He felt nauseated and cold. Shivering, he drew his knees in closer to his chest, then wrapped his arms around his shins. It was all coming back now, gradually, and he wanted to run. Unfortunately Joel wasn’t even in a position to stand up yet, much less flee, so he remained where he was and worked on focusing his vision and clearing his head.
“Relax,” someone said. “Breathe. Give it a minute and you’ll be good as new. It’s normal to be groggy for a few minutes. Need to clear the cobwebs is all.”
The word web reminded him of the spider. He looked for it, but the spider, the web and the butterfly were gone. Had he dreamed them?
Joel kept dragging himself away from where it had been until he felt a wall against his back. With a wider and clearer view of the area, he guessed they’d taken him to one of the abandoned factories. The building was enormous but gutted and falling apart. His head lolled to the side, following the smell of soup, and he found an older man huddled in the corner, eagerly slurping at a steaming can of beef stew. The man looked to be in his sixties or early seventies, was horribly unkempt, and had a long gray beard that hung nearly to the middle of his chest. Dressed in filthy clothes that more closely resembled rags, and shoes that were literally falling apart, the homeless man was obviously unconcerned with anything but his stew, as he noisily scooped plastic spoonful after plastic spoonful into his toothless mouth like he hadn’t eaten in days, which he probably hadn’t.
Sunglasses still in place, Novak and Kavon stepped from the shadows. Kavon had replaced the needle with a handgun, which he held down by his thigh.
Novak smiled and motioned to the homeless man. “This is our new friend Barney,” he said. “Say hi, Barney.”
Barney looked up long enough to nod at Joel, then continued shoveling.
“There’s a lot of homeless people in the city,” Novak explained. “Lots of them take refuge in these old buildings. Hey, beats the streets, right, Barney? Anyway, he looked awful hungry, so we got him some nice discount beef stew in a can. Looks yummy, doesn’t it, Joel? Eating good today, huh, Barney ole boy?”
Barney nodded and gave a toothless grin.
Joel attempted to ask Novak what they’d done to him, but his words came out slurred and unfamiliar. A string of spittle drooled from his mouth and dangled from his bottom lip.
“It’s okay,” Novak assured him. “Sounds and looks like you’ve had a stroke, but it’s nowhere near that serious. The effects wear off fairly quickly. First minute or two can be a bear though.”
“Why are you doing this?” Joel asked, the words still slurred but discernible.
“It’s awfully cold out today, even in here.” Novak’s breath tumbled forth like smoke, as if for emphasis. “So I’ve got an idea. How about we do our best to get along and have our little talk as quickly as we can? Then you can get back in your car, turn the heat way up, get nice and cozy and warm, and be on your way. How does that sound? Does that sound good to you, Joel?”
Spitting the drool free, he swallowed, coughed and wiped his chin. “I want to know who you are, why you’ve been following me and what you want.”
Novak responded in a tone still eerily pleasant but unmistakably threatening. “Joel, it’s been my experience that things tend to work out best when one person does the speaking and one person does the listening. So I’d like you to listen while I speak. Think you could do that for me, Joel? Think you could listen while I speak?”
Joel nodded, hopeful his feigned annoyance masked his anxiety.
“Super.” Novak removed his sunglasses to reveal dull hazel eyes. “That’s a good decision, Joel, and good decisions are the way things ought to be, because if you think about it, life is really all about decisions. To a large degree, the decisions we make determine the kind of lives we ultimately have, wouldn’t you agree, Joel?”
An icy wind whipped against the building, infiltrating the numerous fissures and openings and blowing debris and trash about. Joel was sure he’d never be warm again. Novak continued grinning at him like a psychotic catalogue model, awaiting his response. “Yes,” Joel answered. “I agree.”
