Underground

by Craig Spector

  “Shit,” she hissed, and raced toward it. Her hand snatched out, caught it in free fall.

  “Gotcha!” Bergen said, clutching the jar. She stood and turned, relieved.

  Someone was standing right behind her.

  Bergen gasped, heart pounding. A cold rush of adrenaline flooded her senses, snapping the room into harsh focus. The man was tall and steeped in shadow, in dark and nondescript garb. She could not see his face. She fumbled for the pepper spray, brought it up. The man’s gloved hand snaked out and grabbed her wrist like cold iron, backing her into the counter. Bergen swung her other hand — the one holding the specimen jar — in a wildly arcing roundhouse, smashing against her attacker’s temple. Glass shattered, raining bits of transparent shrapnel; the man howled an inchoate wail and released her. Bergen turned to flee.

  And that’s when she realized he was not alone.

  A second figure loomed before her, blocking her escape. Like the first, he was tall and conservatively dressed, but she could make out his face — thin-lipped and hollow cheeked, utterly devoid of expression.

  Just then Bergen felt hands grip her from behind, locking her elbows and pinning her shoulders back. The second man smiled and reached up, ripping open her lab coat and blouse, exposing her chest.

  And as Elizabeth Bergen struggled, the man raised his hand, pulling off the glove to reveal pallid skin. His cold fingers came to rest on the hollow between her breasts, where thin skin met the thick concave of her sternum. She watched in horror as his fingers pressed into her flesh and then passed through, worming their way inside her. Bergen gasped, icy tendrils gripping her as her heart thudded wildly like a caged bird trying to escape. There was no pain, only cold, terrible cold. Her violator leaned forward, smiling grimly.

  “Shhhhh,” he whispered, a sibilant hiss. “Shhhhhhh…”

  Bergen gasped again, and once more, a last hitching, desperate breath. Her attacker’s breath frosted the air, smelling of something long decayed. Then the cold overtook her, and her heart fluttered, and spasmed, and stopped.

  Bergen’s eyes rolled back as her body went limp, sagged. As the first man eased her to the floor, the cold man withdrew his hand. There was no blood. No wound. The cold man looked up.

  “Find it,” he hissed.

  And with that, the shadowy figures searched for the location of the mysterious severed hand. It was critical that it be returned to Custis Manor; the master had been adamant on this point.

  So it was with great alarm that the stalking servants found the drawer marked VAN SLYKE, JUSTIN A. empty.

  “FIND IT!!!” the cold man roared.

  They literally tore the morgue apart, searching every locker, dumping bodies off gurneys and out of their slots. They knew all too well the horrors that would await them if the master learned of their failure. The Great Night was ruthless in its power and unforgiving of transgressions.

  And it would not rest until it possessed the man who went through the mirror and left his hand behind. The Great Night remembered Justin, all too well. And it would not rest until it devoured him at last. All of him.

  Finally they reached the last locker, marked JOHN DOE 8.26 CM. They threw the door open, slid the tray out: the metal container sat in the middle, a towel laid over it. They threw back the towel expectantly.

  But the hand was already gone…

  9

  In an auto body shop ten blocks from Custis campaign headquarters, a gathering was taking place. A dozen men in suits sipped Pabst Blue Ribbon and smoked, trading joking banter. One of them called out.

  “What do you call a nigger in a three-piece suit?”

  Another answered back. “The defendant!”

  A raucous chorus of laughter. Just then the steel entrance door flung open, banging hard against the cinder block wall, the clang echoing off the cavernous space.

  “All right,” an angry voice sounded, “which one of you limpdick chickenshit assholes wants to tell me what the hell just happened??!”

  The men turned en masse to see Jimmy Joe Baker thundering through the doorway, pausing only to wipe his Bruno Maglis on the threshold. Jimmy Joe was sleek and lethal, with a face like a Doberman pinscher, a backwoods drawl and a big-city rhythm. He was the team leader and Duke's Custis’s whip hand, and had been a part of their machine from the start. He was also colder and more twisted than two snakes fucking in a snowstorm, and he suffered no fools.

