The Dark Ones (21 page)

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Authors: Anthony Izzo

BOOK: The Dark Ones
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She gave him a scowl and he turned and left the waiting room.
 
 
From the hospital, David drove to Laura’s apartment building on Delaware Avenue. Charles had supplied them her address and apartment number. The hospital would have been the best place to find her; doctors were always working. Of course he caught Laura on her day off. He parked on the street and approached the building. A U-shaped courtyard with a faux marble statue faced the street. Beyond the statue was a set of double glass doors. David entered the courtyard and scurried across, bathed in yellow security lighting. He reached the double doors, looked around. Nothing had followed him. In fact, nothing had followed him all the way from Routersville.
He entered the building, passing through a marble-floored lobby dotted with potted palms and ferns. He saw a bank of elevators across the lobby. Luckily, it was deserted at the moment.
He pressed the button for the ninth floor. The elevator dinged and the doors opened.
He arrived on nine. Laura was in 903. The elevator doors opened. He stepped off, saw 901. Guessing, he turned right and found 903 on his right. He knocked on the door. Pressing his ear against the door, he listened for footsteps. No one answered, and a minute later, he knocked again.
“I help you?”
He turned to see a black man with curly white hair grinning at him. In his arm he held a brown grocery bag. In another gnarled hand he held a polished cane made of dark wood. He seemed kindly. “I’m looking for Laura Pennington.” David said.
“How do you know her?”
“I went to high school with her. I’ve been out of town for a while.”
“Don’t know where she is. Saw her leave here with a teenage girl, though.”
Sara was alive!
And she had tracked down her mother. Try not to seem urgent, he told himself. He didn’t want to seem like he was stalking them. “Do you have any idea where they might have gone? I’d really like to catch up with her.”
“Naw,” the man said, and shuffled past. His grocery bag gave a papery ruffling noise.
That left Charles’s house. If they weren’t there, then David had no idea where to look.
 