“Great, because as it turns out, you have a very important decision to make right now, Joel.” Very subtly, Novak moved closer. “You can go on back to Maine and your nice, quiet life with your beautiful, loving wife, your fat little bald friend and your nifty job. Or you can stay here and continue to do things that are detrimental to your health and well-being, and maybe even theirs. Now I want you to think about that a minute, Joel. I want you to think about it very carefully. Can you do that for me? Can you think about it very carefully, Joel?”
“Threaten me all you want,” Joel told him. “But don’t you ever threaten my wife. I don’t give a shit who you are.”
Novak exchanged glances with Kavon. “Oh, this is so disappointing, Joel. I asked you to listen just now, didn’t I? Didn’t I ask you to listen and then to think very carefully? Jeez Louise, was I not clear on that?”
Before Joel could answer, Kavon stepped forward and kicked him in the stomach. The blow was so violent it took Joel’s his breath away and sent sharp, slashing pains from his gut all the way up into his chest.
As he gasped and slid to the side, Kavon grabbed him by the shoulders, then slammed him against the wall, releasing him to sit up on his own. Joel wobbled but remained upright.
Barney let out a cackling laugh, then continued eating.
“Decisions,” Novak told him. “It’s all about good decisions, Joel.”
Joel’s breath slowly returned, and the sharp pain eventually turned to a dull ache in his lower abdomen. “Is this what you did to Lonnie? Did you threaten him too? Did you kill him when he wouldn’t leave things alone?”
Kavon stepped toward him, but Novak stopped him with a quick shake of his head. “Joel,” Novak said, “I want you to take a good look around. Can you do that?”
Joel stared daggers at him instead.
“Do you see where you are, Joel?” Novak asked. “Here we are in the middle of a city, and yet, we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere, aren’t we? Gosh, I’d imagine a grown man could scream his head off for help out here at the top of his lungs and no one would ever hear him. I’d venture to say someone could even disappear on a road like this, with all those lost little spaces in all these big old buildings, and no one would ever find them. Except for maybe the rats, right, Barney?”
The homeless man was so engrossed with his stew he didn’t answer.
“It’s kind of scary if you think about it,” Novak said. “Are you thinking about it yet, Joel? Give it a try. Think about it for me, and let’s see what you come up with. How’s that sound?”
The pain finally subsiding, Joel straightened his posture but remained sitting. “You’re not going to kill me. Too many people know I’m here looking into things. If I turn up murdered too, it’s going to be impossible to explain.”
“Murdered? I don’t recall saying anything along those lines.” Novak looked to his partner. “Mr. Kavon, do you recall me saying anything along those lines?”
Kavon shook his head.
“Who are you?” Joel pressed. “Who do you work for, Tuser Industries? The government? Who?”
Using his free hand, Kavon fired a vicious uppercut to Joel’s jaw.
As his teeth clacked and his head snapped back, slapping the wall, he let out a grunt, doubled over and fell forward into Kavon’s waiting arms. He propped Joel up, leaning him against the wall again. Joel coughed, then gagged, struggling to catch his breath as nausea and horrific pains raced along his jawline up into his temples.
“Anyhoo,” Novak said, “I’m going to need to see your phone now, okay, Joel?”
“I don’t have it,” he said, his jaw sore and crackling and the back of his skull throbbing. “I left it at the hotel.”
Kavon thrust a beefy hand into Joel’s jacket pocket, yanked
the cell out and handed it to Novak.
“Well, aren’t you a Sneaky Pete? I had a feeling, you rascal.” Novak ran his finger over the screen. “Let’s see. Stop…and…Delete. Now, I’m going to give this back to you, Joel, because I know how expensive these darn things can be and just how attached we get to our cell phones these days. But if you try that again, Mr. Kavon is going to break it up into teeny-weeny little pieces, okay?”
Finally able to sit erect again, Joel took his phone back when it was offered and returned it to his pocket, keeping a wary eye on Kavon throughout. He’d been in his share of fights in his youth, but no one had ever hit him that hard.
“Here’s what it boils down to, Joel.” Novak crouched down in front of him, took Joel by the chin and gently lifted his head until he was looking at him. “Like I said, it’s all about making good decisions.”
