I was about a block from my small, five-hundred-square foot apartment with about half of my take from the dealer in my right jacket pocket and the other half in a blank envelope on the doorstep of St. Michael’s orphanage. The darkness outside was almost absolute. There are a scarce amount of street lights on my end of town; all two on my street hadn’t worked in six months. Not enough in the city budget to even think about replacing them. I guess the aristocracy needs the money more for a new park for the stay-at-home moms to take their ADHD kids to so they can run off some energy, while the wives sit around and talk about how much their husbands make and how good their gardeners and pool boys are in bed.
I let the pale moon light wash over me as I stood at the bottom of my front stoop. The moon was full and brilliantly bright, a hunter’s moon. It hung there looking down on me, not judgingly, but knowingly. We shared our darkest secrets, she and I, for a brief moment and then I bid a good night and walked up the six steps to the entrance to my apartment. As I opened the front door I couldn’t help but feel something trying to pull be back, something begging me to stay outside for the night.
My building was an old Victorian that had been broken down into four different apartments. Mine was at the top of the old house. I always tried my best to be as quiet as possible when traversing the staircase but the ancient wood always creaked under my every step. I imagined old Mrs. Blakely cussing me from inside her second floor domicile for waking her up in the middle of the night.
After a good two or three minutes of tip-toeing up four flights of stairs, I finally came to the maple wood door of my apartment. The walls on either side were done in a fleur de lis wall paper that I was positive hadn’t been changed since the early 1920’s. I fumbled in my pockets for my keys and rested the toe of my boot on the bottom of the door. Leaning forward to unlock the door (after what seemed like a twenty minute search), the door pushed open without me even having put the key in the lock. I went with the forward momentum, slowly entering the front living room. I didn’t bother turning on the light, just in case.
“Malachy, the front door was unlocked, buddy. You okay in here?”
Malachy is my older brother whom I’ve been taking care of since I was twelve years old. He’s a big intimidating guy when you first meet him, what with his scruffy red beard and the build of a pro-football defensive linemen, but he’s really just a big teddy bear. He would never put the landlord’s maintenance guy in the hospital because he thought he was breaking in when the guy was just there to replace an electrical socket. Nah, he’s just a big old sweetie.
“Hey, Captain Red Beard! Stop playing World of Warcraft for two seconds, peel yourself from your computer, and come in here and talk to me,” I yelled.
There was still no answer. The apartment was as silent as death. I navigated my way through the pitch black and to Malachy’s bedroom door. Even in the darkness I could still make out the poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger from The Predator with the phrase “Get to the choppa!” hanging on his door.
Speaking a little more softly this time, I said “You asleep in there, buddy?”
Nothing. Not a “go away I’m busy” or the sound of sawing lumber that is my brother snoring in his sleep. I lightly knocked on the door which revealed it to be open. This was a cause for alarm. I might, in an absent minded state, forget to lock the front door or even to close it all the way once in a blue moon, but Malachy never forgot to close his door all the way shut. He also never forgot to lock it. My brother was big on privacy.
I searched the rest of the apartment, continuously calling his name to no avail. I had turned on every light during my search and it wasn’t until I stopped for a second that I saw what scared me the most. The place looked normal. Nothing was out of place, no sign of a struggle. My brother is semi-autistic and completely scared of people. He’s also an extreme agoraphobic who would not, under any circumstance whatsoever, leave his home. Ever.
That means someone would’ve had to forcibly remove him. Which means there would’ve been a fight and a damn good one at that. Like I said before, Malachy is a big boy, not to mention he has superhuman-like strength. It would’ve taken more than one person to get him out of here and, in all reality, one of them would’ve probably ended up in the ICU in the process.
Panic and rage surged through my body. My hands began to glow bright red. I closed my eyes for a second, focusing my energy, then I took off out the front door and down the stairs, towards the entrance of the building at lightning speed. When I say lightning speed, I mean it literally. The sound of static electricity cracking and popping echoed through the stairwell behind me as I rammed through the front door, leaving it hanging on one hinge behind me. I would have to leave the landlord a blank envelope on his door for the damage when I got back.
I stopped just at the bottom of the stoop, the air around me still teeming with electricity. I tried to think of anyone who could’ve possibly taken him and where they could’ve gone. I’m sure I’ve made numerous enemies over the years; I mean, I do tend to steal and rob from people who operate in the world’s under belly, but I never actually take the time to get to know their names, who they are, what their sign is, etc. etc. I just watch them operate all around me, on every street corner of every block of the place I call home. I have no allegiance to anyone, I just like to see those who live to make others suffer feel a little of the pain they inflict.
I could see red and blue lights from what seemed like multiple police cruisers flashing from a couple blocks north of where I stood. I closed my eyes, felt the electricity still surging in the air around me return to my body, and took off again. What would normally be at least a five to ten minute walk took me around, oh, five seconds. The lights brought me to an old gothic style cathedral with a wrought iron fence around it, separating grass from sidewalk. I stood facing the side of it and couldn’t help but admire the beautiful, enormous stained glass windows, all depicting some story from the Bible or Christian folklore.
The street was surrounded police vehicles, marked and unmarked, blocking off any entrance to the cathedral. Had to be the scene of some major crime. My heart sped up and my blood ran cold; I couldn’t help but picture my brother’s cold corpse lying on the other side. I slowed my heart’s pace and focused my mind on making my body blend in with the area surrounding me, a.k.a. going invisible. Once I was sure I could go completely unseen, I began walking around the block to the other side. I was having trouble staying focused on keeping myself undetectable; my nerves were raging inside of me.
As I neared the opposite corner I could hear the voice of a woman barking off orders. Her voice was one of complete authority with just the hint of a honey-like smoothness. I saw a muscle bound uniformed officer with a close-cut fade that screamed former military shaking his head while he talked on a cell phone. As I rounded the corner and started up the sidewalk, the first thing I saw was the person whose voice had been hammering out the previous commands.
She was the epitome of professionalism, in her tan skirt suit, but to say she was utterly beautiful wouldn’t have done her justice. She was tall and thin with an athletic build, the result of many hours spent in the gym I’m sure. She had hair the color of the reddest rose you have ever seen, done up in a pony tail that still managed to reach between her shoulder blades, with high heels that somehow matched.
She was holding a cigarette in one hand, conversing with a lady that looked like Oprah standing behind her, and staring at something in front of her. Whatever it was, she was trying to hide the fact that she was repulsed by it but her face was beginning to betray her. In the background, I heard roid-head tell her that someone named Robin Hood had struck again. Is that what they’re calling me these days?? They could at least be a little more creative.
I finally got the courage to peel my stare from pretty cop lady and share in what was causing her to become seemingly nauseous. What I saw brought relief and terror at the same time. There sat a man the same build as Malachy who had been impaled through the eye socket by one of the spiked wrought iron posts. I was beyond relieved that it wasn’t my brother. But rage and terror again began to surge through me and I started losing control of myself once more. I had to leave before I exposed myself.
When I made it back home, I fell on my couch and began meditating to calm my mind. I was going to have to make contact with some people I swore many years ago I would never see or talk to again. Someone had my brother out there somewhere. I thought of Malachy and how frightened he must’ve been. I was going to find out who and where they were keeping him and when I did, they were completely and utterly fucked.
