money off this thing, all the time denying any involvement in it. You should have been a politician. So let’s see now, since you didn’t do it, who did? Oh wait, I bet I know-it’s all a big plot by somebody wanting to set you up, because you’re an enemy of the racist white government. Or maybe some crooked cops just want to get you off the street, because you’re a bad influence. Or maybe it’s just somebody that wants you out of the way so they can have all the power and control over the hood.”

All the time Fifer was going into this routine, however, Bridgett looked with growing concern at Toby, who seemed to her actually taken aback by this latest revelation. In this matter, at least, he might well be telling the truth, which he now continued to insist was the case.

“I would have to know if this was made from one of the masters or not,” he explained. “If it was, then it was probably one of my people. Why they would do something like this, I don’t know. I swear to you though, I don’t know anything about it.”

“One of your people,” Fifer responded, though even he now betrayed signs of doubt as to Lecher’s guilt. “Would one of those people be a man by the name of Darius Carter, aka Ratchet?”

“Ratchet?” Toby repeated with obviously growing suspicion. “Hell, Ratchet don’t know that much about computers.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Fifer observed. “He’s more of a demolitions expert, ain’t he?”

“He was a demolitions man during the first Gulf War, yeah-what about it?”

Before Fifer could respond, however, something unexpected happened. Toby gasped for breath, and then began breathing quickly and deeply, in short, spasmodic jerks, and for a minute seemed as though he might hyperventilate. He looked around oddly, craning his neck backwards as though focusing on some hitherto unknown force within the room. He began to sweat profusely.

“Mr. Lecher, are you all right?” the woman interrogator asked him. “Would you like some water?”

“No-I’m fine,” he said, as though confused at his sudden, inexplicable symptom. He felt far from all right. He was dizzy and nauseous. He was not about to admit this to them, however. Nevertheless, the sweat dripped down his brow and burned his eyes. Soon, he could taste the salty and poisonous excretion on his lips. He could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest, and focused now on the woman.

“I’m just kind of upset, after seeing that damn link on my DVD. I’ll be all right. God knows, there is no way I would do that kind of shit. Believe me, if it is one of my people, I’ll damn well find out why, and I can probably do it a hell of a lot faster than you ever could. People will talk to me. They won’t say jack to you Feds, you can make book on that.”

He knew, of course, his chances of convincing them of anything were slim. Even now, he sat handcuffed to the large rectangular oak table, unable to move more than one or two foot in either direction even if he tried, as the woman suddenly approached closer.

“Detective Fifer, why don’t you go talk to our other special guest,” she said. “Me and Toby will just sit in here and wait-we might even watch.”

“Yeah, might as well,” Fifer replied as he betrayed a barely disguised disdain for the niceties of polite interrogation. He left the room, and the woman walked even closer. Toby could see plainly her curvaceous form, her thin waste and full hips accented seductively by her bluish gray pants suit, the top button of her blouse suddenly opened.

“It is rather hot in here ain’t it?” she asked as she suddenly unbuttoned the second one. Then, she winked at him.

Now Toby really started breathing deeply, and he began to experience an uncontrollable erection, which strained painfully and fiercely against his jeans. Oh shit, he thought. Bridgett just smiled.

Then, Toby could hear the sound of voices-two of them. They were the voices of two men, one of them Fifer, but the other one made Toby temporarily forget his unseemly predicament. It was the voice of Ratchet, from another room, his and Fifer’s voice now piped in through an intercom system.

“Yeah, like I said, we were all in on it. Marshall Crenshaw ordered it, but Spooky went along with it, and so did all the rest of us. That damn white cop was in on it too.”

“White cop?” Fifer asked.

“Yeah, his name is James Berry,” Ratchet explained. “He was on Reverend Harvey’s payroll, and Spooky covered for this by acting as one of his CI’s. Toby was another one. The cops were supposed to have all the Seventeenth Pulse under surveillance, but Berry was in charge of watching us, supposedly, so he provided the cover for us to go out and do our stuff. It was hard after April Sandusky was murdered, but we managed.”

“So what was the reason for all this?” Fifer asked.

“No one ever really knew,” Ratchet answered. “Harvey Caldwell didn’t even know about it, and when he found out, he went through the roof. We were paid well, though. Tariq’s wife supplied his bank account information, and Hacksaw transferred a lot of his money into a bunch of offshore accounts. I made the bomb, and Mercury Morris delivered the damn thing. Toby kept an eye on Tariq’s kids until it all went down. I think him, Berry, and Spooky were the only ones that knew what it was all about, besides Crenshaw. Crenshaw and Spooky are both dead now, of course. Me, I didn’t know jack shit.

