From the corner of the basement, Cray appeared from the shadows in the corner. He was grinning. He was half naked. Wearing only a pair of black long johns, his thin form came close to Doug.
“Draw back of being dead. Sucks, yo. Need serious Axe spray.”
Cray was scarred across his neck and hands. His face was repairing itself from being burned earlier.
“Lucky you just don’t get the axe.” Observed Doug dryly.
Cray nodded, then eyed the ceiling. Doug took the hint. “Why didn’t you say something before?”
Lamb looked sheepish. “Scaring Joan was the last thing I wanted to do, brah. She means a lot to you.” The friends stood looking at each other. Doug felt chilled, rubbing his body for warmth. Cray just stood, unafffected. Sharp teeth extended, protruding down over his upper lip. He seemed sad standing there in the shadows. Cray Lamb was truly lost now. One of them. A lost boy.
Doug confiided to him.
“Thought I lost her out there. That you …” “I know, bro. Ran into her out there. We had a moment. Brought her here. Then I left before the hunger got the better of me. You left the back door unlocked.”
Doug looked at him.
“What’s it like? You got control over your urges? Or are you a rabid animal, like those sacks of crap we killed.” Cray frowned. “He’s gone, yeah. But not exactly dead. I’d feel it. It’s like the big man got shunted offf to another room somewhere. I’m more myself. But Doug, there are so many more out there. It’s like I can feel them prowling around. A lot of them were supposed to converge here when the Blackbeard guy took over. They’re scattered now. But dude, watch your back.”
Doug kept watching Cray’s eyes. They were mesmerizing the way his irises glowed. They changed from black, tinting lighter to deep blue while shades of crimson appeared around the cornea. Unholy creatures had a deadly beauty Doug had to force himself from appreciating it.
Cray continued. “And the thirst? It’s constant. Guess I traded beer and whiskey for a higher jones. Got an addictive personality. Blood calls to me now. Only now I get to choose what I kill.”
Doug ngered the machete he had nestled in his belt.
“Do I got to worry about you? Or do I tie up this loose end as well?” Cray looked down.
“Figure with the strength I got, you would lose, brother. You know I got mad skills when it comes to fiighting. Being a vamp gives me an even fiiner edge to see things before they happen. Humans move slow, man. Too damn slow.”
Doug’s ngers stayed on the machete handle. “What do you suggest then?” Doug asked. “Not saying you’re right, but I’d like to sleep with Joan. Got a chance for a do-over here. But I’m not leaving you wander around killing people. Just can’t let that happen.”
The machete ashed across Doug’s body arcing down into Cray’s skull.
Cray Lamb stood his ground. He stopped progress of the blade. Easily.
Doug was outmatched. Cray held the blade with two fiingers plucking it from his grasp.
Cray tossed the machete into an old clothing basin near the dryer.
“Nice try. Told you, bro. The more I’m like this, more cunning I become. I'm learning mad survival skills.” Doug winced. His arm hurt, throbbing from the intense thrust. He knew he didn’t have it in him to fiinish Cray. He knew too, he didn’t have the heart to do it as well.
Negotiating was all that was left. Doug opened his aching arms. “K. Suggestions? I’m open to them. I don’t want to die. Don’t want to fiight you either. But—you think after everything I’ve killed that I wouldn’t fiind a way to end you? Want to be against me now, Cray?”
Doug got furious then, moving forward with a sudden feint. His friend flinched. Then Cray grabbed the overhead pipes swinging noiselessly from them.
“I can live down here in the basement. When your brother and sister in law come home, I take my time and suck their blood slowly. After that,we all become vamps, then we’ll live happily ever after. Sound good?”
“Fuck of.” said Doug.
“Suck me.” Cray retorted.
“Never going to happen, loser.”
“Awwww, so a threesome is out of the question?” Cray hung upside down from the pipes. He almost seemed like his old happy self, albeit a pale bleached version. Doug refused to smile. He leaned his tired body against the furnace. It felt warm and comforting.
“Get serious, Cray. We can’t allow this to happen again. If there’s enough ‘you’ left in you, surely you see that?”
