Kingdom of Shadows

sense that someone was following him. Once inside he bolted the apartment door, pulled the shades on the windows then set the briefcase on the kitchen table. He remained still and quiet a moment, listening. Some distant sounds from neighboring units bled through the thin walls and the building settled and creaked against the increasing wind, but he could discern nothing out of the ordinary. Next he returned to the windows facing the street and courtyard, spending a few seconds at each one, pulling back the shades enough to peek out and inspect the area for intruders, strange cars or individuals. Nothing.

Rooster checked his watch. Gaby wouldn’t get home from work for about another hour. He’d have the place to himself for a while. With only a small hanging light in the kitchen illuminating the area, he grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard and poured a shot. As the booze burned then warmed him, he pulled up a chair and sat at the table, eyeing the briefcase as if he expected it to do something other than sit there like the inanimate object it was. A basic black leather model, it had only one main zippered compartment and no markings or personalized indications of any kind. He looked at his hands. Still shaking. For Christ’s sake, he thought. Get a grip. Back in the day he’d been known for his remarkable cool in the face of danger. Hadn’t he? Like so much else it was lost in a dark sea of partial memories, fractured dreams and uncertain yesterdays.

He pounded down another mouthful of whiskey then held the empty shot glass out before him until he’d willed the trembling to stop. Hand finally steady, or at least reasonably close, he put the glass aside, unzipped the briefcase and reached inside. His hand returned holding a large manila folder held shut by two thick rubber bands. The only other item in the briefcase was a hardcover book. Rooster placed both on the table before him, quickly inspected the briefcase to make certain he’d gotten everything then put it on the floor by his feet.

There were no markings on the exterior of the manila folder itself but it was stuffed with various documents. The book was black, had no dust-jacket and was badly worn, the back cover blank. Rooster flipped it over.

A bright red inverted pentagram filled the front cover, the title in matching color above it: DEMONOLOGY: Incantations.

He vaulted back and away from the table as if hit with an electrical charge, eyes transfixed on the pentagram as his chair tipped over backwards and fell to the floor.

What do you know about demons?

Fear crashed him like a wave, surging up through his legs, guts, and into his chest, chills firing through his shoulders and neck, his eyes burning as the uncontrollable shivers returned, this time violently throttling his entire body.

I’m so cold…

Voices in his head…familiar voices…

I’m so…so…cold…

Flashes of a face stricken with horror, mouth ripped open into a bloody and devilish grin, the skin on the cheeks and forehead moving and tenting impossibly, like something was trapped beneath and trying to get out, something barbed and small slithering for purchase…

Help me…God in Heaven, help me!

Clutching his temples, Rooster staggered back, muttering prayers he hadn’t recited since childhood.

Shadowy visions of a man standing over a body, the stomach cavity split open, his hands grasping a tangle of viscera—ropes of blood and guts squished between his fingers—laughing and squatting closer to the carnage, his face spattered with blood and colorless jellylike fluids, shards of human flesh dangling from the corners of his mouth…and all the while, horrible screams of agony bellowed amidst vicious laughter…

It wasn’t until Rooster felt the far kitchen wall against his back and slid down to the floor in a heap, sobbing and moaning like a traumatized child, that the visions and voices finally retreated.

But not before he realized that the face of the man he’d seen—the man in the shadows disemboweling another human being—was his own.

-5-

They move across the field in a staggered line, weapons drawn, the overgrown grass and weeds nearly to their waists. The fog moves with them as they negotiate the uneven terrain, slowly, cautiously, the darkness deepening with each step they take. The scarecrows watch from their wooden crosses, some nailed, some tied with rotting lengths of rope, manlike ghouls in old and torn denim overalls and decayed work shirts, hands of straw protruding from the sleeves like talons, legs dangling, vanishing into the tall grass. With badly worn, stuffed and filthy burlap sacks for heads, their mouths are stiff grim lines of worn leather thread sewn into the fabric in a disturbing crisscross pattern, their eyes sunken black holes, as if the sockets have been long-since picked clean.

Starker is in the lead. He stops and the others follow suit. His eyes pan the area, take in each scarecrow. No one speaks for several seconds. The night is unnaturally quiet.

“Come on, what is this bullshit?” Landon moans. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Nobody’s been here in years. Why bother with the house at all? Let’s split the take now. What difference does it make?”

“We are pretty far from the road.” Nauls looks back. “Haven’t seen any cars pass by the whole time we’ve been here.”

Ignoring them, Rooster looks to Starker. “What’s wrong?”

“Notice anything about those scarecrows?”

“I’m trying not to notice them at all,” Nauls says.

Landon rolls his eyes. “What are you, five-fucking-years-old? There’s nobody here but us, let’s get on with it.”

“Starker,” Rooster presses, “what is it?”

“There are six of them,” he says, “six scarecrows.”

Snow shrugs. “So?”

“There are six of us.”

* * *

Rooster studied the shadows cast throughout the kitchen, opaque swathes of darkness slashing the light. Still on the floor and covered in a thin sheen of perspiration, his flesh was clammy and hot but his breathing and heartbeat had finally returned to normal. He wasn’t sure why the pentagram specifically had triggered such terror, he only knew it had. His fear had weakened, though it was still close by, and a steady throb above his eyes signaled another headache was on its way. Luckily the pain hadn’t kicked in yet.

With a willful grunt he forced himself to his feet, and on shaky legs, returned to the table. Once he’d righted the chair he dropped back into it then cautiously reached for the book. The cover was old and shabby, rough in his hands. Without looking at the pentagram, he quickly flipped open the cover.

In rather ornate script, printed on the first page:

“The other shape,
If shape it might be call’d, that shape had none,
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be call’d that shadow seem’d;
For each seem’d either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as Hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem’d his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand; and from his seat
The monster, moving onward, came as fast