But this news was not a comfort in any way to the masses. In fact, it only made the whole intolerable situation worse.
A different man than the one who had talked with her last time brought a tray of fast food to Almira. He placed it in front of her and smirked. Almira looked young for her age, which was only accentuated by the braces on her teeth: red wires across pink bands. But she was not unattractive. Quite the contrary. Her black hair was shoulder length, neither long nor short, but with a nice wave to it just where it hit her shoulders. A couple of wisps floated past her eyes on either side of her forehead. Her eyes were big and blue, with long lashes, and her mouth was shapely and full. The man stood looking at her for too long; Almira could no longer pretend not to notice.
“Take a picture, it lasts longer.”
“Maybe I will,” the man said, taking out his Blackberry.
“I was being sarcastic, you dick.”
The man giggled, but it was a serious sound. “Let me see your titties,” he said with a nervous rasp.
“Are you kidding me?” Almira rocked back where she sat, eyebrows springing up. She didn’t expect an in-person conversation that sounded like dirty chat on the Internet. But she recovered quickly. “Show me your titties first.”
The man laughed. Then he untucked his shirt and pulled it up over his nipples. “You like?”
“There’s cameras in here, jackass. You won’t get away with whatever you’re thinking of.”
“Yes, I will, sweetheart.” The man leered. “I turned all the cameras off. Everyone else is gone for the next hour.”
Now Almira was scared. Real scared, but not unprepared.
“I do like what I see,” she said. This was not a lie; he actually had pretty good abs. If he wasn’t a completely repulsive lech, she might have found him almost cute. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. It was a strategy. “Let me see more, baby.”
“Oh, bitch, I knew you were that kind of girl.” The man leaned in closer and licked his lips, slow and provocatively. Then he stepped back and took off his shirt. He was pretty old, probably in his late twenties, maybe even thirty (gross).
The man didn’t stop at his shirt. He unbuckled his belt and slowly pulled it off through the loops, like he was Magic Mike. He swiveled his hips, and flicked his tongue in and out of his mouth lasciviously.
“Oooh, yeah,” Almira said, in the best imitation of a slutty girl voice that she could muster. In reality, she was trying not to throw up. Or laugh. “Take off your pants and get over here,” she said in her best sexy growl. What the fuck are you doing, Almira?
The poor puppy dog, Almira thought, he’s doing it. This is one obedient motherfucker.
The man came closer, his excitement obvious in his camouflage briefs. The man had only one thought in his head at that moment, and so did Almira. But her thought had nothing to do with forcing sex on a defenseless person. Hers was focused only on surviving, no matter what. No cameras and no one else in the building. This moment would never come again.
The man strode over to Almira, who sat in the chair, her hands cuffed to a small bar welded to the table in front of her. He wriggled his crotch up to her face. Every instinct in Almira’s body told her to turn her head, pull away, scream.
Instead, she knew somehow, that the only way she had any chance right now was to play along.
So, instead of screaming, she moaned.
At that sound, the man groaned. Call and response.
“Baby, baby,” Almira breathed, her voice deliberately low and seductive. “Uncuff me,” she said, batting her eyes, fluttering her long lashes. “I can’t do anything sitting like this.” She slid in her chair provocatively, to demonstrate that her hands being cuffed was no good for anyone. For emphasis, she moaned again, louder this time, and licked her lips.
The man stopped and pulled away from her. “What, you think I’m stupid. No. You take it sitting right there. You don’t need hands for what I have in mind.”
Almira moaned, only this time she did it to show disappointment. She pushed out her lower lip, in an exaggerated baby face. Men were suckers for that face.
“Trust me,” she said. “You want the hands. You have never had a B.J. like I can give.”
He hesitated.
Gotcha, Almira thought.
“I need my hands to touch you, everywhere . . . ” she said suggestively.
He let out an involuntary moan. Almost there, Almira thought.
“And, I need my hands,” she breathed and closed her eyes. “To touch myself.”
