Monster Next Door

Upon waking, Luke felt the effects of a hangover hit him immediately. The throbbing in his brain and the nausea in his stomach caused the Earth to tilt as he forced himself into a sitting position. It seemed as though he woke up this way every day, it was nothing new to him.

The man groaned as he held his head for a moment, trying to remember what had happened last night. It seemed as if he had made it back to his delapidated studio apartment somehow. Luke sat there in a daze for quite a while before bits and pieces of last night flooded back to him, though most remained elusive.

Luke remembered attending a meeting with the Shades highest in command. As a member of the most lethal mafia in the world and a highly respected one as a result of their claim on power, he couldn't afford to miss it. After all, he was highest in command of the payment collectors. The Shades allow smaller gangs to exist under the pretenses that they make their payments, otherwise they are murdered. During the meeting, they had discussed what they were going to do about the recent issues troubling the "family".

A neighboring gang, the Blackblood's, were intent on seizing their territory and murdering their members. They had refused to make their payments and slaughtered a startling amount of their payment collectors. They were the Shades' most pernicious adversary yet. Even some of the most experienced assassins were butchered, many of them mutilated before their death. Their severed body parts were sent to the Shades' from differing addresses in a show of mockery.

This had caused them to come up with a plan to retaliate. Locate and destroy. They would send a spy out to become one of the members and learn their secrets, then act upon the best method of wiping them out based on information gained by the spy. They knew where the Blackbloods headquarters was located now, as a lesser operative had followed one of the gang members inconspicuously already.

Now, they had to send their most exceptional secret agent to infiltrate the Blackblood's headquarters. Luke was that spy, when he wasn't performing the menial task of collecting payments. He was the most highly regarded in the field, the best operative they or any other gang had to offer. Luke offered his assistance when the Shades' were endangered and caused, single-handedly, the destruction of an innumerable amount of rivaling gangs.

After everything had been settled, they bought case after case of beer and passed around nearly every single drug known to mankind in a celebratory fashion. Luke wasn't a stranger to either of them. It was a well-known fact that Luke was an addict that preferred drugs over alcohol, but last night he had delved into both.

It chased away the emptiness inside of him and fed his demon, Dibbuk. Where was the demonic presence anyway, the heavy air? Luke lifted his head out of his hands to take a look around the mess he called his apartment. Clothes were strewn everywhere, as well as empty orange pill bottles and the occasional beer bottle. He sat on an old torn up couch he had picked up off the side of the road and across from him sat a nearly ancient TV perched upon a stained cardboard box. His apartment wasn't easy on the eyes nor the nose. He couldn't be bothered with cleaning it, he was barely in it anyway.

Luke groaned as he forced himself to his feet and managed to stumble in the dark over to the kitchen, where a glance upon the oven's clock told him the time. 12:45. He briefly wondered if it was the next night or if he had slept for a mere few hours before awakening into the afternoon, but quickly decided that he didn't care. He grasped the handle of one of his cabinets with shaky fingers and pulled it open to reveal a collection of drugs that would put a pharmacy to shame.

During this day and age, many of them were legal in most states. This included meth, heroin, cocaine, marijuana and countless others. They are used as a means of tax money and population control. There were even new drugs circulating in the world, such as Tetrasil. A cloudy white substance that is injected into the carotid artery, the jugular. It's the only illegal substance there is and, therefore, almost impossible to obtain.

Luke heard once that users astral project themselves, a sort of coma which lasts four to six hours and can cause a permanent vegetative state. They can enter alternate dimensions and may get lost in one, causing their physical bodies death. It is said that an estimated eighty percent of test subjects died of organ failure. Another twelve percent experienced irreparable brain damage and the last eight percent were unaffected. Luke did not own any Tetrasil nor had he ever tried any. He had managed to starve his curiosity thus far.

He sifted through the bottles in his cabinets for a moment before he found the ones he had been craving for the hangover. Painkillers. He twisted the bottle open and shook a few into his hand before popping them into his mouth. Luke swallowed them dry, as he usually did, whilst putting the bottle back into his own collection of substances. As Luke was twisting the cap on, a chill swept over the kitchen and caused goose bumps to appear on his abnormally pallid skin. He halted his actions on reflex, though he knew the cause of the interruption instantaneously.

