Closet Treats

by Paul E. Cooley

  "Ready?"

  Trey shrugged. Dick turned back to the door, raised his foot, and kicked hard. The door swung wide with a final screech of protest exposing a perfect rectangle of darkness. Dick bent down and put the crowbar back in the duffel, rummaged again, and came out with two flashlights. He handed one to Trey.

  "Let's get inside fast," he whispered.

  Trey nodded, and followed him into the warehouse, flashlight on.

  Chapter 49

  The winter sky cast the world in twilight shades and even the wan light did little to penetrate the warehouse interior through the open door. Dick walked forward into the gloom with caution. Trey stumbled behind him, trying to match his steps.

  "I'm going to look for a light switch," he whispered.

  "Why are you whispering?" Trey asked.

  "Because this place is spooky as fuck," Dick hissed.

  Trey watched as Dick's flashlight beam stabbed through the darkness, lingering over the walls and reflecting off the metal sheeting. Holding his breath, Trey turned around and closed the door. It pro- tested, but closed, and with it, the last of the ambient light disappeared. Trey heard the hitch in Dick's breath. "You closed it, right?" he asked in a shaky voice.

  "Yeah," Trey said. "Didn't want anyone coming by and seeing it open.

  Dick didn't reply, but took a few steps forward. His flashlight beam swerved to the right and he halted.

  "Hey, Reggie? Where you at?" Dick yelled. There was no response. Dick took a deep breath and yelled louder "Archibald Simmons! Come out here, you sick fuck!"

  Trey held his breath, feeling as though his heart would burst through his chest.

  Dick chuckled. "Told you he wasn't here."

  He swung the flashlight toward the far wall. The narrow beam illuminated the cream colored van. It was parked on the right side of the building, its top barely visible over crates and boxes. He turned toward Trey, his flashlight pointed beneath his chin. His face was lit in a manic grin. "We got some time, I think."

  "Have to find a light switch, man," Trey said.

  Turning the flashlight away from himself, Dick pointed it toward the wall. "Ah," he whispered and walked a few feet away. "Let there be light," he whispered.

  Trey heard the click of a switch. The single overhead fluorescent buzzed to life.

  "Jesus," Dick said. "Fucker likes it dark in here, doesn't he?"

  Trey clicked off his flashlight. The glow from the high ceiling was barely enough to drive away the shadows from the building's interior. Boxes were stacked everywhere, stamped with the names of candy companies.

  "He's got enough supply in here to feed schools for months."

  "Yeah," Dick agreed. "Guess he buys everything in bulk."

  Trey split off from Dick, stepping through the maze of boxes toward the ice cream van. The large vehicle was cloaked in shadow, parked with its nose toward the roll up door. He tried to look through the tinted windows, but saw nothing but impenetrable darkness. With a sigh, Trey tried the door handle on the passenger side. Nothing. It moved up and down with liquid ease, but the door didn't pop open.

  "Door's locked."

  "Not surprised. Hey," Dick said, "come over here, man."

  Trey walked away from the van and wound back through the maze. As Dick came into view, Trey saw the impish smile on his face. "What?" Trey asked.

  Dick pointed toward a row of dark rectangles standing against the back wall.

  He looked back at Dick. "What are they?"

  "Don't you hear the hum?" Dick started walking toward them. Trey realized he'd been hearing the hum for a long time.

  "Refrigerators?"

  "Yeah," Dick said as he reached the long row. "I count seven of them. Freezers," Dick's face was manic, his eyes wild, smile wide. Trey walked forward to stand next to him and stared. "Pretty ridiculous for ice cream, eh?" Dick asked.

  The freezers were hardly industrial models. Most of them looked as though they'd been picked up at Sears on the cheap. Their faded and chipped surfaces were grimy with dust. Trey turned on his flashlight and swept the beam over the freezer in front of him. He took a deep breath. "This guy has an unhealthy fascination with cream colored things, doesn't he?"

  "Who the fuck padlocks a freezer door?" Dick asked, pointing at the keyed square hanging off the side of the door handles.

  "Someone who doesn't want people peeking?"

  Dick nodded. "Wanna peek anyway?"

  "How you going to get through the lock?"

