#3924. He punched the digits into the square box beside the high, black metal fence, the tall poles topped with decorative spikes. It swung inside, and he pulled forwards into the apartment complex. It was late, and he didn’t see anyone about in the gated community.
He drove up the sloping hill across which the several apartment buildings were sprawled and pulled into his parking spot, number 33, under the plaster overhang of the open-air garage. The headlights of his car shone yellow against the wall in front of him as he pulled closer to it, then came to a stop.
He twisted the key in the ignition, opened the door, and slid out, squeezing between the wall and his car. I’ll have to talk to Lauren again about her parking, he thought as he walked around to the trunk.
Soft, nervous footsteps padded hesitantly up behind him. His hand stilled on the release clutch of the trunk door. The footsteps stopped a dozen feet away.
“You’re late; I thought you weren’t coming,” a man said, his voice strained, cracking.
Aloram turned around, hands returned to his pockets, fingers resting lightly on the knife.
“I told you to wait outside. I told you,” he said, emphasizing this, “not to go past the gate.”
A man stood there, arms wrapped around his body, hugging himself. His skin was clammy and pale, a shock of wispy brown hair sticking out at angles from his head, sparse, patchy beard failing to hide the gaunt sunkenness of his face. He did an awkward twisting, half squat, rocking side to side.
“I know, I know, I know,” he said, his voice rising, getting faster, “I just thought that maybe I’d find you and get it, man, I need it, I need the stuff,” he said, his voice a high whine.
Frantic eyes flicked up to Aloram’s, then shot to the floor, jerking around the dark, open courtyard between the buildings around them.
Aloram looked around. The garage was packed tightly with cars parked in lines of twos, leaving little room to walk; the courtyard beyond was empty under the dull yellow glow of lamp poles. What are the odds someone comes outside to take out the trash, or leaves to go somewhere? He breathed deeply. This is why I need dealers. Why did Jerome have to fuck it all up?
He looked up at the man before him, shifting his weight from foot to foot, scratching lightly at his exposed arm before stopping.
“It’s double.”
The man looked up at him, eyes squinting. “I don’t have double.”
Aloram narrowed his eyes at him. “Then get fucking lost. And don’t come back.” Damn it. “If I see you arou—”
The man rushed at him with a shriek, withered arm extended. God fucking damn it, Aloram thought, raising the leg closest to his assailant high, chambering it for a side kick. His foot pistoned into the man’s liver, knocking the air out and doubling him over. He swiftly lowered his foot to the concrete floor, pushed off the ground, and sent it back up to his head in a powerful spinning roundhouse, whole body twisting.
The instep of his sneaker cracked against the man’s falling temple, flung his head into the hard garage floor with a crunch as Aloram spun through the kick, foot landing softly back on the ground. The man lay there, a crumpled mess of limbs, unmoving. Blood started to ooze from his head onto the smooth grey floor. Fuck, did I kill him?
He bent and hefted the man’s body off the ground, the blood spilling from his forehead slowly streaking down his face now instead of onto the floor. Only a small pool and a couple splattered drops had made it onto the oil-flecked concrete. He’d figure out what to do about that in a minute, but first, he had to get rid of this asshole.
The man was stringy and of middling height, so his body, though awkward, was a light burden slumped over his shoulder as he stooped under its weight to open his trunk with one hand.
Pushing some jumper cables out of the way, he opened the false bottom floor of the trunk to reveal the spare tire beneath. He ran his fingers along the inside of the tire’s rim, searching. When he felt the smooth bumps with his fingertips, he tore off one of the baggies taped to the rim, tucked it into a pocket of the man’s tattered jeans, and then closed the trunk.
The man slung over his shoulders, he jogged through the courtyard towards the far fenceline, avoiding the yellow splotches of light cast by the tall street lamps in the darkness. He leaned the body against the high metal rods that made up the fence, then looked up at it. It was going to be a bitch getting him over.
Aloram frisked the dead man’s pockets, found what he sought, and took the cash. He had eighty bucks! Fucking liar. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, idiot. He shivered, still damp from the rain, his clothes sticking to him in the cool night air.
All right… what to do, what to do. Blood ran down the man’s sunken face, a maroon line, black against a white sheet. The skin of his temple was broken and bruised where his head had smashed the concrete, looked mushy.
