The Glooming (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 1) (23 page)

“Will you look at that,” the man said, laughing a little. “That’s the little dog I was looking for.”

Tara didn’t say anything as she sat up on the floor and faced them. Larry started to get up but stopped and quickly stayed back down. The man had pivoted to face him and had placed his hand on the holstered Glock pistol, ready to draw and fire.

“Stay down,” the man said to him as he moved closer to where the dog was, picked it up and examined its collar. “Yup, this is the little dog, alright. This must be some sort of miracle. I not only find the pet I’m looking for, but I run into an old acquaintance as well.”

Larry rubbed the back of his bruised head. “Who are you?”

The man put down the dog and stood over Larry. “You don’t remember do you? I’m one of the guys in the task force that helped put you away for a few years, if I recall.”

Larry pointed up at him. “I do remember now, Officer Haggard.”

“Detective Joshua Haggard,” Josh said. “Funny you just showed up this evening. I thought you were still in prison, Larry.”

Tara gasped.

Josh looked at her and chuckled. “Oh, he didn’t tell you, did he? I bet you don’t even know his last name, or else he just gave you a false one, right?”

Tara nodded meekly.

“It’s okay, girl. Go ahead and sit on the bed. I want you to see this,” Josh said as Tara got up from the floor, sat at the base of the bed and wrapped herself with the quilted blanket.

“Look, Detective, I didn’t know you were here,” Larry protested.

“Shut up, Larry,” Josh said. “Even if you did know, would that had stopped you from raping this girl?”

Larry bit his lip.

Josh looked back at Tara. “Let me give you both a proper introduction, this here, lying on the ground is Larry Hanley, two-time burglar, convicted rapist, occasional drug dealer, and three time scumbag loser.” Then he turned to Larry again. “So when did you get out of prison, Larry? Did they let you go or are you a fugitive? Don’t lie to me now.”

“They let me out just over a week ago,” Larry said softly. “Just before the world went to hell.”

Josh nodded contemptuously. “Gone to hell is right. So where did you get the van?”

“I found it.”

“Where?”

“In a parking lot by one of the malls in Mesa, the keys were still inside,” Larry said.

“And like the petty thief that you are, you just took it,” Josh said as he pointed to Tara. “What about her?”

“She was hitching a ride, that’s all,” Larry said.

Josh looked at her. “Is that true?”

Tara nodded meekly. “Y-yes.”

Josh turned his attention back to Larry again. “What about the dog? Where’d you find it?”

“That’s her dog,” Larry said.

“Is that true?” Josh said to her. “Where did you find it?”

The dog ran over to Tara and sat by her feet. “I just found it on the street, sir,” she said.

Josh smiled as he shook his head in amazement. “And here I was, going to Kansas now that my wife is gone so I hold up in one of the rooms here for the night, and then all of a sudden the lights come on! I thought this must be a sign from our Lord, and I think now that it’s a true miracle indeed, yessiree. After my wife’s best friend shot her to death, she ranted about some demonic dog they were trying to kill and how it was all an accident. She gave a description of course, and the type of collar he wore as well as its breed and fur color. I thought she was nuts but seeing this little dog right here, right now, just spells out fate in my books, don’t you both agree?”

Tara and Larry said nothing.

Josh wagged a finger at the dog. “Ah, Bibsy, there’s a claim you caused the death of my wife, but I find that hard to believe, at all. But with all that’s happening now, I dunno what to believe, but I guess I’ll just have to place my trust in the Lord.”

“You can have the dog and you can have her, for crissakes,” Larry said. “Just let me go, I’ll take the van and be outta here and you’ll never see me again, Detective Haggard, I swear to the almighty.”

Josh smiled as he picked up a wooden table leg that Larry had broken off as he fell down. “Why in the hell would I let you go, Larry? You just burglarized this motel here and you attempted a rape on a minor. You’ll be going back to prison for a long, long time, now.”

“Okay, look, just take the van then, it’s all yours. There’s food in there and tools and such. Just let me go, please,” Larry said.

“I don’t let criminals go, it’s not in my nature,” Josh said to him.

Larry saw the table leg in his right hand. He was sweating all over now. “Please, the whole world has changed! You can let me go, there aren’t any laws anymore! How can I be committing a crime if there’s no order?”

