Kingdom of Shadows

-5-

They move across the field in a staggered line, weapons drawn, the overgrown grass and weeds nearly to their waists. The fog moves with them as they negotiate the uneven terrain, slowly, cautiously, the darkness deepening with each step they take. The scarecrows watch from their wooden crosses, some nailed, some tied with rotting lengths of rope, manlike ghouls in old and torn denim overalls and decayed work shirts, hands of straw protruding from the sleeves like talons, legs dangling, vanishing into the tall grass. With badly worn, stuffed and filthy burlap sacks for heads, their mouths are stiff grim lines of worn leather thread sewn into the fabric in a disturbing crisscross pattern, their eyes sunken black holes, as if the sockets have been long-since picked clean.

Starker is in the lead. He stops and the others follow suit. His eyes pan the area, take in each scarecrow. No one speaks for several seconds. The night is unnaturally quiet.

“Come on, what is this bullshit?” Landon moans. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Nobody’s been here in years. Why bother with the house at all? Let’s split the take now. What difference does it make?”

“We are pretty far from the road.” Nauls looks back. “Haven’t seen any cars pass by the whole time we’ve been here.”

Ignoring them, Rooster looks to Starker. “What’s wrong?”

“Notice anything about those scarecrows?”

“I’m trying not to notice them at all,” Nauls says.

Landon rolls his eyes. “What are you, five-fucking-years-old? There’s nobody here but us, let’s get on with it.”

“Starker,” Rooster presses, “what is it?”

“There are six of them,” he says, “six scarecrows.”

Snow shrugs. “So?”

“There are six of us.”

Rooster studied the shadows cast throughout the kitchen, opaque swathes of darkness slashing the light. Still on the floor and covered in a thin sheen of perspiration, his flesh was clammy and hot but his breathing and heartbeat had finally returned to normal. He wasn’t sure why the pentagram specifically had triggered such terror, he only knew it had. His fear had weakened, though it was still close by, and a steady throb above his eyes signaled another headache was on its way. Luckily the pain hadn’t kicked in yet.

With a willful grunt he forced himself to his feet, and on shaky legs, returned to the table. Once he’d righted the chair he dropped back into it then cautiously reached for the book. The cover was old and shabby, rough in his hands. Without looking at the pentagram, he quickly flipped open the cover.

In rather ornate script, printed on the first page:

The pages of the book looked even older than the cover. Made of stiff thick parchment, faded and badly furrowed, they mostly sported what appeared to be very old drawings of demons. Hideous winged creatures with leering eyes, many with horns and cloven hooves, huddled in darkness. Others perched over the beds of unsuspecting sleeping victims or sat on blasphemous thrones of human bone. Others still were illustrated engulfed in flames or in mid-flight amidst the clouds, tangled in battle with angels. But for the cover and Milton quote, the text was written in Latin, in a calligraphy-like style, as if scribed by some mad medieval monk in the bowels of a candlelit monastery. Just touching the book made Rooster uncomfortable, so he quickly flipped through the remaining pages of lurid illustrations and indecipherable text then slammed it shut. Placing it facedown, he took another shot of whiskey.

When his nerves had settled a bit, he turned his attention to the manila folder. Six files were individually bound and stacked within, the front of each marked with a name: Paul Carbone, Terrell Snow, Anthony Starker, Perry Nauls, Thomas Landon, and the sixth and final file, his own, Michael Cantrell.

Rather than immediately delve into his own file, he decided to begin with someone else's. Carbone’s dead, he reasoned, I’ll start there. He opened the file to find a mug-shot staring back at him. He hadn’t seen Carbone in anything but nightmares for years, and looking into the man’s eyes now shook him to the core. He remembered Carbone as a short and stocky man of few words, with a dry but cutting sense of humor and a laid-back personality. But mostly he remembered him screaming in agony and begging for his mother as he bled to death.

