by Lee Thompson
I rolled with the blow the best I could, but my teeth still rocked against each other and adrenaline shot through me as pain flared through my skull. But I kept hold of the pistol.
The one-eyed goon leaned over me, arms stretched, one hand going for my wrist, the other for the end of the barrel, his legs wide open. I kicked him in the nuts. His breath hit me in the face again and I closed my fingers around his closest wrist, kicked his ankle, and he slammed the ground next to me. I felt something inside of me snapping, wanting to level all of the pain and heartache I’d ever known on this freak I didn’t even know. I rolled toward him and slapped the pistol’s butt against his forehead. He grunted and brought his hands to his head and I struck again, twice more, breaking his fingers as he curled up on himself, holding his ruined hands against his stomach, his eyes coated in blood, and all I could think was, What have you done to them? Where does the evil come from to hurt the weak, huh? How does it feel?
I stood and trembled, took a breath and steadied myself.
I kicked him in the neck.
David giggled.
April sang.
Jacob whispered.
The big man coughed.
“Get up,” I said, but I knew he couldn’t. He still wrestled defeat, was still trying to wrap his mind around how so much pain could rise in such a short time. I said, “Do you think we’d let our hands play the Devil’s fiddle if God kept breaking our fingers?”
I thought, Jesus Christ. What the hell am I talking about… but I felt as if I were channeling something, or someone, else.
I stepped back, let the pistol dangle next to my leg.
I studied him, looking for any sign that tied him into Nutley and the others.
He rolled over, tried to push himself up, and I noticed black zip ties in his back pocket. I thought, Huh. Believing, whether right or wrong, that he’d brought them with him hoping he’d be able to bind my wrists together and make me answer whatever questions he had in whatever manner he chose to draw them out. I stepped forward and kicked him in the ribs as he tried to scuttle away on all fours. Air exploded from his lungs and he grunted as his head sank and he rested with forearms braced on the ground, trying to find the strength to stand, still searching for a way to get the upper hand. I jerked the zip ties from his back pocket, pressed the .38 barrel to the back of his head, and he whimpered. I said, “Lay flat on your stomach, put your hands together behind your back.”
He did as he was told, saying, “Jesus. You’re some kind of cop.”
I thought, At one time. But that dark time has been washed away by a deeper darkness.
Once I’d pulled the ties tight enough around his wrist that he cursed and his hands started turning purple, I helped him to his feet, careful to stay off to his right side and slightly behind him in case he tried to shoulder slam me, or kick. My blood boiled. I pointed him toward the shed. He shook his head again. In the trees, more ravens gathered, eyeing us. David’s house shimmered, made entirely of glass and smoke. Out front car tires crunched gravel. I pushed the big Cyclops forward, the .38 digging into his side, until we stood before the shack. It was only six feet tall and wore a slanted roof so the rain could run off in the back. One small grimy window perched in the side stared into darkness. I grabbed the handle with my free hand, glad there was no sign of a lock, and asked, “Are there lights inside?” Knowing that there weren’t, this was a place where light was an abomination, this was a temple, like in Douglas Clegg’s Neverland, and I shuddered, took a breath, and waited for the man to answer, but he only whimpered.
I eased the door open but from the corner of my eye saw another man with a shotgun cradled across his arm. He leapt from the back porch and made tracks on the lawn toward us. I grabbed Cyclops and used him as a shield, peering over his shoulder as a shadow lengthened along the lawn and I thought, Fucking A, they’re twin brothers. The only thing that separated their identities on a surface level was the free one dressed a little better, and his good eye was in the opposite side of his head. Jake stopped ten feet from us and smiled. A sense of déjà vu washed through me. I said, “Drop the gun.”
He shook his head, then turned it slightly so he could take everything in. He said, “Has he been inside?” The door stood open. A chill inched out, dug barbs into my leg. He said, “Who are you?”
I said, “Where is your daughter?”
“What daughter?”
“Yours.”
He looked muddled, though I assumed it just an act to throw me so they could work together. I braced myself for the bound one to make a sudden move so that his brother had the opportunity to use the shotgun. I said, “You move and I will kill you.”
His stance straightened. He nodded.
His brother said, “You’re a new one, huh?”
“New what?”
“New avenger. Where’d the old Ripper go? Finally can his ass?”
I said, “Place the gun on the ground and step back,” my words mirroring the cop I’d watched die, and I wondered where the sisters were at this moment, if they took the forms of ravens perched idly by, waiting for something to explode that they might come in to pick at the scraps.
I dug the barrel of the pistol into the bound one’s skull and did my best to instill my eyes with menace, feeling foolish for it, not exactly the most dangerous-looking man, and yet part of me hoped they knew that image had little to do with action.
The brothers, even the beaten one, seemed relaxed, as if this was something they faced every day. The one holding the shotgun set it down and stepped back. He put his hands up, said, “Why don’t you just go?”
I shook my head. “Not until I see what’s in the shed. Not until you show me where your daughter is.”
“We’ll show you what’s in the shack there, but you won’t see Melissa. I dropped her off an hour ago.”
