Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
A lot of people have wound up in that chair over the years, Gabe. Good people, just like you. Milo Alpucori had his back to me, but I could see his smug reflection in the gold-trimmed mirror that covered the rear wall of his office. I wasn't sure if it was a security measure or if he just liked to look at himself. Neither would have surprised me. I know what goes through a man's head when he gets into a situation like this, Gabe.
Thoughts like, "What have I done to deserve this?" and "Where did I go wrong?" And most importantly, Milo turned to face me. His perfect teeth clenched into a cruel little smile. "What can I do to make it right?" I was sick of Milo's speeches, but I had my reasons for staying put. 240,000 of them, not counting the two bruisers standing behind my chair.
The pair of grizzled ex-cons kept their calloused hands where I could see them, a friendly reminder that they were ready to smash my face in if I stood up, complained, or sneezed in Milo's general direction. "Fortunately, there is something you can do for me, Gabe. Something you can do to make a dent in all that nasty debt." Milo paused and poured himself a drink from the heavy glass decanter on his desk.
He made a sour face, clearly savoring my helplessness a lot more than the expensive whiskey. Then, "How about you drive somebody someplace for me?" Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded like a casual request. From Milo Alpocori, it might mean life in prison or worse. I wondered what he had in mind for me. Getaway driver for a bank robbery? Drug mule? Human trafficking?
The worst part was, no matter what he asked of me, I knew that I would do it. It wasn't even the fear of torture or death, although of course that played a role. It was shame. What had started out as a casual hobby
A few hands of blackjack during a Vegas vacation, 20 bucks on a horse race here and there, had spiraled into something completely outside of my control. I could already imagine the whispers that might one day follow my wife through the supermarket. "Did you hear? Her husband lost everything, tried to cover it up, then got himself crippled by some gangster." The house we'd mortgaged just last year? Gone. The cars? Gone.
From the kids' plastic toys to the kitchen table, my bad choices were going to take it all away. Back alley rumors and friend of a friend stories that led me to Milo, the only one who could float a loan big enough to save my family. At the time, I had actually believed that I could pay it all back. Milo knew that information was power, which was probably why he gave other people as little of it as possible.
On my way out of his soundproofed office, one of the bruisers handed me a small slip of paper. It was blank except for a date, a time, and two addresses. A pickup and a drop-off. But of what? The time was 1:30 AM. The place? 417 Lakeview Road. I thanked God that my two boys had gone to bed without a fuss and that my wife was a heavy sleeper.
As soon as I heard her gentle snores, I slipped gingerly out of bed and tiptoed out the door like a thief in the night. I was leaving earlier than I needed to, but I didn't want to leave anything up to chance. This wasn't an appointment that I could afford to miss. A storm broke just as I was backing out of the driveway. A rumble of thunder, rain hammering down in heavy gray sheets.
I could barely see the road, and the few other cars I encountered streamed past in blurry smears of light. By the time I reached Lakeview Road, I hadn't seen another driver for over ten minutes, and I began to understand why. Lakeview Road featured neither lakes nor views, and was barely worthy of being called a road either. It was more like a back alley weaving around warehouses and factories in various states of abandonment.
Not a good place, I thought, to be alone after hours on a rainy night. Number 417 looked so much like the rest of the grim industrial buildings that I drove past it twice before I realized it was where I was supposed to stop. The dashboard clock read 1:25 AM. I let out a sigh I had been carrying inside ever since I'd left home almost an hour ago. I had made it with just five minutes to spare, but what now?