  The smile on Dick's face was no longer giddy, but grim. He turned on his own flashlight and swept it over the side of the freezer door. He smiled. "Hinges, baby. Hinges." His light illuminated the hinge holding the left door shut. Three hinges evenly spaced. He clicked off his light and bent toward his bag. "Just need the proper tool," he said. He pulled out a hammer and screwdriver.

  "Um, were you ever a thief?" Trey chuckled.

  Dick looked back at him. "Well, in Calgary there was precious little to do in the summer. So," he said with a grin, "we improvised. I kind of stopped when my folks moved back to Texas."

  "Uh-huh," Trey said, returning the infectious grin. The giddiness in his body was thrumming again. He didn't want to see what was in the freezer. But at the same time, he knew he had to. "Do it. I'll watch the master at work."

  Placing the screwdriver beneath the hinge, Dick slammed the hammer into its bottom. The ancient bolt holding the hinge together popped up and out. Dick repeated the action on the middle hinge, having to hit twice before the bolt screeched and came loose. The bottom bolt was much more difficult since Dick had to go from the top. When he couldn't get it to move, he shrugged, put the screwdriver sideways against the hinge, and pounded with enormous force. He completely missed the top of the screwdriver, the hammer smashed into the concrete with a loud thud.

  Dick cursed. "Put your light down here," he said.

  Trey bent and shined the beam over the hinge.

  "There ya go," Dick whispered. He took aim and slammed the hammer home against the hinge. It popped off the side of the door with a screech as the metal gave way under the pressure. The door shuddered and squealed. "Hand me the crowbar," Dick said.

  Trey clicked off the flashlight, picked up the wrecking bar and placed it in Dick's raised open palm. Dick stood on his toes, placed the fork end under the top bolt and pulled. The bolt shot up and out and disappeared into the gloom, jangling against the concrete.

  "There we are. Hold the door," he said softly and placed the wrecking bar's fork beneath the middle bolt. Trey reached forward and lifted on the handle. Dick pulled and the last bolt popped. "Now pull," Dick whispered.

  The door popped free. The sudden weight was heavy enough to send Trey backwards, but he managed to keep his balance. He felt the edge of a box against his heels and cursed. "Okay," Dick said turning toward him, lean it against the edge here." Trey stepped forward and put the door up against the edge of the freezer. Dick moved around and repeated the exercise with the other door. Once the hinges were popped, Trey lifted the door off and dropped it to the ground, the sound of metal against the concrete booming and echoing around the warehouse.

  The freezer didn't have a light of any kind. Frosty air flowed out in a cloud of mist. Dick turned on his flashlight and poured over the interior. Boxes and boxes of ice cream sandwiches, popsicles and creamsicles stared back at them.

  "Huh. Guess I was expecting," he said through a sigh, "something else."

  Trey nodded. "That was anticlimactic."

  Dick gestured toward the other six freezers. "We ain't done yet."

  Trey cursed. "Fuck. I was afraid to look in this one."

  "Yeah," Dick agreed. "So, let's play roulette. I don't want to do all these fuckers unless we have to." Trey nodded. "So choose."

  Carrying his flashlight in his hands like a baton, Trey moved down the line of freezers. They all looked the same at first. Each a humming cream colored rectangle. At the fourth in the row, he stopped. He panned the flashlight ove
r the freezer's front. Trey nodded to himself. "Bigger," he said aloud.

  "What?" Dick said.

  "This one," Trey said, pointing his beam in front of him. "This one. The lock is bigger. I think the freezer is too." He shined the light over the hinges. "Different type of hinge."

  Dick harrumphed. "That's contestant number two in 'who wants to vandalize a freezer.'" He dragged the duffel bag behind him as he approached Trey. Dick dropped the bag and stepped close to the hinge. "Hmm. This might suck," he said. The hinge itself was a circular fitting covered with an assembly. "But," he said, "everything must bend to force."

  "So," Trey said, turning toward him. "No finesse job?"

  The wrecking bar appeared in Dick's hands along with the large, steel hammer. "Fuck no," Dick breathed. "This is a job for massive destruction."

  Trey felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach as Dick lined up the end of the crowbar on the door's back edge. "Coming in from the side," he whispered, "and going to knock this fucking door off."