“I just assumed it was meant to get the cops attention off us and on to the big bad Arab terrorists everybody’s always going on about. I just know it’s been eating at me ever since. I’m almost glad you caught me in a way. Given enough time I’d probably end up like Caldwell, living his last days in a psych ward, babbling about dead people climbing out of toilets and such. He didn’t even do anything, and here I am, with all this blood on my hands, and I-”

Ratchet was no longer speaking, however. He just cried, sobbing pitifully, as Fifer tried to encourage him to pull himself together.

“I’m sorry,” Ratchet said. “I’ve killed people before, but it was always people that had it coming. This is something else.”

Damn that fool, Toby thought. Of all the times, and of all the people, to find a damn conscience, it had to be him, and it had to be now. Suddenly, Bridgett thrust a paper in his face. It looked to be a police sketch. What was worse, the image on the paper bore a disconcerting resemblance to him.

“This is a sketch of the man whom the two Tariq children alleged took them to the Washington DC mosque on the day of the Johns Hopkins bombing. They both pretty much agreed on this final version. Of course, it kind of helps that they later pointed you out when they saw your latest DVD. I guess at the time you didn’t think you would be the rising star you now are, huh Toby?”

Toby did not know quite what to say, and in fact, could not say it if he did. He was now burning hot, and the steely look in the blonde woman’s eyes bore into him, reached into the depths of his soul, teasing him and taunting him as she drew ever closer. He could smell her perfume, subtly at first, but wafting now ever closer and stronger with the combined scent of jasmine and lilacs, as her hot breath accentuated ever word from her mouth, which Toby could no longer hear. Every word faded into a low-pitched monotone that was indecipherable. He tried to avoid her gaze, but doing so found his eyes focused on her blouse, the top two open buttons now revealing no bra. Her damn nipples, he realized, were hard, thrusting against her tight blouse with as much intensity, it seemed, as his now raging cock pressed savagely against his pants.

He would ordinarily have cum by now, but he knew he would get no such quick relief this night. He knew what she was after, of course, and soon enough, he would willingly admit to anything, if she would only jack him off, or suck his dick-anything. He would admit to sinking the Titanic if that’s what it would take. This was murder. He simply could not take much more of this. She was getting closer to him, and closer.

Then, he suddenly went limp. Everything went dark, and the pounding in his chest gave way to a high-pitched tone that seemed to pierce his eardrums, and his skull. He heard a chorus of indistinguishable voices, but nothing that made any sense. At one point he seemed to be floating, which didn’t seem right. He soon felt like he was so far deep inside himself, that hopefully no one would ever find him. It was no comfort to him, however. He felt no peace in his hiding place. He always thought that when he died he would finally find some kind of peace. Well, if this was death, so much for that bright idea.

When he could finally see through the darkness and haze that seemed to engulf him, he noticed a bight light, at first from a distance, and then closer. He could see Marshall Crenshaw and Lynette Khoska staring down at him angrily, until they merged into one being who was unrecognizable at first, until he took on the appearance of Spooky Gold.

“Be a man, fool,” Spooky told him. “For once in your worthless life, be a real man.”

Gold bent over him, drew closer, so close that Toby could no longer make out his features, until he backed away to reveal, not his former and deceased leader, but the now grinning face of Doctor David Chou, who laughed in a mad delirium, until his features as well faded, only to be replaced by Marlowe Krovell.

“Thank you for letting me be myself again,” Marlowe told him with a dark intensity that made him finally, at long last, open his eyes, to find himself in a room surrounded by flowers. Someone was in here with him. Where was he, though?

“Thank God you’re awake,” the woman’s voice said. He looked up to see Felicia Blanton, looking relieved and desperately happy to see him awake, and seemingly aware.

“Am I in the hospital?” he asked. “I thought I saw David Chou here.”

“He was your doctor,” Felicia affirmed to his dismay, but then she added, “He saved your life.”

“What the hell happened?”

“You had some kind of stroke, caused by an aneurism, and your blood pressure. You lost a lot of blood, but he saved you. He gave you a transfusion. They said that ordinarily a stroke like yours would either kill a person or leave them permanently incapacitated, but he gave you some kind of experimental blood compound, and you are going to make a full recovery. You are going to be fine, baby. It’s a miracle.”

“An experimental blood compound,” he repeated. He did not like the implications of what he was hearing, but he tried to keep it to himself for now. Felicia bent down over him and kissed him wildly.

“They said you were on Viagra at the time and that might have triggered it,” she said. “So, just what were you planning, huh?”