Lakeview Road had no streetlights, nor anything that looked remotely like human habitation. There was nothing to do but sit in the dark and wait. Not knowing what I was waiting for made the waiting even worse. By 1:29, the deluge was falling so hard that all I could see was water. I squinted into the night beyond the windshield,
Then I heard the sharp knock of a revolver against the passenger side window. It was held by a pudgy, 40-something white guy with a comb over. I unlocked the door. "Christ, this weather's a bitch," he grunted, pulling back the hood of his black rain slicker while lurching into the passenger seat. "Drive four streets down and make a left." I looked nervously at the scrap of paper on my dashboard. This wasn't in my instructions. "But Milo said-" I began.
something hard and metallic pressed into the crotch of my pants. You want to get shot in the balls? My passenger snarled. Because I'm telling you right now, I've had the kind of day that makes me want to shoot a man in the balls. Drive. He didn't leave a lot of room for discussion. The guy was high on something, but there was more to it than that. He was also clearly scared out of his wits.
He kept a white knuckle grip on his pistol. His red raw eyes darted from building to building like some unimaginable horror was about to come crawling out of those empty windows. After we made our turn, he ordered me to reverse into an alley that was even narrower than Lakeview Road. "Here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna get out and get somebody. You're not gonna talk to them. They're not gonna talk to you. No interaction. I mean nothing.
"Then you're gonna drive us to the other address on your piece of paper. Wait a while, then drive us back. You got all that?" I wasn't sure that I had, but I also didn't want to get shot in the balls. I nodded meekly. "Good. I'm Leo, by the way. You're Gabe, yeah?" Without waiting for me to answer, Leo pulled up his hood and stepped out into the rain. I could barely make out his squat silhouette knocking on a rusty steel door.
When it finally opened, there was only darkness on the other side. Leo shrugged and turned back to the car. A scream rose in my throat. A hooded figure had stepped out from the gloom. It was right behind him, placing a black-gloved hand on his shoulder. Seconds later, I realized that it was my second passenger. Its hood was the sort that executioners used to hide the faces of their victims. In fact, its entire body was wrapped in layer after layer of black cloth.
It slipped like a shadow into my back seat, and Leo crumpled into the front. His revolver wasn't pointed at the hooded stranger, or even at me. He was aiming straight up at his own chin. The atmosphere in the car had changed somehow. There was a dry, cool smell in the air that reminded me unsettlingly of the reptile house at the zoo. Either that, or my frantic imagination was playing tricks on me. "You got the rearview adjusted, yeah?" Leo grunted.
I nodded, not sure why he had bothered to ask. I wanted to go home. I wanted this night to end, and I wanted that horrible thing in the backseat out of my car. When my odometer passed the speed limit, however, Leo shot me a hard look. It dawned on me why Milo had given me this job. I had a spotless driving record, an average looking car, and every reason to want to avoid being stopped by the police.
I brought the speedometer back down to 50 and cruised along in bleak, terrified silence. 1540 Wardrop Avenue felt like a different world entirely than the industrial wasteland we had just left behind. But its hip clothing stores and posh cafes were all closed at this time of night. There was no one out on the street. I wondered what the hell we were doing here. Leo sprang from the car almost as soon as we were parked.
The hooded figure followed him, moving in a smooth, deliberate way that reminded me of a coiling snake. Leo winced when it put its hand on his shoulder, but apparently that was part of his job. He led the figure toward one of the high-end brownstone apartment buildings nearby. The odd pair stopped in front of it, and he seemed to whisper something into its hood. Then it was off, crawling up the building's wall and around the corner with inhuman ease. Moments later, there was an ear-piercing shriek.
Lights flashed on, dogs barked, and the figure reappeared beside Leo, making him jump. It placed its hand on his shoulder and he guided it back to the car. "What are you waiting for?" Leo snapped once both were inside. "Drive!" My destination was the same windowless, rusty door where I had picked up the strange passenger. By the time Leo guided it back to the rusty door, the dashboard clock read 2:25 AM. The whole thing had taken less than an hour.
