“I can sort of see the car down there, but I can’t see Garth anywheres.” Through a rent corner of the sheet metal, Tim peered out the window. “You told me he was waiting in the car? Right, Con?” Below, a bit of newspaper ghosted along the empty sidewalk, but nothing else moved through the cold glow of the streetlamp. “Con? I wish I could see him.” Wind buckled the metal with a noise like thunder, and he turned away from the window. “I can barely make you out. You’re just a shape. Did you ever find that candle?”

On the decaying sofa, Conrad never shifted, only the liquid glimmer of his eyes truly visible.

“Con?” Shivering, Tim crouched by the window again. “He’s in the trunk, isn’t he?” A frigid gust brought tears to his eyes. “Isn’t he, Con? He’s dead, right?”

Behind him, the sofa creaked.

“Don’t!” Tim pitched away, his hands flailing for the doorway. “Don’t.”

“Yo?” Con’s voice rasped from the dark. “Where you going, man?”

Tim’s foot slipped on the stairs. “Please.” He grasped at where a banister should have been, thudded against the wall, then picked himself up, running. If Con had killed Garth, it could only be because he knew about the two of them. Blood thundered in his chest. If he kills me, he’ll be so sad after. Downstairs, the glow from the streetlight seeped through the grated window, bright enough for him to avoid an empty crate. He’ll cry and cry. He threw all his slight weight against the door.

“Timmy?” The voice echoed from the stairwell.

Rattling until they bled, Tim’s fingers dug into the grate. It had been so easy to get in, the kind of thing Con was good at. They hadn’t even worried about the noise. After all, that’s why they’d picked this place—the middle of a row of abandoned storefronts, facing a dead train station. Con had explained it all at tedious length, the whole history of this neighborhood he’d been born in. Con was always explaining things. It seemed this area used to be a suburb, but the city had spread, engulfing it; then as the city dwindled again, even the slums had receded like an outgoing tide. Beyond the meshed window, most of the buildings looked empty, all those imposing stone houses, long since partitioned into apartments, now boarded up. Nobody walked these streets. Even a housing project, just visible above the train station, loomed like a half moon, one side entirely dark.

Leaf shadows mottled the glass. Behind him, the staircase creaked like a tree limb.

He backed away. Even in this cramped space, darkness seemed to have its own geography. Black oceans swirled around islands that glowed with some dim saturation of grayness, and from the deepest sea loomed a dark peninsula: gradually, it coalesced into a doorway. Twisting the latch, he yanked. Shadows swung. At a dead run, he collided with solid nothingness and rebounded, clutching his face. Even the backdoor had been covered with sheet metal. His face felt wet.

“Yo, Tim.”

He stumbled away from the voice, his groping hands discovering a gap in the corner. He thought it might be a closet, but stepping in, he plunged, and absolute blackness closed over him like oil. He staggered down. The tight descent reeked of damp and dirt, and it grew colder as he sank. Finally, the sagging wooden steps ended, and he felt a slick surface underfoot.

He put one foot down tentatively. It sank in something soft, icy fluid seeping through his worn sneaker, and when he lifted the foot again, it made a sucking noise.

Freezing air moved on his face. His hands grubbed deep in his pockets and came up with a crushed book of matches, but at first the remaining match only slid damply across the worn flint. Then the point of flame glinted off a smooth surface.

A pool filled the cramped space, one crumbling cement step disappearing into it. On the other side of the pool, a wooden lattice led upwards to a metal grating, but even by match light, the slats looked rotten, mounded with cobwebs. The flame dimmed as it reached his fingers. When he dropped it in the water, darkness seeped back.

He threw himself toward the ladder. The lowest rung snapped instantly, splashing, but he caught at the upper steps. Webbing matted across his fingers and cauled his face. As he shook the metal grate, it clattered loosely, loudly, but wouldn’t open. He put his shoulder to it, the back of his head, pushing until pain tore his neck. Another step cracked loudly. Clanking, the grate barely separated in the middle, scarcely enough for the gleam of the streetlight to slice through.

“Gets deep over here, Tim.”

He swiveled his head.

The stripe of light slashed across Conrad. “Must be a hole or something.” Knee-deep in the water, Con waved his arms, fighting for balance. Points of cold light glinted on the surface and in his eyes.

Tim shoved one last time. The metal planes lifted, then clattered down, wind slithering in at the edges.

“Looks like you ain’t going nowheres, Timmy.”

“What did you have to kill him for?” He tried to make out Con’s face, knowing that even at his most dangerous, Con always looked so sorrowful. “You gonna hurt me now?” Panic throbbed in his voice, but he gritted down on the fear. “Conny?” Trembling, he took a deep breath. “Can you hear that?”

