Kingdom of Shadows

by Greg F. Gifune

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

  -4-

  He’d stood in the bus terminal for more than an hour. There was no sign of the Crown Vic or anyone following him on foot, but Rooster couldn’t shake the feeling he’d been tailed. So he stayed put, watched and waited.

  People came and went, maintenance workers and ticket agents busied themselves with various duties, an occasional policeman drifted through, and a handful of homeless people sat in corners or, like many of the waiting passengers, occupied one of the numerous plastic chairs bolted to the floor in clusters and rows throughout the station.

  The entire place smelled like a combination of filthy socks, urine and body odor, all of it made more oppressive by smothering bursts of forced hot air from an archaic heating system set far too high.

  Directly across from the wall Rooster was leaned against stood a bank of lockers. He’d been fingering the key in his pocket since he arrived, and though he’d yet to approach it, he’d already zeroed in on the appropriate locker. He still couldn’t be certain he wanted to know what was waiting for him behind that little metal door. His life was complicated and confused enough. Did he really need to up the ante? Then again, could he afford not to? Snow had assured him the answers to his torment could be found within and he had no reason to doubt him. Even if it was a Pandora’s Box (and Rooster was certain it would be), how could he not open it?

  Fuck it.

  Pushing away from the wall, Rooster walked toward the lockers, casually sliding his hand from his pocket and holding the key down by his thigh.

  They’re after me, man.

  No one seemed to notice as he closed on the locker, pushed the key into the slot then pulled the latch.

  And they know I’m trying to pass the information to you.

  Rooster swung open the door, saw a black leather briefcase inside.

  Once they know you got it, they’re gonna come after you, too.

  Heart racing, he reached inside, yanked it free and walked away, leaving the locker open and the key still in the lock.

  Moving through the sliding front doors and into the cold but fresh air, Rooster hurried down the block and slipped into the first alley he came to, using it to cut through to the next busy street, where he disappeared into the flow of the crowd on the nearest sidewalk.

  Night fell across the city as darkness swept through him, awakening demons eager to tear at a soul already in ruin.

  The fires of Hell burned on.

  * * * *

  He’d always felt relatively safe at the apartment. Now he wasn’t so sure. As he’d crossed town he noticed no tails, but knew he was being watched. Even when he’d hurried across the courtyard and into the projects, the area cold and empty but for one lone child sitting on a stoop a few buildings down, he still felt an overwhelming sense that someone was following him. Once inside he bolted the apartment door, pulled the shades on the windows then set the briefcase on the kitchen table. He remained still and quiet a moment, listening. Some distant sounds from neighboring units bled through the thin walls and the building settled and creaked against the increasing wind, but he could discern nothing out of the ordinary. Next he returned to the windows facing the street and courtyard, spending a few seconds at each one, pulling back the shades enough to peek out and inspect the area for intruders, strange cars or individuals. Nothing.

  Rooster checked his watch. Gaby wouldn’t get home from work for about another hour. He’d have the place to himself for a while. With only a small hanging light in the kitchen illuminating the area, he grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard and poured a shot. As the booze burned then warmed him, he pulled up a chair and sat at the table, eyeing the briefcase as if he expected it to do something other than sit there like the inanimate object it was. A basic black leather model, it had only one main zippered compartment and no markings or personalized indications of any kind. He looked at his hands. Still shaking. For Christ’s sake, he thought. Get a grip. Back in the day he’d been known for his remarkable cool in the face of danger. Hadn’t he? Like so much else it was lost in a dark sea of partial memories, fractured dreams and uncertain yesterdays.

  He pounded down another mouthful of whiskey then held the empty shot glass out before him until he’d willed the trembling to stop. Hand finally steady, or at least reasonably close, he put the glass aside, unzipped the briefcase and reached inside. His hand returned holding a large manila folder held shut by two thick rubber bands. The only other item in the briefcase was a hardcover book. Rooster placed both on the table before him, quickly inspected the briefcase to make certain he’d gotten everything then put it on the floor by his feet.

  There were no markings on the exterior of the manila folder itself but it was stuffed with various documents. The book was black, had no dust-jacket and was badly worn, the back cover blank. Rooster flipped it over.

  A bright red inverted pentagram filled the front cover, the title in matching color above it: DEMONOLOGY: Incantations.

  He vaulted back and away from the table as if hit with an electrical charge, eyes transfixed on the pentagram as his chair tipped over backwards and fell to the floor.

  What do you know about demons?

  Fear crashed him like a wave, surging up through his legs, guts, and into his chest, chills firing through his shoulders and neck, his eyes burning as the uncontrollable shivers returned, this time violently throttling his entire body.

  I’m so cold…

  Voices in his head…familiar voices…

  I’m so…so…cold…

  Flashes of a face stricken with horror, mouth ripped open into a bloody and devilish grin, the skin on the cheeks and forehead moving and tenting impossibly, like something was trapped beneath and trying to get out, something barbed and small slithering for purchase…

  Help me…God in Heaven, help me!

  Clutching his temples, Rooster staggered back, muttering prayers he hadn’t recited since childhood.

  Shadowy visions of a man standing over a body, the stomach cavity split open, his hands grasping a tangle of viscera—ropes of blood and guts squished between his fingers—laughing and squatting closer to the carnage, his face spattered with blood and colorless jellylike fluids, shards of human flesh dangling from the corners of his mouth…and all the while, horrible screams of agony bellowed amidst vicious laughter…

  It wasn’t until Rooster felt the far kitchen wall against his back and slid down to the floor in a heap, sobbing and moaning like a traumatized child, that the visions and voices finally retreated.

  But not before he realized that the face of the man he’d seen—the man in the shadows disemboweling another human being—was his own.

  -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.