The camera catches Sam in the last minutes of his life. Poor guy. He will die working so hard. Sam bounces in between tables and the main counter of Pico’s Sunnyside Gourmet Deli and Diner, clearing dishes, delivering orders and getting those little extra things that customers always realize they need afterwards. In a rare lull, he is stopped by a gesture then the approach of Greg, the Diner’s manager. They talk for a while. At first, Sam bounces in front of Greg, anxious to continue his route. Then he slows, stops, and listens to Greg intently. Greg appears worried. Greg walks off camera before Sam turns full around and stops again.
One has to know to notice the lone customer, sitting at the upper right corner of the camera shot, monopolizing a table, sitting before a plate long emptied. Unless, of course, one makes note of his skin color, Eastridge black, a contrast to all the other white customers who fill the shot. Otherwise, he only catches the attention once Sam approaches him with uncharacteristically cautious urgency.
“Excuse me, sir,” a survivor would later corroborate Sam as saying. “My manager wants to know if there’s anything else we can do for you.”
The customer does not appear to respond. Unless one considers the pushing aside of some object or objects to the corner of the table, away from Sam, as if to clear room. One has to know to identify the objects as a syringe and a rubber cord, the kind used to temporarily cut off circulation to an arm.
The survivor claims to have heard Sam request, “Sir, we’d like you to leave.” Those are Sam’s final words. Unless, of course, one counts the screams.
In the last moments, the customer looks at the camera. He knows it is there. “Glory!” he calls through a pained grimace. And then he begins shaking. He holds his fists and arms taut in front of him, atop the table. They quake from the tension. But also from something more, for the muscles seem to ripple as if some fluid rushes below the skin. They swell from it. And the shaking grows to violence as if invisible hands hold the customer and push him back and forth, up and down with a strength beyond human.
The other customers become agitated. Most look, some manage to stand. That is the farthest anyone gets. In that last instant, the customer’s frenzied eyes fill and spray with bursting blood and, but you have to know to see, there is the slightest hint of a smile.
Agent Damon stops the tape. He pulls at his collar, which is browning with sweat despite the cold winter day. The tape makes everyone uncomfortable. Police Captain Steffes shifts in his chair. His voice cracks when he clears his throat.
But it is Agent Damon who speaks first. “Do you know this man, Sergeant Toomes?”
“That’s the wrong question,” Police Sergeant Toomes answers. Despite the attention from the F.B.I. agent and his Sunnyside ally, Toomes sits secure in his chair.
“What’s the correct question, Sergeant?” Agent Damon asks.
“Do I recognize the symptoms? Do I know what happens next? Do I know why?”
“And?” Captain Steffes bites.
“The answer is yes. I know what glory is. Show the rest of the tape.”
Captain Steffes looks to Agent Damon, unsure. But Agent Damon does not hesitate in obliging. Although he pulls at his collar again once the tape whirs into action.
In the video, Sam scrambles to escape, grabbing for surrounding tables and customers to speed himself away. But the monster has his bleeding eyes set on Sam as his first victim. After it looks away from the camera, it becomes a black blur. Its swelled body moves so fast. Only its jitters catch its movement like a strobe light, still-framed before a blinding fast-forward strike at Sam. The sweep of its hand appears to land partially inside Sam’s back, hooking into his meat, pulling him back into the monster’s grinder. The monster rips at Sam, tearing an arm, leg, twisting free the head, each with a geyser of blood, followed by the limbs landing against the people around them, who now scream in flight. But the monster is too fast for them. Only one person escapes before the monster leaps out of frame to cut off their path. Limbs and a steady flow of blood replace it on camera. Until it returns to dismember those in frame.
Agent Damon and Captain Steffes have long turned away from the screen. Sergeant Toomes joins them now. He doesn’t want to watch what happens to the children.
What they don’t see, but already know, is that the monster comes to a kind of rest in the center of the carnage, pieces of furniture and people spread around it, red all over everything. Although it appears at rest, its body still moves, jerking and quivering, less violently, but faster now, like a machine that revs at a steady idle. Red line. The monster screams in triumph or pain or both as it lifts its arms at its side. Then its chest explodes outwards with such force that it breaks the ribs open and splatters its insides with a cannon burst. The shell of the monster crumbles to the floor, joining its victims.
“Sergeant Roberts said it looked like Tel Aviv in there,” Captain Steffes offers. “Autopsy revealed flesh beneath his fingernails, in his teeth.”
“You can spare me the details, Captain,” Sergeant Toomes cuts him off. “I know the details. I’ve cleaned up after them too many times now. Eastridge knows glory.”
“Yah, but now this is happening in my city!” the white Captain responds.
The comment gets Sergeant Toomes hot. He brings a black fist down on the table before standing and pointing an accusatory finger at Captain Steffes.
“Don’t you get righteously indignant with me, you donut-eating, bicycle-beat, Sunnyside snob! We’ve been dealing with glory for months! I had a woman shoot up glory at a cornerstore on Third, a guy at a city park packed with families. And I lost half my men, including my captain, when someone brought it in here. So don’t you come in here acting like you’re its biggest victim!”