Rooster moved to the next page. All of Carbone’s stats were there: his full legal name, date of birth and social security number. Lower on the page it listed no living next-of-kin, the fact that he’d never graduated high school and had no formal education beyond the tenth grade, and that he was unmarried and had no children. The next page revealed a bullet list regarding his criminal record, which went back to his late teens and covered everything from petty theft to numerous sexual assaults and indecent exposures, to child pornography charges to assault and battery. The final entry, highlighted in yellow, documented his final arrest and conviction, the rape and stabbing death of a seven-year-old girl. He’d received two Life Sentences with no chance of parole, and according to the entry, had been serving them at the time this information had been originally compiled.

“That’s bullshit,” Rooster muttered. He hadn’t known Carbone that well, but Snow had, and he’d have never aligned himself with that kind of scum. Carbone was a criminal like the rest of them for sure, but he wasn’t a sexual deviant or a child killer. They were thieves, they didn’t rape and butcher children. And besides, even if Carbone had been guilty of such things and given those sentences, why hadn’t he been inside serving them? Had they let him out? Had he escaped? None of it made any sense.

He went back to the photograph. It wasn’t an actual mug-shot, as he’d originally thought, it only looked like one. Instead it was simply a headshot of Carbone from the neck up, a black background behind him and his name stenciled along the bottom white border.

The last page of Carbone’s file contained a single word: DECEASED.

The file seemed thrown together and incomplete, as if someone had hastily transcribed a few important basic points, added a photograph then bound and stuffed the information into a folder. Rooster put it aside and moved to the next one.

Starker’s file contained a similar photograph and described him as a former Army Ranger that had received a dishonorable discharge and had served four years in a military prison for assaulting an officer. His personal stats were listed as well, including that he was single and had no children. His civilian criminal record began after his stint in the service, and consisted mostly of assaults and illegal weapons charges. It also listed him as a member of a radical political and paramilitary group the government had labeled as a terrorist organization responsible for the numerous bombings of several government buildings. His final conviction described him as one of a three-man team that had firebombed the campaign office of a political candidate their organization opposed. Four people had been killed in the bombing, including two women, one of them eight-months pregnant. Starker, along with his accomplices, had received Death.

This information was more believable—Starker had always been the most violent of the crew and the most unpredictable—but again, much of it made no sense. Starker wasn’t single, he was married—or at least had been, according to Snow he’d since murdered his wife—and although Rooster did know about Starker’s prior military service, he knew nothing about this radical political organization he’d supposedly been a member of, and certainly nothing of the firebombing of a campaign office. And again, if that were true, and he’d received a death sentence and had already begun to serve time on Death Row as the information suggested, how had he been with them the night of the armored car job?

“He couldn’t be.”

This time the final page contained the word TERMINATED.

Rooster reached for the bottle, poured another shot of whiskey.

Terminated? But Starker wasn’t dead. Unless they’d killed him…whoever the hell they were.

Next came Nauls. The face in the photograph showed that same narrow face with the beady eyes he remembered. A closely-cropped beard and wild nest of curly hair coupled with his thin build gave him the look of a stoner or wannabe rock musician, and in reality, he’d been a little of both. In fact it was strange to see his eyes at all, as Nauls had almost always worn a pair of dark sunglasses, the lenses small, round and tight to his face. His file described a man who had been in and out of jail from the time he’d been a teenager, and who began serving prison time at only twenty. Predominantly a thief, he’d been arrested countless times for B&Es, purse-snatching, shoplifting, and drug possession. By all accounts Nauls had been a petty thief but not the least bit violent. In his mid-twenties he’d graduated to bank robbery and done time for it in federal prison. Like so many others, Nauls had come out of prison far worse than he’d gone in, as according to the paperwork, two months after his release he was arrested for another bank robbery, one that ended particularly violently.

The report claimed Nauls, cornered in the bank, had taken several tellers and the bank manager hostage. After a fourteen-hour standoff, Nauls had been refused the helicopter he’d demanded for his escape, and as a result had executed a female teller and then the bank manager. He was shot by a SWAT sniper moments later. Hit in the upper right chest, Nauls survived.

Ironically, he was sentenced to Death.

Rooster knew Nauls to be the most harmless member of the crew, and also the least violent. He spent most of his time smoking pot, chasing women, strumming an old guitar he loved and watching cartoons. He was a thief—and a good one—but not that bright and generally clueless. He was damaged, the kind of guy who had done hard time and wasn’t really cut out for it. Far as he knew, Nauls had an extensive criminal past but he wasn’t a killer, and the idea that he could’ve executed two people in cold blood seemed beyond belief.

