Will the Sun Ever Come Out Again?

by Nate Southard

  Walker opens the iron gate and enters the courtyard. He doesn’t worry about catching a round. Ricky’s boys know he’s a friendly. Their boss owes him for more than a couple of in-roads to new markets.

  The courtyard bakes with heat despite the overcast skies. The air presses against his skin. It feels wet and hot in his lungs, making breathing a fun little challenge. Maybe the air is the reason he doesn’t spot any kids out playing. Usually, the hole is a little more jumping.

  He starts up the stairs. His footsteps echo like gunshots through the air. He stomps at the top of the stairwell to get Ricky’s attention, and the sound rings out like a shotgun blast. No reply comes. He hears no children or televisions or radios. The building even deflects the sounds of the Compton streets. He wonders if it’s always been that way and he just never noticed it. Something tells him it’s a new phenomenon. Weird fucking day.

  He reaches the top floor without catching a hint of life in the building. Hairs rise on the back of his neck. He wants to draw his pistol or at least unsnap his holster, but he fears giving the soldiers anything that might violate his friendly status.

  He keeps his eyes peeled as he reaches Ricky’s door. He delivers his knock, three and then two.

  “Yeah,” comes the reply. Ricky’s voice, but a little off. Weak, maybe. “C’mon in.”

  Walker turns the knob and opens the door.

  “Holy shit,” Megan says through grit teeth. “Holy fucking shit.”

  Beside her, Christian begins to cough and gag. She hears him stumble-run back outside and wretch, but she can’t peel her eyes off the scene in front of her.

  The home’s living room is a slaughter pen. Parts of what must be a dozen Mexican men litter the floor. Heads and arms and torsos decorate the room in piles. Sightless eyes stare at ceilings, walls, and discarded flesh. The thick scents of blood and shit fill the room like a fog and force Megan’s hand to her mouth and nose. The soapy smell of her palm does next to nothing to improve the air.

  She hears Christian coughing again. The sound provides a staccato counterpoint to the constant droning of the flies that fill the living room like a cloud. She hears sirens approaching from far away, and she guesses their backup is on its way.

  She tries to make sense of the horrific sight in front of her. The tats covering the discarded arms mark the bodies as members of The Locos. The house is deep in Gray Street territory. The knowledge does not comfort her, though. This is hell and gone from any gang violence she’s seen in her three years on the job. If the Gray Street boys have decided to step up their game, they’ve done it in the most psychotic way possible.

  “Megan!” Christian says as he enters the house again. “Backup’s a block away.”

  “Good,” she says. She points at something with her toe, thirteen fleshy objects lined up in a neat row on the blood-sopping carpet. “Are those…”

  “Jesus. Tongues.”

  “This is some serious shit.”

  “Can you read that?”

  Christian points through the swirling mass of flies. The black cloud shifts, and Megan sees writing on the wall. Somebody has covered most of the living room wall with scrawled words. She can’t make out much through the shadows. The words are written in a sloppy scrawl, and she can only make out fragments. She tries to make sense of them but fails.

  A Darkness Below…and All…Rises.

  She makes out the phrase several times among the writing. As the writing approaches the lower right hand corner, it grows more and more erratic, almost desperate. It’s a scribble of words she’s never seen or heard, never even imagined. It pulls at her, and she takes a step forward before she realizes what she’s doing.

  “Look,” Christian says. His voice startles her back into her head. He points to the opposite wall, and Megan follows with her eyes.

  Only three words fill this wall. Somebody wrote them in huge letters, making great sweeps with a blood-soaked hand. They work together with the nonsense words to create a sense of dread deep in Megan’s chest. This isn’t a gang thing. This is something new and terrible, and it’s something she can’t mold into any kind of sense.

  She reads the words again, and they spread through her mind like ice across a pane of glass.

  HE STEPPED THRU

  Rawls bounces the banger’s head off the steel table. The sound stabs at his ears a few times as it bounces around the tiny space. He expects the homeboy to follow it with some noise of his own: a scream, a grunt. Something. The Gray Streeter keeps quiet, though. Hell, he’s silent.

