Saying Goodbye to the Sun Page 7

  I decided whoever was in there could not have Grabby’s crucifix. If I saved one thing tonight, that would be it. I don’t know why, but it seemed important.

  I was almost to the alley when I heard footsteps. I didn’t want the killer to leave, I wanted to keep this in the darkness. I had no intention of killing whoever it was, but once the bloodlust was on me, I didn’t want to take any chances of anyone seeing me do something terrible. As it was, a dozen or so lights flickered on during Grabby’s death cry. Someone must have called the police by now. It would only be a matter of minutes before the sirens warbled in the background as New York’s Finest raced to the scene. I had to make this quick.

  I sprinted into the alley, not wanting to let the person get out into the street where someone might see what I did to him. My hurried estimation of his position proved just a tad off, however, and instead of jumping menacingly from the shadows right in front of him, I plowed into him and sent us both scrambling to remain upright. Not a good way to begin what was supposed to be a terrifying display of fighting prowess. In addition, when we fell to the pavement I found out the guy had mass. He was thick, and had good balance. I could tell by the way he shifted his weight when I blundered into him. It kept him from falling down, unlike me.

  I hit the pavement pretty hard, but I was up and on my feet again in a flash, whirling around to face him. Somehow, he was faster than me, and had already closed the distance between us. I didn’t even get a glimpse of him before a bright light exploded in my right eye and everything on that side went dark. For one frantic moment I thought he popped it, but I didn’t have time to wonder about it. I staggered backward and tried to get my hands up to block the next blow, sure it was coming. Then I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen (roughly the size of a foot), and took an unexpected flight into the side of a building. I hit the brick wall hard enough to crack three ribs and knock the wind out of me, then fell to the ground with a sick thud, and stayed there on my hands and knees trying to stop my spinning head.

  Man, that hurt. I couldn’t stop to think about it, though. Already I heard his footsteps coming closer. I opened my eyes and saw him running at me faster than I would have thought possible for a man as large as he was. All I could make out in the dim light was a silhouette, but to me it seemed the guy carried at least three hundred pounds with him. How could such a fat guy move so fast?

  I got my feet under me and jumped straight up and over the charging Fat Man, somehow landing on my feet behind him. Unable to diffuse his momentum, he slammed face first into the bricks and mortar. I heard a crack and couldn’t help but smile as he fell backward, shaking his head. My smile fell away when I looked at the wall, however, and realized it was the brick that cracked, and not the Fat Man’s face. With an angry grunt he regained his feet. I tensed, not sure what I would do this time. I doubted he would fall for the same trick twice.

  I backed away, waiting for him to come. I’d already figured on going low if he charged at me again, maybe even getting in a shot of my own this time, if all went well. My face and ribs hurt, and I wanted to get a little of my own back. I had no intention of retreating, but wanted to let him see me backing off a bit and think I meant to break for the street, it would make him come after me that much sooner. I also hoped he would become reckless if he saw me getting away. Then my feet bumped against something firm, yet yielding. I risked a quick glance and saw that I had backed into what was left of Grabby.

  His throat had been torn open. The whites of his vertebrae could be seen in the mass of ripped veins and muscle tissue that looked like it had been chewed away.

  “Holy shit,” I said to the Fat Man, “Did you fucking eat him?” I got no answer, of course.

  With an angry snarl the Fat Man came at me again, but I no longer felt like fighting. The sight of Grabby’s mutilated throat had drained away much of my mounting aggression, and I wanted no part of something that could do such a thing. The thought occurred to me that I’d almost done something similar, myself.

  I stepped over the body with every intention of making a break for the street. I felt pretty sure I could outrun the maniac, but I wanted to get out in the open as soon as I could. With any luck, he wouldn’t even chase me in public, where anyone would be able to see him.

  As I stepped over Grabby’s corpse, I stepped into the light from the street, and dim though it was, it was enough for the Fat Man to get a good look at me. I couldn’t see him, but I no longer had any desire to. All I wanted at that point was to get away and go home. To sit on my own couch, perhaps with a bag of ice for my throbbing right temple. God, just get me to the street. From there I can handle it myself.