Cray nodded, landing quietly on the balls of his feet. “Afiirmative. You’re my only friend left. Send me someplace I can do some good.” Doug’s closed his eyes. It felt good to be home. Far away from all the horrors of outside, from over seas. He hadn’t missed all the danger here or there. But how to resolve this without losing another friend to these sick vile monsters? There must be somewhere Cray could exist.
Doug opened his eyes.
“Got an idea. I’ll make some calls, use some contacts.”
Doug walked a couple steps away.
“What you thinking?” Asked Cray. Doug kept walking. “Come on. If we move fast, this all may work.”
Cray refused to budge. Doug turned back to him. “What is it, Cray?” His friend looked sheepish, his fangs protruding. Those eyes of his were a sad weeping puppy dog’s. These things really knew how to elicit pity.
“I’m hungry, man. If I get a little now, then I can force my body to shut down a bit and conserve a little. Like go into hibernation”
Doug looked at Cray, his pathetic body thin and wan. His friend had been a drunk. A drug addict. Damaged goods. Cray Lamb had been hooked on alcohol and drugs in Life. Now he was a creature hooked on blood in death. It was beyond sad. Doug was too tired to fiight with his friend. This was emotional bottom. Looking back over his life, all the friends Doug had lost while serving.
Then here in Chicago, during this absurd traumatic epic. The Brits were gone. Mavis. James, her son. That guy John who helped him. And more.
Now Cray.
Douglas was done. He knew he had to save one of them. He held out his arm.
“Do it.”
Chapter 48
Life never ends smoothly. Bits are lef t untold. Loose threads in the rich fabric of existence remain frayed, floating in the wind.
Oh, Hell with bullshit poetry. Life is messy.
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here!” wrote Dante.
Some are born into the world. Others are thrust. Uninvited Things stick around as well. The whirlpool crate had traveled more than 3,323 miles. It had gotten lost in four diffferent countries, misplaced a number of other times. Twice, the crate had to be diverted from Farah into Mazari Sharif to avoid being blown apart by mortar rounds. The box was covered with so many stamps and transfer papers, it was monolithic billet-deux.
Af ter six weeks, the bulky crate fiinally arrived in Kabul. A huge United Nations transport plane discharged it at 2:45am. into Afghani hands at the Hamid Karzai International Airport there. Handlers caught bad odors coming from within the battered box, but thought nothing of it, since animals shat over most boxes in transit. Many birds had painted its exterior. It appeared also, as if the box had sat in camel dung for any length of time. Kefffiiyeh prevented transport workers from tasting too much of the dust, ash and blowing debris in the air. This box was one more lost package amongst the ruins. The new Taliban claimed all unclaimed packages. Spoils for the victors!
Allah Akbar! God is good. Rumor had it that the Americans were closing in on their feckless president, the current dictator for life. He had enjoyed dropping bombs on civilians, but most citizens were content to live among the evil they understood. Better someone else eat the dust of defeat and feel the pangs of hunger. Americans or the Taliban with scores of innocents caught in the middle.
Allah favored the strong. It was a confusing time to be a Muslim. Badi favored early morning shif ts for his work day ended as the sun rose. The Taliban paid offf the airport police at nigh
t to see what goods might be used for their Jihad. Too few Americans in country made it easy to make the overnight hours: ‘Taliban Town’.
The Muslim walked, AK-47 in hand, up and down every aisle. He checked new arrivals last. The last crate smelled like a pile of goat piss. It was difffiicult fiinding the desire to get close to it. He decided to have Achmed look into it later.
The long box had been papered with so many decals and signage, it looked to have several layers of permits. Achmed got to the load with his hand-lift around 3:57 am. Cranking up the solid crate took two hands. Allah praised, but the crate smelled like his mother-in-law’s breath!
Just as the box rose the two feet needed to roll along the aisle, something inside shifted. Achmed watched the crate teeter offf the lift’s teeth crunching on its long side.
An arm smashed through the wood, and as Achmed recoiled, he was snagged by sharp talons of some animal. Swearing in Arabic, Achmed tried to escape but found his body lifted offf his feet. Like a coiled snake, a creature slithered out of the hole in the crate. The thing dragged Achmed up stacks of wooden pallets, into the rafters of the airport. Achmed recited parts of the Koran to himself even as the vile monster rasped death in his face.