Captain Steffes looks horrified. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know.”
“The story didn’t get out,” Toomes explains. “Just like you two aren’t going to let this one get out. No cop wants any more people to know about this drug, or there’d be bodies lining the streets.” Sergeant Toomes calms himself and taps his finger in the air while thinking. Eventually, he asks, “That’s why you’re here, right? Because now glory is in Sunnyside. And your Sunnyside perpetrator looks Eastridge black.”
The Captain’s sympathetic expression disappears.
Agent Damon breaks in. “Let me add some other recent events, and the reason why I’m here. I’ve got a missing agent, missing about a week and a half. And since then, I’ve got a dead agent, regional upper brass, dead in his house from a glory attack. Home invasion. Seems curious though, doesn’t it? Why his house, well out of town? And an F.B.I. agent was at that diner,” he points at the television, “as she is every Tuesday at that time. Why that diner, on that day, at that time?”
“Were the perpetrators black?”
Captain Steffes answers coldly, “Yes.”
“So you see a connection,” Toomes concludes. “You think this is some kind of terrorism or something.”
“What do you think?” Agent Damon finally asks the question for which he came.
“I think you’re wrong. They might be black, but there’s no conspiracy. Unless you call suicide a conspiracy. The two glory users you know are perpetrators, but the ones I’ve seen are victims.”
Agent Damon frowns, unhappy with the answer. Captain Steffes glares.
“Take the first case,” Sergeant Toomes continues. “Ex con. Huggins. Got out of prison and moved back into the area. So I had my eyes on him. A lot of people did. But it didn’t turn out to be the typical situation where the con gets back in with the bad crowd. This guy was really trying to make good. Only me and the others didn’t give him much of a chance. I was riding him every day. And that didn’t help him much with the neighbors. People were suspicious at best, cruel at worst. And like most cons, he didn’t have much luck getting a real job. Maybe he could have worked at a chain store. You know, where they don’t need to know you too well to hire you. But there aren’t many of those around here. Even if there were, are they going to hire a bulked out black brother with tats and scars? No, his best shot was his former friends. But he really wanted to be better than that. He had no chance.
“But even so, I really don’t think he meant to hurt anybody. Because when he shot glory, he piled furniture at the front door of his apartment. He just wanted to end it all, maybe rip himself to shreds. But he forgot to block the window. He jumped three stories and shattered a leg and still kept going enough to tear four people apart and pull two others out of their cars before he exploded.”
Agent Damon frowns. Captain Steffes face grows more pale.
Sergeant Toomes continues, “Second case was a drug user. I figure someone sold it to him as heroin, or gave it to him free. I mean, is a heroin user going to pay for a drug he hasn’t even tried? A drug that isn’t heroin? Or, who knows, maybe he knew what he was doing. But the events suggest it wasn’t planned mass suicide.”
“Mass suicide?” Captain Steffes asks.
“The junkie brought glory to a crack house, enough of it for a small party, and shared it with the people there. When the five glory shooters tore everyone else apart, they went at each other. Three didn’t stay together long enough to explode.
“And that’s when I started thinking. This doesn’t make any sense. What’s the use of a drug that doesn’t keep its customers? I mean, how can any dealer profit off that? As you can imagine, at that point my goal was to get the drug dealer. But how can you find him when every user dies after one hit? I was stuck.
“Then came Randy. I knew Randy well, since he was a kid. Poor guy had a hard life. All made worse by mental problems: anxiety and depression. Made it really hard on his wife. Especially when he was committed. She was my sister. Left her with two kids and no wage earner. I tried to help out, but I’ve got my own family.
“When Randy got out of the mental hospital, he tried to make things work. But his demons were bigger than him. He couldn’t hold a job. And without him working, his poor wife just had another person to take care of. Randy got to thinking it would have been better if he wasn’t around. He thought he was doing her a favor when he got glory. He even talked to her about it. And she called me. And she told him. And they fought real bad.
“By the time I got over there to confront him, he was red hot with worry. I took him out of the apartment because I was worried for the children. By the look on my sister’s face, I should have been worried for my sister too. She looked frazzled, pleading, desperate. But even so, I can’t believe she knew what she...was...doing.”
Sergeant Toomes drops his head into his hands. When he lifts it again to speak, it is streaked with tears. But he continues on. “She loved those children...” He chokes up again.
“Jesus Christ, Toomes,” Captain Steffes sympathizes.
“That’s horrible,” Agent Damon agrees.
“While we were out in the hall, she got Randy’s glory...I had to hold Randy back, or we would have died too. Even afterwards, I had to keep him out of there. I couldn’t even go in myself, couldn’t leave him alone. You know, in the hall I’d been saying, ‘Randy, you’ve got to hold on. My sister, the kids, need you to live.’ But he said to me, and I’ll never forget this, he said, ‘How can you expect people to live like this, to struggle, to suffer and not to despair?’ And it didn’t matter whether I agreed with him or not because, soon enough, he had nothing left to live for.
