Feast of Shadows, #1

by Rick Wayne

  “The police compiled this record of Alonso’s movements in the days leading up to his disappearance.”

  She took them like they might be toxic. “Where did you get this?”

  “From the police file.”

  “It’s clever,” she said, tossing the papers on her desk.

  “What is?”

  “Blaming it on a public health threat.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Tell me, Doctor, where are you from?”

  “Down south. Atlanta, mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “We moved around.”

  “Well, I’m not sure how things are down there, but up here, what makes it onto the news or into court is largely a matter of convenience. People, especially those in power, tell whatever story they need to get through the day. If you follow the news, you’ll notice that it’s usually the whistle blowers who find themselves facing charges rather than the reverse. But this—” She scoffed. “This is a new and very clever way to discredit someone.”

  I sat back. “You think I’m here as part of some cover up?”

  “Oh, not wittingly, no. That’s what makes it so devious. What did you say you were again? An epidemiologist? They must have had to turn over quite a few rocks to find one of your persuasion.”

  “Persuasion?”

  “You seem to be a very nice young man. I’m sorry to be so blunt.”

  There was a long pause while I tried to ascertain what she was implying. “Are you suggesting the police had something to do with Alonso’s disappearance?”

  “Oh, I doubt it. At least, not directly. But I don’t believe for a second that they tried very hard to find him. That much was clear. The police don’t care about ‘do-gooders,’ Doctor. To them, we’re nothing but a nuisance.” She could see the skepticism on my face and jumped to explain. “Alonso was seeking an injunction against a 450-million-dollar property development scheme. The city of New York occupies a fixed space, Dr. Alexander. For something to get built, something else has to be torn down. A battle always ensues. Whoever has the most money usually wins. Understand?”

  “I understand there are probably a lot of palms in the city that would have to be greased for something like that to get approved.”

  She nodded. “And there was Alonso, standing in the way. On the very day of our vigil, he conveniently goes missing and the press fail to show.” She looked at me like a third-grade teacher. “And you’re going to tell me that the reason he disappeared is because he was ‘sick.’” She made quotes in the air.

  A long silence filled the room.

  I nodded to the printed schedule on the desk. “All the same, Mrs. Flynn—”

  “Ms.”

  “I have to ask if anything there jumps out at you.”

  “In what way?” she said without looking.

  “Is any of it out of the ordinary, something he didn’t encounter regularly?”

  She studied me, as if trying to determine if I was for real.

  “If you could just take a look so I can say I did my job, I’ll be out of your hair.”

  She sighed and flipped through the pages with a scowl. It seemed like she was about to shake her head in the negative when something caught her eye. She read it again.

  “This says he was in New Jersey the day before as well.”

  “According to his carrier, his phone certainly was. Is that odd?”

  “We don’t have any interests in New Jersey.”

  “Is that because he planned to seek office in New York?”

  “The five boroughs were home, Doctor. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Alonso wasn’t trying to save the world, just make his part of it a little better.” She handed the papers back to me.

  “Any idea what he would’ve been doing across the river?”

  “If I had to guess, helping someone. It’s what he did. It’s all he did. Are we done?”

  I stood. “Just one more question. As far as you know, did Alonso have a charger in his car?”

  “A charger?”

  “For his phone. Did he keep one in his car?”

  “Um.” She thought. “Yes. I’m sure he did. Why?”

  “Thank you again for your time. I can show myself out.”

  The police had gone up and down the stretch of road in Jersey where Alonso’s signal had stopped. I didn’t know what I hoped to add, but I had to see it at least. It certainly didn’t represent the Garden State very well. I passed at least two alley-parked cars that had been stripped to the bone. They looked like giant animal skulls. I dodged a call from Ollie on the way. He left a voicemail. They wanted me back at the office. I deleted it.

  Alonso’s signal had been moving just before it quit, which suggested he’d been traveling in a vehicle. If his phone had simply gone dead, why not just plug it in?

