Bedbugs by Rick Hautala Page B

sudden darkness, and he tripped over something and almost fell. He caught his balance and muttered a low curse as he brushed his hands on his pants legs.
    “Yeah, well fuck you, too!”
    The suddenness of another voice, coming from out of the impenetrable darkness, startled Ace.
    For a flickering instant, he thought he might have imagined hearing the voice. His whole body tensed as the sound of the train grew steadily louder, echoing with a strange reverberation in the bend of the tunnel. Clenching both hands into fists, he got ready to fight if this tunnel rat, whoever the hell he was, gave him any shit. Ace wasn’t very big for his age, but he was street-tough and wiry. Not many people fucked with him and didn’t live to regret it.
    The tunnel rang with grinding metal as the train roared by and disappeared down the tracks ahead. Then a deep silence clamped down in the darkness again. Still tense and ready to fight if he had to, Ace started backing toward the opening.
    “Sorry, man. I din’t know you was down here,” he said with only the slightest hint of nervousness in his voice.
    “What, you mean you can’t see where you’re going or something?” the man asked.
    This was followed by a low, gravely laugh that ended in a raw fit of coughing.
    The voice sounded old and cracked, kind of creepy, coming out of the pitch darkness.
    Ace leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse of the guy, but there was nothing there—just thick blackness. He was pretty sure this had to be just some homeless wino, but he didn’t like not being able to see him. A vague sense of unreality swept over Ace as he shook his head and tried to convince himself that there really was someone there; but no matter how hard he stared into the well of darkness inside the niche, he couldn’t catch even the faintest hint of a shape that might be a person.
    “So what the fuck’re you doing down, here, anyway?” the voice asked.
    The last word reverberated with a dull, steady pulse that hurt Ace’s ears more than the sound of a passing train.
    “Jus’ hangin’. Tha’s all,” Ace replied, his voice low and tight.
    “Doing a bit of writing, too, I suspect. Huh? And maybe running away from the po -lice.”
    The man pronounced the last word the way the brothers say it, heavily accenting the first syllable.
    “I ain’t running from no one!”
    “Is that a fact? Well maybe you think you’re some hot-shit because you got away tonight, unlike your friend, huh?”
    Ace had no idea how this guy could have any idea what he’d been doing, but he wasn’t about to say a word. For all he knew, this might be another cop, setting him up to nail his ass.
    Suddenly a soft scratching sound followed by a snapping crack filled the darkness as a small flower of orange light cupped inside the man’s hands burst through the darkness. A brilliant glow underlit the features of the man’s face as he raised a match to the tip of the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and puffed. Ace stared as the light flickered for a few seconds, and the man took a deep drag. With a quick flick of his hand, the match went out, plunging the niche back into impenetrable darkness. A vibrating green and black afterimage of the man’s features drifted in front of Ace’s vision, no matter where he looked.
    “You think you’re some hot-shit writer, huh? Or should I say graffiti artist.” The man chuckled softly. “Is that what you think you are? An artist? ”
    He exhaled noisily, and a funnel-shaped plume of blue smoke appeared like magic from the darkness and blew into Ace’s face, stinging his eyes. Ace waved the smoke away with both hands but said nothing. He sure as fuck didn’t have to brag to anyone . . . especially not some burnout tunnel rat.
    “Say, why don’t you do me a favor,” the man said.
    His voice sounded mellow enough, like he was going to make a simple request; but there was also a harsh level of command just below the surface that Ace didn’t