 
Mike sat in the basement of Hark’s club listening to Schuler’s snuffly breathing. From upstairs, bass throbbed through the floor. He hugged his knees in to his chest, trying to get warm. The damp air seemed to knife right through his clothing.
He looked at Schuler, who lay on his side against a stack of beer cases. Schuler moaned.
“How you doing?” Mike asked.
“Feel like shit. Wish they’d just kill me.”
“We’re not going to die,” Mike said. “Don’t suppose you have your cell on you?”
“They took it. You?”
More wet, bubbly breathing came from Schuler. Mike couldn’t help but cringe.
“Left it on my dresser.”
They had to do something. Mike stood up and went over to the door where Schuler had been held. He turned the knob, found it locked. No surprise there. He searched the rows of beer and liquor cases, shifting and poking through them. Nothing to find, although he’d hoped for a stray tool, maybe a crowbar or hammer.
He needed a weapon, anything. Flipping open a case of Labatt’s, he took out an empty. Holding it by the neck, he tapped it on the floor, and the bottom half broke, leaving a jagged edge. No one would hear him, for the music was too loud. He carefully picked up the broken glass and put it in the Labatt’s case. Then he closed the lid.
He returned to his spot on the floor and left space between his rump and the beer cases. In the space he hid the bottle, neck facing his right side. That way he could reach back and grab it. It wasn’t enough to kill a man, but if he could surprise one of them, he might be able to stab them and grab a weapon.
“That’s no good, Mike.”
“I don’t see you doing anything to help us.”
“Sorry, my nose is a little fucking broken.”
“You got us here,” Mike said. “Remember that.”
Schuler propped himself up on an elbow. “I got us here? You should’ve never gotten involved with Hark. Never.”
Before Mike could respond, he heard the cellar door open. Heavy footsteps thudded on the stairs. Hark, dressed in a black tracksuit with white piping, stood looking at them. The huge man from the warehouse, the one with the wingspan, was with him. Under his arm Hark held a package wrapped in clear plastic.
“Thought you were the best,” Hark said.
“Even the best have bad days,” Mike said.
“Which one of you started the fire?”
Mike and Schuler remained silent. The throb of bass pumped through the ceiling. There was really no chance of anyone hearing them.
“Don’t want to talk? You will.”
Hark shifted the package to his hand and began to unwrap it. He pulled it from the package. It was wrinkled and clear, with a hood. It became apparent what it was when he pulled it over his head: a clear plastic poncho. Disposable.
“This is for your benefit, O’Donnell,” Hark said. “Actually, for mine. Things are bound to get messy.”
“Wonderful,” Mike said. “You know there were witnesses, that’s why we took off early.”
“Job not done. I hired you, you fucked it up. And you’ll get the worst of it. Your buddy’s getting off lucky.”
With that, Hark nodded at the goon. The guy took a piece with a silencer from inside his coat. He aimed at Schuler. Mike watched his friend, whose eyes got big, and Mike wanted to scream, but the goon pulled the trigger. Schuler jerked, blood splashed against the beer cases, and that was it. His friend’s chest looked like some weird red jelly. He was gone just like that.
The goon aimed at Mike.
Hark said, “We’re going in that room now. If you don’t squirm too bad, I might kill you early. Most people squirm, though.”
“Where’s my mother?”
“Resting comfortably in my office. Pretty sick, isn’t she?”
“Cancer,” Mike said.
“A shame,” Hark said. “Though she’s faring better than you are about to.”
The goon motioned with the gun for Mike to follow. The broken bottle seemed useless now. They weren’t going to get any closer. But he had to try something. He felt behind him and gripped the bottleneck.
“What you got there?” the big man asked.
“Nothing.”
“Drop it or I’ll shoot you in the nuts.”
At least I’ll die fighting
, he thought.
Mike whooped and charged the gunman. He expected to see a muzzle flash and hear the
thwip
of the silenced gun. Instead, when he got within five feet, the gunman flicked his foot, catching Mike in the gut. He doubled over. The beer bottle fell to the floor and smashed. Then Mike fell to his knees, gasping and clutching his guts.
The gunman hauled Mike to his feet. Hark, now at the storage room door, chuckled. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. Flipping a light switch, he entered the room. Fluorescent light spilled out. The gunman shoved Mike into the room. He fought the urge to gag. The room smelled like a butcher shop, the stench of meat and blood thick in the air.
He was still half doubled over but managed to scan the room. Against the far wall, a wooden armchair was bolted to the floor. He noticed padding on the wall; the room was soundproof.
The gunman nudged him over to the chair.
“Sit down.”
Mike sat in the chair. To his left was a table with a variety of tools on it, each of them neatly in place. A row of pliers, a blowtorch, nails and a hammer, assorted knives, a bottle of drain cleaner (that one, for some reason, disturbed him most), and several pairs of handcuffs. He also saw the meat hammer they had used on Schuler. Brown splotches dotted the floor, no doubt the blood of Hark’s victims. Mike’s heartbeat shifted into overdrive.
The pain in his gut had settled to a low throb, and the air returned to his lungs.
“I’m going to cuff you to the chair,” Hark said. “If you resist, I’ll tell Mr. Sullivan here to shoot you in the kneecap.”
I’d rather take a bullet
, Mike thought. He shoved Hark, who moved back a few feet. Springing from the chair, Mike dove for the table, hoping to grab a weapon. Sullivan aimed the gun at Mike. Mike heard Hark say, “No, you’ll kill him too quick.”
Mike saw a couple of gleaming knives next to a container of what looked like salt. He reached for a knife. That’s when he felt something hard smash the back of his skull and things went dark.
 
