We Feed Them
Seven stories beneath the surface, a b’jillion bodies lay naked in rows on stainless steel tables.
Well, maybe not a b’jillion, but a lot. They seemed to fill the room.
I was certain the guy ran in here. There was nowhere else to go.
I scanned the room, sighting over my Kimber .45.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the walls to the left, right or front. Tell you what, that’ll raise the hair on the back of your neck. But it was what it was. Dim light emanated only from two rows of bare bulbs that dangled a few inches below the ceiling. They rendered the room in blurred shades of gray. The rows of bulbs were about sixty feet apart. With twenty feet between bulbs, they marched away toward the back of the room and were swallowed in the darkness.
A wide aisle, maybe five feet across, split the tables directly in front of me and was lost in the back of the room. Probably the perp had run straight down that aisle.
I shifted my attention to the tables. The first row was about ten feet from me. Then there was an aisle that looked to be about three feet wide, but it’s hard to judge when you’re looking across it from the side. Then the next row A quick estimate rang up maybe forty rows of tables from that first one to the last one that I could see beneath the dim bulbs.
To the left and right, the darkness closed in more quickly.
From the wide aisle that began at the base of the stairs, twenty-two tables stretched away to the left before the rest were shrouded in darkness. The same held true to the right.
Why only the two rows of bulbs? Were there more farther out to the sides that simply weren’t working?
I got my head back on the situation. The guy I was after had ducked in here. I was certain of it.
At least he wasn’t armed. Probably. If he had been, wouldn’t he have shot me by now?
I looked at the tables again.
Did the guy have something to do with this or was his presence here coincidental?
Then again, in all my years as a detective, I’d never seen a coincidence. Not really.
The surface of each table rocked slowly toward me—so to its right—to about thirty degrees. Then it rocked away, back through the center and to the left to thirty degrees. The cycle completed every ten seconds or so.
When the bodies were angled toward me, they stopped for an instant.
I glanced over them as best I could.
In perfect synchronization, the chests raised and lowered. There were some nice chests among the women. Some ugly guts among the men. No pool boys in this room. Unless he kept them in the back.
The tables began their ascent to center.
As I watched, they passed through the center and continued toward the other side.
There they paused, then began the journey back toward me.
Every head lay to the left end of the table. Each was devoid of hair, each turned to face away from the entrance to the room. They hadn’t moved even when the tables were tilted toward me.
And here they come.
Tilting back to papa.
What a strange thought.
There’s the pause again and— Nope, the heads didn’t move.
A frown creased my brow. What are they all doing here? Or why were they brought here?
One problem at a time. I returned to studying them while I had the opportunity.
Every right arm lay palm down on the table alongside the body. A tube ran from a port on the back of the right hand into a machine affixed to the bottom of the table. Is this guy maybe a vampire or something? Or maybe selling black market blood?
But the machines were affixed to the bottom of tables, not set beneath them. So they rocked with the tables.
Back toward me again.
Every left elbow was bent, every left hand resting palm down on the upper left thigh. And a tube ran from the machine into a port on the back of the left hand.
Some sort of dialysis maybe? Some sort of cleansing process? Out with the bad, in with the good?
The ones I could see appeared to be young. Or youngish. If there was anybody older than forty in here, they were in the back with the pool boys.
Today’s supposed to be my day off. But my days off usually depend on the bad guys taking a day off too, and that doesn’t happen very often.
I planned a cookout at my place. Just a few neighborhood friends. But I had to get some beer because— well, a cookout without suds is a just a lonely guy eating in the back yard by himself.
So I drove to the local corner grocery. J5 it was called. Because it was on the corner of Avenue J and 5th Street. I kid you not.
I pulled my Ford sedan into the parking lot, then got out and headed for the front door. Mickey liked me coming it—kept the customers honest he said—so he always gave me twenty percent off whatever I bought. But I had to pay tax for the whole amount. Mickey’s no fool.
Mickey, yeah, his name’s actually Mickey Spilane. Only one L, but still. Pretty cool.
Almost every time I went in I told him we ought’a change jobs. He always laughed like he’d never heard it before. But he also always said, “I don’t think so.” I think he just likes to remind me he’s smarter than I am.
He is, too.
Just as I reached for that big vertical door handle, there was a scream down the street.
I stopped and looked around, but J5 is set back about 30 feet off the street so I couldn’t see anything.
I let go of the door handle, pulled my Kimber and raced back past my car.
There he was. Bad guy on the sidewalk almost two blocks away, trying to pull a woman into a plain white Chevy van.
This is a residential area on a weekday, so there was nobody else on the street.
I ran toward him, being as quiet as I could. But at six-two and two hundred and twenty pounds, I don’t do anything quietly.
