Frank pressed his palms against the floor and leapt up to break for the rear door, hobbling wildly, but the rabbit was too fast. Psycho Rabbit skipped forward and swung his leg around to sweep Frank's feet from under him, sending him crashing to the ground with a thud. The air leapt out of Frank's lungs like popped tires and he wheezed trying to refill them.
"Who are you working with?" Dez said again. "You know what, fuck it. Hit him again."
"He can't breathe," Skip said. He looked down at Frank's crumpled form and felt his face twist in disgust, "Just give him a second."
"I don't care anymore. I'm sick and tired of these suburban assholes." Dez nodded at the pink bunny and said, "Have fun."
Psycho Rabbit raised the stick in the air with both paws like he was about to chop down a tree and aimed for Frank's head, swinging like he was about to cave it in. Frank looked up at the descending stick and closed his eyes. He saw his children receiving a folded flag just after the goddamn helicopters flew over.
The sharp, deafening report of a gunshot barked inside the empty station, stopping Psycho Rabbit in mid-swing and making the other men clutch their ears instinctively. Dust and splinters rained down on Skip from where he'd fired a hole in the roof of the station and he lowered his gun at the rabbit and said, "Give me that fucking stick." He snatched the baton and walked over to where Frank was laying and said, "Are you selling us out?"
Frank's ears were ringing and felt stuffed with cotton but he'd been able to make out enough of what Skip was saying to mutter, "No."
Skip got down on his knees and put the barrel of the gun to Frank's temple. It was shaking in his hand and the metal was hot against Frank's skin from just being fired. Skip's voice knotted in his throat and he said, "Are you fucking selling us out, Frank?"
Frank turned and looked him directly in the eye, his voice firm and steady when he said, "No. I came here for help."
Skip bit his lower lip and lowered the gun, "Get up."
"What the fuck are you doing, Skip?" Dez shouted.
"Shut the fuck up, Dez! I swear to Christ I will kill every single person in this room if I have to." He watched Frank struggle to his feet and said, "Can you walk?"
"Yeah," Frank said.
Skip held out the stained orange baton to Frank and said, "I'm leaving. Do you understand? I'm getting the fuck out of this shithole, and I was never here."
Frank took the baton from him and said, "Okay. Let me walk out with you, Skip."
Skip raised the gun at Frank and said, "No! That's between you three. All you know is that I was never here. Say it."
"You were never here."
Skip backed away from them all, now turning the gun on the others. "You fuckers can sort this out on your own. However you want. I don't give a shit if you all kill each other."
"You're a piece of shit," Dez spat. "You're finished. I hope you get AIDS from some fucking crackwhore in the twenty-ninth district, cocksucker."
Skip laughed bitterly as he backed away from them toward the door. He worked the lever with one hand while keeping his gun moving from man to man with the other, until he had finally opened it enough to step backwards through. He slammed the door shut on them, leaving them with only the soft amber light of the setting sun coming in through the cracks in the walls and ceiling to show as Dez Dolos calmly walked over to his folded suit coat and pulled out the Beretta 9mm he'd placed beneath it. "Put the nightstick down and we'll talk, Frank."
There would be no talking, Frank knew.
The Psycho Rabbit had begun to pace once more, stalking across the floor like a chained beast staring through its cell bars at Frank, just waiting for the moment to be unleashed. Its mask a distorted pink mass of bucktoothed smile and black mesh eyes.
There was nothing left but Dez and his gun, the maniac in the bunny suit and Frank with an old police baton.
A dozen police academy cadets lined up on either side of him, all of them dressed in the same dark blue t-shirt and sweatpants, their hands squished in the damp Conshohocken soil, pushing up and down at the instructors command. "Upppppppp, dowwwwwwn, uppppppp, dowwwwwwn," in a never ending sequence of pain. The instructor looked out over the field of young men and shouted, "There will come a time when you are faced with insurmountable odds and have the option to lay down and die like a maggot or fight, do you understand?"
"Sir, yes sir!" the cadets shouted back at him.
