What Happens in the Darkness (3 page)

Janelle screamed and her body shook. She picked up a chunk of rock and swung it wildly in front of her. She threw the rock and it clipped his shoulder. She grabbed another one and held it up, ready to throw it.

For a moment he looked confused, even upset. His lips quivered. Then he began to cry, his head thrown back, great sobs causing him to shake. But he was clearly teasing her. He looked at her and grinned. “Whiny little girl. Put down the rock.”

“Get away from me!”

He reached out again, and she smashed the rock against his fingers. He pulled his hand back. “That wasn’t nice.” He stood upright and towered over her. “That was mean.”

Janelle blinked.

“Come with me now and I’ll forgive you.” He grinned again.

“Please let me go,” she whispered.

“Go? You don’t want that. Come with me, little girl. I have something for you.” His grin disappeared as he snarled and took a giant step toward her, arms reaching out to catch her.

She dropped low and he missed, catching instead an armful of air. Janelle dived forward and escaped through his long bony legs.

“You can’t escape!” he yelled, and she fell to her knees and covered her ears, his voice like knives scraping her brain.

Seconds later he was behind her, and she got up and ran. His fingers brushed against her back, hand skimming her neck. She ran faster, leaving a handful of hair behind in his fingers.

He yelled again. This time she covered her ears without falling.

Her lungs burned. She wanted to glance back, to see how close he was. She heard him breathing, panting.

She felt him closing in.

Janelle saw three figures in the darkness up ahead. Concrete and fires flanked her on both sides. She had nowhere to run.

She shrieked and threw her hands over her head as three men raced toward her.

“We won’t hurt you!” one yelled. He was wearing a Yankees baseball cap. The other two men were yelling too, promising not to hurt her. She didn’t believe any of them.

She was unable to look, unable to believe anyone else was there. Someone other than that thing who had terrorized her moments before. One of these had to be a dream, and she was afraid to discover which one.

“Please,” the same man said. “I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

“Yeah, come on, kid,” another one said. “It’s okay.”

She glanced around. The scary rat-eating man had vanished.

Janelle’s trembling legs threatened to betray her.

“Are you alone?” the third man asked.

Why did he want to know if she was alone? “My brothers are across the street waiting for me. They’re big too. And real strong.”

The man smiled. “I promise, I’m not going to hurt you.”

She still didn’t trust him. Not him, not any of them. Maybe they were with the scary man.

“Don’t come near me!”

“Okay, I won’t. See? I won’t hurt you,” the man with the cap said.

“Take it easy, kid. No one’s gonna hurt you.”

The three men stepped back.

“Where did he go?” she asked.

“Who?”

“The man. That awful man! Did you see him?” Janelle had been looking but it seemed as if that horrible man was gone.

“What man?”

“He was right behind me. He was really tall, and he was, he was—” She couldn’t think of a word to describe him.

The man with the cap shook his head. “I didn’t see anyone else. No one’s there. Just us.”

Janelle began to cry. “But he was there. He was after me!”

“No one’s there now.”

She stepped away from the men, trusting no one. She wanted to run, even looked around to choose a direction.

But the man with the Yankees cap said, “It’s not safe out there, kiddo. We won’t come near you until you’re ready. Okay? But please don’t run.”

Don’t run.

She gazed toward Harlem and wiped the tears off her face. She watched the orange glow of hundreds of fires, so close yet so far away.

Chapter 2 

Dread
.

Dread of being forced to live a life no longer worth living, of plodding through, faking the motions. Who are you trying to kid, when everyone else is doing the same? Fight the hopeless fight. Then face the dread of having to share with someone the news that you can’t help, that there’s nothing you can do. That queasy knot in your stomach that feels like you’ve eaten a ball of grease. The feeling—the knowledge—that nothing you say can make a difference now. It’s too late.

Jeff knew the feeling and knew he had to face it.

How do you tell someone he’s doomed?

“Where’ve you been?” Martin muttered, and Jeff sensed the despair, but more so the anger. The way Martin’s fingers clutched the cell bars like a weapon. The way his clenched jaw muscles worked. The way his speech was deliberate, cautionary. This was a man practiced in the art of patience. Jeff knew him well.

