The Inside Dark

by James Hankins

  The house looked dark from the street, which wasn’t surprising. Cobb was almost certainly on his way back from Vermont at the moment and had no family but his father, who was lying in a facility someplace, no doubt, where medical professionals could care for him around the clock. There was no car in the driveway. A car was parked on the street between Cobb’s house and the neighbor’s to the right, but it obviously wasn’t Cobb’s or it would have been in his driveway.

  Jason’s plan was simple. He’d try to get inside, then do a quick search for anything linking him to Crackerjack, just in case, evidence he’d take with him when he left later. Then he’d wait for Cobb and kill him the second he entered the house. With any luck, it would look like a burglary gone tragically wrong.

  Cobb had left him no viable alternative. Jason would have to ambush him and kill him. Cave his head in with the tire iron, which would be ugly and bloody but also dripping with poetic justice.

  This wouldn’t be easy. As much as Cobb deserved it, this would truly be murder in cold blood. Despite what had or hadn’t gone through his mind the night of the car accident, something he would never know for sure . . . despite his killing Wallace Barton in self-defense . . . he had never truly imagined himself capable of something like this. But he needed to be.

  He stood in the shadows, closed his eyes, and listened for a voice inside him, a voice urging him on, telling him that he was doing the right thing, the only thing he could do to save his family, to save countless others from Ian Cobb. He stood in the dark, looking inward, listening inward, hoping just a little to hear encouraging whispers, but terrified of hearing them, too.

  He heard nothing. Did that mean there was no darkness inside him after all? Or was it simply staying out of this fight, perhaps waiting to see if Jason would prove himself worthy?

  Crazy thoughts.

  Get your head in the game.

  He checked the time on his phone. If Cobb came straight home from Woodstock, he’d arrive less than two hours from now. He might take the time to check the Sleep Easy Motel, Jason’s apartment, Sophie’s house, and even Ben’s apartment, but Jason doubted it. It would have been stupid for Jason to be in any of those places, and Cobb knew it. Either way, he’d come home eventually.

  And Jason would be waiting for him.

  First, though, he had to get into the house. If he had to, he’d break a window—one that Cobb wouldn’t notice when he first arrived. The houses on either side of Cobb’s were dark. The neighborhood was asleep. Jason moved quickly through the shadows, tire iron in hand, along the side of the house. At the back door, he peered into what looked like a mudroom and saw no alarm panel. Without much hope, he tried the doorknob, using the hand-through-the-shirt trick to avoid leaving fingerprints. To his surprise, the knob turned, and he pushed the door open.

  Was he wrong? Maybe Cobb didn’t go to Vermont at all. Maybe this was a trap. Could he be waiting inside, weapon in hand, like Jason had been planning to do?

  He was about to find out.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Jason stood in the mudroom of Cobb’s house and listened. As expected, he heard nothing. After a moment, he started moving through the moonlit kitchen, toward the hallway. The sweat in his palm made the tire iron slip slightly in his grasp, and when he readjusted his grip the tool clanked against the kitchen table. If Cobb had been home, he probably would have heard—

  Footsteps sounded above him. He froze. For too long, he froze. The footsteps were on the stairs now, and a light clicked on in the hallway.

  “Mr. Cobb?”

  A woman’s voice. It came from near the bottom of the stairs. Jason had no choice but to duck through the doorway to his right, into a bathroom. A nightlight glowed from an outlet above the vanity. He pulled the door shut and locked it.

  The footsteps stopped right outside the bathroom.

  “Mr. Cobb?”

  After a moment, Jason responded in a voice slightly deeper than his own, as close to Cobb’s as he could make it. “Yeah?”

  “Everything’s fine here,” the woman said. “I’m heading home now, if that’s all right.”

  He said nothing.

  “All right then?”

  Again, imitating Cobb’s voice as best he could for the length of a single syllable, he said, “Sure.”

