Kingdom of Shadows

-3-

But for their labored breathing, the area is deathly silent. Fog rolls over the open field, cutting across the desolate country road and floating through a thick expanse of forest on the other side. The full moon, still masked by cloud cover, reveals a mist-shrouded landscape of crucified scarecrows, demonic sentries guarding a farmhouse no one would want.

Snow stays in the back of the van with Carbone’s body but the rest pile out of the vehicle and wander about the street amidst confusion and high emotions, attempting to gain their bearings while figuring out what to do next.

“What’s with all the scarecrows?” Landon asks. “Nothing’s grown there for years but weeds, why would they need scarecrows?”

As he surveys the area, Starker still clutches the AK47 he used on the job, his hulking presence and enormous shaved dome daunting even in limited light. He moves to the side of the road. “Maybe it’s not crows they’re looking to scare off.”

“Well if they’re meant for me they’re working,” Nauls says. “Fucking things are creeping me out.”

“Yeah Nauls,” Landon quips, “they’re meant for you. Jesus, what an idiot.”

“I’m an idiot? You’re the one who stopped here.”

“Yeah, because shit-for-brains bit it.” Landon jerks a thumb at the van. “And if it’s OK with you I’ve had my fill of smelling dead ass tonight.”

Snow emerges from the rear of the van and wipes his bloody hands on his jeans. “What did you say?”

Landon faces him. “You heard me.”

“Say it again, motherfucker.”

“Hey, I’m sorry Carbone stepped off, but it’s nobody’s fault but his and you know it. He blew the back doors too early. Total amateur-hour horseshit, he knew better.”

“A good man’s dead.” Snow stepped closer. “Show some respect.”

“He fucked up and now we’ve all got blood on our hands.”

“What the hell would you know about it, wheelman?”

“Enough to know the stupid bastard could’ve gotten us all killed. And I didn’t hear you making any driver jokes when I was carting your sorry ass the fuck outta Dodge.”

“You’re working my last nerve.”

Landon squares his stance. “Blow it out your ass.”

Rooster steps between them. “Both of you cool it.” He knows he must get the crew focused, split the take and make arrangements to wrap things up one way or another. But it can’t be done out in the open, even in a desolate place such as this. One local police car or nosy townsperson passing by is all it’ll take to escalate things, and there’s been enough escalation tonight. No one was supposed to get hurt. The job had been meticulously planned, rehearsed and timed to the millisecond. Yet there were still mistakes, and what began as a robbery ended in a homicide, one guard dead, two badly injured. And now they’ve lost one of their own. They have to move and move fast. “We’re still on the clock, which means I still call the shots, so get your heads out of your asses and get back in the fucking game. Now.”

Snow points at Landon. “We ain’t done.”

“Any time, douche.”

Rooster stands his ground until both men drift away in opposite directions. “All right, let’s get inside and finish our business.”

Nauls, holding two large canvas duffel bags stuffed with cash, shuffles about like he needs a bathroom. “Can’t we find someplace else?”

“I don’t like this shit bin any better than you do,” Rooster admits, “but it’s out of the way and nobody should bother us here. Nauls, you stay with me. Landon, get the van off the street and under cover. Snow, you and Starker check the place out. It looks deserted but let’s be sure.”

“OK how come the two brothers got to check the farmhouse out?” Snow cracks. “We more expendable, that it? We ain’t special like you white folks.”

“Just get it done.”

Snow pulls two .45s from the back of his belt and turns to Starker. “All right, big man, let’s go.”

Apparently mesmerized by the field of rotting scarecrows, Starker does not respond. He stares off into the darkness as if in a trance.

“Come on biggins, time for some recon.”

Starker continues to stare at the horrible faces peering across the field through the darkness and fog. Rooster approaches him and cautiously places a hand on his shoulder. “Starker.”

He says nothing.

“Stay with me now,” Rooster tells him softly. “We need you.”

Starker remains locked on the field, one enormous finger resting on the trigger of the AK-47, the other hand sliding almost lovingly back and forth across the top of the weapon in a slow and steady motion. “Something’s not right.”

“You see something?”

“I feel it. So do you.”

He’s right, but Rooster can’t figure out how Starker knows this. Perhaps he hasn’t hidden his anxiety and uneasiness as well as he thought he has. “Maybe we should all go,” Rooster suggests. “Check the place out together.”

“It doesn’t much matter.” Starker blinks slowly, his eyes eerily reflecting moonlight. “We’re all gonna die tonight.”

Memories of Starker’s bald head covered in blood flashed before Rooster’s eyes, the huge man spitting and slobbering between horrific screams, choking on his own blood and bodily fluids while begging like a child for mercies he would never be granted.