“We’ll call her then. And I’ll stop by over there.”
“For what?”
“Turn around and walk backwards to me.”
Jake smiled and the dark patch of empty socket twinkled.
I said, “You guys know they make eye patches?”
The bound one said, “Not much of a point in those. They’re for other people’s comfort.”
I nodded, wrapped my fingers around the first brother’s shoulder and turned him toward the door. I waved the pistol at Jake and said, “Get over here.” He came, his hands stuffed in his pockets, and beyond him I saw shadows drifting beneath the back porch awning. The three of us looked the same way. One of the brothers sighed. Jake said, “Do you ever wonder what life’s all about?”
I prodded the first brother and he stepped across the threshold. I turned to the other, said, “Inside. Turn the lights on.”
“No lights in there,” he said. “The way it should be.”
I didn’t know what to do. So I hit him. The pistol butt cracked against the side of his head and he dropped. His brother moved inside the shack but I couldn’t see him and thought, Great. He’s found something to free his hands, but knew it didn’t matter too much, his fingers were broken and whatever fight he did have left would have to come from his teeth and I could knock them out. Or I could shoot him. I pulled my pocket knife and cut the second brother’s shoelaces free and tied his hands behind his back, careful to keep an eye on the door for sudden movement, but none came. I stood and pointed the gun at the open door, said, “I hope you’re working on finding a flashlight.”
The brother inside didn’t answer.
I pulled my cell and opened it and used the light it cast like a failing torch as I crossed the threshold, my heart pounding, ears perked for an attack. The room was even smaller than I expected, the weak light of my cell illuminating the dusty boarded walls and rusty pieces of machinery that made me think of Uncle Red and his hardware store stuck far in the future when there wasn’t a place left for him in the world because things had changed so much and there was no going back. The brother wasn’t in the shack. I listened for the sound of breathi
ng but heard nothing except the sounds of wind and something dripping far-off. I knelt and pointed the light and pistol beneath the old wooden tables nailed to the wall.
What the hell, I thought.
I turned and saw something in the floor. At first it seemed like a small wall, but as I scooted closer, it came into view, registered as a trap door. I said, “Shit,” and hit Kim’s number on my cell, and after she answered filled her in on what happened, how one brother had disappeared but I still had the other here. She said, “I’ll have the cops out there in fifteen minutes, John.” I could tell she wanted to say more, that somewhere in the near future an earful was coming my way because I didn’t find anything that justified my actions. I thought, Christ, knowing that something wasn’t right this whole time, and I had to figure out what to tell the police because they weren’t going to be as understanding as Kim.
I walked outside. Jake was sitting up. Blood dribbled from a small wound on the side of his head, slid down his jaw line to the point of his chin. He met my gaze and said, “He gone?”
I nodded. “You guys have a trap door in there.”
He smiled again, closed his good eye and studied me with the empty socket. My skin crawled. He said, “Something real different about you.”
“Where did your brother go?”
“What are you really doing here? In our lives?”
“I don’t have a clue. Just trying to do my job.” I felt the need to explain myself but suppressed it. “Is your daughter really with her mom?”
“No.”
“What’s in the hole? A tunnel?”
“Yes.”
“And it leads to where?”
“Who knows,” he said, smiling. He opened his good eye. “Do you have a chip on your shoulder? You like hitting people you don’t know? Who aren’t as plain and boring as you?”
“You’re pretty plain, so it’s not that. What happened to your eye?”
“None of your business.”
I bit my lip. “Quite the place you have.”
“Your insults don’t mean shit to me.”
I knelt in front of him, let the gun dangle between my legs. “What do you two know about Nutley or the sisters?”
His eye lit up. He nodded. “Nutley and the sisters. That’s why you’re really here.”
“What about them?”
He cranked his face up and spat on me.
I wiped the back of my hand across my face, thinking, Motherfucker.
He giggled, said, “You aren’t nothing to me. Even if you are to them.”
“To who?”
“The sisters. What they see isn’t what I see when I close my eye.”
“What do you see?”
“I see Death.”
He stared into my face but he cowered a little, and for a second I thought he was going to try to crawl away from me.
I said, “Whose death?”
He shook his head. “More than I can count.”
“So, like five or six?”
He laughed. “Make jokes. That’s what people do when they’re scared shitless.”
He had me there.
“Get up.”
THIRTEEN
Mike had taught himself to ignore the cold but Wylie kept asking him if he was all right as they worked their way through the forest. Intent on listening and seeing what might be missed and cost them their lives, Mike didn’t answer, just pressed forward steadily, the rifle in his arms not as reassuring as one would hope it’d be. Images played through his head, and history…
He stood like a statue among the fallen and bloodied soldiers. Most of them had been like brothers to him, though they didn’t speak of it as such, because they knew it and felt it and they weren’t kids anymore and what they did was dangerous. They were three days into the jungle when the claymore went off because Scott Stigler had tripped the wire when he stumbled over a vine hiding beneath a low lying bush crowding the path. He’d swore a moment before the blast, until his blood painted the trees, and the back of Mike’s neck grew hot and slick. They fell like dominoes, kicking, and clenching their weapons. He was still standing, luckily, and as far as he could tell, uninjured. His knife worked fluidly, his brain running on instinct as he cut clothing free and stared into blank faces, worried faces, angry faces, the face of God and the face of Death. Their breath was hot on his arm and their blood hot on his fingers as he held them down and dug the tip of the blade into their flesh to remove the steel deposited deep in their sides and backs. Some were unsaveable, some merely salvageable, and he wanted to weep but he couldn’t feel anything at all.