  “Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”

  He heard footsteps fade away down the hall. A moment later, a door opened, then closed.

  He’d been half-right. Cobb wasn’t home. But somebody had been.

  He opened the door and peered into the hallway. Empty. Outside, a car started. It must have been the one parked on the street.

  Who was that woman?

  She had come from upstairs. So Jason climbed the stairs. As he neared the top, he began to hear strange, rhythmic sounds. A whirring, then a sucking, followed by a click. Then the same pattern, over and over.

  He paused at the first door and looked into what appeared to be a children’s bedroom. A twin bed and a set of bunk beds. Pennants and posters on the wall. Sports trophies and stuffed animals. He knew that Cobb didn’t have children, so seeing this made gooseflesh rise on his arms.

  As he approached the second door, which stood open, the sounds grew louder and he recognized them for what they were. And then he was at the threshold, looking in at the pale, gaunt man in the bed, his stick-figure arms at his sides atop covers. Tubes ran from his throat to a machine in the corner, a ventilator. According to Cobb, his father had been like this for eight years.

  It had never crossed Jason’s mind that Cobb kept his incapacitated father here at home. He had assumed the man would be in a long-term-care facility. That must have been a nurse who left moments ago.

  He couldn’t imagine how much it cost Cobb to have his father live with him . . . if one could call what he was doing living. And Cobb had said he intended to keep his father alive for as long as medical science would allow, despite pleas for mercy from the old man’s doctor. Jason shuddered. He had no idea what this man had done to Ian Cobb, what sins he had committed, but no one should be made to exist like this.

  Jason felt a barely perceptible vibration in his pocket and pulled out his phone. Cobb was calling, using his own cell phone this time. Apparently, the police didn’t find him at Geri’s house. Jason considered letting the call go to voice mail, but after four rings, he answered.

  “Where are you?” Cobb asked without preamble. “Where are they?”

  “My family? Somewhere safe.”

  “For now. But not for long.” Something was wrong with Cobb’s speech. It was thick. And a little slurred. “That was the second time you tried to get me arrested.”

  “I said I wouldn’t tell the cops about who you really are . . . what you really are. I never said I wouldn’t call them at all.”

  As they talked, Jason stared at the face of Cobb’s father, gray and drawn, his empty eyes staring sightlessly at the dark ceiling. He listened to the quiet whir, hiss, click of the ventilator, without which the man would suffocate and die.

  “You cheated,” Cobb said. “And it’s going to cost you. It’s going to cost you everything.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m done letting you jerk me around. I’m done listening to my brother’s pain. You aren’t worth it.”

  “God, you’re nuts. You know what, Cobb? I’m done, too. I’m going to call the police and tell them everything.”

  “That’s funny. That’s exactly what I’m gonna do. I’ll tell them how I’m starting to remember things I must have suppressed, about how you were working with Barton all along, how you were there when he broke my bones, and how you were the one who tackled him on top of me, then convinced me that I was wrong, that it was the other way around. Let’s see which one of us they believe.”

  “I’ll tell them—”

  “Were you able to find all of the evidence I planted at your house?”

  After a brief pause, he said, “Yes,” though he doubted t
hat was true.

  “All twelve things?”

  He’d found only eight, but assuming that Cobb was bluffing, he replied, “Actually, I found more than that.”

  “Well, I planted twenty-two. There’s no way you found them all. Plus, I’ve got the video of you with the hit man’s body. You’re screwed, Jason.”

  It was sounding to Jason as though Cobb might be right about that.

  “They’ll arrest you,” Cobb added. “And when they do, what will Sophie think of you? What will Max think of his daddy?”

  Jason was still staring at Cobb’s father.

  “Jason?”

  He checked the time. He probably had less than an hour now before Cobb would be home.

  “Of course, it won’t matter what they think because they won’t be around for long. Once you’re behind bars, they’ll be easy pickings.”

