Bell - The Condemned

The Condemned

David Jack Bell

FIRST DIGITAL EDITION

The Condemned 2010, 2008 by David Jack Bell

Cover Artwork 2010, 2008 by Dave Kendall

All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DARKSIDE DIGITAL

P.O. Box 338

North Webster, IN 46555

www.darkside-digital.com

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks go to Greg F. Gifune, a remarkable editor whose faith in my work has made all the difference. I'd also like to thank Shane Ryan Staley, Dave Kendall and everyone at Delirium for making this happen. Thanks to Molly for taking the manuscript to the beach and answering all of my questions. Some great teachers have helped me along the way: Tom and Elizabeth Monteleone, F. Paul Wilson, David Morrell, Brian Keene, Brock Clarke, Eric Goodman, Crazy Jim Reiss, and everyone at the Borderlands Boot Camps. Finally, thanks to my friends and family, especially Mike and Penny McCaffrey and my parents, Herbert and Catherine Bell.

For Molly, who always believed

And in memory of Andy Radcliffe (1975-2002)

The lights are much brighter there.

You can forget all your troubles,

forget all your cares.

So go downtown,

thingsll be great when youre

Downtown

no finer place for sure

Downtown

everythings waiting for you.

~ Petula Clark

ONE

The sound of shattering glass, a window breaking nearby in the house, brought me out of a deep, troubled sleep.

The babys room, I thought. Someones in the babys room.

I threw the covers back and moved cautiously down the hallway. The house was cold, causing the skin on my bare arms and legs to break out in gooseflesh. I stopped outside my daughters room and listened.

The night was quiet, the only sound the rush of blood in my ears.

I looked through the door, into the babys room. In the indistinct light, I saw a figure standing at my daughters crib, its back to me. I didnt speak, didnt scream. Something about the figures posturehis gray work clothes, his hairlooked familiar, almost comforting. I hesitated. The shattered window gaped, the night wind fluttering the white curtains in the dark like a hovering ghost.

Finally, I stepped into the room.

The man at the crib slowly turned, revealing his face.

Vince, I said. HowHow did you get back?

Vince didnt respond, and I saw this was not the Vince I once knew, my work partner and best friend. This Vince had sallow, sunken cheeks, and his eyes looked back at me with a complete absence of recognition. They were lifeless and empty, like the blank eyes of a dead fish.

The wind picked up, fluttering the curtains higher, and bringing to my nostrils an odor of decay, like rotting meat. It came from Vince, leaked out of his pores. I breathed through my mouth to keep from gagging.

Thats my baby girl youve got there, I said, indicating the tiny bundle in Vinces arms. He had taken her from the crib, and she lay in his grasp in the quiet room, seemingly at ease with the nights disruptions. She hasnt done anything to you.

Vince shifted the baby in his arms, lifting her a little higher.

Why dont you just let me take her? I said. You can do whatever you want to me, but dont hurt Sophie. Shes not involved in any of this

Vince shook his head, but the movement was more than simple refusal. It was defiance. He opened his mouth and showed his teeth the way a feral animal might warn off a threat to his food supply.

Vince, please I tried to move forward, to lunge for my daughter and save her life. But I couldnt move. Rooted in place, my body refused to cooperate, and like a man stuck in concrete, I helplessly watched the nightmare unfold before my eyes. Dont!

Vinces grimace turned to a triumphant smile.

Teeth still bared, he bent to my childs throat, and began to feed

* * *

I sat bolt upright in bed.

After days of lousy sleep, my nerves were frayed and jangling like a live wire. The clock on the bedside table read 6:27, three minutes before the alarm would ring. My legs were tangled in the sheets, binding my feet together in something like a burial shroud. I kicked and pulled at them, mostly freeing myself.

Jesus.

I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands, creating red and green starburst patterns on my retinas, but they didnt replace the images Id seen through the night. On those rare occasions when I managed to sleep, the nightmares came. For thirteen days straight, the same thing: Id find myself back in the city, back among the dilapidated, empty buildings, the broken glass, the smell of urineand Vince, always Vince, reaching out for me, calling my name. And me, frozen in place, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to help, even though I knew I had to. But now Id dreamed of something new: our home being breeched, Vince in our daughters room, Sophie in danger. And still, I did nothing, could do nothing but stand there and watch helplessly.

I reached over to the other side of the bed. Nicole? I whispered. Her side of the bed was empty and cold, her half of the covers thrown aside. Nicole? I said, louder.

She never woke up before me unless the baby cried. And Id have heard the baby crying. I dug out from under the sheets and staggered into the hallway. The door to Sophies room was open, the light on. Nauseous and scared, a hollow pit grew in the center of my gut like someone had scooped my core out.

I went into the babys room and over to the crib. Empty. Just the yellow blanket and the silly stuffed ducky that Sophie slept with.

I darted back to the hall and stopped, the carpet soft beneath my bare feet and the back of my T-shirt damp from night sweats.

From the kitchen, noises. Dishes clattering, and then, faintly, the sound of Sophies chattering. Nonsense syllables repeated over and over again. I moved to the end of the hall and looked in the kitchen. Nicole stood at the sink, her back to me. Sophie, lost in her own world, sat in her high chair, playing with her spoon. The bright overhead light illuminated their simple morning routines.

Behind me, the alarm clock kicked in, an insistent, annoying bleat, a call to begin the day. It sounded more like a warning. I went and turned it off.

The first ordinary day of what I would come to call the rest of my life had begun.

* * *

Youre really going to do this, arent you?

Nicole stood at our kitchen counter, the sleeves of her bathrobe pushed up past her elbows. Her eyes were puffy from sleep, and her hair went in about twenty different directions. But her eyes bore in on me, nearly pinning me to the wall.

It looks that way, doesnt it? I said.

She turned away, back to the dishes that had piled up in our sink. Her silence was like a slap in the face, and when Sophie started banging her spoon against the tray of her high chair, I welcomed the distraction.

Hi, Sophie girl, I said. Hi, baby.

Da-da. Da-da. Da-da.

She started scattering Cheerios everywhere, her arm movements jerky and haphazard.

I sat down at the table. Nicole banged a few dishes around in the sink. It sounded like she was overhauling a transmission.

I gave the last of the milk to the baby, she said. She offered no apology, made no mention of anything else to eat or drink.

Thats okay, I said. I probably couldnt eat anyway.

How did you sleep last night? Nicole said.

I shrugged. Okay.

For someone who sleeps okay, you thrash around a lot. She dried her hands on a dish towel decorated with giant strawberries, a wedding present from some forgotten relative. You woke me up twice, either mumbling in your sleep or moving around.