"There will be bullets flying in your direction or a horde of roving barbarians in your AO and it will fall to you to stop them, do you understand?"
Frank's arms were on fire and trembling with each pushup but he would not quit. None of them would quit. Not because it meant having to run laps or do extra work but because to quit was to die, and they were not there die. Frank threw back his head and bellowed, "Sir, yes sir!"
"You will be stabbed, you will be shot, you will be blown up by a motherfucking thermal nuclear explosion and what will you do?"
"Fight!"
"You will watch all of the people around you abandon their post and flee in terror, what will you do?"
"Fight!"
"Your wife and children will beg and plead for you to not die unless you do what?"
"Fight!"
"What do I expect you to do?"
"Fight!"
"What?"
Fight!
"What!"
Frank opened his mouth and roared an incomprehensible battle cry as he launched forward in the darkness, swinging the stick as hard as he could for the big pink target. Psycho Rabbit threw his right arm up in time to block and Frank heard the distinct crack of wood on bone through the soft felt layer of costume. Frank swung again and again, bashing the rabbit's arm and shoulder into strange formations like he was hammering steel, oblivious to the muffled yelps inside the helmet. He kicked the thing between the legs with the ball of his foot, driving the point of his sneaker up as hard and deep as he could, hoping to hear its nuts pop.
Dez was dancing frantically around in the darkness, screaming for Frank to stop or he'd shoot, but Frank bashed the rabbit again and again, chopping it on the knees and head like a lumberjack, like a man trying to break out of prison.
Dez's gun fired twice in rapid succession, its barrel bursting with bright yellow flame that lit the room for a millisecond. All of the muscles in Frank's body stiffened at the sharp sounds but he still had the stick and he hadn't been hit. He thought of all the movies he'd seen where the hero gets shot and doesn't realize it until after the action was over and someone said, "My God, you've been hit!" But Frank had been shot before and he fucking well knew it and when Dez's gun went off, all it did was tell Frank where the bastard was.
Frank darted across the room and swung wildly back and forth until he felt the baton crash into something that crunched. Dez howled miserably and the gun clattered against the floor. Frank swung his leg up as hard as he could and slammed his shin into Dez's bent over face, the pain of the man's chin and skull against his injured leg almost as bad as it was satisfying.
The other men were down, Frank could see that much. He gripped and re-gripped the baton like a clean-up hitter and heaved for breath, feeling like he was about to vomit. Whatever strength had possessed him to overcome them was now gone and he felt only sickness and disgust for what had happened.
He inched backward; clutching the stick with both hands for fear that it would slip out of his grip from both sweat and a sudden fit of trembling. He gasped in horror as Dez lifted his head from the ground and groaned. Dez's speech was mangled by his broken lips and cracked front teeth and he reached up to touch them with trembling fingers, feeling nothing but blood as he shouted, "You motherfucker!"
"Don't do it," Frank said. "Stay down!"
"You son of a bitch!"
Dez flopped on the ground in the area where the gun had fallen and Frank spun to get away, running for the only thing he could see, the rear exit framed by the now almost nonexistent light. He heard the gun scrape the lobby floor as Dez's f
ingers locked onto it. He even heard the cylinders and mechanisms inside the chamber move and creak as Dez squeezed the trigger and the firing pin punched the end of the hollow-point bullet within.
The bullet erupted out of the barrel with lethal speed, spinning through the air toward Frank just as he dove for the door, raising his arms to protect his face as he crashed through the rotted wood. He broke through a thick tangle of dry, thorny branches and felt himself thrown forward by the hill's steep decline. His ankles twisted on the roots and leaves, the entire woods in dark blur save for the distant lights of civilization somewhere far off, somewhere too far to know that Frank was running for his life.
His foot caught a root deeply buried in the much and it grabbed him like a skeleton's hand reaching up from the grave and Frank flipped in the air, rolling and falling and crashing and screaming as he tumbled end over end down into the tangled woods, down into the dark abyss.
Drip.
Drip. Drip.
Something leaked onto a bare concrete floor like water from a loose faucet, the kind the you think you can deal with when you go to bed but by three in the morning all you can hear is−
Drip.
