Life After Death

A groan was the first sound to penetrate the fog that was supposed to be his brain. He knew from experience that any sort of movement would trigger the jackhammer headache that would have him clutching his skull and wishing for death. So, for the moment, movement was out. Instead he lay with his face in the warm wetness soaked into the abused and stale mattress that could only be his own drool.

Rough shuffling sounds from elsewhere told him that others were beginning to stir as well. A sense of ingrained duty forced him to open his eyes, only to be stabbed with pain as his light-sensitive eyes balked at the bit of sunshine making it in through the cracks.

Disgust made him nearly curl his lip at the state of the room he was in. The bed he was on was just a hide-a-one, folded away in some dank corner when not in use by whoever needed it to pass out on. It was obvious by its fetid aroma that it was never cleaned, the sheets soiled in places by things he refused to ponder. When he had seen it last night he'd reacted to it instantly, his brain almost shutting down before he'd actually made it to the tiny mattress.

Now, he looked around the room, trying to keep his stomach in place. Drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and food. The litter and paraphernalia of each was discarded in various places in the small, dark dirty room. The couch across from him held the girl, young lady, who had been hitting on him the day before. A drunken cling-on monkey was how he'd thought of her. If she understood English, then she was just very bad at taking a hint. She was still passed out, hair in tangles, limbs sprawled and hanging off the couch, and her mouth hanging open unattractively.

Sean blinked several times to clear his vision as well as possible. He had yet to try to move, and was in no hurry to. Conscious would have to be good enough, motivation to actually move was seriously lacking. Looking across at the girl, Olivia, or just 'O', as she was called, he watched the progress of a cockroach up her denim-clad leg. It stopped to investigate the darkness of her pocket, and then the hem of her jeans. Sean grinned to himself each time it paused, thinking of how thrilled she would be to find the insect there later.

It trundled on, unconcerned with the increasing light or the growing sounds from elsewhere in the trailer. O's stomach was bare. Her top was short when she was standing, lying down caused it to ride up, exposing the underside of her puny breasts. He watched her face for a reaction as the critter crossed the wide expanse of her torso, but she was so far gone that she didn't even twitch.

Up over the tiny mound of her breast, along her shoulder. Sean was almost holding his breath, waiting to see if the bug would venture into her gaping mouth. It crawled off of her onto the couch and then disappeared into the crack. Sean frowned, disappointed that he hadn't seen it on her face. That would have been amusing in some way he couldn't define.

He listened to the low sounds of speaking from the back bedroom. Sounded like at least Greg and Carla were moving about. They might have just been fucking though. It was hard to tell.

Sean sighed and rolled cautiously onto his back, testing the amount of abuse his body would take this early. His head swelled with pain for a few moments, and his entire body ached from the non-use of sleep, but otherwise he was good. He closed his eyes against the headache for a bit, thinking back over the last few months.

Bernice, Oklahoma was a beautiful little place. It really couldn't even be considered a town. There was a bar, a gas station, and that was it. It was close enough to Vinita, only twenty miles or so, so that it wasn't starkly remote, but far enough away to make it peaceful.

Grand Lake was a dammed valley famous for its fly-fishing. Sean had yet to fly fish, making jokes to himself that if he wanted to catch a fly he'd just open the screen door. Bernice sat on Grand Lake's western shore. It was basically just a collection of rather expensive houses, and it was there that he'd bought a house.

His 'cabin' was big and beautiful, and unfinished. All the floor, walls and ceilings, and furniture were wood. The kitchen traded wood for stainless steal, a highly polished, never doubt it's clean stainless steel. He'd fallen in love with the house.

He remembered walking into the A-frame with the realtor, and crossing the main room with the loft above to the full wall of windows facing out onto the lake. He'd been pulled to it as if by a magnet, and had stood looking out across the wide deck at the wind-chopped water through the few tall pines that had attempted to block his view, but in the end only added to it.

Stacey would love this. It had been his first thought, and instead of making him cry like he'd expected it to, he'd stood at that bay of windows and smiled, feeling almost peaceful.

He'd bought the house before he'd even known he had a job. Between selling the house in California, severance pay from the agency for six months that he'd barely used, Stacey's life insurance policy, and the differences in the costs of living, it had been a rather simple purchase.

It needed some work. He'd gotten busy, hiring out for most of the work, but doing some himself. Tarmac driveway resealed, porch and deck sanded and resealed, landscaping, cleaning, and furniture. The unfinished appearance of the main house was actually to his liking, so he'd done very little inside the house. The master bedroom was in the loft above the main room and had an unimpeded view of the lake through the bay windows. He'd brought in furniture, had a couple ceiling fans installed, a home security system, and that was it.

