Reaper II: Neophyte (5 page)

I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew, not even with this strange and nebulous new gift and its remarkable abilities.

I would fight crime with this dark gift, prevent terrible things from happening to good people, just as a terrible thing had very nearly happened to me. 

It
was
a powerful gift that I was learning more about day by day.

A gift
. 

A dark side. 

A Dark Thing that seemed to crave the blood that would make it stronger, the blood of guilty men, perhaps even guilty women.  I could feel the Dark Thing’s demand on me, making my skin crawl and even my teeth itch.

I recognized it’s gnawing sensation as a sense of hunger. 

Yes, it seemed to crave the blood of the corrupt.

Somehow, I knew this, just as I knew I had been right to attack those three men who had intended to rape and kill me.

Soon, I would have to answer the Dark Thing’s call.

Finally, about a week after the attack in the park, I felt I was ready to go out, hunting and see what I could feed it. 

The call was upon me, the urge strong. 

Where was I to go?

Somehow, the Dark Thing seemed to know.

My new instincts told me head south.

I boarded a south-bound transit bus that was destined for the direction that the Dark Thing was pushing me toward.  We went slowly through a
bad
part of town, an area rife with the criminal element—thugs, pimps, drug dealers, other baddies. 

I wondered if this was where the Dark Thing was leading me, but no – it was guiding me, by intuition, by instinct, toward a part of the city I’d never been to before. 

I trusted that it would not lead me astray.

Keeping a look out to stay oriented, mentally, while being drawn instinctively, I continued in the direction that my new intuition led me, riding the bus through the ghetto. The Dark Thing didn’t seem to want anything
here
either.

This was where drug dealers pushed their poison chasing the almighty American dollar in their twisted version of the American Dream – ‘get rich or die trying’.

It was ironic then that this was their mantra, since few dealers in this region got rich by selling their wares.

Many more seemed to die trying, according to the newspapers headlines, the television news ticker...

I wondered why the Dark Thing didn’t want me to stop there. 

Even from the safety of the bus, I could see, on street corners, questionable people – dealers, certainly.  Others still looking like thugs who reminded me a lot of the men who attacked me in Lincoln Park.  Some of those people standing in the shadows were carrying poorly concealed weapons.

I had heard once that guns didn’t kill people.

That people killed people.

This was a violent part of the city. 

I could taste the venomous quality of the place, like a taint of some kind on my tongue.

Why didn’t the Dark Thing want me to stop here? 

What was waiting further south? 

What could be worse than this?

What was more treacherous than these shady characters?

Settling into my seat, obeying its sense of direction, I let the Dark Thing and the bus, carry me on.

“I’ll see you later,” I told the gangsters under my breath, promising justice at a later date.

The bus carried me further and further, until we reached a residential area that put all of my senses on alert. 

I felt the Dark Thing humming beneath my skin in anticipation. 

It was almost buzzing with excitement, sending vibrations through my skin, through my very bones.  I felt its surge of adrenaline begin to course through my veins.

Again, I experienced the sensation – almost of invincibility – that I had the night I was attacked.

The Dark Thing was augmenting my strength.

This residential area seemed middle class to me, hardly enough to cause one alarm, yet here I was on the edge of my seat, peering out of the window trying to see what the Dark Thing had drawn me to. 

Here, all the houses seemed to look the same, as though built by the same contractor, their only differences being the shades of paint on similar bungalow constructs.  These cookie-cutter houses all had the same shape and were organized in neat, orderly rows. 

What does the Dark Thing want here, on Sergeant Avenue?
I had to wonder. 

The place that it wanted me to go to was near here, walking distance, my strange new instincts told me…

And so, I got off of the bus at the next stop. I began to make my way down the sidewalk, taking in my surroundings, watching to be sure that no one noticed me.

The people in this neighborhood seemed to take a lot of pride in their modest homes.  Many of the walkways adorned with decorative stones, or lined with shrubs.  Many others had flowerbeds full of nothing but topsoil.  The flowerbeds likely teemed with blooms during the summer months, but were now bare, in preparation for the long, cold winter. 

It really was unsettling, somehow, the way the houses all looked alike. 

Row upon row of bungalow clones. 

If not for the numbers on the houses, I imagined that it would be easy to get lost here.

The Dark Thing urged me to take a left, at Carter Street and so I did, cutting across Sergeant Avenue to get to the other side. I was getting closer to our destination and the closer I got, the clearer my intuitions became. 

Suddenly, I saw the house that the Dark Thing was guiding me toward. 

It was yet another bungalow clone, much like the others that lined Carter Street.

This one was white, with blue trim and blue shutters.  In the middle of the yard was a collection of dead leaves raked neatly into a pile, the rake discarded nearby, like a task forgotten. 