“Why, you’re wrong, Larry,” Josh said as he hefted the table leg. “I’m the law and order now.”

Larry held up an open palm to him, both as a gesture of peace and submission. “Okay, okay! You’re the law now, you’re everything! If you want to put me back in jail, then fine! Just don’t hurt me, please!”

Josh chuckled as he shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t put you in jail either. You see, I don’t think there are a whole lotta law enforcement personnel still doing their jobs anymore. So that means even if I do haul your ass to the nearest jail, nobody will be able to prosecute you, much less book you in.”

Larry started to cry as Tara’s mouth began to open wide in dread.

“But you know, you’re right, Larry,” Josh said. “There are no more laws because nobody follows them anymore. So you know what that means?”

Larry looked up at him, tears and mucous streaming down his grizzled chin. “You’ll let me go?”

Josh looked at him intently. “No, but since Internal Affairs is pretty much gone, it means that I don’t have to hold back when I apprehend criminal scum like you anymore.”

Larry shrieked as Josh smashed him in the forehead with the table leg. His head jerked backwards as a big, bloody gash appeared. A puddle of blood began to form on the carpet as Josh hit him again and again until his entire face and head was just a bloody pulp and he finally stopped breathing.

Tara screamed once, then she covered her eyes though she could still hear the sticky sound of flesh and bone being pounded.

Brooklyn

The building elevators were not working because there wasn’t any power throughout the whole city. Joe Pascorelli took the stairs all the way up to the eighth floor as he used his flashlight to guide him along. In the nearly twenty-five years he was on the force, his dark brown hair now had streaks of grey in it as it complemented his salt and pepper moustache. His paunch was beginning to tighten the NYPD lieutenant’s uniform around his waistline, and it slowed him down as he finally got to the top of the stairway, but that was the least of his worries right now. Opening the fire door that led out into a twilit corridor illuminated by a faint light coming from the open window at the far end, Joe rested his legs for a bit before walking up to the eighth door on the right and knocked a few times.

A short, brown-skinned lady with silver hair tied neatly in a ponytail answered the door. “Yes?”

Joe took his officer’s cap off. “Mrs. Mendoza, my name is Lieutenant Joseph Pascorelli of the New York Police Department. Ma’am, I would like to—”

The old woman cut him off with a wave of her hand as she smiled. “Hello, Joe, please do come in,” she said as she stood back to let him inside.

“Thank you,” Joe said as he walked into the small, three-bedroom apartment. He could see lighted candles all around. It gave everything a soft, yellow illumination as he switched off his flashlight and strapped it back on his belt. “It’s great that you still remember me, Mrs. Mendoza.”

The old woman closed the door behind them. “Please, call me Josefina. Can I get you some coffee or some water? Forgive me, but that’s all we have right now.”

“No, thank you, ma’am, I mean, Josefina.” Joe grinned. “I already drank and ate before I got here. How’s your food supply going?”

Josefina smiled and shrugged. She had a simple purple dress underneath her knitted sweater. “We can survive until the next handout. It would be nice if I could get more medicine for her, though. Please sit down,” she said, pointing to the nearby sofa.

“Thanks,” Joe said as he sat down on the sofa, placed his cap beside him and rubbed his right leg. He had injured it in the line of duty many years ago and it gave him cramps when he put too much weight on it. His wife Maria had asked him if he wanted to have an operation to fix it, but Joe always hated scalpels and needles, and so held it off until the pain gradually subsided into a dull ache when the weather would get too cold.

Josefina sat down in an easy chair beside him and placed her wrinkly hands on her lap. “How is everything out there?”

Joe sighed as he looked out the window. The rain was incessant and continued to fall day and night for weeks now. “Not good, we’ve lost about half the force already through either injuries, sickness, or just plain desertion,” he said before looking towards the small corridor to where the bedrooms were located. “Is she still willing to see me?”

Josefina smiled faintly, the wrinkles under her beady eyes gave her face even more lines. “She didn’t answer when I told her you would be coming, but she won’t ignore you. I think she’s just getting ready.”

“I didn’t really want to put her under this awkward situation and God knows she needs the rest after what she went through, but we really need more men … or should I say more women, back in uniform right now.”

