“Do you believe in the devil?”
“Jack, I don’t believe in God.”
“I know that. That’s not what I’m asking.” Rory looked down and fidgeted with his MP5 SMG, not liking where this was going. No one in the SWAT talks shit like this before a raid. He coughed and shrugged.
“You can’t have one without the other.”
“That’s not strictly true, or logical. Both don’t have to exist. And after the shit we’ve gone through, Mr. Lucifer looks like a likely candidate.” Rory couldn’t argue with that. The last year saw a lot of “Fucked-up shit” (as the Sergeant so eloquently puts it), “Take that old guy, the one with his bones pulled out of his body. The coroner said he lived through most of it. Not until the assailant started to rip out the spine-”
“Dude, will you shut the FUCK up,” the officer to Jack’s right said, the ‘fuck’ punctuated with a quick backhand to Jack’s chest.
“If you’re gonna puke, then fucking puke. Otherwise, don’t fucking whine,” Jack snapped back, his hand not leaving the safety of his weapon.
“Miller is right, man, that’s bad juju.”
“Man, Carlos, when the hell did you become a Cuban?”
Rory piped up, “I’m not sure juju is Cuban, man… maybe African or something.”
Carlos shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, bro. We’re here.”
“This shithole?”
“Shut up. Miller, you have the carbine, right?” Miller nodded to the Sergeant. “Good. Stay outside the target’s window. Make sure no one leaves. Rest of you, follow Jack. He’s taking point. Keep your masks at the ready. He might be using gas.” Jack grimaced. Thank you, sir, for letting me know ahead of time I am leading this. “All right, boys. Outta the goddamn van.”
Jack lead across the broken walkway to the shoddy apartment’s door. He tried opening it up. “Locked,”
“I don’t like this, the sky’s fucking yellow,” Miller sent, to us, his opinion over the radio.
“Unless you have something important to say, don’t use the damn radio, just stay on the window.” The Sergeant then nodded to Rory, “Break it down,” he said, referring to the door.
As Rory kicked the door in, Miller said, “Uh, yeah. There’s no window here. Third floor, fourth from the left, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yeahhhh. No window. At all.”
“Watch the surrounding windows then,”
“Got it, Sergeant.”
“Shut up.”
Jack had, at this point, already entered the building. The other three followed him closely.
“Maaan, I don’t like this, bro,” Carlos said, to no one in particular. “Where’s the fucking people.” He had a point. Normally there were old people, crack heads, somebody interfering with them, telling them that they ain’t done nuthin’ wrong. Like SWAT would be called because you did lines back in the eighties. But, even stranger than that, was the silence. No sounds of life. No babies crying, or dogs barking. No children screaming. Just the complaining groans of an old building and a spooked out squad.
Stranger than that was the fact 311 had no door. Just dirty, tan wall where it was supposed to be. A 309 and 313 on either side.
“Miller, are you certain there is no window?”
“Miller, are you there?”
“Miller?”
“Damn it. You three stay here. Check the adjacent apartments to see if there’s anything else fucked up. I’m checking on Sonofabitch. Contact me if you find anything.”
309 showed nothing accept an empty apartment, no signs of struggle, no signs of packing. Everything looked like the people had decided to get up and leave, just a few minutes ago. Except the food grew blue with mold. The scattered toys clung to the floor with dust and cobweb. The bathwater still stood in the tub. 313 were much the same. No way to get to 311 from the apartment.
They waved at Miller. He let go of his carbine to wave back.
Then Rory kicked down 310, across from 311. Jack went in first, and he turned around, grinning under his mask. “Trooollll, in the dungeon!”
The old man certainly looked like a troll. The polar opposite of the other apartments, 310 stood empty of anything non-living, and only had a man in it. While Carlos and Rory checked the rest of the apartment, Jack stood in front of the old man, and Radioed the Sergeant. Then Miller. Neither of them answered.
“You’d be looking for my son, then.” The old man spoke slower and faster than he should.
“Does your son live at 311?” The old man started laughing, not pausing for breath. “Damn it. Carlos, go across the hall and yell at goddamn Miller. We need the Sergeant up here.”
Jack turned his attention back to the old man. Rory stood next to Jack, both staring at the man, who didn’t stop laughing. “It’s a shame we can’t hit him, huh?” Jack could only agree.
“God DAMN IT!!!! That was gunfire!” Rory and Jack left the old man alone and jumped to the door. The door to 313 and 309 had vanished. In fact, they all had vanished, save for the one behind them. Jack called out on his radio, “Carlos? Carlos? Goddamn it, Carlos!”
“I don’t like this. The sky’s fucking yellow.”
“Miller? Miller? Goddamn it.”
“Miller shot him.”
“Carlos, what?”
“The Sergeant, he shot Carlos.”
“Who shot who?”
“I don’t like this. The sky’s fucking yellow.”
“Miller’s dead,” the radio went to static.
Rory had ventured further down the hallway. “Stairs are gone too. Jack, I don’t like this.”
“Where did Carlos go? The radio is dead.”
Rory glanced back over his shoulder at Jack. “Dude. I’m Carlos. Then he turned back around, and slowly placed his hand on the blank wall where the stairs once stood. He exploded. Jack hid his face with his elbow, but still got blood in his eyes. When he finally cleared the blood out, he stood in a completely white room, no trace of blood, except on himself. Blood dripped off him onto the pure white floor, slowly spreading out. He took four steps forward, and reached out to touch the same wall Carlos had moments before, but it flew back away from his touch, and try as he might, Jack could not move fast enough to touch it. The blood kept rising, and the more Jack waded through it, the thicker it became. Soon, he would not be able to move, at all. In his frustration, Jack fired his weapon.
Sarge fell, a bullet catching him in his forehead. “What the fuck, Jack?” Carlos yelled behind him. Jack turned around. Carlos’s chest had been opened up, his ribs pointing outward. His heart beat, but blackened and dead. Jack turned back around, and the Sergeant pulled himself back up, and started picking bone from his head wound. “That fuckin’ stung a little, Jack.”
