Blackened

by Tim McWhorter

  A nearby Walgreens parking lot provided enough light to see in the back, but not enough to see well.

  “Do you have a tire iron in the truck?” Wade asked once he’d had a chance to scope out the situation.

  “Behind the seat,” I said. “Why?”

  “Be right back.”

  Wade was gone before I could protest, but then, I probably wouldn’t have anyway. I didn’t know if it was the seed of new-found anger flourishing, or if hanging with the confident Wade for the past hour had helped me grow some balls, but I didn’t mind being left alone in a dark and dangerous situation like I had in the past.

  I guess it could have also been the fact that I had a gun on me this time. I’m sure it didn’t hurt.

  “These glass blocks,” Wade said when he returned with the tire iron, “give people a sense of security. They look thick and strong. Impenetrable. But what most people don’t know is that, in many instances, they’re hollow, not solid.”

  To prove his point, Wade gripped the tire iron with both hands like you would an axe. One hand on top and one on bottom. But instead of swinging it downward, he reared back and brought it forward, ramming the pointed end right through the center of one of the middle blocks. Eliciting a sharp clinking sound as it broke, the glass block put up about as much resistance as a regular pane of glass. Only it didn’t shatter as much as it sort of caved in on itself.

  “Good thing that one wasn’t solid,” I said.

  “No shit,” Wade said, smiling. “That would’ve hurt.”

  After pulling the piece of iron back out, Wade turned it around and snaked the hooked end of the iron through the hole he had just made.

  “When I was in the Army,” Wade said, “my unit helped with some of the cleanup in Haiti after the big hurricane. There were buildings that were beyond repair, and since resources were limited, a lot of the demolition had to be done by hand.”

  Once it was in a few inches, he brought the other end of the iron around and pulled back on it. The iron came back an inch or so before stopping solid, hooking onto the glass.

  “Saw one of my buddies going around a building, removing sections of glass block just like this. Dentist or doctor’s office, I think. You see, the blocks are strong and the mortar holding them together is strong, but the nails holding the entire section to the frame of the building, not so much. Better stand back.”

  Using the glass block he’d just broken as leverage, Wade pried downward, putting all his weight into it. Seconds later, the entire section of glass came away from the wall with a loud ripping sound. Together, the blocks hit the concrete ground with a thud before splitting at their seams and scattering in all directions.

  I’m not sure what I expected, but the crashing sound caught me off guard. I pulled the gun, and gripping it firmly in my hands, I cowered down against the brick wall to one side of the window. Bringing the tire iron with him, Wade followed suit.

  The sound was sure to have reached Arashk’s ears. Whether or not it would bring him our way was yet to be seen. But after a few seconds, Wade thought of something that I’d failed to consider.

  “Probably should have had you go around front and watch the door while I did that,” Wade said. “Make sure he doesn’t try to split out the front.”

  “Shit!” I said, and without further hesitation, I disappeared around the corner and into the darkness.

  Chapter 54

  At the front corner of the building, I stopped, hanging back in the shadows to peek around the corner.

  Nothing was brewing out in front of the motel, trouble or otherwise. Things were just as dead as they’d been a few minutes before. Still, at any second I was expecting to see the closest dark blue door fly open and Arashk come running out. My foot was tapping uncontrollably, like it was keeping double time on a bass drum. I crouched low with the gun in my hand, doing a bad impression of a SWAT officer about to raid. Whether I would actually be able to fire the gun, I wasn’t yet sure. Any and all thoughts I’d had about its use were defensive, shooting it out of self-preservation more so than hunting one of them down.

  But either way, I was ready for Arashk whenever he felt the need to run.

  What I wasn’t ready for was the guy in the light blue sweat suit coming around the back of my truck and heading in my direction, flashlight in hand. As he walked in and out of the intermittent lights, I could see that the scowl on his face meant he had a problem with something. Naturally, I assumed that something was Wade and me.

  The guy, who looked to be well into his fifties with a receding, slicked back hairline and potbelly to show for his years, was muttering something as he stepped up onto the sidewalk a couple of doors down. Rounding a tall metal trashcan, he continued up the corridor, coming right toward me. His body was ridged; there was a purpose in the way he walked.

  I abandoned my crouch and stood up straight. A confrontation was in my near future and I tried to brace for it. My heart was racing. So was my mind. This was a distraction I did not need.

  “Hey, assholes!” shouted the guy as he rounded the corner, “what do you think you’re doing parking –”

  But his words were cut off when the guy nearly ran right into me in the darkness. Startled, he took a step back.

  “Fuck me!” he said, then quickly brought the flashlight up, training it on my face.

  “Calm down,” I said, putting my hands up to show I wasn’t a threat. That may not have been the best course of action, because I still held the gun in one of them.

  “Shit.” The word escaped his lips on a whisper. He raised his hands and took another step backward, putting him back into the light from the streetlamps.

  “It’s all good, man,” I said, trying to be as reassuring as I could. I was going to have to deal with this guy while still keeping one ear on the door. The situation had the potential to go sideways pretty quick if I didn’t defuse it in short order. “We’re not looking for any trouble.”