“What?”

“Sssh. Listen.” He knew there’d be only the one chance to gain control. “Hear it?” He knew he’d have only this one chance to turn Con’s anger into something less deadly. Always it had been like this. Ever since they’d been kids in the Home, his ‘protector’ always took a lot of handling, but Tim was good at it. He’d had to be. Since that first time in the alley, there’d been no getting away from him—everything was Con. And everybody but Tim feared him. He used to get a kick out of that, once upon a time, really got off on it, but that had been long ago, like maybe two years. “Like wolves howling. Isn’t it? Like trees. You hear it, Con? There’s all kinds of things out in the woods now, all around the city. Right? Remember when you told me all about that? People seen all kinds of things in the streets. Coming down through the park at night. Nobody even knows what’s living there, right? Remember when you explained all that to me? That night we did the crystal meth? I mean, look at this web everywhere. I’ll bet there’s spiders down here big as cats.”

“Don’t start with this shit.”

“Anything could be down here. Like you and me, Con. Right? Anything.” He could feel a stray current of wind course through the blonde hairs at the back of his neck. “Listen. I know you hear it. Feel it. Like me, the way I can feel you. The way we hear each other in our heads.”

“Stop.”

“Like we’re marked, connected,” Tim added desperately. “Like we could never find nobody else like us. Nobody who hears what we hear. You know?”

Darkness splashed.

“The water must be like ice. Ain’t you cold? Con? Did you bring the blanket in from the car?” His words came out in a rush of breath. “C’mon, we should get those wet pants off you. You don’t want to get sick, right? Besides, you’re going to need somebody to help you get rid of ... you know ... in the car. Let’s go back upstairs now, okay? Con? I just wanted to see what was down here. Okay?”

As the flame leaned to one side, the candle’s gleam circled the room, sliding along the walls. To block the wind, Conrad had hung his shirt over the gap at the window, and his jeans drooped heavily from a nail. Water pattered from them while Con sat cross-legged on the broken sofa, his underwear yellow in the glow.

Tim stared at Con’s flesh—so much of it—the body heavy with bone and muscle, even the head so broad and square where Tim was all sharp angles. It always amazed him: they might have been different species. “Warm me up, Con.” He pressed closer to him on the sofa. “Freezing to death.”

Conrad drew back on the plunger, pulling the blood into the syringe. After it mingled with the opalescent fluid, he forced it back under, and when he pulled the point out, a fat black dot formed on the soft crook of his arm.

Tim curled forward, his tongue feeling for it. “Don’t waste that.”

Con chuckled approvingly. “So twisted.” Gooseflesh pebbled his legs, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Now you.” He handed over the works.

“Wait. I don’t want to get, you know, messy.” Tim peeled off his shirt and stood shivering, his ribs like carved ivory. “So cold.”

Con fumbled on the floor for his belt. “Need help, man?”

“Don’t be a jerk,” Tim whined. “I mean, you know I can’t do this myself.” A nicotine-stained hand gripped him, the fingers going clear around his thin arm as though capturing a snake. The fingerpads felt thorned, all hard calluses and scars, and the nails looked brown. “I’m glad we found the candle,” he whispered, staring. Even darker than the rest of Con, those hands looked like gloves, and as always their strength scared him, thrilled him. “We could do, like, magic in this light, Con.” He couldn’t make himself look away from the hands. They could snap his neck, he knew. Easy. Crush his skull. “Right?”

“Yeah?” Con’s glance never so much as flickered toward him.

“That’s how I’m sure you’ll never get away from me,” he talked faster. “Because I have powers.” Knowing how it could swell, he watched for a current of violence to wash over Con’s face.

“So full of shit.”

“Remember when you were screwing that waitress? And don’t say which one.” Tim tried to modulate the cute simper in his voice. “I knew all I had to do was wait. Magic.”

Con muttered, “Don’t turn your head away.”

“You know I can’t watch this.”

“Let me show you a little trick.” Conrad released him to feel around the blanket for his cigarettes.

“Okay,” Tim giggled. “I’m good at tricks.”

“Forget that shit with the bleach.” Filling the needle with water from a paper cup, he squirted it into the dark, then passed the point through the candle flame. “This is better, Timmy. Kills everything.”

“Great.” Tim rubbed his arm. “Now you’re going to stick a hot needle in me.”

“I explained to you about infections.” The belt tightened, biting hard, and the vein swelled, blue even in the near darkness. “What did you do to your face? That blood or what? You run into something?”

“Not that I usually mind when you stick me with hot things.” Like a point of fire, the needle went in, still hurting less than Con’s grip. “You know?”

