Fright Night: Hellbound, page 12
But tonight, it wasn’t like she had another choice.
The rain hammered the tin above her, and she took the moment to slip the coat from her shoulders to wring it out, sleeves first, then collar, squeezing water onto the sidewalk. The wool clung to her wrists, heavy and limp, as her arms trembled with the effort.
She held it up by the scaffolding, twisting it hard until streams poured down in thin rivers. It gave her a moment’s relief, but only a moment. The thing was soaked through, and the rain was waiting the second she stepped back out.
That’s when she heard the car coming down the street.
The hum of tires through water, the splash of puddles parting, then headlights rolling up behind her in a slow crawl. She turned. A red sedan edged to the curb, its paint chipped in uneven patches, as though someone had started to strip it years ago and never finished the job. The window rolled down with a groan, and a man looked out the window, his voice raised through the storm.
“Hey there, darlin’. Need a ride?”
Jennifer froze, her heart thudding against her ribs. She knew that voice. He had been at the diner tonight. A big man, broad in the shoulders, who had kept her table for hours. He’d insisted the coffee pot stay with him, had her pour cup after cup, and he’d tipped far more than he should have. She had smiled, said thank you, and thought no more of it. Now, standing in the rain, she wished she’d used the money for a cab.
“Oh, hi,” she called back, forcing her voice to sound friendly, even though that was the last thing she felt right now. Alarmed, sure, but not friendly. “It’s all right. Thank you for offering though. I’m just on my way to meet a friend.”
The man frowned, as though not buying it. Or maybe it was that he’d perceived her rejection as rude. “Are you sure, sweetheart? I’m headed down Harlem myself. You said that’s where you live, right? I can just drop you off. Honestly, it’s no trouble.”
Rain streaked down her face, plastering her disheveled hair to her cheeks. The coat dragged at her arm like a dead weight as lightning cracked overhead.
The man looked harmless enough. Big, yes, easily two-fifty, with curling hair and a face that could have belonged to a friendly uncle, but not threatening. She felt a strange warmth in his expression, something that reminded her of sneaking cookies as a child, of someone pretending not to notice.
She hesitated another moment, trying to reason with the part of her mind that was blaring a red alarm. Then, finally, when she’d manually overrode the alarm, she said, “Well, all right then. It’s just, my coat’s all soaked and I don’t want to ruin your seats.”
“Throw it in the trunk! It’s what they’re for anyway,” the man said, a grin on his face, cheer in his voice.
Jennifer grimaced as she struggled with the dripping wool, sliding it in the trunk and slamming it shut with a hollow thud. For a moment she thought about turning away, about braving the subway after all, but the sky opened up again, lightning flashing as the storm poured down harder, causing her to surrender.
Inside the car, the heater breathed a low hum, stale air tinged with the smell of old upholstery and cigarettes. Jennifer ran a hand across her forehead, sweeping damp hair from her eyes. She tried to relax, imagining herself already home in Harlem, boots off, dress drying on the back of a chair, and sliding into her single bed with a comfort that smelled of lavender laundry detergent and that warm cottony scent that invites a deep, safe sleep.
The driver gave her a quick glance, his hands loose on the wheel, a smug smile on his face, as if he was doing her a favor. “Harlem, right?”
“Yes,” she answered, though her voice sounded small to her own ears. So she raised her voice and said, “That’s right, Adams Avenue.”
The city slid past on either side, the tall buildings giving way to shorter ones, neon signs thinning until the windows were dark more often than lit.
Jennifer leaned against the door and pressed her palms together in her lap, the yellow fabric of her dress already clinging to her knees. Something about the long and undisturbed unnatural silence in the car began perturbing her, forcing her to make conversation.
She tried to fill it. “I really appreciate this, you know,” she said. “The rain came out of nowhere, and now my coat’s all ruined, and so is my day.”
He chuckled softly, almost kindly. “Hey, coats dry. And let’s not fret about days. There’s always the next one to look forward to.”
