Darkness Once More (Archie Lemons #1)

  I opened the glove box and pulled out my gun. I was done fucking around.

  20.

  I got out of the car and stuck my gun in the back of my pants' waistband, slammed the door and took off at a jog, swollen ankles and broken ribs be damned, towards Carl Bollanger. I reached him right when he was opening his trunk to put a box in.

  "Hey hey, Kojak, you remember me?" I saw his eyes go wide as I reached around my back and pulled out my gun, grabbed it upside down and connected the butt right into Carl's nose so hard that his blood splattered out all over my face. He dropped to his knees.

  "What the fuck did you do with that girl?!"

  He was wailing like a fucking lunatic. I had to shut him up or I would draw some much-undesired attention to myself.

  "What the fuck did you do with Mallory Colley, you piece of shit?!"

  Still no response, just sounds of agony.

  "Look at me, Motherfucker! Answer me! I should have known from the start you had something to do with this, saying your fucking camera couldn't print out pictures. Bullshit! Look at me!"

  His eyes, filled with tears, finally looked up in my direction. "P-Please, I don't know what you're talking about. What girl?"

  "A couple weeks ago you told your employee to shoo away a young girl asking for money outside of your hotel! You remember! We've discussed this before, asshole."

  He just looked at me, sobbing. I swung my gun again and cracked him hard in his left ear. The force seemed to knock his knees out from under him and he hit the pavement hard with the right side of his head. The blood was still pouring.

  "I asked if you remember her!"

  "Y-Yeah, man. I remember her. She was a bum. I wanted her to leave."

  "You didn't think she'd be missed did you?! Isn't that what you told Hayley? Sounds pretty fucked up to me!"

  "W-What, man? I was just saying. I didn't mean anything by it."

  "Bullshit!" It was time to go fishing and hope I got lucky. "Who called the cab to come and pick her up?!"

  "What cab?!"

  This time I turned the gun around, business end aimed right at his broken face. "Don't you fucking lie to me! I talked to your little friend James!"

  His eyes went wide once more. I had gotten lucky. My chances of going to jail for this were now slightly lower.

  "Bullshit," he said. "I don't know what you're talking about. James. James who, man?! I don't know any cabbies named James."

  And there it was. I couldn't believe it. The most annoying Murder, She Wrote cliché ever had just turned in to a reality. I never thought that could or would ever really happen.

  "Well Kojak, I think you and I are gonna have to do to this the hard way then." I stuck the gun back into my pants and I bent over, grabbed him by his blood soaked collar and tried to pull him to his feet. It was like trying to get cooked spaghetti to stand up straight. His legs had failed him. I threw my momentum to my right side, tossed him against the rear bumper, and began shoving him in the trunk. I was so hopped up I didn't even notice my ribs.

  "What are you doing?! You can't do this to me! Please, man!" I picked up his legs and made sure his whole body was inside, and then I grabbed his keys from his trunk's keyhole. I looked down at him before I slammed the trunk shut.

  "Who loves ya, baby?

  21.

  I stepped into his car and had a seat, trying to calm myself down. Wasn't happening. I tried to wipe the blood off of my face but ended up just making it look worse. Bloody face and bloody arms and a half-dead asshole in the trunk. Let's hope I don't get pulled over.

  I took the car keys I grabbed from his trunk and started the engine. We were going for a little ride. As soon as the car fired up, the stereo kicked back on and the horrific sounds of "I Keep Forgettin'" immediately assaulted my eardrums as if someone was rapidly shoving knives into them. It is the musical equivalent to the pain I just inflicted on Carl. Carl and I, we're even now. I try to change the radio station and am even more dismayed to find it is a CD. I press eject and grab the disc then turn in my seat towards the trunk where Mr. Bollanger is currently trying not to choke to death on his own blood. "Michael Fucking McDonald?!" I throw the disc and it hits the back window. "Are you fucking kidding me?!"