The horrible sounds of that night were the last to leave him, fading gradually like the slowly dying things they were. And like the dead, a gruesome residue remained in their wake. A reminder of their power, perhaps, evidence that such figments of torturous nightmares had, in fact, existed.

Out in the open air the winter wind cut like a razor. Rooster held his ground at the mouth of an alley between a seedy bar and a blown-out storefront, his jacket collar flipped up to protect the back of his neck. A red neon sign advertising the strip joint two doors down blinked with a steady rhythm, painting his face in a strange and frightening haze. His headache had weakened, but a dull pain still lingered behind his eyes. He rubbed his temple and studied the passersby. Everyone on the street seemed suspect, every car a potential menace. He swore he’d seen the same black Crown Vic twice more since he’d walked the eight blocks from the payphone to the agreed upon meeting place, but of course there was no way to know for sure if it was the same vehicle. Even if it was, what would the cops want with him? He’d been doing straight time for years.

He returned his focus to the neighborhood. It was filthy and far from the safest in the city, but Rooster had a good vantage point, as from his position he could clearly see people approaching from either direction. Though like the rest of the city many of the buildings sat vacant and rotting, this was predominantly a commercial area that still crackled with intensity and life. Heavy traffic clogged both lanes, filling the air with a glut of sickening exhaust fumes, and numerous souls of varied descriptions hurried along the sidewalks, several scowling at him as if he’d done something to personally offend them but most with their heads bowed and eyes averted. At the end of the block an old homeless man collapsed on the sidewalk and lay still. After watching him a moment Rooster realized the man’s breath was no longer forming clouds in the cold air. Perhaps he’d died. No one seemed to care.

It was then that Rooster noticed a bald man of perhaps sixty standing across the street watching him, features unremarkable but for a pair of piercing ice-blue eyes. Dressed entirely in black—suit, shoes and overcoat—it wasn’t until the man glided a bit further down the block that Rooster saw the white collar and realized he was looking at a priest. The closer the man got the more disheveled he became, his clothes wrinkled and soiled and his face creased with age and looking as if it needed a good scrubbing.

Ignoring the traffic, the priest recklessly crossed the street, eyes locked on Rooster even after several drivers hit their horns and one car nearly struck him. While still several feet away, the priest raised a hand and pointed at him. “You, I—I know you!” he called. “I know you!”

Rooster shook his head and waved the man off, though oddly enough, the closer the priest got the more familiar he became. He couldn’t quite place him but was convinced he knew him from somewhere.

Just as the priest made it to the sidewalk, another man appeared out of the crowd and cut him off, blocking his path.

The afro gave him away. Snow, looking like he always had, dressed in jeans, sneakers and an old army jacket thrown over a sweatshirt, extended a hand, holding it up between himself and the priest as their eyes met. Neither moved; two statues in a sea of humanity.

Rooster stepped out of the alley, approached them.

The priest looked over Snow’s shoulder, enraged. “I know you!”

“Keep moving, padre,” Snow said evenly. “I ain’t playing with you. Move.”

Defeated, the priest slipped away, looking back every few seconds until he’d been completely absorbed by the crowd, carried off down the street with the rest.

Rooster started after him but Snow grabbed his arm, firmly enough to stop him but with enough restraint to let him know the move wasn’t a challenge.

“Let him go, man.”

“He’s right, I—we know each other, I—”

“Just let him go.” When Rooster relaxed Snow released him. “You don’t look no different.”

They shook hands. Snow’s palm was cold, rough and covered in calluses. “Neither do you,” Rooster sighed. “But we are different, aren’t we?”

Nearby, overhead trains rumbled along rusted tracks. The noise seemed to distract Snow for a moment. “Let’s get off the street.” He motioned to the bar behind them. “Catch some heat.”

The bar was dark, with scarred linoleum floors, low ceilings and only two small windows on the front wall. A scattering of tables and chairs filled the area, while a row of dark booths lined one wall and a bar filled the back. A jukebox kitty-cornered nearby sat quietly. The bartender, an overweight guy with a shock of unruly salt-and-pepper hair, chatted quietly with what was probably a regular, both staring at a small television suspended in the corner showing an old black-and-white horror movie. Otherwise the place was empty.

Rooster and Snow ordered a couple beers then took them over to the booth farthest from the bar and sat down.

“It’s good to see you, man.” Snow slowly caressed his beer bottle, focusing on it rather than Rooster. “Just sucks it has to be like this.”

After a long swallow of beer Rooster slid a black plastic ashtray from the corner of the table into the center and lit a cigarette. “What’s going on, Snow?”

He was about to answer when a bloodcurdling scream exploded through the bar.

Rooster reached to his belt for a gun that wasn’t there, a gun that hadn’t been there in years. Snow cocked his head in the direction of the television, where a ghoul was staggering through a cemetery shrouded in mist, closing in on a buxom young maiden with the ability to scream at octaves capable of shattering glass.

