Friday, July 4th
Taking a rub (slang, origin probably English, circa early 19th century) - to escape the police
“What the heck was that?” someone’s clear alto voice came echoing through the now-silent car. “Fireworks,” someone else answered weakly. Then came an indignant, “Fireworks, my ass. It sounds like someone jumped on the roof.”
That was what it had sounded like to Penelope as well. She was hoping that it was really a figment of her highly sensitized sense of imagination combined with healthy paranoia. That inner voice had prudently shut up since going down into the basement and confronting a seven foot behemoth dressed in a very strange Halloween mask. She rather suspected that her inner voice had been scared witless.
As the train moved southward, Penelope heard muted conversation break out in droves among the sardine-packed car as people readjusted to what they perceived as something normal and uneventful happening. She shifted the bag along her shoulder and neck and hoped the door just behind her was the one that would open first.
There was a sudden and continuous boom of thunder that abruptly filled the night. Everyone silenced and looked out the windows. “Dammit,” someone said. “That’s the fireworks finale. They’re wrapping up, and we’re missing it.”
All eyes were glued on the windows to the right side of the train. Only the passengers fortunate enough to be sitting there already could see the magnificent end of some thirty minutes worth of bedazzling pyrotechnics. The rest crowded and crouched for a better look. “Look, an American flag!” called someone. “How do they do that?”
Penelope was the lone individual not looking to the right of the train. Instead she stared at the ceiling of the car and waited for the other shoe to drop. This was the time when most thieves would have repented their thieving ways and vowed never to steal again. Rather than that, Penelope was thinking of Jessica Quick, and what would happen to her mother if something happened to her.
The ceiling of the car shook suddenly, and no one but Penelope noticed. She knew something else was moving around up on top, and she was hoping sincerely that they got electrocuted when they ran into the power couplings of the train.
Again the train lurched and people grumbled. “It’s a train, not socket rience,” someone complained loudly and then giggled drunkenly. “Rocket science, I mean.”
Then the train rumbled to a tooth-rattling stop. Penelope cast a look over her shoulder and saw dead space. It took her a moment to figure out that they had stopped on the bridge over the Trinity River. Fifty yards distant was the Jefferson Market Viaduct, and the silver reflection of the Trinity as it wound its way towards the southeast could be seen.
Someone from the far end of the car started moving through the crowd, flickering fluorescent lights dimly illuminating his figure. Penelope tried to move but was hemmed in by a jam-packed car. The large figure didn’t seem to have a problem; the crowd cleared for him. She didn’t want to look up, but her eyes came up involuntarily. Did they dare to kill her in the midst of a train swarming with people?
It wasn’t the thing constructed from darkness nightmares; instead, it was a Dallas police officer, which was another kind of problem for Penelope altogether. A large man with blue-black skin and black eyes, he was a man who liked to work out and lift weights. His dark and intent gaze was directed down at Penelope and pinned her to the map. The name on his badge said McAdams and was almost lost above a row of ribbons collected in the line of duty.
But Penelope didn’t really care much about that. She knew almost immediately that the DPD was looking for her as well. Had the owners of the house on Durfrene Row reported her when they realized that they couldn’t keep up with her?
Penelope stared defiantly back at the cop. All a girl could do in this situation was to be glad that the bag was slung over her back and pretend she didn’t have a single thing to hide.
McAdams’s eyes narrowed at her. He took in her black clothing that was too hot for the 85˚ evening and her pale curls and made an instant judgment. People muttered uneasily on either side of her, and an unenthusiastic space cleared around her. He slowly leaned his head to his shoulder radio and said something urgently into it, pressing a hand to the button there. “You got ID?” he finally said to her.
“To ride the DART?” Penelope smiled as she said the words but winced inwardly. This police officer knew when he had something, and he was like a bulldog; he wasn’t going to let go until he was damn good and ready.
McAdams wasn’t amused. “Your name?”