  From the back of the taxi, I watched on my own phone as we approached the exact spot, which I had marked with GPS coordinates on my map.

  “Just up here,” I said.

  I paid and got out and looked around. There didn’t seem to be anything of note. I turned in a circle and scanned everything in view.

  A gas station barred like Fort Knox.

  A vape shop next to a similarly branded liquor store.

  An ’80s-era five-story office building with a high wall around the lot.

  A 24-hour laundromat.

  A kebab joint.

  A retail husk.

  A paint and hardware store.

  I started walking toward the next major intersection, following the path of the lost signal. I passed what had once been a used car lot. The cloth fixed to the interior of the fence was beginning to wear. When I saw the next bus stop, I knew I had gone too far. I turned around and stopped at a side street. A homeless man in a red wool cap with a hoodie pulled over the top had passed out in the corner of what had once been the driveway of the lot.

  “Alonso, my man,” I asked myself softly, “why the hell were you out here?”

  “Well, it weren’t for the view,” a man said behind me.

  He appeared to be homeless also. He sported a grisly beard and an even grislier expression. He was chewing something.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t see you there.”

  “’s alright. No one does.” He pulled from a half-empty water bottle, sloshed the water around his mouth, and spat. “You got the time?”

  I looked at my phone. “4:30.”

  “Shit. Look at that. Late my appointment at the PTA.” He stood and stretched and I saw his belly. At some point, he’d had a helluva operation. There was a huge scar. “How do I look?” he asked.

  “You live around here?”

  He raised his arms to the tarp that extended over the fence. “Mi casa es su casa.”

  “Gracias.”

  “De nada.”

  I brought up Alonso’s picture on my phone. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen this guy around? Woulda been a few weeks ago maybe. He would’ve stood out. Like me.”

  He squinted at my screen and shook his head as he scratched himself. “Naw, man. Nobody like that.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. Thanks.” I nodded to the unconscious man. I couldn’t see him breathing. “Your friend okay?”

  “He’s not my friend.” The bearded man said it grimly, like maybe I had insulted him.

  “Oh. Got it. Sorry.”

  “You assume just because we’re both shacked up out here that we’re friends? Roomies? We all know each other, right?”

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” I started walking.

  The man laughed. “I’m just fuckin’ with you, man. Yeah, he’s alright. Sleepin it off, know what I mean?”

  “Right.” I tried to smile.

  “Somebody take him? The guy on your phone.”

  “Not sure. To be honest . . .” I took a deep breath and let it out. “Not sure of anything right now. Thanks again.”

  “Well, there’s only two reasons people come out here.” He
held up one finger. “Something bad.” He held up a second finger. “Something worse.”

  “So why drive out the day before just to turn around and go home?”

  “Case the joint,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Guy like that”—he nodded to my phone—”What is he, a priest or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Guy like that isn’t too sure he can take care of himself, know what I mean? But he’s up to no good, so he’s gotta come by himself. Priests are into some weird shit, man. Trust me.”

  “Not this guy.”

  “No crypto or kiddie porn or anything like that? You sure?”

  I nodded.

  My new friend thought for a moment. “Information, maybe? Meeting somebody here?”

  “Maybe. But he gets spooked. And for whatever reason, his phone’s dead, so he can’t call for help. And he doesn’t trust the police. His lawyer made that clear. So . . .” I looked up and down the road again. “What does he do?”

  My adviser shrugged nonchalantly. “He hides.”

  “He hides . . .” I repeated as I scanned the scene again.

  Across the street, one block down a side road, there was an abandoned apartment complex. Looked like it was in the middle of being demolished. There was a fence, but it had been bent in several places. Inside were three identical housing blocks, parallel to each other, each two stories tall. Their lower halves were covered in faux stone, which was falling off in rectangular panels. Their upper halves were all shingled, except for where the windows poked through, like they used to do back in the ‘70s. Demolition had started. I saw a pair of those giant movable trash bins they roll in for renovation projects—big metal monstrosities that get dropped off and hauled away by semi. Pieces of broken drywall poked up at an angle. Looked like they’d been there for a while, exposed to repeated bouts of rain and sun.

