I come here hoping to do some research and ask questions

[Koralth]

What's going on, Rain?

[Ethan Skinner]

:shock: Raphael? Are you sure that is the name he said?

That was the name he said, though I'm not speculating on why he said it.

Yet.

[Ron Caliburn]

We do have a Rapheal around here.

[Shadowstalker]

That is why Rain was a little distressed.

[KonThaak]

Really? Who is it? Must've been before my time, maybe? Or did I miss something?

[Ron Caliburn]

He just posted.

[KonThaak]

Shadow? o_O

[Ethan Skinner]

We do have a Rapheal around here.

Shadow? o_O

I wouldn't know.

Frazier had several credit cards, club cards, and other items we could use to trace him. I passed along the info and my other findings to Clarity and Scotty and promised to meet them later so they could see the actual items in question, rather than the pics of them. I suggested one of them could check the address on his business card, another could check his Gold’s gym pass, and I would check the place listed on his drivers’ license. I sent his cellphone and a copy of a strange card I couldn’t identify to a freind of mine who was handy with finding cryptic symbols and cracking codes. Frazier had a password on it, which wouldn’t let me get past the display screen.

Paranoid bloke.

Unfortunately, he should have been more paranoid.

I spent the next two weeks doing a bit of reconaissance on the address listed as his home. It could have been a decoy. False identity, dead trails... stuff like that. But that's waht Skip was for. It'd take a bit, but I wanted to make certain we were on the right track.

Knowledge is too readily available to trust at face value.

The small, two-story place in question looked like an ancient duplex of possible coed compatibility... though it was impossible to say.

I kept my eyes on the homies camped around the premises and kept my hands in my coat pockets.

I was guessing I was on their turf.

But they didn’t bother me.

Yet.

The sign stuck to the chainlink fence read Rooms Available. That I did not doubt. For rats and cockroaches, especially, I imagined. From estimation, there were half dozen cockroaches, plus one rat staying here.

The dust-strewn lobby was bereft of life, the padded roller chair behind the desk was as flat as a pillow with all the stuffing taken out. I hadn’t seen the super, yet. Maybe he was dead and they decided it was better ta just stay put.

One theory, anyway.

Down the hall a bit were carpeted stairs leading up and at the far back, another door, the emergency Exit light flickering feebly.

I went up the carpeted stairs and down the hall, knocking on doors and asking my question as I went. The locals inside were in no better condition than the lobby downstairs. Paranoid, silent, and wary of outsiders, I was met with eyes of varying size and color as the doors opened an inch, the chains hooking the door to the jamb were invariably being used as a caution against strangers approaching.

A part of me wished the salesmen of the area were just that bad.

A part of me hoped the pathetic chains would hold when things went bump in the night.

A part of me knew that there were no longer any salesmen and that the chains would break the momment the supernasties got sick of teasing them.

I shook my head when the last door had slammed shut before I could squeeze a gnat in edgewise. I hadn't beleived I'd get anything out of the cockroaches when I had asked, but it was worth a shot. But I had expected the rat to talk.

I turned around to head back down the stairs, pulling my coat back and taking out my cellphone. Maybe Scotty or Clarity had had more luck...

"Hsst!"

I paused in punching the numbers, slid my finger between the screen and the buttons on my phone, and glanced behind me.

The black line that ran vertically down the doorframe was wider than usual, with a faint vertical line near the top.

Maybe the rat would be the one to speak after all.

My pace was guarded going back, even if it was just a couple of feet. The eye that viewed me was black, with olive skin framing the lid. Unwashed, tangled hair draped the sides of the eye.

"You say you lookin' for Ciddy?" The tone of the voice was nonexistant, just a hissing, raspy whisper. I looked closely at the eye. It didn't come up to my shoulder.

Rat was short.

"Yeah. This him?" I flipped open my cellphone and showed the screen, where I had his good side, showing on a wallpaper.

I took the sharp exclamation as an affirmative. "What the @#$% happened to his face?"

I guess his good side wasn't enough.

"He was killed somehow. For a reason. And I want to find out what did it and why."

"If I tell you all I know, will you go away and leave me alone?"

"If you tell me all you know, I'll get you out of here. You'll die out here."

