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It was another warm night. The heat that had been pouring into Seattle the past several weeks refused to let go even when the sun was long gone and the moon shone high and alone in the sky. It wasn’t anything as hellish as the temperatures most other places in the country, but no rain and not a single high temperature below eighty-five degrees was enough to raise questions.
“They’re saying this is some global warming shit.”
“Hmm.” Vincent Russo flicked his turn signal on, pulling his unmarked van into a narrow street. He didn’t bother to glance at his partner in the passenger seat, who was more than happy to contribute to the vast majority of words spoken in the past half-hour.
Jason Kelly continued, gesturing with one hand as he spoke. “I mean, I guess everything is some global warming shit at this point, but there were some guesses about a really small hole in the ozone layer or something. Some crackpot was talking about geothermal shifts, like, volcanoes. You’d think we’d notice if there was a volcano under a whole city, but I guess there was that one movie.”
“A movie.”
Kelly paused. “A shitty movie,” he clarified, “but y’know, it’s like a million-to-one odds that there’s lava right underneath us.”
Russo actually looked at his partner this time, the right side of his face swallowed by shadows as it left the lights outside. “Right underneath us,” he repeated, a corner of his mouth briefly twitching upwards. “Can’t say I’ve seen signs of lava down there.”
“You... go down there often?”
“Not really. Just get a peek down every once in a while.” He turned back to the road. “You’ll be getting your first good look tonight.”
Jason frowned. “We’re ditching the stiff underground?”
“It’s how we clean up certain problems,” Vincent replied easily. “Tried and true method. Never heard about them finding anything down there.”
“Except that one crazy in the sewers.” Jason was looking out through the windows now, looking anywhere but at his partner in crime.
“Well, yeah, but that was uptown.” The van rolled into a parking lot, driving up to an auto shop. “We’re nowhere near there.” Vince slowed the car to a stop, looked to Jason. “Hop out and knock on the door. We’re expected.”
Jason stepped out, making his way to the metal door looming in front of him. He raised a hand and pounded on it. Half a second later, it began sliding upward, slowly rolling up to the top of the frame. Slouched against a sedan lacking any tires was a short, middle-aged man, a cigarette and a foam cup in one hand. “You’re new,” he noted.
“Yeah, ahh—”
Jason was cut off by the van driving between them and coming to a stop. On the other side, Vincent stepped out, already talking. “Let’s get that door closed, Tony. Things to do.”
Kelly made his way to the back of the van as the garage door rolled back shut. “So what are we doing with our Russian friend here?” he asked, glancing over at Russo as they met.
Russo didn’t respond, pulling the van’s doors open with a grunt. “Just get a hold of him,” he said shortly.
The two of them dragged out the body, still wrapped up in heavy duty trash bags, and Russo took the lead in directing them into a backroom. There, “Tony” had rolled a rug aside and was fiddling with a large metal hatch.
“You don’t know how good you’ve got it,” he said, glancing over his shoulder upon the others’ entrance. “I gotta sit on this thing five nights outta the week. I’d take driver duties over this the first chance I got.”
Jason glanced about the interior of the garage. “It doesn’t seem like that bad of a place to be,” he said.
“Jesus you’re new.” There was a metallic click, and Tony pulled the hatch open. “Now get the body in there before Jack gets ideas.”
Before Kelly could ask anymore questions, Russo began to lower the body headfirst into the hatch, the rookie quickly moving to assist. The body dropped into the darkness, the hatch letting only a shaft of light down to illuminate a square of concrete below. Mere seconds after the corpse thudded onto the floor, there was a low, rumbling hiss.
“What—”
Russo put a hand on his partner’s arm. “You talk too much,” he said. “You get to watch and listen now, rookie. This is gonna be an important moment for you.”
Jason watched silently as something—someone—made its way into the light. Hunched over, covered in filth, heavy with fat and muscle, the basement-dweller slowly inspected the gift wrapped up before it.
It quirked a head to the side, then darted forward, tearing away the plastic first with wild swipes of its hands, and doing the same with the white shirt underneath it. The exposed flesh was marred with scratches, now, and Kelly could only watch as the thing snarled and plunged its face into the belly.
“This,” Russo said quietly, just barely audible over the sound of tearing meat, “is Jack. Jack is how we deal with bodies we don’t want found. Like a lieutenant for the Russians. Or idiot rookies who talk too much and cause trouble with the Russians.”
Kelly immediately tried to back away, eyes wide, but Vincent’s grip was like a vice on his arm. “You aren’t going down there tonight,” Russo continued, maintaining the same quiet tone. “Everyone in the family who has a bit more trouble than usual gets one viewing of Jack’s... quarters. It is... very rare for anyone to be brought back. This is because anyone who is brought back goes down the hatch. Do you understand?”
Kelly nodded, gulping, eyes still fixated on the feast below.
“Good.” Russo gestured to Tony, who immediately began to close the hatch.
The noise of creaking metal caught Jack’s attention. His head darted upward, eyes unblinking, a hiss bubbling through a mouth full of jagged teeth and entrails. The hatch slammed down, cutting off any further noise from beneath. Russo nodded again to Tony, who tossed him a set of keys. Vincent stepped out, Jason following.
“The van is going to get a once-over in the morning,” Russo said, moving to the office doors. “There’s a car out front for us. Tomorrow, you’re going to call the boss. You’re going to apologize profusely for this mess, and you’re going to swear on your idiot life that you’ll never go picking fights with people in the opposition again.”
Kelly nodded dumbly.
The pair were silent until they were both in the waiting SUV. “One last thing,” Russo said, looking Kelly dead in the eyes.
“Jack is the family’s biggest secret. If he ever comes up, you talk about him like he’s the boss’s favorite fucking child.” Jason’s eyes couldn’t help but make a questioning look. “I will allow one question.”
Jason paused, took a breath. “Is he, you know, the Jack some of the older guys talk about? The boss’s—”
“I won’t answer that,” Russo said, turning the ignition on. “If you wanna connect the dots, do yourself a favor and don’t share it. Not unless you want that second visit.”
From there, no more words were spoken, and the SUV pulled out of the lot and drove into the night. The light of the moon was swallowed by the skyscrapers that dominated the city, and the light of the streetlamps so rare in this part of town only cast a sickly orange glow against a clinging darkness. Under the earth, a wretched beast tore into cold, dead flesh, unaware and uncaring of the world above except as a source of food and damnable light.