Into the Soul of Darkness
Book I
The Plague of Adonis
by R.J. Hammond
Published by R.J. Hammond at Smashwords
Copyright R.J. Hammond 2012
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Chapter 1
Manhattan – September
Every waking moment, Elijah was haunted by the dead little boy’s troubled ghost. The boy never talked, just stared with cold, piercing eyes, always dressed in the same pajama top and pants with tiny Power Ranger characters on its dirty cotton fabric.
Five months ago, Elijah had woken up in Central Park covered in dirt, his head aching, scratched and bruised, and his mind locked in the cold grasp of amnesia. He’d gone into the nearest precinct house and was greeted by a gruff female police officer. She took all the info she could pry out of his poor memory and typed it into the computer. His picture was taken and a missing person’s report was filed. He was then dropped off at a local shelter and advised by the cops to stay put until they could identify him. “We’ll be in contact,” the officer promised as he led him out of the cruiser. Once inside, a pretty woman behind the front desk welcomed Elijah. She gave him a smile and spoke to him kindly. Didn’t seem to mind that he could only remember his first name. That treatment had brightened his dark mood.
Now registered, though not guaranteed a bed, his plight was just beginning. Soon it was night and the shelter became crowded. Like so many other unfortunates, he had to sleep on the ground. On the seventh night, he was beaten and robbed by three men and a woman. All his food, which wasn’t much, had been taken away by one sudden and cruel act of violence. Now, Elijah was back to where he had started. That night was the first night of many that he’d seen the boy, who stood in the corner watching Elijah grovel on the floor in pain. That was also his last night in the shelter. From then on, until he met William, he slept inside a Dumpster at night. In the daytime, he wandered about the city streets looking for anything that would make his life more bearable. Food and clothing were at the top of his very short list.
“Amnesia often goes away slowly, over time.” He’d read that in a medical book belonging to his friend William, and it had given him a glimmer of hope. That was in the unknown future, however. Now, as Elijah walked past the steaming sewer pipes of a dim tunnel, he watched his body throwing dancing shadows onto the dirty, moss-covered stone walls. Guided by light shafts careening down from air vents high above his head, he finally reached his first destination. He stooped over an open manhole, its cover resting against the side of the damp tunnel, and then climbed down.
Halfway down the rusted steel ladder he let go, landing on his feet with ease, and made his way down another damp tunnel. At the end of this one, Elijah made a right and entered Garbage Alley. At least, that’s what he had named it. Smiling, he hurried down the steps. At the bottom of them, he strode across the dirt-covered ground to the third pile from the end. This was the pile he favored for having what he needed—meat. Discarded cow joints, tails or ears: anything he could turn into something edible, he took. He scurried up the mountain of garbage, waited for the inevitable rats to run away, bent over, picked up a bag, sniffed it, smelled the rotting stench from within and tossed it aside.
“The good ones are always midway up,” he said, glancing down at the boy, who stood where his backpack lay. “Just got to that one a bit too late.” As always, the boy stared at him with a blank expression. Elijah shook his head in annoyance at the boy’s constant silence and continued with his task. He smelled fresh meat inside the next bag, and his nose was correct. Finding this was luck. Lucky to find it in such a short time. With the prize in hand, he ventured back down, but his right foot became entangled in something. He fell forward, tumbled down the pile at full speed, and then slammed into the ground headfirst. The screeching rats at the bottom of the pile scurried away.
Lucky again. The fall hadn’t injured him. He got up and walked over to where he had dropped his backpack, scanning the area around him to make sure he was alone. If he listened carefully, he could hear voices shouting to each other on the piles lower down from where he stood. Lucky once more—the bag had fallen with him and landed nearby.
He dropped to his knees, tore the bag open and smiled. Dipping his hand in, he pulled out a nicely cut slab of pork loin. He stuffed the meat back in with glee, tied the bag tight and got to his feet. That’s when he felt the ice-cold touch on his hand. It was the boy, who was standing a foot away from him, pointing to the heap of garbage from which he’d just walked away. Elijah had never seen the boy act in such a manner. Curious, he followed the boy’s pointing finger. When he saw what the boy saw, he dropped the bag of meat and walked back to the rubbish pile.
At its base, he stared at the torso of a man who was lying on his back inches from the wall of garbage. The man was well dressed. Combined with manicured fingers and a well-fed, shaved face, it was safe to say this man had definitely not been homeless. Murdered and dumped, Elijah thought. The small entrance wound in his forehead made that apparent. Elijah hurried back to his belongings, picked up his backpack and slipped it on. Bodies brought the police, and the police he wanted nothing to do with.
“Wait,” said the boy, who still stood near the corpse.
Elijah whirled around, surprised that the boy, after all this time, could speak. “What?” he asked.
The boy didn’t answer, just returned his stare to the body.
Elijah sighed. “Look, he’s better off here,” he whispered. “I . . . I can’t do anything for him.”
“Why?” asked the boy, without diverting his eyes from the corpse.
“Well . . . it’s simple. Someone killed him. I can’t go to the cops. I go to the cops, and they’ll arrest me. Then they, whoever ‘they’ happen to be, will come after me. Is that what you want?”
The boy shook his head.
“Well . . . good.” Elijah sighed again. “All we can do is hope that his passing was quick and painless. Now come on, let’s go.” He walked away from the boy and the garbage pile just as the scavenging rodents began to swarm over the corpse. With the backpack on his back, he bent down, picked up the bag of meat and glanced over his
shoulder. “You coming?”
The boy nodded, began to walk forward, and then dissolved into thin air.
Elijah took one more look at the man, shook his head, and hurried up the stairs. He stood on the platform, his breathing heavy from the mad dash.
The boy loomed out of the darkness, moved past him and stood staring back at what was below them. “I’m scared.”
Elijah smiled, stretched out his hand. “You’ve got to teach me how to do that sometime. That disappearing and reappearing act.”
