The Darkening

by Paul Antony Jones

  "Just tell me where you live, Annabelle. Can you do that?"

  Birdy told the man on the phone where she lived. Two minutes later she realized she was still holding the phone but the detective had already hung up.

  •••

  Birdy jumped. The heavy knocking on the apartment's front door had startled her from her seat on the living room sofa. At some point between the detective's phone call and now she must have turned on the TV because two black-and-white cowboys were facing off against each other on some dusty movie studio back-lot. She turned off the TV, headed to the front door, and opened it.

  "Hello," said a man who looked old enough to be her granddad. He was dressed in a knee-length gray raincoat, its collar pulled up around his neck. He must be at least fifty Birdy decided. "I'm Detective Collins. We spoke on the phone." His voice had a rough sound to it, like gravel. The man's gray receding hairline was plastered to his skull by rain. He looked tired, with dark bags under his eyes and a complexion so pale it looked like he hadn't seen the sun in a long time. But he had nice eyes. Kind eyes. "You must be Annabelle." He smiled.

  "Birdy. Everyone calls me Birdy."

  The detective nodded and smiled some more. He had a nice smile too, Birdy decided. Behind him, a policewoman, a few wisps of blonde hair visible beneath her cap, dripped water into a puddle on the corridor's linoleum just behind the detective.

  "This is Officer Mulroney," the detective said, gesturing a thumb toward his partner. "Can we come in?"

  Birdy stepped aside. "I suppose," she said.

  "Thank you." The two police officers stepped inside. "Are you alone?"

  Birdy nodded.

  "Okay," said Collins, smiling again. He placed a hand against Birdy's shoulder. "Let's sit down, okay?"

  Birdy nodded and began to lead the way to the living room. She caught the subtle nod in the direction of her bedroom that the detective gave Officer Mulroney. The female officer slipped inside the room and gave it a quick look, then moved across the hall to the kitchen as Birdy led Collins toward the sofa.

  It was still so dark outside that Birdy flicked the overhead light on as she passed the switch. She saw Officer Mulroney move past the door and down toward her mom's room, only to reappear a few seconds later.

  "Just the kid," Mulroney said as she stepped in to join them.

  "Where's my mom?" Birdy asked, trying to sound forceful.

  "Sit down for a second," the detective said, taking the chair and gesturing Birdy toward the loveseat.

  Birdy complied, leaning forward with her hands pressed between her knees.

  The detective took a few seconds to compose his thoughts. "Annabelle... Birdy, last night there was an... incident at the gas station where your mom works. Some people were hurt, including some police officers—"

  Birdy felt the tears begin to roll down her cheeks and a sob that sounded more like a croak bubble from her mouth. "Is my mom okay?" she managed to blurt out.

  Detective Collins smiled again, but this time it seemed awkward. "The truth is, we don't know. We can't find her and we were hoping you might be able to tell us where she might have gone." He paused for a moment then added quietly, "Or if there was anyone who you think might have wanted to hurt her?"

  "No!" Birdy cried out, leaping to her feet. "No," she said again, as though if she repeated the word enough times it would somehow negate the reality looming in front of her. "There's no one who would hurt her. No." The final no came out sounding more like a plea. She flopped back down onto the sofa.

  "Okay, kiddo. It's okay." Collins nodded at Mulroney. She moved across the room and sat next to Birdy on the sofa, placing a still-wet arm around the girl's shoulders.

  Birdy shook the cop's arm off.

  Mulroney fished a soggy bag of Kleenex from her breast pocket and offered Birdy one.

  Birdy shook her head.

  "Listen, Birdy," said Detective Collins, "is there anyone you can stay with or someone who can stay here with you? Until we find your mom?"

  Birdy shook her head again, not lifting her gaze from her feet.

  "No one at all?" the detective asked again.

  "No."

  Collins let out a long weary sigh and got to his feet. "Mulroney, get Child Protective Services over here."

  The policewoman stepped into the hallway and began to speak into her radio. The detective turned back to face Birdy. "Annabelle, I need you to pack a bag of clothes."