She nodded, though her eyes stayed on the glass. She couldn’t tell if they were heading north anymore. The streets all looked alike in the blackout, a blur of wet asphalt and traffic lights that changed for no one. She thought about asking again, about checking a sign, but kept quiet.
When he spoke next, the cadence of his voice had altogether shifted.
“So,” he said, almost conversational, “tell me about the guy who stood you up. Big guy, I’m sure? Strong?”
The question caught her off guard. Jennifer’s head turned slowly, her hands tightening in her lap. “I beg your pardon?”
He smiled again, but this time it felt different. “Begging doesn’t befit you. Besides, I said what I said. A pretty girl like you doesn’t stay out this late without waiting for a date to show up. Am I hot or am I cold?”
Jennifer pressed her knees together, tugging at the hem of her skirt to cover them. Her throat felt dry. “I believe that that’s none of your business.”
The man’s eyes lingered on her longer now, his hands still loose on the wheel but his mouth pulling into something between a grin and a sneer. “My mistake. Line drawn in the sand. I apologize. If it’s anything, I was just trying to make some light conversation.”
The hairs on her arms lifted. She turned back to the window, watching the rain streak across the glass, and realized she no longer had any sense of where they were. The buildings were too low now, too spaced apart. This wasn’t Harlem.
“He’s big enough,” she replied, thinking that this might disarm him.
“Well, good for him. Pretty little thing like you, I bet you have a real tight little nice shaven cunt.”
Jennifer’s head snapped toward him, her voice breaking sharp in the damp air. “Stop the car right now and let me out!”
He smirked, his lip curling as he kept his eyes on the road. “Not until I’ve had my way with you. I bet you taste sweet as cobbler pie down there.”
Her body went rigid. Death didn’t cross her mind, but rape did. She forced herself not to move, only let her eyes flick down toward the door handle.
“Don’t bother, honey. They’re locked,” he said quietly, the words so casual they might have been an afterthought.
A wave of cold rushed through her body, the kind that seemed to come from inside rather than out, freezing her in place. She thought of the girls she’d read about in the papers, the ones found in dumpsters or not found at all. She thought of her parents warning her when she left Chicago: don’t move to New York, it isn’t safe, girls disappear there.
She tore the seatbelt loose and reached for the window crank, her wet hands slipping on the metal as her knuckles trembled with the effort.
The blow landed before she saw it coming. His fist caught her cheek and slammed her head into the glass. A dull thud rang in her skull and her vision burst into white sparks, and her fingers fell away from the crank as her eyes rolled back in her head.
Half-conscious, she felt the car slow down and turn, the tires rolling onto gravel. The headlights caught a line of garages, their corrugated doors gleaming with rain. The man’s profile loomed beside her—massive shoulders, thick forearms, hands that looked like they could shovel earth. He swung the car into a dirt drive and yanked the gear into park.
Jennifer came to with a cry, hands clutching her face, realizing the window, the door, everything around her was useless. Panic swarmed her chest, hot and suffocating. The driver’s door opened, the weight of it shifting the whole car, and then he was outside, his bulk passing across the beam of the headlights.
She noticed just in time and snapped her lock down, catching him off guard. His size worked against him; he didn’t sprint so much as attempt to lumber back to the other side of the vehicle, a thick shadow circling the hood. Jennifer scrambled across the seat and grabbed the armrest to his door. She slammed it shut with all her strength and locked it.
The headlights painted him in yellow. His hair hung ragged, plastered to his head in ways that looked like horns. His white shirt clung like second skin to his chest, torn open, his fists clenched so hard the knuckles gleamed. His eyes burned with rage, fixed on her, and she thought in that instant he looked less like a man than something that had stepped out of Hell.
Jennifer crouched on her knees on the seat, heart thrumming in her throat, the adrenaline turning her whole body to tremors. Inches separated her from him, only a pane of glass, and she knew it would not hold.
They stared at one another. His face pressed close to the glass, rain streaking down it like tears. His eyes were pale and glacial, cutting into her.