  The Fat Man stopped cold, and for a split second I had this wild idea God had answered my prayer and stepped in, putting his hand in front of the guy and stopping him in his tracks. That theory flew out the window when I heard him say a single word. A word that sent fear rippling along my back. One so powerful in its implications that I froze , too afraid to do anything else but stare at the silhouette of the Fat Man, who’d already broken my spirit, if not my body.

  “You!” He said, his voice dripping venom. He took a step toward me, then another. He was taking his time, no more mad rush, and I still couldn’t move, not even when he stepped from the darkness and into the weak light. I didn’t need the light, though. I knew that voice; there was no forgetting the scratchy, irritating tone that spoke of years of cigarettes and anger. I knew who it was even before the pale slant of moonlight revealed his features. The face had been haunting my thoughts like a ghost. The blood dripping from his chin was new, but that was the only thing different. I stood, motionless, as I stared into the dirty, round, stubble-covered face of Joel Kagan.

  Chapter Seven:

  Reunion

  Kagan! I thought with a mixture of fear and relief. How is that possible? As far as I could remember, I killed him. Hadn’t I? I sure remembered killing him. But then, my memory was pretty fucked up. I wasn’t sure I could really trust it. I recalled the lifeless body lying in an alley, the red-stained crucifix dripping blood into a puddle. I heard again the sharp clang as the crucifix hit the ground. Was it real? Was any of it real? I just couldn’t tell anymore. If I had killed him, how the fuck could he be standing in front of me?

  Could it be a dream? It had to be.

  I believed it. I had to. But Kagan didn’t look like a dream as he advanced on me. The anger and hatred on his face looked real enough. The sheer malevolence of his ire felt real enough to hurt, although I supposed that would be the case in any dream. While I was trying to convince myself that’s what it was, I still didn’t like the idea of letting him get his hands on me. I’d read somewhere when a person is deep enough into a dream, it can seem so real to the mind that if he dies in the dream, he will die in real life, too. I wasn’t sure if I believed that, but with Kagan only ten feet away and getting closer with every breath, I wasn’t going to take any chances.

  I bolted for the street.

  Kagan howled with rage and gave chase. His scream pebbled the flesh of my arms and prickled my spine. It sounded angry, hollow, and completely insane. It was enough to send me racing full speed up the street, no longer caring who saw me. So I was covered in blood. I didn’t give a shit. It beat letting Kagan grab me.

  Other than that first scream, he hadn’t made a sound since charging out of the alley after me. Had he given up the chase? I doubted it, but a man that size ought to be making some kind of noise back there. Matters of stamina aside, he weighed an easy three hundred pounds. Surely his feet pounding into the sidewalk would give him away if nothing else did. I listened for the span of a few heartbeats as the world sped by in a blur. Still I heard nothing, not a single sound of pursuit. I decided to risk a glance back.

  Kagan hadn’t given up, far from it. He was almost right on top of me. If I hadn’t turned to look I wouldn’t have known. He’d managed to close the distance between us, and was almost close enough to reach out with one of those huge, grubby ha
nds and grab me. In another thirty seconds or so he’d wrap those meathooks around my shoulder and bear me to the ground like a linebacker.

  How could he be so damn quiet in a dead run? I didn’t waste any time speculating on it. I had perhaps half a minute before he got me, maybe less, I had to think of something to save my ass, and I had to think of it quick.

  The answer came, as they so often do, in a flash of inspiration. I wondered about Kagan’s reflexes. Were they as fast as the rest of him? The man was strong as a hippo and ran like a cheetah, but how agile was he? My best chance of escape might lie in finding out. It would hurt, but then, since this was only a dream, I didn’t expect it would hurt much. Hell, if I was lucky, it might even wake me up.

  I ran for another fifteen seconds, wanting to make sure he was too close to react in time. Come on, I found myself thinking, Come on already! Where are you? Then I felt his hand touch my shoulder, and I knew it was now or never.