Without answering, the boy took hold of Elijah’s hand. Elijah felt the cold touch grow warm, as though after all these months, the boy was finally opening up to him.
Holding hands, they walked away from Garbage Alley and the corpse lying on the stinking pyramid of garbage.
***
As the packed commuter train pulled into Grand Central Station, the people onboard waited impatiently to get the hell off the overcrowded train and reclaim their personal space. Throngs of people overtook the station. Some ran, pushing their way through the molasses-thick crowd to get to another platform. Others climbed the escalators and stairs to get to the street, where taxis waited in a line like vultures.
The last to leave the now-empty train was the tall, medium-built man known as Boar. Boar was a hired killer. His name came to him because of the brutality he inflicted on the person or persons he was hired to kill. No one knew his real name, except for him and his parents, who died many years ago in brutal retaliation for a job he’d done. The revenge Boar exacted on the men who murdered them was tenfold.
Unlike other assassins, who took any job whether the target was guilty or not, Boar only went after those who victimized others. Mobsters, drug dealers, murderers, rapists, kidnappers and child molesters. He was hired by the families of the victims who wanted more than just to see them behind bars. For the pain and grief they suffered from the loss of their loved ones, these families wanted more.
That’s where Boar came in. He weighed the evidence on each individual, and if he decided they should die for the evil they did, he hunted them down like wild animals, then tortured and killed them. Another job done, payment made, and then move on. Money, he had. His job, he loved. By ridding the country of scum, Boar felt like a hero to the countless victims who never had a choice, or a chance. He was their . . . justice.
Boar’s jobs came from silent sources. He met the person who wanted the job done. They gave him the info, he told them his price. Even if they couldn’t come up with all the money, he did the job anyway. That was his style. Wearing dark sunglasses, a baseball cap pulled down over his bald scalp, jeans and a sweater covered by a long trench coat, Boar hurried through the moving crowd and exited the station through a set of revolving doors. From time to time, someone jostled the briefcase he carried under his arm, but he held it firm. Outside, a taxi was waiting on the hot spot. He opened the passenger door
and got in.
The old Polish cab driver looked at him strangely. He was used to fares getting into the backseat, not the front. He cracked a smile. “Where to, sir?”
“Drive. I’ll let you know when we get there.” Boar flicked a hundred-dollar bill between his fingers toward the cab driver.
The driver glanced at the money, then at the man as he pulled away from the curb. “Sorry. I can’t take that.”
Boar took off his sunglasses, folded them and stuck them in his coat pocket. “Why?”
“Because I work for my money. I don’t need handouts.”
Boar grinned, folded the bill, reached over and shoved it into the man’s shirt pocket. “You’re a good man. Take it.”
The man turned his eyes to the road while he slipped the bill out of his pocket and unfolded it. He stared at it, then at the road, turning the steering wheel as he maneuvered through traffic.
“What’s wrong?” Boar asked.
“Just checking to see if it’s real.”
Boar laughed. Years of dealing with people from all lifestyles gave him a knack for judging a person’s character. The cabbie was in his good book.
***
Half an hour later, a cold autumn shower blanketed the city. The cab came speeding down a hill, dipped under an underpass and bolted up the hill until it was on level ground, screeching to a halt in the parking lot of Little Rise Diner. Boar stepped into the pouring rain and began walking. But he didn’t approach the diner’s entrance. Instead, he headed for a black Cadillac Escalade, its engine still running. Once seated in the front passenger side, he peeled off his cap and placed the briefcase on the backseat, then looked over at the hulking figure sitting behind the wheel. “How’s it going, Bruno?”
Bruno shook his head while chomping into his jelly donut. His “Good,” came out as Gwoof! He was the same height as Boar, but chubbier, with a rounded face and flat nose. The strength in his massive arms was deadly. Boar knew this, and liked him for his cool, yet brutal demeanor. Bruno was a key man in his operation, trusted and respected. Now, Bruno would become an even bigger player in the hunt for Boar’s next kill.
As he took the last bite of his donut, Bruno pointed to a green folder on the dashboard. Boar grabbed it and shuffled through its contents: newspaper clippings and photographs of the man he was after.
Bruno smacked his lips, licked the excess jelly off his thick fingers, took a sip of his lukewarm coffee and sighed. “It’s all there.”
Boar closed the folder and glanced outside at the rain pummeling the vehicle. “Where’s Riley?”
Bruno nodded toward the diner. “Jumpy fuck, too.”
Boar shrugged. “Do you blame him?”
“Boar, you know as well as I do that he might be a phony fuck,” Bruno said. “Fifty grand? And then he skips and leaves us with shit for info.”
Boar smiled. “You’re too skeptical, Bruno. The old lady said he sounded genuine. Let’s go see.”
Bruno reached under his jacket and pulled out a chrome-plated .357 Desert Eagle, cocked the hammer and grinned in Boar’s direction.
Boar laughed. “What’re you gonna do with that cannon?”
“You’re asking me?” Bruno shook the weapon in his hand. “What are we? Boy
Scouts?”
“Just keep that shit hidden,” Boar ordered. “I don’t want someone to see it. They’ll think we’re in there to hold up the fucker. So downplay that shit.”
Bruno nodded, flipped back the safety and slid the weapon into a side compartment on the door, then took out a .38 caliber revolver. He sucked his teeth in annoyance as he tucked the revolver inside his jacket. “And I just picked that Eagle up yesterday.”
“Hey, at least you’re armed,” Boar said. “The less attention, the better.” He opened the door and exited the car, but left the folder and his briefcase on the backseat.
“Wait.”
Boar turned back.
“You’re armed, right?”
“Whether I am or not, I’m not concerned.”
