But they were interrupted by voices out in the hall. The Lobster recognized one as Lester’s, and both beast men turned in that direction.
The monsters made a move toward the door and the man on the other side of it.
The Lobster could not allow that.
He propelled himself across the morgue, tackling the pair as, excited by the prospect of easy prey, they prepared to exit.
—
“I’m telling you I heard something,” Joe said as he moved toward the door to the storage room.
Lester tried to stall the guy, offering to buy him another cup of coffee, and even a slice of pie, but Joe the morgue attendant couldn’t be dissuaded.
Lester hoped that the boss had had enough time to do what he needed to, but the ruckus coming from the other side of the morgue door made him think otherwise.
“Sounds like somebody in there might not be quite dead yet,” Lester said to Joe. “Why don’t you go for a cop, and I’ll stay here . . .
Y’know, in case there’s a story.”
The morgue attendant scowled.
“Had some punk kids sneakin’ around in here a few months back,” Joe said. There was a piece of lead pipe leaning by the door, and he picked it up before reaching for the knob. “Wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve come back for seconds.”
Just as his hand touched the knob, the door exploded outward, the frosted-glass pane shattering as the door was wrenched from its hinges, and the three combatants spilled out into the hall.
The morgue attendant barely got out of the way in time, backpedaling toward the wall as the door came down.
Looks like the boss stumbled across a little trouble, Lester surmised as he watched the three figures thrashing upon the hallway floor amidst the broken glass.
Lester moved to help, but stopped short when he realized that something wasn’t right.
Something wasn’t normal. Big surprise.
The guys that the Lobster was fighting . . . What the hell are they?
They looked to be some sort of monster, their arms and legs twisted and deformed, their skin reminding Lester of an alligator’s. And are those horns growing out of their foreheads?
The Lobster appeared dazed. He was on his hands and knees, struggling to stand. The monsters were having a bit of difficulty as well, but one had picked up a jagged piece of window glass, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the ugly piece of work was planning to do with it.
“Boss, watch out!” Lester screamed, throwing himself across the hallway to prevent the unthinkable.
The Lobster turned at the sound of Lester’s voice, just as the glass was thrust at him, but Lester arrived in time, putting himself between the boss and the makeshift knife.
The glass tore through the heavy fabric of his sports coat and his shirt beneath with ease, making its way into his tender flesh. He would have liked to say that he’d taken it like a man, with only a grimace and a grunt of pain, but Lester shrieked like a banshee as his shoulder was pierced and the blood started to flow like a river.
“Lester!” the Lobster called out, pulling him backward, gently lowering him to the floor.
“Put pressure on it,” the Lobster instructed, as the blood continued to squirt warmly through Lester’s fingers.
Lester felt the world around him growing hazy, as he fought to stay conscious. As the Lobster ministered to his wound, he scanned the corridor before him. Joe the morgue attendant was still pressed to the wall outside the storage place for the dead, an expression of utter terror on his face.
The monsters had gone back into the room and now returned. One of them had a bloody body bag slung over its shoulder. In seconds they were gone, darting down the corridor and through the door into the night.
“They’re gettin’ away,” Lester gasped. But the Lobster continued to loom above him, applying pressure to his shoulder wound. “Don’t let ’em get away on my account,” he tried again.
He was having a difficult time keeping his eyes open, and the Lobster’s visage was growing fuzzy.
“You’re hurt badly,” Lester heard the boss say. His voice was far away, as if speaking to him from another room.
Through an encroaching haze, he watched as the scourge of the underworld raised his left hand, the symbol of the lobster claw on his gloved palm glowing a heated red.
“The bleeding must be stopped or you will die,” the Lobster said, and he placed his hand upon Lester’s shoulder, the white-hot lobster brand searing his flesh, instantly cauterizing the wound.
The noxious odor of cooking flesh and blood escorted Lester into the numbing realm of unconsciousness.
CHAPTER SIX
—
The Lobster had told Hurley to listen to the voices on the streets. There he could collect snippets of information that the Lobster would analyze and put together—pieces of a grander puzzle.
After they had dropped the vigilante at Bellevue, Hurley had asked Harry to drive him back to Hell’s Kitchen so he could carry out the Lobster’s bidding. And, as the mysterious vigilante had expected, the streets were talking. There was definitely a buzz in the air, and not the good kind.
It was confirmed by numerous sources that not only had the warehouse belonged to Red O’Neill, but that the mobster had actually been there when the attack occurred.
Not good. Not good at all.
Hurley walked the streets, going to the places where the lowly gathered, and he listened. He knew that would be what the Lobster expected of him.
In a soup kitchen near the Port Authority, he overheard some guys talking about how O’Neill was about to make his move. There was going to be a war, and somebody had decided to hit first. On Eighth Avenue, a cute little thing selling pencils said that she had heard from a guy who heard from another guy that the hit against Red O’Neill had been so bad that a special meeting of all the big bosses was being called to discuss their differences. An attempt to avoid any further bloodshed.
They were such diplomats.
He was just about to wrap up his night of wandering, preparing to head back into the tunnels, when he got his most interesting lead.
