The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  The creature nearest me hissed as I fell into Springer and Popp. Gaining their footing, they shot the ones closest to us through the head. The others came down, forcing us to retreat.

  I dropped my flashlight and hit the ground. Searching for it, I felt draggers pushing past me towards the light from the other flashlights.

  A volley of bullets took down another five or six. Finding my flashlight, I scrambled to get out of there. Once off to the side, I shone the flashlight across the room. I saw a dragger about to attack Springer. I didn’t fire my handgun for fear of hitting the soldier.

  “Push him away,” I said.

  As Springer shoved him back, I took aim and fired, missing the creature. Then another shot hit the thing, and it went down. I panned the flashlight over and saw Popp lowering his AR-15.

  Two more draggers appeared, and as I raised my weapon, a decaying hand grabbed me. I let myself go limp. Shining the flashlight up, I saw the bewildered dragger coming for me again. I shot it through the mouth as it was about to shriek, shredding its slithering black tongue.

  In a few minutes we finished them all. Exhausted, we sat on the floor in a circle and looked at one another.

  “Whole damn building is infested,” Springer said.

  “I have to find Holly and Griffin,” I said.

  The two soldiers looked at each other and stood. “Break’s over,” Popp said.

  “Thanks, guys.”

  We checked out each floor, looking for draggers but found none. It took us more than an hour to search the building and we eventually arrived at the top floor. Halfway up the stairs to the top, we found the body that the disembodied hand belonged to—a soldier who looked to be around the same age as Springer and Popp. He’d been shot through the head.

  Springer opened the stairwell door and peered into the hallway. As Popp and I entered, we heard the drone of a single voice. I thought of Holly and moved forward, but Springer held me back. He signaled for me to stay behind Popp and him.

  As we entered the office suite through the walnut double doors, we found rows of fabric-covered cubicles on either side of us. And towards the windows, a conference room. The door was closed.

  I expected a dragger to leap out from one of the cubes, but they were all empty. Each was filled with personal items—family photos, stuffed animals and children’s drawings taped to the small whiteboards.

  The sound grew louder as we approached the conference room. My guts twisted up as I imagined finding Holly and Griffin hurt and dying.

  Springer grabbed the handle of the conference-room door, looked back at Popp and me and flung the door open.

  Inside, we found a lone soldier lying in a corner by the windows, muttering and rocking. At first he didn’t notice us, but when Springer shone his flashlight on him, he pointed his handgun at us.

  “Easy,” Springer said, moving forward as Popp and I closed the curtains and turned on the lights.

  The soldier was young, his face clean, though in need of a shave. He was alone and scared. I guessed that the body we found in the stairwell was one of his buddies.

  “I’m Springer. What’s your name?”

  The soldier tried to speak, but he was delirious and nothing but moaning came out. His speech sounded suspicious, but I chalked it up to fear.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We’re here to help.”

  “Put down the weapon, son,” Popp said.

  Looking confused, the soldier turned to each of us, then lowered the handgun.

  As we came closer, I was revolted by what I saw. His right leg looked like it had been chewed off up to the knee. The soldier had made a tourniquet from the strap from his AR-15. I noticed the trail of blood that led from the door to where he lay.

  Popp raised his bayonet, but I grabbed his hand to stop him. Crouching down close to the soldier, I looked him in the eyes. He was fading, and I had to talk fast. I saw from his Black Dragon uniform that his name was Barnes.

  “Barnes, listen to me,” I said. “There were two women in here. One of them is a teenage girl. They had a dog.”

  He stared at me, uncomprehending yet mesmerized by the sound of my voice. I saw that the other two soldiers were getting impatient.

  “Did you see them?” Barnes shook his head. “Are you sure?”

  “Ran away. When the draggers came.”

  “Where? Where did they go?”

  “C-covered them best we could. Too many. They get away?”

  He was near death, and we knew it wouldn’t be long before he turned. I felt for this kid. Who even knew where he was from, whether his family was alive? I wanted to help him, but I knew he’d been given a death sentence the second he was attacked by those things.