“Mary Ann Nichols. My grandmother’s name was Mary Louise. But my mother wanted to change it a little and pass it onto me. But you can call me Mary.” Penelope lifted her chin up, challenging the police officer to call her on the falsehood.
“Mary,” McAdams said in a harsh voice that brooked little refusal. “So you been around downtown Dallas tonight?”
“Sure. The Trinity Fest. Fireworks galore. Food. Goodies. You ever have one of those roasted turkey legs on a stick?” She smacked her lips. “Really good stuff. No vegetarian me.”
A nearby man chuckled. The cop did not. He went on insistently, “What about oh, say, Durfrene Row? You’ve been around there?”
“Duffy Row? Never heard of it.” Penelope crossed her arms rebelliously. Then one of her hands came up and touched a platinum ringlet. She wanted Officer McAdams to remember the color of her hair and the insolent bent of her spine, if nothing else. So far the cuffs weren’t on her. She didn’t smell like she had bathed in alcohol or marijuana, and so far, other than a certain description, the cop probably didn’t have anything on her. But cops had their own sixth sense, and this one knew when he had hit pay dirt.
“Durfrene Row,” McAdams repeated with a darker note. He had probably been dealing with happy drunks all evening and had little patience left for Penelope’s smart lip. He looked at her injured wrist and saw the sticky blood on her hand without commenting explicitly on it. “You have any stolen goods on you, for instance?”
“Stolen goods?” Penelope repeated with what she wished was the correct suggestion of confusion in her voice. She shrugged, thinking, You haven’t read me any rights yet. I’m not confessing to anything, especially in front of a crowd and right beneath some things crawling on the roof of a train car waiting for me.
“Hey,” someone protested loudly. “I’m a lawyer, and I don’t think you have a bit of probable cause in order to search her.”
“Shut the hell up,” McAdams advised cheerfully. “And you,” he said to Penelope, “turn around and assume the position. I think you know which one.”
Before Penelope could comply or tell McAdams to go to hell, the lights above gave a last lingering flicker and died. A glass window on the far end of the car suddenly shattered. A woman screamed, but it wasn’t because of the glass, it was because of the black shape that undulated into the broken window and began to sift toward the middle where Penelope and the police officer were standing. Then another window on the opposite end of the car broke, and a similar figure came through with all the effort of a ghostly wisp of smoky wind. The mass of people inside the car started to strain in order to get away from the murky forms that had entered, pushing themselves up against the walls and clearing a path for them so they’d leave them alone.
McAdams craned his neck in both directions trying to understand what was happening. Finally, he began to speak lowly and urgently into the radio on his shoulder, asking for backup. He turned away from Penelope’s perceived lack of threat and reached for his sidearm with an anxious hand. “Stop right there!” he rumbled to the two figures. They didn’t stop. They didn’t even pause. Their murky shapes rolled and undulated through the crowd as if they were made from shadows constructed of the deepest darkness. “Stop, I said! Goddammit!”
She didn’t want to be the one to remind the cop that they were stopped in the middle of the bridge over the Trinity River, and no one was going to be coming to their aid. Penelope’s hand went into her pocket, and for a moment she touched the large stone she had creeped from the house on Durfrene Row. Her eyes shifted to the gloomy form closest to her. The one coming from her right hesitated for a second. It stopped chillingly in its tracks and red eyes stared at her under a hood that made its features shadowy and indistinct.
Penelope’s thoughts raced. She let the gemstone go and touched the handle of her Leatherman Tool instead. She didn’t intend to go out without a fight. The moment she let go of the black gem in her hand, the thing with the red eyes began to move unerringly toward her.
Officer McAdams turned toward the two shapes moving through the shadows of the car and gruffly repeated the order to stop. Penelope wasn’t surprised when they did not comply.
*
The watching man walked out of the house on Durfrene Row in the same manner he had entered. He went through the front door and down the steps, looking around him cautiously as he did. Now he understood why they had taken off after the thief in such a hurry. She had the stone. She had stolen it, and it was what Anthony so desperately needed. He wouldn’t be content until the girl was dead and the precious item returned to his possession. The watching man had known that about Anthony all along; he was disturbingly dogged.