  “Naw, man.” The warning came before my first step. “I wouldn’t go there.”

  I looked at it. I looked at him. “Why not?”

  “No one goes there. Not even when there’s snow on the ground and it’s witch-titty cold out.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Some places are just bad.”

  “Bad,” I repeated. I reached into my pocket. “Do me a favor.” I handed him a twenty and Ollie’s card. “If I don’t come out of there in ten minutes, run down to the gas station and call that number. Can you do that?”

  He looked at the cash. Then he took it. “Sure thing, pal. Your funeral.”

  I crossed the street and read the warning sign that had been posted. It said the lot was being developed. Only it wasn’t. Construction had clearly stopped months ago, another dead-end husk in a marginal neighborhood left to rot by people who’d never even seen the place. There was a gap in the fence where it had started to lean, and I squeezed my way through. Each of the three identical buildings on the lot had an open stairway at the middle, with hallways flanking to the right and left. The roof of the first structure had been torn down by a backhoe, or so it seemed. The whole front of the building had been ripped open. There was no way in through all the debris. It seemed an odd place to stop work. Couldn’t have been that much more money to level the building and avoid the potential lawsuit.

  I walked to the second structure. The aluminum gate that blocked the central alcove was locked. But it was old and worn. I grabbed the bars and shook and it rattled loudly. I stepped back. There was a long, U-shaped metal bar in the debris—bent, but workable—and I wedged it between the gate and the wall. I pulled. When that didn’t work, I pressed hard against it. Still nothing. I took off my bag and bounced against the bar, over and over, with my arms out, using my momentum to increase the force of my weight. Harder and harder and harder. I gritted my teeth. I growled. It felt good. Like letting off steam. I started imaging I was hitting the man my wife had slept with. Harder. Harder.

  It snapped. The metal bar tore the back of my hand as I flew forward into the faux-stone siding. My cheek got scraped pretty bad. It stung when I touched it. I twisted my knee as I fell. And I felt like an idiot. But it had worked. I hadn’t actually broken the lock, but I’d bent the aluminum catch for the deadbolt. I got up and touched my face again gingerly. That’s when I noticed my hand was bleeding. I had some tissues in my bag, and I held them firm over the wound as I walked up the steps. The air smelled of stale cat piss and old wood, and there was a slight metallic tinge underneath, probably from the exposed pipes. Piles of debris had been left by the workers. Doors were either open or missing. Several walls were bare to the interior. Insulation hung unevenly from the ceiling like strips of flesh. The whole thing reminded me of a roadside carcass halfway to being scavenged clean.

  I turned down the left hall, where the floor not only groaned but bowed under my weight, but there was nothing but trash and waste. Not wanting to risk a collapse, I turned and walked the opposite way. I was almost to the far end when I stopped suddenly. I walked backward five steps.

  Just past the third door from the center there was a long narrow hole, about knee high, where two boards had been knocked out. The wood was thin. It was also old and dry. The splinters were bent outward. Toward the hall. All the other debris bent in, as if the workers had been standing in the rooms with hooks, pulling it all down. But this was bent out, like something had burst free and ran. I knelt and looked closer. Through the gap, I saw a symbol. I stepped into the room. A pair of old mattresses had been fixed over the windows. Along with the boards on the exterior, they blocked most of the afternoon light—all except a thin orange shaft that snuck in at the top. Brown wall peeked from irregularly torn wallpaper. Someone had recently spray-painted three big words in yellow-green glow-in-the-dark paint:

  PREPARE THE WAY

  Underneath was another symbol: an upside-down triangle offset with swooping curves tipped in little circles. I snapped a picture with my phone. I reached to touch it but stopped at the last moment. I was being watched. Or so I felt.

