A languid summer’s rain pours from the sky. The evening advances, the temperature drops, the neon glow of Sixth Avenue adds an illusion of warmth to the revelers. It is a two-lane thoroughfare lined with bars, coffee shops, tattoo parlors, night clubs, New Age stores, head shops, disreputable massage parlors, diners, and ethnic restaurants. For seven whole blocks, it goes on a lurid bug lamp of electric-hued sin, drawing in the moths.
By ten in the evening, the sidewalks are packed with guys, gals, and those who play the in-betweens. They move in a mass like a school of minnows colored in the iridescence of ultra-violet blues, hot pinks, sickly greens and yellows, nullifying red, and dark black lights.
The mass moves seeking itself, seeking a fuck, a fight, any distraction. It is a place to be young or pretend to be young; just mind the piss, blood, and vomit on the sidewalks and in the gutters.
The fact that a killer is stalking the city doesn’t faze them.
Into the mass, a man steps off a city bus, clad in work boots, worn jeans, a work shirt, and a dad cap. He looks like another middle-aged bro aiming to toss a few back and hit on some girls gone wild. Patrol Sergeant Dowd, incognito, lights a cigarette and walks west.
His dark eyes dart left and right, seeking something.
Dowd spots it and sidles up to a shorter, more muscled man dressed in a battered leather coat.
For a moment, they stand silent next to each other. Man next to manlet.
The manlet says, “Didn’t know you picked up smoking again, Dowd.”
“Never really quit; never really can in this job. Bad habits make life bearable, Krauss, if they don’t consume you.”
Detective Krauss says, “I’ve been down that way before.”
Dowd cocks an eyebrow, “Come again?”
“Consumed.”
“Right, sorry. The drinking.”
Krauss waves a hand at Sixth Avenue. “So this is hard, but my man wanted to meet here.”
Dowd asks, “What bar?”
“Not a bar.”
“Then what, a coffee shop?”
“On the street.”
“Who is this guy? You were tight-lipped on the phone.”
“Did you leave it at home?”
“In the car. What is with all this cloak and dagger shit?”
“We’re meeting an old Army buddy of mine. He’s with the Marshals Service now. Mainly he ass-shines a chair downtown in the Federal Building.”
Dowd cringes. “Oh boy, the feds. What sort of liquid shit are you dropping us in now? He have a name?”
“Not unless he tells you.”
Dowd pivots in front of Krauss, jabbing a finger into the man’s chest, “Listen, bub, for the last three weeks, you’ve been acting squirrelly as all fuck. First you take a leave of absence but keep coming around, like you sniffing Grove Decapitator. Then you start talking about the feds all the time, how they’re involved in some sort of monster hunt.
“It is some cartel bullshit: the feds are doing their thing and cutting out what they see as some second-rate department riddled with bent cops.”
“Now you want to have some sub rosa meeting with some ‘old army buddy’ fed? What in the ever-loving fuck gives? Are you off the wagon again?”
Red neon bathes the right side of Krauss, his face set into a look harder and sharper than flint. He smacks aside Dowd’s hand. “No. Haven’t had a drink in years. Still, you came. Why?”
Dowd sighs as his shoulders slumped. “My old man back in the 90’s was a big conspiranoiac. ‘Hey little Jimmy, you know the UN and BATF got their black helicopters watching us.’ I grew up hearing that type of shit from his rummy ass. I always put it down to him being a kooky fucking drunk. But since this shit started, I’ve been seeing black Suburbans with USG plates around town.”
Krauss nods, “And you want to just see if my conspiracy shit is just that: shit.”
“Yeah, then maybe you can get back to some law and order. You know what we’re paid to do, instead of bum-fucking around playing ghost hunter.”
***
Ten minutes later, a man hooks up with the pair.
“Keep walking. Talk while we move,” he says.
“You had something for me?” Krauss asks.
“Yeah, but first: who’s this?” the man asks.
“Just someone who needs to hear what you got.”
“You didn’t tell him who I fucking am?”
“Just the barest background.”
“This shit is so gay,” Dowd interjects.
“Left into this alley,” the man says.
Dowd snorts. “You ain’t expecting a blowie, are you? ‘Cause that is what this shit feels like right now.”
“Better than the ass-fucking we’d all get if anyone finds out I’m talking with youse. Seriously, Krauss, what is up with this clown?”
Krauss shrugs. “Just an asshole cop.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Dowd says.
