The native American heritage line stood out among the Hispanic branches. Evelyn traced it with her finger, paling.
Chapter Five: Yenaldlooshi
Zac had kept his cell close all during the remainder of the day. Blackwood’s unexpected call had set him thinking back to when the Mendoza family had moved into the complex, around the same time as he had. Same month in fact. He remembered their moving boxes piled up on the curb while a small boy around seven years old motored around on a cheap scooter. The little boy had a cap of black hair, dusky brown skin and high cheekbones. His eyes had been narrow, narrower when sighting Phillip’s Honda pulling up at the curb.
One mother, one father, a boy and girl. Zac gathered up the bagged trash he’d picked up cleaning his apartment. The windows were thrown open in the main room and bathroom; the cat was asleep in a cardboard carrier he’d fished out of a bin behind a vet’s office a couple of blocks away. Barefoot, he stuffed his tennis shoes on near the door, heading out into the dimly lit hallway. A few emptied boxes lay scattered down the length of the hall. Fragments of a smashed clay pot crunched underfoot. Zac saw his closest neighbors had wasted little time in seeking quieter accommodations, ones without open murder investigations preferably.
Alone, he peered into dark corners, taking the main staircase down to the first floor. Arms aching, he pushed open one side of the double doors into the cold evening air. The parking lot was emptied with only the moped in a shadowy corner and the landlady’s dented Camry beneath a denuded shade tree in the eastern half.
Laboring with his burden, Zac made it to the alleyway, hefting the sack atop refuse piled high. He dusted his hands off, nose wrinkling at the odor wafting up from the bin’s stained interior. Car lights soon threw his wavering shadow into form, large and misshapen against the rough cement. He half-turned, expecting an itinerant neighbor whose name he knew, returning for an object forgotten behind locked doors.
The red nose of the luxury sedan glided into a parking space four down. The driver cut the engine, exiting in a flurry of bright turquoise. Her pale sheets of blond hair were twisted back from her aquiline features. The color of the bell-shaped coat suited her pale skin, beneath thin legs were clad in flowing slacks and low-heeled designer boots. She tossed a glance around and then sauntered up the walk, steps ringing.
Zac stayed away, watching from a distance. Blackwood knocked at the landlady’s door; Mrs. Ramos answered warily judging by the quiet tones of their conversation. He caught snatches of it, slipping through the door to the second stairwell. The walls were thin; Mrs. Ramos often ranted in Spanish when her nerves were on edge.
She ranted now, continuously. Even when her door closed, muffled bangs and crashes came from whatever household objects became targets of her wrath. Blackwood’s soft chuckle floated up from the main stairwell. Zac stepped into the long connecting hallway, jiggling keys and the door knob of a neighboring door until he thought it was enough.
Without pausing, Blackwood’s short strides carried her down the opposite end. Zac crept from the shadows he’d hidden himself in, stealthily following from a distance. He had some vague idea of her eventual destination. The complex wasn’t large by any standards, made emptier by its various vacancies top and bottom.
Blackwood turned the corner of the long hallway, turning left. The Wolff family lived a floor below, in the right wing, occupying one of the larger apartments, now yellow police tape stretched across their doorway. Zac huddled in the bend of the hallway, flattened against the wall. He listened to Blackwood’s retreating footsteps, nervous for no plausible reason. The threadbare carpet covered floor creaked, she knocked, waiting.
Then, as if the family’s outing had been expected; he heard the click of a key turning in a lock. The creak of the door came soon after. Daring to peer around, he saw that she had entered the apartment. Gee, she really takes this thing seriously, he thought, heading for the door left ajar.
He’d never been inside the Mendoza family’s quarters, probably for good reason. Most of his knowledge of tenants past and present came from being a fly on the proverbial wall. Excellent memory with a penchant for being in the wrong place at the right time had led him to recognize some of the stranger furnishings in the main room branching off to a small kitchenette. Brown splatters encrusted the stove, smelling of burnt beans. A lazy fly droned over unwashed pans piled up in the sink. He cast his eye over the tribal prints on the grey, drab walls. Near the balcony doors, smashed orange and black pottery fragments bore testament to either carelessness or a fight.