  I turn myself around back to the proper driving position and put the car in reverse, backing out of the space like an old white woman, without giving any consideration to anything that may have been behind me, and tear ass out of the parking lot.

  While driving I dig out my phone and call Detective Anderson back. He seems to answer assuming he knows what I'm going to say.

  "...Look, Arch, we're going to do everything we can to..."

  I cut him off. "That's fine, Detective. I've just started my own investigation. When you went through the contents of stuff found on Wayne Brandon's person, did you come across anything that could have been a cell phone? I don't recall you mentioning that."

  "I don't think so. We only found the tin of Oxy. He was burned pretty badly, though."

  "The cell phone wouldn't have burnt completely. There would have been traces of it, easily enough to find."

  "Ok, so what?"

  "Well, I know for a fact he had a cell phone, I even have the number. And what college kid goes anywhere without his goddamn cell? Christ, I'm thirty-two and it took a car crashing into me to be separated from mine for more than five minutes."

  "What's your point, Archie? Are you okay?"

 

  "I'll be okay, and my point, Detective, is that, seeing as he is a college student, the chances are pretty good he has a smart phone. Probably an iPhone or a Blackberry. Something like that. Those things can be tracked. Big Brother Google has eyes on us at all times. Find the cell provider or whoever and someone down there or in the department can triangulate the signal and give us a location. If it's still turned on, that is. I know I have this program on my phone called MobileMe and you literally can use it to find your lost phone. Do you have a pen handy? I‘ll give you his number."

  "Triangulate?"

  "Yeah, I don't know what it means, either. Just do it! The pen, Detective. Got one?

  "Yeah. I've got one." I gave him the number. "Okay, good idea, Arch. I really did underestimate you."

  "One more thing." I said as I narrowly avoided being hit by the second car in a week as I sped through a red light. "His college roommate I visited today said Wayne was going downstairs after he left to call the mystery woman. I'm willing to bet we check those phone records and we find the number to these assholes that killed him."

  "Assholes?"

  "Well someone had to lure him away from school. Pretty sure it wasn't James McKigney's ugly ass."

  "Yeah, right, I wasn't thinking clearly. I'm sorry."

  "We get that number, we get a new address and possibly a tracking device on those motherfuckers."

  "This could take time, Archie. God knows how many different numbers he's called."

  "Easy, Detective. I'm willing to bet her number was the last number he ever dialed. Start with that one. Make it fast, too! I've got some shit in the oven and it's about to burn." I hung up. Not bad.

  I make it back to my house in record time, if there were actual records for such silly things, and I leave the car idling in the driveway as I step out and let myself into my home. I walk around to the door leading into the garage, open it up and press the garage door button. I run out to the car, get in and pull it up into the garage, then get out and push the button again. I don't think my neighbors would understand why I was pulling a bloody body from some random car’s trunk. They might get the wrong idea.

  Once confined in my darkened car barn, I unlock the trunk and open it up, pointing my gun at Carl as I instruct him to get the fuck out. He wearily complies with a little help and I walk behind him into the house where I tell him to go down the hallway and make his first right.

  "What are you going to do to me," he pleaded. "What is this?"

&nbs
p; "This," I said, as I raised my left arm to welcome him, "is the room that was going to be my daughter's nursery." He looked around. His face was a pathetic sight. His tears had washed streaks through the blood that covered his face. I went on, "The daughter that you helped kill. Along with my wife. Sound familiar?"

  "Look man! I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't kill your wife, man!"

  "Oh," I said, "I never said you did. I said you helped. And if you don't start giving me answers, this room is also going to be the host to yet another death."

  His eyes went wide as the tears started flowing again.

  "Knock it off, ya baby!" I yelled. "Now stand over there by the window." He did as he was told. "See that hole on the wall behind your shoulders, there?"

  He turned to look. "Y-yeah. I see it, man."

