The Dark Streets

by Matthew Smith

  “So Mark, where to now?” Mark looked out his window,

  “There’s a dirt road on your right in a few miles.” I kept driving and I saw a dirt road on my right and turned onto it,

  “This better not be a fucking trap Mark!” Mark chuckled,

  “Even after all these years, you still don't trust me?” Lucas looked at Mark,

  “Well no offense Mark, but those years weren’t very trustworthy.” He chuckled,

  “Yeah true, you do make a point there but trust me, I wouldn’t set you guys up and kill you, they’re after me, and I’m going straight into their lair.” Tony nodded,

  “You do make a good point Mark.” We reached the end of the dirt road and I stopped the van, and looked back at Mark,

  “Okay Mark, now where the fuck do we go!?”

  “We have to walk from here.” I turned the van off and we all got out, “follow me this way.” Mark started walking towards a forest and we started following him,

  “This place is fucking creepy, I feel like we’re going to get murdered or some shit, you know what I’m sayin?” I back at Tony and nodded,

  “Yeah I do know what you’re saying, I hope we don’t end up on an episode of 20/20.” Tony looked at me,

  “Don’t fucking say shit like that man.” Lucas walked up beside us,

  “Oh don’t worry Tony, nobody gives a shit about us, we’re fucking nodbodies, so I don’t think 20/20 would do an episodeon our ass.” Tony looked at Lucas and I gave a look to Lucas and he looked at me,

  “What are you looking at Jack?” I smirked at him,

  “You’ll see.”

  “Oh thanks Lucas! cause you know I wanted to fucking hear that right!? Like that made any thing fucking better, right?!” I looked at Lucas,

  “I told you so, now it’s your turn to calm him down, he wants you anyways.” I backed away from them,

  “Listen Tony, I’m sorry okay, I didn’t mean to make anything worse for you okay?” Tony looked at Mark and nodded and offered his hand and Mark shook his hand,

  “Okay all is forgiven Mark, do you forgive me?” Mark nodded,

  “Yes it is.” I looked at Mark, we continued following Mark down the path in the forest towards the Blue Brotherhood’s hideout. We reached a split in the road and there was two paths, one going left and another one going right,

  “So what way now Mark?” He looked left and then looked right,

  “We want to go down the right path.” We started walking down the right path. Tony looked at me with a worried look on his face,

  “I’m scared we’re not prepared to fight the Blue Brotherhood yet and we’ll die.” I put my hand on his shoulder,

  “Don’t worry Tony, Stake has hope in us, as our connection to the Life Energies is strong and you are like Drogoth and are fused with the Darkness, you must be as strong as him, even untrained and we also have Maria and Lucas for assistance, we can do this Tony!” I smiled and reached my hand out to him, and Tony smiled back at me and shook my hand, Mark looked back at all of us,

  “We're not too far now.” We reached the other side of the forest and there was a cabin, Tony looked at me,

  “Oh hell fucking no! I knew it! We’re going to get murdered man! What did I fucking say!? Let’s get the fuck out of here guys!” Mark looked back at Tony and walked up in front of him and slapped him across the face,

  “Shut the fuck up and get ahold of yourself man! There’s nothing to be worried about, the only way for us to get murdered is, if we don’t follow the plan and the Blue Brotherhood kills us, now please shut the fuck up so we don’t alert them, you got all that Tony!?” Tony rubbed his head and nodded,

  “Yeah I got it!” Mark nodded and turned around and started walking towards the cabin and we followed him. I walked up to him,

  “So this cabin, their hideout?” Mark shook his head,

  “No, not necessarily, it’s underground.”

