Dark City

20.

The monsters are real. That's what Nathan told himself each time he pulled the trigger in Afghanistan. He never expected he'd come home to find devils lurking in every corner of suburbia. He remembered clearly now the tale of Beowulf, heard his mother's voice in his head as she read Seamus Heaney's translation.

With his death upon him, he had dived deep
Into his marsh den, drowned out his life
And his heathen soul: hell claimed him there.

He had to follow Grendel to his lair. He had to venture into the sinking marchlands.

That very night, Nathan loaded his Glock and parked his car a few houses down from Jacob's place. For a long time he observed from the shadows, windows cracked so he could hear the street. The air was rich with the smell of dew on the grass, a smell that took him back to his childhood. Jacob's porch lit up and Nathan got a clear view of the mother smoking on the front steps. Grendel's mother herself. Chronic drug use had ravaged her skin, made her a suitable example of the monster one should not suffer to live.

The target, judging from the light glowing in a bedroom window, was likely still inside. At the very least, he wasn't carrying out any more rituals for Baphomet in Ghost Woods. Nathan couldn't waste anymore time. He got out of his car and crept around the back of Jacob's house. As he neared the perimeter, he could smell burnt plastic inside. Someone was smoking meth.

He peered in through a window in the back door. The lights were off, but he could tell the room was clear, so he forced his way in, breaking a bit of wood off the door casing. Nobody came running. There was a girl passed out on a beanbag, a rubber tourniquet still wrapped around her arm. She wasn't anyone he recognized, so he kept moving, searching until he found the only door with a sliver of light peeking out beneath.

Nathan pulled his Glock and burst into Jacob's bedroom. Jacob was sitting on his bed, wielding a machete.

    When he saw Nathan, he dropped his weapon and sighed.

    "Okay. Okay. You win," Jacob muttered. "Gun beats machete."

    "You hear me coming?"

    "I felt you," Jacob said. "Are you here to kill me?"

    "Not if you tell me where Alex is."

    "What makes you think I know?"

    "I know about the little cult of yours. They recruited you as a teen, right?"

    "I'll say whatever you want if it'll keep you from shooting me."

    "If you can't produce Alex, you can bet on it."

    "She's alive," Jacob said. "I don't have her. Could you lower the fucking weapon?"

    Nathan lowered his gun, ready to bring it up again at the slightest provocation. "Where is she?"

    "Let me just say I had nothing to do with this."

    "Spare me, Serrell."

    "She's at the Super8 in Ocean."

    "You're sure?"

    "Yep. I was just there on a supply run."

    "What room?"

    "109."

    "The hell is she doing there?"

    "What do you think?" Jacob laughed and picked up his glass pipe, readying another crystal. "Your girl's a pill head. She's missing cause she wants to be."

"You shut your mouth about her."

    Nathan left through the back of the house and took his car in the direction of Ocean Township. Grendel would have to wait.

_________________

Music: "Time is Running Out" Muse

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