  I turned my head and listened.

  Nothing. Not even the distant rumble of a passing car.

  I caught movement. Something small. Behind me. And I turned around. There was a jagged hole in the opposite wall, about chest height. It didn’t go all the way through. It merely exposed the interior space, which was dark enough that I couldn’t see a thing. A wasp walked along the lip. Another flew out of it lazily and landed on the ceiling. I saw the sweep of its antennae and twitch of its wings as it crawled. I scowled.

  There are all different kinds of wasps, of course. Not all of them have wings, but they’re all nasty, vicious creatures—aggressive and armed. Wasps account for four of the six most painful stings in the world, and unlike bees, which sacrifice themselves for the greater hive, wasps don’t die after stinging you. They can go right on doing it. Over and over. Many species of wasp hunt benign, helpful insects. Others are parasites. The females of one species use the barb on their abdomens to inject their eggs into the bodies of caterpillars, which get eaten alive by the babies from the inside out. Another species is effectively a vampire, living entirely off the blood of the creatures they capture, paralyze, and drain.

  Two more insects flew lazily out of the gap. They seemed oblivious to my presence. They were busy preparing for winter. That hole, though. Dark. Still. And I had the most uncanny feeling. I remembered my little brother. And a shed near an abandoned church.

  As I moved to examine it, I realized the wall at the back of the closet had been knocked away. Another mattress lay against it, covering it from the far side, which meant there was another space. I walked over and pushed it out of the way. Beyond was another room. Long. Tall. Longer and taller than seemed possible for the remainder of the building. The whole of it was dim and decaying. Three crisscrossing orange shafts peeked in at the top. Someone had gone to a lot of effort to block out as much light as possible.

  I stepped in. It took my eyes a few moments to adjust. At first I thought the une
ven ridges that covered the exposed floor were boards or debris. But they weren’t. They were bones. Hundreds, at least. Animal bones. Not discarded. Not tossed in piles. They’d been organized, like with like, in a large radiating circle, like dominoes—smaller bones at the center, larger ones at the rim. It had to be a good 20 paces across. In a round gap at the very middle of it all sat the skeleton of no creature that ever existed. Bones of different species had been fixed together to make a ghoul of an oddity. It was about the size of a large dog and sat upright, like a bear on the ground. It faced the east wall to my left. In front of it, as if carrying its gaze to the horizon, the bones of the circle were turned relative to the rest and made a kind of ray pattern. It wasn’t until I got closer that I realized the remainder of the collection formed a complex labyrinth which opened in front of me.

  The odd skeleton’s skull seemed to be that of a deer. Large antlers rose like a crown, like the creature was the King of Death surrounded by an army of loyal supplicants bowing before it. And there was something in its mouth. I took a careful step, planting the tip of my shoes in a gap between bones—a passage of the flat labyrinth. I barely had time to shift my weight before I heard a creak in the hall, as if someone had tread the weakened floor. I turned my head and listened again. But there was nothing. Either nobody was there, or they were doing the same as me—breathing shallow, trying not to make a sound. A minute passed like that. Then two. My legs were getting stiff. My sore knee burned. But I didn’t dare shift my weight. I thought—but couldn’t be sure—that I heard the sound of faint, distant scratching.

  Three minutes passed. I didn’t move. Then four.

  Were they out there?

  I stepped out of the bone circle.

  Nothing.

  In the near-silence, I heard the sound of a drop hit the floor. A spot of my own blood had fallen from the cut in my hand. In seconds, a wasp landed on it and feasted, its abdomen throbbing. I stepped to the closet wall, breathing as soft and shallow as I could. I listened.

  Nothing at first. Then what seemed a child’s laugh.

  I stepped out and peered around the door frame, slowly. Just down from the door on the opposite side, three scrawling letters had been scratched unevenly into the brown drywall. The markings were faint and could have been old. I simply might not have noticed. Then again, they might have been fresh.