  The movie my brain starts projecting through my head isn't of my wife being shot. It is of the day we found out our Sweet Pea was a girl. The room already had some of the typical baby stuff you'd find in just about any nursery in the world, but coming straight from the doctor's office that day, we stopped at a local baby store and Marianne had bought a princess tiara for our soon-to-be daughter. She was so happy we found it and so proud of it. When we got home, we came straight into this room and she took the tiara out of the box and placed it front and center on the one and only shelf we had here so far. She turned and looked at me with her eyes watering up and told me 'I can't wait.' This is the memory my brain plays for me and it serves only to fuel my anger. The room now is haunted by the ghosts of what could have been. It is a sad place and it was the victim of my rage the first night I returned home after Marianne's death.

  "That hole was made by the bullet one of your friends shot through my wife's brain. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what the stain is from."

  "Look man, I didn't do this shit!"

  "TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!" I had lost all patience with this piece of shit.

  "I don't know much, I swear to you! I swear to God!"

  I shook the gun in my hand to remind him I was getting a little antsy. "Start singing, little birdie."

  "Okay okay, a while ago some acquaintances of mine come up and ask if I'd be interested in some extra money. Cash. So I say sure. Why wouldn't I want more money, ya know?"

  I nodded as he paused. "Go on."

  "Well, so they tell me to keep a look out for any bums hanging out near my place. Not your normal, malnourished bums. Bums that looked semi-healthy, ya know?"

  "Why?"

  "I don't know man. I had a bad feeling about it because they said to find people that won't be missed, ya know. I only did it a couple times." The tears were coming steadily, now. He was sobbing. He was finally putting together the fates he sealed of the people he found and I all but gave up hope on finding Mallory alive.

  "What about the girl I questioned you about?"

  "She had been hanging around for a few days. All she had with her was a bag, like one of those messenger bag things, and she wasn't a guest of the hotel. We kicked her out of the bar a few times and she started hanging around out front asking for change. I eventually pegged her as a runaway or something. I figured she might be missed, but I assumed she didn't want to be found so it seemed like it fit, ya know. If she wanted to be found, she could have just gone back to where she came from. She looked homeless by choice, ya know what I'm sayin'?"

  "What does this have to do with my wife?! She wasn't involved in any of this shit!"

  "I don't know anything about your wife, man, I swear! I don't know how she's involved, like you think she is!"

  "Give me names! Who was paying you?!"

  In that moment, I saw his eyes go wide again and all the color leave his blood-soaked face. Absolute fear had overtaken him and I soon knew why.

  He managed only to get out the word "Rocks" before I heard a deafening pop and saw his brain matter splatter on the wall behind him, Takagi-style, just a few inches above where my wife's did the same thing. He fell lifeless to the ground.

  My ears were ringing and I was momentarily stunned, but I managed to snap myself out of it and quickly spin myself around. A hand had managed to stop my arm holding the gun and I let off a haphazard shot the penetrated the ceiling somewhere above us. I looked at the man who stood before me and instantly recognized him as one James McKigney, fugitive at large.

  He kneed me in the groin and I dropped my gun and bent over in pain. I saw him quickly tuck his gun in his pants and pull from his pocket a syringe, which he jabbed into my neck. I went down like ‘Hurricane’ Peter McNeely in the first round, and before all light exited my vision, I heard him mutter something.

  "Sorry 'bout your wife. My bad."

 

  22.

  I could feel my phone rattling in my pocket. It jarred me from my unconscious state and welcomed me to a world of massive pain. I couldn't move my arm to reach it and it eventually just stopped, going to my voicemail. It was pitch black. The lids of my eyes closed again.

