Bone Snow

by David Haynes

But Kim wasn’t about to be pushed aside with a dismissive comment. “You do, huh? And what’s that?”

  “A cop,” she replied. Her voice was full of malice. It was shocking. “A busybody cop who sticks her nose where it doesn’t belong, getting her kicks out of other people’s misery.” She paused. “I know what you’re all about.”

  “You think you know me?” Kim snapped back. “You don’t know a thing!”

  “I know enough.”

  Leo took Kim’s arm. There was no point in these two getting into a fight. Alison was stressed by Michael’s condition and reacting badly. They were unlikely to get any sense out of her at this time. “Come on. We need to find Chris.”

  She went with him, turning just before they reached the stairs. “What the hell?” she said.

  He shook his head. He didn’t understand either.

  They reached the bottom step and paused. “Only leaves one place to look,” he said, gesturing toward the basement stairs.

  He started walking but Kim caught his arm. “Who do you think she is?”

  He hadn’t given it much thought. Michael’s external injuries looked severe now, worse than he’d initially thought. Beneath the surface, those injuries were causing problems of their own. The man was damaged, possibly beyond repair. He might have been speaking Russian for all the sense he made.

  “You saw his face, right? I’m no doctor but I’d say at least part of his brain is damaged, badly. He’s not making sense. She could be anyone. A sister, his mom, grandmother, who the hell knows.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You think something else? Like what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just tired, that’s all.” She wrapped her arms about herself. “And cold. You can feel it coming out of that place.” She held up the lamp.

  He looked over. A wispy mist full of sparkling, icy crystals drifted into the storeroom.

  “You need to get it fixed before the fall,” she said. “You’ve got some holes in there that need filling up. A few days of rain and the whole place will flood.”

  The last heavy rain had been just over a month ago, before the droplets turned from water to ice overnight. The basement had never flooded, not in all the time he’d been here and certainly not this year. It was watertight.

  “Doubt I’ll still be here by the fall,” he said.

  “What? Of course you will.”

  He shook his head. “This time next year I’ll be sipping sea breezes beside a pool in Florida.”

  “Sea breezes? Florida? You don’t strike me as a sea breeze man, Leo. Or a Florida man for that matter.”

  He chuckled. “Well, maybe I ought to be because this place won’t last much longer.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse.”

  “Shit, I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault. Just the way things go, I guess.”

  “Where will I go for the lousiest coffee in town?”

  “I’ll leave the machine plugged in. Just for you.”

  “You’re too kind,” she replied.

  They stood in silence for a few seconds. For a moment Leo forgot the situation, enjoying the easy conversation.

  “Get a room!” Kenta shouted.

  Kim rolled her eyes.

  15

  Ookami watched them walk into the storeroom. He heard Kenta’s voice and then raised voices, a short argument. Kenta could have a fight in his sleep. He had so much to learn but time was running out for him. There were only so many times Ookami could bail him out, speak up for him before a decision was made that he couldn’t reverse. Kenta was a liability. A ruthless, vicious obligation.

  Killing the girl had been an accident, a bad accident, but things like that seemed to follow him about. He left a mess wherever he went and inevitably someone else had to go clean it up. Family or not, there was going to be a reckoning for what happened tonight.

  The cop was a problem. She’d been there, witnessed what happened and would have to make a report about it. He could put Kenta in hiding for a while, but murdering kids wasn’t something that could easily be ignored. It made everyone look bad.

  He could kill the cop, but then the whole of the PD would come looking, poking around in matters that didn’t concern them. That would make his bosses in Japan very nervous. They didn’t like any attention.

  He rubbed his eyes. There was no easy way out of this but he had to keep his head, stay smart and think it through. There was still a job that needed completing before they left here. It was half-finished and by the looks of things, it might actually end of its own accord but he had to make sure. The future, his future depended on it.