“What happened with those agents?” he asked, well aware that his problems were far from over, to say the least.

“Baby, I don’t know, I wasn’t there,” she replied. “I figured they just wanted to question you about some drug deals or something. Desmond got it all straightened out though, so don’t worry.”

Desmond? What in the hell did he know about anything, Toby wondered. His forte was criminal law, particularly as it involved organized crime, and police misconduct. All of this was out of his league. After Felicia left, telling him she would be waiting for him at home, he sat for an hour before a nurse came in the course of conducting her rounds to tell him of his imminent discharge.

It was incredible. He felt as though he just woke up form a long, restful sleep, the first such in years. He rose from his bed, feeling better than he had in as long a time as he could remember. Shit, he never felt this good as a teenager, he realized. What in the hell was going on here? He all but jumped out of bed and barely gave it a thought.

When Desmond finally arrived, about three hours later, he made it clear to Toby he was to answer no questions asked him by the press pertaining to his hospitalization or his previous arrest. As for the DVD, Desmond was as explicit as the song video in question.

“You didn’t know a damn thing about it, and don’t approve of it. It might be a little tough for a while. After all, you now have the number one CD in America-in the whole fucking world in fact, and it shows no signs of going down anytime soon. You only have like about two thousand interview requests. You are going to be busy. By the way, nobody is buying your earlier prognosis. Nobody believes you or anyone else could recover so quickly and so completely from such a serious condition, so you’ll have to deal with that too. I’ve arranged for you to get away from here in a way the press won’t hassle you when you leave.”

“Well, what about those Feds?” Toby demanded.

“Oh, they’ve been reassigned,” Desmond replied. “The case has been dropped. Ratchet left a note confessing he alone was responsible for the bombing. Come to find out, Johns Hopkins turned his mother away a few years back, and she died later. He never forgave them for that. When Mercury delivered that bomb, he did not even know anything about it, or even that Ratchet sent it. So far as he knew, he was just making a run of the mill delivery. Ratchet hired Mercury and sent it under an assumed name. Come to find out, the Tariq kids are not so sure you are the one that took them to the mosque after all. They think that might have been Ratchet as well. So you’re off-“

“Hold on, wait a minute, Desmond,” Toby said. “You’re making my head spin. You say Ratchet left a note?”

“Yeah, the one he wrote right before someone murdered him in his cell. Still, his story checks out. They found him really fucked up, with his throat slashed and not one ounce of blood in his body, or anywhere in his cell. Naturally, there’s all kinds of conspiracy theories circulating about that too, so you can expect more questions about that. That’s all stuff we can go over in more detail later-before you start doing interviews, which I don’t think I can stress too much.”

Desmond left a little later-he had a matter of a contribution to a Washington DC area mosque, he explained-while Toby waited around for a couple more hours until a hospital administrator finally arrived with the release papers. He signed them, and then waited in a private lounge for Peter, his agent, with whom Desmond arranged a subterfuge to take him from the hospital away from the prying eyes of reporters and paparazzi. He now had a new house, under an assumed name, one not far from the old crib, which was now a continual hangout for those same reporters and paparazzi, whom both Peter and Desmond insisted he should for now avoid. Felicia was waiting for him there, in fact. If he just rode out the storm of the latest controversy, everything would work out fine. Toby had obviously powerful friends, in high places, friends who attached the strings and pulled them, in this case seemingly just for him. That was something else to consider. Such people did not lightly exercise such influence. What would they expect from him in return?

“Toby?”

Toby turned at the sound of the voice, and could not believe his eyes. The young man that stood before him in the patient discharge lounge looked to be a patient, one who seemed in the midst of recovery, presumably soon to be discharged. It was impossible.

“Sean?” he asked in amazement. “I know that ain’t really you there.”

“Hard to believe, huh?” the young man asked. “Yeah, it’s me, walking and talking on my own, with no tubes and no diapers. After what that little skank whore Spanky did to me and the rest of the guys, I figured I’d be laid out in some kind of bed for the rest of my life, not even able to feed myself. Jerome is all right too. He’s already out of here.”

For a few seconds, Dwayne Lecher was at a complete and utter loss for words. Still, he had to say something.

“Who was your doctor? It wasn’t by any chance David Chou, was it?”

“Yeah, who would have thought a chink doctor like that would pull a brother out of the hell I was in?”

Lecher just sat there, too stunned for words.

“I heard about what happened with you and Uncle Spook. Is it true? You and he were working with the man, and he got killed when you turned on him. You know that’s all over the hood, right?”

