Dark Side of the Moon

by P. C. Rasmussen

  It was easy to get the impression that Stan had seen some unwanted action in this place and Kyle decided not to pursue this topic. Besides, there really wasn't more to say about it at this point, so he merely nodded in response.

  First impressions were Kyle's force and his impression of these guys was pretty mixed. Stan was a no-brainer. He was gay, he was good-natured and sarcastic and an overall good guy. Jack he wasn't sure of yet. The man seemed down to earth and friendly enough, but Kyle got a weird vibe from him that he wasn't sure he liked. And then there was Andy. That guy made Kyle's skin crawl. He had no doubt that if push came to shove, Andy would be doing the pushing, and not in a good way either.

  "It's nice to meet you all," Kyle said and briefly locked eyes with Andy, who continued to give him the evil-father-vibe. This could very well have been his father at that age, as he had already established. "So ... what are you all in for? Or is that not a thing we ask?"

  Jack smirked. "I had enough of my boss. The bastard was pushing everyone around, behaving like a fucking tyrant with delusions of grandeur, and one day I just snapped. He stomped all over everybody and he in particular loved to pick on the weak among us. I guess he got off on it or something. We had this little thing of a girl working in the office and you've never met anyone with more self-esteem issues than her. I kinda took pity on her, tried to boost her self-worth, and for a while there it seemed to work. But then she just started spiraling downward and at first I couldn't figure out why. I thought everyone was being nice to her. Turns out that our humongous prick of a boss had put the moves on her and promised her that if she didn't put out, he would make sure she never worked again. So she put out. The day she slit her wrists in the storage room and died of the blood loss was the day I condemned myself to this hellhole."

  Kyle arched an eyebrow, wondering quietly why anyone would risk that much for someone else, but then he almost smirked. He'd done the same for someone far less deserving. "So? What? You bashed the guy around and he had you shipped up here?" he asked.

  The look in Jack's eyes was hard to read at that moment. It could be equal parts anger and embarrassment. "No, I picked up a fire extinguisher and bashed his head in. And I kept bashing until there wasn't much skull left. So I got what I deserved, I guess."

  "You stood up to that bastard. That shouldn't have landed you here," Daniel said.

  "It's not the best scenario, but you know what? I kinda get how the justice system works. If I hadn't done it, he would have continued to fuck with people and mess up their lives. That the rest of my life will be spent in this pit is a major bummer, no doubt, but I at least know that he's not around to mess up anyone else. His son is next in line to take over and he is a nice guy. I'm sure he's treating the employees with much more respect," Jack said.

  "You're pretty forgiving," Kyle observed.

  "At this point in my life ... I have no other choice. I don't wanna end my days being old and bitter." He glanced around at the others and pursed his lips in quiet contemplation. "Let's go get a bite to eat. This calls for a powwow."

  ***

  The powwow

  A powwow, as Jack called it, turned out to be nothing more than a drinking bout - or it would have been if there had been alcohol, which there wasn't. Instead they just sat around and talked while having what passed for coffee in this dump.

  Billy's story was pretty much what Kyle could imagine about the kid. He had rammed another car while driving under the influence of his drug of choice and had then proceeded to hammer the guy he had hit into tomorrow. Unfortunately, the man had died of the violent attack and, as Billy claimed, he had no recollection of doing it. That hadn't bothered the judge though, and a kid as high-strung as Billy had nowhere else to go but LPC.

  Stan had his sexual preferences against him, he claimed. Yeah, sure, society was accepting and all that, but when push came to shove, not so much.

  Kyle eyed him. "You're telling me that they sent you here because you're gay?" he asked, quite sure that his tone held as much disbelief as he felt.

  For a moment the other man, who didn't look or act gay unless he put it out there, met Kyle's eyes, then he smirked lightly. "Okay, busted. The judge was actually surprised at my 'conduct'. Truth be told, once I got going, I didn't hold back. I was participating in this parade thing with my boyfriend and things got bad. Cops everywhere, teargas, crap like that. Yeah, we were being boisterous. But that still didn't give them the right to attack us. Larry, my boyfriend, figured he could get away with heckling the cops and one of them hit him in the face with one of those nightsticks or whatever they're called. I relieved him of it and bludgeoned him. He died and here I am."

