The Darkening

by Paul Antony Jones

  "She was the other one with those two. She's an accomplice," the manager declared.

  "What?" Birdy asked, utterly confused.

  The guard stepped toward her. "Don't give me any trouble, kid. Just come with me and we'll sort this out." He reached a meaty paw toward her.

  Birdy sidestepped it. "I didn't do anything," she cried. The panic in her voice was nothing compared to what she felt.

  "Hey! Don't be stupid. Just come with me." This time the security guard lunged at her. His hand almost closed around her wrist, but she dodged away, spun sharply, and before she even knew she was doing it, Birdy ran.

  "Grab her!" The security guard yelled as she sprinted for the exit.

  The two rent-a-cops in front of Birdy looked torn; they would have to release their grips on the two boys to apprehend her. Birdy used their indecision to slip between them.

  Trenton hooted in delight. "Yeah! Run Annabelle. Let go of me, pig!"

  Not real helpful, Birdy thought as she zagged toward the exit.

  "Stop her!" The manager yelled, and Birdy saw heads turning in her direction. Birdy slid under a rack of clothes to get by a young sales associate who had positioned herself in a half-hearted attempt to block Birdy's escape, then sprinted through the exit.

  Birdy headed back along the walkway at a jog, weaving through the throng, trying to keep a low profile but knowing a dozen security cameras were probably following her progress. A couple of shoppers looked in her direction, decided she wasn't their problem and kept on walking.

  "You! Yes, you. Stop!"

  Birdy flashed a look behind her. A security guard was pushing his way through a gaggle of teenage girls who had just exited a Nike store, about six bodies back. Another rent-a-cop angled in her direction from the food court on her left, while a third jogged up the opposite walkway, his lower body obscured by the safety barriers that blocked the open space of the central atrium that split the mall. The guards were trying to block her from getting to the elevators and stairs, figuring if they could cut off her escape route they would have her. They were right, too, Birdy thought. There was no chance she could get to either the elevator or the stairs before the two security guards. And as if to confirm she had no chance of escape, a fifth security guard appeared at the top of the escalator from the floor below, cutting off any possibility of escape in that direction.

  Birdy's heart had been thudding with the adrenalin of the chase, but now it slowed as she urged her muscles to relax. It wasn't really a conscious effort on her part, it just happened, and Birdy thought it was just one of those genetic quirks of her fight or flight response. Some people froze or ran away when confronted by danger, she just seemed to relax. It wasn't like her senses sharpened, it was just that everything else—the noise of the crowd, the thumping of her heart, the heat of fear—they all faded away and things became... clear. Birdy took a final look over her shoulder at the guard who was now just six feet away and closing in on her fast, a confident smile of victory already on his lips. He knew she was done. He thought there was nowhere for her to go.

  He was wrong.

  Birdy dodged right, pushing her way in front of a line of shoppers then headed to the glass safety barrier surrounding the atrium. Metal balustrades held thick panes of reinforced opaque glass. The top had a brushed aluminum banister you could lean on and look down over the two floors to ground level, far below. Birdy took hold of the banister with both hands and climbed over the barrier, swinging her body around to face back toward the walkway, her toes slipping into the two-inch gap between the floor and the lower edge of the glass panel.

  She heard people yell. Saw a woman browsing in the Victoria's Secret store directly across from her staring open mouthed in a silent gasp of astonishment, had time to register the confused look of the security guard as he hesitated... then Birdy let go of the banister and stepped out into space.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The air had grown colder during the time Tyreese had spent searching the store. A gusty breeze pulled leaves from the line of trees along the curb and sent them skittering and flying down the street. He zipped his jacket closed and pulled the collar up tightly around his neck. He hadn't exactly expected to have to walk the three miles back to his apartment block so he was dressed only for the cab trip with a light windbreaker. It would have to suffice. He cursed the cab driver under his breath then scanned the streets on the off-chance that the guy might have had a crisis of conscience and decided to come back, or maybe another passing cab might miraculously appear, but the street was deserted.