“Things have been a little crazy lately,” Jeff said.

“A little crazy? Is that what you’d call it? I watch the news. Or did until you cut the satellite.”

“Wasn’t me. Power’s out all over.” Jeff collapsed in the armchair outside the bars and pulled up a folding chair to use as a footrest. Sweat coated his brow despite the cool temperature of the room.

Martin smirked. “Not your fault. So what’s going on out there? How bad?”

“Bad.” He shut his eyes and clasped his hands beneath his chin as if in prayer. But prayer was not something Jeff was familiar with. He glanced at Martin. “We’re fucked.”

Martin sat on the confined side of the bars, opposite Jeff. A place where the two had faced one another in a comfortable familiarity, shooting the shit or just playing cards. Jeff had one hell of a job. Until recently, it had been rather cushy.

“You still haven’t seen combat?”

“Combat?” Jeff snorted. “I’ll be lucky if they ever let me off base again. I’m just as trapped as you are.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Awkward silence fell as Jeff realized his gaffe.

He’d never wanted this assignment. He’d wanted to travel, wanted to have a life. His parents were dead, and he had no other family. Never married. He’d been the ideal choice for a job that normally meant secrecy and isolation. The army had promised he would be given a better assignment after two years, but that had turned into twenty.

“So what about us? What happens now? To me and my family.”

Martin glanced over his shoulders into the shadows, as if his family stood behind him. They probably did, those stealthy fuckers. Jeff snorted. “I don’t know,” he said wearily, not caring much for what would happen to Martin and his
family
. Not anymore. Sick of playing tedious babysitting games.

“We have no chance in here.” Martin’s voice rose, growing more forceful with every word.

“I can’t let you go.”

Martin slammed his fists into the bars. “God
damn
you! We’ll die in here!”

“You know I can’t let you out. But I’ll think of something. You’ll be okay.”

“Bullshit,” Martin said, hands rattling the bars as if he’d be able to separate them. Jeff was grateful he couldn’t get out. “We’d be willing to take our chances out there along with everyone else. You can’t do this—” Silence again. Martin breathed deeply, clearly attempting composure. “We’re starving in here.”

“I said I’d think of something.”

“The news said prisons have been emptied.”

“They have, but—”

“There’s no reason to keep us here!”

“You know I can’t let you go.”

Martin yelled, kicked the bars. “Goddamn you. You’re killing us! We have to feed. We have a right to survive like anyone else!”

From the shadows in the back of the cave Martin’s family moved toward them. Jeff knew them all but didn’t feel like sticking around to continue this argument.

“I’m sorry,” he said, moving away. “I’ll find you some food. There’s nothing else I can do.” He quickly left, separating himself from the misery of the cavernous cell, not wanting to deal with Martin or his
family
.

He heard them shouting at him, yelling for him to come back. Mostly they were okay to deal with, pleasant enough.
Mostly
.

Few people knew about Martin and his
family
, as they referred to one another, though perhaps two of the seven were actually related. The military housed them, but only a handful knew what they were, why they were here. Jeff knew the army was great at keeping secrets.

He slammed the door and sat at his desk, dropping his head into his palms. Not only had he inherited the office from his father, he’d inherited the assignment.

Jeff’s disillusionment with the job shouldn’t have been such a surprise. Others before him—his own father included—had felt just as betrayed. None had ever moved on from
the assignment
. Somehow Jeff had thought it would be different. Somehow he thought he would transcend the disappointment, make them keep their word. After all that damned training … counterterrorism, interrogation … he’d become quite the expert in handling IEDs, C4s … fat lot of good that was doing him now.

Jeff sat in the same chair that had been his father’s.

The first time he’d met Martin was the day he’d arrived on the base sporting a fat lip and a bloody nose, a gift from a group of boys who’d stolen his bicycle.

Guards knew he was Walter’s son and allowed him access to the base, to his father’s office.