  I stopped running and dropped to the pavement like a stone, landing hard on my right arm and banging that side of my face against the sidewalk. Twin flashes of intense, searing pain shot through my cheek and arm, and I heard the snap as one of the bones in my forearm gave way. The pain was immense. Could I hurt this much in a dream? I didn’t know, but I didn’t think so. The whole scenario, crazy as it was, began to take solid form in my mind and present itself as real.

  Oh, Shit, I thought. Then I said it aloud. “Oh, shit oh shit oh shit!”

  As I’d hoped, Kagan was unable to stop or change his direction in time to avoid me; he was running too fast. I felt a sharp pain lance across my cracked ribs like a lightning bolt as his boot connected. The bump of his foot also jolted my arm, and I called Kagan every name I could think of.

  In utter silence he bowled over my back to land hard about two meters away. He hit the sidewalk hard, and sound returned to the city light the flick of a switch. Distant cars, a dog barking, even the low hum of neon that most people never even notice until it’s gone. I heard him curse, then grunt with pain as his coat settled around him with a low rustle. But best of all, I heard a satisfying crack. I figured he must have broken something, and that could only be good news for me.

  Kagan bounced one time, and rolled a few feet before coming to a stop. Then I saw the spider’s web of cracks in the pavement, and I realized what had made the cracking sound I’d heard.

  “Holy shit,” I muttered through clenched teeth. At least he stayed down.

  Knowing he wouldn’t stay down for long, I got to my feet as fast as my poor, battered body would allow, which was actually faster than I’d expected. In fact, the pain didn’t feel as bad anymore. It still hurt, but not with the same incapacitating fury of a few minutes earlier. It took less than a second for me to come up with the answer. Adrenaline, of course. I might not feel the pain as bad now, but I will certainly feel it in the morning. If I live that long. I was pretty sure Kagan, who groaned and started to get to his feet, would do his level best to see otherwise.

  Fortunately for me, neither of my legs were broken, so I knew I could still run. And that’s exactly what I did. I ran the opposite direction, which was back toward Grabby’s alley. I held my right arm close to my body in order to minimize jostling it as much as possible. Even so, it moved up and down with every step and brought fresh pain to my poor tortured arm and torso. Thankfully, the adrenaline did a good job keeping the pain low enough to be tolerable, though I dreaded the time when it would wear off and I would get the full force of it.

  I hoped Kagan wouldn’t be at full capacity after his fall; he’d hit his head pretty hard. Too bad that the crack I heard wasn’t his skull, that would have solved a number of problems. In fact, had Kagan died (again?) there on that sidewalk, I most likely would have run straight home, and this entire story would have taken a different turn.

  Kagan was not dead, of course. Though how the man could have lived through having a solid piece of metal rammed sideways through his brain was beyond my ability to grasp. Having tried to fight him, though, I didn’t find it all that hard to believe. The man was like a concrete wall with hands. And he was fast. Way too fast for a guy that big and solid. It was creepy. Not just creepy but scary. Unnatural.

  Even as I ran I heard him grunt his way to his feet. I hoped to be able to turn onto a branching street up ahead and sprint with all speed to my own section of town. I’d been lucky so far, but I couldn’t depend on luck. I hoped I wouldn’t have to. He might have been fast and strong, but I was going to see how good his sense of direction was. I was pretty confident that, broken arm and ribs or no, once I made it to my own neighborhood I would be able to lose him without much difficulty.

  But he didn’t come after me. I heard the crunch of rocks under his boots, but it was a long way off. I shook my head at the thought of the man’s head cracking the sidewalk. If he could do that to concrete, what could he do to me? An image of Grabby’s mutilated throat formed in my mind, and I suddenly realized that whatever he did to Grabby was nothing compared to the fate that awaited me if he caught me. The cops would be lucky to find any pieces of me left. I couldn’t close with the man; it would be like trying to wrestle with a boulder.

  I was almost to the side street I planned to take, and I still didn’t hear any sounds of pursuit from behind. I doubted he’d had enough. That wild-eyed, enraged wall of a man would not have enough until either he was dead or I was. Furthermore, I didn’t think his fall had injured him all that much. I risked a look back.