  The men clammed up as Jimmy Joe surveyed their ranks. “You,” he said, pointing to the comedian, singling him out. “You were there, right?” The man nodded. Jimmy Joe stepped closer. “So tell me, how could y’all fuck it up so bad?”

  “It wasn’t our fault,” the man waffled, thin lips grimacing. “It was already gone…”

  “Duh,” Jimmy Joe replied, then grabbed the man by the throat, squeezing mercilessly. “My big question is, where the hell did it already go to?”

  The man grimaced as Jimmy squeezed harder. Suddenly a calmer, mellifluous voice sounded behind them.

  “Let him go, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy Joe did as he was told, instantly releasing his grip. The comedian collapsed, gasping. The others turned as Jimmy Joe faded back and Daniel “Duke” Custis entered. Forty-two, boyish and charming, impeccably clad in Armani, Duke looked at the fallen man and extended a neatly manicured hand.

  “My apologies,” he said, just a trace of old Virginia in his accent. “Sometimes Jimmy gets a little… passionate.”

  Duke smiled warmly, his hand still outstretched; the man regarded him with a mix of relief and suspicion. Duke helped him up and patted him on the back, dusting him off. “I’m sure you did the best you could,” he said, and let him return to the group. Duke turned to the gathering.

  “I’d like to welcome you all here,” he began. “I know some of you have traveled quite a ways to be with us, and not all of you have had the privilege to meet before tonight.” His polished voice notched up to carry the room.

  “You men comprise an elite group,” he continued. “Each of you was originally culled from the ranks of the Klan, Aryan Brotherhood, White Aryan Resistance, the Order, and other like-minded organizations. All of you have exhibited great skill and commitment to the cause, but more: you have all learned to mainstream your ambitions…” Duke paused and smiled. “…to trade the white robes and brown shirts of our brethren for gray flannel and pinstripe, for the greater good.”

  The collected men nodded, as Duke continued. “But whatever our individual or fraternal differences, we have all united to our common purpose. And all of you…” and Duke rounded back to place a brotherly hand on his wayward servant, “… all of you have pledged yourselves, body and spirit, to that cause. And for that, you have my thanks. And the thanks of my family.”

  The men smiled, pleased and relieved. Duke smiled back. He had reason to: his positioning in the polls was excellent, courtesy of his latest round of commercials attacking Governor Langley. The incumbent was maneuvered into a squeeze play: if he came down too hard on the incoming fraternities this weekend, he risked alienating a significant portion of the black vote. If he didn't take a tough stance, he risked appearing soft on crime. To make matters worse, Langley had holed up in the governor's mansion in Richmond, having taken suddenly ill, while Duke's visibility on the firing line was helping hone his image as the courageous "can-do" candidate. Even if nothing went wrong, Langley looked bad; God help him if the unthinkable happened.

  Which was precisely what Duke was thinking about.

  This was a delicate time. Daddy Eli was flying down this weekend for a very important ritual at the manor. The changing of the guard, so to speak, when Eli would pass the legacy fully to Duke. And Duke Custis would come fully into his own.

  Duke smiled. Everything was proceeding wonderfully, with one little problem: the little matter of their ongoing surveillance, and what it revealed. The attack on Custis Manor was definitely pulled off by an organized group. Duke's estranged brother, Josh, was still running with
this group. They were trying to crack the secret of Custis Manor.

  But why? The question remained. What does he hope to accomplish?

  Duke looked at Jimmy Joe. To provide the answer to these and other nagging questions, Jimmy and Co. had gone to the trouble of calling in one of their informants. Jimmy was a little worried; the informant’s reliability was being called into question.

  “Is our friend ready?” Duke asked. Jimmy looked to the other men, who nodded.

  “Well then,” Duke said, “let’s not keep him waiting.”

  Duke gestured to the men, who turned and ushered him deeper into the garage.

  And thus did Duke Custis meet Rajim.

  The black man was duct-taped to a chair in the middle of the floor, another piece of tape covering his mouth. A tarpaulin had been spread beneath his feet, to keep from making a mess.

  There was a case of Perrier on the floor. Duke Custis casually lifted a bottle and hefted it. “Drink?” he said pleasantly.

  Rajim shook his head, bug-eyed with terror.

