Chapter 9. Dead
Ralph felt a trickle of blood stream down his face, slowly dribbling from the right side of his head. He put his hand up to feel the throbbing pain, as he fought the dizziness, but even that small exertion made his head seem light and weightless. As he tried to press against the wound he found his fingers wet and sticky, and warm with his own blood.
He tried to move out of the way of the next wave of fleeing feet. Yet, he could barely roll over onto his side. A pair of combat boots stumbled over him, kicking him in the left shoulder. The throbbing was suddenly replaced with the sharp pain of hard steel tipped boots against his upper back.
Ralph groaned, trying to keep himself conscious, despite the pain. After a few moments, after fighting against his urge to fall to sleep, he felt a pair of strong hands rolling him back on his side.
"Bill? Is that you?" Ralph asked, with closed eyes.
"Man down! Man down! Let's get an ambulance here!" The voice seemed unfamiliar.
The man looked down at Ralph, and pulled him out of the doorway, and shielded him from any further harm.
"Hey, hey," the man pleaded, trying to keep Ralph awake. "What are you? Undercover? G-Man?"
Ralph did not answer.
"Come on, buddy. Don't fall asleep."
Ralph's eyes opened, but quickly drooped closed, as he fought to stay awake. Propping Ralph up, the man searched through Ralph's tweed jacket's pockets, looking for a badge, and a gun.
From inside the building, they could just barely make out the sound of gun fire. Two shots.
"Tony... inside..." Ralph finally mumbled slowly, as he feebly reached towards the door. "I've... got... to..."
"Ok. Take it easy. We've got it covered," the man continued, still searching for a badge. "Last thing we need is a dead fed."
He looked at Ralph, hoping the off color joke would keep him awake.
"Come on. We got a call from one of your boys that you Feds were here, too..." The man checked Ralph's pockets once more.
"Where the hell is your badge? Your gun?" he thought, as he continued to rummage through the pockets. Although he had passed it up before, he went back and opened Ralph's wallet.
"Shit, don't tell me you're a civilian," he said, looking through Ralph's ID. "Ok, Mr. Hinkley, stay with us..."
Ralph stared back, eyes blank and expressionless.
An ambulance rolled around to the back of the club, at which point the two officers waved them in to their position. Two EMS technicians ran over, and lifted Ralph onto a stretcher. As he was about to be loaded into the ambulance, Ralph saw Pam out of the corner of his eye. In the distance, he could just barely tell that she was looking for him.
"Pam..." he tried to yell, although it sounded closer to a whisper.
As the doors closed, the officer hit the back of the ambulance twice, then waved the driver on. He turned, and headed through the back door.
-----
L.A. traffic was unusually backed up, especially for 9:45 on a Friday night. Bill mumbled insults out the window at lines of drivers, guilty only of being on the same road as he was.
"Come on, you bozos! Get off the road!" he yelled out the window, waving his left arm at the motionless air. "Don't you people have somewhere to be?"
He looked around and took in a deep breath, realizing there was not much he could do. His hands, returned to the steering wheel and gripped it tightly. He gritted his teeth in anger, as he continued to mumble. After a drawn out minute waiting, his knuckles turned white in his desperate grip. Finally, tired of waiting, he sharply turned to the right, and pushed on the pedal, taking his car out onto the shoulder. Honking, he drove by dozens of cars frozen in their parked positions.
Expecting a siren or flashing lights to follow him, he checked his rear view mirror several times, as he quickly made his way to the next exit. Relieved that he made it uninterrupted, he thanked the heavens that one thing went right tonight, and began to speed through the back streets to find the Slammed Box.
"What kind of stupid name is that, anyway?" he mumbled, picking up speed. "Come on, kids. Hang on. The old cavalry will be there in just a few more minutes."
-----
The hallway ahead of Cyler was longer than he remembered. And since most of the club had already vacated, the hall seemed far too empty. Cyler ducked as he heard a shot ring out. Looking back, then looking around more, he realized that the hallway was by now mostly empty, which also made him an easier target.
To his right, a door was slightly ajar.
A second shot, again fired from behind, was enough to convince him to hide inside.
The room, although dark, felt more like a storage room or closet. The air felt thick and musty, with old boxes lining the walls. But it was a place to hide for the moment. And that was enough.
Cyler tried to find a place to stand out of sight. As he tried to position himself, he felt his foot come down and land on something. It was not exactly hard, and gave away slightly under the pressure of his foot. Cyler tried to nudge it aside. Like a hard rubber hose, or a stiff sack of clothes, it moved slightly, as if it was attached to something larger, and even more unyielding.
