No Grave, Sneak Peek #1
The staircase was stained, pieces of gum and spilled food worn into the tiles in splotches of gray and black goo. Mud gathered in streaks from hundreds of shoes treading over them throughout years, leaving the once-white stairwell an unsavory shade of brown-gray. It was a steep climb to the top floor, where they arrived at a gray, scuffed door. The doorway was a canvas of graffiti and scratchiti, names and phrases written over each other across its surface, with the most pronounced being the bright red ‘DETHKLUB’ label emblazoned across the top of the door.
“You’re shitting me,” Tristan muttered.
“Alright,” Sam began, “so I know the hospital didn’t really go by the book, strictly speaking, but I’d like—”
“To hell with the book, Sam,” Tristan interrupted, “do you see the door?”
Sam’s brow expressed his frustration, “We don’t need another warrant coming up for our arrest.”
Tristan waved him off and stepped up to the door. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing? You wanted ‘by the book,’ so I’m going to knock.”
Sam looked on, dumbfounded, while Alex chuckled. Tristan gave them a shrug and turned back towards the door, rapping three times with his knuckles. When no one answered, he knocked again. Seconds passed while they waited, and finally Tristan gave it a heavy pounding with his fist. He looked over at Alex, “So, should we let ourselves in, then?”
“Doesn’t look like we got a choice.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Sam interrupted, “Listen.”
Tristan cocked his head towards the door and heard muted voices having a clipped conversation. Footsteps followed. He frowned. “That’s not a good sign.”
The door swung in to reveal a wiry looking white man, shirtless, wearing torn baggy jeans belted by a bungee cord. He was covered by numerous tattoos, including one of a skull on his bare scalp, and one of a rib cage on his rib cage. Tristan grimaced. The man had various celebrity quotations and unattributed philosophical excerpts filling in negative spaces of exposed skin in between images of skeletons arranged in erotic poses. He had a nose piercing like a bull, and a voice that was unexpectedly nasal. “The hell you want, old man?”
Tristan glanced over his shoulder (beyond the clavicle tattoo on his goddamned clavicle) and examined the mess of apartment beyond. A large two- or three-bedroom, spacious, with several worn couches and chairs visible in the common, all surrounding a chipped glass table with leftover cocaine still piled on it. Beyond the common room was a skinny corridor leading back to one of the bedrooms, with another door off to the side most likely for a bathroom. The man in front of him blocked off whatever the rest of the apartment looked like, but Tristan imagined the secondary room would be set up like a dance floor with as much space available as possible. The most important detail was the presence of three security cameras surveying the apartment.
Tristan hesitated as he considered the thug’s question. There were several methods of approach to consider. Given the status of the apartment and the hushed conversation they overheard through the door, other people were likely home and prepared to defend their investments, which made direct confrontation undesirable. On the other hand, a more oblique approach might take time and yield fewer results.
“What? You just gonna stand there? Get outta here.”
Alex stepped forward to say something, but Tristan put a gentle hand against his arm. He smiled at Tattoos and decided which approach he felt like taking. “We want to look at the security footage from your illegal club.”
Sam deflated visibly.