  He waited and listened, peering into the darkness of the storeroom. The lamp wobbled off into the corner and disappeared up the stairs. He waited another second, glanced at the sleeping kid and then got slowly to his feet. Listening, always listening.

  He crept into the storeroom and pulled back the cardboard blanket Kenta had made for himself.

  “Hey, I told you…” Kenta started.

  He put a finger to his lips. Kenta looked in a bad way. He’d taken a beating off Leo. The guy knew how to throw a punch, that much was clear. If the time came, he wouldn’t be easy to subdue.

  “They gone upstairs?” Ookami whispered.

  Kenta nodded.

  “We need to finish the job.”

  Kenta smiled.

  Ookami reached down to his ankle and pulled a small locking-knife from the sheath he kept there. It was razor sharp, a nasty little weapon that could inflict multiple deep wounds before someone even realized they were in a fight. He handed it to Kenta.

  “You know what I need you to do.” It wasn’t a question.

  Kenta’s grin grew wider. The kid enjoyed killing. It was simple, binary. Life, death. He was good at it. It was when things got a little more complicated that he became difficult.

  “And the wife?”

  Ookami nodded. “First.”

  Kenta stared at the blade, turning the handle, sliding his fingers and knuckles into the grips. “Nice.”

  “Do it quick,” Ookami ordered. Kenta had a penchant for knife work, for torture and for inflicting pain. This wasn’t the time for that.

  “Shame,” he replied.

  They waited, listening for sounds coming from the apartment. The voices were muffled but raised.

  “You know where that other one went?”

  “Chris?” Kenta shrugged. “Haven’t seen him but if he isn’t up there, then he’s in the basement enjoying a bit of time with that baishunpu.”

  “She’s no prostitute,” Ookami replied. “At least, not anymore.”

  Kenta’s smile faltered for just a second. “What is she then?”

  “Lost.”

  The grin returned, although it looked pained on his swollen face. “You know when we get out of here, you’ll put a word in for me, right? I’ve been thinking, I need a bigger challenge, maybe run things…”

  A vague feeling of fondness for the boy came over Ookami. Sensations like that were rare and never particularly welcome.

  “You killing that girl has given me a headache, Kenta. A real headache. You know that, right?”

  “I know and I’m sorry. It was an accident. I thought someone was shooting at us. At you.”

  He didn’t buy that, not entirely anyway. Kenta’s motivation for firing his weapon was driven by self-preservation, nothing more. But sometimes, preserving your own skin meant looking out for someone else, even if it was unintentional.

  “There will be consequences. I can’t stop that. But I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thank you, Uncle.”

  He listened again, trying his best to shut out the banging of the storm on the shutters.

  “They’re coming,” he whispered. He didn’t have enough time to get back to the store without them seeing him but if Kenta was right, they’d have no choice but to go down in the basement to look for Chris anyway.

  Ookami listened to their conversatio
n. They spoke in an easy manner that seemed to suggest they’d known each other for longer than just tonight. That made him feel uneasy. He liked to know everything and their relationship troubled him.

  “Get a room!” Kenta shouted.

  He could see Kenta’s face, that ridiculous grin. If he could have taken a knife to the kid’s throat there and then, he would have. He was too stupid to amount to anything. He’d be lucky to make it through another year without someone, friend or foe, taking him out.

  He waited until he heard them descend the stairs into the basement before grabbing Kenta around the throat.

  “You stupid fuck,” he hissed. “When will you learn?” He pushed him aside and then stood up. “Don’t fuck this up,” he said and walked back to the front of the store.

  Ookami collapsed onto the mattress. He might just have to kill his nephew anyway.

  *

  Leo went first, his little flashlight sparkling off the frosty walls of the stairwell.

  “Is it me, or is colder…?” Kim started.

  “Dropped another ten, I reckon. Chris!” he called out. “You down here?”

  There was no reply. If he was at the far end with the woman then maybe he wouldn’t hear. What the hell would he be doing?

  They reached the foot of the stairs and dog-legged into the basement. He stopped immediately.

