by Joe Hart
Going to bed soon. Hope you’re okay. I love you.
He began to reply, then deleted the text. He didn’t want to wake her. Instead he imagined her sleeping in their bed in the old farmhouse, warm and safe and so opposite from the situation Valerie was in tonight, he nearly shivered. If he and Owen’s roles were reversed, he didn’t know what he would do. You’re kidding yourself, he thought. You know exactly what you’d do. You’d be hunting whoever took her, with or without the law behind you. And what would you do when you found the person that had her? What if she wasn’t all right? What if she were already gone? You don’t even need to ponder it. Not for one second. You know.
He silenced the internal voice and sent up a thanks to the universe that his family was where they should be before setting the phone on the table beside him. He didn’t need to worry about what-ifs. Too many times people wasted their lives stressing about things that would never happen.
Through the window the clouds were corroded piles of ash that gradually parted to reveal a half-moon suspended in the ocean of darkness. As sleep slowly stole over him, he tried to draw comfort from the moon’s light, but no matter how long he looked at it the only thing he felt was a cold apathy within its gaze.
CHAPTER 8
Dade Erickson pulled into his two-stall garage and shut the car off, the clacking rumble of the garage door closing behind him the loudest sound he’d heard all day.
The offices where he practiced law were like different partitions of the same cemetery since several of his staff had taken the day off for various functions. His secretary, Gwen, was on an administration retreat in Florida, and Nancy—one of his two partners in the firm he started—was on vacation with her family in Hawaii. Her imbecilic husband had scrimped and saved up enough to surprise her and their two snot-nosed kids with the getaway, working double shifts at the shipyard to pay for it. If he only knew what Dade and Nancy did in Dade’s private bathroom when the rest of the employees of Erickson, Bender, & Scott went out to lunch, he wouldn’t have been so keen to have his wife come along on the trip. Not so keen at all, Dade thought, remembering their last rendezvous and how Nancy had moaned what a superior lover he was compared to her husband while he sweated above her.
Chuckling a little, Dade got out of the low shape of his Mercedes E250 and admired the car beneath the lights.
“You’re fucking sexy,” he said, running a hand along the fender before going to its front to admire the grille. He’d only had the vehicle a week and he still got a semi-erection when climbing into the leather interior in the mornings before work. Maybe next week when Nancy was back they would leave early from work and he’d screw her in its rear seat. She’d like that, he was almost sure of it.
Making a mental note to suggest it to her after her return, Dade climbed the single step into his house and shut the door. The cleaning lady had been there that day. He could smell the flowery potpourri she always set out in little netted bags throughout the house. She made the shit herself and insisted on leaving it, even though he’d told her more than once he wasn’t paying for it. In the kitchen he opened the fridge and drew out the acai-carrot juice blend he made every morning. Half for breakfast, the rest for after work. He would’ve rather taken a pull from the Glenlivet that rested on the top shelf of the pantry, but the juice concoction kept him lean and alert.
“Feral! Where are you?” he called into the darkness of the living room and poured a glass full of the purplish beverage. He waited, listening for the jingle of the cat’s collar and soon he heard it. The big tom came sauntering into the light, his movements displaying every ounce of the predator he was. He was a muddy brown with short fur and deep orange eyes that held the impression of laziness until there was prey in sight. He had earned his name as a kitten after chasing and killing a large mouse in the attached garage. People said that kittens wouldn’t kill anything they catch, that they were merely learning or playing when they hooked their growing claws into a bird or mouse. But in Feral’s case they were wrong. Dade had been shocked at the sight of the kitten eviscerating the tiny mammal on the bare concrete, its blood smudging the clean floor as the cat ate. Ever since, he’d had a solemn respect for the animal. You never could tell what violence resided within another creature.