Bruno nodded, exited the vehicle and switched on the alarm on his 2006 Escalade. He loved the car, just like he loved the man he worked for—in a weird way. More than the man, Bruno loved Boar’s cool bad-assness. They’d been friends for many years and partners for five of those. After his mother passed away, Bruno moved out of Cornish, Alabama to the city, looking for Boar. After many weeks of searching, he found him, and began his life as a hired killer’s accomplice. Where they were now was very different from the impoverished life they knew growing up in the Deep South. Hunting men for money was something he took a liking to the day he started. ‘Ridding the world of scum’ was how Boar looked at it, so that was the way he looked at it, too. He had learned from his informants, an ever-growing list, that “If death don’t get you, sooner or later, Boar will.” Hearing those words made Bruno proud to be on Boar’s team.
Bruno hustled after Boar into the diner, where they shook the water off their jackets. Inside, a thin, pale woman dressed in a blue-and-white uniform stood behind an L-shaped counter that ran the full length of the diner. The illuminated menu hung above her. Three trucker-types sat at the counter on cushioned stools. Along the windows were back-to-back red leather sofa-sized booths. A man sporting a buzz-cut, his back turned to Boar and Bruno, occupied the one farthest away from where they stood.
The waitress saw them and smiled. The three truckers looked up, and then went back to eating. Boar walked past all of them and toward the man seated alone, but Bruno lingered at the counter, peering at the days special. He’d just had a donut and coffee, but he still felt hungry.
“What can I get you, big fellah?” asked the waitress. Creases around her eyes and mouth made her look haggard. Lipsticked lips and too much makeup didn’t help. But Bruno paid it no mind, just ordered the day’s special and a jug of beer.
***
Boar slid into the seat and stared at the fellow before him. The man’s eyes were sunken, and his thick moustache, hooked nose and hard face made him look near-death.
The man stretched out a grubby-looking hand and motioned toward Boar’s jacket. “You’ve got the money?” he whispered.
“Money?” Boar said. “Info first, then half—if it pans out.”
The man rubbed his head, and then brought his hand back to the table. “It took a lot for me to do this.”
Bruno sauntered up to the table then. “Move over, Riley.”
Riley looked up at the towering figure; with a sigh, he scooted over and allowed Bruno to plant his big frame next to him.
“You ordered?” Boar asked.
“Yeah, it’ll be here soon,” Bruno replied, looking over at Riley, who cowered in the corner of the booth.
Boar sighed and folded his arms over his barrel chest. “Well, Mr. Riley, what you got for us?”
Riley looked at them, fixed his jacket and moved in closer. “You know this will cost one hundred grand.”
Boar dipped into his jacket, pulled out a folded envelope and dropped it on the table.
Riley’s eyes grew wide. He reached out for it but Bruno stopped him by slapping Riley’s hand. The man yelped and yanked his hand away.
The waitress strolled over bearing a steaming mountain of spaghetti covered in meatballs and sauce. She placed the plate and a jug of foaming beer on the table before Bruno and smiled. “Anything for your friends?”
Boar shook his head. Riley, nursing his wounded left hand, waved her away.
“Man, you’re going to eat all that?” Boar asked.
Bruno smiled. “Sure! I’m hungry. But not yet.” He shot a glance at Riley. “Talk or we walk—with my food packed, and the money.”
Riley swallowed, then reached into his pocket, took out a folded sheet of paper and unfolded it. Boar and Bruno leaned forward, looking at the paper and the hurried, penciled drawing.
“Before you go in,” Riley said, “you need to contact a man called Marco. He’s the head of the Keepers.”
“Keeper?” Bruno asked.
Riley nodded. “That’s what he calls his guards. Keepers. It’s short for ‘Keepers of the Peace’.”
“Oh,” Bruno said, and gave Boar a smirk.
Riley continued. “Anyways, this guy, Marco. I got in touch with him after I came out of prison. Did time with some guys who did time with him. He got me a job in this place. This is where you’ll find your man.”
“How many of these, ah, Keepers?” Boar asked.
“Twelve, maybe more,” Riley said. “Each Keeper is allowed to leave for two days.
But you have to come back no later than two hours after your two days off are up.”
“What happens if you’re not back before that?” Boar asked.
Riley sighed. “When you go see Marco about the job—which pays three thousand a week—you have to take it, or else you’re dead, either way. Once you’re in, they strap an explosive bracelet to your leg. Tamper–resistant. You try to pry that shit off; you go up
with a bang. When you leave, they keep track of you with this bracelet. If you decide to
call the cops and the cops do show up,” his brow furrowed, “they’ll blow the place up, along with you, no matter where you are.”
Bruno nodded, unconvinced. “Then how the hell did you get out?”
For the first time, Riley smiled. “My right leg’s fake from the knee down. A prosthetic limb. I had a friend of mine—ex-military doctor—amputate my leg. Had him dump it in a Dumpster.” His face fell. “It detonated exactly like they said it would. Blew apart the Dumpster as if it was made of paper. Such power.” His face darkened again. “Later, after I healed, I decided it was safe enough to go back to my place. But that was a bad move. That’s when it all started.”
“When what started?” Bruno asked.
“Cops looking for me,” Riley said. “On the hunt. They work for the man you’re looking for. So I’ve been in hiding for the past six months. I saw the reward offered for the capture of your man on the internet. And I know where he is, so I contacted Mrs. Finley.”
“You told anyone about this?” Bruno asked.
Riley gave a harsh chuckle. “I’m not stupid.”
“What about your doctor friend?” Bruno asked.
“No, no.”
“What was your fucking excuse for having explosives strapped to your leg?” Boar asked. “I mean, not many people walk around with that kind of shit attached to their person, don’t you agree?”
“What’s with all the questions, man?” Riley asked, looking over to Boar, who said only, “Answer the question.”
“I . . . I just told him I was involved in something, and that I couldn’t say what it was—for his own good. He understood.”
“He understood?” Boar asked.
