Streets of Shadows

by Tom Piccirilli

  None of them fit into the world that was on my side of the door.

  At least not entirely.

  Maybe they fit into my world because of who and what I am. Because of what my family is, what we’ve been for as far back as our family history records. The Hunters. One of a hundred names adopted by my people, and one of the more obvious puns. Hunter? Jeez. Not as bad as my cousins in Kentucky. Bill and Karen Slaughter. Or my third cousin in Italy. Tito Lupos.

  You get the picture. For us, in our version of the world, strange stuff happens. Not all the time. Not even a lot of the time, but it happens.

  For me it happens a little more often because of what I do. Not so much as a cop, but since I’ve been a private investigator I’ve come up against some deeply weird shit. Pretty sure I met a ghost once. Smoking hot, too. Good chance she was a murder victim who hired me to find her killer. That wasn’t even the most extreme part of that because the killer turned out to be a group not a person –a bunch of one percenter dickheads who thought sacrificing girls to a demon would make them richer and more powerful.

  The fact that they actually conjured a demon? Yeah, that freaked me out.

  Totally freaked me.

  Still freaks me and it was four years ago.

  Met a couple of vampires, too. Wiseguy wannabes trying to create some kind of half-assed Mafia with fangs.

  And other things. I’ve even met people like me. That was wild, because I’d never met a single one of us outside of the family.

  Then I went to this weirdo little town north of Philly called Pine Deep. Met all kinds of people like me. The fur and fang club. We did not sit around a campfire and bond over how hard it is to be lycanthropes in today’s society. We didn’t drink wine and braid each other’s tail hair.

  Nah.

  We fucking killed each other.

  Well, some of that crowd got killed.

  I didn’t. Clearly.

  Which meant that I was alive and able to stand outside of Toby’s closet door and feel every tremor of fear and dread about what was on the other side of it.

  Winning a bunch of fights can make you tough, sure. It can prove to you that you’re a bad mamba-jamba. But it can also have the opposite effect. Each time you put the other guy down and you get back to your feet you can almost feel another card being dealt from your deck of luck and you wonder what will happen when you have no good cards left to play.

  I was wondering that, too.

  But, like I said, being scared was only one of the reasons I was standing there trembling, why my hands shook as I pulled the chair from in front of the door and reached for the handle. Being scared is always going to be part of it. I’m not a super hero.

  The other part?

  Yeah, that was rage.

  These fuckers –whoever and whatever they are—they’re going after a woman and her kid.

  That kind of pisses me off. It makes me angry.

  Remember that old show with Bill Bixby? The Hulk? That famous tagline about how you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

  Like that.

  I turned the handle and opened the door.

  It was a closet.

  I stepped inside and closed the door.

  Stood in the dark.

  Knowing that it was a lot more than a closet.

  Knowing that I wasn’t alone in there.

  7

  The darkness was all around me.

  And it was big.

  A lot bigger than a closet. A lot bigger than Gail’s whole apartment.

  I had no freaking clue where I was.

  All I had was a lot of pop-culture references, too many Lovecraft novels, and a misspent youth playing long hours of D&D with my nerd herd.

  It was a fabulous, formless darkness. Not my words. I read them somewhere.

  It was a vast and maybe timeless place.

  An abode of spirits.

  Maybe, if I was channeling reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it was a hell dimension.

  Never been to one before. I hope to Christ that I never find myself in one again. I felt naked, exposed, and more alone than it is possible to be anywhere in the physical world and that includes in the middle of Antarctica on a cold winter’s night.

  I was nowhere.

  Which, apparently, is a place you can actually be. Who knew?

  This is a moment when you are absolutely sure you are in the presence of some kind of grand power. When you have proof of life beyond our world. Maybe it’s a kind of left-handed proof of God. Or something godlike. Not sure. What I did know was that it was a time for awe. For reverence. A time to be humbled by the infinite possibilities of this dimension beyond the known.