Aloram found a fist-sized rock in the dirt nearby and held it next to the wound. This’ll do, he thought, then slammed the stone into his head once, as hard as he could, coating it in blood and stamping its shape into the man’s head. A sucking thwack accompanied the blow, and ropey tendrils of blood clung to its surface as he pulled the rock away. Looking up at the fence again, eight or nine feet tall, black spikes hard to see against the dark sky above, he pulled the recently cleaned knife from his pocket.
A strung-out, schizophrenic crackhead climbed the fence, caught his leg on a spike, then fell and hit his head on a rock. Just barely plausible enough. I hope. A yawn grew in Aloram’s chest, and he stifled it with the back of his hand. It must be midnight by now, close to one. I want to go to sleep, he thought, thinking of his warm, plush bed sheets. Instead, he stabbed the man’s leg through his jeans, sinking the knife to the hilt.
Placing the rock a few feet away from the base of the fence, bloody side up, Aloram dragged the body out in a line as if it’d fallen flat. Grabbing the man’s sleeve, he tucked one skinny arm underneath the body, then twisted the leg he’d stabbed askew. He stepped back to observe his work, hands on his hips, tilting his head at the scene like a painter at his canvas. Good enough…. Wait, no.
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He wiped his hands on his pants, drying them as best as possible, then wrapped his feet around the nearest pole and began to shimmy up. Once he’d reached the top, one hand gripping tight for support, his feet locked together, he produced his knife. With his sleeve, he wiped the blood from his blade, daubed it on the spike above where his victim had “fallen,” and then slid down.
Back at the car, he removed a hammer from the toolbox in his trunk. He lay a towel over the blood-stained concrete, then began to pound at it. Not sure how I’ll explain this away if anyone comes out to check on the noise, he thought, glancing at the border between empty night and garage wall. Finally, he’d broken loose all of the stained concrete into chunks. Lifting the corners of the towel, he wrapped them into it and chucked the whole bundle into his trunk, then slammed it shut.
*
Aloram walked up the exterior tabby stairs to the second level and stopped at the door before his. Fishing around in his pocket, his fingers brushed worn paper, and he pulled out a twenty. Ms. Perry Simmons. Sweet woman, he thought as he folded the bill, tucking it carefully under the brass number “17” nailed to her door. She’d brought him a homemade apple pie the day he moved in. “Southern Hospitality,” she’d called it, even though she hadn’t lived in the South for four decades.
Content that the money wouldn’t slip out, he moved past, opened his own door, stepped into his apartment, and closed the night behind him. Moving through the kitchen to his bedroom, he tossed his keys on the counter, kicking off his muddy shoes as he walked. He crossed the threshold into his room, spun, and leapt backwards onto the bed, his bottom bouncing on the thick comforter. He peeled off his wet socks, then leaned back and released a long, loud sigh. Long day, he thought.
Lying on his back, he lifted his phone over his face and unlocked it. One missed call— Amanda. She’d left a message. He closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them again and played it, trying not to look at the text transcription. Her voice came through the speaker, hard and cold with the flintiness of restrained anger.
“Hi, Al. You’re still an asshole. What you did was really fucked up, and it’s not okay. I know you don’t care and won’t care what I have to say, so I’ll save my breath. You’re not worth it–”
He breathed out slowly, cold tremors tickling his skin, his whole body tensed in static strain.
“–You owe me three hundred dollars and my fucking hydroflask back. Leave it with Mike. And if we ever see each other again, don’t fucking talk to me. Delete my number. Bye.”
Ah, the hydroflask. I forgot it there. Oops.
He released his tense muscles and groaned. Amanda’s words sat in his mind like icy stones, but he could do nothing for it. He closed his eyes and sat with it a while, then blinked them open. Whatever— he was too exhausted to think about it right now.
Reluctantly stripping, Aloram removed his clothes in the dark bedroom’s cold, still air. He threw them onto the floor, then tucked himself under the blankets before rolling over to the dresser, extricating a pair of soft, dry, elastic boxer briefs. Squirming under the covers, he put them on, then wriggled deeper into the warm embrace of his bed. Soon, sleep took him.
*
Something wet and cold landed on his forehead, then slid down his face beside the bridge of his nose before stopping under his nostril. Sleeping, Aloram breathed in, snorted, and jolted awake, sitting bolt upright. He patted the bed next to him, looking for his phone. It was dark as hell, so it couldn’t be morning yet— he must’ve only slept for a few hours.