“Yes.”
Bruno leaned over the table. “For your sake, I hope you’re telling the truth. Because if your friend knows something and decides to cash in to the cops that are hunting your ass, that’ll put us in a very bad situation. So you had better be on the up-and-up. Understood, Riley?”
“All right, all right, I understand.” Riley answered, shrinking into the corner of the seat, hating these men who pushed him around as if he was a piece of shit.
Boar sighed and slid the envelope over to him. “Okay. Now . . . we need names and a way to contact Marco. Then, if this all works out, you’ll get the second half.”
“But if it doesn’t,” Bruno said, “and all this shit is a lie, I’ll hunt you down and chop
off your other leg—from the waist down.”
Riley shoved the envelope inside his jacket.
“Wait,” Bruno said. “There’s something you haven’t told us. Why did you decide to
leave? I mean, if the money was good and all.”
Riley glanced at both men’s faces and sighed heavily. “There’s death down there. I
smelled it, felt it. And those people held there against their will . . . they didn’t know, but I did.” He glanced at Bruno, then Boar, and held Boar’s gaze with his death-touched eyes. “You’ll see. You’ll see when you get into the Sanctuary.”
Chapter 2
The farther Elijah went into the city’s underbelly, the damper and staler the air became. The boy had vanished a while back, so he trudged his way back home alone. At first, there were lights spaced ten feet apart high above his head, on the tunnel wall that looked more like an alley. When they came to an abrupt end, Elijah stopped, slipped the knapsack off his back and retrieved his flashlight. The bright beam of light sliced through the thick darkness. Hoisting the backpack on his shoulder again, he trotted down a sloping hill. It was autumn; this far under the city, the temperature sometimes dipped low. These nights, Elijah slept with two sweaters and thick woolly pants and huddled under three layers of old-but-thick blankets. Yet he had it easy. Many others had to fight off the bitter cold and deal with debilitating diseases like arthritis and bronchitis. Yes, Elijah was lucky in that sense.
At the bottom of the slope, he stopped in front of a six-foot gray steel door that was used by him and many others on a daily basis. The rusted doorknob turned easily, but he was surprised to find the place in darkness. This way was supposed to be illuminated by the strings of lights above his head. Armed with the flashlight, he made his way down a short flight of stairs. At the foot he turned left, walked down the tunnel about twenty paces, and then turned right.
The narrow corridor he now stood in was also supposed to be lit, but wasn’t. Elijah flashed the light above his head. The electric cord that ran inside a small ledge in the wall was severed. “So that’s why you’re out,” he muttered. “Rats.” He heard voices and footsteps coming his way. He switched off the flashlight, slid it into his jacket and stooped to the floor just as four men’s voices passed by the way he’d just come.
“I need four,” said one of the men. “I just need four, for fuck’s sake!”
“Why so many?” asked another in a frightened, muffled voice. The voice sounded familiar to Elijah. But it wasn’t William, or any of the people he’d met since the day he woke up.
“Look, my boss needs four,” replied the first man. “That won’t be hard for you to muster up.”
The voices stopped a few feet away from where Elijah was crouched.
“You smell that?” asked another voice.
“Yeah, smells like shit to me,” said another gruff voice.
“Shit and raw meat. I smell meat.”
“You’re smelling your ass.”
“Shut the fuck up!” said the leader—or the one Elijah presumed to be the leader. His
voice drowned out all else. “Now let’s go.” Then Elijah heard him mutter, “Fucking idiots.”
They continued on their journey, the one who smelled the meat still sniffing the air.
***
Elijah didn’t move until well after he could no longer hear the voices. Down here, you had to be careful of who you revealed yourself to. Aside from the rats, dogs, snakes and crocs, there were also heavily armed gangs who left their symbols spray-painted on every wall they came upon as warnings. If you ever happened to come upon them, your best bet was to run. Elijah switched the flashlight back on and trotted down the corridor, wondering what was meant by “four of them.” And who was the owner of the frightened voice?
At the end of the corridor, he came upon a crumbling concrete wall that had a rusty iron gate. A long corridor ran alongside the wall, which served as a laneway for many who traveled the underground world. Elijah shoved the gate aside, stepped through it, and then kicked it closed with his right foot. Now, he was home.
The Pit consisted of an abandoned train track that had lain dormant since the early 1900s. On the left side of the track, for its full length of half a mile, small houses had been erected—hideous-looking structures built with salvaged materials, several different types of wood and fabric, off-kilter in some places, even leaning. Nonetheless, they were strong. Sheltered by the concrete ceiling high above and provided with electricity from the power that still ran in the train tracks, the Pit was heaven to a homeless person. Living here beat the shelter by a fucking mile.
A low humming emanated from the track—the live electricity being sucked through a long, thick length of electrical cable. Along the main cable, finer cables were spliced to every house, providing each with electricity.
A single genius created this entire construction. That genius was Saul: an old man, four feet tall, with a round, plump face and stout body who dressed in long robes and wore a golf cap over his balding head.
In exchange for the electricity, dues had to be paid. None complained. They just forked over a portion of their day’s or week’s food supply. A little from each of the hundred individuals living in the Pit, and Saul had his food supply for the month. But that wasn’t enough. Saul would send his right-hand man, Listow, to force the weaker ones to pay more than was needed. Even though he got a cut from Saul’s share, the excess, Listow took for himself.
A line of lights stuck on hollow steel poles spaced twenty feet apart illuminated the way to the houses. Elijah walked to his house and stepped over the two-foot-high electric fence he and William had erected to keep the rats away. Others had followed their example, and soon, everyone had an electric fence around their house. The fences were mostly old pieces of chain link-and-mesh wire fastened to steel poles and driven deep
into the solid earth. Elijah had lights, and even water, which he brought from a fire hose forty feet away. And he only paid a small percentage of food per month. This was his home until his memory came back to him, if it ever did.