Hold on, he said to a blurry face, a squirming body, as he stuffed pieces of torn shirt like corks into Bennie’s wounds, the big black kid sputtering and praying silently—as I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death—in between quick, ragged breaths. Back home Bennie had a fiancé and a kid on the way, and they’d just bought a house that Mike knew was going to be a little emptier now…the boy was quick and deadly one moment and hopeless the next, pale, the light fading from his eyes faster than Mike could tell him again, Hold on, think of all you have to live for…love man, you have love and it’s the greatest thing in the world, right?
But Bennie wasn’t listening, he was somewhere else, riding a boat deep in a cavern down the river Styx, his head bowed and a soft mewl echoing all around them…
There were six of them in the recon team. And then there was one. And he’d led them down the path, led them to their deaths, certain they could make their objective before nightfall. Birds gathered in the trees around them, some hungry, some curious, some there to carry the dead away because Hades never ran out of room. He’d never been one to pray, even when things went horribly wrong, but he prayed for them in turn, held their hands and closed their eyes.
Behind him, Wylie said, “You scare the hell out of me sometimes.”
Mike had no idea why he’d said it, just kept scanning the forest and whispered, “There’s a lot worse in the world.”
Slowly, the roar of the falls filtered through the trees and his heart rate increased, and sweat glistened on his skin, and he thought, Maybe now we’ll get some answers.
As if understanding an unspoken command, Wylie zipped his lip and skirted around trees, his ears perked and eyes glancing left and right. They worked their way through the foliage, tense and uneasy, but for Mike at least chaos was familiar, old companions, if not friends. He walked two paths, the one in the present and the one where after he closed his last friend’s eyes a woman stepped from behind a tree and buried a knife in his back.
As if waking from a dream, his senses ached as he stepped onto the rock lip framing a pool of water sixty yards from the falls. Wylie closed in behind him and said, “What’s the plan?”
Mike whispered, “We go inside.”
Wylie said, “What’s plan B?”
Mike chuckled and it felt good. He hoped he didn’t get Wylie killed, but didn’t know how to stop it from happening because sometimes he believed that you couldn’t change your destiny, you ran from it but it always caught up to you when you thought you were safe, far enough away, never realizing that the things that shape who and what you are and all you could be and those things you never could, grow from somewhere deep inside some primal part of you. He said, “I’ll go in, you watch the entrance, make sure no one sneaks up on us. If the sisters or Nutley are waiting for me then I’ll deal with them.”
“How?”
Mike moved forward, finger over the trigger. It forced Wylie to catch up and pay attention. Sometimes the easiest way to get someone to follow was to make them scared of being left behind.
The falls roared. Mike walked into the cave and the back of his neck itched as if spiders tickled tender flesh. He breathed slowly through his nose, glad it wasn’t dark in the cavern. Someone had left torches burning on the walls. Something popped in the further reaches of the cave and he thought, It isn’t a cave at all, but a labyrinth that starts here and leads to the mou
th of Hell.
He pressed the rifle to his shoulder. He said, barely audible, “I’m here. Come out.”
Torchlight flickered and shadows shifted along the walls. He waited for the levy to break, for Hell’s mouth to open and consume him, because he’d seen the Devil’s face more than once, and he doubted he could do it forever without it destroying him. He heard Wylie out front, his feet shifting nervously, talking to himself, saying, This is fucking insane…Deeper in the cavern he heard footsteps, chanting, the flap of raven wings and the horrible sounds a knife makes as it pierces flesh and collides with bone.
Illusion, he wondered, or reality?
He didn’t know and didn’t know how to find out. His instincts gravitated toward action, though at that moment, in the damp cavern, with nothing but his thoughts and slow, steady breath, the rifle’s trigger hard and real beneath his index finger, he was still. He waited. Water glistened in flowing rivulets that at first appeared to be running toward the ceiling, but he blinked and everything returned to normal and smoke burned his nostrils. He took a few steps forward and to the right, rifle to his shoulder. Something glistened from the corner. He glanced back and forth between the dark mouth of the tunnel and what lay half hidden in shadow near the corner. He brought his shoulder up to wipe away the tears in his eyes. Smoke thickened. His fingers bled. His body vibrated with something foreign yet primal and he stepped back toward the entrance, thinking, I have to get the hell out of here…
He figured the way would be closed off, a brick wall where once water fell, graffiti decorating brownish-red, his name carved into the doorway of his grave. But as he turned, the water pounded beyond the open doorway that went back to the world, which even in its absurdity was so much safer than the unknown and what lay waiting in the deeper darkness that mirrored his soul.