Slight build, five-nine to five-eleven, jeans and some kind of sneakers, a white short-sleeved shirt. Tee shirt? He looked around as if he heard me thinking. Probably at the sound of my footfalls. No, a button down shirt. Dark hair and complexion, judging from his arms. Maybe Hispanic.
And the guy was wearing a ski mask. So maybe not dark hair. But either dark skin or really well-tanned.
He turned back to the woman and shoved her away hard so she almost fell against a rough brick wall. Then he ran around the front of the van.
So he was by himself. Stupid is as stupid does.
The van had no back windows. The plate was in-state, JRC—
I couldn’t quite make out the numbers.
And he was gonna split before I could get there.
I tried to run faster but I didn’t have any faster left. Not with four eggs, a quarter-pound of ham and a half-plate of hash browns churning around in my gut.
Only the van didn’t start. It didn’t move.
My lucky day. Guy decided to do the smart thing and give himself up. JRC-495. Got it.
I raced up to the back of the van and stopped, turning my back to it. I winces as I accidentally slammed my back against it. If he didn’t know I was here before, he knew now.
I glanced at the woman, but she raised her left hand to indicate she was all right. Then she frowned and raised her right hand to point farther down the block. “He’s getting away!”
Or maybe she was his accomplice.
I nodded, then tried the back door, hoping she wouldn’t notice. It was locked.
She frowned again. “Did you hear me?”
I nodded, then crouched down, my Kimber raised before me in both hands. I took a deep breath.
Then, still crouched, I turned the corner of the van and worked my way along the driver’s side to the door.
I reached up, pressed the button and swung the door open.
Nobody inside.
I stepped on the inset running board and glanced quickly past the bucket seat. Nobody in the back either. She would have been his first, at least for the day.
I stepped out, holstered the Kimber and moved across in front of the van. “You’re all right?”
She was all but jumping up and down. Cute, about five-six, brunette, long hair in a ponytail and a loose jogging suit. I wondered whether she was wearing one of those boob-flattening jogging bras under her Huskies tee shirt. I wondered whether she’d like to attend a neighborhood cookout with her personal hero presiding.
But she assumed that stance. Hands on her hips, she leaned forward slightly and glared at me. Then she said slowly, maybe so I’d understand, “I am fine. And he is getting away!” Again she flung up her right arm. Like she was telling a cur to “git.”
Okay, so not as cute as I thought. I slipped out what I hoped was a withering, “Yes ma’am.” I thought about flashing a one-finger salute, but the department frowns on that. Instead I turned to see for myself.
The guy was nowhere in sight. Maybe my luck was changing.
I wish I had one of those cars you can call with a whistle. Or that I knew Batman personally. Or something. It just wasn’t my day.
I set off at an easy lope toward the next corner. Obviously not fast enough.
From behind me came, “Um, if you make it to the corner, he turned right.”
I nodded. Maybe the department would make an exception about that finger thing. Probably not. I raised my left hand to let her know I’d heard her.
Now I almost wish I hadn’t.
I figured for sure he’d be gone. I’d get to the corner, see nothing, and go back to interview the viper. I mean, woman. I’d get a description from her. Maybe the guy had tattoos or scars or something that I couldn’t see from a distance. I’d combine her description with mine and put out an all-points BOLO for the guy.
Of course, I’d have to get home first. My mobile was laying on the pass-through counter between my kitchen and the dining room area of my living room. Hey, I was just going for beers.
The uniforms would find him. It was a win-win. I’d get to have my cookout today, albeit sans female company. And he could wait in a cell until I got around to chatting with him.
But that isn’t how it worked out.
As I rounded the corner and glanced half-heartedly down the street, he was ducking into another building almost three blocks down. Crap.
I glanced around. Civilians are right. There’s never a uniformed cop around when you need one. Especially one with a car.
With both Batman and the Lone Ranger laughing in my mind, I set off again. Not a big deal. There was no doubt the guy was gone. I just had to verify it. Then I could get back to the victim, if she was still there, get her description of the guy and put out that BOLO.
Probably he ducked into that building and out the back, then into another one. From there he would take a leisurely elevator ride to the roof. Then he would romp across a rooftop or two and come down in Paris or some other place where I could never find him. Good for him.
But that isn’t how it worked out either.
The building he’d ducked into was on the corner of 2nd and Main, right downtown. I stopped outside for a moment to gather my breath and nodded at a couple of women who looked curiously at me as they passed going the other direction.
Then I stepped inside and drew my Kimber again.
There was a door to my immediate left. I looked in. The place had been a warehouse or maybe a factory, judging from the dust and the dim light filtering through the oil film on the windows. A quick glance around proved there was nobody inside now. The only other passageway was a flight of stairs. The only other light was a bare bulb dangling above the landing some eight steps below.