He stuck the flashlight into his back pocket, reached around to a side pocket in the backpack and pulled out a small block of rusted iron. Tied onto it was a single key. He
unlocked and opened the door slowly. From within the house came barks and howls. Elijah was bombarded by Lizzy, a Labrador Retriever with floppy ears, bright brown eyes and a shiny brown coat. She spun around, then jumped up and pawed at her master for affection. Elijah laughed, scuffed her head, dropped the bag of meat on the floor, opened it, peeped in, and brought out a pig’s knee joint. Lizzy nuzzled him, urging him to give her the meat.
“Okay, girl, okay,” he said, and Lizzy quickly snapped up the meat between her jaws and scurried out the door. Elijah watched her as she circled for a couple of seconds outside the doorway before sitting down to munch away.
He had found her three months ago, wandering Garbage Alley, scared and hungry. He’d learned to be cautious about the dogs he came upon down here. They either belonged to a pack of wild dogs, or were rabid. Lizzy turned out to be neither. Weakened by hunger, she allowed him to take her home and nurse her back to health. Her name came to him in one of the frustrating half-flashes of memory he occasionally had.
He discovered many cigarette burns on her back. When her abusers had gotten bored with burning her, they must have dumped her down an open manhole. Now, she was the only thing that gave Elijah joy. She was frightened of the boy and seemed to know he was a ghost; she avoided him at all costs. The boy tried to pet her, but Lizzy would run under Elijah’s bed and hide.
Elijah picked up the bag of meat and took it to the room’s small sink. The room was twelve feet long and ten feet wide. The wood walls were thin and unpainted; so was the ceiling. In some places, the floor was covered with linoleum. In other parts, the wood floor still showed. In one corner was a neatly made single bed. Three feet away, sitting on the floor, was the round washbasin he used to take a bath by standing in it. Excess water falling out of the basin would run along the floor and leak out through the gaps in the floorboards to the outside, toward the twenty outhouses located lower down-line.
In the corner of the room where Elijah was working, a portable electric stovetop sat atop a narrow counter that was nailed to the wall and supported on two wooden legs in the front. Four shelves above the counter were packed with staples: sugar, oil, coffee, rice, flour, crackers, cans of beans and milk. On hooks, close to the bed and the door, hung his pants, shirts and sweaters; neatly folded on the shelf above the hooks, his underwear and t-shirts. All the things needed by a simple man with a simple life. For a man who had no memory of his past, it was a paradise.
Now, he opened the garbage bag and dumped its contents into the sink, still amazed at his luck. He used a container of water to wash the meat—slices of pork loin, a pig’s ears and snout (great for soup), several sections of beef and pork ribs and three beef livers. He would fry up the loins tonight with a can of beans and bread, which William
would provide. The rest of the meat would be stored in William’s fridge.
“Elijah!”
He stopped musing about his dinner plans and hurried out the door.
A woman stood on the opposite side of his fence. In her right hand, she held a stick. “Your damn dog!” she shouted.
“She’s right here, Irma,” Elijah said while scuffing Lizzy’s head.
“And she was out there a minute ago,” Irma said, pointing the stick to where Lizzy had just come running from. “I stepped in your dog’s shit!” She raised her left boot to reveal the brown clump on the sole.
“I—I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Elijah looked down at the dog.
“Lizzy, how many times do I have to tell you to go in the corner?”
Lizzy whined, and then began to bark. Elijah looked in the direction she was barking. The boy was standing, watching Irma.
“Is your dog barking at me?” Irma asked, her voice threatening.
“No, no,” Elijah replied, while yanking Lizzy into the house.
Irma picked up her bag from the ground and sauntered away, cursing under her breath.
Elijah looked at the boy and shook his head. “She’s just pissed at the dog.”
The boy walked past him and entered the house. Elijah followed, closing the door behind them. Low whining emitted from where Lizzy had scampered into her corner.
***
Two hours later, Elijah had eaten his belly full of fried pork loins, stewed beans and stale bread, washing it down with cold beer courtesy of the liquor store up top. Now, he sat outside on a scavenged lounge chair in front of a small fire. Between the outside lights and the light from the fire, the area looked like a bright summer day. Opposite him was his dear friend William, sitting in his own collapsible chair.
William was a lean-looking man with an ax-like face, tangled hair, straight nose and blazingly white teeth. He wore a sweater, an old pair of Adidas running pants and a scuffed pair of Adidas running shoes.
Elijah had met William the day he left the shelter in a manner that, even to this day, brought him terrifying nightmares. Feeling like the world was against him, he had walked for hours while his mind wandered. Approaching an alleyway, he heard a sudden, shrill scream, and then silence. When he peered down the litter-strewn alley, he’d seen a woman getting knocked to the ground by three men and dragged behind an overfilled dumpster. Elijah crept down the alley, not knowing what his plan would be once he confronted the three rapists.
When he saw one of the men punch her in the face, Elijah came out of hiding and ran like a madman toward them. With all his weight and might, he dropped onto the back of the man thrusting away between her legs.
One of the two men produced a knife and pressed it against the woman’s neck. “Do want to save her, hero?” he snarled. “Or do you want a piece of the action?”
Elijah looked at the woman’s unconscious form. Only then did he realise it was the
woman from the shelter. The one who had smiled at him that day. And now she lay raped, possibly dead from the blow.
“You slime!” Elijah screamed, and prepared to charge. He looked over the man’s shoulder just in time to see another man charging from behind with wild eyes and a piece of iron pipe clutched in his right hand. They didn’t even see him coming.
By the time it was over, two of the men lay slumped on the ground and the third man was begging for his life. The man swung the pipe, which connected with the side of the rapist’s neck. There was a slight cracking sound as the man’s neck broke, and he slumped to the ground. Breathing heavily, he tossed the pipe aside, knelt down and scooped the woman into his arms.