"Why hello there, my dear Lukey. You know, it's a tedious task waiting for you to awaken from your beauty sleep! I thought I was going to have to play prince!" Luke heard the familiar voice of Dibbuk; a sinister, yet high-pitched and playful voice that was easy to discern from the rest. Luke looked over his shoulder at the demon, who was doubling over with laughter as he floated a few feet away.

Dibbuk's appearance was expected of a demon, though it seemed as if Luke was the only person on the planet who could see him. He was a dark humanoid shadow, a shade of black that was darker than the deepest of night. He had eyes that were like a technicolor rainbow that seemed to drip in a vertical direction and dissipate into nothing. The color eventually transitioned into that of his own body.

The demon had three rows of horns; the first were curved into his face and grew from his forehead, the following row grew vertically into the air, and the row after that were the horns of a ram. They framed his strangely goat-like ears while accentuating them in the slightest of ways. The one visible feature of Dibbuk's face was his mouth, which was fixed in a wicked toothy grin that extended from ear-to-ear and curled ever so slightly at the ends.

When the demon opened his mouth, it could be opened impossibly wide; a feature that gave Luke goose bumps every time he thought of it. His tongue was the same color as his eyes, a snake's tongue, glowing softly like a chemical reaction. Overall he was an intimidating character, even though his face gave off a vaguely friendly expression.

"What the motherfuck is up, best friend?" Luke asked as he closed the cabinet silently and turned to face his demon, his best friend. "Where did you all up and float to while I was getting my beauty sleep on?"

Dibbuk's impish grin seemed as if it widened a bit as he circled around Luke, his claws lingering on the man's shoulders until he ceased by leaning over Luke's shoulder and hovering his wicked lips near the man's ear. As if he were about to utter a secret meant only for his human. "Oh Luke... Your charm is so hard to resist! That's why I'm going to give you a hint. Because we're going to play a game. But only one! So listen carefully."

Luke didn't attempt to turn his head to look into his demon's eyes. He stared straight ahead into the shadows as the feeling of intense interest dug it's claws deep within his soul. Dibbuk liked to play games, as did Luke. But something about Dibbuk's behavior told him that this game would be critical. Perhaps the most important game of his life.

"You know I'm f****n' listening, Dibbuk."

"Of course you are, my boy," Dibbuk's dark, demonic chuckle reverberated in Luke's skull and echoed around the room. The demon reached out with one elongated claw and stroked the side of Luke's face as the man stared into nothing, a spark of intrigue glimmering in his glassy blue eyes. "You aren't the only one with a demon who's attached itself to a human soul."

Luke exhaled in shock with the breath he had been holding in since he had last spoken, only now realizing that he had been standing as still as a stone statue. No blinking, no breathing, not even a twitch of a finger. He turned his head to face his demon as he took a shaky step away from him.

"You playin' with me, Dibbuk?" he heard his voice fluctuate with emotion. Surprise, excitement, and satisfaction. There was a sensation in Luke that told him that he had been right about his assumption, this would be the most important game of his life and he was about to make his first move.

Instead of answering Luke, the demon broke into psychotic laughter until the manifestation of himself faded away. His heavy presence remained. It seemed as if the man stood there for hours, when it had in fact been a mere few minutes, before he made his way across the living room. He entered the bathroom, which was perpendicular with the bedroom, and sat on the right side of the apartment.

Luke sauntered over to the cheap porcelain sink that had begun to rust with old age until he stared into his reflection in the mirror sitting an inch or two above it. His hands were placed on the edges of the sink as he fought to hold himself up. What he saw staring back at him was per normal. A pale face smeared with white and black clown make-up, the black only appearing around his eyes and on his lips and cheeks. The make-up on his lips stretched from ear-to-ear in a wicked smile, mimicking his demon's own appearance. The rest of his face was pure white; though it was hard to discern from his deathlike skin.

Luke's face was easily recognizable, excluding the clown paint. He had sharp features that allowed him to intimidate people without any effort. It was made all the more terrifying by his dead, cloudy blue eyes. They had a spark of insanity in them that made it easy to recognize that those eyes had watched horrifying things that people were never meant to bear witness. Luke's hair merely added to the appearance of his escaped mental patient look. It was jet black with unruly curls that were untamable, reaching down to his chin in length.

Other than his facial features, Luke was a lean man who seemed too skinny to possess such strength, an unsettling addition to his towering height. Luke wore his signature black and purple hoodie around constantly. Underneath his hoodie, he wore simple clothing. A wife-beater and whatever jeans he happened to pull on in his chemical daze. Luke would never have gotten away with any of the heinous crimes he has committed, not if he didn't have his wild card.

