Kingdom of Shadows

-1-

The van rockets through darkness, swaying and bouncing along the bumpy road. The breakneck speed no longer seems necessary, but everyone is preoccupied and still racing on adrenaline and fear. For several minutes there is relative silence, but Carbone resumes his screaming and writhing about, knees pulled in close to his chest as his bloody hands clutch desperately at the mangled flesh that was once his stomach.

“Hang on, bro.” Snow pokes his head up between the front bucket seats and looks to Rooster. “We need to get him to a hospital!”

“He’s already dead,” Rooster tells him.

Between screams, Carbone wheezes and literally cries for his mother.

“Christ,” Nauls groans, “his intestines, I—I can see his fucking intestines!”

Landon, a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, glances quickly at the rearview then increases speed despite the rough terrain.

“Slow down,” Starker says, his deep voice booming from his position at the rear of the van. “This ride dies, you die with it.”

“Whatever,” Landon says indignantly.

“We can’t just let him bleed out,” Snow says.

Rooster watches the darkness through the windshield wash over them like renegade waves. He’s always liked Carbone, and knows he and Snow are best friends, but they’re miles from any hospital. Game over.

“Goddamn it!” Snow leans closer. “You hear me?”

Rooster looks back at Snow. “Stay with him, all right?” he says evenly. “Don’t let him die alone.”

After several seconds, reality sinks in, and with a defeated nod, Snow disappears into the back.

“Where the hell are we?” Rooster asks Landon.

“No clue, been following these country roads for miles now.” He nervously paws perspiration from his face with the back of his free hand. “You wanted the middle of nowhere. You got it.”

Rooster is about to tell him to slow down when the van comes to a sudden stop. Everyone lurches forward and Carbone screams again.

Before them, fog rolls across a field of weeds and overgrown grass. In the distance, an old farmhouse sits in the darkness and mist. The moon is full but obscured by clouds, scarcely illuminating a series of hideous scarecrows nailed to rotting wooden crosses scattered throughout the property.

“What is this place?” Nauls asks.

Landon squints. “Looks abandoned.”

With a final gagging cough, Carbone vomits blood and bile and dies on the floor of the van in a pool of his own excrement and urine.

What they don’t understand is that his death is far more merciful than anything they’ll ever know.

Distant screams echoed in his mind like the sudden screech of tires. He had no idea where he was, but his first conscious thought was that something was chasing him. The sheer curtains billowed, danced before him like smoke. It seemed as if he’d been watching them for hours, though he couldn’t be sure. He’d been asleep, hadn’t he? Below, city streets were awakening, coming alive as the sun slowly rose over a horizon of brick and steel. It was far too cold outside for the windows to be open, but he assumed Gaby had opened them at some point during the night.

Rooster sat up in bed and swung his feet onto the chilly floor. He leaned forward, face in his hands. It felt like an eternity since his old life had ended. Yet there was a disconnect between the here-and-now and the past, as if one or the other wasn’t quite true, falling closer to waking nightmares than reality. Even the night he and his old crew pulled their last caper was such a blur he often had difficulty piecing his scant memories into anything coherent. But for Carbone, he and the others got away. He knew that much. He remembered the final score and leaving that way of life behind him. For a long while the past had stayed buried, forgotten, perhaps even consciously ignored, but over the last few weeks, flashes of memories had returned, mostly in tiny bits and pieces. He couldn’t be sure, but Rooster suspected that’s what had started the awful headaches he’d been suffering from of late, his continued attempts to remember in more detail.

The farmhouse… he remembered that dark farmhouse they’d ended up at to split the take. He remembered the moon that night…and scarecrows… horrible scarecrows. He remembered them too.

And then, like a reel of film that had run its course, the memories stopped, returning his mind to an equally unsettling darkness.

