\chapauth{lucifer chikken}
\chapter{The Warehouse}


Dripping water echoed through the empty warehouse. I stepped into a
slant of light thrown by security spotlights outside. The sliver of
light was intermittently chopped by an exhaust fan set into the
wall. I checked my old automatic watch, lost in meditation as the
second hand whirred smoothly around the dial. It was late. I wound
up at the old warehouse in the harbor on a hunch, there was a lot
of money riding on the investigation, and Luke Bavarius, P.I.
listened to hunches when it meant keeping the freezer flush with
starchy Hungry Man dinners.



In the distance, a low grunt crept through the darkness accompanied
by the clang of metal. The sound rattled me down to the very
marrow. Instinctively, my hand flew to my Beretta, two fingers
rubbing the sleek metal for security. I'd seen a lot of horrors in
the Big Apple, some things I'd never shake. The Beretta was my
partner through each of them.



Gritty footsteps crossed the dirty cement floor some distance in
front of me. Squinting, I caught a flash of pale skin, a glint of
metal. I pulled my gun from its holster, admiring its length as it
was unsheathed. Stalking forward, back tight against shipping
containers, I disengaged the safety and cocked the gun. Footsteps
scurried further into the depths of the warehouse.



I spoke to the darkness. ``Show yourself,
asshole.''



Legs flashed across a slit of light.



``No one should be here now,'' I muttered. My heart fired
adrenaline through my body. ``Shoot first, ask questions
later, Bavarius.''



I raised my weapon, aiming it at the sound. ``Stop right
there!'' I shouted, firing two shots into the darkness. An
anguished cry echoed off the tin ceiling, followed closely by a
thick thud of a body hitting the floor.



I honed in on the sound and stalked toward it. In the shadows,
another hulking figure loomed. ``What the fuck is
that?''



It emitted a low sound and moved. Its form seemed unearthly. My
colon clenched in response to the adrenaline rush. Must've drank
too much muddy coffee before this stakeout.



Again, my Beretta found itself ready to fire as I aimed at the
hulking figure. The sounds it was making, the low groans, were
unearthly. Whatever it was, it had to be done away with. My finger
twitched on the trigger.



``Don't do it, Mister.'' The weak voice came from my
right. My eyes darted between the veiled voice and the shadows in
front of me.



``What the hell are you?'' I called.



The voice didn't answer immediately. It just whimpered.



``What are you?!'' I demanded again, pouring all of the
testosterone pooled my balls into my voice.



``I'm{\ldots} hurt. Don't shoot it.''



``Shoot what?'' There was a pause. ``Shoot
what!''



``Please{\ldots} I'm just a kid{\ldots}''



Oh, hell. A kid. I bit the inside of my cheek to stave off the
encroaching vomit. I could envision the bile on its rise from my
ulcerated stomach. My hand shook. The figure groaned low again and
my finger impulsively squeezed away at the trigger. Violence
exploded once more, echoing through the tin-paneled warehouse. The
figure received my bullet, still unsure of its identity, I watched
its shadowed form waver in the shadows.



``No!'' The kid cried, his pubescent voice cracking with
pain and disgust. He had dragged his body toward me. My gun hand
fell limply to my side; I looked down at the kid with pity and
shame. A gleaming snail trail of blood darkened the cement floor
behind him.



``Why are you in here?''



The kids eyes were pale with death. You could almost hear the blood
draining from him in sick little spurts.



``You shot the giraffe,'' he wailed, low.



My attention snapped from the kid to the darkness in front of me. I
squinted, deciphering the dark figure wavering before me. Its long
neck gradually came into focus. I stepped closer to the beast. It
was vomiting blood from its neck, muscular spasms shooting through
the six foot long tube of meat; its long blue tongue drooped to the
side flaccidly. Long eyelashes fluttered over its cow-like brown
eyes.



Woozy, the giraffe suddenly dropped to its knobby knees, its neck
lolled dramatically to the side. The neck snapped over a row of
container drums, folding thickly like a bag of sand. The sound
reverberated through the hollow spaces in my bones. It wasn't
likely to be forgotten, to abandon those spaces, any time soon. I
clutched desperately at my stomach, trying not to vomit my liver
and onion dinner all over the floor.



I glanced at the kid. Exhalations escaped him in a long rattling
breaths. He'd be a goner without help.



``Ah shit,'' my chest heaved. ``Should've listened
to the kid, Bavarius.''



Sirens screamed toward the warehouse. From the wide doorway, the
rain-slicked streets of the Empire City opened their arms to me. I
pulled a Pall Mall from the emergency pack stashed in my pocket and
lit it up, muttering to myself, the cigarette bouncing between my
lips. ``New York. I ream her and ruin her, but the whore keeps
taking me back.''



Red lights whirled closer. Suddenly, I was sobbing.