  Tyreese consoled himself with the knowledge that the crazy woman who had accosted him on his way into the store had moved on. He half expected her to be lying in ambush for him, but she had vanished as quickly as she had appeared. At least she had given him the idea for the shopping cart. He'd figure out how to get it back to the store when he could.

  The stumps of his legs itched badly against the prosthetics. This was the first step up the ladder that would quickly move to pain and muscle cramps. He cursed himself for not wearing the damn things more often.

  He pushed the cart to the edge of the curb, looked up and down the street for any sign of a taxi, sighed when he saw nothing, and began to walk back to his apartment block.

  •••

  Tyreese was just over two miles into his journey home, his thighs throbbing in pain with each step he took, when he knew for certain someone was following him. He looked back over his shoulder and saw two smirking kids, probably seventeen, tops, jogging quickly toward him. They split either side of Tyreese and ran a few paces ahead, stopped and turned, blocking his way.

  "Hey old man, whatcha got there?" said the taller of the two, laying a hand on the front of the shopping cart, forcing Tyreese to a standstill. The kid grinned at Tyreese, looking him up and down, assessing him like a snake checking out its next meal.

  Tyreese had seen kids like these all around the area. Hell, he had been just like them himself when he was their age; cocky, sure of their invulnerability, and dumb as rocks.

  Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, he decided, were apt names for these two.

  Tweedledumb wore a baggy t-shirt that Tyreese knew probably hid a wiry muscular frame from days spent playing street ball. His friend, Tweedledumber, was a little shorter but a lot wider, his face a caricature of what passed for tough these days. He stood just off to the left, eying the contents of Tyreese's shopping cart. This one was fidgety, constantly shifting from foot to foot, maybe from nerves, maybe something else; kids could pick up any drug they wanted easier than candy around here, these days.

  Tyreese had placed his walking cane in the wire basket of the cart next to the plastic bags containing his supplies. Tweedledumber reached for it. Tyreese grabbed the cane, swung it in a tight arc, and brought it down with a sharp crack across the kid's knuckles, hard enough to make the kid yelp in pain but not enough to do any real damage.

  "Boy, didn't your momma ever teach you to keep your hands off of other people's property?" Tyreese kept his voice level, cool.

  The kid rubbed his knuckles, his face flushed bright red, his eyes little thunderstorms of anger. He looked up at Tyreese and cursed, took a step closer. "I'm going to—"

  Tyreese brought the cane up again and smacked it hard against the meat of Tweedledumber's shoulder with a resounding thwack that sent the kid skittering backward, grabbing at his arm. A combination of pain and anger and confusion stitched the kid's mouth shut. He was really living up to his new nickname, Tyreese decided.

  "I said keep your hands off my—" This time it was Tyreese's turn to be surprised. The taller kid placed both hands on the front of the shopping cart and shoved hard against it.

  The cart's handle caught Tyreese in the stomach, the back two wheels smacking against his shins, hard enough that if they had been actual legs it would have hurt like hell. Instead he felt his prosthetic legs buckle as he lost his balance, and he began to drop toward the pavement.

  Before he eve
n hit the ground, the two boys had made a grab for the plastic bags in the cart, but Tyreese managed to twist as he fell toward the uneven paving slabs of the sidewalk, torqueing the cart to the right. Tweedledumber missed, but the taller one managed to grab two of the bags, hooking them out of the cart.

  Tyreese hit the ground hard, forcing a deep "Oomph!" from his mouth as his muscular frame slapped the concrete. He managed to get his left hand between the sidewalk and his head, the skin on his knuckles splitting but saving him from a concussion or fractured skull. The shopping cart clattered to the ground in front of his face.

  Tweedledumber had managed to recover his composure. He stepped in close, brought a sneaker-clad foot back and aimed a kick at Tyreese's head like he was aiming to put a football down field. Tyreese turned instinctively to protect himself and felt the kid's foot connect with the muscles of his back. The force reverberated around his chest cavity and a burst of pain shot down his spine.