  “What is it?” Kim asked.

  “I…I don’t know.”

  She stepped down beside him. “What the hell?” she whispered.

  The last time either of them had been down here was when Kenta shot Michelle. At that point Leo had said to himself he wouldn’t come down here again. He’d tried to bring the woman upstairs, tried to help her and her baby as much as he could, and it had got him nowhere. All it achieved was the murder of an innocent girl.

  Sota’s death was of his own making; drugs, drink, whatever it was, it was on him. But Michelle…

  “What’s happening down here?” Kim’s voice brought him back to the present.

  It was a winter wonderland. Those were Leo’s first thoughts; something off a Christmas card. There was ice and snow everywhere. He shone the flashlight around the space. The light bounced off icicles that hung like daggers from the ceiling. The ducting, the pipes and the electrical conduits were gone, covered in a thick layer of snow.

  The floor was the same. He took a step forward to the edge of the snow and stopped. At the rear of the basement the snow banked in a deep drift, rising up to the ceiling, eliminating any gap. It sloped down gradually toward the front until, at Leo’s toes, there was just a thin covering.

  He stretched forward, tentatively placing his foot down on the snow. He didn’t know why he was reluctant to touch it, but he was. It was unnatural. It felt unnatural and not just because his basement was full of it.

  It crunched beneath his boot. It squeaked and shifted but it was dry, almost gritty. Sandy. He dragged his foot back, feeling uneasy. The texture was wrong, all wrong.

  Leo thought of the urn his mom kept on her dresser for all those years. He’d heard her talking to it. It was his dad, she’d told him. He hadn’t known what cremated was back then. All he knew was that Dad was gone, killed by a something called Cancer, always with a capital C. She used to cry a lot when she held the urn. She cried a lot and nearly all of the time too. But once she got mad. She got so mad she threw it at the wall and the insides spilled out all over the carpet. There was dust everywhere. He’d helped her clean it up but the dust stayed on his fingers, staining the flesh, working into the fine lines on the tips and getting under his nails.

  That had felt wrong too. It wasn’t like the layer of dust on the lids of his old toys. It wasn’t like that at all. It was bigger, heavier somehow and when he touched it, it hurt his belly.

  That’s how the snow felt beneath his foot. Like…like a spilled cremation urn. Like burned and ground-up bones. He felt his facial muscles contract.

  “You okay?” Kim asked. “You look like you might throw up.”

  She’d obviously seen the expression of revulsion on his face. He ignored her question. How could he explain what he’d just felt? It was snow, that was all. Just snow.

  “Chris!” he shouted again. His voice echoed and his words glittered with icy fragments.

  “I don’t see him,” said Kim. “And where is she?” She flicked her flashlight about.

  “Chris! You down here?” he called again although he was losing hope of finding him. He would have answered by now.

  “We should take a look,” Kim said.

  Leo held back, thoughts of his father’s ashes still fresh in his mind. Kim took a step forward and stopped. He watched her expression change. It was faint, fleeting and then disappeared. But it was there, no doubt about it, and it wasn’t a look of pleasure that crossed her face.

  She angled the flashlight into the closest recess. “I think I see her,” she said, shuffling forward. She looked over her shoulder at him. “You coming?”

  He nodded, looked down at his feet and told them to step forward. The creaking, groan as they pushed down on the snow was hideous but he moved forward, aiming the flashlight toward the alcove.

  It was the closest one to the stairway, only ten feet back from the stairwell. She’d moved again, edging forward as the snow deepened around her. How could she stand to be down here? How could she bear to keep a child in such awful circumstances?

  “Hello?” Kim called, reaching the alcove first. “Hey, have you…” She stopped, taking a shuffling step backward. The flashlight wobbled in her grip, arcing up the wall as she stumbled.

  Leo put his arm out to steady her and then turned to the alcove.

  “Dear God.”

