It was quiet as a tomb inside the rectory basement. All the tumult and racket bu fffeting him for the past four days ceased the second he wandered into the dim corridor beneath the Nun’s residence. Where the frightful penguins resided, Doug thought. His entire childhood, the women in black and white, rosaries hanging from around their necks, seemed like aliens.
Sure, they ate food, drank water, spoke words like the rest of us. But so much of a Nun’s life was mystery to Doug. The hallway ahead of him didn’t help answer any of his questions. It had been built with slabs of stone, centuries old.
Water dripped from somewhere close. Doug turned a corner. Here, the basement was exposed Galena brick from more than a century ago. Doug recognized it from when he’d taken a road trip to Galena to study the great U.S. Grant back in High School. Everything was red, neatly packed squares.
“Man, this goes back a-ways.” He mumbled. Doug tred man-made ramps now, right corners every twenty feet or so. Bare bulbs connected by wire were the only source of illumination. His muscles appreciated the warmth of being inside, even though he was creeped out. Always a trade offf in Life, he thought.
Comfort and fear. White le boxes, neat and sturdy ran the length of the corridor wall to his left. Boring church business, Doug thought. What do you expect, man? The Shroud of Turin? Still, it was disappointing. Doug wanted to see some lost artifact. More fiile boxes continued. Their stacks kept pace with him, as he turned right, peering down another long corridor. He half-expected to fiind a Minotaur down here.
Where the hell had Mavis gone? Files boxes turned from cardboard to plastic as the harsh light reflected offf their surfaces. His steps kept him company as he warily walked on. Finally, Doug reached the end of the corridor when a screech behind him made the hair on his neck stand up. It sounded like an owl. Maybe a raptor of some sort.
He stared at where he’d been.
Nothing moved. Doug forced himself to breathe evenly. It hurt to inhale. His ribs were sore, his chest felt bruised. Man, he was one beat up monkey, he thought.
He listened, his heart pounding in his chest.
Only the dripping of some pipe continued. Af ter a few lost minutes calming his breathing and unclenching his hands, did Doug move on. There were a few more turns ahead. More fiile boxes stood sentinel against the wall. All of them stacked the same height.
Doug gured that he must be under the church itself. It was the only explanation that made sense. He turned the next right corner coming face to face with Jesus.
There, on a huge thirty foot cross, was a beautifully carved Jesus Christ crucifiied on his cross. Doug leaned in. The wood smelled amazing. Years of incense being splattered upon the artifact had permanently scentifiied it. He recognized the cross as the one used during Easter for the ‘Stations of the Cross’.
Along the church walls, there were paintings of Jesus’ Last Supper, the Three Betrayals, Jesus’ Judgment by Pilate, His walk of shame and fiinally The Crucifiixion. No one need watch terrible slasher movies during Lent. As a Catholic, you had the gruesome death of Jesus.
“It was bloody as hell, man.” Doug said, grimacing at the memory. His thoughts flew to when he was fiighting in the Middle East. ISIL preferred crucifiixion to execute their enemies. They enjoyed a vast panoply of torture for unbelievers. He touched the wooden body on the cross. It was touching to think of what his naive beliefs were when he was a child. How they had changed, how he felt about the world now.
Doug looked around the area. It must be a staging area for clergy. Concrete stairs layered with marble bannisters curved up from the floor beside the cross. Jesus’ sad beatifiic longing watched Doug ascend the stairs.
‘Father, why have you forsaken me?’ Jesus was thought to cry as he hung in agony on that cross despairing in his fiinal moments.
“Yeah. Why has He forsaken us all?” Doug asked. He paused for a moment waiting for an answer. After a bit, Doug trod up the stairs into the light.
Chapter 25
“Thought Ma would never leave.” George began another long winded monologue ragging on about how unfair their mother was and how good it felt being home.
Jimmy’s ass half hung out of the crawl space in the attic on the second floor. Their father had erected a sliding ladder connected to the attic. But the space cut into the ceiling was too damn small. Jimmy’s body was having trouble squeezing through the gap. Their long-dead father said the homes built long ago were for farmers back in the early 1900s. Dudes must have been under six feet. Add to it, the ladder their Dad had built was crap. It had become so rickety over the years, the wood jammed halfway on its descent. The brothers both doubted it would retract without breaking.