The room seemed to melt. Tim watched the wall dissolve into a cloud of roaches. It didn’t matter; he let it happen. Con’s hands moved on him, pressing him down. The rest of his clothes skinned away. It didn’t matter.

Even in this cold, Con’s damp heat enveloped him, slicking his back and stomach. A tongue felt its way up the side of his neck, and spit trickled as Con grunted and heaved. It went on forever. Then it stopped. “No, not on me. C’mon, you always get me all . . . such a jerk.” But his own hand moved up tenderly, surprising him. Con’s face felt wet. “Weird. You’ll cry, but you won’t say you love me. You won’t never say it. Creep.”

Eventually, Con peeled off him. “Need to take a piss.”

“Not in the corner. It stinks bad enough in here.” He rubbed the sore spot on his arm. “Go in the other room. Okay?”

“Where’re we taking him, Con? C’mon, we should do this now, man, right? While I’m up for it.” Tim danced in place, the shadows of his arms and legs flogging the wall. “You ready? C’mon. What are you doing with that?”

The crumpled paper bag looked as though it might once have held a bottle, and Con rolled it closed, then tilted the end of the sofa with one hand. “Nobody’ll find it here.” Part of a floorboard had rotted away, and he dropped the bag into a shallow hole.

“C’mon, let’s go, Con, let’s go.”

“Better than having it in the car in case we get stopped,” Con told him.

“Oh, yeah, right, but it’s, you know, okay if we get stopped with . . .” Tim’s voice trailed off. He couldn’t bring himself to say Garth’s name.

“Don’t waste the fuckin’ candle.”

Tim whirled around until the flame went out, then they felt their way downstairs. The door opened easily under Conrad’s touch.

Wind dragged grit across the sidewalk. Neither of them had jackets, but Tim only shivered out of nervous habit, unable to really feel the cold. The grate bounced loosely beneath his feet, and he almost skipped across the pavement. Garth’s car looked filthy, crusted with dirt, windows opaque with grime. “Where we gonna take him?” A bit of flannel with a splotch on it protruded from the lip of the trunk: the spot looked black under the streetlamp. “How come you won’t answer me?” He stared hard at the dark spot. “Con?”

The car wouldn’t start. Con kept getting out, slamming the door, popping the hood, and all the while, the wind rattled the chain across the entrance to the train station.

Mumbling to himself, Tim sat in front, as usual not moving to help. “Garth.” He wondered if the heat would ever come up. “Pretty,” he chanted over and over. They hadn’t really known Garth all that long, no matter how it felt. Con had only brought him home a few weeks before so they could pull off his big score together. “Pretty Garth.” He found himself turning around to look.

“and weird I keep feeling like he’s right behind me okay like I can feel him like on the backseat or something the”

Empty sandwich wrappings and a pizza box covered the floor, and he could barely see out the windows. Not that it mattered. Everything just looked empty and dark. Good thing too—anybody would look suspicious out there. Two white guys in this neighborhood just made it worse, though Con could pass for anything really.

The door opened again, and the chill flooded the car as Conrad slipped in and once more tried the ignition. “What did you have to kill him for?” Tim whispered, closing his eyes. He opened them again, aware of movement. Streets slid by the window.

Sometimes the car went up small hills so fast they left the ground, and Tim was sure they’d come down in the trees. These roads couldn’t have been built for cars. Maybe horses. Maybe sleds.

Never speaking, Conrad stared through the smeary windshield and fought the wheel while it grew wilder outside. Even the sparse streetlights vanished, and the road grew ever narrower. Thick vegetation blotted the universe. Shadows bristled.

They stopped in utter blackness.

Tim put his hand on the door, holding it shut. “Where are we?”

“Get out,” Con ordered.

“We’re no place.”

“Get out.”

Biting his lip, Tim shoved the door, and the wind surprised him, flowing cold across the river. Lost amid occluded trees on the opposite bank, a radio tower blinked, the ghost of light, and all around them desiccated leaves rustled like wings. He knew Con could dump him here, easy, get rid of him and Garth, if he wanted to. “Hell.” He paced, muttering. “My leg’s asleep.”

“Know where you are yet?” asked Conrad.

“Yeah.”

“So?”

Tim scuffed his feet in the gravel. “Still nowheres.”

“See back that way? Through the park?” Con leaned against the car, only the mask of his face visible. “Takes you right back to the train station. Walk it easy.”

“Walk?”

“Give me a hand over here.” Con opened the front door and leaned in to grip the steering wheel. “Get behind. Push.” Shoving, he grunted, his feet grinding into the dirt. “That’s it.” Front wheels rolled ponderously to the edge of the embankment. “That’s enough.” He put the brake on. “Good spot. When I was a kid, we used to fish off a here. Did I tell you about that? Good and deep.”