  “How did they build it underground without cops attention?” We started walking towards the cabin,

  “Well it was actually it’s an old abandoned bomb shelter that hasn’t been used since back in the 70’s during the Cold War era, but it was never used because, well you know the reason, the Cold War was just on big conspiracy, then shortly after it was ‘closed down’, the Blue Brotherhood took it over after making a comeback from the failures of the Blue Knights. They eventually fixed it up and got the electricity back up and running and it’s operational now.” We reached the cabin and Mark opened the door and he walked in and we followed him in and he closed the door behind us. It was empty inside, and it was clearly used as an outside distraction to ward off people from what it’s true purpose,

  “I see, how does the mayor not know that there’s electricity being supplied here? He’d have to find out at some point, right?” Mark turned around and looked at me and smiled,

  “Well my dear old friend, they use the Principle Energy to power their electronics down here, they found out a way to harness it and use it as a power resource.” We walked down into the basement and we followed Mark to the end of the path at a wall, he pushed on it and it opened. Behind the wall was a door with a keypad on the wall beside it. Mark pressed four, seven, two on the keypad and the door unlocked and he opened it and he walked in and we followed him in. On the other side of the door was a staircase going down, we started following him down the stairs. We reached another door, Mark turned around,

  "Behind this door is the Blue Brotherhood’s hideout guys, hope you’re prepared?” We all nodded,

  “Okay good, so Jack you will be going right and I'll go left and me and you need to pick who's going with who, okay?” I nodded my head,

  “Okay sounds good Mark, I’ll take Tony and Maria.” Mark nodded and smiled,

  “Okay I guess you’re coming with me Lucas.” He looked at Mark,

  “That’s fine with me, I can somewhat trust you, enough to trust you with my life.” Mark nodded and turned back at the door and opened it and he and Lucas started walking down the left path, and me, Tony and Maria started walking the right one, I looked at Maria and Tony,

  “So do you guys think this is a trap? What do you think Maria” She looked at me,

  "I'm not sure, he can be really reliable and trustworthy guy but at the end of our relationship he wasn’t, and he started hanging with a lot of sketchy people and doing hard drugs and doing crimes, it seems to have gotten worse, so it very well could be possible, I’d be on high alert around him Jack.” I nodded,

  “Okay I will, thanks Maria.” I looked at Tony,

  “What are your thoughts on him Tony?” he looked at Maria and she nodded,

  “Well first things first, he’s a deadbeat loser and we should give up on him Jack but my sis loves him so if he’s important to her, he’s important to me as well, so I’ll have to let bygones be bygones, for now of course.” Maria smiled,

  “Thanks Tony, I really appreciate that.” He smiled and nodded,

  “Anytime sis.” We reached an office type room with it’s door open, Tony looked at me and I nodded, he walked up to the door. I reached the right hand side and Maria reached the left hand side, I peeked into the room and saw some guys standing around talking to one another, I waved for Tony and Maria to start shooting and stopped peeking. They started shooting into the room and I looked back into the room and saw some of the guys I saw in the room earlier were dropping like dead flies and then I aimed my gun into the room and started shooting in and started killing some of the guys, after a while the shooting stopped. Me, Tony and Maria put our guns away and then a guy got up amongst the dead bodies and aimed his gun at me and then Tony kicked the gun out of the guy’s hand and I then aimed my gun at his head and he put his hands up,

  “Please don’t shoot me!” I knelt down so I could look at him face to face,

  “Give me one good fucking reason I shouldn’t just shoot your fucking brains onto the wall, where is Willow you dumb fuck!? And while you’re at it, where’s your leader
and the Axe Man?! You Blue Brotherhood motherfucker!” He looked at me and gave me a weird look on his face,

  “Blue Brotherhood!? What are you talking about? They haven’t used this location in years.” I looked over at Tony and Maria, they both shrugged, I put my gun down from his head, and I got up and so did the guy and he put his hands down, we put our guns away,

  “Well if it’s not being used by the Blue Brotherhood, then who’s using it? And where did Mark bring us?” The man gave me another look,

  “Did you say Mark?” I nodded,

  “Yes, why?”