  Jason spotted a box on the nightstand beside the bed. A powder-blue latex glove protruded from the top like a tissue poking out of a Kleenex box. Jason slipped a pair onto his hands.

  “Enjoy your last night of freedom, Jason. And say goodbye to your family while you’re at it.”

  “Wait.”

  After a pause, Cobb said, “Yeah?”

  “You’ve got me by the balls. I have some thinking to do. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  He hung up without another word. It was a gamble. Maybe Cobb would call the police, but he seriously doubted it. When his phone rang again, he ignored it and began to search the house, looking for any evidence Cobb might have kept that could tie him to Crackerjack’s crimes. Twenty minutes later, he found a box behind a larger box on the top shelf of an upstairs closet. Inside were small jars of paint, a collection of delicate brushes, and a book on face painting.

  A plan began to come to him. He put the box back and kept searching the house. Forty-six minutes later, when Cobb pulled into the driveway, Jason was back outside, watching from behind a tree down the block. He was ready.

  Someone was going to die tonight. And Jason would be either a cold-blooded murderer or a victim. He wasn’t thrilled about either option but knew which he was pulling for.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Cobb had driven straight home from Vermont. There was no point checking the local places where Jason would likely hide out, because there was no way he’d be in any of them. He was smart enough not to make that mistake. He was undoubtedly holed up with his wife and son right now, somewhere Cobb wouldn’t find tonight, trying to decide whether he should go on the run with Sophie and Max, or take his chances and go to the police. Would he call Cobb in the morning as he said he would? Maybe. Was Cobb ready to call the police himself? Absolutely. Unless he decided to try to trick Jason into revealing his whereabouts, in which case he’d kill him. Either way, it could wait until morning.

  He was bone tired.

  He left his van in the driveway and entered the house through the mudroom, as always.

  The last time he’d felt this low was right after Johnny died. Nothing had gone as he’d hoped the past couple of weeks. Everything was shit.

  Deep inside him, the pain he had inherited from his brother chewed on his bones. With clawed fingers it plucked tendons and sinew like harp strings, each tug sending another ripple of ache through him. Even now he felt his pain scratching at the inside of his skull. God, how he hurt.

  He had a fever. No doubt. It must have been 103 degrees. Maybe higher.

  Jason would love to see Cobb this way.

  And Cobb would love to see Jason at that moment, too. He’d kill him without a moment’s hesitation, despite his resemblance to Johnny, despite all the things that had forged a bond between them. He could have killed anyone at that moment. In fact, he’d have to be careful to control himself when Carolyn—

  Where was Carolyn?

  She was usually thumping down the stairs by the time he reached the kitchen table. The other night she had even stood outside the bathroom and said good night, not even giving him time to take a piss in peace.

  She must have dozed off by his father’s bed. It had happened before. Cobb didn’t give a damn. The old man certainly never seemed to care.

  He trudged up the stairs on weary legs, each step more difficult than the last.

  Was he dying? It felt like he was dying.

  When he had almost reached the second floor, the doorbell rang. Cobb didn’t have to check his watch to know that it was nearly three-thirty in the morning. And he wouldn’t have to look through the peephole to know that Jason Swike was at the door.

  He descended the stairs again, returned to the kitchen, and grabbed his stun gun from the counter, where he’d left it beside his car keys.

  The doorbell rang again. He opened it a few inches and peered through the crack.

  “I thought you were going to call me in the morning,” he said.

  “I said I had some thinking to do,” Jason said. “I just finished doing it.”

  “Show me your hands.”

  Jason raised two empty hands.

  “Now turn in place, slowly.”

  He did. No gun that Cobb could see. That was the only thing that would have concerned him. He could handle anything else. He opened the door all the way.

  “I have a proposition for you,” Jason said.

  “I’m all ears.”

  He stepped aside and Jason walked past. He lowered his hands and Cobb let him. After Cobb shut the door, he said, “Gotta frisk you.”

  “Be my guest.”

  He did and came up empty.