Josefina nodded. “She knows her duty, Lieutenant. She’s still a cop.”

At that moment, a door leading into a bedroom opened and Valerie walked out. She had a jogging suit on along with a sweater. She walked towards them with slippers on her feet. Valerie’s right arm was bandaged but the doctors had told her that no ligaments were severed, thank goodness, so all she needed was to rest it until the skin grew over the wound. Her face however, was another matter entirely: the knife slash made a vicious cut from in between her eyebrows, down her cheek, to just above the right side of her chin. There was a long white bandage that ran along her facial wound and was held in place by medical tape; that bothered her because the protruding binding gave her double vision every time she tried to center her field of view. With over twenty stitches still holding the cut in place, she knew she would never be beautiful when the dressings would finally be removed.

Joe stood up and held out his hand. “Val, it’s so nice to see you again, how are you?”

Valerie shook his hand but said nothing as she sat down on a wooden chair on the opposite side of her mother.

Josefina made a slight smile and stood up. “I’ll make us some coffee,” she said as she started to walk to the kitchen.

For a few minutes, Joe just sat there as he looked out of the window again. The only other sounds in the room came from the howling wind and the pounding of the rain outside. But the noises inside soon took over, as the clanking of ceramic cups and the boiling of the kettle meant that Josefina had started brewing coffee.

“Val, is everything alright?” Joe said to her.

Valerie finally turned and looked at him. “I’ve been resting for the past few days so other than looking like Frankenstein, it’s been fun.”

Joe smiled and looked down on the floor. “It’s great you still have that sense of humor, Val.”

“Did you come just for a casual visit, Lieutenant?”

“Actually, not just that. I came to see if one of my detectives is fit for duty again. The bottom line is that there aren’t many of us left. If you don’t want to come back, I understand, two other officers already told me so this morning. Things are getting really bad and there’s not much we can do to stop it.”

Valerie shrugged. “I don’t have much of a face left and this bandage is giving me double vision. Are you sure you want me back on the force at this time?”

“I need anyone I can get right now. We’re putting together a task force to try and retake lower Manhattan, volunteers only. Have you been updated on the news?”

“Just the radio because we still have some batteries,” Valerie said. “But it’s sporadic and we only get the news once in awhile. Most of the time it’s just white noise.”

Joe sighed. “We’ve had to withdraw all the way north from Hell’s Kitchen, down to Tribeca, and over to the Lower East Side. That whole area is now designated as a no-go and it’s getting bigger. Anybody who can is leaving the whole city, but from what I’ve been hearing, I don’t think anywhere in the country is safe. We’ve set up checkpoints along Brooklyn Bridge and all of the other bridges, but I don’t think it’ll hold. If whatever’s causing this decides to move towards Staten Island or Brooklyn, I don’t think we could stop them, not with the few officers we have left.”

“Still no idea what’s causing it?”

“We think it’s some sort of cult. But I don't know how they grew to this size in such a short time. We’ve been getting reports of monsters in Central Park, but I just don’t believe it, it’s too fantastic already.”

“Monsters?” Valerie said. “What kind of monsters?”

Joe shook his head. He had a hard time believing in what he was saying. “Some of the news reporters showed us video feeds of people in the park getting attacked by things. They looked like naked white women, only they are so thin, they 're like walking skeletons, but they had the strength to rip people in half.”

Josefina placed a tray with a ceramic pot and cups on the short wooden table between them and started pouring some hot, steaming coffee. “They are the tzitzimitl.”

Joe’s eyes widened. “The what?”

Valerie rolled her eyes. “Mama, please. We don’t have time for a mythology lecture.”

Josefina shook her head. “Mi hija, you keep trying to deny what is there, what you saw.”

“Mama, what you’re saying cannot be true,” Valerie said. “Those old stories were myths and legends, they cannot be real.”

“Wait,” Joe said. “Those things you just said, what exactly are they?”

Valerie looked at him disapprovingly. “Lieutenant, come on, surely you don’t want to listen to this nonsense?”

Joe held up his hand. “I’m sorry, Val, we don’t have any idea what we’re dealing with and I’ve seen things that I cannot accept as real, but now I don’t know what to believe.”