  “I abstain from alcohol myself,” Duke said. “It dulls the senses.”

  He uncapped the bottle, took a refreshing fizzy swig. “You know, interrogation is tricky business,” he explained. “Fear is the key. Fear is a prime motivator. Frighten a man badly enough, and he will abandon all pretense to loyalty, to friendship, even to love.”

  Duke circled around Rajim as he spoke, his tone perfectly calm and casual. “The trick is,” he continued, “how do you make absolutely sure that you're getting through? Primal fears are best. Elemental dreads. Burn a man and he fears fire; dangle him from a great height, and he fears the air; put a man in a hole in the ground, and he fears the earth. See what I mean?”

  Rajim nodded, nostrils flaring, breathing hard.

  “As for water,” Duke continued, “did you know that a little carbonated water up the nose induces all the sensations of drowning? Suffocation, blindness, deafness, paralysis… a man will shit himself, cry like a baby, maybe even lose his mind. You can do it again and again, all night long if necessary. And it doesn't even leave a mark.”

  Duke nodded to Jimmy, who ripped the tape from Rajim’s mouth. The black man sputtered and gasped. “You’re fuckin' crazy, man!” Rajim cried, squirming against his captors. “I told you I tell you everything I know!!”

  Duke leaned forward, grinning. “Boy,” he said, “by the time we’re done, you'll tell us shit you don't know.”

  And with that, Jimmy grabbed his head and held it as Duke shook the bottle and jammed it up Rajim’s nose.

  The first blast took Rajim so totally by surprise — rocketing through his skull, sealing him into a very private universe of agony — that he blacked out almost instantly. He returned to a world of howling, swirling pain. His lungs felt as though he'd inhaled liquid sandpaper, his nose as though they'd shoved a live wire up his nostril and cranked the voltage to the redline. He coughed and sputtered desperately, sucking in his own ropy saliva.

  “I don’t know nothing,” he gasped, retching. “I don’t know…”

  “Really?” Duke replied.

  Jimmy grabbed his head again. Custis shook the bottle. They did it again. And again. And again. The sixth or seventh time, Rajim began to spasm uncontrollably, as if they'd shorted out his entire nervous system. The eighth time he pissed himself. He told them everything he knew, as well as things he thought they might like to know and things they weren't even interested in. By the ninth time, he opened his eyes to find the room skewed and distorted, as if he were tripping. Time and space, physical sensation, the fundamental fabric of reality itself felt altered. Rajim looked up, eyes spinning and half-blind with terror, and gazed into the faces of his tormentors.

  Gone were the clean-cut profiles, the tailored yuppie personae. In their place were nightmare visages: lumpen and humpbacked hell-things, monstrous deformities of the spirit made flesh, their oozing sores glistening in the funhouse refraction of light from the bathroom as they shuffled on gnarled and twisted limbs.

  One particularly hideous creature loomed before him. You belong to us, it said. The voice belonged to Daniel Duke Custis. Now, and always.

  Duke Custis smiled as the black man writhed. Smiled as the vision gripped him. Smiled, as he saw the spark go out in the black man's eyes.

  “So now you know”, Custis said. “Now here's what we want you to do…”

  Rajim vomited as he was given his instructions. Jimmy Joe asked him if he understood; Rajim nodded. Duke told his minions to cut him loose and send him home.

  Jimmy Joe did his master's bidding, making sure to stuff some money into Rajim's pocket on the way out.

  For services rendered.

  10

  Friday, August 29th. Church of the Open Door. 12:00 p.m.

  The service convened in a little hole-in-the-wall church in a depressed and depressing section of town. The weather was humid, the sky overcast and brooding, hinting at storm; the streets neglected, festooned with potholes and junked cars; bars covered the windows of half of the seedy-looking homes. The building itself was an old clapboard structure with peeling paint and a crooked steeple; indeed, the entire structure seemed to sag under the weight of collective indifference, as if God Himself had taken one look at it and departed for classier digs. A weathered sign out front read Church of the Open Door, and at least that much was true: the high arched doors were flung back, the low sound of staid organ music filtering outside.

