The AMRKA has spilt its last drops of blood. Through stain-glass windows, ghosts watch monochromatic parades justling themselves down the street. The sounds of their chipped and dented trumpets drown out the voices of vampires that beg to be let into the whorehouse, hospitals and tax offices alike. “Let me in,” they wail. “We only want a bit of your body traken straight through our teeth!” I am not standing far away from one. He has given up. Raspy breaths are being exhaled every so often. His lungs are in a state of perpetual decay and dismay and the in the cold not air, it looks like he is breathing out bits of his soul. I pull the cigarette from my lips.

“Do you really believe that?” the blood-sucker asks.

“Of course. Is there another way to live?”

The vamp smiles; razor thin lips stretching to grotesque lengths. Through his mess of black hair, I can see a glimmer in his otherwise vacant eyes and he pull at the collar of his tattered shirt to expose the base of retching neck and one word: Nietzsche.

“I had it tattooed on,” he groans proudly.

“I can tell.”

This dying city is one that I often see in my waking dreams. Beneath the smooth exterior of measured mortar and skeletons of metal of wood lies the secrets. Where we walk is right next to the underworld disguised as gas stations and recruitment centers. Uniformed men stand guard at Sisyphus's Hill. The subtle rumble makes the signatures tremble. All of this can be plainly seen and here I am, standing next to a teenage nihilist waiting to be let through the door.

I move past him and rap on it myself a few times. And then again while I watch the vamp start to peel apart his skin. By the third wave of knocks, the door creaks open. Uninvited and with the door open, the vamp scurries to the side of the street where he tries to fit his body (now, nothing more than a skeleton with a few hanging bits of fat and muscle), into the gutter dug into the sidewalk.

“Are you Lee?” asks the pair of yellow eyes glowing in the dark of the building.

I nod my head, reach into my coat and jiggle a little bag of white powder in front of me. A gnarled hand shoots out and snatches it out of my grasp. There's a snorting sound and the eyes disappear. Without warning, a pen and a pad of paper are thrown at me. I step inside and the door slams behind me. The lights turn on, but the fucking addict is nowhere to be found.

The walls inside are divided in half horizontally. With maroon on top and beige on the bottom. Doors line both sides about three feet away from each other with plates, golden, where numbers have already been scratched off.

The ghoul who questioned me before now takes off my hat and coat. I still can't see him.

“We've been expecting you, Joe Lee.”

“So, I've heard.”

“It's good that you brought the stuff, Lee.”

“Look, I'm not here to shoot the shit. Where is he?” I ask.

“Third door on the left. It really is delicious!”

Without saying another word to the dumb bastard, I walk down the hallway. Shoes betray my presence with their loud echoes. When I reach the door, I slowly push it open. There's not a single light inside this room. It's the void of space or something like it. I pull out the pen and toss it out in front of me. It hits the ground, rolls, then plummets. Swallowed hole.

“Jesus,” I mutter.

“Christ!” the room answers back. I shake my head and close the door behind me.

“What do you need from me, Mr. Lee?” asks the disembodied voice; heavy and billowing. Bubblign. It reminds me of throat cancer. The AMRKA invests in disease and death. Put it on the television. Turn it on your favorite channel. Live the suffering vicariously. You need to watch someone die.
“Before I tell you,” I say, “did you get my payment?”

“Yessss.”

“I just need you to listen to a story, then.”

“Is that it?”

“That's it,” I assure the voice.

“Take a seat there, Mr. Lee, and I'll lend you my ear.”

I do just that when I take a few steps and disappear into the endless below.