You'd think that finding the actively rotting corpse of a lizard man sitting on your mate's sofa you'd maybe consider rethinking your life choices, turning yourself in, or at the very least Google "How to undo acid trip with minimal prison time". And it did, I'm no psychopath. But once we rolled the joints we decided now was as good as any to smoke them.
Eventually we turned on the TV and started watching friends. It was the one where Ross gets a monkey. Mark said that the monkey reminded him of his dad. I chose not to pry.
"You think Chandler's a lizard?" I asked Mark.
"No." Mark puffed on his joint. "Too sarcastic. Lizards don't do sarcasm. Their brains can't comprehend it. It's all hierarchy and insects in there. Pure instinct."
"Yeah, makes sense." It didn't. But you don't argue with Mark. Believe me, I've tried. "We should make a move. Before Molly comes back with the cops."
Mark nodded. "Let's take Kevin."
"Kevin?"
Mark gestured towards the lizard man, knife still sticking out of his throat. "Kevin Sharp."
Mark pulled "Kevin's" drivers license out of his wallet. Now I don't mean to disrespect the dead, but the guy looked like he had it coming. The kind of guy who would ask for his coffee scalding hot, then demand for a refund when he burns his mouth. You know the type.
Have you ever tried to carry a corpse? It's not easy. Think about when you try to pick up your friends and they go all dead weight on you, and then add in the fact that they are covered in blood and smell like shit. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure he did shit based on the red-brown stain on Mark's IKEA sofa.
We ended up tearing down Mark's dolphin patterned shower curtain and wrapped Kevin up inside it before stuffing him into the boot of my Vauxhall Astra. Well we tried, but the boot was filled with canisters of petrol I had siphoned from cars at a BP, so we sat him upright in the back seat Weekend at Bernie's style. Mark grumbled the entire time about how his nan had given him that curtain, and wanted to get a new one on the way but we had bigger issues to solve.
According to Mark, Gabriel operates out of the back of a kebab shop called "Kebabylon" in Barking. Just the mention of going to Barking made me reconsider turning us in. It's a paradise for meth and heroin junkies, and while I'm not going to pretend I don't use it from time to time I hadn't in about a week so I felt some superiority over the native population.
We asked for directions from some locals, but most of them were couldn't give us a coherent answer. That was until we met a homeless man called Malcolm, who had a single tooth and a parrot that would screech "TORIES OUT" at random intervals. He was kind enough to point us in the right direction, and we asked him where he got the parrot but he just told us a racist anecdote about an African man with a parrot walking into a bar.
Upon arriving at Kebabylon I was even more convinced that Gabriel was Turkish. I should have probably asked, but it seemed rude so I never did. The place was empty, save for one guy behind the counter and a thick, rotating tower of meat. The guy was watching something on his phone that sounded a lot like porn.
I probably would've ordered some cheesy chips if it weren't for the fact that I could only see one of the guys hands.
"What are you watching?" Mark asked.
"Porn."
"What kind?"
I decided to nip this topic in the bud. "We need to see Gabriel."
The guy pointed to the back without looking up from his phone. As we headed in the back I glanced at Porn guy and, well, you could guess what he was doing with his free hand but at least he had the decency to do it under his trousers.
He was watching a bukkake, if you must know.
We entered a door labelled "Pirate" and were immediately hit by a wave of smoke too dense to see through. As the smoke cleared, we saw a squat Romanian (Turkish?) man sitting watching TV next to a smoke machine and a baseball bat with nailed hammered through. He was dressed like Negan from the Walking dead.
"My friends… it is good to see you again…" He spoke in a fake southern American accent like a prick.
I'm not gonna say that I can't tell Romanians / Turkish people apart but it was only when he stood up that I realised he was definitely not Gabriel, as I don't remember him being 4 foot tall.
I squinted at him. "You're not Gabriel."
" 'Course I am, boy."
"Nah, he's taller." Mark chimed in.