  "What? Why?" cried Birdy, getting to her feet. She took a big step away from the cop.

  "We can't leave you here alone, so, until we sort this all out, we're going to put you in the care of the state. Just for a little while." He sounded genuinely sorry.

  "No. No way," said Birdy.

  "Birdy, it's okay. It'll just be until we find out what's happening with your mother. Then you can come home."

  Birdy knew he was lying; well, maybe not lying, but she could hear the lack of belief in his own words now. This man did not think her mother was coming home. Not ever.

  Birdy began to cry. Deep wracking sobs of fear that washed over her like storm waves battering a shoreline.

  The detective stepped in close, he put a meaty hand gently on the girl’s shoulder. "It's okay. I promise you I'll keep looking for your mom."

  Birdy had covered her mouth with one hand to try to keep the tears and fear inside. She looked up at the detective, sure that she would see a lie behind his eyes, but all she saw was sadness, a man who was weary of having to go through this same routine on an almost daily basis. She was about to tell him that she knew it was all an act when the front door bell chimed twice.

  •••

  Birdy looked up, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the backs of both her hands.

  "Are you expecting—" Detective Collins said, but didn't finish the sentence.

  "Mom!" Birdy yelled and rushed toward the front door.

  "Hey!" Mulroney said as Birdy ducked the woman's outstretched arm and ran to the door.

  Birdy flung the door open and let out a quiet gasp.

  In the doorway was a black man sitting in a wheelchair. It took a second before Birdy recognized him, because she had only ever seen him from a distance, and then only his head and shoulders framed by his apartment window.

  It was the Window Guy.

  They stared at each other silently for a few seconds. Startled, Birdy gave a little jump when she felt a strong hand land on her right shoulder.

  "And who might this be?" asked Detective Collins from behind her.

  "Umm... Umm..." Birdy stuttered, her eyes still locked on the Window Guy. She had no idea why, maybe because of the threat of being hauled off by Child Services, but her next words were out of her mouth before she even had time to register what she was going to say: "This is my uncle, David."

  She saw the Window Guy give three quick successive blinks.

  "He lives upstairs," she continued, "and comes down to help me and Mom sometimes."

  Window Guy's eyes grew wider but he didn't say anything to counter Birdy's lie. His eyes moved from her to the detective standing behind her.

  "Oh, really?" said the detective, his voice unable to hide his cynicism. "And on whose side of the family?"

  "My dad's," said Birdy. "He's my dad's brother."

  Window Guy hadn't uttered a word. Birdy gulped down a deep breath then turned to face the cop. "So this means you don't need to call Child Protective Services, right? I can stay here 'cause my uncle can look after me, right?" She turned back around to look at Window Guy, her eyes silently beseeching him not to give her away.

  The detective ignored Birdy and stepped closer to the door. "Detective Phillip Collins," he said, flashing his shield.

  There was another moment of silence that Birdy felt would last forever.

  "You mean like Phil Collins, the singer?" Window Guy said finally, a smile cracking his face.

  The detective sighed loudly and rolled his eyes. "Yes," he said, his voice taking on a bored li
ke-I-haven't-heard-this-a-hundred-times-already tone. "Just like the singer."

  "Who's Phil Collins?" Birdy asked, her face screwed up in confusion.

  Both men exchanged a look of you've got to be kidding me!

  "And you are?" Collins said.

  Window Guy reached up a hand toward the detective. "David. David Douglass," he said. "I'm Annabelle's uncle."

  •••

  Tyreese had only the vaguest idea what was going on, but by the look on Annabelle's face, it was serious. And hadn't she said something about Child Protective Services? He had no choice but to roll with it, but he wasn't sure the detective was buying what he was selling.

  "I'm Annabelle's uncle," Tyreese said. He offered the detective his hand. The cop's grip was firm. Tyreese quickly assessed the man: He was a broad-shouldered fire-plug of a guy. Probably been a cop all his adult life, maybe military before that, Tyreese thought by the quiet confidence he saw in the man's eyes. He guessed the cop was somewhere in his late forties, but his face looked much older. Tyreese knew the look; too long on the front lines. He empathized, he'd seen the same look in his own eyes for years after he got back stateside. Still saw it some mornings when he woke up, yelling and thrashing, terrified by his own mind and the nightmares contained within it.