“Kill and eat anything today, you evil fucker?” Dade asked before pouring a small handful of dry cat food into a plastic bowl beside the refrigerator. He’d been limiting the cat’s food over the past week. Bastard was getting fat. Feral gave him a withering look, then hunched over his bowl, teeth cracking the nuggets loudly. “You’re getting soft,” he said, downing the rest of his drink. He almost poured another glass but didn’t, although he was feeling lethargic from the lack of sex that day. He and Nancy normally partook of one another almost every day of the week. Without the release he was feeling slow and stupid, like his movements were tethered to a weight he couldn’t see. His thoughts gradually slipped to the plastic baggie wedged in the back of the nightstand drawer between a copy of King James’s bible and his Glock 21. Marshall had dropped the stuff off last week when his recent supply had run out. He didn’t use too much cocaine but it was something he enjoyed on occasion, like some men appreciated an afternoon of fishing or sailing. Maybe he would do a line later and call Nancy. She could chock the call up to business. Maybe he’d talk dirty to her with her husband standing right next to her. She’d get excited about that.
Smiling, Dade set his glass down on the counter and went upstairs. He moved through his master bedroom, discarding his suit like flaking skin, dropping the expensive shirt and slacks on the floor for his cleaning lady to pick up tomorrow. He turned the water on in the shower and doused his hair with shampoo, singing the lyrics to a song he’d heard that afternoon, loudly and off-key.
Midway through washing his hair, shampoo running frothy rivers over his eyes, Dade heard a sound.
He stopped singing, the last echoes of his voice dying out against the wet tile. He turned his head toward his bedroom, eyes scrunched shut, blind to everything beyond his closed eyelids.
There it was again. It sounded like the bathroom door bumping against the wall.
Dade pawed at his eyes, letting the scalding water run fully on his face.
There was someone else in the bathroom. He could feel their gaze on him. They were standing inches from the mottled glass door beside him, watching, waiting for the right moment to rip it open and grab him.
He managed to clear the shampoo from his face and blinked through the watery haze, panic a living thing in his chest.
The bathroom was empty.
His breath cascaded from him and suddenly the shower was too hot. His legs trembled and the thumping of his heart overrode any sounds beyond the shower’s patter.
“Hello?” he said. “Feral?” When the tom’s usual low meow didn’t come, he shut off the water, not caring that shampoo still coated his back and legs. He stepped from the shower and pulled an oversized towel from the rack near the sink. The bathroom door looked like it was in the same position as when he’d gone in, but he couldn’t be entirely sure. He stepped around the corner, surveying the well-lit bedroom. His clothes still lay where he’d dropped them. His bed was made. The door to the hallway was open.
Dade shook his head. Water dripped down from his soaking scalp, icy fingernails running the length of his spine.
“Stupid cat,” he muttered, beginning to dry off his head.
A squeal and a click came from downstairs followed by a soft thump.
Goose bumps spread across Dade’s skin in a rolling wave. His eyes widened, his vision taking on a watery quality as he stared at the doorway, waiting for another noise or a figure to darken the opening. He realized he was holding his breath again and let it flood out. There was someone in the house. Someone was downstairs right now probably listening just like he was. Who the hell could it be? A burglar? One of his friends? Even as the word “friend” crossed his mind, he knew whoever it was down there had something to do
with Marshall. The bastard couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He’d told someone about the coke and now they were here, wanting the little baggie in the drawer. His eyes went to the bedside table automatically.
The gun.
What the hell was he doing? He had a gun and this was his house. He had every right in the world to defend it.
Dade crossed the plush carpet and eased the drawer open revealing the flat black of the Glock beside the bible. He pulled the weapon out, its heft alone giving him another level of confidence. Whichever of Marshall’s cracked-out friends was downstairs right now, they were going to have a few extra holes in them that they hadn’t been born with. If it was Marshall down there, he’d be extremely tempted to aerate the bastard too.
