Music City Macabre: The Low Lying Lands Saga: Vol. 1 (5 page)

I walk back inside and retrieve my overcoat and tie. I slip on the coat and gingerly tie the tie around the cut on my leg. In the aftermath of all this violence, every bone in my body hurts. I flip up the collar, wincing in pain, and button the coat to the top. I don’t care what the old man says.

I make the rules now. I have a new destiny and it starts with The Black Hand. Then I’ll talk to Chaos. I will not rest until all points are checked and the final connection is made. The end of this begins with my father. No matter how long it takes. And when I do find him I will take his most prized possession. For Emily I will take his life.

I push the heavy oak door open and walk once again out into the bitter cold. I plunge both hands deep into the pockets of my overcoat and I swear as the first tears begin freezing to my face. I hustle to the Comanche, pull the door open, and climb in. I wipe the tears from my cheeks and breathe in deeply through my nose. I take a moment to try and collect my thoughts about everything that went down inside
The 88
. Fuck THEM. Maybe tomorrow. I reach up and pull down the sun visor. There in the plastic sleeve is a picture of me with Emily.

I’ve looked at this picture thousands of times over the last two plus years. In the picture, we’re standing next to each other with wide, happy smiles. No idea what’s coming. Every time I looked at it I told her I would not fail her, I would find her. That we would be the family we were meant to be.

Just the two of us.

I did fail her though. I will have to live with that. Holding the picture in my bloodstained hand, I close my eyes and let the emotion overtake me.

AFTERMATH

I wake up stiff and in a God-awful amount of pain. Looking down and wincing, I see the picture of Emily is still in my bloody, bandaged hand. As I pull down the visor to return the picture, I see all the reminders of the war I just survived.
God Damn it!
I say to myself and climb back down the rabbit hole of grief.

I open the door, step out into the bitter cold.
Jesus Christ!
I stumble painfully around and lean against the grille of the Jeep.
What the fuck am I doing?
The temperature does nothing to help my injured and aching body, but it does shock my system, and I’m rewarded with focus. I need to process what’s happened. Somehow I have to accept that Emily is dead. The only family I have left is gone.

My hands take up residence in my pockets and the frigid wind mercilessly attacks my face. My bandaged hand is seriously hurting. Not to mention the stab wounds to my chest and leg. I start to walk, slowly at first. I’ve got to reboot my body to catch up with my head. No way I can sort this out if my body and mind are not on the same page.

I start to break it down as I walk/stumble down the street. My sister Emily was, in effect, murdered by my adoptive father, who is a high-ranking official in an organization called “The Black Hand”. The Black Hand are the human servants of “The 88
”.
The 88 are a collection of demons and otherworldly creatures hell bent on the destruction of mankind.

Among The 88 is a particularly nasty buck named Chaos. Chaos resides on another plain of existence and made his presence known by possessing my father and speaking through him. I’m not sure he does this with other Black Hand agents but it’s probably a good bet. I still can’t believe I saw it myself. Chaos used his essence to bring about The Descent.

Last and most egregious on my checklist is that both Chaos and my Father escaped while I was involved in the gunfight that left dead Freaks strewn about like clothes on a one night stand.

I’m a Finder. I follow the
points.
Following the points leads to connections. There’s only one problem. I’ve got nothing to go on. I have no first point to begin with because I haven’t the first idea where they might be. Before The Descent, when I worked with clients to find any number of things, there was always a wealth of information, or history of the item, or person given on the front end so that points could be plotted and a strategy devised. That’s just not present here.

My emotional state is so fucked up right now. I’m not sure how to proceed in any direction. Just hours before, the best friend I thought I ever had turned out to be a Black Hand agent and tried to kill me…at the order of my father! I killed Pollock with my bare hands. My reward for that? For actually receiving the answers to the questions I sought? I learned Emily was dead. The two years I spent looking for her after The Descent was for nothing. I am alone.

Standing here in the cold, it would seem I should be freezing. But in actuality I’m seething. My anger is slowly blossoming into rage. I can feel the emotion beginning to overtake me again, but I stave it off. What’s next? I’ve already asked myself that question more than once and I couldn’t answer it before, either. I’ve never felt this confused, hurt, and without direction before.

Maybe there isn’t a next act.
Pack it in Prescott you spineless fuckin’ prick!
What’s left for me?
Revenge!
Is it worth it? Will it bring Emily back?
No.
Then why bother?
‘Cause it feeeels good!
Maybe so.
But Em’s already been dead two years. Sure I just found out, but I don’t feel like tearing off with no plan of where I’m going, or what I’m doing. I’m just not emotionally prepared for ‘needle in a haystack’ right now. I may hate the son of a bitch, but he always taught me to have a plan.

In my heart I want to zero out into emptiness. I take a deep breath and exhale into the piercing night air. Right now, in this very moment…
I want to hurt somebody.

NEW BEGINNINGS

With my senses somewhat returned, I decide it’s time to get moving. Where? I couldn’t possibly say. I think it’s safe to say Chicago has nothing left for me. As I reach for the door there is a massive explosion from a block over. Screams follow shortly after so I run the block or so in a relatively short time. God, I hurt. I see a building ablaze with flames that must be touching the sky.

The heat coming off the fire is unbelievable. It’s...nice actually. Before The Descent this baby would’ve called for four or five trucks. Wait...I remember this fire. I saw the smoke heading skyward before I went into The 88. This building is an old grocery store and basically the whole damn thing appears to be on fire.

Why couldn’t it have been an office complex? Fuckin Freaks are too stupid for their own good. Then again they don’t eat food so, fuck them. I’m taking this personally because I’m hungry, come to think of it, and there might have been something in there. Cans of beans for all I know.