  “Mark Thompson?” I nodded once more,

  “I already said yes, didn't !?” The guy put his up,

  “Yes I guess I did, anyways back to the point, Mark is an agent of ours.” I gave him a weird look,

  “An agent for who exactly?” The guy smiled,

  “The Guardians of Truth.” Just then Stake appeared in front of us and the guy,

  “Did you say The Guardians of Truth!?” The guy smiled and nodded,

  “Yes I did Agent Stake, welcome to the Karnos Dimension.” I looked at Stake,

  “Um Stake who the fuck is this and what are you guys talking about? What is the Karnos Dimension?” He looked at the guy and back at mea and smiled at me,

  “Well The Guardians of Truth are a group of field agents that work under the direct order and supervision of the DBI.” I scratched my head,

  “The DBI, sounds like the FBI, what does it stand for and what do you guys do exactly?”

  “Well DBI stands for Dimensional Bureau of Investigations and well yeah, we kind of are like the FBI, except our jurisdiction is all four Dimensions and sometimes with the help of the Lynars, we work on cases in the Soul Dimension sometimes, but that’s more on a case by case basis, they come to us not like the other Dimensions when, we just make ourselves known in the other Dimensions whenever the Elders feel like it and I forgot to mention, the Elders are made up of Zions and Morphers, because shortly after the Darkness virus backfired on the Zions, they came to us for assistance and we offered it to them because it was infecting our people as well. That’s when we started fighting and started working together and the people of both our races that have a special connection with the life Energies, got training to harness and focus on their Energies to strengthen their connection to the Energie and became gods known as Elders of the Ether Dimension.” I looked at Stake,

  “Therefore like you said before, anybody with the blood of an Elder is a direct descendent of a god!?” Stake nodded,

  “Yes Jack, you have the blood in you therefore you have the blood of the Elders in you, but you and all other living creatures in this Dimension don’t have full access to their abilities as Drogoth is slowly killing this Dimension by fusing his Darkness with the Life Energies of it, we need to stop him, so that this Dimension can be awakened from Drogoth’s clutches!” I nodded,

  “I see and what exactly do the Guardians Of Truth do?” Stake smiled,

  “Thought you’d never ask Jack, we are an elite member of the DBI agents, we were top of our class in the DBI Academy and most of us were the first ever students of that dreadful Academy, to be in the Guardians of Truth you must graduate at the Academy with at least a 90 percent or higher.” My eyes grew wide,

  “That’s crazy Stake!” Stake looked at me,

  “Well they want to make sure you're prepared for what you're going to be experiencing.”

  “And what is that exactly?”

  “Well for one thing you’re going to travel to all the other Dimensions, make frequent visits to the Afterlife and die multiple times and come back and still have your memories but still have no idea what it feels like to die but still have to go through the pain of death and also having to fight the most dangerous enemy of all, ordinary everyday people, infected with the Darkness, it’s so sad.” Tony and Maria nodded,

  “Yes Stake, it does sound very sad.” He looked at them,

  “Wish there was a way of not killing them.” I looked at him,

  “Well sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.” Just then the door was kicked in and a group of men with Lucas came into the room, the man in front was Mark, he looked at the man that I was talking to,

  “Okay good, so now you know Jack?” I looked at Mark and nodded,

  “Yes I do, so you are an agent for the DBI and are a part of the Guardians of Truth?” He nodded,

  “Yes I am and we know about Drogoth’s involvement with the Blue Brotherhood, we have an inside source that can confirm, the source is on the inside at their hideout.” My eyes grew wide,

  “Is that source Willow?” He nodded,

  "Yes it is, Agent Stake was able to successfully locate her and access her mind telepathically, as he does with you., she has relayed information to him, Stake hasn’t said anything to you and is instead having me communicate to you on his behalf, to give you all this info, so Drogoth doesn’t find out as he is now on Stake’s trail and Stake is hiding from him.” I smiled,

  “Okay good, as long as she’s safe and sound, that’s all I care about.” He nodded,

  “I can confirm that she is and is in fact working for us as a double agent to get as much info as possible Jack, you can rest your mind of its worries.”