  The sound of each blow hurt Trey's ears. Dick was sweating, despite the warehouse chill. His right hand continued its punishing blows against the freezer door. Trey watched the metal splinter and the door's finish pucker and strip with each strike. The top hinge assembly popped up holding the door together with nothing more than a narrow strip of metal. The last blow severed it. Although the door didn't hang open, it did seem to lean a bit.

  "Fuck," Dick breathed, wiping his forehead with a sleeve. "You just had to pick this one, didn't you?" Dick asked.

  Trey said nothing, but shined his light on the bottom hinge assembly.

  Dick groaned and knelt down, his knees popping. "Fucker," he whispered. On his knees, Dick lined up the crowbar and once again began banging the hammer. It took many hits, but eventually the assembly gave.

  Trey was smart enough to have one hand against the door to keep it from falling atop Dick. "Fucker's heavy," Trey said aloud, struggling to keep the door in place. Dick dropped his tools into the duffel bag, stood, and placed his hands on the door's ruined edge. "Okay?" Trey asked.

  "Okay," Dick said. The two of them sidestepped, bringing the door off the freezer. The freezer seemed to bellow smoke in the dim light, the frigid air pouring out in a wall of mist. They lay the door down and stared inside.

  Trey paused for a second and then played the beam of his flashlight into the darkness.

  Chapter 50

  "Goddammit, Trey," Dick was saying. Trey blinked, and then winced. Dick's fingers were clenched in a death grip on the meat of his shoulder.

  "What are--"

  "You okay, man?" Dick's eyes glittered with fear, his pale face holding barely concealed revulsion. "You kind of, well, just stopped."

  Trey shook his head from side to side, trying to clear it. "Yeah, that happens."

  "Don't look in there, okay?" Dick removed his hands from Trey's shoulder. "Don't want you...doing whatever it was you just did."

  Trey turned back to the freezer, his flashlight beam still pointed into its interior. Trey gulped and felt bile rise in his throat. "Holy, Jesus," he whispered, stepping back.

  A pile of Ziplock bags were neatly stacked. Labels in a strange, blood red script were affixed to each bag. Transparent buckets that perhaps once contained ice cream were filled with a frozen crimson liquid.

  At first, all he'd seen were coils of meat inside the Ziplocks, link sausages or brats perhaps. But the all too familiar shape atop the pile brought it home.

  "Jesus," he whispered again. He looked closer, seeing the textured bumps and bends in the grey sausage looking meat. Intestines, Trey thought. His shaking flashlight moved sideways. The beam illuminated delicate fingers clenched in a fist, the skin white as bone.

  "Is that a fucking hand?" He gulped back vomit, turning toward Dick. Dick had already puked on the floor next to the freezer.

  "We have to call the fucking cops," Dick whispered. "We have to." Bags and bags piled atop one another, all labeled in that strange script. "Whatever you do," Dick said, "don't look in the bottom drawer."

  "Why?" Trey asked in a shaking voice. "What-- What's in there."

  Dick shook his head. "I'm not saying. Just-- Just don't look in there."

  "Okay." Trey backed into a stack of boxes and turned off the flashlight.

  "We have to call the cops, Trey. We have to."

  "How many--" Trey gulped and then cleared his throat. "How many children do you think are in there?"

  Dick shook his head again. "I don't know, but from what's in the bottom drawer, I'd say at least two."

  Trey turned and looked at him. "I don't want to know, do I?"

  "No, man. You don't. You--" Dick broke off, looking back toward the warehouse door. "Trey," he whispered. "Do you hear something?" The two men froze, Trey's head cocked to one side.

  A shuffling, sliding sound came from somewhere behind the labyrinth of boxes. Dick turned and pointed in that direction and then pointed down toward the duffel bag. Confused, Trey just blinked at him. Dick bent, his body shivering, and pulled the wrecking bar from the duffel bag. He handed it to Trey who took it with numb hands. Dick reached in again and pulled out the hammer.

  Dick took two steps toward the entry to the box labyrinth, Trey following behind. The sound stopped, leaving the warehouse silent. The two men froze, each holding their makeshift weapons before them.

  Trey's heart trip-hammered in his chest, blood pounding in his ears. He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. The shuffling sound started once more. It was closer now. Trey looked around. They were barely inside the maze of boxes. If someone came at them from the front of the maze, they'd have nowhere to go.

