The Dark Star - Lockdown Vol. 04

From outside of the room the bass of the music vibrated through everything around them, emanating from a speaker stack in the room below them. The latest in a stream of unending weekend house parties was building in intensity beneath them. Tonight, it was this abandoned house, tomorrow it would be another somewhere else on the run down desperate and dilapidated housing development.

Moving around kept the Police at bay, not that even the law seemed to have any authority in this postcode, not anymore. Izzy had grown up on the Hillcliffe Estate, while she had grown the local area seemed to have descended further and further in hive of scum and villainy. The good families and community she'd known had long been crushed. "Not even hope lives here anymore" was a phrase often heard of the area.

The neighbours in surrounding properties knew not to complain and to endure the noise, the cars and the debauchery brought upon them, enduring the hardship was infinitely better than being set upon, assaulted or worse. Where once there had been three gangs now there was only one. One that had either destroyed or consumed the other two. Needless bloodshed countless young lives lost over territory that only existed in the heads of men like Marlon Pickford. Marlon who as leader of the 'Threes' believed he and his consigliere controlled the streets.

The heavy baseline shifted to a track she recognised but couldn't name instantly, the ubiquitous heavy bass line only adding a dull oppressive atmosphere to the environment within the house and within this run-down looking bedroom.

Izzy had no idea what the pretty looking girl had done to have ended up here, if she had wronged Marlon, if she was being used to settle a debt, or if she'd simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Izzy knew in her heart of hearts that whatever had brought her here, whatever her past had been then her future was sure to be far far bleaker. The blonde with now dyed diagonally cut bobbed hair seemed too sophisticated to have simply fallen into the same old trappings of drugs or debt that invariably brought young girls under the influence of the 'Threes.'

She'd been brought here little more than an hour earlier. On laying eyes on her Marlon had instantly designated her this evening's source of entertainment and requested Izzy undertake the transformation he had requested, modelling her, physically altering her appearance on a whim. This girl's literal late arrival to the party had no doubt proven to be the unwilling saviour of another blissfully ignorant over eager teenage slut who would have been all too keen to garner favour or attempt to impress the Gangs iniquitous leader to only fall foul of his callous treatment before she realised how out of control she was.

The girl sat before her was dressed now in only a black sleeveless t-shirt that clung to her sunken shoulders, a short black denim skirt and black heeled knee boots that exposed and exaggerated her pale slender legs. The choice of outfit was Izzy's based, like the makeup, on her knowledge of Marlon's known preferences; it scared her that she knew him that well.

The influence of the heroine, or whatever narcotic the girl was on held her lifeless in a catatonic zombie like state. Izzy could only hope the drugs held their grip over the girl, given her anticipation of what she knew too well she was all too likely to endure in the next few brutal hours.

A small pile of black designer branded clothes lay torn and crumpled on a table by the door, their labels testimony to the wealth or the perception of wealth that accompanied the girl, whoever she was. Her past didn't matter anymore, this place, Marlon and the vile lifestyle she'd been brought in to cared nothing for histories just as it did not care for hopes and turned dreams with alarming frequency into living nightmares.

The Hillcliffe Life had no care for background, creed, or colour. Izzy knew that only too well.

She'd been that girl sat in this same position, sat alone on the bed when they'd come for her three long years ago, three years that seemed like a lifetime. Hers was a typical story. She'd never led a happy life, she'd been lived in the crudely entitled Tower Block C in the centre of Estate when she'd first been exposed to similar circumstances, the wrong group of friends and the result of misplaced infatuation had been downfall. She knew the notorious reputation the 'Threes' held. There was barely an underpass, park; building or side of a brick wall not scarified with three horizontal yellow lines that constituted the gangs 'Tag.' While it could be argued she'd been tricked ultimately, she wasn't that naive to as to what she'd entered into what she believed she could cope with. In the time, she'd been one of Marlon's girls, she bore both the physical and the mental scars as testimony.

Over three long years Izzy had faced the depravity and endured the hardships that lay ahead for the girl sat before her. Others had lasted nowhere near that long. She had learned how to survive and adapt.

Izzy would never class herself fortunate as a result of her experience; becoming hooked on the heroine they supplied her with. Accruing debts, she subsequently had no hope of affording to repay she found herself eventually prostituted by Marlon to repay the debt she continued to accrue in an unending viscous circle that only spiralled downwards.