Dade wrapped the towel around his waist and eased out of his bedroom, the Glock extended before him. The stairs were dark but the single kitchen light was on, throwing some illumination at their base. It would be easy for him to shoot anyone that stepped into his line of sight now so he moved quickly down the treads pausing at the bottom so he could glance in both directions before stepping into the open.
Somewhere in the house, Feral meowed.
Dade swung out of the hallway and into the dining room, circumventing the kitchen completely. Shadows lay in heavy blankets across the table and chairs as well as the tall china cabinet in the corner of the room. Pale moonlight streamed in through a gap in the thick curtains that covered the picture window. He saw no strange forms against any of the walls or crouching beneath the furniture. Moving quickly, he crossed the space and entered the front entryway. The massive oak door was shut solid, the dead bolt turned to the locked position. Only the outline of his leather jacket hanging from its hook near the closet gave him pause before he continued on. Glancing into the kitchen he saw that its space was empty. He placed his hand on the cold knob of the garage door before yanking the door open. His fingers flapped in the darkness for a beat, searching for the light switch. In the depths of his heart he knew that before he was able to flip the light on, a hand would reach out of the darkness and grasp his wrist in an unbreakable grip.
His fingers brushed the switch and light flared above the Mercedes.
The garage was empty save for the car and some cardboard boxes he’d been meaning to throw away. With a lunge he stepped down onto the freezing concrete floor, lowering himself so he could look under the car’s chassis. Nothing there.
Dade stood up and sighed hearing Feral meow again inside. It had been the cat all along. The animal had made some sort of noise that was out of the norm and he’d freaked out. He leaned against the doorway, letting the cool October air leech some of the fear away. His muscles were weak with the spike of adrenaline and when he returned inside the house his stomach slopped sickeningly. A wave of dizziness crested in his skull and he nearly stumbled before steadying himself against the wall. What the hell was wrong with him? Was he coming down with something or was it the aftereffects of panicking? Nausea continued to slither in his stomach while he locked the garage door behind him and stepped into the kitchen.
White-hot pain lanced through his foot making him stagger to one side.
His eyes registered the shards of glass on the hardwood before the dizziness returned full-force and dropped him to the floor. He sprawled awkwardly, the Glock bouncing and cartwheeling away. Pain shot up his elbow as he tried to brace himself for the impact but his movements were sluggish and his arm folded, the side of his head banging off the floor. A sound like a struck gong filled his ears and all his air left him in a whoosh. He folded in on himself in the fetal position but through all the pain in his arm and head, the agony of his foot held his full attention. He managed to bring his eyes down and let out a feeble cry.
A long sliver of glass protruded from the soft skin of his sole. Blood drizzled from the end of it creating a strangely beautiful contrast to the otherwise flawless crystal.
Dade made a strangled sound and slowly sat up, holding his foot off of the ground. He blinked, taking in the shattered remnants of his juice glass on the floor, spread out in front of the doorway in a semi-circle.
The fucking cat.
The thought pulsed in his dazed mind. He was going to kill it. As soon as he was able to walk, he would corner the bastard and shoot it with the pistol, he didn’t care if one of his neighbors called the cops. Somehow Feral had gotten onto the breakfast bar and knocked the glass over. That was the noise he’d heard in the shower, he was sure of it.
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” he shouted, bringing his foot closer for inspection. Another bout of vertigo swooped over him and he nearly fell backward beneath its weight. What the hell was going on? He was in pain but not so much he should be passing out. He gritted his teeth and grasped the edge of glass before drawing it free in a sickening motion. The shard slid out of his flesh and he saw that nearly an inch of it had been in his foot. He dropped the piece and was about to yell another threat when he spotted something across the room.
The door to the little travel cage he kept beside the fridge, for when he took Feral somewhere, was closed. Feral’s blunted face looked out from behind the crosshatched wire. He meowed again.
Confusion buffeted Dade in a way he had never encountered before. He felt his head tilt to one side even as heavy hiking boots came into view from the next room, smashing the remaining pieces of glass into dust. Dade’s vision took on a kaleidoscopic quality as he raised his head, looking up the length of the figure that stood before him.