  Tweedledumber let out a yelp of anger and pain, the thin material of his sneaker doing nothing to protect his foot from Tyreese's tightly muscled back.

  Through the wire meshing of the overturned shopping cart, Tyreese saw Tweedledumb already ten feet away and yelling at his friend to move his ass. Tweedledumber had apparently not learned his lesson, because as Tyreese rolled onto his back he saw the kid raise his foot again, readying himself to stomp on Tyreese's head.

  Tyreese lashed out with his right arm, punching the kid in the leg just below the left knee. The boy screamed in pain and collapsed to the ground, all thoughts of continuing the assault replaced by the agony of a badly bruised, maybe even torn, calf muscle.

  Tyreese moved his attention back to Tweedledumb. The kid's face had a look of utter surprise and confusion. His mouth was open so wide it looked like he had a large O in the middle of his face, shocked that this easy mark had the audacity to fight back. The kid glanced around the street, walked a couple of feet away as though he intended to leave his friend then apparently had a change of heart. He began moving back toward Tyreese, the two bags of supplies he'd managed to steal still clutched in his hands.

  The shopping cart lay on its side next to Tyreese. He reached out a hand, placed it on the side of the cart and tried to push himself into a standing position, but when he looked down at his feet he saw his right prosthetic leg was twisted at a ninety-degree angle. Shit! He was going to need to reset it unless he wanted to hop all the damn way home. He'd dropped the wooden walking cane when he fell, it lay beneath the cart. He was a sitting duck for this punk.

  Tweedledumb was still moving toward Tyreese, just a few feet separated them now, and Tyreese pushed himself upright until he was in a seated position. At least he could defend himself from the little bastard.

  But instead of coming at Tyreese, the kid remained at a respectable distance, circling around the overturned cart and the man beside it until he reached his friend. Tweedledumber was still cursing, tears of pain and rage streaming across his cheeks, both hands holding his knee, which Tyreese thought was probably already swelling beneath the baggy jeans. His buddy reached him, never taking his eyes off Tyreese as though he thought the man would leap after him at any moment.

  "Get up, dumb-ass," Tweedledumb said, lightly kicking the other boy's back with the toes of his sneaker while keeping a watchful eye on Tyreese, like a snake watching a mongoose.

  "He broke my knee," the boy on the ground cried out, his voice a mixture, of pain, anger, and disbelief.

  Tyreese didn't think he had hit him hard enough to break anything, but you never could tell. He hoped he had.

  The taller kid dropped his gaze to his prostrate friend, then back to their intended victim, and Tyreese could tell he was again trying to calculate whether to help his compatriot or beat feet out of there and save his own ass.

  Surprisingly, apparently there was loyalty among thieves, because the kid dropped one of Tyreese's bags, bent over and grabbed Tweedledumber's outstretched hand, and pulled the still cursing kid unsteadily to his feet. He bent to pick up the dropped bag, but abandoned that idea as his buddy teetered unsteadily on his one good leg, and instead threw his arm under the injured boy's shoulder. He shot Tyreese a hate-filled glare, accused him of doing unnatural things with his mother, and then the two of them began to stagger north like two old drunks.

  Tyreese watched until the kids disappeared down a side street. When he was sure they would not be coming back, he allowed himself to lay back on the cold concrete of the sidewalk, his eyes staring upward at the bruised California sky.

  Could this day get any worse, he wondered?

  As if to answer him, a shadow crept across his face as the first fat drops of rain began to hit the ground, splattering like tiny bombs against his body.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Shoppers screamed as Birdy stepped away from the security banister into nothing. She dropped fast through the air until her fingers grabbed the lip of the floor. She hung there, her legs swinging in the space between the upper and lower floors.

  The drop between the two floors was only ten feet, Birdy estimated just as the head and shoulders of the security guard appeared at the safety barrier above her. His face was pale with shock, then relief, then horror when he realized she was only holding on by her fingertips.