His supernatural powers. He could reach into the minds of other people and listen to the thoughts that passed through their heads. He could plant small suggestions into their minds and control their actions to a certain extent, bending them to his will. He could get anything he wanted. He could erase recent memories; erase himself from a person's mind. But only as long as he had the energy to compensate for the action's significance in that person's life. Every action causes energy to be drained from Luke and, essentially, Dibbuk.

Dibbuk gained his seemingly endless energy by human sacrifices. Even Luke's own in a way, through drugs and through his revoked free will. His powers were everything to him and he owed Dibbuk his very soul for it. This is why he played into his demon's games, called Dibbuk his "best friend". It wasn't far from the truth. The demon had appeared to him as a child and gave him a fighting chance in the world. But Luke was not naive. He knew that demons acted in a way that would benefit themselves in the end and he would make damn sure that he didn't disappoint Dibbuk when Luke's time for repayment came.

The man turned the cold knob on the sink and waited for the water to come bubbling up the pipes. It took a moment, but when it came, the water flowed out of the faucet with a red tint that heavily diluted its purity. Luke had to sit back and wait for water to run clear of the rust before he cupped his hands underneath the flow and splashed some of the ice cold liquid into his face. The rest of his clown make-up came off on the rag, but it was worth it when he felt himself awaken fully. The painkillers he had taken were working their way through his system, curing him of his headache, and sending a wave of euphoria through him.

His laughter started off as a weak chuckle as he tossed the rag off to the side, as he slumped over the kitchen sink with a manic grin on his face. Then it began to grow in volume until he was shaking with laughter; the mirthless, raving laughter of a madman. It seemed as if there would be no end to it as Luke's eyes snapped up to his reflection in the mirror. He saw the excitement, the bloodlust, the absolute euphoria shining in the depths of his cerulean irises. A pale hand with long, bony fingers snaked up to run themselves along his own reflection as he stared deeply into his own eyes.

Luke's reverie of madness was interrupted by the invasive ringing of the phone he kept in the living room. At first, he thought that he had been imagining the sound. But soon Luke realized that it's source was located in the real world and he tore himself away from the mirror, his fingers sliding along the glass as he dragged himself over to the phone. He managed to calm his laughter to a dark chuckle as he picked the device from the receiver and held it to his ear.

"Who's all up in motherfuckin' callin' me, m**********r?" Luke snickered into the phone, his throat constricting as he attempted to contain his chuckling. It was obvious by his slight slurring that he was high, but the undertones in his voice gave off the impression that he didn't appreciate being interrupted. At all.

"Luke, shut the f**k up. Get your bullshit clown shitstain a*s over here before we have to get our asses up and drag your goddamn corpse all the way to the factory," he heard an impatient voice spew with a touch of venom. There was only one person Luke knew who could manage to fit a whole dictionary of curse words into one sentence like that and his name was Damien Cox. The secondary in command of the Shades.

"Here I'm f****n' thinkin' to my own damn self, didn't Jericho tell you to not all use 'the factory' over the phone like that, Damien?" Luke managed a reply, though it was laced with giggles and futile attempts at a serious tone of voice. He couldn't get himself under control, no matter how hard he fought to contain his composure.

"I told you to shut your goddamn mouth, f****r," Damien spat into the phone with that intimidating growl that warned Luke of his boundaries, though Damien knew he wouldn't be able to do anything about it if Luke decided to push him over the edge, "and I thought I f*****g told you to start talking like a normal human being. I don't want to have to play goddamn Scrabble just to figure out what you're trying to f*****g say to me every time we f*****g talk."

"You got it, brother."

"Just slap on your dumbass clown make-up and meet us down here by three, we've wasted too much of the day pissing around already." A loud, exasperated sigh came from the other end.

"You know I'll be there, Damien. You can f****n' count on me."

Luke heard the other end of the phone line click softly, a poor substitute to how hard Damien probably slammed the phone down. The man dropped the device onto the receiver carefully before he straightened up with a mischievous grin. His glazed, dull eyes were wide and crazed.

"Were you getting your listening on, Dibbuk?" he continued as a shadow fell over his face. As he stepped back into darkness, obscuring the left side completely, save for one widened crystal blue eye. "Damien ordered our sorry asses to show our faces at the factory by three."