Well, maybe Mr. Would-Be Kidnapper had screwed up. I already knew he was a rat. Maybe now he was a trapped rat.
I moved down the stairs.
At the landing, I didn’t stop. There was another flight of stairs, another landing, another bulb.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Same thing twelve more times. I counted. That’s how I know this place is seven stories down.
And there were no doors off any of the landings. All roads lead to zombie land, or whatever this place was.
Toward where I thought the back left corner of the room might be, a light flashed.
At least I think so.
There it was again. Definitely a flash of something.
I crouched and moved quickly to the left along the first row of tables, trying to concentrate on the back left corner of the place. It wasn’t easy. As I said, some of the women were very well endowed. Fortunately, my hands were currently busy with my Kimber .45 caliber bad guy disposal delivery system.
But only once I stopped cold. At the edge of the area lighted by the nearest 40 watt bulb, a small pole flash past in my right periphery. I wish I hadn’t stopped.
Apparently the guy was having a very good dream. I’m only glad he wasn’t rocked the full thirty degrees to his right. Guy might’ve knocked me over.
I briefly wondered whether that moved with the rocking motion. But to my credit, I didn’t wait around to check it out. Besides, some things a guy would just rather forget. It was probably a trick of the light anyway. You know.
Then the flash came again.
Was the guy taking pictures so he’d have something to stare at while he was in prison?
Maybe that corner is where he kept the pool boys.
But seriously, what the hell is he doing with all these people?
Another flash.
Out of the dark, a wall suddenly rose up in front of me. Fortunately, when I left the circle of light, I had shifted my Kimber to my right hand and had my left out in front of me. I jammed the pinkie on my left hand. I also probably bruised my left shoulder when I jerked my hand back and fell against the wall. I couldn’t know for sure until I got home and took off my shirt.
Still, it hurt.
I rested there for a moment, my attention riveted along that wall toward the back corner.
Another flash.
What in the hell is he doing?
I shifted the Kimber to my left hand and moved forward, duck walking. After a few feet, I realized I had passed the last table. So there was an aisle back here along the wall. Good.
I turned toward the back corner and started duck walking again.
When I passed the twelfth row of tables, another thought hit me. Having a clear aisle back here with the wall to one side was both good and bad.
If he knew where I was, and if he had a gun back there somewhere, all he’d have to do is shoot along the wall. And if he had a Mac10 or some other demon from hell like that, I was done for.
But I didn’t think he had a gun. If my desires mattered out there in the universe, I certainly didn’t want him to have a gun. Then again I thought if he had a gun, he’d have used it when I was at the base of the stairs, silhouetted in light.
Then I was passing the twenty-seventh table on my right. The twenty-seventh row. So about thirteen to go, at least of the ones I had been able to see from the front of the room.
Maybe he had a shotgun.
Maybe he was just waiting for me to get closer.
I’m known down at the department for my sense of humor, but seriously, that would not be funny.
I shifted and then stood for a quick moment, just to stretch out my knees. Then I crouched. No more duck walking. I mean, I’m six-two. How low can I get?
Another flash.
I continued forward.
What the hell was that? What was he doing?
Only a few rows to go of my original forty, and the back wall was still hidden somewhere in the distance.
Then something else dawned on me. Even though I’d gotten closer, the flashes hadn’t gotten any larger. And they hadn’t moved laterally at all.
I thought maybe the guy was unplugging the evidence.
Another flash.
Jeez, that one was right in front of me.
A strobe? It’s a lousy—
“You will please put your hands in the air and disrobe.”
I’d make a lousy prisoner. I never do what I’m told. That’s one of the reasons I’m not still married. It’s also one of the reasons I’m not still in the Army.
The Kimber was in my right hand. To be sure I kept it as far from him as possible, I would spin to my left. It would take longer to bring it to bear, but he’d have less chance of knocking it loose from my grip.
Good plan, but I misjudged the distance to the wall.
I spun to the left, and the plaintive clink of the barrel of my Kimber against the concrete wall sent a painful shiver from the center of my hand up my arm. Both of which went numb.
The Kimber dropped to the floor.
Something stung the left side of my throat.
When I awoke, if you can call it that, I was lying naked on a stainless steel table.
There’s a tube coming out of my right hand, a tube going into my left hand.
The motion is gentle. It breathes for us, circulates us.
An easy tilting to the right, a pause, an easy tilting back to the left.
In me, it’s waves lapping lazily up on a beach, then stretching, yawning and receding. Not the worst way to spend my time.
Oh, and there’s a filament. If I’d seen that— well, I didn’t. It’s thin as a thread of silk. It comes from my left temple and up to the ceiling. It connects me to my friends. Connects us to each other. Connects us to them.
We feed them, and it doesn’t hurt at all.
* * * * * * *