  Birdy knew he had expected to see nothing but her mangled body splattered across the tile of the ground floor. This probably wasn't in his training manual, she thought. She was tempted to raise a hand and give him the finger, but she wasn't an idiot. She'd figured out long ago that there was a point where calculated risk gave way to stupidity, and while she had no problem walking that line, she had no intention of stepping over it if she could help it. Instead, she swung her legs, once, twice... and let go.

  Birdy landed on the floor of the second level just in front of a crowd of startled onlookers. She performed a perfect forward roll to dissipate some of the energy her fall had collected, leapt to her feet, looked around to check that none of the security guards had managed to make it to this level, then began to sprint toward the stairs.

  Birdy took the steps down two at a time, dodging past couples who were too entranced by their consumer high to even notice her as she zigged and zagged between them.

  The second her feet touched the ground floor she slowed to a brisk walk, trying her best to mingle with the rest of the shoppers as she headed for the exit. But as soon as she pushed through the exit doors, Birdy took off, racing as fast as she could across the parking lot toward the bus stop. If she had to, she would keep on running in the direction of home, but a bus had already pulled up to the curb. She sprinted the last hundred feet, catching up to the bus just as it was about to pull away. She banged on the pneumatic doors and gave the driver her best 'please don't leave me' look.

  The driver must have been in a good mood because the doors opened with a hiss of air. She stepped on board, handed over her money and moved to the back of the bus, falling onto the seat. Exhausted, but exhilarated.

  It was only when Birdy was halfway home that she realized she was still wearing the sneakers from the store.

  •••

  By the time Birdy made it back to her apartment, the meager sunlight had already begun to drain from the sky, replaced by a ferocious bank of snarling black clouds that was well on its way to devouring the western half of the sky.

  Her mom was still at her day job, so Birdy headed for the kitchen. She was ravenous. She had meant to grab something to eat at the mall, but those plans had gone up in smoke. She opened the fridge, peeled the last couple pieces of ham from their plastic container, stuck them between two slices of bread then glued it all together with a thick layer of mayonnaise. She added a glass of milk and made her way to the living room sofa where she quickly devoured the sandwich. She chased it down with half the milk, forced herself back to her feet, and headed back to the kitchen where she washed the plate and knife she had used for her food.

  On the way to her room, Birdy let out a loud bel
ch. She giggled to herself as she flopped down on her bed. Her smile was replaced by a pang of guilt when she looked at her feet and remembered the sneakers she'd stolen from the store. Bright and shiny and new. She hadn't really stolen them, she told herself, not technically. She had been ready to pay, and besides, she had left her own sneakers behind. And they'd tried to arrest her for something she hadn't done. What was she supposed to have done?

  Birdy stood up and walked over to the window. Thick shadows had begun to suck detail from the world beyond her bedroom, devouring the color and resolution from the buildings, roads, and trees. Even the few people she saw on the street seemed less real, insubstantial somehow; like the difference between a black and white photograph and a modern color one.

  A storm was coming; it was all over the news. That meant no practice, no chance to try her new sneakers. Life just isn't fair, she decided. She walked back over to her bed, put her earbuds in, pressed play on her phone's music app and lay down.

  After a few moments of staring at the ceiling, she felt her eyes close. She allowed herself to relax, the music soothing her mind, the bed soothing her body. I'll just lie here for a little while, she told herself.

  Two minutes later Birdy was fast asleep.

  •••

  By the time Tyreese finally got back to his apartment, the rain was hammering down. Drops as big as marbles zinged onto the pavement so hard it sounded like bacon sizzling in a hundred frying pans. He was already soaked through to the skin, the thin windbreaker he wore no match for the driving rain. And damn, if the rain didn't hurt. Each impact stung like a mother as it pummeled his shoulders and buzz-cut skull.

  At the steps to the apartment, he grabbed the remaining bags of supplies then abandoned the shopping cart, allowing it to roll and clatter to the gutter. All but one of the bags held ice, only slightly melted. The last bag, the one the punk had dropped in his rush to get his friend's ass out of trouble, had half of the food he'd bought. Tyreese hurried inside as fast as his battered body would let him.