 
Water splashed in his face. Mike jerked his head back, whacking it against the wall. His arms were on fire, the forearms stinging. His upper arms had shooting pains that traveled up the side of his neck like electric shocks.
Where was he? Someone shot Schuler. His chest had exploded. He really was dead, wasn’t he? Where was Mom? He shook his head as if to clear it. It hurt to think.
Hark stood in front of him, grinning. Bloody streaks covered the front of his poncho. He set a bucket on the floor at his feet.
Mike looked down at himself. He was shirtless, his chest hair matted with water and sweat. They had cuffed his wrists and ankles to the chair. There were shallow cuts on his forearms, raw and stinging. He looked again and saw the salt granules around the edges of the cuts.
Good Christ, that hurts.
The pain rocketed through his arms again. He turned his head to see long nails jutting from his upper arms.
“I see you’ve been busy,” Mike said in a weak voice.
“We’re just getting started,” Hark said. “You know what happened to the last guy who screwed me the way you did?”
Mike managed to smirk. It made his head hurt. “Threw him a surprise party?”
Hark chuckled. “Two of my men held his head back. I poured drain cleaner down his throat.”
“You’re a sick fuck, you know that?”
CHAPTER 16
Engel stepped from the yawning door of the old steel mill. He looked above. The dark cloud swirled and whipped like a dust storm. It would soon carry his children to the city.
He looked at the host of trucks with their strange mechanical arms pointed in the air. He thought they were reporting the news. A throng of cameramen point their lenses to the sky, tracking the cloud.
Engel raised his arms in a Y.
Send the cloud upon them
.
The cloud began its descent. It dipped lower and moved toward the city like an alien fog, rolling across the grounds of the mill. There was nothing to stop it.
The cloud itself will eat flesh. Then it will roll back, leaving his army in the city to slaughter. It will surround the city, preventing escape.
If he were lucky, the cloud would kill the girl, or one of his children will bring her here. Either way, it was the end of the Guardians and the beginning of his Dark Master’s reign on earth.
At the same time, another cloud was set to roll from the mine in Wickett’s Corner and strike his enemy in Routersville. His army of demons would follow, taking out the last stronghold of the Guardians.
Engel watched the trucks and vans outside the mill gate. The people surrounding the vehicles pointed frantically. A woman screamed. Some ran, while others screeched away in vans and cars. It didn’t matter, for there was no escape.
As the cloud whooshed forward, he grinned.
 
 
Jenny Chen was nervous. From the armory’s eastern turret she scanned the town’s main road with a set of binoculars. The lone ribbon of highway was empty. She hoped to see Frank coming down the road. A pair of headlights, anything.
The sun had dipped behind the hills, and she had been so caught up with preparing for the attack, she had not noticed the slippage of time. They had three dozen Guardians stationed on the armory’s four turrets and roof. But the most important person was still missing: Reverend Frank.
Something has gone wrong.
She hung the binoculars around her neck. Then she climbed down the hatch that lead to the old commandant’s quarters. She passed through the turret and found her way to the ornate oak staircase that lead to the hallway. She followed the hallway until she arrived in the main hall. The lights had been dimmed. Guardians and riflemen stood at the slitted windows.
She saw Ruby of Ruby’s Diner fame at one of the windows. Ruby was a Guardian and carried no gun. Her weapon was the Light, more deadly to the Dark Ones than any firearm. Jenny crossed the hall and tapped Ruby on the shoulder.
“Frank’s not back,” Jenny said. “I need you to take a team and go find him.”
Ruby covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, dear. Such a nice man.”
“Get some people together. You know where the Warlords clubhouse is?”
“Up at the old inn. He went by himself?”
“Digger was with him.”
From behind her, Jenny heard heavy footsteps. She turned and found Dan Longo standing behind her. He gasped for breath. His ponytail, ridiculous on a man over fifty, hung askew. Sweat stains had formed on his T-shirt. The man wouldn’t be running any marathons soon.
“What?” Jenny asked.
“Just ran from the roof,” he gasped. “There’s a cloud over in the direction of the mine. Spotted it with the binoculars. They’re coming.”
They had little time. Jenny turned to Ruby. “Get moving.”
The tiny redhead gave her a salute and ran off to gather a search party.
Jenny turned back to Dan Longo. His breathing had settled down. “Alert everyone. The attack’s started. I’m going to the roof.”
 