Leo tapped his revolver against my window again. I rolled it down. Go home, shitbird, he spat. Forget that any of this ever happened. I wish it had been that easy. The next day at work was hell. I couldn't focus on the spreadsheet in front of me. I kept refreshing news websites, searching for some indication of whatever horrible thing had happened at 1540 Wardrop Avenue. The article wasn't published until later that afternoon, but when I saw it,
I knew I'd found what I was looking for. Amy Y was 27 years old. She was an up-and-coming journalist at a small town newspaper I'd never heard of. Her latest piece was the first part of an exposé about local businesses involved in money laundering. There was never going to be a part two. According to the article, Amy Y had died of natural causes. A heart attack, the coroner said, although she had no past history of cardiac events.
She had been found in her pajamas, sprawled in front of her bedroom window. I could already imagine how it must have gone. Something awakens Amy. She's not sure what. She looks around, but the room is dark. Then she hears a sound, sort of like a tapping. It's coming from outside, but she lives on the third floor. What could be out there? She tiptoes toward the window, and then… When my wife asked me what was wrong at dinner that night, I told her I'd had a rough day at the office.
The truth was, I couldn't get the memories of that night out of my head. The hammering rain, the eerily still figure in the executioner's hood, its ragged black shape climbing effortlessly up the brick wall. At least it was over. I had played a role in a murder, and I would have to live with that for the rest of my life. But I had cleared my debts. My family was safe. Then, two months later, the envelope arrived.
Typed, addressed to me, disturbingly light. Inside was a small scrap of paper, totally blank. Apart from a time, a date, and two addresses. One of the addresses I recognized, and at the other, someone was about to die a gruesome death. 1:30 AM, grimy warehouse walls, windowless metal door. Leo, his rain slicker, traded for a navy blue tracksuit.
The guy was coming apart at the seams. His pupils were pinprick small. His hands shook. I caught him taking several deep breaths before he knocked on the windowless door, working himself up for whatever was coming. This time, the destination was a hotel near the airport. A grey, anonymous place designed for flyover businessmen. Somehow, Leo had gotten a keycard to the place.
Just like before, the hooded figure put a hand on his shoulder, allowing him to guide it inside. The air in the empty parking lot was thick with summer fog. It was quiet, apart from the whir of cicadas and the distant sound of traffic. I wondered what could be taking them so long. The apartment had been one thing, but a hotel was far more complicated. What if some desk worker or a sleepless guest caught the weird pair walking down the hallway?
What if someone had spotted my lonely car in the back parking lot and called the police? Was I about to go to prison as an accessory to murder? A pale hand slammed against the glass of the passenger side window. "Go, go, go!" Leo hissed. I glanced in the mirror. The hooded figure was already behind me. It, too, seemed agitated, swaying from side to side like a cobra hypnotizing its prey.
There was something hungry about the movement, like it had just missed a meal that it had been waiting for for a long time. Leo clutched his pistol like a scared child holding a doll. He refused to take his eyes off of the thing in the back seat. "He wasn't there," Leo muttered to himself. "The bastard didn't show." Leo's teeth were chattering by the time we got back to the warehouse with the metal door, and I wasn't doing much better.
Those weird sweeping movements were getting to me, and I had quit looking in the rearview mirror, childishly telling myself that if I just didn't look at the thing in the backseat, then maybe it couldn't hurt me. Leo got out of the car and shut his eyes tight. The hooded figure placed a hand on his shoulder, and he led it back to the windowless door. Before inserting the key, he turned it to me, like he was begging me to save him from what was about to happen.
As soon as the heavy hinges squeaked open, my passenger pulled Leo into the blackness on the other side. The door slammed shut. It was over so quickly that I barely heard him scream. I'm not sure how long I sat there in the dark alley, paralyzed by fear like an animal caught in a searchlight. Slowly, I remember who I was and what I was doing. I was a husband and father, a gambling addict with a life and lies that needed protecting.
and I had to be in the office at 8 the next morning. The next day at work, I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping it together until I heard familiar footsteps in the lobby. "Um, excuse me, you can't just go back to-" The office receptionist's raised voice caught my attention right away. I peered around the edge of my cubicle. "Get the fuck out of my way." Milo's voice was ice cold.