  Caroline looked around nervously as they parked by the broken curb and got out. Kevin made his way around and took her lightly by the hand, Zoe following reluctantly behind.

  “Nice neighborhood,” she muttered sarcastically. Caroline sushed her, but even Kevin tilted his head skeptically.

  “You sure this is the place?”

  “That’s what he told me,” Caroline said, clutching the note from her day planner, the address Josh had supplied her scrawled hastily upon it. “At least, I think it is,” she amended.

  Zoe rolled her eyes. Kevin looked around. “You know, I checked the paper this morning. There wasn’t any listing for a service.” He paused. “There also weren’t any listings in the obituaries this whole week.”

  “So?” Caroline snapped, then softer: “Sorry. Let’s just go in, okay? We’ll know soon enough.” She squeezed his hand lightly; her palm was damp and cool. Kevin nodded.

  They ascended the creaking wooden stairs. Inside the church, empty pews faced an equally empty pulpit; a plain pine box lay on a white-draped altar, the flowers flanking it providing the only hint of color in the otherwise bereft interior. No one sat at the organ; a small CD player supplied the mournful music. Caroline looked around and saw five very serious-looking black men standing, one at each corner of the room, another at the entrance to the rectory. The men were dressed in somber suits and positioned near the smudged and flyspecked windows; they regarded Caroline and her family dispassionately, then went back to watching the street. It looked more like a mafia meeting than a paying of last respects; Caroline smiled at them nervously and whispered to her husband and daughter.

  “This can’t be it,” she said. “I must’ve gotten the address wrong.”

  Suddenly the stairs creaked behind them and they turned to see Louis Hillyard and Amy entering. “No, you got it right,” Amy said. “Welcome to the party, Caroline. Long time no see.”

  Caroline looked at them, surprised. “Oh my God,” she blurted. “Amy,” The two women embraced quickly and somewhat awkwardly, like there was some long-buried thread of tension there. “You haven’t changed a bit,” Caroline said.

  “And you’re still a lousy liar,” Amy countered and hugged her back, this time more genuinely. Caroline smiled, tears welling despite herself.

  “Jesus, Amy, what are we doing here?” she asked. Just then a long-forgotten but familiar voice sounded behind them.

  “Damn good question. I wish I knew.”

  The two women turned to see Seth standing in the doorway. Am
y and Caroline both stared, slack-jawed, then cried out simultaneously.

  “SETH!!”

  They rushed to embrace him; and while there had been a distinct emotional distance between the women, their friend was an instant and uniting force. Kevin and Zoe watched as Seth took one in each arm, lifting them both in a massive three-way bear hug, then set them down gently. Amy beamed.

  “Damn, dude, what happened to your hair?”

  “It went away,” Seth replied, smiling. Amy reached up and touched his shaven dome. “I tried to reason with it for awhile,” he said, “but then I figured, fuggit!”

  “Still a smartass,” Amy said.

  “Still a bitch,” Seth countered. Amy punched him on the shoulder, and they hugged again. It was a fleeting respite: old friends sharing both the joy of seeing each other and the pain of their mysterious circumstance. Then Louis stepped forward, muting it.

  “You all should take a seat,” he instructed, gesturing inside. The group nodded and obeyed, moving down the aisle and into the worn wooden pews. As they did so, introductions were hastily exchanged — Seth and Kevin shaking hands as Caroline presented Zoe to her friends. Amy and Seth both looked at her as they shook hands, then back to Caroline, who spoke, her tone hushed.

  “This is so terrible. Did Josh call you too?”

  Amy and Seth nodded uneasily. “Something like that,” Seth replied. “Can’t say I’m wild about the company he keeps.” They looked around at the brothers manning the windows — along with Louis, there was Henri Hayes and his two young accomplices from the incident at the Manor, and Mohammed and Rajim. “Those two mooks I know from the club. The others…” Seth shrugged. “I dunno. But if they’re hangin’ with those creeps, it can’t be good.”

  The others nodded, a ripple of anxiety passing between them. As they tried to piece together what happened, it quickly became clear that not one of them knew exactly how Justin had died. It was also clear that Josh had manipulated each of them into coming. The more they talked, the more agitated Amy in particular seemed to become.