“No, those are cretins,” Landon says. “Mongoloids are the redheads.”
Nauls tucks his gun into the back of his pants. “I don’t have red hair.”
Landon sighs but keeps his attention on Rooster, who lowers his weapon as a peace offering. “Get your piece off me,” he says, “and we’ll figure this shit out.”
“Nah, asshole, first you’re gonna tell me where the—”
An enormous muscle-bound arm shoots out of the darkness behind him and wraps around Landon’s throat, strangling him with such force that his feet leave the ground. He drops his revolver and the flashlight and clutches at the arm with both hands in a futile attempt to dislodge it. The flashlight rolls across the floor, tumbling through the room and painting the farmhouse with sweeping arcs of twisting light that eerily illuminates then plunges each man back into darkness. “Listen to me and listen to me good,” Starker says, holding the smaller man effortlessly, his voice just above a whisper in Landon’s ear. “We got a lot more to worry about here than that money. Now you cut the shit, keep your mouth shut and do what Rooster tells you to do or I’ll snap your neck. You feel me, boy?” Landon manages a gurgling response and Starker releases him. He crashes to the floor with a thud and one of his feet breaks through the boards.
Landon lays there a moment, clutching his throat, then pulls free, retrieves his revolver and slowly returns to his feet without further comment.
Nauls scurries to the corner and retrieves the flashlight. As he brings it round, he stops on something beneath the old staircase. “Hey, there’s a—”
“Door under the stairs,” Rooster interrupts. He knows he’s right but has no idea how he’s come to possess such information.
Starker finds Rooster’s face in the dark. “It leads to another staircase.”
“Then a hallway,” Snow says quietly.
“And there’s doors on both sides of the hallway,” Nauls adds.
Everyone looks to Landon. He rubs at his throat. “Oh I’m allowed to talk now?” He glares at Starker. “Just wanna make sure it’s OK with fucking Albert DeSalvo over here before I say anything.” Nauls aims the light at him, leaving no doubt that despite his bravado, even Landon is terrified by what’s happening. He finally nods reluctantly, fidgeting about tensely. “Yeah, I—I don’t know how I know it either, but behind the doors there’s a bunch of rooms.”
“Even if we’re right, end of the day it’s just an abandoned old farmhouse with scarecrows out front and some rooms where a cellar ought to be,” Snow says. “Why we all so scared?”
“There’s only one way to find out for sure.”
“Aw, fuck me running.” The beam of light begins to tremble as Nauls heads for the porch. “I want out right now, man, this is bullshit.”
Starker lifts the AK-47 higher on his hip, and with one short sidestep, blocks the doorway. “We’ve all been here before. We need to know why.”
“But what happened to the money?” Snow asks, his face a mask of barely contained terror.
“Maybe there never was any money,” Starker says. “Maybe there wasn’t even an armored car.”
“Tell that to Carbone,” Landon counters. “Fuckhead died robbing it.”
“Maybe that’s not how he died. Maybe that’s just what we remember. Maybe this is all some kind of sick game.”
Nauls looks at the floor. “Well I don’t wanna play no more.”
“Think about what he’s saying,” Rooster says. “Does anybody really remember anything before the job today?”
“Of course we know what happened today,” Landon says.
“Do we?” Rooster watches him, doing his best to keep his face void of emotion. “Do any of you remember anything before the van? Because I’m not sure I do. I mean, I think I do, it feels like I do but…”
“It’s in your head,” Starker says, “but you don’t actually remember it.”
“Yeah,” Snow agrees. “What he said.”
Rooster nods.
“So I’m the only one who wants to leave then?” Nauls paces about wildly. “Really? Are you guys fucking high?” The light drifts back and forth across the dark room, cutting shadows and revealing quick glimpses of a long-dead house.
In that moment, eyes following the beam, fear wells in Rooster the likes of which he’s never known. He’s sure he sees something more, something there yet not quite there, waiting in the darkness, slipping from sight like scuttling insects just as the light passes over them. He grips his weapon tighter but it does little to calm his rising terror. “We need to search this place.”
“No we don’t.” Nauls shakes his head. “We can just leave.”
“We need to know what’s happening here.”
“We can’t get upstairs,” Starker tells them. “Staircase is blocked with shit and it’s all rotted out. But there’s something dead up there and whoever killed it did some finger-painting with its blood.”
“There’s something wrong with this place, man, it’s—you guys all feel it too, I know you do. Shit Starker you and Rooster felt it outside, and…I don’t…” Nauls suddenly becomes strangely calm, his voice quiet and childlike. “I don’t want to die out here.”
“Easy, Nauls,” Landon says. “Don’t wanna trip and fall on your vagina.”
“Bring the light around to the door under the stairs,” Rooster tells him, his gaze moving between the horrified faces before him. “We’re going down there.”
* * * As daylight splintered night, it brought with it an icy rain that descended upon the city in violent torrents. Shaking off the residue of nightmares, waking and otherwise, Rooster adjusted his position in the chair. He’d placed it in front of the window and watched the street all night. Every muscle in his body hurt, his neck was stiff and sore and his temples pulsed with a dull ache. Ice ticked against the window, mixing with the sluicing rain to blur the glass and world beyond. Numerous lost souls had come and gone throughout the night, hurrying through the darkness, but the priest had not returned.
Though he couldn’t be certain, Rooster thought he’d briefly nodded off a few times during the night. After asking him countless times to put the gun away and come to bed, Gaby finally gave up a little after midnight and drifted off to sleep. She lay sprawled out across the bed, her breathing slow and deep. He watched her a while. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. It didn’t seem right, Rooster thought, for someone so intelligent, so caring and just, so uncorrupted and faithful to be associated in any way with such madness and horror. Yet somehow it made perfect sense, a pure and tranquil soul like Gaby existing amidst the mayhem, calm beauty at the eye of an otherwise violent storm. His storm.
He sat on the bed next to her and gently caressed her face. She stirred and moaned quietly but remained asleep. Who are you? He wondered. Why are you here with me?
The pain in his temples drifted behind his eyes, lingering there as he gently kissed Gaby on the cheek.
With the 9mm tucked into the back of his pants, he threw on his jacket, swallowed a handful of aspirin and slipped into a cold and unforgiving rain.