  I have no idea how much time has passed but my body still hurts like nothing else I've ever encountered. I'm awake enough to finally realize I am in a trunk. Whoever put me here didn't handle me with much care; my ribs assured me of that. I was on my stomach and my legs were bent at an odd angle. I couldn't move them. I tried to roll to my side to try and take some pressure off my ribs, maybe even flip completely around, but it wasn't happening. The trunk was tiny and I was trapped. The panic flooded my body like a tidal wave. I needed out of this goddamn trunk and I needed out NOW! I could feel my breathing getting louder as my anxiety started taking over and my body started twitching. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my head. I started choking on the musty air. I wish I had my gun.

  My brain starts playing another movie. This one is from several years ago when Marianne and I rented our first apartment. They were real pieces of crap but it was all we could afford at the time. It was in the middle of winter and we had only lived there a few months. Nothing had worked right and stuff broke on us all the time. This particular movie playing features me, my wife, and a broken heater. We were trying to get some sleep, we needed to be up early for some reason the next morning, but the apartment was absolutely freezing. We were both wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants and still couldn't get warm. I got out of bed and gathered up all the blankets I could find and laid them all out over the bed then climbed back in. We both got under the covers and lifted them up over our heads and tucked them in to the top of our pillows, completely entombing us in them. The blankets shut out all the light and with each breath we took our little private area got warmer. There was no panic in that enclosed space. It is possible for me to get through this. This is what my brain is reminding me of. I shut my eyes tight and imagine Marianne lying near me. My breathing slows down and my eyes close once again.

  The next time I was awoken was when the trunk was popped and I saw the one and only James McKigney looking down at me, just like in a Tarantino flick.

  "Get up," he told me.

  I just laid there. I couldn't move. My whole body felt like it was on fire.

  "I said get up!" he said, this time flicking my forehead with his middle finger. I still just laid there until he bent over and literally pulled me from the trunk. It hurt like a bitch but I tried not to let on. He let me fall to the ground. I took a quick inventory of the things around me. I was in another garage. He pointed his gun at me and told me to get up again. I very slowly found my footing and was able to stand. I dusted myself off and tried to ignore the pain in my chest and he told me to start walking as he stood behind me, gun pointing at my back. I stuck my hands in my pockets and tried to walk the best I could. I was trying to go for a casual look but I don't think I was fooling anyone. I was scared shitless.

  "Come on," he said, "we're going around back. Open the door."

  I opened the side door to the garage and stepped out into someone's backyard. I quickly looked around to see if anythin
g looked familiar to me or if I could spot any unique surroundings that could help someone find me, if needed. Everything seemed perfectly ordinary and besides, no one is looking for me, anyway. I was in trouble. My phone started vibrating again in my pocket with my hand wrapped around it. Shit! I silenced it quickly and hoped Douchebag behind me hadn't heard it. As of right now, that phone was my only weapon.

  "Stop here," he instructed. He kept the gun held on me, bent over, and opened up some wooden doors on the side of the house that led down to the basement. "We're going down."

  "Ew. On each other?"

  "Wise ass. In the fucking basement."

  "No shit?" I asked. "I didn't think this town had any houses with basements."

  "Yeah, there's a few."

  "Well great, I'm excited to check this one out." The only basements I have ever heard of in this town are in a really old, quaint neighborhood named Westchester, not too far from downtown. There was a good chance that that was where I was.

  "I doubt you'll be excited for very long," he said, as he followed me down the stairs.

  23.

  I reached the bottom of the steps and looked around. The basement looked like it was converted into a makeshift hospital room. I couldn't begin to imagine what goes on down here. A scene from Re-Animator flashes through my mind. Then, another scene from Re-Animator comes to mind and I giggle, embarrassingly.

  "What the hell is this?" I ask.

  "Just shut up, would ya," said the man with the gun to my back.

  "Okey dokey. Shutting up then." I glanced down at the floor and saw massive blood stains in the concrete, then my eyes went to a table directly in front of me with a mattress and a sheet on it, also blood stained. Whatever cool and loose attitude I was trying to play off vanished in a heartbeat and I was left feeling nothing but fear. My body turned ice cold and I started shaking noticeably.