  Collins looked at Annabelle then focused back on Tyreese. "So, why's your name different from Annabelle's here?"

  Annabelle gave a little gasp of astonishment; sure she had been found out, but with barely a pause Tyreese smiled, nodded knowingly, then said, "We’re stepbrothers. Different mothers."

  Collins raised a questioning eyebrow, but said nothing.

  "Where's my sister-in-law?" Tyreese asked nonchalantly as he wheeled himself down the hallway toward the living room, following the two cops and Annabelle back inside, as though he knew where he was going.

  "Well, Mr. Douglass, that's the thing," the detective said, turning to face Tyreese just as they reached the living room. "Say, can I talk to you in the kitchen?" He glanced at Annabelle and smiled reassuringly, but when his eyes returned to Tyreese, the smile was gone, replaced by a grimness that Tyreese had also seen before. More times than he had cared to when the notification of the latest KIA for his unit came down.

  Tyreese nodded and followed Collins into the kitchen.

  "Listen," said Collins, swinging the kitchen door closed behind them, "last night there was an incident at the gas station."

  Tyreese tried to keep the look of confusion from his face but failed.

  Collins sighed. "You know, the place where Ms. Finch, your sister-in-law, works." The cop changed the tone of his words just enough to put virtual air-quotes around sister-in-law.

  Tyreese silently cursed himself. He got the point. This cop read people like he was browsing the trashy mags they put at the supermarket checkouts. "I know," Tyreese said, and thought he saw a slight raising of the corners of the cop's mouth.

  "Last night Birdy's mom was supposed to be covering the night shift at the Gas 'N Go. We got a call of a disturbance and by the time we got there, she and several other patrons, two of them cops, had vanished. But there was blood, lots of blood." He let that sink in for a moment. "Now, bearing in mind the area, we have reason to believe that this might be gang related. So if you know anything," he leaned in close, putting both hands on the armrests of the wheelchair, "anything at all that might help me with my investigation, I want to know about it, right now."

  Well, shee-it! Tyreese thought. What the hell had he gotten himself into? He thought back to the previous night and the shadow he had seen climbing the outside of the apartment block across the street. How it had entered the open window, the scream moments before the light had been turned off. He thought about telling the detective, but tell him what exactly and why? Hell, he wasn't even sure if he'd actually even been awake.

  "You're sure it was gangs?" Tyreese said finally.

  The detective pushed himself away from the wheelchair and looked down at Tyreese. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

  Tyreese shrugged. "Things don't seem, I don't know, strange out there to you?" He nodded toward the window where the rain still drummed against the glass like fingers.

  "I don't follow you," said Collins. Something about the cop's tone gave Tyreese the impression he was stonewalling, that he knew exactly what Tyreese was referring to but wanted to hear it directly from him.

  "Man, you're supposed to be the detective. The people! Where are all the people?" he hissed.

  Collins sucked in a deep breath through his nose and held it for a few seconds, all the while looking stone-faced at Tyreese. When he eventually exhaled, his voice was lower, softer. "It's the weather," he said, "People are staying indoors because of the weather."

  "Uh huh," said Tyreese skeptically. "And where's everyone around here gone? You think they can just jump in their private jet and head to the Bahamas until this all blows over?" Tyreese's voice got low, almost a conspiratorial whisper. "You know something's going on, man. Something's not right around here."

  From beyond the kitchen, the sound of Mulroney's radio, staticky and unclear, crackled. It was quickly followed by the muffled voice of the policewoman's reply. A second later there was a knock on the kitchen door and Mulroney's head appeared around the jamb.

  "Sorry, detective. Dispatch just relayed a message. We've got a lead in the missing persons case."

  "Yeah, well it can wait," said Collins.

  "I don't think so, Detective. They've found our guys—at least, what's left of them."