Kavon sidled up next to Barney, but the old man didn’t seem to notice.
“Take ole Barnabas for example,” Novak continued, eyes locked on Joel’s. “Nobody’s born a filthy, homeless loser. I’d be willing to guess this old man has made numerous decisions over the course of his miserable and useless life, wouldn’t you, Joel? Wouldn’t you say he’s probably made a lot of decisions in his miserable, useless lifetime?”
In his peripheral vision, Joel saw Kavon straighten his arm and aim the gun just inches from the side of the homeless man’s head. Still slurping and focused on the stew, Barney had no idea a weapon was pointed directly at his temple.
“Yes,” Joel said. “I would.”
“He decided to sleep in this building last night. He decided to stay when we came in. He decided to have some stew on us and hang around. Barney didn’t have to do any of those things. He chose to. Decisions, Joel, decisions.”
As Joel looked into Novak’s dull eyes, he had no doubt that the man before him was a vicious sadist who had killed many human beings. Kavon was the brute and muscle of the two, but Novak was the truly frightening one. “Stop it,” Joel said softly. “Please. He’s done nothing to you. He has nothing to do with any of this.”
Novak stood up. “That’s the thing about our decisions, Joel. They can reward us or they can punish us.” He motioned to Barney. “On one hand, Barney’s decisions rewarded him with that no doubt delicious gourmet beef stew he’s so delicately scarfing down as we speak.”
“You’ve made your point, please—”
“But on the other hand—”
“Novak, don’t!”
“—Barney’s decisions have also led to him to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You see what I mean, Joel? You see how Barney’s in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
A deafening blast exploded through the building, echoing along with Joel’s cry as the homeless man’s head exploded, spraying him with a mist of blood, brains and bodily fluids.
As the body fell over, the can of stew dropped into the growing puddle of blood around Barney’s mangled head, and Joel scrambled away as best he could, vomiting onto the floor as he went.
The ringing in his ears eventually subsided, and Joel worked himself up onto his hands and knees and vomited again. With a shaking hand, he wiped his face clean with the back of his sleeve.
“You with us, Joel?” Novak asked. “Need your attention on this. You think you could give me just a few more seconds of your undivided, Joel?”
With blood and gore dripping from his face and chin, and his body violently trembling, Joel forced himself to look Novak in the eye again.
“It’s all up to you, Joel. We’re not playing games here. I’m going to go ahead and assume you’ve got that through your head now. What do you say, Joel? Is that a safe assumption for me to have? Have you got it through your head now?”
“Yes,” he answered softly.
“Speak up for me so I can be sure I heard you properly. Think you could do that for me, Joel? Think you could speak up for me so I can hear you properly?”
“Yes.”
“There you go. I knew you could do it.” Novak smiled. “It’s all up to you from here, Joel. Do the right thing and you won’t ever see us again. Do the wrong thing and you’ll see us one more time. The choice…the decision…is yours.”
Joel hung his head, drooling blood now, still in shock and unable to process or fully comprehend what he’d just witnessed. A few feet away, Barney’s body continued to twitch and convulse after death.
“Don’t worry about ole Barney and the rest of this mess,” Novak told him. His voice seemed farther away now, and Joel could hear his and Kavon’s shoes clicking against the cement floor as they walked off. “We’ve got people that’ll come in and clean this all up nice. Be like it never even happened. Who knows? Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was all a dream. You have a nice day, Joel. Bye now.”
Joel had no idea how long he lay there with the corpse in that blown-out old factory, praying for his strength and sanity to return, but it seemed like forever.
Eventually he got to his feet and stumbled around the building until he found an exit. Without looking back, he made his way through several yards of tall grass until he reached the side of the road. His car was parked nearby, as if he’d left it there himself.