The man takes the lead and presses forward, taking them into a garbage and dumpster-packed alley, up a fire escape five stories onto a roof.
Krauss looks at the man. “What do you have?”
“You asked about any recent changes at the office, so I figure I owe this much: yeah.”
“You said a bunch of new faces.”
The man double-checks their surroundings. “Like you wouldn’t believe. Nothing big, but very unusual. In particular with the Bureau field office. I know most of their special agents. Same with the DEA, BATF, ICE, and Homeland. A couple months ago, this new team moves in, gives some sort of story about a specialized counter-terrorism field trial. Maybe a dozen people, hard, cold-looking Joe Snuffy-types. They remind me a lot of Delta. Not given to talking to anyone: occasionally they drop in, don’t talk to anyone, get what they want.”
“Which is?” Krauss asks.
“That I won’t tell you. I will tell you they are the ultimate spooks. Nothing they do comes through the U.S. attorney’s office.”
“Okay, best guess or what can you tell me?” Krauss says.
“I don’t think they’re FBI. None of the agents in the field office have spoken to them. Yeah, they might have some special agents detailed to them, but my best guess is that they’re some sort of black bag op. Maybe CIA. Maybe DOD.”
“That would be illegal. Defense and CIA can’t operate domestically.”
“Hey, I see guys who look like they could HALO drop into a shithole country and turn a bunch of hajis into piles of goo. The mind goes places. Whatever it is, the little guy doesn’t need to know. That means me, that means you and him.”
Dowd cocks a thumb towards himself.
“Yeah, you, funny man. Krauss, I figure I owe you that much.” The man steps onto the fire escape. “Watch your step, guys. Maybe I’ll see youse around.”
And he is gone, leaving the two city cops standing on the roof.
***
“Black suburbans?” Krauss says to Dowd once they are at street level.
“Yeah.” A distracted Dowd leans against a lamppost. “You’re shitting me about the vampires though, right?”
“Undead.”
“Right.” Dowd takes a long drag from a cigarette looking at the ground.
“I killed one.”
“Huh? How?”
“Pumped her full of high-powered lead. You can take them down with a little surprise and obliterating their heads,” Krauss says.
“Body?”
“Turned to fucking sludge.”
Rubbing his temples, Dowd says, “This is too much, like I’m in some sort of B-movie.”
“Well, I’m fucking hungry, want to get a sub? Mike’s isn’t far.”
“Sure.”
***
An emaciated man stands in the middle of Sixth Avenue, shirtless and halting traffic. Grey streaks his long dreadlocks as he stares upwards with his pockmarked face into the rainclouds. Some people stop and jeer. Angry drivers honk their horns.
“Hey, bitch, get out of the road!”
“Care to share some of those shrooms?”
And on.
The emaciated man cries out in a booming voice, “The day of the Lord is at hand! He cometh not to save, not to redeem. You shall not eat of his flesh. He shall eat of your flesh. For he wanders about the land seeking those whom he can devour. Behold, the days are counted, the hours are counted…until the angel of death…”
The emaciated man drops into a confused mumbling as he stares into the crowd assembling around him.
“…shall overshadow the land…and we are delivered.”
Pissing himself, he curls into a ball in the middle of Sixth. People stare; some have hollow eyes.
“We are delivered. We are delivered. We are delivered.”
The crowd laughs as the man shakes and continues emptying his bladder into his pants. Someone laughs as others join in.
“Police! Let us through!” Krauss shouts, followed by Dowd holding up his shield.
“Back off. No rubbernecking. Beat it or I’ll call in the paddy wagon,” Dowd bellows out.
Krauss approaches the man and leans over him. “Hey there, fella. Can you stand up?”
No answer; he just stays curled into a ball in a puddle of his own piss, mumbling, “Save your servant. Save your servant who trusts in you, oh Lord.”
Krauss says, “It’s okay, buddy. I guess He couldn’t come, so we just happened along. Help will be here in a minute.”
“…yeah that’s Sergeant Dowd and Detective Krauss, we’ve got a man who needs an ambulance, possible OD…send units, we’ve got a crowd here…”
Amid the cacophony of pulsating neon, flashes of reds and blues break into the scene.
Krauss looks into the faces of the garishly-colored crowd seeking one face displaying sympathy. He finds none.
Proteus Juvenalis, of the Lost Generation, is a cynic and misanthrope orbiting Neptune and contemplating his former home. His stream of consciousness broadcasts can be found on Telegram.