Blackwood had disappeared through the adjoining doors; paper rustled from there. Zac stepped through, slowly moving toward the bedroom door at the end of the short hall. She stood before a bureau chest of drawers, studying a framed photo. He paused on the other side of the door, the knob rolled under his palm, the panel swung inward a few inches. The woman tensed, spinning around, her hand plunging between the large fabric-covered buttons surmounting the high-necked collar. He stepped into sight quickly.
The sternness of her expression hardly wavered, yet her stance softened. Slowly, she retracted an emptied hand which fell to her side. “What are you doing here?” Blackwood’s tone contained an edge of bite.
“I--I thought--”
“-to be nosy.”
There was no counter he could think of and flushed shamefacedly. “What about you? Isn’t breaking and entering a crime?”
The woman snorted and continued her search among the papers jammed into the drawers of the large chest, marked with crayon scribbles along its sides. “I entered with a key. Don’t assume your Mrs. Ramos isn’t adverse to a bribe of material worth.” She smiled to herself over the aristocracy getting one over the hoi polloi. “Besides, I’ve a very valid reason for searching out every lead.”
He had to admit she was right in a way. “So, did you find anything?”
“Maybe,” her gaze returned to the photo frame displayed prominently among the shattered glass of its fellows. The only one unbroken, he realized with a start, drawing closer. Blackwood moved toward the twin-sized bed with rumpled covers. Children’s toys were scattered about the floor, the lampshade on the bedside table was askew. The light shone crooked in the gathering dusk.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Is there like an order to how you do things? Or do you bust in and ruin perfectly sane people’s lives?”
“I take offense at that. If we didn’t exist- ” she bumped into a precarious crate full of children’s art supplies, sending them tipping across the floor. The sound made him wince, the tumbling shuffle of dozens of white sheets spattered with bold, colorful streaks. The crayon smears of childhood side by side with teacher reports. Blackwood sighed to herself, kneeling to pick up the scattered art.
He glimpsed crude depictions of family members, rough sketches of a muddy brown puppy running across a gray splotched sidewalk. Zac thought to say something else, then. Something witty, relevant, but she wasn’t looking at childish dreams. No...she had one of steel beams rising in the air under a bright yellow sun. Another was of a daycare worker - or maybe, a child’s imagining of a barista working her day job. Blackwood laid them out, pushing the other pictures apart until there was clear space for the larger picture to unfold.
“They’re all...city scenes?” From one side of the street to another, there were cabbies, women with towering hairdos exiting beauty salons. Zac was familiar with the stretch of roadside, he was fond of it himself; having an eye for the contrast of people walking the streets.
“Scenes Vincent Mendoza saw every day.” Blackwood’s face was tilted down; he couldn’t see her expression when spoke, tracing the child’s name scrawled at the bottom of one of the pictures. “Homer Atkinson, construction worker.” She pointed to the first; the figure was barely distinct leaning against the cross-section of beam work. “Yolanda Soliz, mother and worker at a local coffee shop.” She moved onto the next of the barista whose age could be seen in artful lines.
A towering man-figure in bright blue sweats, depicted in running motion. “Noah Potter.”
“The jogger.” Zac murmured, scarcely aware of dropping to a crouch across from her. Slowly, he touched the closest picture as if afraid the clumsy streaks might leap out and bite. “You.”
The woman’s jaw tightened, passing her steely gaze over the figure in black. “They’re four degrees kinship from a woman convicted in the slaying of her husband and brother on a New Mexico reservation. The jury found her guilty in worshipping the black arts, conspiring to offer up the males in her family as sacrifice.”
“What happened to her?” He was almost afraid to ask, imagining obscure forms of tribal punishment. Blackwood’s gaze swung to him, piercing. “She was confined for ninety days until the right punishment was chosen. Most were in favor of execution, but off the books she disappeared one night and was never seen from again.
“Escaped...or was executed privately?” The former sent a shiver down his spine.