  So, I guess what I should have done was say something nice. A prayer. A plea. A politely worded entreaty.

  What I said was, “Hey –dickhead!”

  And I said it very loud.

  8

  As it turns out, beings from the outer darkness don’t like to be called dickhead anymore than, say, a redneck at a roadside bar.

  They get pissed.

  Kind of the point of saying it, though.

  I could feel him coming.

  Him, them, it. Whatever.

  Suddenly I wasn’t alone in the big black nothing. I could feel something there. Bigger than me. Close to me. Breathing on me.

  Breathing.

  Its breath was awful. Cold and rancid. A mélange of stinks and chemicals. Ozone and sulfur. Rotting fish and adrenaline. Sweat and piss.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” I said to him. “You fuckers have your own pocket universe and you can’t buy some Tic-Tacs? Seriously?

  The roiling darkness seemed to pause.

  I grinned, hoping I was aiming that grin in the right direction because I couldn’t see a thing. I figured it could.

  He told.

  It wasn’t a spoken voice so much as a thought that appeared in my head. Telepathy or something like it.

  “Who told what?” I replied.

  The boy, spoke the voice in my head. He told you about us.

  “What if he did?”

  We told the boy what would happen if he told.

  “Yeah,” I said, “about that. Three things occur to me.”

  Who are you to speak to us?

  “Does it matter?”

  There was a pause before the big voice answered. You are meat for us. As the boy is meat. As his mother is meat. As—

  “Yeah, I got it. Everyone’s meat. Point made. Now listen to me, ‘cause I want to share those three little insights. I think you’ll find them important because, hey, I think they’re crucial talking points for us here.”

  Sweat ran down in lines beneath my clothes. My frigging scalp was sweating. I could smell my own fear, which meant they could, too.

  Speak, said the voice, and there was amusement in his voice.

  Fine.

  Asshole.

  I said, “First thing, the whole monster in the closet thing is sad. I mean it. Sad. It’s so 1950s. It’s not even retro cool. It’s just silly. Have you seen Monsters, Inc? You’re a fucking Pixar film.”

  You mock us.

  “Pretty much,” I agreed.

  We will tear your flesh and—.

  “Okay, okay. Stop yelling. I’m already scared of you. You’re in my head, can’t you tell?”

  There was a silence and I thought it was significant. Maybe they couldn’t tell. Maybe transmitting their voice into my head was in their skill set, but not reading minds. Cool.

  “Second thing,” I said, “is that you picking on little kids and house pets tells me something. It tells me a lot, actually. A whole lot, when you think about it.”

  I could feel the thing moving. The exhaled breath was on my face, then on the back of my neck. In my mind I could see the pictures Ivy showed me on her phone. The marks left behind on Toby’s skin. Not slap marks or punch marks. Not cigarette burns like you see on some abuse victims. Not even claw marks.

  The kids chest and back had been c
overed by rows of round marks.

  Sucker marks.

  Like the kind of thing you see on a fish that an octopus has killed.

  Whatever this was, it hand tentacles.

  I think that’s how it fed. It wrapped them around the kid and took what it wanted from him. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was life force. In the folklore of supernatural predators there’s a lot of cases to be made for both. The books on the subject talk about monsters that came in by night and stole the breath from a sleeping child. Maybe it wasn’t breath. Maybe it was their life they stole. Or maybe they fed on fear itself. Maybe Monsters, Inc had it right. Who knows, maybe the guy who wrote the movie was working through his childhood issues.

  Creatures that feed on the fear of innocent children.

  That’s some sick shit right there. It’s a whole different kind of bullying.

  Out loud I said, “I don’t hear about you asswipes picking on grownups. Why’s that?”

  I didn’t think he’d answer, but he did. Not the answer I wanted, either.

  The flavor is wrong. The older the bottle, the poorer the wine.

  I said, “Oh.”