“Crappy old wood-box.” Swore Jimmy. He got his hips through but at the cost of a layer of skin. Those weight sessions in lock-up must have thickened him some. George could have gotten up here, but Jimmy didn’t trust his bonehead sib. Hell, George didn’t even trust his own dumb self.
George was chattering away, keeping his brother company while Jimmy loosened the rungs. They were both pretty drunk. That was the best brother time. The prime moment to efffect their plans as well. Right now, it was weapon-gathering time.
Jimmy reached down, to celebrate making it into the attic. His brother slapped a beer into his palm.
“Think she gured to check up in Granny’s chest?” Asked George.
Jimmy’s voice sounded far away. “Naw. Look at this place. Next to her lousy cooking, Ma had her hands full with all the crap downstairs. And Soldierboy next door. Looks like she really missed us.”
George nodded.
“Think she sufffered from depression while we was away at college?” Jimmy laughed.
“Getting us an advanced degree in larceny and a PH.D in aggravated assault.” George whacked the ladder with his hand. His brother was a riot. Jimmy had always kept him in stitches. Even when his older brother pummeled him, made him bleed and cry, George always ended up laughing. Jimmy always mixed pleasure with pain. He could be astride his body, raining down blow after blow, Jimmy could be yelling, ‘look at what you made me do, look it!’ And they would just be barking up a storm.
George hated to admit, he liked getting punched up. It had been a comforting routine. Being a little brother had benefiits. He realized he was Jimmy’s go-to to relieve stress. Little brothers had a responsibility to ‘bear the pain’. George accepted his place in the Universe. His older bro had been there for him when it counted. Jimmy did try to protect him.
The house creaked as boards were trod on that hadn’t been touched in years. The attic was another cluttered mess. Wasn’t as bad as below, but it was close. Jimmy bent over avoiding clocking himself on the low air-frame beams.
Looking around at dowel rods, pieces of wood from abandoned projects, pipes no longer needed, Jimmy spied a pile of used discarded board games. They’d had Mousetrap, Ker-Plunk and Mo-ply, probably all missing pieces. He laughed. George always picked the worn out, faithful shoe. Jimmy had re-named the game Mo-ply—because they always wanted ‘Mo-Money’. He repeated it to himself.
Well, it made sense when he was a kid.
“We shit as sure had good times in this house, huh?” George shouted up. Jimmy didn’t answer, rather slammed around boxes, a set of drums, their rusted cymbals and his granny’s old bureau mirror. George heard the mirror creak on its swivel as it turned. The old shoe yelled up.
“Well? You nd the ordnance box?” Jimmy frowned. He rubbed grubby mitts through his tangled hair. Was that a nit? Man, he’d had lice so many times in his life, he’d run out of names for them when they lived in his scalp. Where the hell was the damn box his father had shown them? A grufff man, his father was the kind of guy who never hugged, kissed or told you he loved you. Instead, he would smoke those cheap cigarillos, stinking up the house, drink piss-colored whiskey then just sit around to watch you play. Jimmy recalled his old man, watching the Bears game. The boys would just be having a war on the floor with their toys.
Suddenly the old man wo
uld make a decision, abruptly get up from his chair, telling you he wanted ‘to show you something’. Most of the time it was tools in the garage, forgotten fiishing gear, or his covered GTO which they were never allowed to touch. That classic was long gone. Jimmy still remembered the absence it left in the garage. All the oil spots surrounded its missing body like coroners laying tape outlines after a murder. That perfect red GTO had once stood in their garage, before their father had wrapped it around an Elm on Keeler Ave.
“Damn, that was one fiine machine.” Jimmy mumbled. “What’s-it?” called George.
“Shut it, shoe.” Jimmy kept digging in junk. But the one cool treasure they loved to investigate was their father’s ordnance box. It was shipped back home when their father left Da Nang in 1967. Daddy had gone over early, fought hard and was damn lucky to come home. The ‘ordnance box’ was what they called it. Their father was smart, having not done drugs there, instead collecting oddities. He was head-scavenger over in ‘Nam.