I hear the screams again but can’t tell anything about their origin. I need to be careful. There are a couple of possibilities here. Freaks probably set this fire out of desperation to stave off freezing to death, or they set the fire as a trap and whoever showed up, me, is their next meal. Either way, Freaks will undoubtedly be in the vicinity.

“Help me! Help!”

With my arm up to protect my face I cautiously enter the danger zone, straining to see anyone in need. The smoke is getting thick and before too long I’m gonna have to bail on this.

“I’m trapped! Help! Please, somebody!”

“Where are you? What section?” I ask with a desperation that I don’t understand why I’m feeling.

The old automated sliding doors are long since destroyed and smoke is billowing out at a good clip. Still, I enter the building. Maybe saving somebody will help me feel better.

“Frozen foods! I’m hurt, man!”

He’s only a couple aisles over. I make my way closer and come up to the row. I peer around the corner so I can put my eyes on him. Through the smoke and flames it looks like the guy is trapped.

“We don’t have a lot of time here,” I say. “So what’s the deal? Are you a Freak? Are you bitten? You gonna shoot me or try and fuck with me in some way, because if you are I will leave your ass here to get crispy. Are we clear?”

“YES! Please, God! The flames are getting closer!”

Are…you...bitten?” I demanded.

“I don’t know! I don’t think so. I was in here scavenging when the fire started. It spread from the back and I took shelter. Then a couple of the Freaks came in. They were broken man. We fought. I shot one of them and then the other one knocked this over on me. I can’t feel my arm,” he said.

He dropped off just a few moments. Maybe he was in shock. I quickly and rather recklessly decided to trust him and came around from the endcap with my Glock pointed straight at him. This grocery store had been stripped of nearly everything of value. The freezers had been torn to pieces; broken glass from the doors as well as the rest of the lifeless units were strewn about haphazardly.

I approached quickly and cautiously, and rolled him over. Marine training never fades away. Aside from his arm being crushed up to his shoulder underneath a freezer unit, he appeared mostly ok. Shock was in effect. The fight must have happened very recently, within the last half hour. OK Prescott, be ready for anything.

“What’s your name, dude?” I asked. Just trying to keep him talking.

“Matt...Matt Whitford. I only came in this place because I was starving, man. Shit! The safe zones are a joke. They’re no better than out here, man. Fend for yourself. Die alone.”

“OK Matt, my name is Prescott, I’m gonna do what I can to help you but I won’t bullshit you. If these flames start to overtake us and I can’t get you out, I’m leaving. Do you understand?”

“Yeah man. That’s more honesty than I’ve gotten from anyone since the Collapse. Go for it.” He said.

“I’ll be right back. I need to find a lever to lift this unit off of you. I’ll be right back.”

The flames were on the move and Matt didn’t have much time. I was scanning as fast as I could to find something, anything. There! There was a heavy-duty metal snow shovel in the seafood department. The smoke was making it tough now. There was gonna be one shot at this, maybe two.

I ran back and found Matt lying still, eyes closed. “Matt! Get your ass ready! We got a couple of chances and we both go or I go. You gotta be ready. I see a little daylight between your arm and the freezer. When I stick the shovel into that spot, I’m gonna lift and you gotta get your arm out of there. That’s your job! Got it?”

“Yeah...yeah...my job,” he muttered. Shit! Come on man!

I jammed the shovel under the freezer the couple inches I could, and lifted with everything I had.

“Go Matt! Get out of there!” I boomed.

His eyes seemed to register rather quickly and he started rocking his body to the left and right. A couple more times and he was able to roll his entire body over and bring the totally fucked arm with him. He was never going use that arm again. He was going to have to find somebody half-decent in post-Descent to cut it off. Uphill battle for Matt, but not my problem.

I helped him to his feet and put his good arm around my neck and we started to run as fast as possible towards the front. As I dragged Matt, I continued scanning the inside of the store for Freaks, causing our feet to tangle. We went down and I landed on top of Matt, seeing clearly that he had a vicious bite on his dead arm.

Well God Damn it!
I got him to his feet again and dragged him out into the cold. Fuck Matt! This is not my responsibility! The bite was fresh. There was nothing I could do for him. Dead arm or not, the Essence of Chaos had been delivered. He’ll be a Freak before he gets home.

He was lying on the ground again but looked to be coming around. It was the cold kicking his ass awake. This sucked. I knelt down and took a few sharp breaths. There was no way I was dragging him back to the Jeep.

“Matt!” I said a little too harshly. This wasn’t his fault.

“Yes,” He cleared his throat; he was really feeling the cold. “Thank you, Prescott. My arm, it should hurt right? I should be screaming my ass off right?” He was getting his voice back. He was changing already.

“Listen Matt, I have a place close by. Let’s go get you cleaned up and find you some warm clothes. Then we got to figure out what we’re gonna do about that arm. Let’s go,” I said and gestured with my arm for him to walk.

He took two steps in front of me while I stood still, then said, “Thanks again...”

I drew my Glock and shot him dead. Nobody deserves to be a Freak. Nobody. I turned in the other direction and headed for the Jeep.

When I got back, I started the engine and cranked the heat. Old Faithful. I still wasn’t sure what lay ahead, Was I going to stay in Chicago or burn out after my old man? That’s funny. Four hours ago I never would’ve called Mr. Prescott my ‘Old Man’. Fuck him.

I turned the Jeep around with the intention of heading to my pit stop place outside of Chicago, in Arlington Heights. I call it a pit stop for obvious reasons. When I was working and needed to grab a shower and change of clothes, more often than not after dealing with Freaks, I could hit the small apartment. Anyway, not too many other people are using the building and those that are certainly don’t make a habit of being social.