Drip. Drip.
Frank tried to raise his head, but the sterile floor was cool against his face and he could not bring himself to leave it. His entire body ached and he wondered if he'd been shot, but even as he tried to collect his thoughts he was distracted by the−
Drip.
Drip. Drip.
It was nearby. Near enough that he could smell it, whatever it was. A copper smell, the smell of a rusty iron door, a dank basement with water seeping through the cracks in the walls that went−
Drip.
Drip. Drip.
Frank forced his eyes open just as the wheelchair rolled past him. He saw the white rubber wheels turn along the polished concrete floor and the girl slumped over in the seat. The Disney pillowcase stretched over her head like a hood was saturated with so much blood it ran down her arms and dripped over the sides, leaving a trail that glistened in the dark like the back of a long, red serpent.
He gasped and scrambled to get away, but the girl in the wheelchair suddenly flinched. The dead thing's withered, crippled hands unstuck themselves from her chest and she reached up with arched fingers to claw at the pillowcase. Her mouth opened and closed beneath it like she was being smothered and her head slowly turned to face him, the dark fabric sunk in around the places where her eyes should be. "Help me, Frankkkkkkk," she groaned. "You were supposed to help meeeeeeeeeeee."
Frank barked in terror as his hands touched the wet, leathery boots of someone standing behind him and he spun to see the enormous belly of Chief Claude Erinnyes looming over him. Erinnyes's face was swollen and purple like he'd been holding his breath until the blood vessels burst and his eyes were bulging, glaring down at Frank. The Chief opened his mouth and the hooded eyes of a black snake peered through, its tongue flicking the air as Erinnyes regurgitated it. The snake uncoiled from the base of the Chief's being and descended to the floor, coming toward Frank.
From every direction, they were coming. Eyes red and glowing with damnation, they closed in and grabbed for him. Their claws and fangs bit into his feet and legs and arms, drawing evil symbols on his chest in blood, marking him as their own, marking him as damned for all eternity.
Frank screamed and screamed and heard nothing but high-pitched laughter.
Uncle Petey the old man, the grandfather pedophile, came up from between Frank's legs with his mouth dripping blood, still laughing and said, "I told you, Frank. You're one of us now. And we'll have you forever." The old man smiled wickedly, as if he were recounting the moments of lust he'd enjoyed with the youngest of his victims and he sighed, "There are so many who are going to enjoy your company."
They leapt on top of him, swallowing him into their ravenous maws, fangs to his flesh, leaking poison into his blood until he too began to fade into the shadows. The light inside of Frank slowly started to dim.
He watched in horror as the light flickered and nearly went out. All the goodness, all of the hope and love and courage that he contained began to drain out of him like a body being leeched of its vitals. Cold overcame him. The cold of the grave.
There was movement in the distance that began like the low rumble of an approaching train, rattling the floor and causing the shadows to separate. Uncle Petey stopped his heavy breathing and his head shot up to search or the source of the disturbance. His red eyes shimmered with hatred and he howled, "No! He is not yours! Get away! Get away!"
A light appeared that drove back the monsters at the furthest edges of the circle, glowing so bright that Frank had to close his eyes at the sight of it. It would not be shut out. It was something that could not be escaped. It filled his face with fire.
The light roared from a lantern held high in the air and the man holding it walked through the demons with his head raised. Unafraid, Frank thought. The man's long woolen coat was dark, even in the glare of the lantern, but the ancient badge pinned to his chest shined brighter than eternity. The Night Watchman walked to the place where Frank lay and stood over him, keeping the ghouls and freaks cowering in fear with the lantern's bright light.
Frank heard footsteps and turned his head in to see another figure approaching and realized it was Vic.
Victor Ajax walked through the narrow gap in the crowd fast, coming up behind the Watchman and bent down to pull Frank into his arms. He cradled Frank's head and held him tight and said, "It's all right now. We've got you."
"He's ours!" Uncle Petey howled. There was fire in his eyes and speech and it seemed to enrage the rest of them into such a state that even the magnificent light of the Watchman's lantern wavered.