Her debt had finally been repaid over years when she found herself strong enough to break the cycle and step away from the drugs, but not the gang. Her association to the largest most notorious and viscous gang to ever emerge on the Hillcliffe Estate ran deep as a consequence, keeping her trapped even now. The lifestyle and Marlon were simply not walked away from.

The mantra was simple, do what needs to be done to survive.

Looking back again into the pretty blue yet sunken eyes of the haunted girl before her Izzy couldn't see what she had within her that would make her a survivor.

Izzy took the girls hands in her own and started to pray for her.

Three dull thuds on the locked door brought her attention harshly from her thoughts and prayers. The red-haired girl barely reacted, being held numb in the vice like grip of the toxic drugs that flooded her system, if she was fortunate.

Crouched before her Izzy let go of the girls' cold slender hands.

"You can survive this ...you hear me ...you can survive this."

Three more times the fist pounded against the door. Izzy stood straightening her own black skirt to her knee a little, the heel of her own knee-high boots echoed on the stripped back dirty wooden floorboards of the room illuminated only by a shade less lamp sat in the far corner. As she unlocked the door, she opened it and lowered her head avoiding eye lines of the three males she briefly saw who waited outside the door.

"You done here Izzy" Marlon stated rather than asked.

"Yes," she offered meekly, showing him the courtesy of looking up at him, catching the menacing glower in his eyes from beneath the peak of a black baseball cap. To this day he still scared her. His power and his brutality was not a thing of unsubstantiated threat and menace, in the last three years all too often at first hand she'd seen what he was capable of.

"Then you got one last ting you can do for me girl."

He raised the hem of a black and red basketball vest revealing his strong muscular stomach, the logos of his vest matched his cap Izzy noted as his hand plunged into the pocket of his slack baggie black jeans to retrieve two items.

"Prep dis for me yeah."

His grin dark and sardonic, offering a glimpse of the gold tooth set among his teeth. Izzy took the two items he presented her, her stomach twisting knowing the symbolism of this, not for her but for the girl sat on the bed who was being hauled to her feet by the other two individuals. She recognised one now she looked, the other she did not know, a young kid who was hardly older than late teens she figured.

"What ya waiting for girl," Marlon sneered. "I asked ya to do summat for me."

Izzy turned both items in trembling hands. In her right hand she sparked the disposable lighter and brought the small metal brand towards the glowing flame of the lighter. Her mind clouding as she held the flame against the metal, feeling the heat watching the flame lick over the metal. She knew its purpose, knew it's significance and what this would represent to the other girl in the room. Moments later he snatched the brand from her

"Now get da fuck out of here."

Izzy knew better than to hesitate with the lighter in hand she headed for the door, slowing only to take the small pile of black clothes on the little low table and set down the lighter in their place.

She pulled the door closed behind her, looking back as they surrounded her, as they held her petite frame in their combined grips. Her head hung low. She did not struggle, she did not fight them, either through inability or heeding Izzy's pleas.

Izzy continued to macabrely watch as the girl's T-shirt was hitched up and her skirt pulled down at an angle to expose her left hip. Izzy couldn't turn away, she couldn't help but watch the dark scene that played out, the door did not creak closed quick enough to shut out what she witnessed as Marlon pulled back his arm a few inches only to then plunge it forward harshly.

Izzy heard the girls sharp cry of pain that punctuated even the drug induced stupor. In her mind if not in her ear she heard the sear of the hot metal pressed against soft pale skin on her hip. Branding her hip with three horizontal lines, the same three horizontal lines that still marked her own left hip. Three lines burnt into her skin three years ago. Three lines that represented ownership.

She couldn't turn away and watched on as with pain etched across the girl's face. Her head then snapped back by her hair on the hands of the stranger who stood behind her. Her T-shirt ripped from her as she was pushed and pulled between them. Like hyena toying with a fallen prey.

The door still didn't fully close, and Izzy watched on transfixed and horrified until she could bring herself to watch no more, turning away as the girl was dragged practically naked to the bed and thrown across the bare mattress.

