Diaries of the Damned (39 page)

Marcus loved the force. Even on the hot summer days. Yet he could never fully forget the thrill of the fight either; it was part of him, and he knew it would haunt his dreams for the rest of his days.

For years Marcus was plagued by a recurring dream; he was back in the ring, back fighting Papp. The German’s face was broken open and bleeding, his nose shattered, left cheek swollen so badly that his left eye looked as if it had simply been erased from his features. They were in the last round, and he was pummeling the German who would (always) raise his hands up to cover his face, leaving his body open. Marcus had him trapped in the ropes and he was about to fall. Marcus would glance over at the clock and see he still had just under a minute to knock the guy out. He knew he wouldn’t get up, and so planned on taking his time. Then out of nowhere the bell began to sound: it rang and rang. Marcus stopped punching and looked around…and that was when the German unleashed his lucky shot. Just as the punch hit Marcus would wake, his heart racing. The ringside bell would melt away and become the howling impatient cry of a baby woken from sleep. His blood would be pumping, his whole body tense. He would jump out of bed in a state of confusion each time, his mind lost until it all slotted back into place one piece at a time.

He hadn’t realized how deep he had been in the daydream, not until the ear-piercing cry of a young baby finally pushed its way through the image. It sounded like someone scraping their fingers down a blackboard it was so shrill.

Marcus turned around; a small crowd had gathered inside the covered promenade – predominantly elderly couples, sitting hand-in-hand on the various benches that were scattered at random intervals. He scanned the center, his brow once again plastered with sweat. His eyes stung, and he felt his pulse increase without warning. His stomach lightened, butterflies spread their wings inside his organs and began to take flight. He felt his stance change; he came up onto the balls of his feet, ready to move, ready to rumble. It was instinctive; he hadn’t even thought about it. Marcus could sense it; his instincts as a fighter able to evolve from sensing where a punch was coming from into a danger detector that was more often than not correct.

Marcus reached for his radio to alert his protégé, but stopped his hand halfway. By the time
Dillings got there, even with his rookie over-enthusiasm, Marcus would have taken care of it.

He looked around and saw the couple that were responsible for the scene he was about to join. A young wo
man, too skinny for her height…for any height. Marcus guessed from first glance that she was around 5’10”, although she stood with her back to him. Her strawberry-blond hair fell greasily against her shoulders, and she wore a tank top that showed bony shoulders covered by a tribal tattoo that traced a spiral path down her left arm. Its design was somewhat distorted; an obvious side effect to the weight she had lost since its initial application. Her outfit was completed by a denim skirt that was only just long enough to cover her hipless waist, revealing skinny legs that were bruised and covered with veins that, by the time she hit forty, would resemble a detailed road map of the British Isles. She tottered on a pair of high heels that made her even taller, and off to one side stood a rough looking pram, which rocked from side to side as the occupant continued to scream.

Marcus looked at the pram, wondering why neither the mother nor the person she was with was responding. Then he saw her head snap backwards, twisting to the left, and he understood it all. The woman fell backwards. She stumbled on her heels and fell to the floor,
turning as she did. Marcus saw blood; her lips were broken, her left eye swollen shut. Yet the worst thing was the look on her face; it told him this was part of her everyday life.

Her skin looked dead, stretched taut over her rake-thin frame. Her large breasts swung unrestrained beneath her yellow summer-inspired tank top, and their size in relation to the rest of her frame and their lack of gravity defiance told Marcus two th
ings: One, the baby in the pram was hungry; and two, it was young…a matter of weeks old. This thought was confirmed by the sagging post-labor stomach which took a while to recover, and on most women doesn’t look unusual. However, on a frame as malnourished as hers, it shone out like a distress flare on a clear night at sea. The other clear giveaway with regards to the age of the child were the two large, wet stains on the point of each breast, where milk leaked from her nutritious teats.

“Hey!” Marcus heard himself shout, announcing his presence while letting others know that something had happened and that they should keep back. All thought of calling his partner was gone. He would never get there in time.

The lady – who Marcus saw when he was close to her, was younger than he had presumed; early twenties at best – was crying. She cradled her right arm on which she had fallen. The man backed up half a step when he saw Marcus stride towards him. His head immediately began to look around for an escape route. He was a large guy, about the same size as Marcus himself although less muscular and wirier. He had a lean, quick look about him, and was just as black. In fact, had he been in possession of a large afro, Marcus would have believed he was looking back through time at a younger version of himself. Or rather what he would have been had boxing not rescued him from the trouble-filled neighborhood and social circle that had taken so many of his childhood friends.

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The one problem about growing up in a small fishing town was that there was remarkably little in the way of entertainment, and so Marcus had turned to the streets, hanging around with the kids from school. During his years on the force, he had busted a great number of them.

The man in question was bald, his head shaved unlike Marcus’s own natural look. He wore a white tank top that showed his muscle covered body. His arms were decorated with all manner of tattoos, which wound from his wrists up to his shoulders, and
, judging by the patterns, continued beneath his clothing onto his chest and neck. He had a flat face; his nose showed signs of being broken more times than was healthy, while his forehead had a long horizontal scar that, when it had first been inflicted, doubtlessly bled like a broken fire hydrant. His eyes were cold, emotionless – even in the bright light of day. They looked black, like a shark. His jaw was clenched, face painted with anger so thick it couldn’t have simply been because this girl said something disagreeable.

Marcus bent down to the girl. The man stood far enough back to not pose an immediate threat, and his unclenched fists hung loose at his sides. Something about him still made Marcus feel uneasy
, but it was too late to change his mind now. The course of fate had been set on its way and they were all but pawns caught in its undercurrent.

“Are you okay?” Marcus asked, reaching out to the young woman.