  Kagan stood about a hundred yards away, hunched into his coat and standing right where I left him, next to the cracks his head made in the sidewalk. He looked like a fat version of one of those old secret agent stereotypes. Long coat, hunched shoulders, standing in the weak glow of a streetlight. All he was missing were dark glasses and a thin trail of smoke rising from the business end of a half-finished Marlboro. He wasn’t chasing me, but he kept his eyes on me. I had just enough time to wonder why before bright pain flared to life in the back of my head and I came to a sudden, painful stop.

  ***

  I found myself lying flat on my back looking up at a face that scared me even more than Kagan’s, and I hadn’t thought that possible. Unlike Kagan, this new face was lean and well groomed, though pale. Everything about it spoke of control. The jet-black hair was slicked-back, elegant, as though the owner was on his way to a cocktail party for A-listers. The sharp, ebony eyebrows slashed downward above eyes so black they seemed all pupil. A dark depth gleamed in those empty eyes. Looking into them felt like seeing into your own tomb. Like the eyebrows, his nose was sharp and precise; neither large nor small, it just seemed to fit right in with the rest of his angular features. His thin, tight lips curved up into a smile that might have been pleasant had it not been for the two keen white points that protruded from it.

  His long overcoat (so out of place in NYC during high summer) was flawlessly cut, and spoke of a tailored fit. It was so black it seemed not so much to blend in with the night, but to soak up the darkness around it. His long, slender hands extended from perfect cuffs and were folded across his abdomen. Overall the impression was eerie. Terrifying, even. I saw no sign of a weapon, and I concluded he must have hit me with his fist.

  This man not only walked with Death, he had befriended it. He’d invited it over for dinner and embraced it as a brother.

  For a long moment all I could do was stare, too scared to move or even blink for fear that in the time it took to do so I would have drawn my last breath. There was a paralyzing feel to the man that stole the air from my lungs and left me feeling smothered and powerless, like an animal in a trap. The air suddenly felt twenty degrees colder, and I shivered.

  Then the air turned foul, and a more familiar scent surfaced. Kagan was coming. He did not bother to be silent anymore, why should he? I was a pinned butterfly under glass. I wasn’t going anywhere. I might as well have been mired in cement. His prey was caught. All that was left was for me to find out if these two were working toge
ther or not. I prayed that they weren’t, it was my only chance.

  My worst fears were confirmed when I heard Kagan’s voice from somewhere behind me.

  “It’s him, Carl,” he said, and the face nodded.

  Carl? This monster’s name was Carl?

  “So I see,” Carl replied. “How fortunate.” Then he tossed me an amused wink. “Not for you, Vincent.” He said this with a light laugh, not much more than a giggle, but it stole my last bit of hope and flushed the blood from my face. I could actually feel the warmth draining from it as I wondered how he knew me. I tried to ask, but couldn’t get the question past my lips, which were so dry they felt like paper. He must have read the confusion on my face, mixed with a healthy dose of Oh, Fuck Me!

  “Don’t you remember me, Vincent?”

  I tried to shake my head, but I couldn’t.

  “Ah, probably not. I suppose I didn’t make a decent impression on you the last time we met.” His expression was almost sad, as though it hurt his feelings that I didn’t remember him, but then his face brightened and that terrifying, disturbing smile resurfaced.

  “No matter,” he said, snapping his fingers, “I will change that.” Kagan laughed somewhere behind me, sharing an ominous private joke with his cohort. “You will not forget me again, Vincent. I shall take great pleasure in making my second impression a more lasting one.” As he spoke, his eyes shifted to my crotch, and his smile flattened, but didn’t vanish. His black eyes glittered, and a chuckled escaped his throat. I didn’t know what he was looking at until I noticed the spreading warmth in my pants and realized I had lost control of my bladder.

  Then Kagan moved to stand next to Carl, laughing all the more when he realized I’d pissed all over myself like a scared mutt. The wide grins on their faces and Carl’s sharp, pointed fangs reinforced what I already knew; I would not enjoy getting reacquainted with Carl in the least. I wondered how long it would take for me to die. Believe it or not, I found myself hoping it would be sooner rather than later.