He was already back at his pants by the door, fumbling for the keys there.
Score—and game!
The man returned, looking as if he’d stuffed a banana in his underwear while he was turned around. He jabbed at the lock a couple of times before he finally got the key in place and clicked the handcuffs free.
Now what? Almira thought, as the cuffs fell away from her wrists, clanging to the table. I got him to uncuff me. Now how do I stop this bastard before I actually get raped?
Driving down the lane toward the center of town, Congressman John Dowdy had a million things on his mind. Talk radio filled the car and occasionally he would hear a diatribe against the media or the government. He would nod in agreement or sometimes blurt out, “damn straight!” Then his mind would return to his inner thoughts, as if his brain floated on an air mattress in a warm July pool. More blah, blah, blah on the radio. More thoughts of illegals, homos, lesbos, and taxes in his head.
He rolled to a stop at a red light, and dully watched the east-west traffic clatter by. He checked his rearview absently to see how long the line was behind him.
That’s when he saw the thing.
The Shadow.
Sitting. The damn thing had the audacity to sit in John Dowdy’s car like a passenger. Comfortably in repose in the man’s own car.
Outrageous. Dowdy had heard Rush speak of such insults, and how we should protest and take back our lives, and how the clods in Washington were doing nothing. Worse. They were no doubt behind it all. At the very least, Shadows were al-Qaeda. Certainly Muslim.
Congressman Dowdy grit his teeth, grinding his upper molars against his lower. He turned to confront the thing. “I’m an American!” he called out. But there was nothing, no one, there. A horn blast from a car behind him reminded him to turn back around in his seat and get going. That the light was green.
Ironically, the horn blast was due to a guy three cars back leaning over to get a pen from his glove compartment. He had set the horn off with his shoulder. The light was still red.
John Dowdy roared angrily into traffic, through the red light, and directly into the path of a sixteen-wheeler carrying logs. The logs spilled from the truck, crushing John Dowdy to death inside his black Buick.
“The problem is, we can’t tell you what’s going on. It’s that simple. We know, you don’t. It’s need to know. You don’t have that need, in our estimation.”
Detective First Class Gloria Meehan twisted her mouth into an expression of complete exasperation. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard today. For godsakes, I’m a cop—one of the good guys. You can tell me.”
“No, ma’am, we can’t. It’s a matter of national security. Telling you could result, after a few loose lips, in a state of panic. First locally and then across the country and eventually across the world.”
“I’m sorry, what the hell are you talking about?” Meehan asked. “I thought Homeland had an anti-terrorist agenda?”
The man, who insisted on anonymity but called himself “Mr. Geist,” sighed and ran his hand through his thin salt and pepper hair. “Look, there’s some crazy shit going down,” he said. “And you can quote me on that. Shit like you couldn’t even imagine.” For some reason, he winked. “Right now, we have no idea how to control it. Even what it is. That is not to be quoted.”
“I get you.”
“These kids, these two girls, right now we feel they know something, may
have seen something.”
“Are you saying they might be the key to whatever it is you’re talking about?” Meehan asked, getting lost in her own question.
“I’m saying they might have witnessed somethings, something that could lead us on a fresh trail.” The man sat back and straightened his tie. “Because right now we are thoroughly stumped.”
Meehan stood up and started to pace. She stopped and glared at the man. “I’m a cop and as far as I’m concerned, there’s a kidnapping here. Possibly two. I understand you are a representative of our elected government, but you’ve broken the law.” She sliced the room with her arm. “It’s my job to enforce the law,” she said, her voice rising. “I will do what I have to do. I won’t let this go.”
“Well, Detective Meehan, I’m sorry. In that case I can’t let you go. Rodgers!”
Another man stepped into the room. He had an earpiece in one ear.
“Rodgers, Detective Meehan will be our guest until further notice, I’m sorry to say. Please take her upstairs. The unfortunate reality is that she must be detained, but I’d like her to be as comfortable as possible. Bring her anything she requests.”