“The men she slew,” Blackwood crossed her arms. “Were family friends, contacts within the Navajo community. What she did was an unforgiveable crime in the eyes of my grandmother.”
He half-nodded, at a loss of things to say, rising to his feet. Whether to condemn the actions of people who thought they were beyond mortal law or the ones whom put down those dark creatures? Was murder truly unjustifiable? “Are these things prevalent?”
Blackwood gathered up the artwork, packing it in a spare valise she’d laid on the edge of the bed. “How many murders remain unsolved? How many assaults and sightings are never explained?”
Zac looked down, embarrassed with his lack of thought. “I guess...I never thought of it before.” He shuddered to himself, thinking of all those nights he’d walked alone after midnight to the 24-hour convenience store for a snack. Blackwood gazed at him sympathetically, “normal people shouldn’t. They should stay behind high fences and locked doors. Most of the time, they’re victims of chance.”
The conversation lapsed on that note and they walked out together. Zac watched her secure the door; feelings mixed. “Think they’ll be back?”
“Depends.” She pocketed the keys. “The child likely has control over the entire family. If not this night, then it’ll take years to catch up to them again.” The disappointment was palpable in her words; Zac found himself pitying her, still uncertain as to his own role in the tale.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more help. To tell the truth, I never saw them leave earlier with all the rest.”
She shrugged it off, “if they’re careless again, they’ll be caught ere long.”
At the staircase, they went separate ways, he back to his apartment to figure out something for dinner from a nonexistent budget, she to the bottom floor. He saw her start down and continued along the lengthy corridor. Fewer lights had been turned on, conservation in place by the landlady. Momentary uneasiness was his, gazing at the remaining passage that ended past his door and 1403, the blackness of the second stairwell.
Zac’s eye darted toward his own door, the safety promised only feet away. He hurried to it, disliking the lonesome ring his steps had. Maybe he should’ve hung around, maybe she would’ve bought him dinner again. God only knew he had a few ketchup packets for watery soup in the kitchenette drawer. Stronger, hope ever sprung eternal to simply forget the whole business including monsters under the bed and one-eyed wobblies at the window... he stretched his hand out for the knob and the panel moved without touch, inward.
The blood drained from his face, he swayed on his feet, lips trembling.“Oh, God, I forgot to lock the door.”
***
Evelyn’s disappointment remained sharp, her emotions simmered beneath the surface. The creature had gone free, free to kill again. Though, bitterness flavored her thoughts, her attention was captured by the blare of sound taken form as a pair of racing blurs, a police squadron car with a large orange and white ambulance in its treads.
Without knowing why, she went after it, keeping them in sight until they disappeared over the backs of a fleet of sedans, taxis and trucks. Evelyn clambered over the low fringe of bushes over the edge of the parking lot, her feet struck pavement and she began running, coat flapping. People were yelling far in the distance, drivers were stepping from their vehicles, staring ahead.
The commotion was almost in sight. It was a vehicle smash-up, six cars, smashed fenders, glass caking the asphalt in blue glimmers, smoke and the shouts of several trapped within twisted metal. Police and paramedics swarmed over the scene, stretchers lined the sidewalk. In the midst of it all, an old black Corolla seemed the cause. “There’s children in there!” The cry went up. That car...Garret had run Mendoza’s name, he’d gotten her plate number...
Only she saw the shadow that twisted the blazing lights of the city, crawling with fetid malevolence into a clump of trees flourishing in the cold. She spun around, fear catching in her throat.
Quinn!
***
The room beyond the open door was filled with the deepest blackness. Not a light shone in through the window, not a sound reached his discerning ears. Zac swallowed hard, taking one faltering step close, closer to the edge of light and darkness. Blindly, he stretched his hand out, stepping into the threshold, his palm groping the wall for the switch. A ball of stickiness rolled over his fingertips. Zac gasped, choking on his own saliva. Violently, he pulled back, waggling his fingers to rid themselves of the disgusting feeling.