“Where am I?” The slight creature whispered in his face.
Achmed knew no English. He burbled on in Arabic, struggling in the thing’s grasp. All of Achmed’s training to be a Taliban while in Pakistan, had not prepared him for such horror. All his life, he had waited to confront the despotic Americans. Now here was one of them and he knew not how to deal with it. Truly, they were white devils.
“Where. Is. This. Place?” Asked the thing again. It was a demon, pale and thin. Short chopped hair with a face slathered with scars. His eyes gleamed red amid narrow slits. These Americans truly did not take healthy care of themselves. What was it doing in that box anyway? Achmed had no answers yet his desert training fiinally took hold. His hands went beneath his tunic and he withdrew his knife. It had been given to him by Al-bah-Basrami, a militant cleric in Syria.
“Let steel drink deep the blood of Americans.” The cleric had told him months ago. “They knock with the scum of Arabia on our borders. Let us wage jihad on their heads. Let blood run!”
Achmed remembered the words and sank the blade deep into the creature’s shoulder. It dropped Achmed suddenly, hissing at his wound. Achmed crashed down among sharpened wooden bits, impaling his legs. Achmed screamed. The creature fell back down towards the concrete. His talons grabbed at the man’s throat.
Slowly, the creature used his right arm pulling out the knife. It looked at it. Achmed was busy pulling his own leg free from the long splinters.
Harsh rasping like dozens of dead crickets rubbed together came out of the creature's mouth.
“An ISIS knife?” It whispered. “Good enough.”
Achmed pulled his leg free and tried to stand on his one good limb. The creature did not wait for his recovery, falling upon him, ripping open his throat drinking his life’s blood. Hufffiing, the thing refused to stop feeding. Achmed screamed once, then gurgled as blood fiilled his opened throat.
The creature cared not. It tore into muscle, as a man would fried chicken. It cared not about approaching footsteps and the hue and cry to others nearby.
Lights clacked on down the corridor where the lifeless, limbless corpse of Achmed slid out of the creature’s talons. Three men who caught sight of the scarlet covered demon exclaimed, warned at each other. Bits from the Koran were exclaimed.
None of it stopped the pale apparition. He tore thru the trio, drinking deep his fiill, careful not to make anymore of his kind. It was over in less than three minutes, yet Badi had had time to sound offf the klaxon. More soldiers were on their way.
Cray Lamb stood in the light. He saw the Taliban scarves tied around their waists. He needed no plan. Faster than the other humans could react, Cray slashed and ripped his way across the hangar. The shouts continued until one by one, they were replaced by wounded mewling. Gasps for air. And the low keening prayers of lost souls. Cray had been in the crate for weeks. His memory was hazy, yet with every kill, fresh blood brought his purpose back to the forefront of his cranium.
Doug had sent his friend where he could do the most good. Truly, though it was impossible for Cray to feel climate or be afffected by weather anymore, it was nice to be where there wasn’t snow or ice.
If Cray played his cards right, stayed out of the desert sun, he could make this work. Cray always liked how cold the desert got at night. When the sun went down it got bitterly cold sometimes. Reminded him of Chicago.
The klaxon continued to sound, along with the sound of many more booted feet. The Taliban were approaching quickly. Cray took a few unbloodied clothes he could fiind from his victims. He smiled to himself.
Life in the shadows? Why not. His tongue licked o fff the blood from his lips. Maybe he could do some good. Stay out of the sun, be clever, and survive.
For the thousandth time, Cray Lamb thought of his good friend, saying a prayer thanking him for all the sacrifiices he’d made. He knew he probably would never see home again.
As his pursuers got closer, Cray scooted down the long corridor disappearing out of the hangar opening. Taliban soldiers opened fiired at him from the distance, but the shadows were his to command. The naked savage laughed as he ran, leaping in the desert sand. The klaxon sounded louder outside.
Cray Lamb was lost to the night.
Chapter 49
Many Chicagoans don’t like happy endings. They can’t be trusted.
Dante said; “There’s no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.”
Could have well been said by Louie, the pugilist out of Portage Park.