“You’re shitting me, right?” Meehan said, choking out the words.
“No, I am not.”
“This is three kidnappings. You get that, right? Federal crime?”
“I see it as three suspicious characters being held for the sake of national security.”
“Really? Then I want to speak to my lawyer.”
“Rodgers?”
“Sir.”
“About granting her any request. Nix that. Clear all requests through me, no matter how insignificant they may seem be.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I mean, every request,” Geist said. “I don’t care how small or how many times you have to interrupt me. Is that understood?”
“Completely.”
“Bite me,” Meehan shouted over her shoulder as she was hustled out of the room. “You won’t get away with this. There are laws in this country, buster.”
“Yes, your job is to enforce the laws of this country. Mine is to make sure there’s still a country around for you to enforce laws in.”
After Detective Meehan had been dragged away, “Mr. Geist” stared at the stack of reports on his desk. This phenomenon of deaths was a natural curiosity up until a few days ago, something like a New Bubonic Plague. But things had changed. People were reporting sightings. Like they always did. This time, though, they weren’t of UFOs or Sasquatch. They were reporting shadows moving in the night. Shadows with nothing behind them. But death was in the shadows.
Ordinarily, he’d dismiss such crap for the nonsense it was. Except this time was different.
This time, he’d seen a Shadow, too.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There’s Someone That I Want You To Meet
At the Sunset Inn on South Indiana Avenue, a working girl by the name of Sugar adjusted her breasts inside her bra, one and then the other, while staring at the drooling man splayed across the bed. Once she had her boobs all set, puffed out over the top of her red bra like fresh-baked bread, she stepped into her platform heels, gaining nearly half a foot in height, and wriggled her miniskirt back on. The bathroom door was open, and she stood by the bed directly in front of it. Pulling herself back up to her full height, she caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror.
She screamed. A low, frightened-animal sound at first. Then a shrill, high-pitched scream.
What startled her so was what she thought she glimpsed in the mirror: the reflection of a shadow. But there was nothing in the mirror now, except Sugar herself and the section of furniture, wall, and curtain that the mirror reflected.
Sugar smiled a crooked smile to herself. Her john was still passed out on the bed, having had both Sugar and smack. Sugar eyed the needle on the bed. The man had only injected less than half of the heroin before passing out. She sat down on the bed, wrapped the cord around her bicep, and picked up the used needle. She jabbed the needle in her vein, sighed, and fell back onto the mattress, blissfully numb.
The man in the bed was not passed out, after all. He was stone dead. Turns out it was bad junk: contaminated heroin.
Sugar found that out, too. Only she never had that thought. She went from sleep to eternal sleep, just as her john had a half an hour earlier.
The shadow on the wall, cast by the chair near the standing lamp, moved from the wall to the door and slipped out through the sill and into the chill of the late afternoon.
Mr. Gardener lay on the couch, his stomach growling. Hunger wasn’t the problem. It was overeating. Since his daughter had gotten hurt and then had disappeared, he’d gone from not eating, to drinking again, to eating everything in sight. Now he laid there, his stomach killing him, wishing he had some kind of control over anything at all.
The impotence was the thing. He’s sheer inability to do anything. To find who hurt his daughter. To fight back. To help her get well. To protect her. To keep her from being taken or disappeared or running away or whatever had happened. The impotence of being a man with no manly duty. He wanted to shoot something, to kill someone. But there was no one. The police—this idiot girl Detective Meehan—they hadn’t a clue. Not a single idea what was happening. To Flower. To the neighborhood. To the whole town of Kantaby.
Gardener lifted his wrist high over his face to check the time on his watch. Then he dropped it back down to his side. 2:46 PM, Saturday afternoon. The phone hadn’t rung since the day before. No calls anymore from friends or family. No updates from Detective Meehan. He didn’t know what to do, which way to turn.