“Jesus H.” He rubbed his temples. “Could’ve lived without that.”

“Never seen you so jumpy, Rooster-man. You were always cold as ice.”

“The priest, who was he?”

“I don’t know.”

“He knew me. And I knew him. I just can’t remember how.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“Can’t figure out much of anything lately. The strangest shit’s happening. I can’t make sense of any of it.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke and watched it climb toward the ceiling. “Look, I—”

“Feels like you went to sleep and woke up in the middle of your life,” Snow interrupted, voice unusually quiet, “and now you can’t remember how the hell you got here.”

Rooster stabbed the cigarette between his lips and left it there so he could put his hands flat on the table between them and better conceal the fact that they were shaking. He nodded. “What’s happening to us?”

Up close Snow’s eyes were bloodshot and heavy, like he’d been crying recently, hadn’t slept in a while, or both. He smelled vaguely of cheap aftershave. “What do you know about demons?”

“Demons? You mean like—”

“Like all kinds of crazy shit runs through your head, then you start hearing things. Screams mostly, or whispers that don’t make no sense. And just when you think it can’t get no worse, you start seeing shit. Not people, not…not exactly. But they look like people…least until they don’t.”

The receptionist, Rooster thought, shrugging off a chill. “I don’t believe in demons.”

“Yeah neither do I but they don’t seem to give a shit.” Snow downed some beer then let out a quiet belch under his breath and looked to the door as if expecting someone to burst through it at any moment. “Not too long ago I got some information.” He leaned closer, across the table. “And ever since then these other motherfuckers have been following me. Never up close, always a ways back, watching from their cars, Crown Vics—big black bastards—that’s what they drive.”

“Cops?”

“These ain’t cops.”

“Who are they?”

“They been following me for weeks. After today they’ll be following you.”

“Why?” With manic repetition Rooster puffed his cigarette. “What do they want?”

“You remember the night Carbone died?”

Rooster began to perspire as flashes of farmhouse, blood and scarecrows filled his memory. “Some.”

No longer able to contain his nervousness, Snow abruptly stood up and made a beeline for the jukebox. He dropped a coin in, made a selection then gave the bartender and his friend a long look that said: This is going to make hearing the television more difficult but let’s not make a big deal about it or you’ll force me to do some really unpleasant shit to you. Both men looked away without comment and Snow slowly strode back to the booth as The Police’s Spirits in the Material World kicked in.

“You said I needed to know what you know.” Rooster crushed his cigarette in the ashtray. “So tell me.”

“What do you remember about the night Carbone died?”

“Come on, man, what the hell’s going on?”

“Do it.”

“The armored car robbery, the last job we pulled as a crew,” he said. “Everything went according to plan until Carbone fucked up and blew the back doors too early. The third guard was waiting on him. Carbone took a shotgun blast dead in the gut. Starker wasted the guard, shot him in the face, killed him instantly.” He remembered the young man’s head as it exploded, a crimson mist of blood, brains and skull spraying everything, and all of them. “You got Carbone back to the van while Nauls and I handled the other two guards and took care of the swag. Landon was the wheelman. We got out ahead of the cops, ended up in the middle of nowhere at some deserted old farmhouse. Carbone died in the van.”

Snow nodded. “Then what?”

“You were there.”

“Pretend I wasn’t.”

Rooster fidgeted in his seat. It felt like thousands of insects were scurrying over every inch of his body. He scratched at his head and suddenly found himself checking the door every few seconds as well. “I don’t…”

“You don’t know.”

Shadows along the ceiling shifted, elongated.

“We split the take,” he finally said. “Then we took off.”

“That how you remember it?”

“I think so but I can’t…” Rooster took another swig of beer. “I can’t remember exactly, it…the whole thing seems like a dream.”

“I couldn’t remember nothing either.”

The man at the bar, a middle-aged guy wearing some sort of workman’s uniform, hopped down from his stool and slipped through a nearby door marked RESTROOMS.

“The more I thought about it,” Snow continued, “the worse it got. I couldn’t remember the rest of that night no matter how hard I tried. It was like it was just…gone. All I knew was whatever happened scared the shit out of me, made me scared like I never even knew I could be. I’m talking about the kind of fear you feel right down to your nuts, man. The kind that makes you shit in your pants like a baby sliding out lunch. You know what I mean.”

Rooster did know. He swallowed so hard he gagged.

“Like you, I thought I was losing my goddamn mind.” Snow sat back with an air of defiance. “It’s like there was something right on my ass, something evil. I couldn’t take no more. I stopped sleeping, stopped eating, just locked myself up in my apartment and hid out. I wanted to kill myself but I was afraid of the other side. Ain’t exactly lived the life of a saint, right?”