  “You wanna talk to me now, you fuck?” He tightens his hand into a fist and slams it into the homeboy’s sternum. He hears the man’s air rush out in a violent burst, but again the banger doesn’t make any sound that would indicate pain.

  Fuck it. He’s cracked thicker skulls in the past.

  “We’re running out of chances, shithead. You keep giving me this silent treatment bullshit, and I’m going to have to do some serious damage.

  “So what was that bullshit at the restaurant? New drug on the streets? Turf beef? Is this the start of a war? Tell me what we’re looking at.”

  Nothing.

  “Fucking answer me!”

  The banger looks up at him and smiles. The corners of his mouth creep upward slowly, like an old man climbing stairs. His eyes brim with shadows and fire, and Rawls almost thinks he can see the insanity and desperate anger in them. It’s the first time the man has acknowledged his existence, and suddenly he wishes he was anywhere but interrogation room four.

  He suppresses a shiver as he eyes the glittering teeth behind blood-caked lips. “Well? You have anything to tell me?”

  The banger opens his mouth and speaks in a whispering voice. The unintelligible syllables sound like a broken speaker, all static and air.

  Rawls blinks. He tries to say something, but his throat clicks and nothing else comes.

  The banger’s smile widens.

  “Everything and all. There is a darkness below, and it rises.”

  “What?”

  “But he stepped through.”

  He stares as the banger juts his tongue past his teeth. The wiggling muscle is a dull non-color, and it extends farther than Rawls thinks should be possible, inches becoming a foot.

  And then the Gray Street boy bites clean through.

  Blood spills from the man’s lips like somebody’s cranked a faucet. Rawls watches in stunned silence for a moment, trying to figure out just what the fuck he’s supposed to do. He thinks of the camera and the cord he yanked free. They’ll think he did this. No one will believe him. They put him in here to get the truth, and now a gangbanger is going to bleed to death in an interrogation room while his tongue flops on the table like a dying fish.

  He backs against the door and reaches for the knob. He almost turns it, but then he realizes the banger is still smiling. He stares at the dribbling mouth. He hears blood patter onto the tabletop. At the edge of his vision he can see the tongue writhing in a puddle of crimson. He shifts his gaze as the severed muscle rears back like a snake, and the sight gives him the strength he needs to leave the tiny room.

  “Help! I need some help up here!”

  Walker enters the apartment and closes the door behind him. Out of sight, he finally unsnaps his holster. It comforts him the slightest bit, but he still feels anticipation in his gut like a chunk of ice.

  It stinks in Ricky’s place, stinks right to hell and back. He’s knocked down doors in houses full of dogs that didn’t smell this bad. How long has it been since he’s seen Ricky?

  “Ricky? Where you at?”

  Shadows clog the apartment. Shafts of diseased light pierce the cracked blinds, but darkness hides most of the living room. Walker makes out the couch he knows is always there, the coffee table piled high with empty beer cans and bottles. A glass bong sits in the middle of it all. Discarded foil rests nearby. Sloppy.

  He reaches for the light switch and flips it on. Nothing. He toggles the switch a few
times, and Ricky’s weakened voice creeps out of the bedroom.

  “Broke the bulbs, man. Watch your step.”

  Walker does as he’s told. Way it smells, he’s liable to plop a foot down in a pile of fresh shit. He fishes a lighter out of his pocket and flicks it. A tiny flame pops to life. He adjusts it—letting it grow a little—and he starts forward.

  Discarded cans and fast food wrappers fill the floor. He kicks them out of the way, and he hears a squeak as a rat runs from his sweeping foot.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Don’t think so,” comes the answer.

  Walker doesn’t want to take his time. He wants to leave the apartment just as fast as he can. He needs to talk to Ricky, though. Needs to know what the dealer knows.