  I looked at Springer, filled with sadness for not having found Holly and Griffin and for what I knew was about to happen.

  “You better wait outside,” Springer said.

  I left the conference room, found a cube and sat in the dark. Moonlight streamed through the windows. I saw photos of a man and woman and their two small children. One looked to be three and the other eighteen months or so. The photo looked like it had been taken at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Holly and I had gone there once.

  “Please, God, I’m so tired.”

  I waited for a sound that never came. The conference room door opened. Springer and Popp came out and turned out the lights. Without a word, they waited for me to pull myself together.

  Fresh blood shone on Springer’s bayonet, decorated with what looked like strands of hair. I grabbed tissues from a box and handed them to him. He wiped the blade off, and we headed out.

  “Sorry you didn’t find them,” Popp said as we made our way downstairs.

  When we reached the ground floor, we heard a dog barking somewhere far off.

  “Greta,” I said, and ran to the alley door.

  “Wait,” Springer said. He and Popp caught up to me and held the door shut. “You can’t keep doing that.”

  “Sorry.”

  Springer opened the door a crack and peered into the alley. When he was satisfied, he opened the door the rest of the way, and we stepped outside in single file.

  We didn’t see any draggers around as we moved through the streets, not sure where to go next. I heard a distant death shriek, then the barking dog closer.

  “It might be Greta,” I said, and we jogged towards the sound.

  As we got closer, the barking grew louder. All I thought about was seeing my wife and Griffin again.

  Big mistake.

  I almost called out Holly’s name when a gunshot tore through the alley. Springer went down, his hand on his throat and bright blood gushing through his fingers. Quickly I examined him, trying to see how bad the wound was.

  Another bullet caught Popp in the forehead. He dropped to his knees and fell on his face.

  When I looked up, I realized that we’d run into a nest of nailheads. Tricked-out vehicles with their headlights on appeared at the intersection on either side and stopped directly in front of me. A dozen of them got out of the vehicles, stood in a line and trained their weapons on me. I failed, and now I was dead.

  From out of the shadows, Travis Golightly walked forward with a man who held a pit bull on a chain at his side.

  “Well, lookee here,” he said.

  Travis was severely burned. The skin on his face looked like it had melted, the wrecked tissue obscuring one eye. All his hair had been singed down to the roots. His arms were black with crusty, dark skin, and he walked with a limp. The fingers of his right hand were burned to the bone. His weapon was duct-taped to his arm, his stiff, bony index finger fused to the trigger.

  I tried to run but was held by three others. Travis hit me with the rifle barrel in the side of the head, making my ears ring. I felt blood flowing from my nose and could barely stand.

  “Where’s my daughter?” he said.

  “Dead,” I said, and staggered forward.

  “Wrong answer.” He hit me again, this time jamming
the barrel into my shoulder blade. Searing, hot pain shot through me, and my arm went numb as I fell to my knees. Growling, the dog lunged and bit me in the hand. I didn’t even feel it.

  “That wasn’t very nice, Sally,” Travis said. Then to me, “Where’s Griffin?”

  “Dead,” I said, and collapsed on the ground.

  “Hey, Travis, he don’t look so good,” a voice said.

  Everything turned to darkness.

  * * *

  I was bone cold. Under bright fluorescent lights, I realized I was inside a cold room surrounded by huge tanks of beer. A single metal door stood across from me. I read the labels on the tanks—I was inside the Lucky Moon microbrewery.

  My head throbbed, and my temple felt squishy where Travis had struck me. My shoulder ached too. I was a mess. I heard voices outside as I reached into my pocket for my phone. It wasn’t there. Across the room, I saw it. I crawled towards it—it took me forever. When I picked it up, I found that the screen was smashed. I put it in my pocket, thinking I could rescue the SIM card later.

  Not that it mattered. They were going to kill me. But not before Travis beat the truth about Griffin out of me. The world had unraveled, and all this dumb bastard could think about was abusing his stepdaughter.