“So don’t talk to me about perpetrators,” Sergeant Toomes directs to Agent Damon. “These people are victims. The only perpetrator is the person giving people this drug, the person who killed my sister and her kids.
“So, even though I hated Randy for bringing glory into the house, I had to keep him alive, stop him from killing himself. Because he knew how to get the drug. He knew how to get the dealer.”
“So where did he get it?” Captain Steffes asks anxiously.
“What did you do?” Agent Damon concurs, leaning forward.
“I made the contact. Someone had slipped Randy a card when he left that mental hospital. It read, ‘When you want to end it all in a blaze of glory.’ And it left a number. I called the number. Someone picked it up. I did all the talking. Pretended I was like Randy. But didn’t let on that I knew too much. The person asked three questions: ‘How did you get the card?’ Picking a dead woman’s body, was all I said. ‘So you want to kill yourself?’ Yes, I answered. ‘Where do you live?’ I gave a vacant apartment room in Randy’s complex.”
“When was this?” Agent Damon asks.
“About two weeks ago.”
“Then what?” Captain Steffes prods.
“I staked out the place. A man drove up, went to the apartment. Picked his way in and left.”
“Was it glory?” Captain Steffes asks.
“I didn’t check,” Sergeant Toomes answers. “I followed the man.”
“Where to?” Agent Damon asks abruptly, like an interrogator about to earn a confession.
“He got in his car and drove to a house. I called in the troops.”
“You got him?!” Captain Steffes calls.
“He put up a good fight,” Sergeant Toomes recalls. “But we got him.”
“You’ve had him all along and didn’t tell us!” Agent Damon chastises.
“I’ve been leading up to it.”
“Well, let’s see him!” Captain Steffes proposes.
“Yes?” Sergeant Toomes checks with Agent Damon.
“Of course,” Agent Damon states. But upon further consideration, he proposes to Captain Steffes, “Let me do this alone.”
“Come on,” Captain Steffes protests.
“Let him join us,” Sergeant Toomes interjects. “I insist. This is happening in Captain Steffes’ town as well.”
Captain Steffes takes Toomes’ defense as judgment in his favor and stands, prepared to follow. Agent Damon does not resist.
Sergeant Toomes stands as well and leads them both into the hallway, then back to a door at its end. The Sergeant knocks at the door labeled “Interview Room,” a euphemism for interrogation. He waits. Soon thereafter, a police officer exits.
“Is everything in order?” Sergeant Toomes asks.
“Yes, sir!” the man answers enthusiastically as he leaves.
Sergeant Toomes holds a hand out before his guests, beckoning them inside. They enter.
Inside, a lone chair sits centered in the room, surrounded by walls that are featureless except for a window-sized mirror with a glassiness that suggest it is also a window for those in the room on its other side. Sitting in the chair is a bound man, tied to the chair by orange and black ropes. He lifts a blindfolded head, revealing little but the bruises that complicate his forehead, nose, and lips. Hardly protocol.
Agent Damon angrily spits, “What’s this!? Since when do ropes, beatings and blindfolds substitute for handcuffs?”
He is answered by a slammed door. Sergeant Toomes is gone.
Agent Damon rushes to the door and tests its handle. It is locked.
“What the hell?” Captain Steffes asks, mystified.
Agent Damon goes straight to the mirror. “Let us out of here!” he demands of those on the unseen side. There is no response. He bangs the glass.
“Damon, what the hell is going on?!” Captain Steffes cries.
“Bastard!” Agent Damon curses the mirror.
“Boss?” the man in the chair mumbles.
“Shut up!” Agent Damon orders the bound man.
“I told him, sir. About the program,” the bound man continues. His efforts to speak are slow but deliberate. He wheezes in between sentences. “He’s got the drug. He gave it to people to use outside of the test zone.”
“I said shut up!” Agent Damon exclaims. He slaps the man hard across the face. The man trembles.
“What is he talking about!?” Captain Steffes demands with an accusatory grimace, pointing hard at the man.
Agent Damon glares at Captain Steffes. It is the only reply he will give.
Frustrated, Captain Steffes turns his attention to the bound man. He discovers a small brown paper lunch bag crumpled at the bottom of the bound man’s chair. “What’s this?” he asks as he bends down to grab it.
Agent Damon ignores him, keeping his attention on the trembling captive.
Captain Steffes examines the contents of the bag. “There’s a syringe in here and a tie-cord.”
When Agent Damon fails to respond, Captain Steffes looks up at him. Agent Damon is fixated on the bound man. A look of fear has replaced his indignation.
The bound man is no longer trembling. He body shakes. His mouth begins to foam.
Captain Steffes leaps to his feet. “Oh, shit,” he murmurs. He reaches a hand forward and cautiously snags the prisoner’s blindfold. The Captain pulls it downward over the man’s foaming mouth, revealing two frenzied wide eyes. Captain Steffes steps back as the captive’s convulsions increase to violence, and his skin ripples, and his muscles swell. The ropes begin to fray.
“God help us,” Agent Damon whispers.
The captive’s eyes blast red.
