CHAPTER 22

 

October 30th – 10:00 p.m.

 

It was too loud too hot and too crowded inside Duffy’s Dancitorium. Darkers of all ages were dancing it up, freaking out to the assorted tunes of various goth-rock bands. Lots of flashing, pulsing lights and throbbing beats. Ecstatic Darkers tripping on themselves and each other, gyrating wildly to the hypnotic sound.

The Dark Rave was a fairly intense experience. Adding to the sensory overload it offered Marley had also begun to develop the beginnings of a wicked headache. She tried to walk this off after the last interview and strolled around the auditorium floor to sample some of the Dark concession stands spread out in Duffy’s Dancitorium.

Marley found booths selling energy drinks, herbal teas, lotions, lip balms and other Dark personal accessories. Some of the kiosks sold fiercer items such as lasers, vests, stealth shoes and night-vision goggles. There was an entire lifestyle for sale or rent, Marley realized. Some kind of Dark Bling for every occasion. T-shirts, tote bags and monogrammed pens. Medallions, bracelets, capes and posters and flags.

When the music started Marley watched (but didn’t join) the dancers, as the Dark Forum and subsequent game of Dark Tag had put her off any inclination to mingle. She’d “forgotten” her Dark Tag vest at the house and had deliberately chosen to wear nothing black.

At one point The Dark himself took to the dance floor and surprised everyone present by rocking some sturdy dance moves. Feet nimble and quick on the beat, he cut a very dashing figure. All eyes were on him as he whirled about under the giant black mirror balls that hung from the fashionably industrial ceiling tile overhead.

And as he danced a wave of adoring Darkers slowly moved forward to encircle him, a ring of faces and stamping feet on the dance floor all around their leader who boogied down mid-circle, cape swirling about his shoulders wing-like.

Stowing her camera back inside the carryall she used for on-scene gigs like this one, Marley slipped unnoticed out a side door of Duffy’s Dancitorium into the cool night air. She found herself on a quiet little side street surfaced in the old-style cobblestones so typical of downtown Minneapolis’ Warehouse District.

Standing back in the shadows of the Dancitorium, Marley caught her breath and took some time to regain her mental balance. Twinkling city lights glittered the chill air around her as she felt the tension slowly ease from her shoulders.

Eventually she noticed a couple of Darkers making out nearby, clinging to each other in a way that suggested they’d mistaken the street for a hotel room. Whispered murmurs punctuated the night as they passionately tested the limits of each others’ clothing. Marley looked around for somewhere else she could be.

The slam of a nearby door caught her ear and Marley turned toward the sound. A figure reeled unsteadily out from an exit set even farther down along the building. As Marley watched a second figure followed the first one out and gave the first one a mighty shove, sending the unfortunate person staggering farther down the street.

Each time the first person almost regained his (or her) balance the second caught up and gave the first another push, hounding him (or her). Then Marley heard the roar of an engine starting and the night was shattered by a dazzle of headlights and the squeal of tires.

From the corner of her eye, Marley noticed that the lovebirds nearby had finally been distracted from each other and all three of them watched, horrified by what followed next. It seemed to happen both rapidly and in slow-motion. The first figure turned and tried to flee from the path of the oncoming vehicle but the second figure was there to block its escape, ruthlessly pushing the first back into the path of the oncoming headlights.

There was a direct hit and the grisly slap of moving metal on flesh. The victim went flying, arms and legs akimbo, landing across the edge of a nearby dumpster with a damp, meaty crack. From the way the broken doll’s head dangled it was clear that he (or she) was quite dead.

The homicidal vehicle, a black SUV without any plates, stayed motionless, engine idling smoothly while the second figure climbed inside. There was a long pause. The driver and accomplice seemed to be waiting, watching to see if the downed person would rise. With a scream of rubber the killer car finally rocketed off into the night, leaving Marley and her affectionate neighbors alone with the chilling corpse of a murder victim.

The male half of the formerly amorous duo cautiously approached the fallen stranger to see if he could offer assistance. Placed a tentative hand on the hit-and-run victim’s neck and groped for a pulse there, then the wrist.

Without offering any help or assistance whatsoever, Marley sank further back into the shadows and leaned against the outside wall of the Dancitorium for support. It was cowardly but she didn’t feel like lending a hand. Her headache was back in full force and her finger throbbed painfully. She simply watched as Romeo checked for a pulse.

To be sure, if she’d felt it would have done any good Marley would have been the first person to step up and do CPR on the victim. But in this particular case Marley honestly didn’t think there was much that anyone (except God and a choir of angels) could do for the poor soul. Checking for a pulse in this case was more of a following-protocol kind of thing, a formality that had to be observed. Sure enough, after a minute Romeo shook his head and stepped back from the body.

He’d been blocking Marley’s view, and when he moved Marley stared into the face of the murdered man and realized that she’d seen him before. A slow and poisonous dread began freezing her deep inside, where the small frightened animal part of her lived. The last time she’d seen this man had been at the Dark Forum earlier when he’d rushed the stage and accused The Dark of having murdered his sister Gillian.

This made him the second angry member of the Folsom family in as many days to die soon after tangling with The Dark himself. Which just couldn’t be a coincidence. Especially not considering everything little Hector Gonzalez had told her and Alison earlier. Marley’s stomach clenched into a tight painful ball, threatening to eject its contents on the spot. Her headache began to throb violently.

She swallowed hard. And swallowed again, trying to breathe.

There was a foul odor on the breeze. The victim had emptied his bowels at the moment of impact and this along with the musky scent of his blood made Marley dizzy with nausea and rancid fear. She gagged and her finger throbbed sharply. A small crowd had gathered nearby taking things in and talking in soft, frightened whispers.

Having completed his cursory examination of the clearly dead man Romeo dialed 911 to request help while Marley edged slowly away from the scene and out of sight into a shadowed nook between buildings. The prospect of waiting around to give the requisite statement to the police was unappealing. There would be news crews showing up soon as well, and given her nausea Marley had no wish to be immortalized vomiting on camera.

Not to mention she’d already been the focus of enough attention from the Minneapolis police for one day. Maybe it was paranoid to think so, but Marley had a hunch that anyone who filed two separate police reports involving serious but unrelated crimes in the space of twenty-four hours would likely end up on a watch list of some kind herself.

At any rate Romeo and Juliet had seen everything she’d seen. They could testify as to what had transpired just as well as she could. And thus justifying her not-so-good-citizen-like disappearance from the crime scene Marley kept going, headed out down the alley and scrammed it. Lit out. Hit the road and kept on going. Picked up her jeep from parking and drove home in total, petrified silence.