It was near dawn, and he was in a long line for a free cup of coffee in Times Square. Nothing like a cup o’ hot joe—whether it tasted like mud or not—to take the chill from his bones and prepare him for his journey beneath the streets.
There was some commotion toward the front of the line. Ordinarily, Hurley wouldn’t have paid much attention to it—there was always some kind of commotion, always something to set a guy off during these trying times. But for some reason, this encounter roused Hurley’s curious nature.
Leaning out of the line for a better view, he saw a skinny old soul jumping around, voice raised in a screech, telling his story to anybody who would listen, and even those who wouldn’t.
“What’s up with that one?” he casually asked the guy behind him.
“Name’s Mike, I think,” the guy said. “Lost everything in the crash, including his marbles. Lives down by the docks, with some other crazy types.”
The location rang some bells.
“Down by the docks?” Hurley asked. “Near them warehouses off Thirteenth?”
The man nodded.
Mike suddenly became much more interesting, and Hurley kept an eye on the chattering old timer as the line slowly inched toward the church basement.
Finally, Hurley got his coffee, and scanned the crowd for the man called Mike. Benches had been set up around the room, but there were only so many, and most just milled around, sipping their scalding drinks, hoping to make them last for as long as they could so they wouldn’t have to go back out onto the street.
He caught sight of Mike alone, wedged into a corner. He was still telling his stories, his wildly gesticulating arms driving people away.
He’d placed his cup of coffee at his feet so that he could use both hands, but since he no longer had an audience, he bent down to retrieve it. Coming back up, he was star
tled to see that he was no longer alone.
“Hey,” Hurley said casually, sipping his mud.
The old man stared at him, a glimmer in his eyes that Hurley had seen before. It was the light of madness, and in Mike’s eyes it was shining pretty darn bright.
“Have you seen ’em?” the old man asked with a conspiratorial whisper. He brought his cup to his mouth and sipped noisily.
“Seen who?” Hurley asked.
“The monsters,” Mike said, insane eyes darting around the crowded basement.
“Monsters?” Hurley asked. “Where? In here?”
Mike seemed suddenly annoyed. “No, not in here, ya jackass,” he said. “Out there.” He motioned with the hand that still held the coffee, sloshing the hot liquid over his hand.
“Dammit!” he hissed, putting the cup down at his feet again.
“Out on the streets,” he continued, bringing the wrinkled hand to his mouth and sucking on the coffee-stained flesh. “Out there, in the shadows . . . I seen ’em.”
“You seen monsters?” Hurley asked, unable to keep the hint of a smile from his face.
“Big as life, and twice as nasty,” Mike said. “There musta been an army of ’em.”
“So you didn’t just see one of these monsters, you’ve seen an army?” He hoped by doubting the man it would get him to talk more.
“They came in a truck,” the old timer said, his eye glazing over as he recalled his tale of terror.
Jake listened intently. “What, the monsters got delivered?” he asked. “Where’d they get delivered to?”
“The warehouse,” Mike croaked. “I heard the other trucks and went to see what was up. They were makin’ a delivery.”
“Who? The monsters?”
“For God’s sake, no,” Mike barked. “O’Neill’s guys. Don’t you know nothin’, kid? Red O’Neill owns that warehouse.”
“Oh, so Red O’Neill was makin’ a delivery?”
“That’s right,” Mike said. “Probably some hooch from Canada.” The old man was eagerly licking his lips, thirsty for some of what he believed to be in the backs of those trucks.
He snatched up what was left of his coffee and drank. It wasn’t hooch, but it would do in a pinch.
“So where do these monsters you’re yappin’ about come in?”
“They came after,” Mike said. “In another truck.”
The old timer started to act it out, pretending to be driving. “They drove up with no lights and parked along the side. Somebody got out and went to the back of the truck.”
His voice was growing softer. It was like he was there, seeing it all again, just as he had the first time.
“I was curious about what they was deliverin’ and went closer, peeking from the shadows.”
The old man suddenly got very quiet.
“So?” Hurley urged.
“I could hear ’em in the back of the truck, jibberin’ and jabberin’ . . . Sounded like crazy folk, and then that fella opened the back of the truck and they came pourin’ out.”
“Monsters?” Hurley asked.
Mike nodded vigorously. “Like they’d turned on a spigot. Monsters came out of the back of that truck and went right to the back of the buildin’.”
The old man became more animated, acting out what he’d seen.
“And they were climbin’, like big nasty spiders, up the sides of the building, up onto the crates out back, and through the windows inside.”
“What happened then?”
“The lights went out,” crazy old Mike said. “And then the screamin’ started.”
Somebody from the church was moving through the crowds now, urging people to move on; more folks were waiting outside—there were always more outside.
Mike immediately started toward the door, Hurley following.
“So that’s it?” Hurley asked. “The monsters went in and killed everybody?”
The Lobster hadn’t mentioned what he’d seen inside the warehouse, but word on the street was that something awful had happened. Whether it had been done by real monsters, or monsters of a more human kind, was still to be determined.
“Almost everybody,” Mike said.