“Look what they’ve done to you, Suzette,” he moaned. “I got them back, though. Yes, I did!” Tears ran down his face and onto her still body.
Elijah had just seen what the man was capable of, so he was cautious when he crept up to him. The man gazed up at him, then back down, and shook his head. Elijah saw the gaping wound across her neck, and all the blood, and knew she was dead. “Did . . . Did you know her?” Elijah asked.
The man nodded. “My sister.”
In the distance, Elijah could hear sirens. He called out to the man and grabbed his jacket. “We have to go! The police are coming!”
With reluctance, the man allowed Elijah to lead him away. Later, Elijah accompanied him to the morgue to claim her body. By then, Elijah had learned that his name was William Moorehouse, a Southerner who’d lived in the city for the past seven years. Both he and his sister were teachers who’d come to the city to look for work. They lost everything they had when she became ill after contracting HIV. With no money or insurance, soon they were living in and out of the shelters. Suzette worked as a volunteer at the shelter. On the day she died, William was going to take her to the public hospital. She’d gotten the flu, which made her condition worse.
Elijah joined in William’s grieving for his sister, a woman who, in the last days of her life, lived to help others. But in many ways, William had saved Elijah’s life, and Elijah was grateful they had met, no matter what the circumstances.
***
“That was some good cooking,” William said, rubbing his stomach.
“Thanks,” Elijah replied. “Oh. I got the meat for you to take. Remind me.”
William nodded. “How’s the kid?”
Elijah smiled. William always asked the question as if the boy, whom he couldn’t see, was a normal person. William trusted Elijah, or at least tolerated him when Elijah said that the boy was a ghost, and not something conjured up in his mind. William did believe there were things beyond the mortal body, but didn’t believe in ghosts.
“He’s good,” Elijah said. “He talked today.”
“No shit,” William said. “How come? I thought you said he—”
“No, and he can hear us,” Elijah said.
William leaned forward. “Where is he now?”
Elijah smiled. “He’s standing beside you.”
William jumped, looking around on both sides, but saw nothing.
The boy smiled, walked around him and sat next to his chair.
“We found a dead man in Garbage Alley,” Elijah said. “He saw him first.” He nodded toward the boy. “Got him scared.”
“The dead afraid of the dead,” William mused, his long face lost in thought. “What’d he look like?”
“Well dressed. Looked Italian. Could’ve been Greek. Bullet in the head.”
“Well, you were right leaving him there,” William said. “No need getting tangled up in that mess. Mafia, maybe.”
“Maybe,” Elijah said, “but it made him talk. He said ‘why’ and ‘wait’ and then ‘I’m scared.’ That’s it.”
“Hmmm . . . .” William’s chin dropped to his chest, as it often did when he was thinking. Then he looked up. “At least he talked. Maybe he’ll tell you his name next.”
“Maybe,” Elijah said. “And then, in the corridor today, I overheard three men talking to another man.”
William’s head jerked up. “Yeah? What about?”
“They mentioned something about ‘four’. That they wanted ‘four’. And the fourth man, the one they were bargaining with, sounded scared. I couldn’t pinpoint the voice, but I know it was familiar.”
William leaned forward. “Just ‘four’? Nothing else? Did you get a look?” He shook his head. “No, you couldn’t have. The lights were out today in the corridor. Maybe it’s just some spooks from lower down the track. Smoking too much weed.” William grinned while pretending to suck on a joint.
A thin figure came bustling up the tracks and stopped on the other side of their fence. The man was tall, with a pointed nose, pale skin and limp hair that hung past his shoulders. He wore a pair of ratty cowboy boots, black, straight-cut pants and a waist-high worn-down leather jacket that seemed to be stuck onto his bony frame.
Elijah turned his attention to the man, but William glanced at the man and away, and didn’t look at him again. “What’s it now, Listow?” William asked. “What does somebody with less than a rat’s soul need with us today?”
“Hah, you very funny, William, hilarious actually,” Listow replied in a high-pitched voice, and then turned his attention to Elijah. “I . . . I was sent for Saul’s ration of meat you said you had for him. I’m here for it.”
Elijah rose from the chair. “Oh, yeah, just a second.” He got up, went inside and came out seconds later with a gray plastic bag, which he handed over the fence.
Listow took the meat with a smile. “Thanks,” he said, and turned to walk away.
“Ah, Listow?” Elijah called.
“Yes?” Listow turned back with reluctance.
“Were you in the corridor today with three men, talking?”
With shifting eyes, Listow looked from Elijah to William, then back to Elijah. “No, I can’t say I was.” He scurried away just as the outside lights blinked off for the night.
Only the bright blaze from the fire held the encroaching darkness at bay.
“I think it was him,” Elijah whispered. “He’s the one they were demanding four of . . . whatever it was.”
William snorted. “That man’s a snake, and snakes shed their skins when and where they don’t want anyone to know about it. That’s Listow.”
Elijah sat down again but William got up, stretched, yawned and looked at his watch. “Shit, it’s late.”
“What time?” Elijah asked.
“Close to two a.m.”
Elijah hurried into the house, got the meat he’d parceled into small bags and handed
them over to William, who took the bags, bid Elijah goodnight and sauntered over to his front door, about ten feet away from Elijah’s. Before he entered it, he called out, “Hey, Elijah, make sure you lock up tight tonight, okay?”
Elijah chuckled. “Don’t I always?”
Suddenly nervous about being outside alone, Elijah collapsed both chairs, carried them inside, came back out, picked up his half full beer can and dowsed the dwindling fire with it. He heard a noise, and spun around in time to see the door to his house creak open. His head jerked to where he’d left the boy sitting; he was no longer there. But he heard Lizzy inside, whining in fright. In spite of his unease, he smiled. The boy must have opened the door. That was the first time the boy had actually done something with solid material. To him, that meant he was growing confident, or perhaps stronger with whatever powers he held as a supernatural being.