  “Says the man with the gun. I’ve already called the cops.”

  By the way the guy’s cheeks quivered, I figured he was most likely lying about the second part. There was desperation in his eyes, an unsure tone in his voice. He wasn’t acting like someone full of confidence that the cavalry was coming.

  “That’s probably a good thing,” I said, lowering my own hands. “If you hadn’t called them, we would be anyway. Eventually.” I was telling the truth, and admittedly, a part of me was hoping he was, too. I wanted revenge. I wanted to get to Barnes before he got away again. But most importantly, I just wanted this all to be over once and for all. I was finding that thinking about it and doing it weren’t exactly the same.

  That’s about the time I heard the creaking of a door. It sounded nearby, like Arashk’s door. My heart rate went through the roof, and my mind instructed my feet to move my ass.

  “Excuse me,” I said, brushing past the guy who I now assumed was either the owner or manager.

  Whoever he was, he stepped back a couple steps, more than happy to give me berth.

  Entering the light, I brought the gun up with one hand, but was soon gripping it with both. I stepped up onto the concrete and swung the gun around, aiming it at the open doorway, head level.

  “Whoa, don’t shoot!” the voice said. And as the person stepped out into the light, I was glad I hadn’t.

  Chapter 55

  “It’s empty,” Wade said, his forehead creased with uncertainty. “There’s no one in there.”

  I lowered the gun and took a couple of seconds to catch my breath. Only then did I try and make sense of what he’d just said.

  “How is that possible?” I asked, bewilderment clouding my thoughts. “Where would he have gone?”

  Wade apparently took both questions as rhetorical, because he didn’t answer either one. Instead, he asked a question of his own.

  “Who’s this?”

  He nodded at something behind me, and I turned to see the guy in the sweat suit. He was standing just to my left, tryi
ng to look formidable. In the flash of excitement, I’d forgotten all about him.

  “I’m the owner here,” the guy said, stepping up onto the sidewalk with his chest puffed out. He seemed to have recovered from his brush with an armed man in the dark. “Who the fuck are you two, and what the fuck are you doing?”

  I was about to give some sort of answer when a loud crash came from somewhere inside the motel. I couldn’t tell if it had come from Arashk’s room directly, or just somewhere close by. Either way it was alarming.

  Wade thought so, too, because he turned and raced back into Arashk’s room, gun raised.

  “I’m calling the cops,” the motel owner said, hustling away.

  That figures, I thought. But I didn’t have time to make a smartass comment. I had more important things to do than to call someone out for being a liar.

  The room definitely looked empty when I got my first glimpse of it. The lights on the bedside nightstands were both on, and the low wattage bulbs cast the room in a murky, yellow glow. It was enough to see that there was nobody but the two of us in the room.

  “The bathroom?” I whispered.

  “That’s where I just came through,” Wade said, shaking his head. “But I’ll check again.”

  I watched Wade step slowly around the bed toward the bathroom on the other side of the room. Taking it all in from just inside the doorway, there wasn’t much to see: a lumpy, unmade bed, a small countertop with a sink, and an area in the corner where a few wire hangers hung from a narrow metal bar. On the floor beneath the hangars sat a black, box television with its cord wrapped around it. There was no dresser, only a large rectangular section by the wall where the dingy brown carpet wasn’t quite as dingy and worn as the rest.

  The closest thing to decorations was the scattered clothes all about the room. They were everywhere I turned, and from the looks of some of the articles, it wasn’t all men’s clothing. A black lace bra and matching panties sat in a wad atop a small pile of more black clothing on the foot of the bed. Uncertainty brought a kick to the stomach as I imagined the probabilities. I didn’t know the woman these clothes belonged to, but I was already sad for her.

  The only other object of any importance was a dark red sitting chair positioned in front of the only window in the room. The shabby cushion looked to be sunken down in the center and not comfortable at all, while the fabric covering the arms was worn to a faded shade of the same color red.

  The strange part was the pillow and floral, yet equally threadbare, comforter that was haphazardly folded and laid across one arm of the chair. It was a dead match for the comforter tangled up on the bed. This seemed odd to me, having two comforters, but then something else in the room caught my attention, and the matching comforters were quickly forgotten.

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner.

  “Empty, just like before,” Wade said, returning from the bathroom. “Unless he somehow backtracked and got out through the bathroom window after I came in, but that seems unlikely. I would have seen him. Or heard him. It’s only one f ’ing room.”

  I nodded when our eyes met, and then I motioned toward the wall beside the sitting chair.

  Wade’s eyes followed.

  The door on this side wall was painted the same drab white as the rest of the room, blending it in nicely. The tarnished brass knob was the only thing that could catch your attention if you gave more than a glancing look in its direction.

  “Adjoining rooms,” Wade said, coming up beside me. “That figures.”

  “Also explains there being two comforters,” I said, pointing them out to Wade.