Brass numbers marked the front of the house, house number sixty-five. 

It wasn’t much different from the other homes on this street, yet something about it did stick out like a sore thumb – the way that it made my skin tingle, my senses heighten, the way that it made the Dark Thing gnaw at me with its growing hunger.

What exactly does the Dark Thing want with this place?
I wondered as I steadied my nerves for whatever lay ahead.

Obeying its insistent urges, I allowed the second skin to spread around my clothes in a thin layer, arming me with its protection, its strength, its seemingly impenetrable armor. 

My muscles felt strong, certain, beneath my skin. 

My body was made taut somehow, ready for anything. 

Made fearless by the Dark Thing’s influence, I wasn’t too worried about being discovered, as I walked up the sidewalk, heading for the front door. 

The streetlights didn’t quite reach this house and everyone seemed to be in their homes, no one out walking dogs on the sidewalk or otherwise milling about the quiet neighborhood. 

It was early November – you couldn’t blame them for wanting to stay indoors. 

There was frost expected in the weather report, after all.

The Dark Thing urged me up the walk to the front door, to the Welcome mat that lay at its entrance. 

It couldn’t be this easy,
I thought, as I lifted the mat and discovered a dusty key. 

Apparently, it
was
going to be that easy to gain entrance to the house.  I tried the key in the door and found it to be a perfect fit.  Would there be an alarm system to contend with?  I hadn’t thought of that…

As I turned the key, the lock obeyed and I was soon turning the doorknob to open wide the front door. 

The hallway beyond was dark, but I could see just fine, my night vision uncannily accurate.

The Dark Thing seemed to have imparted the strange new night vision as a gift to me too, ever since it first appeared, the night I was attacked.

It was a trait that would come in handy for moments like these. I could wander around strangers’ homes like a cat burglar in the night.

Seeing no one in the hall, I slipped inside and gently closed the door behind me. 

There was someone here, instinct told me, but not within hearing distance of my footsteps.   

I thought it best to be cautious, anyway and so I kept close to one wall, listening carefully for any signs of life in the house.  I could hear Trent Reznor, singer from the
Nine Inch Nails
loudly crooning something about fucking someone
like an animal
and the clattering of something that sounded like fingertips on a computer keyboard. 

The noises were coming from beneath my feet and were the only sounds I could discern in the small bungalow home.

I didn’t know the floor plan, but the Dark Thing seemed confident of the layout of the house, leading my gaze to a doorway just a few meters down the hall from the front entrance. 

A basement door
, it was certain, conveying the message to me by instinct alone.

I walked with soft footfalls to that door and put my hand on its cold brass knob.  I took a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves.  I could barely resist the Dark Thing’s yearning for me to rush down the stairs and attack the unseen person or persons below. 

What exactly am I walking into?

It was better not to rush into the unknown.  I willed the Dark Thing to arm me in an even thicker layer, starting at the tips of my fingers, spreading up over my hands, wrist, arms, crossing my breasts with its impenetrable second skin. 

I also willed it to cover my clothes in entirety – even my fall jacket - and as it did, I felt lifted off the ground ever so slightly as it coated even the soles of my shoes.

Fully protected now, I carefully turned the doorknob and, willing the Dark Thing to cover my face and hair in entirety, I opened the basement door.

The basement stairwell light was on. 

Shit
. 

There was no way I was going to be able to descend those stairs without a risk of whoever was down there seeing me.

The framed cross-stitched
Home Sweet Home
picture hanging over the stairs drew my attention. 

I saw my reflection in the glass of the hanging craft and was, for a moment, taken aback. 

The Dark Thing was covering my entire face this time and it looked so strange to me – seeing myself there, my face darkened by its organic second skin. There was a slightly reptilian pattern of scales in the skin of my lips, cheeks, nose and forehead. I looked a bit like the gargoyle I had seen in a brochure my mother had brought back from Paris.

My eyes were completely black, with no white sclera, no colored iris – just pure black lenses that gleamed in the dim light. My hair, too, was covered in the Dark Thing, clumped in bunches of darkness that looked much like dreadlocks, which I supposed was more efficient a barrier of protection than covering every single hair individually.

I looked like an alien of some kind. 

A creature of darkness. 

Something from a horror movie.

I was sure it was the perfect guise for scaring the shit out of any criminal I would come across. 

The music stopped downstairs and then started again, pulling me out of my reverie.

Whoever was downstairs typing at their keyboard so I was certain that they would be oblivious to my descent anyway. From the speed and consistency of their typing, they seemed very preoccupied and would likely be startled by my intrusion no matter what my appearance. 

Now, I hoped that there was only that one person to contend with.

I descended the basement stairs slowly, though another
Nine Inch Nails
song was playing loudly enough to cover any creaks made on the wooden steps.