Pulling his foot back, it seemed to roll again, and retake its original position.
Cyler looked around for a light, but saw none.
He kicked again, with the same reaction. But instead of pulling his foot back, he ran his foot up and down along its length. It ended on one end, to the left. But on the other end, to his right, it carried on behind some boxes.
"What the hell...?"
Cyler squatted down and felt around by his feet. Finally, his fingers touched leather. It was soft, as if it was old and well worn. He ran the fingers of his right hand along it's length, and felt the boxes. Here the boxes seemed thrown haphazardly, as if they were almost ready to tumble down. They shifted slightly.
Confident they would not tumble down, he ran his left hand along the soft leather, too, until it ended in cold metal. Cautiously his left fingers followed along, as he ventured an inch or two further. His left fingers froze in place, as his fingers slipped in between the openings of another set of cold, stiff digits.
Feeling the cold lifeless flesh against his, Cyler realized what he had stumbled upon.
He jumped back, and screamed.
-----
Pam watched as the ambulance drove away. She had not been able to find Ralph. Now seeing the ambulance, and hearing the sirens of several more, her heart began to race, and her stomach turned.
Although the commotion was beginning to calm down slightly, as many of the punks at the club had long since left, there was still a lot of noise and screaming all around.
She continued to look around, hoping to find Ralph and the kids. She hoped that she would turn around to find him with the kids in tow. She hoped that Bill would show up, with the suit in hand, and that all would sort itself out, like it always seemed to do. But right now, there was indication that this would be the case.
She looked at the back door of the Slammed Box. A few people still trickled out. Perhaps this is where Ralph had disappeared. As she head for the door, a hand reached out, and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back.
She lost her footing, and fell backwards. A hand tried to hold her up, but could only hold her blouse as she began to fall. Caught only by her sleeve, she found herself in the arms of a man.
"Bill?" she instinctively thought. She looked up, and let out a small scream, realizing it was not him.
"Is this the bitch?" the voice yelled out, as he shook her. She looked over, and three punks, dressed in black, snarled at her, as they began to violently push her back and forth between them, yelling back and forth at each other, in frenzied conversation.
"No! She was a punk...! This bitch is..."
"Did that bitch call you?"
"You a pig?"
"Bitch set us up!"
"Come on! Let's go!"
"When we find her, she's dead!"
"Let's go!"
"She fucked us!"
"Tell her she's dead! Dead!"
"Come on! Cops're everywhere!"
"The bitch is dead!"
With on hard push, Pam was finally set free. She landed, hands first, on the concrete ground. Trying to process the conversation, she looked up just in time to catch sight of the three dark figures as they ran off.
-----
Cyler turned and opened the door. All he wanted was to run out into the dim, smokey light of the hallway. Instead, Cyler found himself facing the end of a gun.
"FREEZE! This is the police!"
Letting out a panicked yell, Cyler threw his arms up into the air. Shaking, he began to chatter.
"There's a body in here... a dead body, man! I found a body..."
The officer with the gun put it back in its holster, looking Cyler up and down.
"You don't belong here, kid..."
It was not the first time tonight that someone in that hallway realized just how out of place he was here.
Now he finally understood why she had warned him to leave. She knew that something was wrong, all along...
The officer who had helped get Ralph just a moment before ran into the hallway with his gun drawn. He screamed out his name and unit. The two officers exchanged information, screaming at each other, from across the hallway.
"Is everything secure?" The second officer asked, looking up and down the hallway.
"Not everything. But this kid here just found one of the bodies. We're gonna have to take you in, kid, to ask some questions." The officer took out a walkie talkie, and called for backup to the hallway.
Cyler nodded as the words echoed in his ears. "...One of the bodies...?"
Cyler stood there, stunned.
The second officer, approached the two, and also realized that Cyler was out of place.
"You Tony?"
Cyler looked at the officer, confused for a moment. Finally, he pointed back towards the door leading out to the stage.
"Naw, Tony's still in there. With the rest of them." Cyler thought, and realized that Ralph must have been asking for them. "Did you see Mr. H? Miss Davidson? They here?" It took a moment for the officer to make the connection. When he did, he took Cyler by the arm, and asked the other officer to continue without him.
"Hinkley? He's been hurt. Come on, kid. Let's get you out of here, before something happens to you, too."