Tim gazed down from the stone ledge. “Looks icy.” Gravel rained over the edge.

“Yo, should we say a few words or something?”

“Creep.” Tim wandered away, shivering. “Did you get the stuff out of the back?”

“What stuff?”

He hugged himself. “There’s half an ounce under the seat, Con.”

“You’re shitting me?”

“No, Garth stashed it there. I saw him.”

Con climbed in, fumbling. “When? He didn’t have . . .” The front door hung open.

“No, under the back seat. You know how it lifts up, right?” Approaching, he watched the shadowy form clamber over. “Way underneath.”

“I don’t see . . . “ He got down on all fours.

“It’s there.” Tim’s hand snaked in, released the brake. As he jumped back, the door slammed, the car rolling easily. It made one loud scrape, then hardly more than a hiss in the water.

Shoulders hunched, he stepped to the edge. The rear of the car tilted up out of the river. He was pretty sure he heard Con’s head crack against the back window: a pale smudge of a face pressed at the glass cobweb. Tim thought the lips might be moving; then everything vanished in blackness. He could hear bubbles for a long time.

They stopped.

Wanting to run, he forced himself to walk slowly across the road and into the park. His teeth chattered. So deserted here, such a bad neighborhood. Without Con he felt so vulnerable. The houses near the river seemed high and dark, and the more he walked, the more he had nowhere to go. It even scared him when a car went by, so that he wished he weren’t so pale, that he didn’t stand out so much. The wind just took him, long hair tangling in his face, and he shuddered. He needed to get out of the cold—maybe tomorrow he’d hang out at the bus station, get off the streets for a couple of nights, maybe make a few bucks.

That’s when he realized he really didn’t need a few bucks.

Funny how easy it was to find his way back once he decided where he wanted to go. He found it like a pebble finds the ground. The road humped toward the train station, and he trudged up the hill, shivering badly now, until he raced across the last wide street.

He barely had to jiggle the knob before the door swung open.

Feeling around the window ledge, he stepped on something that crunched softly, rolling, and he picked up the candle. Not much left of it—he checked his pockets. “Oh right, Con had the matches.” His giggle cracked in the dark. “Well, they’re damp now,” he spoke aloud, seeking reassurance in his own voice. “Maybe he left some by the sofa.” Wind rattled the door.

The creaking of the stairs beneath his feet reminded him of a movie he’d seen once about some guy who got buried alive. The old wood seemed to crack with each step.

Upstairs, a little of the glow from the streetlamp bled through the hole, revealing just the shape of the sofa. He felt around the cushions but found nothing, finally groping underneath. Unable to lift the sofa, he heaved it back by inches until he found the loose board and stuck his hand in. “Hope I don’t feel a rat.” Something rattled. He thought the envelope felt soft with wrinkles like old lady flesh. Rifling it, he crammed the plastic bag of powder into his pants but just clutched the bills, wondering how much was there. No way to tell—he realized the streetlight must have blinked out. They could all be ones, could be fifties.

“I might be rich.” Still holding the money, he lay on the sofa and hunched himself into a tight ball. “Poor Con.” He felt bad now. “Something finally worked.” He fished the plastic bag out of his jeans, moistened a finger and stuck it in the powder; then he held the finger under his tongue until the bitter taste filled his head. The chill still penetrated his marrow, so he pulled up a cushion and lay underneath it. It helped a little, but he couldn’t stop wondering how cold the water had been. His arm still hurt, and he thought about Con’s lips moving. What had he been trying to say? He tried to picture Garth’s face, but only Con’s would come.

Something splashed. The noise rippled up the stairs.

His arms and legs stiffened. Again, the liquid noise echoed faintly. Flailing, he struggled to rise as the cushion slipped to the floor.

The wet footsteps ascended slowly, not in stealth, but with great solemnity. He listened, paralyzed. Soft and hollow in the basement, their timber thinned when they reached the first floor. Gradually, the splashing diminished.

Finally, he could hear nothing . . .

. . . until the tiniest of sounds filtered through to his awareness, like the pattering of water from sodden clothing.

He stood, eyes straining toward the densest part of the dark. “How come you won’t never say it?” In that final instant, he actually saw the blot of shadow lurch toward him.

Callused hands held him still. Cold lips found his, forcing his head back. He fell on the sofa, and the weight pinned him. When his lips parted, filthy liquid filled his mouth. A frigid tongue pushed his like an eel, and teeth grated across his own: broken shells in mud. When he tried to scream, a gout of fetid fluid surged into his throat.

It didn’t matter. Icy and strong, those hands caressed him until his squirming ceased. Stiffness pressed him through the wet denim, and he held on tight.

 

© 2006 Robert Dunbar - Contributor's Bio