Though tall, thin and wiry, with angular features and a receding swath of buzzed-down brown hair, the nickname he’d had since high school still fit, but his body was slowing with age, and for the first time he’d begun to notice it, to really feel it. He moved his hand up behind his neck and squeezed, rubbing down to his trapezius muscles. He sported the remains of a tan, his skin a deep bronze, the veins and muscles in his arms and legs defined and strong. He patted his stomach. Not quite the six-pack it had once been, but flat and tight, nothing to be ashamed of.

A breeze blew through the windows, disturbing the curtains once again.

This time they were shredded and filthy with dirt and blood, dangling there like sheets of slashed flesh.

Rooster looked away, clenched shut his eyes.

When he opened them the curtains were back to normal, but everything felt askew now, as if something or someone had entered the bedroom without his consent. He stood up, glanced around, eyes panning the room.

Nothing… no one…

A chill licked his spine.

“Are you all right?”

He turned to the doorway to find Gaby standing there bundled in a robe, dark hair mussed and the look on her face a mixture of horror and concern. “You were screaming.”

Rooster grabbed his Marlboros and a lighter from the nightstand, lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke at the windows. “I wasn’t even asleep.”

Her expression softened, and she leaned against the doorframe with a sigh. “Yeah, I know. You never sleep anymore, not really.”

“The windows…”

“I opened them.” She hugged herself. “Fresh air’s good for you.”

Rooster drew another drag, coughed it out. “It’s freezing.”

Her brown eyes—so dark they were nearly black—sparkled in place of a smile. “It’s good for the soul.”

“Nothing can live long in the cold,” he mumbled.

Gaby nodded but said nothing.

Shadows lay across the room like fallen spirits. Rooster stepped through them, approaching the windows with caution. A cold and dreary day stared back, the sky gray and overcast, the streets beyond the housing project courtyard dirty and cracked, cold and still mostly abandoned; the buildings in the neighborhood old and rundown, many of them condemned and long forgotten. Such a bleak city, he thought. Even where bustling life should’ve thrived, there was only emptiness, decay and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. He looked back over his shoulder at Gaby. It seemed to him her name should’ve been Grace, since she was like a savior, the only consistently good and beautiful presence in what had become an otherwise murky existence. When it was just the two of them and they held each other close in the night, the fear in him subsided. In those moments he felt alive again, perhaps even happy, but like all else he’d once believed in, Gaby would eventually leave him and he’d be alone again in the darkness with his nightmares and the awful echo of faraway screams…

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“Your name.”

“My name?”

“It’s pretty. Gabrielle.”

“I didn’t realize it interested you.” She smiled as if letting him in on a secret. “You’ve never mentioned it before.”

“Never really thought about it until now, I guess.”

“Its origin is Hebrew,” she explained. “Most people don’t know that.”

“What does it mean?”

“God is my might.”

Their eyes met, and for a moment he was lost in them, their depth and beauty. He knew her so well, and yet in many ways she seemed unfamiliar. How could that be? He focused on the writing table beneath the windows, the bills scattered about it.

“I better get in the shower,” Gaby said. “Don’t want to be late for work.”

Right, he thought. Someone’s got to earn some money around here.

“I’ll find something,” he promised. “There’s been some talk that big warehouse facility over on Dover Street’s hiring.”

“That place gives me the creeps,” she said. “What do they warehouse there anyway?”

“I don’t know. All I heard is they need some extra hands to unload trucks. It’s temporary but steady work for a week or more. Word is they’re only hiring a few people, so I want to get there early.”

“What about the phone calls?”

Fear rose from deep inside him. “What about them?”

Gaby came closer, padding across the chilly pockmarked floor in her bare feet, nails painted blood red and a dainty gold ankle bracelet adorned with tiny bells jingling as she moved. “It’s obviously important. He’s called at least half a dozen times, and at all hours, too.” She slid up behind him and wrapped her hands around his waist. She smelled vaguely of freshly cut flowers, and her breath caressed the back of his neck in slow, sensual intervals. “He says he knows you.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Are you going to call him back?” When he didn’t answer she leaned into him and brushed her lips against his ear. “He sounds so frightened, the man on the phone.”

With a sad smile, Rooster flicked his cigarette out the window. “He is.”