The flashlight beam slides along the dirty floor to the door under the stairs. An inverted pentagram has been painted across it in blood. Above it and to the left, also in blood, are the numbers 666 and a series of words Rooster cannot decipher.
“Oh hell no, that’s Devil shit right there.” Snow backs away.
Rooster studies the words scrawled on the door. “What language is that?”
“Latin.”
They all look to Starker. The giant shrugs. “I took it in high school you ignorant motherfuckers.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.” Starker finds Rooster in the darkness behind him. “Supposedly that’s what it says at the gates of Hell.”
“Why would somebody put that there?” Nauls asks in a panic.
“Probably a bunch of drugged-out, loser, never been laid, douche bag, Devil-worshipping- wannabes.” Landon pushes past the others. “Who gives a shit? If we’re doing this let’s get it over with.”
With that, Starker steadies his stance then kicks in the door. It implodes and tears from its hinges with a loud cracking, splintering sound, tumbling away into darkness down another set of stairs. They hear it land seconds later as an enormous cloud of dust and dirt kicks up in response, wafting out the open doorway and bursting into the room. A stale mildew odor is followed by a pungent smell similar to rotting garbage and raw sewage. They cough, block their nostrils then huddle together in the limited light until the stench weakens and the farmhouse is returned to eerie silence.
No one speaks, but before anyone can motion Nauls to lead the way with the flashlight, he hands it to Rooster. With a sigh, Rooster takes the lead, the light in one hand and his 9mm in the other. He steps through, aims the light and sees a small set of wooden stairs. Beyond them is a cement landing and what appears to be a corridor he and the others were somehow already aware of.
He begins his descent. Starker is behind him, his weight shaking the staircase with each step. Next is Landon. Snow and Nauls pull up the rear.
They reach the corridor without incident. Rooster pans the light along the walls. Several doors line either side. The far end of the hallway is draped in a darkness that the flashlight is unable to penetrate from this distance. The fear and danger is palpable now, a spiritual entity unmistakably alive and horrific, real, it drifts and moves around them like liquid, invisible to the naked eye but without question, present. Rooster sweeps the light along one wall and then the next, as together, the crew slowly moves deeper into the corridor. All the doors are closed.
Except one. He places the light on it. This door is ajar.
Rooster uses hand motions to let the others know what needs to be done. He sends Starker to the left side of the doorway, Snow to the right. Rooster then crouches, facing the door head-on while Landon covers his back and Nauls watches the section of hallway and stairs behind them.
Starker holds the AK-47 in one hand and raises the other into the light so everyone can see. Slowly, he counts off, raising one finger, then another and finally a third. A quick nod, and the crew springs into action, rushing into the room with weapons at the ready and the flashlight leading the way.
Silence returns. A mocking silence…
The light trembles in Rooster’s hand. But they see. They all see.
A series of metal slabs like something out of a coroner’s workshop, bodies atop them in hospital johnnies, IVs attached to their arms pumping some clear fluid into their veins, oxygen tubes implanted in their nostrils, wires running from their heads and chests and limbs to machines and computers along the far wall, all of it organized and functioning in the dark bowels of an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Six metal tables. Six men.
“God in Heaven,” someone says in a desperate whisper. “It’s us.”
* * * It might’ve been hours, might’ve been days.
He could no longer tell the difference.
The rain had stopped and the air was still, but it had gotten much colder. Bundled in a heavy coat and knit hat, the briefcase in his free hand, Rooster stood arm-in-arm with Gaby before a fresh grave. Dressed in a black dress and heels, her face partially covered with a lace veil, moments before she had placed flowers where a headstone should’ve been. Her lips moved in silent prayer behind the veil, dark eyes lowered. No one else was there. A life, Snow’s life, had ended. Here, at this unmarked grave. And no one cared. It was like he’d never really been there at all.
Gaby finished her prayers, and together, they turned to leave.
It was then that Rooster saw them. Across the sea of headstones, crypts and monuments to the dead, two men watched them, their breath converted to spiraling clouds rising from their bodies like fleeing souls.
Gaby saw them, too. “Do what you have to do.” She lifted the veil, rose up on her toes so she could reach, and kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
As she moved away toward the gates of the cemetery, the men started toward him. Rooster lit a cigarette and smoked it until they reached him.
They looked the same.
Landon stared at him, said nothing.
“Hey, Rooster,” Nauls offered, scratching at his beard and smiling nervously, eyes concealed behind the usual sunglasses. “Good to see you, bro.”
“Good to see you too, Nauls.”
“That is so precious—seriously—I think I just tinkled a little. How about we save the group hug for later and you two can finish jerking each other’s gherkins then, OK?” Landon stepped closer. “Paper said the hit-and-run was probably an accident, driver just panicked. I say kiss my celluloid-dimpled ass, whoever hit Snow did it on purpose. Can’t blame them—I would’ve run the prick over if he stepped in front of my car too—but sounds like somebody took him out to me.”
Rooster took a final drag on his cigarette then dropped it and crushed it out with his boot. “They did.”
“Do you know who they are?”
“I’m not sure yet, but—”
“You heard about Starker?”
“Snow said he killed his old lady and ran to Mexico.”
“He never got that far. Big bastard was hiding out in a fleabag motel right here in the city. They found him a