He was a small guy, about half the size of Austin, our receptionist. But I knew that Austin would stand aside all the same. When you were close to Milo Alpocori, it was like you could feel the bodies on him. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I hurried to the lobby. "Gabe!" Milo threw open his arms. "Just the man I wanted to see. How about we take a nice little stroll through the parking lot?" I didn't want to stroll anywhere with Milo, but I didn't dare to refuse.
Besides, my co-workers were starting to stare at the loud little man with gold sparkling on his wrist and around his neck. His suit alone looked like it cost more than what we made in a year. I told Austin I would be back in a few minutes. You saw what happened to Leo. Pretty fucked up, right? Milo said, once we were out of earshot. It means we're gonna need you to handle things yourself from now on.
"It's easy. Just knock three times on the door. Slowly. Then take our mutual friend to the address you've been given. Direct them where to go, and they'll take care of the rest." It was the "from now on" that terrified me the most. My connection to Milo hadn't ended when I'd agreed to do this job, I realized. It was only just the beginning. I might be getting those little white envelopes for the rest of my life.
"Come on now, Gabe, don't give me that look!" Milo clapped me on the back. "You'll do fine. After all, it's only your life and family that's at stake, right?" With that, Milo sauntered back to a sleek black Mercedes that had been idling behind us, leaving me to the inquisitive stares and whispers of my colleagues. Whoever Milo had been after that night in the hotel, they were a hard person to track down.
Weeks passed before the next envelope arrived. When it did, the address it contained was over two hours away. It was an upper-class suburb near the state capital. The seasons might have changed, but the rusty metal door remained the same. Shortly after midnight, I trudged through the gray slush and knocked three times. Slowly, just as Milo had said. There was a rustling from the other side. After what felt like forever, the door swung open.
"Hi, I'm Gabe. I'm supposed to take you to..." My words suffocated beneath the weight of the thing's silence. "Wait, hadn't Leo warned me not to talk to it?" Fearing I had just made a terrible mistake, I turned around, closed my eyes, and felt a hand on my shoulder. Its touch was as soft and graceful as a dancer's. With my heart in my throat, I led my passenger back to the waiting car. It was a long ride to the capital.
The suburb where Milo had sent us was just outside the city, with its perfect snow banks and bright houses all decorated for Christmas. It looked like something from a holiday postcard. The ranch home we parked in front of was identical to all the rest, except for the tragedy that I was bringing to the unsuspecting family inside. Unlike at the Brownstone, this time I had front row seats to the whole thing.
My passenger crept up to the window of the master bedroom, testing it with those long, cloth-wrapped fingers. We were in a safe, quiet neighborhood, and the owners had left it unlocked. My passenger lifted it effortlessly and crawled inside. I didn't see what happened next, but it was easy enough to piece together later. A mother and father huddled close beneath the blankets of their luxurious king-sized bed.
They shift uneasily in their sleep. The room seems colder now, and the balance of the mattress seems to have shifted, almost as if something had crawled into bed with them. The husband wakes first and sees it, its uncovered face just inches from his own. His heart stops in seconds, but for his mind, dying takes an eternity. The wife hears his stifled shout beside her, and rolls over to turn on the light.
Mom? Dad?
In the golden glow of the bedside lamp, I saw the boy standing there in his matching flannel pajamas. A hand pressed over his mouth. I saw the dark figure slithering out of his parents' deathbed towards him. I had to act. Helping this thing to murder adults was horrible, but I could make myself live with it. Kids? That was something else. I kicked open the car door and stomped through the snow toward the open window.
By the time I heaved myself inside, my passenger and the boy were gone. But there was a half-open bedroom door at the far end of the hallway. I grabbed an antique candlestick. It was the nearest thing at hand that felt like a weapon and charged ahead. The hooded figure looked like a living shadow bent over the child's bed. It held the toddler in its arms, rocking him to sleep. It was humming some kind of lullaby. My passenger lifted its head.