  If he was telling the truth, then apparently my logic was flawed. Shit. I was hoping I was facing a pussy of a monster. Someone who didn’t have the stones to go after a grownup.

  Not good.

  The darkness seemed to writhe and boil around me. It exhaled its rotting fish breath so close to me it ruffled my hair and stung my eyes.

  Tell us, taunted the beast, what is the third thing that you came all the way here to tell us.

  Now it was in front of me again, even though I couldn’t see it. The breath blew straight into my face. It was so strong, so powerful that I gagged on it. I had to turn away and gulp in some air to keep from throwing up.

  The fact that there was air here mattered a whole lot to me.

  I told him that.

  “The third thing,” I croaked, “is your breath.”

  Our…breath?

  “Yeah. Like I told you before, it stinks. Really and truly stinks. Like horse shit on a hot wind, and I don’t mean that in a nice way. Every time you breathe on me I want to hurl.”

  There was a sound in my head. Maybe it was laughter. Hard to say in all that darkness.

  We are so sorry to offend you. But have you wasted your last breath to tell us this?

  “Sorry, no, that was kind of a digression,” I said. “I’m getting to my point but I felt I had to say that, you know? To put it out there.”

  More of that laughter.

  “What I really wanted to say was that I find the whole breathing thing to be a major talking point for us. A sticking point, in a way.”

  Explain this nonsense.

  “Sure. Happy to,” I said, and now my whole body was shivering and shaking. I could feel this thing getting even closer. Slimy coils of blackness brushed up against me, and snaked around me. There was a sucking sound and I wondered how it liked the taste of my fear. Maybe I was the wrong vintage for it, but the thing was taking a sip. “You’re not the first monster I’ve met.”

  We are not a monster. We are gods.

  “Whatever,” I said, “my point is that you’re not the first supernatural being I’ve met. You’re not even in the first dozen.”

  Then you understand that the universe is greater and darker than the other cattle think. Understanding is the key that opens the door to fear.

  “Well, yeah, understanding is clutch. No doubt. Here’s the thing, though,” I said, forcing my voice to sound calm. “Everything I’ve met, everything weird and unnatural and supernaturally fuck-ass wrong that I’ve dealt with is like you.”

  A pause, even in the movement of the tentacles.

  Nothing is like us.

  “I’m not saying they’re all Cthulhu wannabe tentacular abominations, which –I’ll admit—is something you’re rocking pretty hard. No, what I’m saying is that there are a few common things about all of them.”

  No.

  “Oh yes. First, they all fucking breathe. Even vampires, and that one surprised the crap out of me. They breathe. Just like you’re breathing.”

  As if to both agree with me and mock me, it exhaled a blast of sulfur and fish rot at me. I staggered backward and it was only the presence of its unseen coils that stopped me from falling on my ass.

  The thing laughed at me.

  The laughter rang inside my head. Hurting me. I felt warmth in my nose and touched it, smelled my own blood.

  “Hey, sparky, I’m not done,” I said, my voice thick because of the blood running down the back of my throat. “The thing I’ve been getting to is that anything with a body, anything that breathes, is mortal.”

  We are forever.

  “Not talking about lifespan, dickhead. I’m talking about flesh. You are flesh, and that makes you mortal.”

  We are not mortal. We are monsters.

  It took the word a child would use and tried to mock me with it.

  I grinned. I could play kid games, too.

  “I know you are,” I said, “but what am I?”

  You are human. You are cattle.

  I wanted to say ‘no’, to fire back some cool witticism, but at that moment I changed and my throat was no longer built for human speech. I can do the change really fast now. A second. A heartbeat.

  Bang.

  Scared man one minute.

  Wolf the next.

  Big freaking wolf. Lots of claws. Lots of teeth,

  Pissed the fuck off because this motherfucker was trying to eat the life of a little kid.

  Here's the really funny part.

  Monsters in the dark –yeah, they can be afraid, too.

  They can scream, too.