She realized something and turned her head slowly, knowing that his eyes were following her gaze. The keys still dangled in the ignition. He couldn’t believe he left the keys in there. His grin widened, savage now as he leaned back, cocking his arm, and he drew his fist wide in preparation to smash the glass.
Jennifer’s scream never got a chance to escape her throat. Instead, her palm slammed down on the horn. The blare filled the void, shocking him and breaking his rhythm for just a second. A second was all she needed.
Her shaking fingers caught the keys. Her hands were still wet and she slipped grabbing them, before latching on, turning them hard, and starting the car.
The engine coughed, then caught with a roar that made her laugh through her tears, half-disbelieving. She wrenched at the shifter, thumbed the button, dragged it down two notches, and the car lurched into reverse. The killer hurled himself onto the hood.
The tires spun on wet mud, gravel spraying against the garages as she craned her neck over the seat, steering blind through water and tears. The sedan shot backward until it smashed into the chain-link fence, the metal shrieking as it bent. The impact hurled the man off the hood, his body slamming into the fence with a rattle that echoed through the night.
Jennifer’s hands slipped on the wheel, slick with sweat, her arms aching with effort. She jammed the shifter into drive, but before she could floor the gas, glass exploded beside her. His hand punched through the driver’s window and clamped into her hair.
Fingers tangled deep, yanking with brutal strength, he dragged her upward until her shoulder scraped against the jagged edge. Pain seared her skin and she screamed, raw, piercing, as she stomped her foot on the accelerator.
The car lurched forward, bounding out of the driveway and back onto the street. The horn blared under her palm, one long cry that merged with her own, echoing through the empty blocks.
And then, when she looked back, there was no sign of him.
In Midtown, an arsonist indulged in deep arousal, setting fire to a building and gazing upon the flames with reverence.
The glow was faint through the fog, but the stink of wood and plastic carried far, acrid on the wet air. People on the stoops smelled it, turned their heads, and said nothing. Fires were just part of the new routine, like muggings, union strikes, and rats spilling out of garbage that hadn’t been collected in weeks.
The collapse of New York City was nigh. It was something everyone, the citizens and the government alike, were too afraid to admit. That the city was akin to a tattered stretch of cloth, ripping at the seams.
Mayor Gordon couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge this either. He’d spent years clawing his way up, puckering and placing his lips on the right asses, lighting the right Cuban cigars with submissive fingers. When he wasn’t gorging himself on steak and billing it back to the city, he was draining whiskey in gentlemen’s clubs that charged by the ounce. At five-foot-eight and over two hundred pounds, Gordon didn’t carry himself like a man of restraint, and, of course, his policies reflected it.
The Meyer Club was his most frequented haunt. It occupied one of Manhattan’s earliest Greystone Gothic buildings, its arched windows staring down at the street like tired eyes. Behind the stone wall lay a private driveway, a rare luxury in the city. IN and OUT engraved in the gate columns directed limousines through the loop where tinted glass kept faces hidden from the street. The arrangement suited the members: politicians, businessmen, and wheeler dealers.
The building had other uses beyond that of the club, of course. It also housed various public and private offices from small to large. The entrance to the building acted like it was built for a king. Large wrought iron gates atop panes of glass arched doors stood permanently open (except for the closing hours) as security stood up front, ensuring whoever stepped out of a vehicle was meant to be there.
Inside, the hallway was well lit with swooping chandeliers that looked too heavy for any human to hang. A black and white checkered floor reflected the golden light from above. The Meyer Club stood immediately to the left of the hallway, its entrance dominated by a large red curtain that required two hands to peel apart.
Inside, a lavish hallway greeted its patrons. And lavish it was, for the room looked like it had been decorated by denizens of Hell itself—dark wood, more blood-red drapes, and a chandelier that outshone the opulence of the ones in the hallway. It was the ideal setting for the elite that wanted to pretend the outside world didn’t exist.