  "Tough break," Kyle countered and then turned his attention toward Andy, who had so far remained morosely silent. "What about you?" he asked.

  The mess hall - and it was a hall at that size - fell eerily quiet while all of them eyed Andy with curiosity. "What about me?" he growled. "Like the rest of you scumbags, I'm innocent. Nobody who's sent to the slammer is ever guilty." The sarcasm in his tone was strong.

  "Chill, Andy," Jack suggested. "The man's just asking you a question. Everybody's shared. Why not you?"

  Andy scrunched up his face. "What's it to you? Who gives a crap why I'm here?"

  "It's a way to assess a guy, you know," Stan said. "You know what he's made off when you know why he's here."

  "Shut up, butt boy," Andy snapped.

  Stan rolled his eyes and snorted. "Yeah, name calling is sure as hell gonna get you to a good place."

  "I said shut up," Andy warned, his tone a little louder, while he started to get up, hands braced on the table edge.

  "Simmer down," Jack warned, grabbing a hold of Andy's arm. Kyle figured this was why he was the head of this group. His tone was generally jovial, but not when he got angry. "We've got enough crap to deal with in this pit without jumping down each other's throats. So you secure that crap, Andy! And stop poking him, Stan."

  Stan shrugged and sipped his coffee. Andy sat back down and glared at Stan for a moment. Then he glanced at Kyle. "I killed my wife, okay?" he said, his tone dismissive.

  Kyle considered asking for more information, but a warning look from Jack made him abstain.

  "Why?" Daniel hadn't noticed Jack's warning look and was eying Andy with a mixture of curiosity and dread.

  Andy sneered. "Because that bitch cheated on me, okay? I come home and find her in bed with my best friend. Or I thought he was my best friend. And she had the audacity to tell me I wasn't good enough for her and she was happy I'd found out, because now she could leave and be with a better man." He nearly spat the words out, his anger and resentment so strong that it was almost palpable. "I grabbed a golf club and I bashed her cheating brains in."

  Everybody just stared at Andy and Kyle figured this was news to the lot of them. Daniel leaned forward a little, a look of curiosity and disgust in his eyes. "What about ... him?" he pushed and even Kyle almost groaned. The kid couldn't leave well enough alone.

  Andy's simmering anger seemed to be a hair's breadth from erupting into something more volatile, but then he suddenly calmed down. The cold veneer he wore slipped back into place when he leaned back on his chair, folded his arms over his chest and gave Daniel a chilly little smile. "I punched him in the face a few times and then broke his neck. Double homicide, even in the face of jealousy, is punishable by LPC." He snorted and even managed to chuckle a little. "Thing is ... I'm not sorry I did it. But I'm sure as fucking hell sorry to be stuck in this place."

  "As are we all," Jack agreed, defusing whatever might be brewing by simply speaking up, and then focused on Kyle. "What about you?"

  Kyle almost laughed. His situation actually was a laughing matter in this connection. It would seem that out of all of them, he was the only one who actually was innocent. "The dumbest thing you can imagine," he said and shook his head at his own misfortune. "I did drugs. Not many and not often, but I did them and I had the
money to pay for them. And I had a dealer. He got in trouble, tried to convince me that he hadn't meant for it to happen. Dealers are hard to come by and, with my background I figured I could get away with taking the blame and then having my father bail me out."

  "Only he didn't, did he?" Jack asked.

  Kyle met his eyes and wondered about him. Leader or not, Jack gave off vibes he didn't like. He just couldn't determine what that was about yet. "Nope. The bastard left me hanging. He suddenly decided he'd had enough of my shenanigans and told the Judge to throw the book at me; which that self-righteous prick did with a smile," Kyle agreed, then glanced around at them. "You know ... if my father had been near me when they passed that sentence, they would probably have had something real to pin on me. Like patricide," he added while thinking that he should check the lying right now. There was a part of him that understood his father's reaction. He couldn't forgive it, but that didn't mean he didn't understand it, at least in part.