I slipped my card through the slit of the door, under the chain. A skinny, dark hand nipped it from my fingers, a bird snatching a worm. The eye lowered to peruse the card, using the dim light of the hall.

The eye looked back up. "I've got a deal with them. I pay them, they don't touch me. Simple, really."

"MS-13 is the least of your concerns," I said.

There was a twinkle of recognition in the eye.

I put a name to it. "You've seen what the shadows can do. They'll swallow the city alive if nothing is done."

"Even more dangerous than...?"

I nodded. The eye widened and the door shut with a quiet rattle of metal. I waited, unsure if the rat had just abandoned me or what. Just when I was about to back off and turn away, the door opened again and the dull aroma of a cigarette flicked my nose. Fine, worn features were thrown in tattered, orange relief as Rat took a huge drag.

"What do you want to know?" she asked, her eye hazy through the smokeshroud.

But what I wanted to know would have to wait.

The sound of exploding glass panoplied us like a theater surround sound.

[Ethan Skinner]

The shattering glass was concomitant with a surge of algid air that could have been brought in from the Alps. Down the hall, the window that had been whole a second ago was gone, a fine dust floating gently in the chill puffs of air. Moonlight gathered at the window, but it wasn't moonlight. It was shaded with streaks of crimson and grey. The stink of sulphur mingled with the gelid wind snuffing out what little heat there was like an elephant blowing out candles.

Black claws appeared on the broken sill, digging into the wood. Rat's door shut with a hoarse squeak. I couldn’t tell if it was the rusty hinges or the skinny girl that made the sound like a mouse been stepped on.

The creature that climbed through the opening was a skeletal figure with greasy, shadow-black skin stretched taut over its bony limbs. Amid muddy, stringy hair, coaled eyes the color of rotting vegetation burned in its wide sockets.

A scream was tossed like confetti, coming from Rat's room and echoing though the hall. A pounding from the inside of her door followed, another scream, and the door opened as though spring-loaded, the chain creaking and straining with Rat’s effort to open it.

I rushed to the door to help her out, but not before I saw a leathern arm smash against the door from inside, inches from her head. A section of the door dissolved into a net of hair-lined cracks. She ducked another blow, and the door rebounded with the attack. The chain scattered in every direction.


I grabbed Rat around the waist and yanked her around to my other side, the boil covered hands of the bruiser reaching for her. For half a second, I paused in alarm as I took stock of the dude’s arsenal. White skin tinged yellowish green, the same shade as snot, boils dripping with an acerbic smelling pus, and clothes hanging in peels.

Not normal.

The guy approached with a slanty sneer tipping his crusty mouth. But the minute I introduced a dear friend near to my heart, just down a little and to the left, actually. The second my friend showed up in my hands, the goon stopped. My little buddy is very persuasive. "Stay put, unless you want a to get close and personal with my freind Pb 82.1"

However, in this instance, he wasn’t persuasive enough. Even three of his most eloquent arguments, two in the foot and one in the chest, didn’t faze the fetcher.

"You think a gun'll stop me, meatsack?" He puffed out his chest. The only blood I saw was rimming the holes like a bullseye. But no bleeding.

The guy was a stiff.

But sounds of windows breaking, doors slamming, and the screams of the four cockroaches slid me back into action. Li'l Buddy had to have his tail tucked between his legs and shown to the dog house again.

He'd feel better when his GF, Ag 47, shacked up with him.

Or something.

Rat raced past me and toward the fire escape, but I grabbed her around the waist once more, tucked her over my shoulder, and made ellipses for the stairs. She was a fiesty little thing, but she soon realized the merit in my escape plan when the door to the exit was clawed to tatters, the culprit played by none other than another leper.

By that time, Rat decided to go into hysterics, screaming, kicking, and trying to jump off my shoulder. "Stop...fighting me!" I growled, but it was too late.

She had fallen over the railing. Her hands shot out in fear, fingers circling the rusty steel rails. Her eyes went swiftly from hysterically ample in size to apoplectically wide in fear. Hefting her under the arms wouldn't work.

A risked 180 look revealed the second bruiser as having a macabre sense of humor. He was walking like Boris Karloff, while his fellow homie was taking it more slowly and cautiously, going for a "scare" factor. The chuckling, shuffling steps of the leper fellers were drawing closer like a noose 'round my neck.