Strange war time objects from his time there made it back to America. Dad had been there for two tours, mid 60s. It was before Air America had gotten their mitts on the mail system, so his pop was able to send back home an M-16, dismantled, piece by piece. He had gotten souvenirs from dead soldiers. A North Vietnam flag. Pictures of Uncle Ho, the leader of those ‘slanty bastards’, his father had called them. Other cool man-shit he wanted to share with his sons.
There were so many boxes and cartons spread around the attic. Jimmy glanced at the darkened West corner of their home where even now, he refused to search. He could hear his father’s words.
“Under no circumstances do you rummage around with the brown steamer trunk. You hear me, boy?” Jimmy remembered the focused fury behind his father’s words. Even plastered, his Pops presented a formidable presence. Alcohol and anger, two great motivators his family all seemed to share.
“Curiosity killed the cat.” His old man had opined. “What’s in this brown trunk will do much worse than that. Anything else I showed you, knock yourself out.”
Jimmy could see the corner of the brown steamer even now. Damn, so many secrets in their family. It was exhausting. And the reason why Jimmy made sure he always went up into the attic to look for stufff. No way he would let his stupid little brother get hurt, if he could avoid it.
Jimmy swore. Where was the box? Jimmy walked backwards to get a better look at what was up there. As he did so, his feet stumbled knocking over a mound of dresses. There was a stack of heavier things that clanked backwards away from him into the shadows. His misstep started a chain reaction in the attic causing a buried box to pitch backwards against a set of storm windows collected for the upstairs floor. Jimmy pivoted offf balance, his heavy body fell right onto the row of glass. Its stack of wide frames cracked under his weight. Cautiously, he peered down to survey the breakage.
There under his feet was the metal footlocker his father had hidden up here away from prying eyes.
“Bro, you safe?” George piped.
Jimmy exhaled.
“Don’t get your pussy in a wad, shoe. Found it is all.” George peered up at the black hole in the ceiling.
“Is it in there?” Jimmy was already throwing latches on the footlocker. Hinges creaked as they opened like an old man’s mouth without dentures. Inside it smelled like gun-powder. Objects caught his eye becoming familiar in the dim light. He reached around inside the box for seconds, alarmed that it had been taken or used by someone other than himself. But then he felt the small object. Comfort sat in his fiinger tips. The sweet pineapple, his father afffectionately called it.
“Got you.” Whispered Jimmy. “Hey there, little guy.” In his hands was a live grenade his father had shipped back to the states.
Jimmy knew the damn thing would come in handy with all these freaks that were hassling them. Now all they had to do was locate the drug stash they’d left behind before going inside ‘to college’. Always leave something for a rainy day, had been their motto, ever since they’d been kids.
“Half-way home, little bro.” Smiled Jimmy.
Chapter 26
Cray Lamb kept burning. He’d stuck his head in the snow then jumped whole-hog, covering his body in the deepest mound he could fiind. Whatever that bitch had done was immutable. Cray could not get the liquid to stop burning. His skin sparked, melting away from his bones. His left arm was a mess. His neck was a melty cheese sandwich, lumps of tissue puddling as it flowed offf his scapula. His good right arm desperately pushed back against the mass run-offf of flesh. How could he stop the damage? Cray began panicking. His body was ruined.
“Well, do you have her?”
Cray Lamb inched at the voice booming in his head. What had she thrown that was so vindictive a substance to continue hanging on to his flesh? His mind furiously searched for any clue to help him.
“ANSWER ME.” The dark man commanded. Cray ignored the stabbing pain in his head. He was trying to keep flesh on his bones. ‘Pufffed up Pixie-stick’ was the awful phrase that appeared in his frontal cortex. He’d been called worse by his cousins and the neighborhood kids growing up. All his formative years, he’d been a scrawny ‘runt of the litter’ as his Dad had remarked often. Chest sunken, closeted eyes, always underweight, what else did you expect a preemie to be? His mother had fretted, his father had looked the other way as the diminutive Cray Lamb fought his way into the world early, clawing his way through Life. He’d been born four months early, small and sickly.