“What?” he managed thickly, before the room’s corners seemed to open to the night sky as darkness rushed in and wrapped him in its embrace.
CHAPTER 9
He chased Abford down the alley.
Each breath coated in razor wire that tugged holes in his lungs. His fingers wrapped around the handle of his gun, feet connecting with the ground in painful steps, mouth full of gelled spit. His partner had already been shot. Liam had left him bleeding beside the door Abford had fired through. And he knew what would happen next. She would come out of the salon, dark hair styled for an anniversary that would never come, hand clutching her belly as she moved down the stairs where the bullet meant for Abford would catch her in the throat and steal two lives away at once. Any second now she would move into his line of sight.
Sights.
He could see Abford past the sights of his gun. He would turn now, raising his own weapon, ready to end Liam’s life.
Instead he ran on.
Liam paused, half waiting for Kelly to appear like she always had before. She would step out any second now and he would kill her with a shot to the throat.
The alley remained empty except for Abford’s sprinting form.
Liam ran.
Wind burned past his face. His eyes watered. He seemed to be on a treadmill, the speed increasing with each step he took. No matter how fast he ran he couldn’t catch Abford, who raced ahead unimpeded. The alley narrowed between two buildings that seemed to move inward, crushing the space between them as he closed in on the corner. Abford turned without breaking stride. Liam slowed, edging up to the wall before pivoting around it.
A stairway dropped into darkness before him.
The alleyway was gone, replaced by a wide set of stairs that disappeared into the grip of swirling shadows. The sound of footfalls filtered up to him and he hesitated on the first tread. A cold dread filled him as if he were being poured full of ice water. He didn’t want to go down those stairs. Only horror and death waited for him, he could feel it. As he stood there, locked in the grip of indecision, a memory of his father came to him.
He’d been young, maybe seven or eight, and his father had been alive and healthy, still working long hours at his barber shop each day, taking only Sundays off completely. They’d been outside at the farmhouse, having a fire in the evening after dinner. It had been late November and it was full dark save for the leaping light of the flames from their fire pit behind the house. The time around the fire was a special one sinc
e it allowed them to catch up on the day they’d spent apart, and Liam had always cherished the smell of the wood smoke and the gentle heat that warmed his toes and fingers despite the cold. On that particular night the fire had grown low and there hadn’t been enough wood beside the pit to keep it going, so his father had risen from his seat and moved toward the rear of the garage where they kept the ricks of wood leaning against two stakes and the building itself. The space behind the garage had been coated in darkness, the clipping of moon hanging in the cold sky providing little light. Liam had stood to warn his father not to go into the darkness, that something terrible waited there for him, its talons honed to an edge, a living bloodlust born from nightmare itself. He’d watched in abject terror as his father strode into the waiting mouth of shadows and winked out of existence. In the depths of his being, Liam knew that he wouldn’t return. There would be a scream and then quiet so deep it would sound like the world had gone deaf. Then he would see it moving deep in the darkness. Something cold and without pity that watches with glee as parents are taken from their children, because death is filled up but never full. That’s what he’d feared in the night, always when his father was sleeping soundly in the room that he would one day share with Dani. The unfathomable horror of death. The inevitable gnashing of geared teeth in the machine disguised as life. Yet it wasn’t life. Life was only a mask for what waited at the end for everyone and everything that drew a breath.
And it was what waited for him now at the bottom of those stairs. He hadn’t fired the shot that had killed Kelly. This time it had been different somehow, though he struggled with the implications of what had happened. The memory of her death was still fresh and raw as burned skin. But something had changed now. He needed to go back and make sure. He needed to see her face and watch her walk away from the salon, untouched by his bullet, unscathed by tragedy. He needed to see her go home to her husband and children. He was about to turn away from the inky depths when a scream rose from the stairwell, gutting him where he stood.
