The city lay sprawled beneath a blanket of night, the kind of suffocating darkness that crept in around the corners of empty alleys, where the only warmth came from the flickering glow of a distant streetlamp. I had always found solace in the solitude of these late-night walks, where the world fell away, and I was the only soul bearing witness to the heartbeat of my surroundings. There was a comfort in discovering those little nooks, those damp and forgotten corners of the city, where bricks crumbled underfoot and shadowed figures whispered secrets from the dampened past.
I hadn’t expected to see him that night. Jack “Red” Malone loomed larger than life against the backdrop of the old laundromat, smoke curling upward from a cigarette that dangled insouciantly from his lips. In the shadows, he was just another ghost of the city, but the moment I stepped closer, drawn like a moth to the flame, the memory of his reputation washed over me like a cold wave.
Red was a gangster if ever there was one, known for his penchant for brutal efficiency and a demeanour that promised unflinching loyalty to those who earned it but dealt merciless cruelty to those who didn’t. I’d heard the whispers that followed him through smoke-filled rooms, the hushed tales of betrayal scattered like leaves before a winter wind. Some said he was merciful, only taking what was owed; others insisted he was a monster, preying on the weak, a figment of their imaginations come to life each time he stepped into a dimly lit bar.
I felt the earth shift beneath my feet, the asphalt seeming more alive in his presence. As I strolled by, my heart drumming a nervous rhythm, I caught his eye. It was then I knew, in that instant, that my world had collided with his, and the journey ahead wouldn’t be one I could simply walk away from.
“Lookin’ lonely out here, aren’t ya?” he said, his voice gravelly with a hint of amusement that belied the danger lurking beneath.
“It’s quieter this way,” I replied, forcing a casualness into my words, even as my palms began to clammy with the weight of unexpected tension. Conversations like this usually felt as fragile as a spider’s web, easily torn apart by the very breath of an unwelcome truth.
“Yeah? You’d be surprised how much noise a lonely walk can make,” he countered, taking a slow drag from his cigarette. The smoke danced upward, curling into the space between us, as if to separate our worlds even further. “You ever walk through these streets at night? Really walk?”
I shrugged, trying to play it cool, but inside, my mind raced. I had walked these streets at night more times than I could count; each footfall was a story, each shadow a memory. The way the cracked pavement glistened under the sodium light, that grit and grime felt like home.
“Sometimes you see things,” he continued, leaning against the brick wall, his posture relaxed yet every bit the predator, “things that simmer below the surface. You’ve been out late enough to know what lurks in the shadows. The real stories.”
“What kinds of things?” I couldn’t help but ask. A morbid curiosity struck me. The silence of the night came alive with his words, the mundane moment transformed into something electric.
He took a step closer, his eyes narrowing as if he were measuring me up. “Things that ain’t meant for the weak of heart. Like the whispers of the dead.” He paused, searching my face for a reaction. “Not ghosts, per se, but echoes.”
My pulse quickened. I had heard about the echoing stories—the victims of his reign, their unresolved endings haunting the empty streets, scattered amidst the wreckage of shattered lives. I realized he was embodying the very dark I had come to walk among. But I found a strange insistence pulling me along, an intoxicating need to delve deeper into his world.
“Go on,” I urged, a whisper barely escaping my lips.
“You think I did it?” he said, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “Killed them all? You think you want to hear how it happened?”
The air thickened with unspoken truths, and I clenched my jaw. Deep down, I knew this was a stumbling into madness, yet my feet seemed to have a will of their own, anchoring me to the crumbling pavement.
“Let’s just say, in my line of work, letting things go can be the hardest part,” he said, his face shadowed in agony for a fleeting moment before the mask returned. “There was this one night—a rainy night, the kind that makes the streets feel like they’re alive, you know?”
I nodded, following the rhythm of his voice, the pulse of the story wrapping around me like mist.
“Benny D’Amato owed me,” he continued. “You know Benny? Little shit who never paid up. The night I finally found him, he was cornered in a bar, practically begging for mercy. But here’s the thing—there’s no mercy in this game, not when nobody’s watchin’. So, I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
He leaned in closer, as if confessing a sin. “Told him he could keep his life if he could outrun me. So, he darted out that door, and I chased him through the rain like it was a bloody fairytale. I almost had him, too.”
The rain-soaked streets flashed through my mind, the echo of footsteps on slick pavement, and I felt a shiver run down my spine.
“He slipped,” Red continued, his eyes gleaming with a feral glint. “Right into the water. The river was high that night. I swear it drank him up, just like that.” He snapped his fingers, and the casualness of the gesture turned my stomach.
I felt the weight of those words, the idea of a life slipping away without a sound. The darkness yawned wide, and I took a step back, the image of Benny’s desperate face etched in my mind. Something in me wanted to rebuke his nonchalance, to condemn him for the darkness he brought forth. But there was also an undeniable chill of admiration, a terrible fascination with the chaos swirling around him.
“The thing is,” he went on, unaware (or uncaring) of my reaction, “I still hear him sometimes when I walk these streets. His whispers curl around the corners of my mind. You see, he never really left.”
The thought settled over me like a shroud. I could almost hear the rustle of water, the faint sound of splashing beneath the bridge where lives were drowned in darkness.