Vic smiled softly and looked down at Frank, "Never. He's belongs to us and always will." He patted Frank on the side of the face and said, "You did good. But now you have to get up. There's still one thing left to do, rookie."
Frank heard Vic's words and gasped for breath as he opened his eyes and sat up, seeing nothing but the dark woods surrounding him.
He was tangled in long lengths of vine and brush, and twenty feet below the rear of the train station and the door he'd burst through. Inside, he could hear someone shouting.
Frank struggled to his feet and stifled his whimpering curses as he clawed his way back up the incline. His legs were like lead weights and his arms felt too numb to support him but still he climbed. Still, he fought.
He went the long way around the station toward the parking lot and kept low, watching the front door carefully as he fished his keys from this pocket and unlocked his car door. A man moved past the door and bent down to reach for something. Frank couldn't tell what it was, but the man was certainly Dez, and Dez was turning something in his hands and pulling it up. The Psycho Rabbit's head. Frank crept around the side of the car to get a better look, now able to see the rabbit's foot, flopped sideways and motionless. The face of the man wearing the suit was obscured by shadows, but as Frank squinted to see who it was, Dez suddenly jerked his hand away in horror and screamed, "Fuck oh fuck oh fucking shit!"
Fuck this, Frank thought. He quietly opened the driver's side door to his car and slid into the seat. He kept the lights off as he put his foot on the brake and shifted the car into neutral, cranking the wheel until the car's front end was gently coasting down the hill and away from the station. By the time he was half way down, he hit the brake, twisted the key to turn the engine on, and softly stepped on the gas, coasting down the rest of the trail until he reached the street below.
He kept checking his rearview mirror, half expecting the night to turn into a horror flick where bright white headlights would suddenly appear and the bad guy would come roaring after him. A car chase and a gun fight through the dark streets of suburbia. But there was nothing.
Frank stopped at the next traffic light and did not move. The light cycled from green to yellow to red, and he did not move. He sat in his car, staring forw
ard, unable to focus on anything more than the light as it changed. Dez tried to kill me. He shot that fucking asshole in the rabbit costume. What evidence did I leave behind?
It was hard to breathe and he found himself panting so hard his windshield fogged. He's not going to come after me, Frank thought. He's too much of a coward to do it alone. No…he'll try and set me up. He'll come up with some fucked up scenario that makes it sound like it was all my fault.
Think, Frank yelled at himself. You're smarted than that Ivy League asshole. Special Agent. Bullshit. That dude's a glorified bureaucrat and you're a down-and-dirty garbage-picking-detective. So think.
An idea shot forth into Frank's mind and he punched on the gas, flying through a solid red light. It might not be the best idea and it certainly wasn't the most well thought out, but fuck it. It was an idea, and it was movement, and it was better than sitting at a red light. He could tweak it as he drove.
He flew down 611 checking for cops, driving fast but arrow-straight. At that time of night the road dogs were looking for drunks and they'd give him a few extra MPH as long as he used his turn signal and didn't swerve. Well-maintained, suburban apartment complexes and synagogues became desolate shopping centers and trash-strewn intersections as 611 emptied into Broad Street. Bums roamed the sidewalks pushing shopping carts filled with dirty clothes, because it was safer to sleep during the day on a busy street corner than it was to be found in a dark alley at night by the wrong person. Or pit bull.
Frank picked up his phone to check the time. At that exact moment his phone's signal was bouncing off of every cell tower he drove past, leaving a digital signature of his movements. All it would take was someone who knew how to look. Outthink them, Frank told himself. He turned off the GPS on his phone and powered it off.
The Walgreens at Broad and Hunting Park Avenue was brightly lit and its parking lot filled with people heading out to the bars. Dark-skinned men in perfectly matching outfits. One had on lime-green shoes, a lime-green suit, and a lime-green bowler hat. Their women ranged from ghetto fabulous big ladies to small firecracker girls in skimpy black dresses. Frank admired a few of the women as he pulled in. They were sexy enough to be distracting.
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