Kingdom of Shadows Read Online Free Page B

that makes you shit in your pants like a baby sliding out lunch.  You know what I mean.”
    Rooster did know.  He swallowed so hard he gagged.
    “Like you, I thought I was losing my goddamn mind.”  Snow sat back with an air of defiance.  “It’s like there was something right on my ass, something evil.  I couldn’t take no more.  I stopped sleeping, stopped eating, just locked myself up in my apartment and hid out.  I wanted to kill myself but I was afraid of the other side.  Ain’t exactly lived the life of a saint, right?”
    The bartender was staring at them intently.  When he realized Rooster had caught him he quickly looked away and busied himself.
    “That’s when that woman started hanging outside my apartment wanting to talk to me all the time.”  His face twisted.  “I didn’t know who she was, didn’t know what I’d done.  I don’t even remember it.  I was on H when it went down and was hurting so bad for a fix I was out of my mind.  I never meant to hurt her.”
    “I never knew you did heroin.”
    Snow sighed helplessly.  “Neither did I.”
    “You’re not making any sense.  What the hell are you talking about?”
    “I tried to do straight time, man, for real.  I tried.”
    “I believe you.”
    “I got a janitor gig at this office building a few blocks from my crib.  I was going crazy but I showed up on time every night, did my thing and minded my own business, played by the rules, closed my eyes to the demons and the screams and that woman always staring at me.  I’d walk there, work the overnight shift then walk home in the morning.  I’m there about a week when I notice this old dude following me one night.  Skinny little white cat with glasses.  Real Poindexter-looking motherfucker.  At first I think maybe he’s a cop, but he don’t look like no cop I ever seen, looks more like a professor or some shit.  He shows up every night, tails me from my apartment to work, and then he’s gone.  So one night I get a lead on him, take a corner and duck into a doorway.  He comes by and I grab his narrow ass.”  Snow ran a hand over his face.  He too had begun to perspire.  “I’m about to rack me some old white man when he starts talking about that night at the farmhouse, all the shit I’m going through and how he can help me.  Motherfucker knew more about me than I did, man.  Said he had answers, said he knew what happened to us that night.  He said it was time we knew the truth.  And that’s exactly what he laid on me.  Only now sometimes I wish he didn’t.  Sometimes not knowing was better.”  He bowed his head in an attempt to mask the tears filling his eyes.  “Ain’t that a bitch?  We never had a goddamn chance, man, none of us.”
    “Who was this guy?”
    “What they done to us wasn’t right, Rooster, it wasn’t right.  We did some bad shit but we’re human beings, man, we fucking human beings .”
    “What who did to us?  What are you saying?”
    Snow reached into his jacket, put something on the table and slid it over to him.  When he pulled his hand away a small key was revealed.  “Opens a locker at the bus station downtown,” he said.  “Take it.  Use it.”
    Rooster nonchalantly covered it with his palm.  “What am I gonna find?”
    “Everything I know.  Everything you need to know.  All the proof I got from Poindexter.”  He checked the door once, then again just a second or two later.  “They’re after me, man, and they know I’m trying to pass the information to you.  Once they know you got it, they’re gonna come after you, too.”
    “Why are you giving this to me, why not one of the others?”
    Snow shrugged.  “Carbone’s dead.  Nauls is a retard.  Landon’s an asshole, and Starker—shit—that boy’s stone psycho.  Whatever Hell them motherfuckers are burning in they deserve.”
    “I’m not so sure anybody deserves to burn in Hell.”
    “Makes sense if you’re the one burning.”
    Rooster