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Chapter 33: The Unclaimed Dead


33

The dead often go unclaimed in Chicago. So many bodies. So much death and misery. The summer time in the City is rife with gunfire.

But not all of the City. Many parts, the Gold Coast, the Water Tower, beautiful Lake Shore Drive, were neatly striated, preppily and mysteriously litter free.

From here the dull and dirty parts stayed hidden, if one chose not to look.

Elsewhere, however, in the violent, alien worlds which ring the hundred million dollar properties that make up the world famous Chicago skyline, the dead often go unclaimed.

Their bodies washed ashore and come to rest in gutters, alleyways and side-streets where they lay putrid amongst the weeds, stashed away in abandoned buildings, were stepped over and around in front yards and on building doorsteps.

Dakari's body lay untouched for hours after Mook's dismantling. Tonio had not stirred either. He was in much better shape than Dakari, though, certainly. Being as though he was still alive.

Bealz had unleashed a sledgehammer of a blow on them when he and Deshaun had tried to rouse him. They weren't even trying to hurt him. They were just supposed to find him for Dakari.

Bealz, though, reacted as if they were trying to hurt him and had lashed out, but whatever it was he had done to them was more than just a physical assault. Bealz had hit Tonio hard in what felt like the very center of his brain. His mind hurt, everything was red and screaming.

Tonio knew that he lay, limbs painfully askew, in an alleyway, but there was not a thing he could do about it. His mind had been jarred slightly a-loose, not completely severed from his corporeal form, but barely hanging on by a few tattered threads.

Tonio screams and screams, but his body only registers the slow rise and fall of his breathing.

Dakari's lifeless corpse lay some twelve feet or so away. Mook had ripped off his arm and had nearly decapitated him beneath the vice grip-like clamp of his massive hands, leaving behind a broken and bloody mess. What seeps from his wounds only bears a passing resemblance to blood. It is a thick, oily discharge, an unnaturally deep red teeming with black specks that move about independently against the flow.

As Dakari's body cools, these tiny flecks begin to coalesce, they leak free of the drying ichor, pooling in the filthy cindered grime, and slowly, begin to run in a single, thin little rivulet, seeking, searching out Tonio's un-moving form.

Upon making contact with the skin just above his exposed ankle, just past the brand new pair of Jordan's he was so very proud of, it quickly seeps down into the epidermis and is rapidly sucked into his bloodstream.

Within moments he goes into a spastic fit and begins to froth at the mouth. When the violent seizures subside, Tonio opens yellowed eyes rimmed in red. A wicked, inhuman grin creases his face, distending once handsome features into a gruesome mask.

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