Then, his cell rang. Zac remembered leaving it on the table. The phone vibrated in circles, the light flashed on and off, something moved swiftly in one fitful flash. Something fast, large. Leaping from the table with a suddenness that left little time to react. Zac backpedaled, a scream tearing from his throat. His feet tangled in themselves, his arms waved desperately for balance, back met the ground in a rush. He flipped over like a beetle, scrabbling away on his hands and knees.
Footsteps pounded up the stairwell; Blackwood called out to him, “Quinn!” Pop-pops punctuated her approach. Shots, he realized with mind-shattering relief; from her special gun. Then, she was there, prevalent with the scent of Mimosa, hauling him up by the arm. “Come on, come on!” she urged, pushing her body in front of his. Zac had a dizzying view of the blackness encroaching, felt the sharp recoil of her shoulder and arm jerking. The black barrel of the gun fired, snapping upward. He wanted to cry out against murder -- thou shalt not kill. It’s only a child, he longed to scream, but what he saw was no child.
It was beyond anything movie, television or story could fathom. The details were burned into his retinas, seared into a doubting mind: legs, thick, grey-black, huge swaying body covered with hair, matted, greasy. A fiendish nightmare of many eyes and clicking pincers. He screamed even louder at the sight, willing the horrid thing away. The bullets went askew, burrowing holes into the wallpaper, chips of plaster spattered the floor. She was a terrible shot, cursing to herself as it suddenly retreated, scaling the wall to disappear into the air duct above.
Zac sagged against the wall, trembling. “Oh, God, oh, God! Tha--that thing...I saw...!” Hoarsely, he cried, his eyes filling as he turned to look at her, begging for understanding. “Things like that aren’t supposed to exist!”
“But, they do.” Evelyn Blackwood calmly reloaded the handgun, sending the silver-tipped cartridge home. “Do you have a weapon of any kind? A gun or knife? Something you can defend yourself with?”
“I--I--yeah, yeah, I do.” He started for the door, flipping the switch. Spider web came away on his hand, thick grayish strands glistening with gummy fluid clinging to his palm and fingers. Grimacing, he wiped his hand clean on his thigh, striding past the knocked over table and the classifieds scattered on the floor. Blackwood entered silently, casting a brief glance over the simple furnishings, over the fish bowl by the window and the yowl of the cat in its carrier.
Z
ac ignored her curiosity, refusing to feel shame over the plainness of his surroundings. From a small decoupage box gathered from the closet, he rifled through old photos, familiar worn keys. Burnt tobacco leaves from a half-smoked cigar lay scattered like funeral ashes over the grey metal of a Colt 1898 military pistol. The old wood stock felt comfortable in his bare hand, the cylinder chamber sat beneath the long, slender barrel, highly polished despite age. Spare ammunition remained in the custom-made leather holster that fit snugly around his thigh.
“What about Mrs. Ramos?”
“I advised her to go to the police. They’re not far from here,” she jerked her head to the side. “They’ll know what to do.”
“The sixth precinct? They won’t think she’s nuts?”
“Not at all. In fact I’d say the sixth is my favorite out of all the seventy-six departments.”
“Hold on, when you said they’d know what to do...,”
“They’ll seal up the entryways temporarily, trapping it inside.”
He finished the sentence, stopping. “With us.”
She looked him straight in the eye. “Yes. Does that make you feel afraid?”
“I’m not sure--”
The metal grate fell from the ceiling with a riotous clangor.
“Yet.” He swung his gaze ahead as she did, drawing weapons simultaneously. The creature emerged partially into view. He held fire, nervous though his hand held steady. “Can this thing be hurt by bullets?”
“By everything I’ve been taught, yes too. Weak points are the arms, legs. The head cannot be blown off so easily. But, take the arms and it will lose its beast form.”
“Great.”
Concentrate.
They split off.
Zac fired twice, his wrists jerking, eardrums ringing from the explosive sound. The spider never slowed. Blackwood’s handgun possessed a higher capacity chamber, the barrel was outfitted with a silencer the likes of which he’d never seen before. Her bullets ripped flesh and hair from its back. The many-eyed freak propelled itself forward after her, pincers clicking rapidly. Blackwood turned and ran, pausing a few times to fire behind.
Prelude Page 4