 
Jenny had returned to the east turret. There were five other Guardians with her, two men and three women. She looked at each of them, bundled in Carhartt coats and turtlenecks and knit caps. They needed the warm clothing, for the wind began to snake through the battlements as if trying to force them off the roof.
She looked through the binoculars, again at the main road. The cloud, as black as the starry sky, rolled down the hill and had nearly reached the first houses at the edge of Routersville.
God help them. God help us. She’d had her chance to leave, take off with Derek to Seattle. He had been the best thing to come into her life. Smart, kind, and compassionate, he was the type she would have married. If not for being cursed—or was it gifted—with a strange power. If she were in Seattle, she would not have to face the attack and the blood and death it would bring. That was selfish. She was special, as were all the Guardians. And right now they were the last hope.
She peered through the lenses again.
One of the men, dressed in a brown Carhartt and matching bib overalls, said, “What do you see?”
The cloud had stopped short of the first houses. Now, shapes stepped out of the fog and spread out across the road. Dozens of winged beasts rocketed from the cloud and headed skyward, flying abominations from the bowels of hell. They rose higher and higher, circling over the town. They screeched and wailed, perhaps anticipating the killing to come.
Having seen the things emerge from the cloud, the man said, “God help them all.”
“I’m not sure even He can,” Jenny said.
 
 
“John, look at this,” Helen Klump said.
John Klump rolled his eyes. He snapped his newspaper shut.
“What is it?”
“Just come look.”
At forty-six, John Klump was the only dentist in Routersville, and by default, the most successful one. He had made enough money to build a four-thousand-square-foot home on the outskirts of the town proper. It was done in rustic style, the cathedral ceilings crossed by huge timbers. After a day filled with root canals, halitosis, and one nasty, pus-filled abscess, he wanted nothing more than to sit in front of the stone fireplace and read the paper. Now his crackling fire would have to wait as he got up to appease his wife.
She stood at the window seat, one knee propped on the red cushion. Hands cupped around her eyes, she pressed her face against the glass.
Klump joined her at the window. She took her face away from the glass.
“What did you want to show me?”
A worried look crossed her face. The muscles around her eyes twitched. The same thing happened when she got nervous before going to the doctor.
“I’m scared.”
He didn’t know what could be so frightening. The scariest thing in Routersville was the plaque on the residents’ teeth. Nevertheless, he pressed his face to the window.
A dark mist hung in the air. It rolled down the main drag, uncurling like a huge rug. In the mist, a figure moved, short and squat; it carried what looked like a spear. Klump squinted, trying to improve his vision.
“Kill the light,” Klump said.
Helen did, and the room matched the shadows outside.
Klump continued to watch, hands cupped around his face. More of them moved through the fog, some with limps, some impossibly large, all of them with weapons.
He was about to turn and tell Helen to call the cops. A large, dark shape appeared in front of the window. Klump gasped and backed away. Panic started to set in, gnawing at his brain. They needed to get to the van in the attached garage. That was all. Then they could drive out of this. The cops would handle it.
The form in the window cocked back its arm.
“What is it, John, what is it?” Helen asked.
Its fist punched through the glass with a
clink
and spat shards onto the window seat. The fist was fish-belly white and did not bleed. The hand should have been cut to shreds.
“Get to the van, Helen. We’re getting out of here.”
 
