Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

Your senses cringe in terror. You argue with your optic nerve, willing it to clear your vision. When it does, shapes become apparent. Bodies dot the walls like giant cockroaches. One nearby drags on a cigarette, the yellow glow of fire casting hellish illumination onto harshly-angled features. Not a friendly face, but the eyes look too distant for this to be an enemy.

You inch forward, now feeling with your feet for dips in the floor level that seem to be everywhere. The mallet-sound changes, like a hammer passed from one hand to the other of an ambidextrous person. The beat is the same. It punches through your nervous system, producing more fury that you battle, and throbbing at your genitals. Most of these patrons must be high on ecstasy. This music would stimulate them in a different way, or so you have read about E.

Finally you stumble upon the bar, close by the dance floor. A girl—or a good imitation—leans over, her Nazi cap low over kohl-lined eyes, minimal breasts bare, tiny pierced nipples erect and staring at you. She does not ask you what you want. You have an impression of deep disinterest. Didi shouts his order and gestures for you to do the same. You lean in and her face shows distaste as she eyes the coat you clutch to your body, her look implying you are not brave enough to be here. Above the pounding, you scream “Jack, straight up!” Without a nod, she turns her back on you, and fades into the darkness. You glance to the right to watch the dozen or so dancers.

Young. Slim. Naked. Sweat dripping down sinewy bodies that have never known fat. These Danse Macabre figures writhe and jump to the beating noise, eyes rolled up so the whites glow in flashing black light strobe, tongues lolling, corpse-like puppets yanked on strings. One penis, erect, suddenly shoots into the air like a fountain. Two dancers fall to their knees to lap up the discharge.

The light allows you to see patrons next to you at the bar, others across the dance floor, stripped of clothing, waiting, watching, fondling themselves and one another. All are skeletal, ribs jutting, hip-bones prominent, many bald, skulls so large compared to the child-like bodies, enormous fetuses. They resemble drawings of aliens, photos you have viewed of victims in interment camps. Watching them makes you hot, and you feel like a pedophile. Or a necrophile. You wonder when it became sexy to look as if you’re starving to death.

The harsh tapping on your shoulder goes almost unfelt—the rhythm is the same as the music, the same as the fingers around you groping, the same as your heartbeat forced to synchronize to all of this. But you do notice, eventually, and turn to find your drink. Behind it, one hand still on the glass, the other fondling a ringed nipple, the capped bartender releases your shot to hold out an open palm in much the same way as the door person, the coat check. You have the impression of beggars, starving, willing to take anything from anyone, but of course they will not take less than they demand. The image is titillating in its obscenity. You offer bills that are snatched away even before reaching the palm.

You want to ask Didi questions, about this place, about the preponderance of the thin, the beautiful who may live fast and die young for all you know, but the music prohibits verbalization. You only know this place is called Ecstasy, a 24-7 club that is more than a club, that is a lifestyle Didi assured you, frequented by transvestites, transsexuals, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, straight couples and singles, fetishists, hardcore SM players, everyone with the need to be ecstatic, in Didi’s words.

Kevin, you know, loved to get high. Most of his life he gravitated towards anything that would obliterate his pain. You watched your brother transit sexual preferences, chemical intoxicants, liquid libations, extreme physical ritualistic practices, various cults, and endless trendy diets to reduce the bulk he is prone to, all designed to take him out of the mud of this physical realm he loathes and lift him to spirit. You stood by helplessly for the thirty years you have known Kevin, unable to even aid yourself, let alone him. Each of his ventures was the answer, the salve to soothe the wound of living in a terribly imperfect world. Each would bring him the love and acceptance he longs for. Each was abandoned, or incorporated into Kevin’s perpetual morphing. You understand him, only too well. He acts out the inner turmoil you silently endure daily, turmoil that has driven you to three quiet suicide attempts, that causes you to sleep more hours each day than you are awake, that leaves you alienated and too depressed to make contact, or even to exhibit symptoms of your despair. Only the bulimia you battle in secret is evidence of your pain, and that goes unnoticed in a twisted world that values minimalism in everything to the point of praising your rejection of nourishment.