Guided by the light cascading through the open door, Elijah walked into the house, slammed the door shut and locked it. An hour later, the Pit was eerily quiet as its residents lay fast asleep, tucked away in warm beds.
***
Near the gateway leading to the Pit, the silhouettes of three tall figures could be seen, standing, waiting. With a wave of one figure’s hand, all three advanced. Guided by night vision goggles, they moved toward the houses closest to the entrance.
When they were close enough, they all crouched to the ground, as if doing a strategic maneuver in a great attack of some kind—one they had done before. At a signal from the leader, one got up, hurried onto the track and systematically severed four of the home’s power cables with a small bolt cutter. The person hurried back to the group. A moment later, all three got up and moved toward the houses slowly, like hunters.
***
Elijah tossed and turned under the layers of blankets and clothes. The nightmare had him falling off a cliff, plummeting to a sea of jagged rocks below. Finding himself falling now, he and the entire bundle of blankets rolled off the bed and landed with a dull thud onto the thin wood floor.
“Shit” he cursed softly. His entire body was covered in sweat under the layers of clothing, making him chilly as he came out of the grogginess of sleep. His chest heaving in frustration, he remained seated on the floor, rubbing his eyes.
The boy suddenly loomed over him, his eyes shining like precious stones in the dark. He stooped down next to Elijah and stroked his arm, and Elijah jumped at the cold touch.
The boy placed his finger over his mouth. “Shhhhhhh,” he whispered. “They’re coming.”
“Who . . . ?” Elijah said loud, then whispered, “Who’s coming?”
Before the boy could answer, the door gave a soft click as it was unlocked. Lizzy reared her head, perked up her ears and gave a low growl just as the door swung open. Before Elijah could shout for help, two men rushed in, grabbed him up with amazing agility and strength. Lizzy went for them, but they were ready: Before she could pull her master’s attackers off him, a third man standing inside the doorway shot her with a tranquilizer dart. She toppled over, instantly unconscious. The drug was fast, the man thought, very fast, which was what he wanted. They couldn’t risk the noise of shooting her, and the tranquilizer dart was quiet—and just as effective.
Elijah felt one of the two men slap a thick piece of tape over his mouth, turn him over and tie his hands behind his back. He tried to shout out, to warn the others, but all that came out were muffled cries. What’s happening? What’s going on? His cries went unheard.
While the two held him down, the third hustled into the room, slipped out a twenty-inch-long stun baton from its holster attached to his belt and jabbed it into Elijah’s side. Elijah tried in vain to scream, but it was too late. His body went limp. The man holstered the baton while the other two hauled him outside, then picked up Elijah’s boots and hustled out the doorway.
***
Smiling, the third man watched Elijah being dragged off into the darkness, then looked around and tossed a set of keys on the ground. “Next time, we want more,” he said in a harsh whisper. “But next time, you lure them away from here. Understood?”
“Understood,” answered the person, aiming a tiny flashlight where the keys had fallen.
“Good.” The man hustled away, disappearing from sight.
Listow picked up the dust-covered keys, then stood and peered through the darkness, unable to see the men who’d just walked away, hustling the four kidnapped men with them. Four men tonight, he thought, including Elijah and his hateful friend, William. Just four. But they needed more, and he was willing and ready to sell the sorry inhabitants here. If the money was right. And the money was always good with these men who called themselves Scouts. He never asked why they wanted them or what they did with them after they left here; he just got paid and handed over the keys. That was it. Tenants here were given their keys, but Listow always kept a duplicate just in case . . . well, in case these opportunities came along. Listow was glad of the money, but he had to sell many more before he could think of leaving this dump. At least it was easy work that paid well.
“A rat’s soul,” he muttered. “Huh, I guess you were right, William, I guess you were right.”
With a sly grin and a gleam in his eyes, he turned and walked up the track to inform
Saul that four residents had up and left, and that he now had four houses ready to be occupied.
***
Elijah and the other three men were dragged through a doorless entrance into a cavernous room with a dirt floor and walls made of age-old slabs of stone. The walls soared a hundred feet or more in the air, and were topped off with an iron grating. Now awake and fully terrified, Elijah looked around to see another doorway in the far corner of the room—a possible escape. For the first time, he felt hope.
They shoved him onto the floor next to William, who was slouched against the cold wall, and shackled his ankles together. Soon they were all similarly restrained.
Elijah glanced over at his friend. The desperation in William’s eyes mirrored his own when they saw each other bound and gagged with shackles on their feet.
Elijah wished that this was still a nightmare, and couldn’t imagine what he or the others might have done to deserve this. He looked up at the walls that rose high above their heads. They were still underground, but at the very top of the walls, he could see stars through the metal grating. It was almost as if they were in a tower of some kind. Moonlight came in too, giving him enough light to make out his surroundings. He glanced again at William, who had a deep frown on his face and was shouting muffled words at the three kidnappers who stood over them. William’s eyes were burning, and Elijah wanted to shout out, to warn him to calm down, that these men would likely kill them all if they resisted. But the tape over his mouth prevented him.
The leader stepped forward, took off his night vision goggles, fished in his pocket, pulled out a thin cigar and blazed it up with his lighter. The lighter’s glow illuminated his thin face, and the logo sewn into the brown coveralls he wore. Elijah was able to make out, “MTA TRANSIT POLICE.” The man noticed and grinned, his long yellow teeth gleaming in the light. “Read that, boys,” he said. “My men and I really mean business.” He pointed to the other two men, who looked exactly the same in height and features. Sharp faces, thin noses and shoulder-length hair. It was obvious they were twins.
One of the two men collected the goggles from the others and stuffed them into his bag while the leader slapped the lighter shut and tucked it into his pants. “I guess you’re wondering why you’re here,” he said. “Seeing as how you fellows are down here living illegally, on MTA’s land, we’re taking you to a place that’s been set up by MTA for rehabilitation purposes. The restraints are needed for your own protection.”
