Sanskar stood on the curb of Eighteenth Street between his pickup truck and the burned out chassis of Cutlass Supreme with Prithvi at his side. He had tried to persuade his friend to stay behind, but the stubborn a*s had insisted on coming along. For the third time, he pulled the crumbled piece of paper from his back pocket to check the address written on it. He looked from the paper to the house and back to the paper with a growing sense of unease.
Prithvi- Are you sure this is the right place?
Prithvi pressed his lips together in a tight white line, worry clouding his gray eyes.
Sanskar- God, I hope not.
Sanskar said and felt a rush of gratitude that Prithvi had come along. By the looks of this place, he might need some back up. Kamini had the tendency to walk hand in hand with disaster.
The house set back a ways from the narrow street, cloaked in the shadow and looking a good deal shabbir than its dilapidated neighbors. The moon receded behind troubled clouds, leaving the overgrown yard obscured by darkness. Plywood covered the doors and windows, the grayed wood splattered with red graffiti like splashes of blood on a corpse.
No signs of life existed beyond the rusted tricycle resting against the broken porch steps, an eerie reminder of better days.
Sanskar removed the gun from the waistband of his pants and checked the chip one last time as he moved up the side walk, and prayed that he wouldn't need it. Prithvi followed on his six, stealthy and dangerous as a lion stalking his prey. It was like old times, back on the streets of Chicago, when they'd walked on the wild side.
The front door was boarded shut but the covering over the back door had been pried away and swung to the side when Sanskar tested it. Prithvi pressed flush against the back wall of the house, pistol in hand. Sanskar raised a hand indicating that his friend should wait. Prithvi frowned but jerked his head in acknowledgement.
Sanskar thrust aside the plywood and took a tentative step into the house. He stopped for a second inside the threshold and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. At the same time, the moon emerged from its hiding place. Beams of moonlight filtered through the cracks of the boards over the windows and cast eerie pools of blue and gray light into the room. The floor was littered with trash; fast food wrappers, dirty clothing, and wand of aluminum foil used for cooking up the drug du jour (of the day). A sickening sweet scent overlaid the heavier odors of human excrement and unwashed bodies. Sanskar took a deep breath and pulled his t-shirt up over his nose and mouth to keep from gagging.
His heart sank as he peered through the kitchen and into the vacant dining room. Dirt and age smudge the once white walls, checkered by light square patches where pictures had once hung. Someone had spray painted a man's face, twisted in an expression of agony, mouth open and garish in the moonlight. It stared at him in surreal disapproval. He thrust an arm out the door, motioning Prithvi in behind him. He had seen this kind of place before and knew the dangers that lurked behind every corner. Junkies had been freakishly strong and irrationally violent when stirred up. The two man moved silently through the debris into the living room as carefully as if moving through a mine field.
Two dirty mattresses rested on the floor covered with a pile of rags. Not rags actually, but bodies wasted by drug abuse, barely recognizable as human. They didn't stir as Prithvi and Sanskar approached and Sanskar wondered if they might be dead.
Prithvi- Holy Mary, Mother of God.
Prithvi said in a choked whisper and crossed himself.