  The woman was crouching, her gray woolen shroud pulled around both her and the child. They both had their faces in the dusty snow and all Leo could hear was a loud grinding sound. Mechanical. Industrial.

  A shoe, Sota’s designer sneaker, was in one of the woman’s hands; a leg bone, complete with ball socket, was in the other. It looked like a mastiff dog had been gnawing on it.

  She lowered the bone, pushing it toward the bundle she cradled carefully, half against her body and half on the snow. Something gray and almost reptilian crept out from beneath the shroud. For a moment Leo thought the child was deformed, its hand gray and warped. But it wasn’t fingers. It was the child’s tongue. It flicked against the bone, lapping at it, before it wound around the fibula and pulled it under the blanket.

  Leo’s mouth went dry and his stomach turned.

  “What…” But he couldn’t finish the question. He didn’t know what he was looking at. His mind couldn’t process it.

  A gunshot sounded from upstairs. It made him do something he hadn’t done since he was a child. He jumped and at the same time uttered a curse. He glanced at Kim and then came the second shot. He started to turn away, and as he did the woman half-turned her head as if she too had heard the weapon. She did not look like the same woman he’d pulled into the shop. She had been young, beautiful with mournful eyes. This was someone else entirely. Something else. Powdery snow swirled around them both as she turned back to what was left of Sota.

  Leo grabbed Kim and hauled her away, as much from the spectacle as toward the sound of the gunshot. It couldn’t have been real. What he’d just witnessed was just a trick of his tired mind. That was all.

  16

  Kenta watched Ookami walk back to his little nest, all warm and cozy. He gave him the finger behind his back and got to his feet.

  The handle of the knife felt cold in his hands, like he was holding an icicle. It was reassuring to hold a weapon again, especially this one. He’d seen Ookami use it; the quick, jerky stabs, his hand a blur as it plunged the knife up between the ribs of the dealer multiple times – ten, twenty wounds maybe? Two or three would have done the job but for all his calm, business-like demeanor, the man still liked to get his hands bloody once in a while. No, not liked, loved. You could see it in the whites of his eyes as t
hey turned a deep crimson with each drop of blood he spilled. The man was like a mazoku when he needed to be.

  Kenta turned the knife in his fingers, touching the keen edge of the blade. A devil could still be killed, whether he was family or not.

  He stared at the stairwell leading to the basement, listening out for any sounds, and then walked across the room. Those two idiots didn’t know what was waiting for them down there. She would take care of them. Just as she had the others and then this would all be over. He heard Leo call out for Chris. Stupid fuck, he’s dead.

  He was in no hurry to climb the stairs to the apartment. After this little job was done, it was all over anyway. Everything would come out but it would be too late for anyone to do anything about it. His stomach was tight and fluttering; nervous yet excited at the same time. He’d been fourteen when he first killed someone. It was a doped-up bum sitting against the wall, begging for money so he could fill his veins again. He’d knelt by the man, looked into his eyes and then stabbed him, just once, in the throat. There was a lot of blood. It came jetting out of the man, warm and sticky, splashing against his cheeks and mouth. He felt no sorrow, no emotion at all. If he wanted to be a part of Uncle’s gang then it was just something that needed to be done. To test himself, to gauge his reaction.

  His uncle had been watching, standing behind Kenta and smiling. Nothing was said, but Ookami clapped him on the shoulder and took him home to clean up. The next day, Kenta was running errands for him again, fetching coffee and sandwiches from the deli. A week later, he killed again. A month after his first, he’d murdered four other men. It had been like that ever since. He never felt a thing for any of them. Sota had always said he was like that because part of his brain was missing. He was right. If he wasn’t serving Ookami and the organization, Kenta would have killed a lot more people. He’d have been the most prolific serial killer in history.

  He followed the flickering candlelight to the top of the stairs and stopped. Over on the other side of the room, he could see two shapes on the bed. It would be easier if they were both asleep; easier but less enjoyable. He kept the knife down by his leg, shielding it with his hand.