His stomach, back and jaw throbbed with pain, his mouth tasted like blood, his head was pounding and his arms and legs felt shaky and weak. His emotions were raw and all over the place, switching second to second from tears to rage to fear to disbelief, then back again. Head spinning, Joel dropped behind the wheel and hit the ignition, savoring the warm embrace of the car heater.
When he closed his eyes, all he saw was Taylor staring back at him. There could be no life, no happiness until this was over. To solve the mysteries tormenting him, to stop whoever these people were and the horrible things they were up to, Joel knew what he had to do, and running home with his tail between his legs was not it. He’d come for answers—not just about Lonnie but himself, the others, all of it—he understood that now. People had died for those answers, and he was closer than he’d ever been or ever would be again to getting them.
Novak was right. The decision was his.
Slumped in his car, alone in a dead zone long forgotten, at the edges of a haunted old city, a city of ghosts and shadow, Joel made his choice.
There was no turning back. He’d find the truth or join the dead trying.
Chapter Eighteen
Joel steadied himself against the wall, negotiated the stairwell, then the long hallway to his room. Legs still shaky, he fell against the room door, stuffed a hand in his jacket pocket and retrieved his room key. He inhaled slowly, did his best to ignore the sharp pains that fired along his side and up into his chest with each breath, and exhaled through his mouth. He unlocked the door, pushed it open with his shoulder and staggered in. The door closed on its own and he leaned back against it, eyes slowly adjusting to the low light. The ticking of a clock on the nightstand transcended the constant din in his head, and he focused on it a moment, counting along with the clock, concentrating on something—anything—but the pain. His mouth still tasted like blood. He’d been spitting out globs of it all the way back. He slid a hand along the wall until he found the switch, then flipped the overhead light on.
The fixture came to life, casting the room in a dull yellow haze. It was only midafternoon, and the light wasn’t necessary, but it made him feel better. He waited a while, and once his heart rate slowed, he pushed himself away from the door, struggled out of his jacket and tossed it onto the bed.
Swaying a bit, he made his way to the bathroom.
Joel turned the light on so he could see his reflection in the large mirror over the sink. Although he’d wiped his face and neck clean as best he could, they were still speckled and stained with blood. He looked down, studied the dark crimson soaked into the front of his shirt, which was pasted against him like a second skin. He pulled his shirt off and let it fall
to the floor. It hit the tile with a splat. He leaned forward, hands on the counter in front of him, and slowly raised his head. There was a tiny hole in the flesh near the base of his neck, a reminder of the needle Kavon had stuck him with, and the lower part of his throat was slick with the homeless man’s blood. He touched his jaw, worked it up and down and back and forth. It wasn’t broken, but it was stiff and sore and still grinding a bit. He bit down and felt pain up into his ear. Running the water, he spit blood into the sink, then began checking his teeth. One bottom tooth on the right and near the back was loose and bleeding, courtesy of Kavon’s uppercut.
“Sonofabitch,” he sighed, spit more blood, then cupped water in his hand and drank, swishing it around the tooth before spitting again. A quick inspection of his remaining teeth revealed the rest were intact and undamaged.
Once the water had warmed, Joel washed himself, gently around the right side of his rib cage, which was already sporting a bright purple bruise. His stomach was red and hurt to the touch. He cleaned himself for several minutes, then toweled off and pressed a wet cloth against the back of his head. When it slammed against the wall, it hadn’t broken the skin, but a lump roughly the size of a marble had already formed, and there was a pulsing pain all the way down into his neck.
He left the bathroom, grabbed his bag and dug out a white tank-top tee, a pair of jeans and a black sweatshirt. As he dressed, he groaned occasionally, reminded of the pain even such basic physical maneuvers caused. Gathering his old clothes, right down to the jacket, which was also stained, he threw them into a plastic bag and then into the closet. Once night fell, he’d ditch the bag in the Dumpster down in the parking lot.
An urgent knock on the door froze him in his tracks. Had he locked it behind him? No. The knob turned and the door swung open, the sound echoing through the room like a warning.
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