Instead of the soft touch of his thousand-thread count sheets, his fingers brushed against cool, hard rock. That’s… odd. He could feel his bottom getting cold and wet, water slowly soaking through the thin nylon blend of his boxers and chilling the skin beneath. A quiet, rhythmic dripping echoed in the empty darkness emanating from behind him. Is that what woke me up?
His vision slowly adjusted to the dimness, a pale blue light emitting from patches on the rocky walls around him providing a faint suggestion of light, just barely enough to see by. He breathed in, stale, damp air wafting into his nostrils. It smelled moldy.
Am I in a cave? he thought. How am I in a cave?
Squinting into the dim light, he noticed something was different about this place— It wasn’t just the smell of the air, the unexpected change of surroundings. Caves were familiar enough; he’d been on a tour of one as a teenager, though he didn’t remember any glowing moss on the walls then. No, something about the air was different… it was more potent than usual, despite the dank moldiness. More oxygenated, maybe? But it’s more than just that— I just feel… good. Perhaps I’m dreaming?
He rose warily to his feet, head turning slowly about, feet feeling out the rock below. The tingling sensation was without any frame of reference that he could place in his prior experience— the air hummed with the feeling; it was as if a low-level electrical current ran through everything: the rock beneath his feet, the atmosphere around him, his own body, everything insinuated with the strange, alien energy.
Testing the theory, he breathed in deeply, intentionally, and it was as if he’d never really breathed before in his life; despite the musk of the cave’s stale air, he felt refreshed, revitalized in a way sleep had never done for him before. His body felt lighter than usual, his muscles more supple, and his mind simultaneously energized and focused as if he were on caffeine and Adderall. It was a clear, lucid, awake feeling— one he hadn’t realized he’d been craving.
Aloram laughed out loud, a rolling, carefree laugh that carried through the cave, bouncing off the walls, echoing down long corridors and open caverns. If this is a dream, I’m not sure I want to wake up. I feel alive— really alive, for the first time since when? My first Mixed Martial Arts fight? My first bodybuilding show? He’d been proud of that one— no one expects a meathead with good cardio, or one that can throw a kick over their head and do the splits.
It was as if he’d cast off a weight he hadn’t known he’d been carrying. He didn’t know where he was, didn’t care; he reveled in the strange energy, basked in it like a lizard in the sun. Wherever he was, whatever the circumstances of his arrival, he wanted to stay here.
This is where I belong. This place, this is what I’ve been missing.
Aloram stopped laughing and just smiled, listening to the sound of his voice traveling through the cave, bouncing away. Soon, the sound faded, and silence returned. He began to take a step forward when the silence broke again, violently, ripped apart by a deafening roar that rushed at him like a wave. The sound filled every crevice of the cave. He stumbled, fell to his hands and knees, searching for the source of the noise.
Far ahead of him, down a dimly lit corridor, patches of blue light disappeared and reappeared one after the next. It reminded him of a railcar passing in the subway, signage covered and uncovered behind it as the cars sped by. This was slower. A vast, loping mass of black darkness blocked the light, let it through, and blocked it again— the light coming and going like a fishing floater bobbing in the water.
A scraping, thumping, thundering rumble accompanied the roar, then throbbing red lights exploded into existence, momentarily blinding him.
He blinked at the sudden surge of light and lifted his head up at the looming figure above him. A huge, black cave bear, all shaggy fur and gaping mouth, stood high above him, several feet taller than any bear he’d seen before.
Glowing red crystals protruded from its skin, jutting out at ugly angles as the bear bore down on him, saliva slobbering from its open mouth, claws scraping the stone below. It slid to a stop, bellowing at him in a deep, throaty roar.
It opened its jaws wide, yellow teeth bared in a line flanked by great fangs. The force of the roar rebounded around the cave, caused the rocks and water around him to shake and jump, the whole world trembling. He trembled with it, his spirit shrinking as if his will to live had been torn away, stomped on, and tossed aside to burn.
He noticed a marquise ruby embedded in its forehead just above the ridge of the bear’s eyes. It shone a fiery scarlet, emitting light and radiating a hideous power.
It occurred to Aloram that his reaction was more than just a natural response to fear; the roar had an abnormal, physical potency— something profoundly wrong about it, the way it forced him to submit. The bear snapped its maw shut, then lowered its gaze to his, their eyes meeting. The bear’s glowing red eyes glinted death and compulsed Aloram to shiver.
Well, that was short-lived.