  “You’re using her as a spy Mark!?” Mark put his hand on my shoulder,

  “No Jack, it was in no way our idea, it was all hers! You have to believe me!” I turned around away from him,

  “I don’t know Mark, everyone is talking about how you’re not a trustworthy person, so I don’t know what to think!” Mark walked up to me and reached his hand out to touch my shoulder but I walked away from him before he could, he put his hand back down,

  “Jack you gotta believe me, if not me, then maybe you’ll believe you’re friend Stake.” Stake then appeared, I looked at him,

  “What are you doing here Stake? Are you going to side with him?”

  “Jack if you actually hear him out, you’ll see he’s not here out of malicious intent, I’d know, he works for the same agency I do, we’re essentially co workers just for two different branches like a bank.” He chuckled and Jack gave him a look, “what?”

  “Fine I’ll hear him out Stake but I swear if any of this turns south, it’s on your ass this time, got it?” He nodded,

  “Yes I got it, I swear!” I looked at Mark,

  “Okay you’re lucky that Stake has some trust in you, explain yourself right now, okay!?” He slowly nodded his head,

  “Well like Stake has explained before, I work for the DBI and I am a part of the Guardians of Truth and well the purpose given to me by them was to monitor your contact with Stake and step in only when necessary to your mission.” I looked at him,

  “Okay so I’m guessing you stepping in right is confirmation on you being here is necessary to me right now?” He nodded,

  “Yes, you are correct about that Jack.” I nodded,

  “I see, so why is it so necessary for you to step in now and not before?” Mark smiled,

  “Well you see before you didn’t need to find the Blue Brotherhood and now you do and I just so happen to be the one with the knowledge on that.”

  “Yeah and why don’t you help us in finding it?” He nodded,

  “Yes, yes, I will bring you to the one with location, I only have the knowledge and location of the one who truly knows.” Jack sighed and so did Tony and Maria,

  “God damn it Mark, you’re wasting our time!”

  “I see, I see, I’m sorry, let's get going guys.” We started walking down the hallway and out of the bunker that Mark led us into, and out of the cabin. We walked out of the cabin and into the forest, we continued walking back to the van. We reached the van and Mark opened the van door, we all got into the van and Mark turned it on and started driving. Maria looked at Mark,

  “So Mark, how long have you been in with the DBI?” He looked at her in rearview mirror,

  “If you want to know if I was working with them when
I was with you, the answer is yes, yes I was, I’m sorry, I wanted to tell you, but the betterment of all life is important to me and to us, people can know when they need to know and that’s it.” Maria nodded,

  “Don’t feel guilty Mark, it’s not like you were hiding something terrible, you were hiding something for a good reason, I’ll never judge you for that.” He looked at her and smiled,

  “Thanks Maria, I’m glad to hear you say that.” After a while, they reached, their destination and Mark stopped the van and turned it off and we opened our doors and then we all got out of the van and closed our doors and Mark locked the van and then we started walking. We then reached another cabin type building, Mark opened the door, and he held the door for us and we walked in and then he closed the door behind us, inside was a table and nine chairs around it, we each sat at a chair at the table. We then heard footsteps walking towards us, and we saw the shadow of three figures walking towards us and then the figures stopped moving and I heard mumbling and the figure in the middle started walking again and then they walked into the light and I saw him, the man I shot and killed, Mike Harris. My eyes grew wide and I slowly got up from the chair I was sitting on,

  “What's wrong Jack, it's like you saw a ghost... well I guess you have... you probably have some questions for me, don’t ya?” I nodded,

  “You damn fucking right I do! Like I shot you in the fucking head, you should not be alive!” He pointed to his forehead at the scar left by the bullet,

  “Yes that's true but here I am standing alive and well ! And look at this nasty looking scar I have now to boot!” He motioned for me to get up, “get up and come with me, we have lots to talk about.”