  "That's harsh," Daniel said and focused on the cup between his hands.

  "What about you, Vinnie?" Jack asked.

  "Guy in a bar was calling my girl names, so I punched him in the face. Unfortunately that also killed him. And she probably didn't care anyway," Vinnie said with a sad sigh.

  And that left Bark. The guy had been oddly quiet since they had relocated to the mess hall and during the retelling of their respective sad tales, he had continuously stared into his coffee mug without making any comments.

  Kyle eyed him and couldn't help wondering about the guy. The enigma, it would seem, wasn't Stan, but Bark. And what kind of name was Bark anyway? It had to be a nickname. He doubted that anyone in their right mind would actually name their kid Bark. "What about you? I take it your mom didn't name you Bark?" he asked and wondered how the other man would respond.

  Bark smirked. "Nah, but my real name's never caused me anything but trouble," he said and looked up. He had remarkably blue eyes. "Got that nickname on account of my laugh, if you hadn't guessed," he added.

  "That's kinda obvious," Kyle agreed with a smile. "So ... what's your deal? Why'd you end up here?"

  To his immediate surprise, the others seemed just as curious about Bark's answer as he did, which made him realize that Bark hadn't divulged any information about why he was here, just like Andy.

  The silence spread out between them, engulfing everything, until Bark picked up his mug, emptied it and set it back down on the table top with a resounding bang. "Nobody's interested in that," he decided.

  "Not true," Vinnie said. "I am."

  Bark gave him a good-natured smile. "Of course you are, big guy," he said and guffawed, living up to his nickname. Then he simmered down again and gave his empty mug an almost baleful look. "Some things I kinda just wanna keep to myself."

  And that was the end of that. Kyle could tell just by looking at Bark that he had no intention of opening up. It made Bark kind of a wild card. Whether it was because he didn't trust others or if there were other reasons for his refusal to share with the group, it made him stand apart.

  Kyle figured it was time to change the subject. "So ... there are no women in this dome?"

  Daniel gave him a strange look, but Jack's smirk spoke of expectations being fulfilled. "This place is nearly empty. It's the border between the scared chickens in dome 1 and the awfulness that lies beyond dome 4. Although, speaking from personal experience, I wouldn't recommend relocating to dome 4 unless you absolutely have to."

  "Dome 3 is the greenhouse?" Kyle asked and glanced briefly at Daniel, who was minding his own business and looked like he was uncomfortable like hell all of a sudden.

  "Yup," Jack agreed. "The gardeners run it and you do not want to get on their bad side. Don't go in there unless you're invited. They don't appreciate visitors."

  "Who are the gardeners?" One thing he had learned early in life was that if he didn't ask questions, he didn't know what was going on. So he asked. And he asked a lot. Sometimes it got him in trouble, but most times people either volunteered the information or just gave him strange looks and refused to answer.

  Billy shifted nervously and started pushing his mug around on the stainless steel table top, making a racket of it. Andy reached out and placed a hand on top of the mug, stopping the erratic movement, but said nothing.

  "Just guys like us. A little more on the wacko side, I'd say," Jack said. He was the only one among these men who didn't look like he would rather hide in a hole somewhere at the mention of the gardeners. "They're also known as the gatekeepers," he added with a smile.

  "Why's that?" Kyle wanted to know.

  "Because they keep the loonies from the rear domes out of our way," Daniel offered.

  "They're just sane enough to care, but also just crazy enough to keep the dwellers in the dark domes at bay," Jack agreed. "It's a jungle in there. They grow all sorts of crap. If you're into weed, they can probably produce something that's smokeable."

  That was interesting news, even though Kyle was more interested in what they knew about the dark domes. "So, you've been through there?" Kyle pushed on.

  "Oh yeah, I've been all the way to dome 5. And there is a reason why they call it Purgatory. Not only have they somehow managed to cut the lights, but it's cold in there. And it's empty too. That big, empty expanse is enough to ward off any interest you might have in going in there. Doesn't stop them from trying, of course. Doesn't stop them from getting greased either."

