The faint chirping of birds swelled, ringing louder and louder, a painful alarm inside Kyle's skull. His eyes struggled to open, the lids gummed shut by the dried tracks of tears from the night before. A violent surge of nausea, cold and deep, clawed its way up his throat, mirrored by a throbbing vengeance at the back of his head.
Fighting to summon what little willpower he could muster, he slowly pushed himself up from the floor, bracing his weight on his palms. He rolled onto his stomach, finding it increasingly difficult to fight the ugly, vengeful monsters that were gaining power over his system. The nausea coiled tighter as his head began to spin faster. Wishing for the unopened, forty-year-old bottle of whiskey his father had left behind, Kyle forced himself onto his feet.
Once vertical, the spinning maximized. He lunged for the bathroom, dry-heaving violently, bringing up only bile and the ghost of the supper he hadn't eaten. He knew the rule: if you're going to drink, especially hard liquor, you have to eat, or at least manage a snack before passing out. Only an idiot intent on self-punishment would drink like that on an empty stomach. Deep down, he hoped this act of brutal self-neglect might earn him points with Seraphina—Sera—who was definitely still furious and holed up at her mother's house.
Maybe visiting his own mother wasn't such a bad idea. After all, she had always been there for him. Why should this time be any different? After the last of the dry heaves subsided, Kyle staggered to his feet, swallowed some Tylenol, and then, slowly, the memory of the dilapidated group home from the previous night returned.
Kyle walked toward the door like a car with a transmission slipping in and out of gear. Reaching his vehicle, he felt profoundly unbalanced, as if he'd been out at sea all day and his inner ear was still fighting to adjust to land. Pulling out, he drove to a local barista for a double cappuccino with a triple shot of espresso. With the Tylenol, that should take the worst of the edge off. He grabbed a few other supplies from the pharmacy next door and set a course for his sister's college campus.
Just as the rest of the medication began to take hold, he started circling the campus. He vaguely remembered that the road he'd taken door-to-door the night before didn't directly connect to the street where the hospital was located. Consulting his phone for directions, he looped around to the opposite side of the school, away from the student living area, near the gym and performing arts buildings. The roads here were built like a tangled mess of snake trails. He navigated the fastest route, desperate to avoid the freeway, which would have meant circling the entire city and adding an hour or two to his trip.
He finally arrived at the rear of the college by the residential area and found the exact fence line he had followed in the dark. Pulling up, he spotted the same old man from the night before, sitting outside in his chair, staring across the distance like a neighborhood watch sentinel.
As Kyle walked toward the building entrance, the door opened to reveal a short, wide Asian woman with a completely blank expression. "Hello," Kyle began, realizing he had absolutely no credible reason to be there. They'll never let me inside to question these people like I'm a cop, he thought, his mind still foggy.
In his wavering state, a plausible story surfaced. "Hello, my name is Kyle. I live in the area. Up until a few weeks ago, I would visit my grandmother at her house to talk and read to her. Since she passed away, I thought maybe I could do something similar here today with one of the residents. Something to help me cope with my loss. I thought maybe they would also enjoy a visit."
The short woman looked him up and down, paused for two agonizing seconds, squinted, and then stepped back to let him inside.
As Kyle closed the door, the woman handed him a clipboard to sign in. He moved slowly inside. The overwhelming smell of an unventilated house mixed with old, stale medication hit him, threatening to send him back to the bathroom. Fighting it down, Kyle rounded the corner into the sitting area where the old man was entrenched in his chair.
Kyle sat next to him and delivered the same story he'd given the woman. He edged closer, but the old man visibly flinched away. Kyle quickly assured him he meant no harm.
He started a simple conversation. The old man suddenly put on his glasses, peered at Kyle, and said, "I know you."
Kyle smiled, trying to manage the situation. "Yes, I've been talking with you for a while now. I think I know you, too."
"No," the man insisted, his tone sharp. "I remember you from April 11, 2005, at about 9:30 PM. I watched you walk along that fence."
Kyle tried to rationalize. "I think you mean last night when I walked up here and talked with someone at the door. That's what you're remembering."
The old man grew testy. "Don't try and tell me what I can and can't remember, you little shit." Kyle decided the man's belligerence must be part of the condition that landed him in this facility.
Just then, a Black woman in her fifties approached with a tray. "Okay, Mr. Denning, it's time for your medication."
Kyle quickly asked the nurse, "Sorry, do you know the name of his condition?"
"I know the condition of all the patients here," the nurse calmly assured him. "Mr. Denning has Hyperthymesia; he can recall any minute of his life, no matter how long ago." She paused, giving Kyle a moment for the fact to sink in. "He also has Prosopagnosia. The inability to tell the difference between gender."
As the nurse walked away, the facts collided in Kyle's hungover mind like a bolt of lightning: That's why he thought he knew me! It was Kara!
Kyle gripped the old man's shoulders as he tried to finish the juice and medication. "The night you saw me that April, do you remember anything else around me or your home here?" Kyle asked with frantic urgency.
"No… no… no… YES! You got in that car. That big, ugly car with all the lights on it. You know, the black car with the purple writing on the side that said VIXEN and all the faces."
Kyle jumped up, thanked the man, and sprinted from the building back to his car.
He raced home, his mind working faster than his vehicle. What kind of car would have VIXEN written on the side? Was it a radio station that had given her a ride? What was that car used for?