  He reaches the bedroom door, and a smell like an outhouse slams into him. He brings a hand to his face, and the lighter dies. It doesn’t matter, because Ricky has a candle burning on the night stand. It illuminates the dealer’s gaunt, naked body, the wild look in his eyes, and the shit-stained bedclothes he’s tangled in. Its dancing flame glints off the chromed automatic that lies at its base, reveals the melted stumps of the dozen or so candles that have burned down already, their wax trailing down the front of the night stand like a tumor.

  And the candle illuminates the dead girl, too. She’s maybe sixteen, maybe a little less. Her wrists are ragged wounds caked with dried blood. One of her arms rests against the wall, just a foot or so below the smeared words.

  HE STEPPED THRU

  “Hey, Walker,” Ricky says. “Jesus don’t roll here no more.”

  2Bit curls into a ball beneath the shower’s burning spray and shivers. Flitting memories cut him like blades. Darkness that moves. Blood. Knives doing horrible things.

  Strange words.

  Writing with his bloody palm.

  2Bit cries.

  Megan stands outside the house, at the end of the broken walk. She stares at the empty street while the assigned detective combs through the pile of bodies in the living room. She doesn’t know why she’s out here. It’s not fair. Detective Bagley told her to keep the scene clear, but the street remains empty. Only squad cars line the curb. And she gets to guard them. Bullshit.

  She thinks about the words. He stepped thru. A Darkness Below. What do they mean? She knows it all fits together somehow, and she knows with every last bit of her brain that she can figure it out if they’d just let her look at them some more.

  “You okay?” Christian asks. He’s regained some of his color and doesn’t look so much like bad cheese anymore.

  “Fine.”

  “You sure? That was some freaky shit.”

  “I’m fine. Pinky swear, okay?” She gives him a glare so he’ll get the fucking picture.

  “All right.”

  She turns her eyes back to the street, but in the back of her mind she still sees the words.

  He stepped thru.

  “Ricky? What the fuck, man?”

  “Walker. Always good to see a slice I know.”

  “Jesus Christ. What the hell is going on here? I sure as fuck hope you don’t expect me to clean this mess up for you.”

  “What mess?” Ricky looks around in a daze. Walker watches his eyes bounce around the room, lost. Finally, the dealer catches a glimpse of the dead girl beside him and the shit they’re both lying in. “Oh, that. That’s a real bitch of a story, Walker man.”

  “Why don’t you tell it?”

  “Don’t think I should. You won’t like the ending much.”

  Walker feels the first fingers of anger tickle his spine. The prick’s trying to play him, string him along for some unknown reason.

  “Don’t give me that shit, Ricky. How many streets have I opened up for you? How many times have I steered the department in a different direction so you could keep operating? You fucking owe me.”

  Ricky stares into space for a long moment, and Walker can see the rusty gears turning in the man’s head. He wonders if this will be the moment when Ricky’s mind breaks. Maybe everything will crash in on the dealer’s brain and shatter it like porcelain.

  “Fine,” Ricky says. His voice rings with surrender. “Was Dobbs got the whole thing rolling.”

  “So Dobbs is still in charge? This isn’t some new guy proving he’s got cajones?”

  “Naw. All this shit is Dobbs. That nigga gonna run the world.”

  “What’s going on, Ricky? Get to the heart of it, okay?”

  “So the big man says he got something new, says he found religion and shit. Says it’s gonna put Gray Street back on top of things. A lotta niggas was snickering about that shit. What? We gonna go preach our corners back from the Locos and Niners? Fuck that shit, man. These niggas wanna come correct, wanna roll up on a muthafucka and take they shit back. They don’t wanna be using God or some shit to do they dirty work.

  “So Dobbs calls a meet couple weeks back, gets the whole fucking tribe together. Pulls everybody into a warehouse, and suddenly I’m surrounded by niggas I ain’t seen in ages, folks I didn’t know was even in the life no more.

  “We all standing around for a while, and then Dobbs comes in with this book. It’s one of those big fucking leather jobs, but it don’t look like leather. It looks like some nigga’s skin was used on it. That can’t be right, though. Least I thought so then.”