  I heard the door unlock and tried crawling back to where they’d left me. One of those crazies came in, swilling beer from a bottle and swaying. He was followed by a Latino boy who looked to be around ten or eleven. The man had a fresh beer in his other hand and smiled.

  “Thought you might be thirsty,” he said.

  He tried handing me the beer. I looked at it. He shrugged and set it down on the floor next to me.

  “Maybe later,” he said.

  He signaled to the boy, who reached into a cloth bag and removed a small glass jar and a square of cardboard. Something moved inside. My body tensed as he handed the jar to the man, who knelt down, grabbed my arm and rolled up my sleeve. I saw that the jar contained live bees.

  “What’re you doing?” I said.

  “Testing you.”

  He unscrewed the cap, which had holes punched in it for air, replaced it with the cardboard and flipped the jar over onto my arm. Then he slid the cardboard out so the bees could come in direct contact with my skin. I grimaced, ready for the inevitable stinging. But the insects merely crawled around, which tickled.

  “Sweat bees don’t lie,” the man said.

  After a minute, he used the cardboard to separate the bees from my arm, screwed the cover back on the jar and handed it to the boy, who put everything back into the bag.

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “Whenever anyone gets bit, the bees won’t come near ’em. You’re fine.”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Up to Travis. If I was you, I’d tell ’im what he wants to hear.”

  “What, that his daughter’s alive?”

  “Yeah, just like that.”

  “But she’s dead.”

  “Like I said, tell ’im what he wants to hear.”

  “Then he’ll let me go?”

  “No. But he might go easier on you before he kills your sorry ass.”

  “What’s your story?” I said to the boy. He refused to meet my eyes.

  “He makes himself useful around here, if you know what I mean,” the man said.

  “Glad to see you guys are setting a good example for the youngsters.”

  “I ain’t into it, but some of the others are.”

  “Does Ormand approve?”

  The boy left the room as the nailhead unzipped himself and peed against the wall. I scrambled to my feet to jump him, but another nailhead came in, pointing his weapon at my head.

  “Ulie, what did I tell you about not paying attention?” he said as the first man zipped himself up.

  “He ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Ulie said, and belched like a moose. “Too broken up ’bout Griffin’s death, I guess. He’s clean, by the way.”

  “Do you two even believe in what you’re doing?” I said.

  “That ain’t the point,” the one with the gun said. “It’s like this town is one big, dangerous, happenin’ club. And it don’t matter who you came in with. What matters is who you go home with. And Ulie and I here are goin’ home with Ormand.”

  “You got that right,” Ulie said, and took another swallow of beer.

  I watched as these two comedians went out and locked the door. For what seemed like hours, I stared at the beer bottle. There was still a frost on the brown glass and little beads of condensation. It didn’t matter—I was going to be dead soon anyway. Why shouldn’t I enjoy a last beer? Didn’t I deserve it?

  I grabbed the bottle and brought it up to my nose. The smell was so familiar and inviting. Just one sip. What was the harm? One bottle. No way to get wasted. I could handle myself.

  Yeah, I was lying again. Where there was one, there were six. Then a whole case. All I wanted till I emptied these vats.

  Something strange happened. Might have been the blow to my head. Or God speaking to me. But I saw Holly standing across from me. I reached out a hand to touch her. She wore a pretty pale-green summer dress, the one I’d seen her in on our last anniversary. She watched me with the beer, her head cocked a little to one side.

  I’d promised myself so long ago that I wouldn’t go back. More importantly, I promised her. Chances were excellent this wasn’t going to end well for me. I’d be dead, and these jerk-offs would go on terrorizing others in the town. As if the draggers weren’t enough. I gripped the bottle tightly and threw it hard against the wall. It shattered into dust.

  They’d find me dead. But they wouldn’t find me drunk.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Interview

  What those animals did to me I can’t say—I don’t want to think about it. I will tell you that most people have no idea the suffering the human body can endure. It defies reason.