The last page was the same as Starker’s. TERMINATED.

Landon too looked exactly how Rooster remembered him, as a man of average build with short dark hair receded to the middle of his scalp, hazel eyes, a permanent five o’clock shadow, an aquiline nose with flared nostrils and a mouth that seemed perpetually set in a wiseass smirk. His file depicted a man with a long criminal record, the majority of his arrests involving car theft or driving violations. Landon had always been a car nut, and was one of the best drivers Rooster had ever seen—certainly the best he’d ever worked with—and though he had a temper, complained endlessly and never backed down from a physical confrontation, he’d never been a particularly violent individual. He had the ability to be violent, and Rooster remembered more than one occasion when Landon had handled himself competently in physical skirmishes, but for the most part it was his mouth one had to look out for. Landon could cut someone to shreds verbally without even trying. He’d begun his criminal career stealing cars as a teenager, and by the time he was in his twenties he’d done time for auto theft and for two counts of aggravated assault. In and out of prison for most of his twenties, he was later arrested as the wheelman on a jewelry store heist. He and his accomplices had escaped but not before police were on them, and in the resulting high-speed chase Landon plowed directly through a police barricade, killing two police officers. After losing control of the car he struck a group of pedestrians, killing two—including an elderly man and a woman who had been holding her four-year-old child at the time—and seriously injuring several others. Landon drove on. Several blocks later his tires were shot out and he crashed into a telephone pole. One of his accomplices died in the crash. The other survived but was gunned down as he attempted to flee the scene. Landon suffered several minor injuries but survived. He was given Life without parole.

Same final page: TERMINATED.

Rooster shook his head in disbelief and turned to Snow’s file.

Terrell Snow looked the same in the photo as he had at the bar earlier. His record was long and varied, consisting of everything from theft to assault to attempted murder to drug charges. A lifelong criminal and former gang member, Snow had, according to the paperwork at least, struggled with heroin addiction at one point earlier in his life. Something even Snow himself had been unaware of.

Which means it’s crap, Rooster thought.

After a long criminal career, the result of which was Snow spending the majority of his adult life in prison, he’d been convicted of beating a young woman to death in her apartment during a botched robbery.

I didn’t know who she was, didn’t know what I’d done.

The crime was listed as ‘particularly vicious’ in that the woman had apparently not resisted her assailant but had been beaten so mercilessly that police were initially unable to determine if the victim was male or female.

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.

Snow received Life without parole.

I never meant to hurt her.

Last page: TERMINATED.

I’m already dead. Been dead and buried for years.

Of course he’d meant it figuratively, but Rooster couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t more truth to Snow’s statement than he’d originally been willing to give it. He put the file aside and eyed the final one, his own. He downed another shot, felt his head swim a bit.

There he was looking back at himself in a photograph Rooster had no memory of ever posing for. His basic stats were all correct, as were the entries concerning his criminal record. He’d served several jail sentences over the years, having been arrested numerous times for theft and assault (once with a deadly weapon), but he’d only gone to prison twice. Once for his involvement in an armed bank robbery for which he served six years of a ten-year sentence, and the other, his final conviction for which he received Death.

This is ridiculous, he thought. How could I have served time on Death Row without having any memory of it? And what am I doing out even if I did?

He continued reading. He’d been given Death for the torture and murder of a man named Roland McKay.

A Roman Catholic priest.

Rooster’s breath caught at the base of his throat, and he brought a hand to his mouth for fear a literal gasp might escape his lips. His mind replayed the memory of the priest accosting him on the street. How could this be? He had no memory of ever murdering anyone, much less a priest. He was a thief like the rest of the crew, not some sadistic psychopath. And if he’d killed this man, how could he be stalking the city streets pointing an accusatory finger at anyone?

The files were all there in front of him in black-and-white. But not one of them made any goddamn sense. The information couldn’t be true.

Hesitantly, Rooster turned to the final page of his file.

TERMINATED.