One of the twins walked over and relinquished a black-handled weapon to the leader. Elijah noted that it was shaped like a shotgun, but its barrel was thicker. Below the barrel, two inches thick, seven inches across and ten inches in length, a magazine was attached. Elijah didn’t know how he knew it was a magazine, but something kept pressing against his brain, forcing him to recall it.
“This is a pressurized weapon,” the leader continued. “It’s called an air-crossbow. The magazine,” he tapped it with his finger, “holds forty steel arrows. Once fired, the arrow’s propelled faster than you can run. When it does catch up with you, it’ll slice through your body like a hot knife through butter. So please, don’t run. I don’t want to
report to my superiors that I’m getting resistance.” He gave them a frightening grin. “If I do that, more like me will come, but they won’t be as polite. Is that understood?”
All four men stared at him.
The leader lowered the weapon to their faces and moved it down the line, aiming it at each head. Each of the three, except William, nodded quickly.
The leader stopped in front of William, waiting. “Am I making myself clear?”
William only stared back at him
The leader turned to the twins. “I’m being threatened. Can you believe the balls on this fucking piece of garbage?”
William tried to get his hands loose, but the tape was too strong. He looked over at
Elijah, who was staring back at him, pleading with his eyes for him to be still.
It was too late. One of the twins stepped forward and slammed the hilt of the air-crossbow into the ribs of the man sitting beside William. The man grunted in pain and leaned against William.
“That’s only the beginning,” the leader warned. “Nod your head as a sign you understand what I mean, or my associate here will kill this man. I kid you not.”
William looked over at the man groveling in pain.
“Shoot him,” ordered the leader, pointing at Elijah now.
At last, William nodded, but his eyes were still on fire.
The leader waved his hand and the twin lowered his weapon. Then he turned back to William. “Your weakness is your friend here.” He pointed to Elijah. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He kicked William in the leg, then said, “Move them out.”
***
Back at Elijah’s little house, Lizzy was awakened by the boy, who was rubbing her fur gently and crying. As though knowing how desperate their situation was, she didn’t bark or try to run away when he bent over, whispered in her ear, and stood. Instead, she struggled to her feet, then staggered out of the house in the direction Elijah was taken.
Chapter 3
They left the tower-like structure and were led through many winding passages. The others looked broken as they stumbled onward. Elijah, in particular, felt awful. If he’d only known these three men were the very ones he overheard in the dark corridor hours ago, and that the one they spoke to about “four” was none other than the snake, Listow, he would’ve . . . well, too late to think about what-ifs. Now, the main thing to worry about was where the hell they were taking them.
The three MTA men said nothing, just pushed them along whenever one of them slowed. But none of them tried to escape. With the leader bringing up the front and the two at the rear of the formation, running or resisting would only have proved fatal.
After traveling in and out of tunnels, across rickety man-made bridges built over raging storm drains and through many abandoned sewer pipes, they began to crisscross their way around huge mounds of dirt. At first, Elijah thought the mounds were
mountains, until he looked up and saw the huge holes that dotted the high ceiling above. The mountains were, in fact, loosened dirt that had fallen to the floor, maybe months or decades ago. Who knew? There seemed to be no end to them. A few held a height of five feet, but most towered a hundred or more feet in the air.
Coming to a wall, the four men were stopped by a wave of the leader’s hand.
“Beyond this hole,” he said, pointing to a square-shaped hole about five feet high, “a new life awaits you. If you give no trouble, you’ll live to see the next day. It’s in your best interest to do what you’re told. Some of your belongings will be brought to you later.”
Elijah saw that unless you were right up against the concrete wall, you wouldn’t see the hole. He glanced at the wall itself, looking to see if there was another hole in it, perhaps a way to make himself invisible. The wall seemed to be made of individual bricks, and solid as a . . . well, its intended purpose.
He was snapped back from his inspection by a wave from one of the kidnapper’s weapons. His heart sinking, Elijah followed the rest of the four through the hole.
On the other side of the wall, Elijah smelled rotting cabbages. Guided by lights on the walls, they took careful steps through a swampy patch of earth. Each step caused bubbles under their feet to burst, sending more of the foul stench into the air. The smell burned Elijah’s nostrils as he struggled to keep up with the men.
Twenty feet from the hole, the leader waved up to a man perched in a small watchtower a hundred feet across from where they were and perhaps fifty feet in the air. The tiny cage was attached to the concrete wall. The man saw him and returned the “hello” gesture with a wave of his own.
The leader stood next to a rusting old ladder embedded into the rock. The bottom of the ladder hung two feet above his head. High above was another square opening, this one much larger than the last.
He raised his air-crossbow and tapped it against the ladder three times, then twice, and three times again. In response, a young boy’s head popped out of the opening, peered down at them, smiled and then disappeared. The ladder slid down, dropping to the muddy floor with a loud clang. Working together, the leader and the twins unlatched a lever and pulled the folded bottom outward, giving the ladder the appearance of stairs.
One of the kidnappers beckoned the four to come forward. One by one, with just enough room between their shackled legs to raise each foot to climb, they ascended the steps that led to the square hole above. Elijah was the last in the line. Just as he placed his foot on the first step, he heard a whining sound. William, on the rung before him, stopped and looked down to see where the noise came from.
Elijah gave a muffled yelp at the sight of Lizzy running toward him, and he bent down but was unable to scruff her head like he’d done so many times before. She licked his cheek and taped-over mouth, but growled at the sight of the kidnappers, standing in a semi-circle, looking down at her. The leader scowled. The drug in the dart was supposed to put her to sleep, then slowly shut down all her vital organs until she was dead. At least, that’s what he’d been told. But the person who gave it to him was wrong.