The painting on the office wall behind the desk was a gaudy splash of flowers and colors, an uncomfortable splotch of watercolors disguised as art. Sunk deeply in the chair, young Jeff swiveled around to stare at the eyesore, trying to imagine his father picking out this particular monstrosity to hang on the wall.

He took a closer look. This was no painting. He leaned forward and touched the surface. It was cold and smooth. A mural rather than a picture in a frame. He ran his hand over it and realized it was glass. He groped a bit lower, and his fingers touched a doorknob. It was unlocked, and he slowly pushed open the door.

It opened into a cavernous room.

Several feet away, cell bars separated him from a tremendous living room. It was dimly lit, but he saw several sofas and a large television, an assortment of coffee tables and an entire wall of books.

Jeff stepped inside. He expected to be stopped by a guard, or his father, but no one was around. He studied the room and wondered who lived inside.

In a dark corner of the caged room a figure sat in an overstuffed armchair, feet stretched out on an ottoman. His features were undistinguishable in the inadequate light. The man’s head turned in Jeff’s direction.

He sat up, dropping his feet to the floor. “Well now,” he said. His voice, though quiet, still managed to reverberate off the cavernous walls. “Who are you?”

Jeff stepped away from the bars, backing up until he was pressed against the door he had come through.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m just saying hello.” He prowled across the living room, movements furtive, delicate, and he stopped several feet from the bars.

Now Jeff could make out his features. Dark eyes. Or was that from the poor lighting? Long, aquiline nose, angular jaw. Blond hair, almost yellow, like Mountain Dew.

“Are you Martin?” he whispered. His father had mentioned—barely—a prisoner named Martin, so Jeff assumed this was him. Jeff’s voice resonated off the walls, making him wince. “I-I’m Walter’s son Jeff.”

“So I gathered.”

“I’d better go.”

“So soon?” He smiled. “Stay and chat for a moment. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“You have?” He shook his head. “I should go wait for my dad.” He turned away.

“Who beat you up?”

Jeff faced the door, and his shoulders drooped. He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Bully, right? Bet you were outnumbered.”

A sympathetic ear. Sometimes Walter didn’t have time for Jeff, even when Jeff desperately needed him. Like when Jeff got beaten up, which was often. Or worse, when Walter knew Jeff wasn’t defending himself and would get annoyed with his son for not trying. Sometimes Jeff wanted to cry on his father’s shoulder, and sometimes that shoulder wasn’t there.

Jeff nodded, turning back to face the prisoner. “It’s stupid. These kids say I can’t go down their street. That I have to go around or pay them to use their street.”

“Mmmm.” He approached the bars. “I
am
Martin. You guessed right. Your father’s mentioned you often.”

“Really?”

“I know all about you. Your baseball trophies, for instance.”

There were no trophies. Jeff knew Walter wanted him to be more athletic, but Jeff had no interest in sports and preferred to paint and draw. He would rather practice piano than play ball, so Walter dragged out his own childhood trophies and passed them off as his son’s. He even bragged about them, and displayed them on the mantle in the den.

“Trophies. Right.”

“What position do you play?”

Jeff was stumped. No one had ever asked him before. “Catcher,” he lied, shrugging, hoping Martin would change the subject.

“My father and I used to play catch,” Martin said. “But that was a long time ago.”

Jeff nodded. He was sure it must have been a long time ago, because this guy looked old, really old. He looked even older than Walter. Martin must have been at least
thirty
.

“What are you going to do?” Martin asked.

“Huh?”

“The bullies. What’s your plan?” There was a lilting quality to his voice. It almost felt as though Martin was trying to hypnotize him. Or as if he was about to break into song.

“I dunno … go around I guess.”

“You can’t do that forever.”

Jeff studied the floor and picked at a scab on his wrist. “They’re bigger. Really bigger.”

“So?”

“So I’ll get killed!”

“Find the toughest one,” Martin said, grasping the bars, pressing his face against them. “That’s the one you fight. One fight is all it’ll take. One good punch. Simple.”

“
Simple
? No way! These guys are tough.”

“No, no, no. One punch. They’ll back down. Didn’t Walter ever teach you to fight?”