He burst into his house, dove onto his computer, and began searching for "Vixen" in every context he could imagine: the band, the definition, the clothing, the DC comic book. If only Google hadn't gone downhill so badly, he thought. Unless you're looking for shopping or porn, Google is useless now!
Kyle switched to the Wayback Machine and discovered that in his area, Vixen had once been a dance/go-go club. He realized, just now, that it was his birthday. While it could be a coincidence, this was the perfect opportunity to check out the Vixen location. Maybe they knew something about Kara or had witnessed what happened.
He knew he couldn't call Sera yet; that would only push her further away. He would have to run this mission solo. He took more Tylenol and passed out for a few hours, building up a reserve of strength. He had no idea what tonight held in store. He might come face-to-face with the person or group who killed his sister, or he might walk into a place that had been entirely repurposed, with a completely different crew working there.
Waking just as the sun began to set, Kyle stumbled into the shower. He realized he should have done this before visiting elderly people. The woman at the door had likely looked him up and down because she could smell the stale whiskey from the night before. The coffee had only been enough to cover the stench of a homeless drunk looking for mentally ill people to talk to.
Sounds crazy when I think about it, too, he admitted. Maybe I should slow down, or I'll end up running this mission right off the rails and blowing the whole thing up like I did years ago. All he was missing was the torn undershirt and a broken-down car. That would have guaranteed him twenty-four hours in lockup.
Kyle finished showering, put on shorts, a T-shirt, and socks. He had a couple of hours to kill, so he picked out his clothes for the night and laid them on the bed. He sat at his computer, clearing out emails to pass the time.
Sitting in his car in front of the address that once housed VIXEN, he looked up at the building. A huge, neon-red sign now glowed above the entrance: STRAGULARIUM.
Whatever the hell that means, he thought to himself.
He walked past a long, red velvet rope and approached the front door, stopping before a big, square-jawed man and a skinny Black man, both dressed in black-on-black and holding a clipboard. Kyle asked if he could be allowed in.
The Black doorman scrutinized him. "Really, bruh? You don't really look like someone who wants in on this place."
Kyle bristled. "What does that mean? What kind of a place is this anyway, some hip-hop joint?"
The two doormen exchanged a look and burst into uncontrollable laughter. The Black man, wiping tears from his eyes, looked at Kyle. "All right, man, come on in. I think you need this place more than any of us right now. Ha ha… man, fucking hip-hop joint." The two men were still laughing as Kyle stepped inside.
He followed a long, dark hallway. At the far end, he could hear faint music and see flashing light. As he got closer, the music intensified—far louder than what he could normally tolerate. It sounded like club music, mixed with industrial, maybe even post-punk.
He rounded the corner and entered another corridor. This time, he saw what looked like people, clad in latex and leather. Some women had their breasts completely exposed. In one corner, two women were giving oral sex to a man. As he continued down the hall, he passed rooms filled with activity.
In one room, a man in shorts was strapped to a cross, wincing as a woman put out cigarettes on his skin before whipping him. Another room held a woman strapped down on her stomach at a tilted 60° angle, being penetrated by three men while others masturbated in a circle around them. The last room on the left showed a woman strapped over the lower half of a man who was also bound, while two other women forced her mouth onto his erect penis.
Kyle asked himself aloud, "What kind of sick, twisted place is this? Are these political prisoners or something?"
He rounded the final corner, and the room opened up. Red and white were the only lights visible. A DJ stand stood at one end, but it was too backlit to see clearly. Off to the right stretched a long bar. Tables circled the walls, filled with the darkest perversions humans had ever conceived. In the center, a thousand sex-crazed monsters seemed to be consuming each other. All in black, some masked, some leashed, some with exposed genitals so pierced they seemed unusable.
Kyle reached the bar and asked for a drink. Sonya, with most of her chest exposed, handed Kyle a glass, and he sat down. Sonya watched him with an unsettling intensity, like a wildcat studying a rabbit that had wandered to the wrong side of the zoo cage.
Kara was nearby, talking to another bartender. She turned her head toward Sonya and saw her brother.
Kyle's eyes locked onto Kara's face. He launched out of his seat as if someone had stabbed him. "KARA!" he yelled over the booming music.
For a fleeting second, her eyes widened fractionally. Then she looked away, then back again, her face a mask of artificial calm. "Do I know you?" she said, pretending not to recognize the emotional man at the bar.
"Wa—wa—Kara, it's me, Kyle… your brother!"
She held the artificial cool she'd mastered from Abraxas and Jade over the past few years. "Not anymore. You don't belong here, kid. You should just go home before you get hurt."
Kara started to walk away. Kyle followed, a confusion that made the argument with Sera pale in comparison now washing over him. "I thought you were dead, or kidnapped, or something… I see now you're just a sex slave."
Kyle trailed off, his confusion deepening with every second.
"WATCH YOURSELF, LITTLE BOY!" Kara snapped back, the contained rage of a thousand suns blazing in her eyes. "In a place like this, you will never know who is the slave and who is the master. I am about to walk up those stairs. If you follow me, I will make sure you end up a slave, and it won't be the way you think. GO HOME. Do NOT try and find me again!"
Kara walked up the stairs toward her office, and Kyle's eyes lost her in the darkness.
He kept staring at the void where she had vanished until his focus was broken by several figures who began to sensually rub different parts of his body. He violently shook them off and headed for the door. His entire world had been turned inside out and upside down within the span of twenty-four hours.
And all of this happened on his BIRTHDAY.