  Ricky takes the dead girl’s hand in his own. Walker wants to look away but finds he can’t. He watches as Ricky places the corpse’s finger in his mouth and sucks.

  “Ricky.”

  The dealer lets the hand drop. “Yeah?”

  “Keep talking.”

  “Right. So Dobbs talks about this book he found, how it’s full of secrets and dark shit, talking about other worlds and things humans ain’t supposed to know. ‘There’s something out there,’ he says. ‘A darkness below. Everything and all.’ He reads from it, and it weren’t in no language I ever heard before. Weird thing is, I could feel those words. It was like they crawled through the room and grabbed me. I could feel they fingers wrapping around my heart, and suddenly I just wanted to kill something. I could see it in them other gangstas eyes, too. Everybody in that place was going crazy. One nigga beat down the homeboy standing next to him, just knocked him to the floor and started stomping until the nigga’s head split open.”

  “Nobody did anything?”

  “Plenty of niggas did stuff, Walker. I watched one homeboy jerk off while the shit was going down. Another waited for homeboy’s skull to crack, and then he grabbed a handful of brains and started eating. Yeah, folks was doing all kinds of stuff.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Nothing holy about it, man. Nothing at all.”

  “You sure it’s not a drug, Ricky? Maybe he pumped the air full of shit. Hell, I don’t know.”

  “Drugs wear off, man. These niggas been getting crazier and crazier. See, when Dobbs was talking all this shit about other worlds and shit, these homeboys got to talking about going there, about sending somebody to check it all out.”

  “Sending Dobbs, you mean.”

  “Give the cracka a prize.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  Ricky chuckles, a cold sound like stones colliding. His chest jumps a little. “What you see today, got you in my place? See some weird shit? You asking ‘bout some nigga flashing his balls around, something bad musta jumped up. What you see, Walker man?”

  He shakes his head. He doesn’t want to talk about the giggler or his little hobby. He sure as hell doesn’t want to talk about the homeboy eating a little boy’s heart.

  “What I thought,” Ricky says. “I know you, man. You one of them muthafuckas likes to talk. You clam up like this, you musta seen some new shit. Probably witness something you don’t think us gangstas was capable of. I right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What I thought. Shit done got deep, Walker. Get a shovel, man. Ain’t nothing to do now but dig.”

  “That what you think?”

  “Shit
jumpin’ off, it means they did it. They put Dobbs through.”

  “There was a plan? Tell me about it.”

  “They was gonna do it last night. Heard some niggas saying they had to ‘Weaken the walls’ or some shit. Said they’d snatched a bunch of Locos for a sacrifice. You believe that shit? Goddamn sacrifice. That shit’s crazy, right? I want to think so, but I been seeing things since that meet. Shit you wouldn’t believe, man. You ask me, I think the walls already be weak. I think Dobbs just needed a push.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He stepped through. So that’s what it means? They believed this shit enough they were gonna try.”

  “Looks like, homie. Looks like they pulled that shit off, too.”

  Walker feels the ice spread through his system. He refuses to believe the shit Ricky’s trying to spoon-feed him. “Where’s Dobbs going to be now?”

  “Who knows? Might not even be in this world no more, right?”

  “Let’s say he’s in the here and now. Where would I find him?”

  “Safe house off Rose.”

  “I know the one. How many guards?”

  “One or two at most.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Shit, Walker. Dobbs don’t need guards no more.”

  “That was before he started fucking up my town.”

  “Right.”

  Ricky’s head droops, his chin meeting his chest. He sits that way for a long time, and Walker thinks maybe the dealer’s passed out. He should get out of the apartment. He’s getting used to the smells of shit and blood and decay, and that can’t be a good sign.

  He turns to leave, and Ricky jumps in the bed.

  “Hey, Walker?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The sun come out today?”

  “No.”

  “What I thought.” Ricky snatches the gleaming pistol off the nightstand. Walker steps forward, but the dealer already has the barrel under his chin. The man’s eyes are haunted but somehow calm.

  “It rises.”

  Ricky pulls the trigger, and what’s left of his mind paints the ceiling.