Vinita was a 'city' by name. Compared to LA it was a roadside stop. It took only minutes to cross from one side of town to the other, and that was stopping legally at all the signs and lights. When he contacted the police department he was transferred, and transferred again.

After several days of getting wires crossed and talking to low men on the totem pole, he finally got through to the chief of police. And there was his surprise. Barry Hicks had been waiting for his call. Frost had obviously contacted each of the departments he was giving Sean as options for employment.

Vinita wasn't large enough to have its own drug task force. They had the usual dozen or so beat cops, an equal number in reserves for special occasions, and a couple detectives. Which meant as the drug problems in the area were increasing, they were less and less able to handle it.

Meth, or crack, as they called it here, was becoming a serious problem. Clandestine labs were popping up all over the place. Each bust required special clean-up procedures, and the whole nine yards. They were getting nowhere fast.

Slowly it was becoming obvious that the area had to do something. Evidence was coming in that there was one main supplier, who was even aiding smaller labs in getting started. By allowing tiny labs to spring up, and get busted, it was taking the heat off any major productions. The areas drug force was exhausting itself on cleaning up roadside cooks and small apartment labs that were barely producing enough meth for the cook himself. There was no way they could handle taking on a bigger lab, or even find the time to locate it.

That's where they wanted Sean to come in. Working with the DEA in Tulsa, he would slowly join ranks with the users in the area. A special federal grant was funding him, and at hazard pay to boot. So he'd left his house, locked it up, and rented a shithole trailer. He'd had to start using, again. It wasn't the first time he'd had to become a user, and in essence, an addict, to get the bust. It was a nasty, wonderful habit. Cocaine was good, but crank could send you into a euphoria that even he'd just about do anything to get.

He'd started out six months ago snorting the shit, like cocaine, but had quickly gone to intravenous to get the rush that much quicker. He had convinced himself at the time that the switch in method was for the job, to make it more believable, but now he recognized that it had been the addiction.

Six months of sleeping in roach infested trailers and hideaways. Having to fight off needy whores looking for a hit if only he would fuck them. Repeatedly stealing cold tablets and other more dangerous and illegal chemicals. Living side by side with a clandestine lab run by him and cranked up idiots that didn't know where the nearest fire extinguisher was. In that time he'd been busted twice. Once in a raid, and once for possession. He'd let the police arrest him, not letting his cover slip as he was booked right beside the others being arrested with him.

He'd lost weight. A lot of weight. Meth was originally a diet medicine, and it was working beautifully. He never felt like eating or working out, and if he ever did get hungry there was usually never food worth eating, or he couldn't keep it down. In six months he'd lost fifty pounds, slimming him down to one-seventy. To him his reflection looked like a scarecrow, or a junkie, which was exactly what he was.

But the end was in sight. He knew now that the three people in charge of the biggest lab in the state, and the one that most mid-level producers were getting most of their equipment and knowledge from, were women. And sisters as well. He knew them by nicknames whispered between junkies. He'd been letting his 'friends' know for months now that he wanted to go bigger, that he wanted to make money. He'd quit his setup factory job just a month ago so he and Greg, his roommate, could cook full time.

He was nearing the end. The level of their production was high enough to take notice of, by both The Sisters and law enforcement. Rare communications between him and the department let him know that the police had been tipped off about him several weeks before. If they didn't act soon it would become suspicious. He'd convinced them to give him another week. He was close. He knew it. If they busted him now there was no telling how much longer he'd have to continue this act.

He'd started cutting back. Smaller injections less often. He told Greg it was for the business. How was he supposed to sell it if he was using it all up? He craved it constantly, wanting that next rush, itching for it. But a will that just managed to be stronger than the drug, the need, was keeping him from binging. He needed to be as sober as possible as much of the time as he could. For the job, and for the detox later. It would all be easier if he was less of a junkie.

A meeting was scheduled for this weekend. It was to be a major party, an annual one that some local drunk had every year. The row of kegs would hide that most of the guests were actually the area's largest meth producers. And he was on that list.

That's what it had taken. He was now competing with The Sisters for business. They wouldn't have that. He was either a cover, a two-bit cook to get busted and take up some more of the local law enforcement's time, or he was a customer. Now that he was climbing high enough to not fit into one of those categories, the Sisters wanted to meet him. He was certain it was to give him some threatening message: cut production or suffer the consequences. He didn't care. All he needed was to make contact.