The journey to Dallas was fraught with peril. Furthermore, it was filled with the knowledge that he might be forced to kill someone to whom he was once very close. The Christians had a specific commandment to deal with that mandate. One did not kill. However, the Christians didn’t know what was happening, and they didn’t know that if the watching man failed in his given tasks, then their world was about to end. Violently. Horribly. Undeniably.
The shadow people had already come up from the underworld. They were here to cause as much evil as they could, and Anthony, in his misguided treachery, was gleefully abetting them.
William Littlesoldier, sometimes known as Will, returned to his car, a new dilemma steaming his thoughts like water left to boil too long on a searing stove. The blood on the fetish would protect the girl somewhat, but it wouldn’t save her from the unnatural and unmerciful determination that motivated those things from a lower world. She desperately needed his help. And desperation only scratched the tip of the iceberg. She probably was getting a dose full of that extreme anxiety right now.
But what was to the thief’s benefit was that Will needed her and her continued well-being, just as much as she needed him. Maybe she didn’t know it, and Will didn’t intend on informing her of the fact, but it was the truth. He needed to hurry.
Once Will was sitting in his car, he turned on the police band radio and listened to the chatter of officers reporting back and forth. Then Will started the vehicle and left the area of the house on Durfrene Row. The police would be arriving soon, and Anthony would be doing some interesting explaining to the local authorities to prevent them from entering the house.
The thief had run in the direction opposite to where she had come into the neighborhood. With night vision goggles Will had watched both entrance and exit. Either she lived in the area and knew its streets very well, or she might have been truly panicked from her experience in the basement. Or since she had survived the incident to begin with, it might indicate some level of her intelligence. Wouldn’t a thief protect herself in some manner? If she knew she was going in, what would she do in order to prevent later identification? Lead the pursuers away from something or someplace she wanted to keep to herself?
He drove in that direction and kept his eyes open. So far the police band indicated nothing that would aid him or the thief, but in the dense population of the city of Dallas it wouldn’t be long. Seven-foot masked giants and black creatures with terrifying red eyes didn’t go unnoticed here. Then he heard the urgent call about countless unknown perpetrators breaking windows on a nearby DART train and knew that his wait was over.
*
Lights from cars passing on the viaduct behind them illuminated the interior of the train car in spits and spurts. Various beams of light washed over the nightmarish scene and gave it the illusion of a B-grade Hollywood slasher.
Officer McAdams had his service weapon out and pointed at the ground in-between himself and the nearest blackish thing approaching him. His voice had gotten high with apprehension, and he yelled at the shape, “POLICE! Freeze! I mean, FREEZE!”
Next to Penelope a man stood petrified with fear, backed up as far as he could against the car’s wall. In his hands he clutched a small Igloo cooler as if it would save his life. It was about the size to carry a six-pack of beer and a sandwich. But instead of Styrofoam, it was constructed of a solid plastic and looked to be about the right size for bashing out a nearby window. Penelope snatched it out of the man’s hands and watched the look of disbelief replace the one of fear on his face. “Hey!” he protested with an incredulous grunt. “That’s my beer!”
“I’m just borrowing it,” Penelope said reassuringly. She spun on her heels and let the momentum of her spin carry the Igloo through the window. Then she used the little cooler to smash the rough edges away. Behind her the police officer cast a harried and fearful glance over his shoulder and proceeded to ignore her. He was a lot more interested in the two dark figures closing on him, the very same two figures that would not stop, that would not listen to him.
“EVERYONE GET THE HELL ON THE FLOOR!” McAdams screamed.
Penelope winced as his sidearm fired a rapid burst of shots at the closest shape and threw the Igloo on the floor beside the man she’d taken it from. She threw her head out the broken window of the door she had been standing in front of and looked around for other things that might be waiting for her. Notable examples would have been the seven-foot guy in the twisted mask or the beautiful woman who was obviously constructed of undiluted malevolence. Those were two individuals that Penelope did not care to run into anytime soon or anytime in the future.
