Andrew Klavan - Damnation Street

He rolled his head to one side so he could see the driver. The lights of an oncoming car passed over the cab. He saw the driver in the light. By an odd coincidence, the driver happened to be an alien monster from a comic book he had read as a child. He had yellow eyes and a long red snout with sharp teeth bared in a drooling grin. This worried Bishop in a distant sort of way. Maybe he had died trying to leave the hospital and this demon had been sent to drive him down to hell.

His head rolled back on the seat. His gorge rose. He thought he would vomit for sure. The light passed and the cab sank back into darkness. Bishop closed his eyes. That couldn't be right about the demon, he thought. That didn't make any sense. He looked again and, in fact, the driver was not a demon after all. He was a fat white guy with a round bald head and a long, wispy red-blond beard. That was better. He lay back again. He closed his eyes again.

Now all he had to do was remember the other thing. What was he supposed to tell Weiss? It started to come back to him. The hotel. The egg-shaped man in the Hawaiian shirt. The specialist had had nowhere to hide a gun, but he had had a gun. The Saracen.

That was it. The Shadowman's plan. He was planning for Weiss to outsmart him. He was planning for Weiss to take his gun away, to take two of his guns. But he had a third gun, the Saracen, that he could hide where no one would find it.

"This the place?"

The driver's rough voice startled him out of sleep. He felt as if he had slept for a long time. He felt better, stronger. He opened his eyes.

The truck had stopped somewhere in the dark. Bishop looked out the window. There was a house out there, a silhouette in the night. How had he gotten here? How had he known to tell the driver where to go?

Confused, he looked at the driver. The driver inclined his bald pate toward the house.

"That the one?"

Bishop wiped his lips with his hand. He looked out the window again. Was that the house? How could he know? But he must've told the driver how to get here. He must've known the way in his unconscious somehow.

"Thanks," he croaked.

"You take care of yourself," the driver told him.

Bishop shoved the door open, shouldered it open with a grunt. It took all his strength. He began the long, difficult climb down from the high cab to the pavement.

He stood in front of the house. He was swaying like a sapling in a swirling breeze. Behind him, the truck drove away into the night. Bishop started up the house's front walk.

He did not feel like a tiny stick figure anymore. He filled his own body. But there was no strength in him. He was weak, so weak. He drove himself forward step by staggering step. He saw the house lurching and swaying in front of him, looming closer. It was a sickening sight. It filled him with fear. Was he too late? Was it over already? Was Weiss already dead?

He kept walking. He reached the door. He pushed inside.

He could see the shapes of things. Furniture in a room. Table, chair, sofa. No one was there. He felt sick, so sick and weak and full of fear. He wanted to lie down on the floor and go to sleep again. Where was everyone?

Then he saw the door. Somehow, he knew that's where he had to go. How did he know? Who had told him? He remembered a voice whispering in his ear. But whose voice? Who was it?

He didn't know. But he knew what he had to do. He staggered to the door. There was a handle on it. He grabbed hold of it. The door was heavy, hard to move. He didn't know where he found the muscle power to haul it open, but he did, shouting out with the pain and the effort.

He stood, panting, on the threshold. He couldn't tell what was real anymore and what wasn't. He was so sick, so weak, so miserable. Everything seemed so weird, so far away. Maybe none of it was real. The cellar stairs, for instance: they seemed to wind down and down forever. He didn't think the stairway was real. He didn't see how it could be. But he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure about his tears either. He felt them, hot, streaking his cheeks, but he didn't know if they were really there.

He went spiraling down and down the stairs impossibly. Finally, he stumbled out onto a cellar floor of packed dirt. Dazed and ill, he looked around, trying to get his bearings. A door slammed, startling him. He looked up. The stairs were just wooden stairs now. And the door at the top of the flight was shut. As Bishop stood there looking at it, he smelled gasoline. Gasoline was spilling down through the door, running down the stairs, dripping onto the cellar floor. The specialist had outsmarted him again, had caught him again. Bishop understood what was going to happen next a second before it did.

The gas caught fire. Of course. Flames spread over the cellar ceiling and down the stairs, blocking the way out.

Bishop stood squinting up at the flames. He knew this was real. He was trapped down here. And Weiss-where the hell was Weiss?

He turned to scan the cellar. There he was. He saw Weiss's body in the hectic light from the flames. Weiss was lying on the dirt cellar floor. He was lying on his side, one hand stretched up over his head, one resting in front of him. Bishop might have thought he was sleeping there, but for the blood that had run out of the center of him. It was pooled in the packed dirt, black in the firelight.

"Weiss." Bishop tried to shout the word but it was barely a rasp. He staggered across the cellar to him. He caught hold of a support beam, wrapped his arm around it. He slid down the beam to the floor, kneeling by his old boss.

He glanced over his shoulder. The fire was spreading up the walls and down the stairs toward him. He could feel the heat of it now. It dried the tears on his cheeks. The first tendrils of hot, black smoke drifted into his nostrils.

He wanted to die. He had failed at everything, even this. He wanted to kneel here and let the fire come and die with Weiss and have their bodies burn together. Crying dry, he looked down at the fallen man.

In the dancing flame glow, he saw Weiss's big body rise and fall with a breath.

"Jesus," Bishop murmured.

Weiss was still alive.

With a new feeling flooding into him, Bishop crawled across the floor to Weiss. He grabbed Weiss's heavy shoulder. He shook it, shouting, "Weiss! Weiss!" Behind him, the wood of the stairs began to crackle as it burned. The sound of the fire was growing louder. It was like a rushing wind. His voice was almost hidden beneath the noise of it. He shouted again. "Weiss!"

It was no good. Weiss just lay there. Bishop looked down at the sad, hangdog face, all slack and fleshy and flickering with fire. The sight of the old man made his heart ache. He wanted to tell him how sorry he was, sorry for everything. Sorry he had failed even at this.

But there was no point. Weiss couldn't hear him. Somehow Bishop would have to get him out of here and tell him then.

Bishop took a searing breath. He lifted his face. A black haze of smoke was hanging over him. Coughing, he looked down at Weiss. He had to lift him. That was the only way.

He worked as the smoke sank down toward him, as the fire leapt, crackling, around the stairs. He shoved and dragged Weiss's limp body onto its front. Grunting and hacking, he pushed himself off Weiss's back and stood and straddled him. He wrapped his arms around Weiss's enormous chest.

Holding on to Weiss, Bishop began moving backward. The effort ripped him open inside. He felt his innards tear ing like a paper bag. He screamed with the pain. He kept moving backward. Weiss was six foot four at least. Two hundred and fifty pounds at least. It didn't seem possible his body would keep rising, but it did. As Bishop moved backward, he drew Weiss to his knees. He went on screaming. He went on lifting Weiss. It was impossible, but it was real, like the fire and the tears were real.