Crossroads Shadowland by Keta Diablo

eye. He bolted upright and realized his gut
instinct upon entering the room had been
spot on. Someone had been in the room and left their sick calling
card behind.
    Calling card? Words glared back at him.
Uncannily familiar.
    His legs heavy with dread,
he willed them over the side of the mattress and came to his feet, walking toward the writing at a snail's
pace. Numbers, a name and an address—20046
Industrial Park.
    Spinning around, he
half-expected to see Valmont lurking in the room. There could be no doubt; the neat, exaggerated
script belonged to the Civil War ghost. His body poised between the
door and the writing, he glanced toward
the bathroom again. A message from Doucet, but what the hell did
it mean?
    Sister Francoise's last
words ran like a litany through his exhausted brain. "Valmont is at peace now, he's found eternal
rest."
    "Apparently not," Frank
said to her imagined presence. He raised his arms in the air. "This better be damn important, Valmont. I'm
tired, ill- tempered and damn well sick of
cemeteries and fucking taxis."
    He wrote the address on a
scrap of paper, checked the ammo in his Glock and headed for the front door of the hotel. Flagging
down a cab moments later, he fell into the
back seat and rattled off the address to the driver.
    "There's nothing there, Mister, especially
this time of night."
    "What and where is there?"
    "Two blocks of empty
warehouse buildings long past their prime." Frank shook his head. "Cemeteries?"
    "Pardon?"
    "Are there any cemeteries in the
vicinity?"
    The cabbie shook his head.
"Like I said, abandoned buildings surrounded by overgrown fields. That's it." The seconds
ticked by. "So what's the
verdict?"
    "Ah, shit. I won't get any
sleep unless I check it out for myself." The taxi pulled from the curb. "It's your dime."
    A surge of nostalgia
smacked him in the face. The last time a cabbie from The Big Easy said that to him, he'd just paid the
man two hundred dollars to take a long
hike. And then...oh, God, he shouldn't go there. He should force
the visions of Rand calling out his name
from his mind.
    Fifteen minutes later the
taxi pulled into a desolate section of town reminiscent of an apocalyptic wasteland. What in hell was he
doing here at this hour of the
morning?
    "You said 20046? Well,
you're looking at it." The man picked up his clipboard from the seat. "I assume you want me to
wait?"
    Frank opened the back door,
stepped into the night and said over his shoulder, "Yeah, give me five minutes, will ya?"
    "Hey man, think you're
gonna need this." He handed him a flashlight. "Right, good thinking."
    Frank pushed the button on
the flashlight and swept over the back side of the building with a flood of light. A cat screeched and
dove for a nearby bush when he pushed the
decrepit door open and entered.
    First, he scanned the
corners with the light. The hair at the back of his neck stood at attention as he advanced and
checked beneath the scattered pallets and
empty mattresses. Puzzled by the absence of one solid clue as
to why he'd be prowling around like a
fucking cat burglar in a deserted building, he shook his head.
    The faint moan, no louder
than his own breathing, trickled in and stopped him in his tracks. Somebody was in pain, injured or
sick. Frantic to find the source, he
flashed the light across the empty space in sections right
to left, up and down. Clinging to an
upright pillar, the man's body found his beacon seconds later.
    "Oh, Christ. Hang on, Mister, I'm
coming."
    Frank sprinted back to the
entrance and hollered. "Hey, call an ambulance. Got a half-dead body in here." When the cabbie
gave him a wave, he turned and picked his
way back to the center of the structure, searching for the pillar again with the flashlight. He looked
toward the ceiling. "Why me? Can't you
pick on someone else for awhile?" Shining the light on the
man's face, he added, "I'm here now,
buddy. An ambulance is on the—."
    His heart stopped. "Oh, God, no, please no.
Rand?"
    Frank's taxi