She didn’t look back when McAdams finished his clip and reloaded. However, when she got her feet out of the window, dropping to the tracks below the train with a groan and a thud, she heard a screaming that chilled her blood to icicles. McAdams was thrown against the side of the car, and Penelope looked up in time to see his face meet the glass in a distortion of pain. A spider web of cracks appeared just as his face connected, and the terrified agony in his face made Penelope cringe with abject fear.
A moment later the inside of the train was utterly silent. Then a woman started to cry, and Penelope shook herself loose from her horror. Whatever was chasing her wasn’t interested in the police; they weren’t interested in anything but her and what she had stolen. She had to run. She tripped over the tracks and caught herself halfway to the ground.
Throwing an anxious glance over her shoulder she saw one of the dark figures slithering out the window like a wild, rabid animal and increased her pace. There was a cleared path beside the tracks, and Penelope took to that like a sure-footed goat. She had chosen the direction arbitrarily but knew that she was headed for another group of people. Somewhere around there would be another car and a possibility to escape by borrowing that car. The more space she put between herself and her pursuers the better.
Suddenly, Penelope stopped in her tracks like something that had turned instantly to lead. On the other end of the train tracks was movement. She could see the huge figure with the mask, the bright colors and large shape briefly illuminated by intermittent headlights of passing vehicles. Next to him was the woman with the long black hair, sauntering leisurely along the side of the tracks. Behind her were more with radiant eyes in the gloomy Dallas night. All had slowed to a walk, given Penelope’s seeming entrapment.
She carefully looked around her. There was the train and confused people looking out darkened windows. There was no help to be had there. The conductor had stopped the train for some reason and Penelope suspected that the conductor had stopped for a very bad reason in the form of another red-eyed creep inside the car with him. The police officer had been put out of commission or killed. If there were other cops on board the DART train, then they weren’t making a rapid appearance in Penelope’s defense.
Things didn’t look good. She shifted the bag on her shoulder and wondered if they would go away if she tossed the bag at them. Somehow given their previous exertions to regain their possessions, Penelope didn’t think that was going to be an option. She took a step back and looked around again. Another figure had joined the two behind her. In another minute she was going to be completely cut off.
Then an eerie voice floated down the viaduct toward her. “Penelope,” it called. Penelope’s mouth opened in astonishment. The voice sounded like…but she was sure that it couldn’t be his voice. Not possible, she thought frantically. Not him. “Penelope,” it repeated spine-chillingly. “There’s no place to go. You won’t die. You’ll just join us. It’s not so bad.”
“Jeremy,” Penelope whispered harshly. Her good friend apparently was not in the Caribbean with his honey. While Penelope looked anxiously over her shoulder and peered down the darkened tracks to see her only friend, the others did not hesitate. The multicolored mask of the giant bobbed in time with his long, discordant strides down the sides of the tracks. He made the black-haired woman at his side seem amazingly petite.
Penelope couldn’t tell where Jeremy’s odd sounding voice was coming from. It seemed as though it was emitted from the two in front of her, but she couldn’t be positive. “Penelope,” it called again, and her backbone hardened into cement. Jeremy wouldn’t simply join these people. It’s a recording or something to fool me. They know who I am, somehow, and…
She knew how it sounded. And she was trapped. But a saying from Jacob Quick came flooding through her mind at just the right time that allowed her to return to the present situation at hand and come up with the fast solution that would get her ass out of a sling. A determined expression came over Penelope’s face. She didn’t know what was happening or what she had stumbled into, but she wasn’t going to lie down and present her belly.
Under her breath and ignoring her racing heart, she repeated one of her father’s infrequent quotes, “It ain’t over until the fat thief squeals for a lawyer.”
Then Penelope took the only way out that she had left. She spun to her left, broke into a loping run and dove over the retaining wall of the viaduct. The bridge sat about fifty feet above the water of the Trinity River which was, even in the wettest years, notoriously low.