  This one screamed.

  He cried.

  He even begged.

  Not sure, but he might even, right at the last, called out for his mother. If that word even applies to this thing. It was that kind of call, though.

  Loud, wailing, plaintive.

  And futile.

  I threw my head back and drowned the sound of it with my own howl. It was the loudest cry I’d ever made, and I wanted it to echo in the darkness for a long time.

  9

  I found the doorknob.

  It was right there behind me.

  I staggered out and collapsed onto the floor.

  I was naked and covered in black oil that was probably blood. I smelled like dead fish.

  I was me again. The wolf was sleeping. Satiated. Content with what it had done.

  On all fours I crawled over to the bed and dragged the sheet off, wrapped it around me. Huddled there on the floor for a long time, shivering, trembling.

  The wolf isn’t afraid of anything.

  I am.

  Afraid and human. My mind was almost frozen in gear trying to accept what just happened.

  When Gail knocked and came in, she saw me and almost screamed. The closet door stood open. It was filled with toys and clothes.

  “I…think I need a shower.”

  “Oh my god!” she cried, dropping to her knees but not actually touching me. “What happened?”

  “D-doesn’t m-m-m-matter,” I said, my teeth chattering. “It’s ov-over. I have extra clothes in my trunk. Car keys are on the table by the couch.”

  Past her, peering around the edge of the door, I saw Toby. Just part of him. One big eye.

  He looked at me and I looked back. Maybe there was some shared awareness that certain people have. He saw me and he knew that I knew. That we shared that bit of knowledge.

  I smiled at him, and I nodded.

  “It’s okay now,” I said.

  The smile he gave me was slow in coming, but it was brighter than anything I’d ever seen. It pushed back the memory of darkness in my mind.

  10

  Got showered. Got dressed.

  Hugged the kid. Left my card with Gail.

  She didn’t have much money, but I told her that it was already taken care of. I fi
gured Ivy wouldn’t be asking me to pay for omelets and coffee for a while.

  I hugged Gail, and that became a group hug with Toby. Kid’s a good hugger. Puts his heart into it.

  Then I left.

  And, yeah, before I got into my car, I went around back. There was a mutt back there pissing on the wall. I let him finish then went over, unzipped and pissed over top of his splash. Wolves do that, too.

  Then I got in and drove away.

  Back to the diner.

  I needed some strong damn coffee.

  * * *

  Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and freelancer for Marvel Comics. His novels include Code Zero, Rot & Ruin, Ghost Road Blues, Patient Zero, The Wolfman, and many others. Nonfiction books include Ultimate Jujutsu, The Cryptopedia, Zombie CSU, and others. Several of Jonathans novels are in development for movies or television including V-Wars, Extinction Machine, Rot & Ruin, and Dead of Night. He’s the editor/coauthor of VWars, a vampire-themed anthology; and is editing a series of all original X-Files anthologies. He was a featured expert on The History Channel special Zombies: A Living History. Since 1978 hes sold more than 1200 magazine feature articles, 3000 columns, two plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, and poetry. His comics include V-Wars, Rot & Ruin, Captain America: Hail Hydra, Bad Blood, Marvel Zombies Return, and Marvel Universe vs. The Avengers. He lives in Del Mar, California wih his wife, Sara Jo and their dog, Rosie. Find him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com.

  A Note From the Publisher

  Dear Reader:

  I hope you enjoyed this book. I did, and that’s why I helped it become a reality. Too many big publishers are more concerned with cash instead of characters, stories, and ideas. They care more about their bottom line instead of what you really want.

  That’s not how I work. I want to bring you awesome characters and stories from authors that you enjoy.

  So I have one small favor to ask of you.

  Leave a review for this book. Loved it, hated it - just let the author and I know what you thought of it. What you liked, what you didn’t like, and what you loved.

  A short honest review will help me—as a publisher—know what you what to read… and it will help other readers like you find this book.