“It ain’t what you think,” Lecher said. “I tried to get your uncle out from under that, but it backfired. He paid the price, and I almost got killed myself, a bullet right in the gut.”

“Yeah, I heard. Just as well. Uncle Spook could be a dick and all. Still, he be blood. Thanks for looking out for him.”

Yet, Lecher could not help but wonder if Jerome really believed his well-practiced tale of betrayal and attempted redemption. He had rehearsed it enough, and now he hoped it did not sound too rehearsed.

“So, how much longer you in here?” he asked, desperate for a chance to change the subject.

“I’m actually an out-patient, or have been, but I got put back in to run some tests. I heard you got the same experimental treatment. They say the stuff they used on you and me will cure just about everything, except some kinds of viruses. Anyway, it’s really good to see you again, Toby.”

Toby expressed that he too was glad that Jerome, the nephew of his former gang leader, seemed almost as good as new, when Peter, his agent, entered.

“I signed you out already. Are you ready to go?”

Toby said that he was, shook hands with Jerome, and made ready to make his departure. He hoped he could leave without having to face David Chou, and as he walked toward the back exit, he found himself unusually anxious at the thought of running into the man. He knew he was inadvertently responsible for the death of Susan Chou, and he knew that the girl’s father was more knowledgeable of his role than he pretended to be, or at least had to be very suspicious.

Peter had arranged for the purchase of his new home under an assumed name, not too far away from the hood, but at the same time, safely away from any who might take exception to the recent rumors pertaining to his cozy relationship with the Baltimore Police Department. Such a thing like that could ruin him, just when his career was beginning to get off the ground to an extent beyond his previous imaginings. He could not allow that to happen.

The driver drove through the hood, but the place looked all but deserted, only a few stragglers out. One man looked to be sick, and throwing up, while yet another lay shivering on the ground. There were no whores, no signs of random drug buying activity. They passed only one automobile, before Toby heard the sounds of an ambulance, which quickly came into view as it pulled up to a tenement where an old woman waved frantically.

“There’s been some kind of virus going around here,” Peter told him.

“That figures,” Toby said. He could not wait to be gone from this hellhole forever.

They finally arrived at his new home. When they entered, Dwayne was amazed at the spacious luxuriousness of his new digs, as from a back room, he could hear the sound of the music of Sly And The Family Stone, a CD which now began the song “Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself Again.”

“Damn, I got killed after all,” he said. “That’s it, I’m in heaven, right?”

He was only half joking, and Peter assured him it was no dream, as Toby suddenly reacted to the sound of the commode flushing.

“Man, I need to use the john myself,” he said as he spied the female figure moving quickly out of the bathroom into the darkened hallway that led to the master bedroom of the suite.

“It’s got five bedrooms and three baths, and of course a bar, as well as a private study. I take it this will be to your liking.”

“Was that Felicia?” Toby asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “We let her stay here to look after the place. We brought some of your clothes here, but we decided to keep your jewelry and other valuables in storage. No offense, but I don’t really know her. She claims you and her might get married, but you know how women are”

“And you’re sure that was Felicia?”

“Yeah, who else would it be?”

“I don’t know, she just looked-different, I guess. Hey, Felicia.”

“Well, look, Toby, I have to get out of here. I’ll be over tomorrow, and we can finalize everything if you want. If something else comes up you know where to reach me.”

He left, and Toby made his way to the bathroom. Damn, he felt good. He had no prescription. There seemed to be no need of one. Now, however, he felt like he was about to bust a gut, and made his way to the bathroom from which he earlier saw the shadowy female figure emerge.

As he stood in front of the commode, however, he saw a sight that he found troubling.

“What in the hell?” he asked, and stood and looked at what appeared to be blood, at the top of the water in the commode, swirling around in what seemed a restless frenzy. He pissed, trying to put it out of his mind. Why was there blood in his commode, he wondered. He seemed to stand there for more than five minutes, and thought he would never finish pissing. Damn, it felt good. Finally, he finished. Zipping up his pants, he walked down the hall. There were no lights, and he almost had to feel his way down to the master bedroom. He opened the door, and could see the female figure in the darkness, silhouetted
by the outside streetlights, her shadow seeming to quake against the luxurious purple drapes.

He turned on the lights, and almost had a heart attack at the horrid sight that awaited him. The woman recoiled at the sudden intrusion of light, and shrieked loudly, and angrily.

“Felicia? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Felicia moved her hands from her face, to reveal a massive eruption of boils, as blood caked around her lips.

“I’m dying,” she said, and collapsed in the arms of Dwayne Lecher as she cried in deep and hopeless despair.