Bells were going off in Hurley’s head as he stuck with the old timer, not wanting to lose him in the crowd leaving the church basement.
“Somebody got away,” Mike said, nodding. “He came runnin’ out of the warehouse . . . big man with red hair. Coulda been Red O’Neill, I guess.”
Hurley’s heart jumped.
“He was runnin’ as if the devil hisself was on his tail,” Mike said, and then started to laugh nervously. “And he was . . . the devil hisself and some a his other devils really were on his tail.” He laughed some more, squeaky and high, shaking his head.
“What happened to this guy?” Hurley asked. “Did they catch him?”
The crazy man shook his head. “Nah, there was a car waitin’. One a them fancy cars.”
“And they drove away?”
They reached the street and Hurley grabbed the old man’s arm so they wouldn’t be separated in the crowd. Through the fabric of Mike’s coat, Hurley could feel a bony arm, as if there was no flesh on it at all.
“Do you think Saint Peter’s is open yet?” Mike asked. “They have bread there . . . I’d really like some bread.”
“Mike, did the big guy with the red hair get away?”
The insane man just smiled, his eyes glazed, staring through a window into the past.
“He did,” Mike nodded. “He beat the devil, by Christ.” And then he turned and wandered off as if they had never even been talking.
—
Chapel was floating through the early morning sky.
The rays of the rising sun caressed his naked flesh as he drifted over a thick, primordial jungle.
He knew that it had to be a dream, but it felt like so much more than that.
A memory.
The sun was warm on his skin, and he wanted nothing more than to hang there, bathed in its comforting touch, but his attentions were drawn elsewhere.
He could not take his eyes from the jungle, for he knew that something of great importance was taking place below the thick canopy of branches, down where the sun’s warming rays could not reach.
He drifted down to the treetops, and beneath them, drawn to the voices raised in a droning chant, drowning out the sounds of the verdant jungle life.
Through thick curtains of green and brown his ghostly body flew, as if traversing from one world—one reality—to another. Chapel could feel the absence of the sun’s rays here, a numbing chill passing through his immaterial form, the deeper he traveled into the jungle. A part of him wished to stop, to leave this place and return to the waking world, but something would not allow him.
He had to be shown.
Through the impenetrable wild he traveled, emerging in what appeared to be a man-made clearing, the canopy miles above cutting out any of the sun’s precious light and warmth.
The clearing was a dark place . . . a dark place teeming with life.
They stood in a long, twisting line . . . men, women, and children of some long-forgotten race. They were tall, powerfully built, adorned with heavy jewelry of gold, their skin the color of a newly minted penny.
The line they formed twisted and wound around the clearing, ending at an elaborate stone altar.
And upon that altar, dressed in flowing robes of scarlet, stood the most disturbing of sights.
Chapel had seen its remains in Mexico—had seen its bones—but now he saw it in all its loathsome life. The demon—for what else could he call it—loomed above the primitive peoples who now knelt at its feet. With dark, baleful eyes, it looked down at the tribesmen who gazed up at it with awe, chanting their strange song of worship.
The demon smiled a horrible smile, its many teeth protruding as its thick lips stretched across them. And under the adoring eyes of those who sang their song in worship, the demon brought its wrist to its mouth, biting into
the flesh.
Thick black blood bubbled from the wound, staining the creature’s already disturbing features. The demon showed them . . . those who waited . . . it showed them the wound that had been opened for them. Their song grew louder, more frenzied, as it brought the oozing rip in its reptilian flesh down to the native who knelt before him.
Placing the open wound to the primitive’s mouth.
The man drank eagerly until the demon pushed him away, making way for the next in line.
One after another, they drank of the monster’s blood.
The screams that followed were deafening. Even in this ghostly, dream-like state, Chapel’s face twisted in pain. He covered his ears with his hands, trying to block the sound.
Those who drank of the demon’s blood thrashed upon the altar, tumbling to the dark, moss-covered ground below. There they were changed, limbs painfully twisting as their bodies transformed.
Becoming one with the devil they worshiped.
Then there came a whispering in his head, a voice louder than the shrieks and wails that rose from the new monsters raging in the clearing below.
An angry voice—a demon’s voice—that spoke of a time to come when all would drink of its blood again.
When its legion of the damned would grow to overrun the world.
—
Chapel awoke with a start, dazed and confused, stinking of sweat and bourbon, the memory of a demon and its message to an ancient world still echoing ominously in his ear.
He had fallen asleep in a chair in front of a metal-topped baker’s table, upon which lay the skeleton of the beast. He had been collecting new samples of the fluid that seeped from the ancient bones, and had nodded off.
Now he shook his head to clear his mind of the fog of sleep and gazed at the horror before him—one of his rubber-gloved hands was entwined in the bony, clawed fingers of the skeleton.
With a gasp, he pulled his hand roughly away. The rubber of the glove had been eaten away, exposing his flesh to the reddish fluid that oozed from the bones. Chapel leapt up from his chair, tearing the perforated glove from his hand. With his breaths coming in short, panicked gasps he remembered what he had seen in the dream.
The skeleton’s memory.
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