"That's Gabriel, boy. I'm also Gabriel."
Now the Negan getup was starting to make sense. I decided to let him have his fun and cut to the chase.
"Well we wanna find who sold us some shitty LSD that's making us see Lizards."
Gabriel chuckled, and rested his bat on his shoulder. "You ain't seein' Lizards, boy. Yer seein' the truth." He swivelled the TV around and changed the channel. We saw a Lizard in a suit talking to the camera.
"...Downing street is overrun by a cabal of high tax fanatics with a RUINOUS budget mission aimed to SQUEEZE middle britain until the PIPS SQUEAK! In the next election...."
I looked at the caption. This was supposed to be Nigel fucking farage. My stomach lurched. I looked over at Mark. He seemed indifferent.
"We got a dead one in the car." Mark said matter of factly. I resisted the urge to give his balls a tight squeeze.
'Why don't we just tell the whole fucking world?'
Gabriel seemed interested so we, and by we I mean fucking Mark, took him out front to show him Kevin sat in the back of my Vauxhall Astra.
"Hooo wee! You boys got gumption, I like it! Let's do some lines before I take you to meet my posse. I got a goooood feelin' about you boys."
And suddenly I felt like I actually liked this guy. Then I looked at his dumbass Negan-wannabe outfit and snapped out of it. I do like The Walking Dead, truth be told, but it fell off in the later seasons. Don't even get me started about Carl's death.
And so, we did lines. Then we went to leave and thought 'What's another line between friends?' and did some more. Then I think we did meth. Then Porn guy gave us pills which I'm 90% sure were Viagra. Long story short, I don't remember much of the rest of the day. Just short brief flashes. Fire, sirens, Mind numbing pain shooting through my right arm and chest.
The next thing I remember I'm floating in a completely dark void. I have no body, just a free spirit floating in nothingness. It's nice. It's peaceful.
Eventually, the sound of a warm campfire trickles into my ear. I'm reminded of the time I went camping with my parents when I was eight. We cooked marshmallows, I had my first sip of beer, and he let me sit in the front on the way home. He ended up killing an old lady by hitting her with his car, probably because he was drunk. But it was a nice trip overall.
A sharp, fiery sensation licks my fingers and shocks my nervous system to life. The stench of petrol fills my nose. The campfire gets louder. Mark's voice rings out but I can't understand what he is saying.
I realise that I'm not floating in darkness, my fucking eyes are closed. I'm so fucking tired but I force my eyelids open. I'm in the back of my Vauxhall Astra, and the hood is completely wrapped around a tree. Kevin is sprawled across the dashboard, and fire leaks from the engine onto his clothes.
I look around, trying to get my bearings and I am greeted by the sight of a lizard in police uniform poking his head through the window. His eyes bulge out of his skull and the entire car door is covered in blood. Looking closer I see that his throat is ripped open from being dragged across the broken glass left from what was the window.
The roaring fire spreads from Kevin into the interior. The smell of burning flesh fills the air. I remember the canisters of incredibly flammable petrol in my boot and I scrambled to unbuckle my seatbelt and get out. Blinding pain rips through my hand as I notice that the skin is almost completely melted like bubbling cheese across a hamburger.
Mark drags away the lizard and pulls me out of the car, just in time as it explodes into a mini mushroom cloud.
My beautiful, beloved, uninsured Vauxhall Astra was no more.
"I think my passport was in there."
I looked at Mark. He shrugged at me and started walking deeper into wherever we were. We met up with Gabriel, who was standing behind a tree a few meters away pulling his cock back into his skin tight leather trousers. He was holding a Tesco bag filled with scratch cards and latex horse masks, and to be honest I was too hungover to ask about it.
"We need to boot scoot 'n boogie, fellers. Pinkertons oughta be showin' up any minute now." Gabriel spoke as he wiped flecks of piss off his bat. I looked up at the orange sky, the sun just cresting over the trees.
"Do you think Burger King is open?"