 
Jeannie Maldonado stepped out of a pool hall on Routersville’s main drag. The crisp air was refreshing, for the pool hall had smelled of smoke, beer, and sweat. She found no takers in the pool joint. Tonight she wore a flannel shirt with the buttons opened to the chest. Under that, a tank top with a nice swell of cleavage showing. She’d squeezed into size eight jeans and tucked them into cowboy boots. At thirty-eight, hooking was getting old. But she still had it. Still knew how to make a man moan and twitch.
She dug into her oversized purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a pink lighter. She flicked the lighter, stuck the smoke between her lips, and lit it. Leaning against the building, Jeannie pulled a drag from the cigarette, then blew a curl of smoke in the air.
Footsteps echoed from her left, down Main Street. She looked down the street. Across the width of the road, a line of men approached. They appeared to be armed. Was this some kind of gang? Routersville didn’t have gangs, just the Warlords when they came through on their bikes. Behind the men a black cloud rolled backward, away from town.
She threw the cigarette on the ground and stomped it out. It would be smart to get moving the other way. She wished she had a car, especially since her apartment was ten blocks from the pool hall.
A screech, like a giant bird, filled the air. She looked up. Overhead a huge winged creature climbed high, turned in midair, and dove. Coming right for her. It was no bird, that was for sure.
Panicking, she looked around for an open store, an alley to duck in. The street offered no escape. The pool hall seemed a mile away.
She turned to run and the last sound she heard was the rush of air as something swooped upon her with terrible speed.
 
 
Jenny watched the cloud roll back. The Dark Ones advanced up Main Street, as if the cloud had been their mode of transportation and was now leaving. She heard the breaking of glass and the roar of a shotgun. Through the town, screams echoed up and down the street as the Dark Ones smashed in doors. Those unfortunate enough to be inside were dragged out and slaughtered. Above the town the winged ones dipped and dove toward street level. Jenny watched in horror as a woman was plucked from the sidewalk, carried upward, and ripped nearly in two by the clawed beast.
A van sped on Main Street. She thought it might be Doctor Klump’s vehicle. It swerved, tires squealing, to avoid the throng of demons in the street. The driver lost control and the van rolled over, skidding into a lamppost with a loud CLANG! A group of Engel’s soldiers scrabbled on top of the van and dragged its occupants from the now-shattered windows.
Jenny turned away. The sight of it was too much. More screams of agony rose up in the air. She wanted desperately to mount an assault, take the Guardians to the streets and meet the Dark Ones head-on. But their numbers were too great, and without the Stone, the attack would result in their defeat. They stood a better chance inside the armory, waiting for Frank to arrive.
If Frank arrived.
 
 
In her father’s living room, Laura Pennington stood next to her daughter, gazing at the television screen. On the screen, the massive cloud that had hovered over the steel mill now rolled toward the camera. A reporter dressed in Channel 7’s standard blue jacket eyed the cloud nervously. He looked as if he were deciding to continue reporting or run for his life. The cloud whirled across the lot and reached the fence. A voice off camera urged everyone to run. The cloud rolled closer. The reporter broke into a run, but the cloud overtook him. The camera dropped to the ground, giving an eye-level view of the blacktop. The audio continued for a moment, and a high scream—it could have been that of a man or woman—pierced the speakers. The feed then cut back to the blond anchorwoman, whose hands shook as she straightened her notes.
Laura put her arm around Sara and squeezed. “I’m turning it off.” She stepped forward and hit the power button. The screen went black.
Laura glanced outside. It had gone as dark as the blank television screen. In the distance, a chorus of sirens wailed.
“I was going to call the police about the murder you described, but I think we have bigger problems right now.”
Sara turned to her. Tears formed in her eyes. “We have to leave.”
“We’re safer here.”
“They’ll find us,” Sara said.
“Who?”
“The ones who are looking for me.”
Sara began to chew on her lower lip. Laura was beginning to worry that the girl might crack. “Who’s looking for you, honey?”
“The ones in the cloud.”
“There’s no one in that cloud. It’s freak weather.”
“Then why did those people scream?”
That Laura didn’t know. “They’re scared.”
Sara looked at the television screen, as if to confirm it were turned off. “That last scream was someone in pain.”
Laura couldn’t deny that. As an emergency room doctor, she had heard the screams of those in agony, and the scream on the television fell into the category of pain. “Even if we leave, we have no idea where that cloud is headed. We might drive right into it. We’ll button up the house, go to the basement.”

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