  He reached out a hand and placed it gently on Dick's shoulder. Dick stiffened and then turned to face Trey, his face pale and terrified.

  "Go back," Trey mouthed and began stepping backwards.

  An inhuman scream rattled the warehouse. Trey panicked, falling backward to the concrete. Dick whirled around, once again facing the maze of boxes ahead of him. He clicked on his flashlight and screamed. Trey shuffled backwards on his hands, his feet scrabbling for purchase against the concrete. Dick backpedaled, his flashlight falling and crash- ing to the floor. Between the V of Dick's legs, Trey saw something moving and moving fast. A shadowy form slid toward them with liquid grace and speed. Trey opened his mouth to scream and then something loomed over Dick.

  From the floor, he made out a misshapen head rising over Dick's shoulder, fierce, yellow eyes burning through the shadows. Large canines appeared from behind wide grey, lips.

  Dick screamed again.

  "No!" Trey yelled.

  The thing's eyes blinked, and leered over Dick's shoulder at Trey. It snarled at him and lifted a taloned hand high in the air. The claw descended in a blur. The sound of ripping fabric cut off Dick's scream. Dick fell backwards to the concrete, the thing standing over him. Its taut, sinewy body pulsed with rapid intakes of air, blood dripping from one of its taloned hands.

  "Go the fuck away!" Trey yelled again, his voice cracking but still lifting above the sound of Dick's own bellow. The thing grinned at him and took a step backwards. "I see you!"

  It said something in a guttural, liquid string of syllables and leaped back into the shadows. Trey heard the click and clack of taloned feet on concrete. The door at the front of the warehouse opened and then slammed shut with a bone-crushing bang. He still held the wrecking bar in his clenched hands. Dick's screams had turned into whimpers. Trey shuffled forward. "Dick?" The older man was holding his chest with his hands. "Dick?"

  "Can't breathe," he whispered. "Can't breathe."

  Trey fumbled in his pocket for his cellphone. He managed to pull it out and it fell to the floor from his shaking fingers.

  "Calling the cops," he said aloud. His clumsy fingers scrabbled over the plastic casing and finally managed to hold it. He tried to type in his code one handed. The phone vibrated and presented a "Wrong Code" message. "Fuck!" he screamed. He forced
himself to slow down. Dick was taking in shallow breaths, his chest barely rising with the effort. Trey closed his eyes, let out a deep breath and he typed out the numbers slowly and carefully. The phone unlocked. He dialed 9-1-1.

  Chapter 51

  The interview room was much like the room he'd met Tony Downs in at the hospital. He sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair facing a metal table. The mirror that covered one of the walls showed his frazzled reflection. Trey stared up at it occasionally with a bone-tired weariness. The massive adrenaline rush at the warehouse had left him feeling drained and empty.

  And on top of it all, he'd been there for more than an hour. A cold cup of coffee sat on the metal table. He glowered at it, wondering when they were going to bring someone else in the room to ask him if he needed anything. The last officer that had come in had only given him a blank stare when he asked how Dick was doing.

  Trey laid his head down atop the table, but found it too uncomfortable to sleep. He was slumped in the plastic chair, fighting the urge to nod off.

  Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

  The door clicked and he turned his head to stare as the knob swiveled. A man in a crisp suit entered the room carrying a large folder. "Mr. Leger," he drawled. "My name is Detective Dewhurst."

  Trey blinked at the man and said nothing.

  Dewhurst shook his head a little. "I'm very sorry you've been in this room for so long."

  "Please don't ask me if I need anything," Trey whispered, "and then leave."

  "Oh, I'm not leaving," Dewhurst said. He nodded toward Trey's coffee. "Do you need some more coffee?" Trey shook his head. Dewhurst sighed and sat down in the chair across from Trey. He placed the folder near the table's edge and folded his hands atop it. "Do you have any questions for me?"

  Trey nodded. "How's Dick?"

  Dewhurst sucked in a breath. "Mr. Dickerson's in ICU. He had a mild heart attack," he said in a toneless voice. "He lost quite a bit of blood to boot."

  "Fuck," Trey breathed, raising a hand to his face. He rubbed his eyes. "Is he going--"

  "My understanding, Mr. Leger--"