Then the phone actually rang.
At first he didn’t recognize the sound. Then he wrestled himself to his feet and got to the kitchen.
“Yeah?” he said, his voice cracking.
“Gardener?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Sergeant Wilcox, with the Kantaby Police.”
“Yeah, what is it? Have you found her?”
“No. Not yet, at least.”
Gardener’s heart dropped deeper into the lost part of his soul.
“I wanted to call you,” Wilcox went on, “and let you know that Detective Meehan is pursuing a good lead. I expect to hear from her soon, maybe within the hour.”
“That’s great, I—”
“Now, this lead may be cold. It may take us nowhere. I wanted you to know that we are working to find your daughter. I don’t want you to despair. I know what it can be like, to be waiting and not hearing.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. Least I could do. I know what it can be like, to be waiting and not hearing.”
“With all due respect,” Mr. Gardener said. “I don’t think you do know what it’s like.”
“Excuse me?”
“To be sitting and waiting. It’s terrible and it’s dark and it can crush you.”
There was silence at the other end of the phone.
“I do know,” Wilcox said, almost silently. “Trust me. I do.”
The man had his pants off; only socks and underwear kept him on this side of decency. He freed Almira and she stood up and kissed him hard. She stood in a way that purposefully avoided contact with his body straight on.
The man kissed her back. He tasted of beer and cigarettes. He reached under Almira’s blouse and fiddled with her bra.
Almira raised her knee as fast as she could and with all her strength, aimed for his crotch. It was a sledgehammer to a watermelon (an act Almira had seen on television as a kid and the exact effect she was going for).
The man hollered and fell to the ground on his back like a cockroach, covering his private parts. Almira knew the pain wouldn’t last more than a few seconds. Then he’d want her blood. She grabbed the chair behind her, a metal chair with a black, pleather seat. She hoisted it above the man’s crotch, then she had to look away for the next part. Almira even closed her eyes as she rammed the steel
leg of the chair into the man’s groin with all she was worth.
He screamed again, this time more high-pitched, and then went silent.
Almira looked down at him as the chair toppled off his nuts. Even so, Almira knew she only had minutes, maybe seconds, to get out of that room. To get far, far away from this entire place.
Wave after wave of Shadow things swooped down into Chicago. From below, they only appeared as storm clouds descending. But they were shadows, clustered like a king rat. One Shadow of Death with a thousand heads peering in all directions. These shadow heads morphed the shadow material around them into what looked like faces—hideous distorted faces, shadowy, smoky screaming visages lowering to the streets of Chicago.
Below, those who still could walked the sidewalks, hailed cabs, rode buses, made their way to work, on errands, to another place. Oblivious that the end of the world had come so quickly.
The nest of Shadows hit first near Millennium Park, where tourists died instantly of cancer, flu, heart attacks, shock, exposure. The things touched down again at the Navy Pier. Thousands died in freak accidents seconds apart as the equipment collapsed and the pier crashed into Lake Michigan.
Next, the bundle of death reached deep into downtown. The Magnificent Mile was not magnificent at all, just a death march, as hundreds and hundreds collapsed where they stood, victims of strange diseases, odd accidents, peculiar situations. Guns misfired, propane tanks exploded, electric wires whipped down, prescription pills stopped working or were mis-prescribed, heredity conditions heretofore undiagnosed reared up. People in bars were drowning in the beer they were drinking or getting into fights that ended in death. People in restaurants were choking to death on bones in their meals or from poisonous ingredients. Crossing the street at the wrong time, bending to pick up an umbrella, skull in the site of an oncoming bus. Patrons in Wrigley Field being killed by foul balls. Crashing cars, planes, and ships. Accidental hangings, shootings, immolations, falls. People being crushed, suffocated, or hiccuping or laughing themselves to death.
SHADOWS OF DEATH: Death Comes with Fury (and Dark Humor) To a Small Town South of Chicago Page 13