I took a gander below Rat. Two stories was a long way to fall. By the way she froze up and began whimpering like a lost bear cub, she might've been acrophobic.

But being torn apart by a bunch of autopsy escapees didn’t sound like much better of a choice.

I looked under her.

The scene below us was one right outta Silence of the Lambs...only, with two other lepers doing the impression of Hannibal Lecter. Two bruisers above, two bruisers below.

We were in a nice little sandwich. No pun intended.

Guess I'd have to order this dinner to go.

"Close your eyes and hold your breath," I pressed my forehead against hers, bracing myself.

My foot clipped one of the lepers upon doing a hop-jump, and rolling off the bannister before he could grab me, I was rolling off, plummeting two stories below. I hugged Rat to my chest and fell back first, bracing myself for impact.

The breath was knocked from my body as I collided with one of the lepers. He wasn’t tough enough to avoid being flattened, nor was he fast enough to catch me before I flopped back to my feet and dragged Rat back to hers.

We both fled into the dark street, angry shouts drummed the air as they gave chase. The roadway ahead of us was clear, as though assuring us there would be know witnesses of our death, the four lepers closing in like a pair of rusty shears. Checking both sides before crossing was the idea, but not actually crossing. Instead we dashed down the sidewalk and turned the corner. If there wasn’t a crowd at one side, there would be a crowd at another.

The one we found was rather skimpy in size...a couple of drunks, a half naked prostitute, and an urchin lookin' for a hit.

The lepers were shadows in the background, silhouettes watching silently, waiting like predators for the chance to strike.

Rat was a paranoid rodent. She wouldn’t come near the other nightwalkers. But she wasn't paranoid enough to hop the first owl of the night.

I watched the soft-boileds from the window until they melted into the distance and the dark.

[Scotty]

how yall are?

shadowstalker is raphael? mkay. a liddle birdy towed me at shadys ait in a baleave da liddle birdy at towed me at. i no daze moor in wun raphael in da wurld an ats wha aint sayin git a rope an string is ass up. ba jus ike skinner sayd imma keepen ma opshuns opun.

neeways i didden cum up ear to jaw about shadowstalker noways. i visited da gym where da sumbich had membership. da membership xpired a ways back but i figger itssa lead an doe so far all da utter leads fizzled like ma pecker afta drainin a bottle of old crow an crawlin atop old maude i said wuddafuck i gotta at least try.

i push thru da door an dis purky girl roll up ta me bubblin bout how happy she is ta see me an i tell er imma not haven such a great mafuckin day anna ask iffa she ken help me widda info from da card skinner give ta me. she start pushen back squawken bout how she caint give me da info dat da membership is xpired an all dis utter bullshit. i trad ta xplain at its impotent when dis mafucker fresh from da workout step in batween us an growls 'dere a problem here?' an i tell him not yet but sure ken be all he gotta do is say da word. da girl says please jus go ait an i rapeet dat its impotent an in da boy shove me a bit. i slapped on da beak an towed im at i had hardons bigger an im an i didden thank twass bout beatin da shit outta dem.

folks started ta pay attenshun ta me at is point. nuther girl come bouncin over stickin er nose in an starts squawkin bout da sumbich. turns out da sumbich come in reel early in da mornin reglarly eeryday but one day he stopped an never come back in. she called da number she had to see iffa wanted ta renew da membership but no answerin machine nothing. she tried few more times an da number been disconnected already. she ask if da fellers in sum truble an i teller at is trubles over na but at a needed ta know iffa any udder reglars mite no somethin bout da sumbich. she tell me dat da guy neer tawked ta neebody an dat he never was rood but still giver da creeps. 'creepy?' i asked. she reply 'yea but not scarey, gosh i don't know how to splain it'. she blush sum an look ike she wanted ta tell me moor but didden fer sum reeson. so i rote ma cellphone number onna bitta papper an i give it ta girl. 'yall thank of anythang give ol scotty a call.' i cleared ma throte an i add 'jus not afta six cos ma wife ell be home' an in a chuckled a bit in clicked ma tung twice an i winked at er. 'dems jus jokes' i xplained. she giggle nervous like an den da utter girl was turnin way an she pulled da boy widder but he resist a bit ike a chicken puffin out is chest jus bafour i chop is mafuckin head off.

looks ike nuther dead end....