  Ormand called it “cleansing” and appointed that paragon of patriotism Travis Golightly to carry it out. And they were careful not to go too far. They did enough to make me scream till my throat went raw. After the first few times, I almost didn’t feel anything at all. That seemed to enrage Travis, and he looked for new ways to hurt me. Most of his rage came from wanting Griffin. I knew that, and despite edging closer to oblivion, I never changed my story. Griffin was dead.

  Random thoughts flew into my head like confused bats during those cruel, pain-filled hours and days. Most centered around Warnick and the other soldiers. Why hadn’t they come? They must’ve known something was wrong. Springer and Popp were dead. I was near dead. Were all the rest dead too? That last image floated in and out of my head, making the pain worse.

  Many of the nailheads stayed drunk. There was enough beer in the place to keep them in that state for weeks, even months. During the torture I saw Travis struggling to control his men. Causing me pain was a boring waste of time to them. All they wanted was to drink. And so what started out as an audience of a dozen foot soldiers dwindled to a lone assistant—Ulie.

  Mostly I saw men in this place, but occasionally one or two women made an appearance. All were young, and I got the sense they provided the “entertainment.” They were probably scared and chose to stay, getting passed around like beer jugs rather than facing the undead outside. Some couldn’t have been older than Griffin.

  After the last cleansing, someone realized I’d need to eat if they wanted to keep up this sick game. They’d gotten hold of some MREs and threw one in with me in the cold room. Ulie stayed with me, trying to get me to take the food.

  “This might be your last meal,” he said. “I think tomorrow Travis is gonna do you.”

  “Maybe killing me will bring back his daughter.”

  “Yeah.” Ulie looked ashamed. “Lemme know if you change your mind about the beer. There’s plenty. Now would be a good time to have it. Oh, I found these in a first-aid kit. Thought you could use ’em.” He placed a foil packet of ibuprofen in
my hand.

  “Thanks. Why do they call you Ulie?”

  “Dunno. Guess it’s because I like to talk a lot. Passes the time.”

  After Ulie left, I stared at the MRE. I was too sick to eat. Every bone in my body ached, especially my leg. Some of my teeth were loose, and my lip was swollen. I thought a couple of my ribs might be broken, and I was almost blind in one eye. Although I didn’t want to prolong this black hell, I remembered what Warnick said about hope and decided I needed to live a while longer. So I took the ibuprofen, drank some water and forced myself to eat.

  Outside, I heard cursing and singing and women screaming. I didn’t know if the noise was from pain or drunken glee. They were on a real bender out there. I guessed they knew they were doomed and decided to go out partying. In another age I might have joined them.

  The constant cold made me drowsy. I had trouble keeping my eyes open, even though my head hurt so much. I felt myself falling and drifted into a dreamless sleep, feeling sweat bees on my arm.

  * * *

  Ulie leaned in close, his breath ripe with stale beer and jerky, gently shaking my good shoulder. Another nailhead was with him. They looked grim.

  “It’s time,” Ulie said.

  They got me to my feet. As I stood, intense pain shot through my left leg. I was unable to walk on it. The two men threw my arms around them and half carried me out of the room, across the main floor of the brewery and into the manager’s office.

  The place stood empty and silent, the opposite of the night before. The floor had been swept, and there was no sign of the drinking and debauchery that had taken place.

  I expected Travis to be waiting for me, his rifle still attached to his skeletal hand, ready to end it. But as I entered, I found only Ormand Ferry.

  He sat behind the desk in a plush leather chair, the light from the desk lamp glinting off his wire-rimmed glasses. He was smaller than I remembered, and I realized that I’d never seen him up close. It had always been from a distance, on a stage or a makeshift platform.

  The two nailheads sat me in a chair opposite the desk and left. My head felt thick, and I had a hard time focusing. For a while the leader of the Red Militia watched me, his hands under his chin. Then he got up and examined me as if he were a trained physician. I said nothing. He poured a glass of water and offered it to me.