The frigid cold remained for days after Christmas. The sun returned cleaning everyone’s palate on the 27th of December. The brief respite gave everyone in the city time to shovel their ways out, restock and restore what had been damaged.
Cars were towed, all the streets were plowed, houses got cleared of debris. The iron trestle on Irving Park Road was cut up and hauled away. Blown transformers were replaced. Tragedy was expressed at the derailment days before. A decision downtown was made. Two aldermen moved their asses and the properties were razed. Race mansion disappeared under the blades of determined bulldozers. The fiirehouse disaster, restaurant and YMCA were all quickly ‘under renovation’, the weird circumstances downplayed. It would be months before anyone would truly talk or investigate what had transpired there.
As Chicago got itself fiixed up again, another storm front moved in. It remained bitterly cold for the following week into New Year’s when another blizzard dropped fiive more feet of snow on the exhausted city. But being New Year’s, it gave Chicagoans the chance to use sick days, ignore the damage done and continue partying. It was cold as balls, might as well have fun indoors with the new plasma TVs and your made over rec-rooms in the basement. Every computer game was purchased, fiilms were bought, alcohol replenished and drained.
Old Irving Park was no di ffferent.
As Race Mansion was cleared, Louie, the man who had helped Douglas, watched angry police and fiire forces descend upon the corner of Grace and Irving park. He saw the rage in the mens’ faces when they found the devastated fiire house. Louis had actually begun walking towards them to explain his role in it all, then discretion found his better part of valor. Louis slunk away into the night, blowing snow covering his sweaty tracks.
This is Chicago. Mike Royko would have listened to Louie, but that Chicago Icon died years before. No one would believe him now.
Chicago in January was bleak. But it passed. February surpassed that month with its days of unrelenting cold, dim light and seemingly endless permafrost. Snow fell intermittently in March.
Punxsutawney Phil gave the Mid-West his middle fiinger refusing to exit his burrow. The furry rodent bit several of his handlers as they attempted to extricate him from his hidey hole. Everyone was depressed by that time. T
he recent mild Chicago winters had hardened many people up, leaving their patience exhausted by the time the end of March rolled around.
The Cubs opened in April with flurries against Arizona. The Diamondbacks held their privates during most of the game fiinding it impossible to play and stay warm. Cubbies swept all three games, their best start in years.
Spring slowly crept in, like a teen afraid to enter their house well after curfew. It was fearful of the consequences. It was a Strange Spring.
Weird events worried the occupants of Old Irving Park. One night, Lois Morwood walked her petulant Chow out in the alley offf of Keeler Ave. The dog had been crapping on a patch of artifiicial turf in Lois’ garage for weeks since the blizzard.
Everyday, the little monster whined until it was taken out of its warm apartment. They would walk thirty feet to her garage where hairy ‘Cutler’ did her business snifffiing for interesting scents. Lois would chew her damn nicorette wishing for a real Camel ciggie to gnaw on. But breast cancer ran in the Morwood family, so that was that.
But one day Cutler refused to do her business in the garage preferring to run instead to the alley.
Lois rolled her eyes, following the chufffiing terror. Cutler began barking as soon as she cleared the empty posts where the gate had once been.
(During Christmas, some asshat on a snow mobile thought it funny to destroy Lois’ fence. What was Chicago coming to anyhow? So many guns, now snowmobile vandalism? She wondered).
Lois stopped as soon as she rounded the garage. Cutler was yapping at someone, her tail beating back and forth like an excited fiinger. Cutler stopped barking with a sudden ‘urk’.
There, in a pool of light from the newly installed LED lamp from Con-ed, hunched a man half dressed. He had no shirt. Lois recognized the blue fiire pants. She had dated fiiremen in the past. Preferred them actually to cops. The man wore overalls she realized but they hung offf this man’s frame. He turned, his blonde hair matted, eyes wild. In his mouth was a white feral cat. Man and cat were painted red with blood. He glanced at Cutler, then at Lois. Without a sound, the man with cat in mouth leapt over a fence into a cluster of evergreens. Lois watched him disappear. They were left in silence.
Grayland: Chapter Three of the Dark Chicago Series Page 21