I could feel its stare even through the thick cloth of the hood, warning me to stay put. Moments later, the toddler was asleep. Pressing a finger to where its lips would have been, my passenger moved toward me and placed its hand gently on my shoulder. I wiped everything down, terrified that a stray fingerprint or snowy boot print on the carpet might bleed back to me and my family. Although I didn't want to look at the two corpses in the master bedroom, my eyes kept drifting there.
I kept fixating on how their fingers and toes had curled in like claws. I also kept thinking about the expression of sheer horror on their faces. When we finally returned to the car, my fingers were trembling so badly that I could barely turn the key in the ignition. We were back on the interstate when my passenger spoke to me for the first time. "I do not kill the young." It spoke directly into my mind, in my own voice.
and I wondered if it would have ever been able to talk to me at all if I hadn't spoken to it first. "You are different from the others," it continued. "I smell no blood on you. Why do you do this?" "Milo will destroy my family if I don't," I replied helplessly. "I understand. The one you call Milo has my young also." "You can make people die of fright just by looking at them," I protested. "Why don't you just-" "Milo always has the looking glass nearby."
The looking glass is deadly to us. Looking glass? I thought I understood. It was talking about the mirror in Milo's office. Maybe it was about security after all. And maybe there was another reason why Milo's office was soundproof, windowless, and deep beneath a club basement. Was he keeping my passenger's family down there as well? That gave me an idea. What if I told you that there might be a way to get your young back?
11:30 PM the next day. The parking lot of Milo's club was packed. When I parked illegally in front of the door, the bouncers lurched toward my car right away. I recognized one of them. He had been in Milo's office the night I'd been given my first delivery. "Something went wrong. I need to talk to Milo." I huffed out the window. The bruiser's beady eyes squinted suspiciously into the darkness of my car. "I don't know what you're talking about," he grunted. "Move your car.
Tell Milo something went wrong here. I held out the paper with its date, time, and two addresses. The bruiser frowned. Shut off the engine and get out. I did as I was told. The bouncer slammed me against the hood of my car, patting me down for weapons. When he found nothing, he let out a disappointed sigh and shoved me toward the club entrance. He didn't bother to look in the car's back seat.
Milo's office was at the bottom of a staircase behind the DJ booth, placed discreetly so that his guests could come and go in the shadows that surrounded the dance floor. The bruiser buzzed the soundproof door. After what felt like forever, a young girl burst through the door, sniffling and readjusting the tight silver dress that she had clearly just slipped back on. Milo put his feet up on his desk with a satisfied smile. "Come on in, Gabe. Why the long face?"
The soundproof door slammed shut. I hadn't noticed that musty, almost reptilian smell before, but after spending so much time with my passenger, it was unmistakable. My eyes drifted to the tacky red carpet, where I thought I saw the outline of a trapdoor. There was a problem at the house, I grimaced. A witness, a little boy. Milo pinched the bridge of his nose. The two bruisers shifted uneasily behind me.
"And you didn't take care of it?" Milo pinched the bridge of his nose. The two bruisers approached me from behind, ready to inflict pain.
And here I thought I could count on you. Well, I guess that means time's up for your little family. I had seconds to act. I had to make it count. I grabbed the heavy decanter of whiskey from Milo's desk, flinging it at his head. He ducked easily, and the bruisers were on me in a second, crushing my face into the floor. You stupid fuck! Milo laughed. You missed! Now my boys are gonna break every bone in your body. And that's just them warming up!
"No!" I spat blood. "I didn't miss!" In the chaos, no one had paid much attention to the sound of the mirrors shattering behind Milo, or to how my hand had grazed the door buzzer when the bruisers took me down. I shut my eyes tight. Milo's scream was the sweetest sound that I had ever heard. I heard the rustle of cloth slithering across the carpet. The trapdoor creaked open. From somewhere down below came an excited hiss.
My passenger and her young were leaving, going in search of someplace dark and dry and cool. Someplace where they could emerge after sunset to hunt prey that they themselves had chosen. And in order to get there, they were going to need a driver.