  "Christ!" whispered Collins. Tyreese thought the man aged about twenty years in the few seconds after he heard the news.

  The detective reached into his jacket's inner pocket and pulled out a small metal case. He flipped it open, slid a business card from it, handed it to Tyreese. "If you or Annabelle think of anything, or you just want to talk some more, call me. Understood?"

  Tyreese nodded that he did.

  "Let's go," said the detective to Mulroney. He turned and walked out of the kitchen, followed by his partner. A moment later the sound of the door slamming shut signaled that Tyreese and Annabelle were the only people left in the apartment.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  "You want to tell me what's going on?" Tyreese said once the cops had left. "Your uncle? Really?"

  Birdy stared at her feet and mumbled, "It was the first thing I could think of. And I don't know your name. Sorry."

  Tyreese watched the kid for a couple of seconds, then let out a deep sigh. "Tyreese," he said eventually, "My name is Tyreese. And you're Annabelle, right?"

  "Birdy," she corrected. "Only my mom calls me Annabelle." She cocked her head to the left. "How'd you know my name?"

  "I've heard your mom yell it a couple of times," he said, adding a slight smile.

  At the mention of her mother, Birdy's head dropped again. Tears began to roll down her cheeks, then she was sobbing, quietly, her shoulders rising and falling in quick succession.

  Tyreese did a double-take. "What? Did I say something?"

  Birdy shook her head and tried to speak, but couldn't do anything more than gasp like a little fish on the shore.

  Tyreese wheeled himself closer. He laid a hesitant hand against the girl's shoulder. He didn't know how much the cops had told her about what had happened to her mom, so he kept the question as vague as possible. "I heard the cops say something about Child Protective Services... did something happen?"

  Birdy looked up, her face flushed bright red, her cheeks stained with tears. "My mom," she said, then hesitated as though unsure whether she should say any more.

  "It's okay, you can tell me."

  The girl gulped air. "She's gone a lot, because she works two jobs, so I get left alone. Someone must have reported her. The cops came to check on me, but my mom's at work now."

  Tyreese knew the kid was lying about her mom, given what the detective had told him in the kitchen about her being missing, but he kind of understood why she needed to kee
p that information to herself right now. He didn't need to ask where her father was, it was the same story he'd lived; an absent father, and a mother who'd tried her best to look after him and his older brother. He understood how hard it was for Birdy's mom, how hard it was for the kid, too. Left alone as much as she was, the temptation to find some kind of stability could lead down an easy path, the wrong path. His brother had chosen that path and had paid the price for it, gunned down in the street outside their home over twenty years ago now. His mom had never been the same; she had become a sad shell of her former self. Tyreese had joined the army to get away from that life. His mom had died six months later. He would always feel responsible for that, even though he knew he really wasn't.

  "Is there anyone who can come and stay with you?" Tyreese asked.

  "I'm fifteen; I can look after myself," Birdy mumbled, staring at her feet.

  "Of course you can, but I'm not sure the cops are going to see it that way."

  "My mom will be home soon. I'll be okay."

  Tyreese watched the girl wipe the tears from her cheek with the back of her sleeve. She wasn't being honest with him, that was obvious, but the kid wasn't his responsibility. The cops would be back, and in the meantime, he could keep an eye on her as best he could.

  "Listen, you know where I am," he pointed a finger toward the ceiling. "If you need me, come find me, okay?" He spun his wheelchair around and rolled toward the front door.

  •••

  Birdy didn't feel good about lying to Window Guy... Tyreese. Had no choice, she told herself. If I told him the truth, he would have called the cops back and they would have taken me away. She needed time. Time to think. Time for her mom to come home. What the cops had told her, it made no sense; there was no way her mom would leave her alone. Her mom would be okay. She had to be.

  Birdy stood in the doorway of her mother's bedroom for a few seconds, then walked to the bed and pulled the comforter from it. She buried her face deep into the material, drawing in her mother's musk, then threw the comforter over her shoulders and pulled it around her, wearing it like a poncho.