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CHAPTER1
DOM
Back and forth.
Over and over.
I watch as the broom makes a circular span across the large main floor of the old Westin Hills Asylum. The bristles scratching against the floors causing an eerie sound to permeate the air. The place is haunted, or so they say. But the cold draft and creepy eyes watching make me feel at ease. The presence of long-forgotten souls that have met untimely ends comforts me more than someone among the living ever could.
My brother Malakhi and I run a cleanup crew business, and every Halloween after Pandemonium has cleared out, we come in here and clean it up. And every year, we play ourselves a little game within the walls that are steeped in tragedy and darkness.
Who will win this year?
Who will be the prey?
Who will be the predator?
I keep pushing the broom, sweeping the last of the ticket stubs and other various debris while Khi is who fucking knows where. Probably masturbating to the old lobotomy machine again.
I let my mind wander to the next job on the schedule and start planning the details to ensure everything goes to plan when my phone chimesText Motherfucker,and I know my brother has been fucking with my phone again.
Come to the lower level. The basement off the Du Pont corridor. Someone has been naughty.
Fucking Satan, what has he gotten into now? I don’t bother replying to him and just head to the area he’s at. I move down the corridor until I get to the door that leads down. The door that is very clearly supposed to be chained up. Someone definitely was being naughty unlocking this door.
For as long as I can remember, the basement has been chained, and no one is allowed down there. They say that some kind of cult used the lower floor before the city seized the building.
I make my way down the stairs, dragging my hands along the wall, letting the rough surface snag on each groove on my palm.
I don’t know what Khi has found, but I grow bored with his incessant childlike behavior. I need him to learn how to self-regulate. There is a time to play and a time to get things done.
I’ve been cleaning up after the both of us for the last twenty years since we were seven and five, respectively. It’s always been my job as the big brother to look out for Khi and if I didn’t do it, no one would.
I saved both of us and if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Stale air assaults my nose but underlying is a hint of rancidity. Considering how old this place is, I wouldn’t be surprised if this basement was full of puddles of stagnant water and dead rats.
“Malakhi, if you're down here playing with rodents, I’m taking the hose to you before you even think about stepping into the van. I just got the fucking seats clean from last time, and no amount of air freshener is covering up another layer of your shit,” I call out before descending the last few steps.
Finally, I step down to even ground, and my eyes adjust to the low light offered only by the cracks in the foundations.
Just a few feet away, I see the broad back of Khi. He is squatting down, and I see his balance just slightly off center, but his head is cocked to the side, and I hear him, “One, two, the Harbingers are coming for you…”
There’s no reason for him to be uttering those words right now, and I am only slightly concerned that I may have snapped the last thread of control he had on his mind the last time we played a little game.
I approach him slowly in order to not spook him, considering I don’t know what state he is in. I can handle him in any capacity, but I’d rather not trigger him, especially when I don’t have much on me. I left almost everything upstairs when I came to the basement.
My feet eat up the scant distance between us, and I am glancing down at the top of his dark silky hair, and my eyes widen slightly when I see what he is so enamored with.
Two bodies lay at his feet. They can’t be but days old considering the condition of their skin with only a few chunks missing here and there. Rats have been testing their new roommates.
“Well, this is an interesting development. I wonder who’s joined us heathens of Hazelwood,” I muse, wondering what kind of motley individual has been trespassing through my backyard.
“Can we take them with us, Dom?” he asks, almost childlike.
“Why? What reason could you possibly have for wanting us to lug two bodies up the stairs through the building until we reach the van?” I muse, trying to get him to see that the energy wasted on these two just doesn’t make sense.
“I want an audience. Don’t you think they would be perfect to watch us? To watch them? Can’t you picture it? I can feel the need already coursing through my body just at the mere thought.” He shudders as if he can barely control his own body’s reactions.
