Kingdom of Shadows Read Online Free Page A

kinds of crazy shit runs through your head, then you start hearing things.  Screams mostly, or whispers that don’t make no sense.  And just when you think it can’t get no worse, you start seeing shit.  Not people, not…not exactly.  But they look like people…least until they don’t.”
    The receptionist , Rooster thought, shrugging off a chill.  “I don’t believe in demons.”  
    “Yeah neither do I but they don’t seem to give a shit.”  Snow downed some beer then let out a quiet belch under his breath and looked to the door as if expecting someone to burst through it at any moment.  “Not too long ago I got some information.”  He leaned closer, across the table.  “And ever since then these other motherfuckers have been following me.  Never up close, always a ways back, watching from their cars, Crown Vics—big black bastards—that’s what they drive.”
    “Cops?”
    “These ain’t cops.”
    “Who are they?”
    “They been following me for weeks.  After today they’ll be following you.”
    “Why?”  With manic repetition Rooster puffed his cigarette.  “What do they want?”
    “You remember the night Carbone died?”
    Rooster began to perspire as flashes of farmhouse, blood and scarecrows filled his memory.  “Some.”
    No longer able to contain his nervousness, Snow abruptly stood up and made a beeline for the jukebox.  He dropped a coin in, made a selection then gave the bartender and his friend a long look that said: This is going to make hearing the television more difficult but let’s not make a big deal about it or you’ll force me to do some really unpleasant shit to you .  Both men looked away without comment and Snow slowly strode back to the booth as The Police’s Spirits in the Material World  kicked in.
    “You said I needed to know what you know.”  Rooster crushed his cigarette in the ashtray.  “So tell me.”
    “What do you remember about the night Carbone died?”
    “Come on, man, what the hell’s going on?”
    “Do it.”
    “The armored car robbery, the last job we pulled as a crew,” he said.  “Everything went according to plan until Carbone fucked up and blew the back doors too early.  The third guard was waiting on him.  Carbone took a shotgun blast dead in the gut.  Starker wasted the guard, shot him in the face, killed him instantly.”  He remembered the young man’s head as it exploded, a crimson mist of blood, brains and skull spraying everything, and all of them.  “You got Carbone back to the van while Nauls and I handled the other two guards and took care of the swag.  Landon was the wheelman.  We got out ahead of the cops, ended up in the middle of nowhere at some deserted old farmhouse.  Carbone died in the van.”
    Snow nodded.  “Then what?”
    “You were there.”
    “Pretend I wasn’t.”
    Rooster fidgeted in his seat.  It felt like thousands of insects were scurrying over every inch of his body.  He scratched at his head and suddenly found himself checking the door every few seconds as well.  “I don’t…”
    “You don’t know.”
    Shadows along the ceiling shifted, elongated.
    “We split the take,” he finally said.  “Then we took off.”
    “That how you remember it?”
    “I think so but I can’t…”  Rooster took another swig of beer.  “I can’t remember exactly, it…the whole thing seems like a dream.”
    “I couldn’t remember nothing either.”
    The man at the bar, a middle-aged guy wearing some sort of workman’s uniform, hopped down from his stool and slipped through a nearby door marked RESTROOMS.
    “The more I thought about it,” Snow continued, “the worse it got.  I couldn’t remember the rest of that night no matter how hard I tried.  It was like it was just… gone .  All I knew was whatever happened scared the shit out of me, made me scared like I never even knew I could be.  I’m talking about the kind of fear you feel right down to your nuts, man.  The kind