Inside, Gordon held court. The club’s second-floor lounge had become his true office, leather armchairs sunk deep with use, wood-paneled walls darkened by cigar smoke, and a round table polished by a thousand elbows. Dark figures struck darker deals in drab corridors, these deals sealed with damp handshakes and the quiet slide of envelopes across the table.
Gordon’s descent started with small favors. A permit here, a fast-track there. Quid pro quo was the name of the game, coins under the table in exchange for a blind eye or a quick signature. Sometimes it meant ignoring a cop beating a gay man. Sometimes it meant greenlighting a mob-owned jazz club, and when the sanitation department begged for masks, Gordon handed the contract to a foreign campaign donor. When the masks arrived, they were brittle, moldy, and stinking from shipment rot. He fined small businesses over broken fixtures, yet spared mafia liquor stores and strip clubs. Everyone knew why.
But as Mayor Gordon would come to learn, greed comes to bite you in the ass, and it doesn’t pucker as a courtesy.
The budget collapsed with the chaotic beauty of a controlled demolition. First it was the schools, then the sanitation department. Fire stations closed and the police response time slowed to a halt, not because they wanted to strike, but the resources available had dwindled. Whole blocks would burn for hours before a single siren echoed down the avenue.
The power grid was failing too. Blackouts weren’t uncommon and neither were bodies in alleyways. Gordon jumped on television like he was hosting a game show, asking the public for handouts they didn’t have, but eventually even the banks stopped responding, and suddenly the city was broke.
Manufacturing was one of the first industries to dry up, leaving a wake of unpaid rents that started to pile up. The middle class packed their things and fled to the suburbs, leaving behind the poor, the desperate, and the unlucky.
And all the while, the city was still pretending to function, still pretending to matter, but every subway ride, every street corner, every silent cop car told a different story.
And when President Ford turned his back, the Daily News printed five words that echoed off every cracked window in the five boroughs:
FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD
And so it did.
Some neighborhoods went dark entirely. Unlit, unpatrolled, and uncared for. In the East Village, a fire could burn for hours before anyone bothered to report it, and if anyone did, no one came to the rescue. And for a city built on power, pride, and noise, silence suddenly became its loudest feature.
But while the city crumbled from the top down, life clawed its way back up from the cracks. Artists, dancers, and the queer community sprouted across the Lower East Side like moss in an abandoned lot, wild, untamed, and impossible to ignore.
From the ashes of the Stonewall riots came something holy. A chorus of resistance, joy, and liberation. New York had been starving for camaraderie, and this was its rebellion.
Disco balls spun in sweat-drenched basements. LSD and marijuana blurred the nights. Behind shuttered windows and padlocked doors, the queer and Black communities threw kikis that spread like wildfire. What the daylight world tried to suppress, the underground baptized in glitter and bass.
And to Jerry and Billy, the belabored rise and fall of the city was nothing short of a camouflage.
Billy’s journal.
Somewhere across the Atlantic.
I hate this ship. Cold, wet, stinking of rust and salt. It makes me sick, if that’s even still possible. I keep telling myself this isn’t me. Sitting here on a rotting freighter doesn’t define me. I’m exhausted and tired, so do forgive me, journal, if I’m rambling.
I’m tired of running from humans. Every one of them should burn. But I know better. They’re tools, stepping stones. They matter, even if I don’t want to admit it. And once, I was the same.
When we get to the penthouse, I’ll be fine. I tell myself that. I like the big places, the view. But the small ones, the little homes tucked away, they remind me of when I was young. Sometimes I miss that.
I’ll survive. I always do. But Jerry… He hasn’t said a word since Antwerp. That explosion in Amsterdam almost took him apart, and now it’s like he’s somewhere else entirely. I handled Moller, passed him the cash, and Jerry just…drifted. I like Moller. He’s simple. Lost an eye, walks around like the docks own him. Looks like death, but he gets the job done. He’s kept us moving for decades, and I should be thankful he was able to get us aboard this freighter. If not for him, I don’t know what we’d have done.