The bartender was staring at them intently. When he realized Rooster had caught him he quickly looked away and busied himself.

“That’s when that woman started hanging outside my apartment wanting to talk to me all the time.” His face twisted. “I didn’t know who she was, didn’t know what I’d done. I don’t even remember it. I was on H when it went down and was hurting so bad for a fix I was out of my mind. I never meant to hurt her.”

“I never knew you did heroin.”

Snow sighed helplessly. “Neither did I.”

“You’re not making any sense. What the hell are you talking about?”

“I tried to do straight time, man, for real. I tried.”

“I believe you.”

“I got a janitor gig at this office building a few blocks from my crib. I was going crazy but I showed up on time every night, did my thing and minded my own business, played by the rules, closed my eyes to the demons and the screams and that woman always staring at me. I’d walk there, work the overnight shift then walk home in the morning. I’m there about a week when I notice this old dude following me one night. Skinny little white cat with glasses. Real Poindexter-looking motherfucker. At first I think maybe he’s a cop, but he don’t look like no cop I ever seen, looks more like a professor or some shit. He shows up every night, tails me from my apartment to work, and then he’s gone. So one night I get a lead on him, take a corner and duck into a doorway. He comes by and I grab his narrow ass.” Snow ran a hand over his face. He too had begun to perspire. “I’m about to rack me some old white man when he starts talking about that night at the farmhouse, all the shit I’m going through and how he can help me. Motherfucker knew more about me than I did, man. Said he had answers, said he knew what happened to us that night. He said it was time we knew the truth. And that’s exactly what he laid on me. Only now sometimes I wish he didn’t. Sometimes not knowing was better.” He bowed his head in an attempt to mask the tears filling his eyes. “Ain’t that a bitch? We never had a goddamn chance, man, none of us.”

“Who was this guy?”

“What they done to us wasn’t right, Rooster, it wasn’t right. We did some bad shit but we’re human beings, man, we fucking human beings.”

“What who did to us? What are you saying?”

Snow reached into his jacket, put something on the table and slid it over to him. When he pulled his hand away a small key was revealed. “Opens a locker at the bus station downtown,” he said. “Take it. Use it.”

Rooster nonchalantly covered it with his palm. “What am I gonna find?”

“Everything I know. Everything you need to know. All the proof I got from Poindexter.” He checked the door once, then again just a second or two later. “They’re after me, man, and they know I’m trying to pass the information to you. Once they know you got it, they’re gonna come after you, too.”

“Why are you giving this to me, why not one of the others?”

Snow shrugged. “Carbone’s dead. Nauls is a retard. Landon’s an asshole, and Starker—shit—that boy’s stone psycho. Whatever Hell them motherfuckers are burning in they deserve.”

“I’m not so sure anybody deserves to burn in Hell.”

“Makes sense if you’re the one burning.”

Rooster slid the key to the edge of the table then pocketed it. “You know where any of them are?”

“Last I heard Nauls and Landon were still in the city and still in the life. Starker supposedly caught his old lady banging some guy. Put a .38 in her pussy and pulled the trigger, then he beat the dude into a coma, ripped his junk off and stuffed it so far up his ass they had to do surgery to get the shit out. Couple days later they both died. Starker got away. Word was he headed down to Mexico or some shit.”

“They ever catch him?”

“Don’t know.” He wiped the tears from his eyes then killed his beer. “Don’t care.”

“What happened to us that night, Snow?”

“Go open that locker.”

“Why don’t you just tell me?”

Snow smiled, but it was the smile of the damned. “You wouldn’t believe me even if I did.”

“Try me.”

“You got to see for yourself.”

Across the barroom, the restroom door opened with a scraping sound and Rooster saw the same man exit, wander back to the bar and return to the stool he’d vacated moments before. As the door slowly swung shut, he saw a moist and filthy tile floor littered with scraps of toilet paper and trash, and something else moving along the wet tiles toward the toilet stalls on the back wall of the bathroom. Like the severed appendage from some scale-covered creature, it slithered about in a snakelike motion, revealing a pale tentacle several inches thick and at least three feet long. Rooster sat up straighter, squinting through the shadows in an attempt to bring the thing into focus, but the door had closed. He glanced at Snow, who hadn’t seen it but looked as if he had. Rooster turned away, hopeful he might be able to obliterate what he’d just seen and knew to be impossible, but when he returned his gaze to the bar he saw the man grinning at him with malicious glee. Both he and the bartender began to laugh.

Rooster shuddered. “We need to get outta here.”

“Don’t matter for me no more.”

Rooster reached across the table, took hold of Snow’s wrist. It was cold as ice. He let go. “I’m not leaving you here, man.”

“I’m already dead. Been dead and buried for years.” Snow’s eyes suddenly looked empty, even more hopeless than before. “And so have you.”