  “You here to try to talk me out of telling the police the truth about you?” Cobb asked.

  “You mean telling them lies about me.”

  “You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to. But now that you’re here, I’ll probably just kill you.”

  Jason opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again, frowning. He studied Cobb’s face. “Man, you look half-dead.”

  Of course he did. The pain was squatting on its haunches up in his head now, poking at the backs of his eyeballs.

  “Inside Dark,” he said, but realized he might have said it only in his mind. “Is that why you’re here? To sacrifice yourself? You let me kill you and I’ll leave your family alone? And maybe they’ll get to keep some of the money you’ve made? Something like that?”

  Jason shook his head. “No, I’m not here to die. I’m here to make a deal.” He looked Cobb dead in the eye. “I’m ready to watch you kill someone.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  “You’re lying,” Cobb said. “This is a trick.”

  “No trick,” Jason said. “No lie. We need to end this. I’ve figured out a way to do it that will work for us both.”

  Cobb nodded but seemed barely interested in the conversation. Jason couldn’t believe how badly the man was sweating.

  “You need to kill someone,” Jason said. “And you need me to watch. And from the looks of you, you need to do it soon. Very soon. I don’t know how much of this is in your head, but you sure as hell look like you have one foot in the grave yourself, so apparently this has to happen fast, I’m guessing.”

  Cobb didn’t disagree. He said nothing.

  “Well,” Jason continued, “I’m ready. Here’s what I propose: In the morning, we go wherever your father is staying and I watch while you kill him. Make it look natural. If they question how it happened, I’ll back you up. But here’s the important part . . . we both record the entire thing on our phones so we each have evidence against the other. That way, neither one of us can ever go to the cops without implicating himself in a premeditated murder. After it’s done, you’ll feel better and we’ll go our separate ways, each armed with the means to destroy the other . . . and ourselves. Mutual assured destruction.”

  Cobb’s face twitched. He seemed to be working it through in his head.

  “I don’t want my father to die,” he finally said. “I told you that. I want him to keep suffering.”

  “From what you also told me, he’s old an
d broken and practically dead anyway. That’s why I chose him. It’s the only way I’ll do it. I don’t want to watch you kill a young, healthy man. But your father . . . you should have let him die a long time ago. I think I could live with that. And who knows? You might be right. Maybe I won’t find it as . . . objectionable as I think I will. Maybe I’ll find it . . . interesting.” After a brief pause, he added, “Maybe there’s a voice in my head whispering to me right now, telling me to give in.”

  Cobb chewed on it some more. Then he shook his head.

  “My father has to live, Jason. He has to live with what he’s done.”

  “But he’s not really living now, from what you told me. From what his doctors have been telling you. He’s not aware of anything happening around him. You need to kill, Cobb, with me watching, and you need to do it soon. And admit it, after all your father did? After what he allowed to happen to Johnny? Wouldn’t you enjoy killing him? Pulling the plug and watching him gasp for air like a goldfish out of its bowl?”

  Cobb took a deep breath. Then another. “Then what? Then I’m all alone.”

  “Then you find someone else, like you said. Someone like Barton. It probably won’t take long. There are plenty of others like you out there. Spend an hour on the Internet and you’ll find a dozen.”

  “And you? What if you do find it ‘objectionable’?”

  “I’ll take my family far from here and try to forget all about you.”

  “I thought you said you couldn’t do that.”

  “I’ll do anything to protect my wife and son.” He let Cobb think for a moment. “And you never know, I might give in to some sort of . . . Inside Dark, after all.”

  Cobb closed his eyes and thought for a long moment. After several seconds, his lips started to move as he spoke silently to himself . . . or maybe to his dead brother. Jason watched, unsure which way this was going to go. It was entirely possible that Cobb would use his stun gun to put Jason at his mercy . . . of which he had none.

  Then he opened his eyes and said, “We don’t have to go anywhere. My father’s upstairs.”