“Why keep hearing him?” I asked, my voice quaking slightly. “Why not just forget?”
Red laughed, but it held no warmth. “Because forgetting is its own kind of death, darling. The moment you forget, that’s when you really lose the game.”
His words felt like an incantation, summoning the shadows of the past to dance before us. And just like that, the city blurred into a canvas of horror, and I couldn’t tell where the man ended and the memories began. Shadows swirled around us like ephemeral ghosts, and I could feel whispers lurking just beyond the edges of my perception, begging to be heard.
“Come walk with me,” he said, turning. “I’ll show you what I mean.”
I hesitated, the ghostly allure of his offer pressing against my chest like a vice. But curiosity gnawed at me deeper than fear, a primal urge that transcended the chill of the night air. I followed him, a willing participant in the dark tale unfolding around me.
We wandered deeper into the heart of the city, where the echoes of lost souls spiraled upward like smoke from a dying fire. Red recounted the stories that flickered through the crumbling houses and crooked alleys—the lost men, the heartbroken women, the souls who had been swallowed by their own despair.
“Each of them is still here,” he whispered, gesturing toward the darkness. “The city keeps their voices alive, weaving them into the fabric of the night. Some are angry, some are sad, but they’re all waiting for someone to hear them.”
I felt a chill wash over me, as if the darkness were alive, breathing, watching. “And what do you hear?”
“Every night is a different tune, doll. Some nights, it’s a symphony of regret; other nights, it’s pure chaos.” He grinned, his eyes alight with zeal as he continued walking, each step becoming our own improvised dirge. “But there’s beauty in it, a kind of twisted storytelling.”
I could feel his presence now—the thrill of danger and the seduction of the hidden truths he revealed. My chest tightened, but a part of me reveled in the descent, the falling away of the safe and the known.
Then came the moment of realization. For Red Malone, every story was a thread, weaving him deeper into the very fabric of despair he had helped create, threading his own soul into the chaos that pulsed under the city.
“Do you want to hear the last story?” he asked, and there was something in his voice, a note of foreboding, that sent a shiver through me.
“Is it yours?” I couldn’t help but ask, curiosity and dread entwined like lovers in the dark.
His expression shifted, a fleeting shadow crossing his face. “Mine is a ongoing tale. A story without an end. But there’s one more I think you’ll find… captivating.”
The tension thrummed around us, a heartbeat pulsing beneath the pavement, and I felt that terrible pull urging me forward. “Tell me,” I urged, the darkness closing in around us.
“Once, I had a partner,” he began, his voice turning cold. “A guy named Tommy. Smart, quick, but too kind for this life. He always wanted to save everyone, thought he could bring light to the darkness. But in this game, kindness gets you killed. He never learned.”
He paused, eyes darkening as if conjuring a memory that laid heavy in the air between us. “One night, we found ourselves in deep with a debt we couldn’t pay. Tommy thought we could talk our way out of it—convince our way to safety. But the men we owed weren’t interested in words. They wanted blood.”
I listened, caught in the grip of his tale, the weight of his recollections pulling me deeper into the depths. “They took him,” he continued, voice low, filled with a bitterness that chilled the very marrow of my bones. “Carried him off like he was nothing, just a ghost in the making. I never went looking for him. Couldn’t, wouldn’t. Sometimes it’s easier to let the darkness claim its own.”
“And now?” I whispered, my breath catching on the edges of despair. “What haunts you?”
Red stopped, gaze piercing into the shadows as if he were searching for a phantom. “Tommy’s there, too, whispering in my ear every time I walk. I can never forget what I let happen. That’s the price, you see. Each life taken demands the life of the one left behind.”
As his words melted into the night, I felt a stirring presence, a weight settling around us, a shroud formed of regrets and lost souls. It happened all at once—the echoes of despair coalescing into something tangible, something that writhed beneath the surface of the pavement.
“Do you feel it?” he murmured, his voice a ghostly rasp. The shadows swirled, thickening, dancing on the edge of my vision.
“What?” I gasped, dread pooling at the base of my spine.
“The stories, they’re waking up.”
And I knew, in that awful moment, that we were not alone. The whispers of the lost converged, and I felt the weight of past sins pressing down on my chest. The darkness had teeth; it was not merely a void but a living entity, hungry for the souls of the living, drawing them into the abyss where memories became shadows and shadows became nightmares. I had wandered too far into the night, and now the stories would claim me, just as they had claimed him.
Maybe I would become part of the echo, a voice forever entwined in the memories of the city. I felt the pull of despair coil around my heart, tightening, threatening to drown me beneath the tide of lives lost in the alleys, in the dark corners where the light dared not shine.
As the shadows reached for me, I turned to Red, who stood still, a figure of granite amidst the storm. “What do we do?”
He smiled then, a sad, twisted smile that revealed the darkness hiding just beneath his skin. “We listen. Listen until we’re part of the tale.”
And I knew that I had crossed a threshold, one that merged my desperate desire for connection with an abyss darker than solitude—a web woven with the blood, sweat, and tears of those who had walked before, and I would never emerge the same. The city had claimed me, and in the laughter of the damned, I heard the echoes of my fate unwinding, one story at a time, forever entwined in the fabric of night.
Author: Opney. Illustrator: Stab. Publisher: Cyber.