But the spark of gumption he was born with never lef t him. He fought every day just to reach the next. It hadn’t helped that making friends was always difffiicult, since he was always behind a grade or two. He was fun for the bigger kids to pick on since while he was puny, he made an easy target. Children were always cruel. But Cray never gave up. Even when outnumbered, outgunned or outmaneuvered, the struggle forward continued apace. Learning to keep the dark man at bay came easier to him. He’d been doing it his whole life. This ‘Pixie-stick’ had moxie.
Cray was holding his flesh in place even as his mind was assaulted by the master’s mammoth ego. It didn’t matter anymore really. Lamb knew he was beaten, not cut out to be any acolyte or follower. And if he couldn’t serve
competently, then what?
Holy water, Lamb decided. This is what it did to bloodsuckers. It would destroy him. He struggled to answer Gray. The big man shouted in his thoughts.
“I’ve the scent of the others. You fiinish them there.”
The voice disconnected with Lamb like throwing away a diseased tissue. Nature held the twisted rascal in its grip. Sinking to his knees, Cray dry-heaved, forcing sobs to emit though no longer possessing the ability to tear.
A pawn. All of his life, all those fiights endured, only to end up a pawn. His scrawny body quivered. He knew what he had become. A damned coward. The one thing he had never wanted. The efffects of the holy water ebbed. His flesh smoked and bubbled but stayed mainly around his bones.
Rage lled his body. Shaking with emotion, Cray Lamb roared defiiance into seventy mile per hour gusts. The hell with the dark man, He decided. I’ll die standing before I live on my knees.
Swearing into blowing ice, face covered with frost, was all the recourse left to him. Soulless and without purpose, he ran into the storm, glad to be lost.
Joan gasped as she saw the naked form of Doug’s friend dash past appearing as a fleeing apparition roaring away into frigid vapor. His scarecrow form danced like some slander pixie stick. She decided it would have been comical, if he hadn’t been so keen on feasting on her. Joan’s heart beat fast helping keep the temperature up in her body.
Movement to her left caught her eye. A cold spoon began at Joan’s ankles trailing up her legs, cooling her crotch then clawing at her belly scooping all the remaining courage out. Fear swept her total being. Distinct in black leather boots, a huge man trundled through snow mounds in the center of the street. Joan hunkered down further. Somehow she knew not to catch the eye of this man. A w
ild mountain man dressed like Edgar Allen Poe, Joan thought. The man had a black cape. It was like a fiigure had strolled out of a Rembrandt painting. Had she ever seen anyone wear a cape before? Could this day get any more bizarre? She’d never felt like this. Her senses, all her protective instincts, her core being screamed at her in neon lights to avoid this creature.
Joan grasped her ankles getting very small. There was an exercise in dance class where you forced your body to get as tiny as possible. The dark man smacked low hanging branches out of the way tearing one down as he passed walking in the middle of Grace Street. Every footstep made her retreat further. She could hear the crack snap of his cape above the gusts as he strode owning this wide white world.
Her mind warned her to remain quiet as a church mouse. She could feel the chaos he brought. Thoughts spun out of control. Memories slip-slided away at angles. Up popped her family.
Her mother had a million bon mots and useless platitudes and bromides no longer useful in the real world. Recalling them focused her.
‘I’d rather have one friend than one hundred enemies.’ Joan tried listing offf as many of them as she could remember. ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.’ ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’
The dark man strode into a side alley near a buried white garage offf of Grace. His large hand touched its exterior siding. As he placed his fiingers, his body suddenly stopped. Joan’s mind churned faster. ‘Clothes don’t make the man.’ ‘Don’t be led around by the nose.’
Whoever he was, the man seemed to be listening, trying to hear something above Nature’s fury. Joan knew somehow that he knew she was near. She held her breath, got even tinier. Only her green eyes burned, staring like a rabbit at the pursuing wolf. Blackbeard, thought Joan. This guy was like the paintings she’d seen. Bromides continued bubbling up. ‘Don’t take any wooden nickels.’ ‘Never bite the hand that feeds you.’
Blackbeard slowly turned peering up and down into the street. Joan got smaller still, refusing to inhale. He scanned the street, long black hair flowing like bubonic plague, sharp strands piercing the very ice itself. It was as if he could sense her out here. ‘Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.’ Joan was sure the thick bushes even blowing madly kept her hidden. Dread refused to leave her.
Grayland: Chapter Three of the Dark Chicago Series Page 11