  "Them?" Kyle asked. "Who's them?"

  Jack shrugged. "Anyone who thinks they're immune to the evil that lurks in the dark domes," he said.

  Evil? Wasn't that a bit over the top? Kyle pursed his lips. "I've hear they eat people over there." He wasn't entirely sure if he believed it though.

  Jack gave him a sharp look, a frown furrowing his brow. "There's a lot of crap like that floating around. I can't say for sure what they do in dome 6, of course. Dome 5 ... well, anything's possible, I guess, but I've never seen any evidence of it. No skulls or bones."

  "Why did you go there in the first place?" Kyle asked while eying the other man curiously.

  Jack folded his arms over his chest and leaned back on his chair. "I was curious," he said. "Same as you. Let me just save you the effort and the risk. There's nothing worth going there for and you might get more than you bargain for if you do go there. Half the people here might not deserve to be here, but the other half sure as hell does. And if I were you, I'd stay the hell away from the rear domes. You can live out your life quite happily at this end. If you're lucky, you might even be able to hook up with a woman from dome 1. Don't tempt fate. That's all I'm saying."

  Obviously Jack's little speech had the opposite effect on Kyle, but he wasn't yet willing to admit that; not even to himself. "I hear you," he said instead and eyed the sludge in his mug they called coffee. "The gardeners wouldn't by chance be capable of producing something even halfway like coffee, would they?"

  Bark guffawed at this, and loudly too. "If you wanna risk it, you might get lucky. Just pray they're in a good mood when you ask or they might end up using you as fertilizer," he said.

  Billy suddenly rose, all jittery. "I need to lie down," he proclaimed, pushed his chair back noisily and took off. A second later Daniel rose and followed him.

  Kyle watched them go and wondered what that was all about. Billy didn't exactly look like he needed a nap. He was chock-full of nervous energy. "What's going on?" he asked and found himself automatically addressing Jack.

  "Danny doesn't like it when Billy goes off on his own. It's a combo-thing. The blind leading the blind kinda deal," Andy said, his tone a tad derisive.

  Kyle glanced around at the others and realized that what Daniel didn't want them to know was common knowledge. "What? He's looking out for the kid?" he asked.

  "He's nothing but a kid himself," Jack said. "And yeah, he's trying to look out for him, but ..." He shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable.

  "So, I guess
you guys know that he has issues with showering alone?" Kyle asked.

  Jack looked up to meet his eyes. "You saying something happened?" His voice had suddenly taken on a tense edge.

  "I got an introduction to the moron twins," Kyle said, fishing for information without spilling too much himself. Daniel had asked him to keep his trap shut, but he had the feeling that these men knew everything the kid was trying to hide.

  Jack eyed him darkly. "It stayed at arm's length, I assume?" he asked.

  So, they did know. This raised a whole array of other issues in Kyle that he wasn't yet willing to address. "They didn't seem all that interested in me," Kyle admitted. "But they were very interested Daniel."

  That didn't do Jack's now dark expression any favors. "Fuck," he hissed and sent a look over one shoulder in the direction to two younger men had scurried off in. "Someone has to put a stop to this," he growled.

  The older man's reaction was a bit unsettling, even though Kyle didn't really know why yet. "What exactly happened there? I get that Daniel has had a kinda rough introduction to this place, but ..."

  Jack cut him off simply by turning his attention back to Kyle. "Rough? If you'd seen that ..." He shook his head. "Daniel doesn't know I was there. I don't think he would stick around me if he knew."

  "You saw it happen?" Kyle couldn't help the somewhat frosty edge to his voice right now. The mere idea that this guy would have stood by and watched without doing something ...

  "No, I didn't," Jack derailed that train of thought. "But I saw the aftermath. And believe you me, there are things in this universe you can do without seeing. Garry told me about it afterward. He was a hard man, had seen a lot of crap in his life, but he was rattled."

  Information was what he needed right now and Jack seemed willing to share. He could always make up his mind about Jack's involvement - or lack of the same - later. "Daniel's told me a little about this ... guy. What was that all about?" Kyle pressed on.