  “And maybe the missing furniture,” Wade said, motioning toward the empty space where the dresser used to sit.

  With an understanding of the implications, we stepped up to the door together. The adjoining room was likely where the crash had come from, and that meant it was likely where Arashk had disappeared to. The thought crossed my mind that one of us should go back out and make sure he didn’t try to escape through the adjoining room’s front door, but I quickly dismissed it. I was too intrigued to leave the situation, and I sure as hell didn’t want Wade to leave and force me to check out the next room on my own, either. Leaving that exit unguarded for the minute or two it would take us to get into the room was a risk we were just going to have to take.

  Two back-to-back doors were between us and our goal. The first was unlocked, and opened with only the slightest protest of sound. Luckily, it wasn’t enough to alert anyone who may be nearby. The second door would be the test. If it were locked, then we were either wrong about Arashk utilizing that room, and I doubted we were, or he was holed up in there and trying to keep us from entering. With my heart about to come through my chest, I reached for the handle of the second door.

  Taking little to no effort on my part, the door opened inward. No sound came with it, and I stopped once the opening was a narrow sliver about an inch wide. It wasn’t much, but enough to determine that there were no lights on in the room. The space beyond the door was pitch black, and I wondered if I’d be able to reach the bedside lamp without actually entering the room.

  A low humming sound, like that of a fan, came from somewhere in the dark.

  “Are you ready for this?”

  The words were whispered over my shoulder, and though I thought I was ready, their suggestion made me wonder. But this wasn’t the time for an internal debate.

  With the toe of my shoe, I slowly pushed the door open all the way. As soon as space allowed, Wade and I both thrust our guns inward like we’d done this a million times before. A tiny amount of the light filtered into the room with us, but it wasn’t just the shadows that needed penetrating.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  It was the smell. It wasn’t overly strong, but its unique familiarity grabbed hold of my stomach and twisted to beat all hell. I knew the smell. Unfortunately, I knew it well. It was Barnes’ calling card.

  Wade wasn’t as accustomed to the stench, and he didn't know how lucky he was.

  Crouching just slightly, I turned to my right and began searching the void with my free hand. The lamp should have been right there, but I never found it. All I felt was empty space. Either the lamp had been moved, or this room wasn’t set up the same as the other. My money was on the former. I didn’t think too much creativity was put into setting up rooms in a shit hole motel like this one. I thought of the flashlight the owner was carrying and wished he’d dropped it as he’d taken off. I would have gladly gone back and swiped it up.

  “No lights,” I whispered to Wade.

  His silhouette nodded in response, as if he’d completely expected there not to be.

  “Cell phone?”

  I checked my pocket, then shook my head. I must have left it in the truck. It wasn’t surprising considering the rush I was in. I was just considering running out to get it when Wade changed my plans without asking.

  “We know you’re in there.”

  Much louder than his earlier whisper, Wade’s words cut through the stillness like a bullet through paper. I flinched in the process, instinctively cowering right where I stood.

  “And you should know we have guns,” he continued. “Maybe you do, too, but I doubt it. By what I’ve heard, guns aren’t your thing.”

  Near silence greeted his words. The only sound at all was the continued soft humming. That, and the sound of our heavy breathing. But something had to give. We couldn’t just stand there in the darkness for the next few hours waiting for the sun to come up, hoping it was bright enough to penetrate the drapes and shed some light on the situation.

  That’s when I got an idea.

  Crossing in front of Wade, I made my way over to the room’s sole window, being careful where I placed each step. I didn’t know what, if anything stood between it and me, and I didn’t want to find out the hard way. When I finally reached the wall, my hand searched it until I found what I was looking for.

  Taking a deep breath, I gave
the drapes a hard yank outward.

  Nothing happened. The heavy cloth acted like it wanted to split apart, but it quickly caught and ended up not budging at all. I tried again with the same result. I could feel Wade watching me from the illuminated doorway, his silhouette providing an unfortunate target for anyone who might want to take a shot. The image injected some urgency into my actions.

  I felt my way to the edge of the drape, and after some blind investigation, found that the edge of the fabric had been stapled securely to the wall. All along the edge, I could feel thick metal staples imbedded every inch or so. There had to be hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Figuring it would take too long to wedge enough of them free to get a good grip, I set out instead to find the middle, hoping to pull the drapes apart at the center.

  That course of action also turned out to be a dead end. The two drapes converging in the middle had been crudely sewn together, crafting them into one large piece of fabric. My heart started pounding even harder. I’d had my back turned to the room for too long. The anxiety of it urged me to come up with the only other plan I could think of to shed some light on the situation.

  Sliding the gun into the back of my waistband, I gripped balls of the fabric with both hands this time and yanked downward with everything I had.

  With a sound similar to wood cracking, the curtain rod tore away from the wall and fell downward. The staples still held the cloth to the wall at the edges, but the collapsed curtain rod created a substantial gap at the top of the heavy drapery. Light from the parking lot flooded the room. I crouched down below the window, spinning around as I retrieved the gun from my waistband.