She trembled with a mixture of fear and withdrawal and had an odor about her that Marcus knew all too well; it was the stench of addiction. Her arms were filled with track marks and bruises from where she had taken several hits at the same time. Her nose, upon closer inspection, was red and sore, and her teeth were yellow and looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in a long time.

She looked up at him, her eyes bloodshot with tears. Her face was desperate
, and it physically pained Marcus to look at her. She nodded at him, a small movement, but she averted her eyes; she couldn’t look at him, and he knew why. He looked over her outfit again and it all becomes clear to him. They weren’t a young dysfunctional couple in love. Far from it: she was a young girl trapped in a mistake she had made and was unable to find her way back home.

“Hey, pig, get the fuck away from my girl, alright?” a powerful voice boomed from behind him.

Marcus rose and turned, ready to face the man, but was more than a little surprised when he saw how close they were. Standing nose-to-nose, the hot, acrid breath filled Marcus’s face and made him want to gag. The man was high, Marcus could see that. His eyes were unfocused, moving from place to place as if only moments before each had been given a double espresso.

“Listen, I don’t want any trouble, so please, take a step back and tell me what the problem is.” Marcus remained
calm and looked the man in the eyes.

He tried to talk through the drugs, through the rage that brought the red curtain down on the show, trying to reach the person who was buried deep down inside somewhere. No matter who it was, or what they had done, conversing with a clean mind was easier than trying to reason
with the unpredictable nature of a drugged one. Behind him, Marcus could see the girl trying to stand, reaching desperately for her baby.

“Yeah, well stay outta my face, leave the woman alone and get out ‘fore you get into trouble, pig.” Anger flashed in the man’s eyes. He
gnashed his teeth and began to sway from side to side, shifting his weight from one to the other. Marcus took a step back. It was apparent the man would not be doing so.

The man moved, tracing Marcus’s movements, and it was enough to put him on edge. He was nervous, but in too tight a spot to reach for his radio. He knew then that it would turn physical.

The man’s eyes and face changed; the shark-like features were gone, and in their place was a twisted featured ghoul, the skin a pale green-gray. It looked waxy. The eyes were large round discs of black, its nose squashed flat against its face like a Persian cat, and the mouth was cocked in a wry smile that revealed black teeth and a rotten tongue that darted out to taste the air like a snake.

Marcus closed his eyes and shook his head like fighter getting up from a sneaky knockdown and the image was gone. The man had advanced, his stance changed to a more bladed one, and his breathing had become much shallower. He found reassurance in all of the signs he was reading, because although the man was big, Marcus knew he could take him if it came to fisticuffs.

“Hey, bitch, I told you to stay on the fucking floor.” The man strode forward, no longer focused on Marcus, but rather, the girl. He struck fast, pushing the girl back to the floor and lashing out with a heavy work boot. Marcus jumped between them, manhandling the agressor, pulling him away from the injured girl. The kick had split her lips, opening up a deep slice that sent rich, dark blood pouring onto the tiled floor.

“Right, you’re under arrest,” Marcus began, pushing the man back with enough force to give himself time and space to reach for his cuffs and whatever else he may need.

A small crowd had gathered now, mostly elderly people, although a few of the employees of the open shops in the arcade had come out to see what caused such a commotion. They positioned themselves far enough back so that they would not be looked upon to help, but close enough to not miss a beat.

Marcus moved with a speed that defied his age, grabbing the man and twisting his arm behind his back. “You don’t have to say anything, but anything you do say…” Marcus had the cuff wrapped around the muscular wrist and reached for the second when the man threw his head back. It didn’t catch Marcus fully because he wasn’t standing square on, but it gave the man an angle and he wrenched his arm free, and with one quick movement spun around and punched Marcus in the stomach. Marcus caught the shot right in the small area between the bottom of the safety vest and his belt, an area that was exposed by design so that mobility wasn’t an issue while wearing the bulky uniform. Marcus stumbled backwards, doubled over the by the blow. It was the girl that screamed first, her voice becoming instantly hysterical, her cries nothing more than nonsensical babblings from a mind teetering on the edge of oblivion.

Marcus felt faint and nauseous, his stomach throbbed, and when he pulled his hands away to grab the man – who was also under arrest for assaulting a police officer – he saw why. Marcus wasn’t sure which he saw first: the red, dripping blade that the man held in a club-like grip, or the copious amounts of blood that covered his own hands and lower arms.
Where did he get that? He never had a knife
, Marcus asked himself.
It’s a flicker; look at the blade.

As Marcus looked at the blade
, he realized that it must have been hidden in the man’s belt. Damn. He exhaled. His mind began to leave the state of clear thinking, and as a deep-seated pulsing began in the center of his abdomen Marcus realized with a stark clarity what had happened.

“Y-you…
s-s-s-son of a bitch,” Marcus said, his world getting hazy, his legs losing their strength just as if he had been stung on the jaw in the ring. He reached out to get something for support but found nothing. He fell backwards, tumbling to the floor while everybody looked on, mumbling and gossiping with each other, but not doing anything about it.

“
Shoulda stayed out, pig. Fucking cops.” The man was bouncing around from foot to foot with a nervous energy. Beside him, Marcus heard the young woman scream.

“Please, don’t hurt my baby. I’ll do what you want. I’ll go back out there tonight. I’ll give you all
of it, just please…don’t hurt my baby,” she pleaded and sniffled, choking on the words that spewed from her mouth in a constant stream.

“What, oh now you
wanna work? Well who’s gonna want to fuck you now? You’re a bigger mess than usual, Becky. Jesus!” he snorted at her.

Marcus felt groggier by the second, his body numb now, the blood pooling around him like a warm bath – yet for the first time in several weeks
, Marcus shivered with cold.