The heavy bass of constant Rap music pounding in her head as she finally turned away unable to watch what followed. She made her way down the narrow staircase to the ground floor of the property.

A sea of faces crammed into what now seemed an unbelievably small space that had once been the living area through into the remnants of the kitchen. Her attention caught by three fresh faced young teen girls giggling and fawning over the energetic chatter of a tall well defined black male who's face she could not see. Little appreciating the level of the danger in which they found themselves, the unbelievable darkness they willingly exposed themselves to. Turning on her heels and turning her back on what was playing out as a thick wide joint was passed to one of the girls, a petite Indian looking girl in a short black skirt and long sleeve track top.

Izzy pushed her way through to the front of the property. Like Zombies more and more bodies headed towards the constant drone of the angry lyrics of the Rap music. In the distance out across the Hillcliffe estate she heard the all too familiar sound of a siren making its way to someone's assistance, her eye caught by an orange glow in the sky not far away. Somewhere, once again, the Hillcliffe burned.

Taking a packet of cigarettes wedged into the waistband of her skirt she lit up, her eyes innocuously following the plume of smoke she blew into the air. Her eyes then falling on the boarded-up window of the top floor room of the abandoned property.

Her mind dwelling on what she had little doubt was transpiring in that room. She couldn't help but feel guilt for her involvement as the 'Threes' claimed their latest victim.

Her guilt passing swiftly, she buried it deep within her conscience; it was not like tonight's girl was the first and it was not like she would be the last. It was highly likely she wouldn't be the last of this evening.

"Rather you than me," she said quietly out loud while stubbing the cigarette out under her boot.

Izzy headed back inside the house in desperate need of a drink.

From somewhere she heard a scream. Her mind not registering from where the scream came from.

You became accustomed to screams living in the heart of the Hillcliffe.

**********

Logan sat alone in the darkness.

Alone in both the physical and emotional darkness that consumed him.

The unlit house, the unlit garden, even the cloud covered sky offered little in the way of light

Where was she? Where could she be?

He ran his hands back over his shaved head, he made to reach for the packet of cigarettes and lighter once again, his fourth cigarette in the last half an hour. The nicotine doing little to quell his raging anxiety, only serving to fuel his paranoia.

As he reached out the phone illuminated to his left, his hand darted to the device. It took him a moment to focus, the brightness of the screen illuminating making him squint in his dark surroundings. His mood lifted on seeing the WhatsApp message from Ari's phone. His brow immediately furrowed seeing that the message was actually a video clip.

What was she'd sending him now and why the fuck couldn't she at least return a missed call. Half expecting the phone to vibrate as he tapped in his four-digit pin code.

Entering his message, he tapped his thumb against the little grey triangle. Confused by what he watched as the image blurred and then took several seconds to focus.

Panic gripped him the moment he saw her lifeless body

A panic that hastened to excruciating agony as he watched Ari wrapped in what appeared to be a thick black plastic, the sound of the plastic being unravelled, wrapped and stretched around her semi naked body like nails down a chalk board.

Biting into his bottom lip as he watched transfixed as the two masked assailants mummified her body, head, and face.

His blood turned to ice in his veins as he heard the all too familiar voice proclaim.

"Say Goodbye Mr Hughes... Say goodbye to your little cunt."

**********

Epilogue:

Two rats scurried along the alley way floor; their senses spooked on the alien smell that slowly diffused into the calm night air around them.

Beneath the fire escape door that led on to the alley way a brief wisp of smoke leaked through the slightest of cracks only to be swallowed, sucked back into the heat of the fire that raged the other side of the door. Paint blistered on the door such was the intensity of the fire inside the building, the flames fuelled by drums of spilled petrol which had soaked into carpets, been poured over seats and across the long vast expanse of the bar.

The Dark Star was burning.

Having been disabled no alarm triggered, no silent trigger activated to notify the emergency services as it should have, the sprinkler system turned off at the mains remained equally as dormant in the face of the raging inferno. The inferno that consumed the main room, with glass shattering all around in the fierce temperatures of an inferno that was fast out on control.

The fire swept through the building towards the main entrance. The first signs to the outside world that the building internally was ablaze

Three Fire Crews eventually arrived at the scene of the fire at 03:37 am. On arrival, with flames and smoke billowing into the night sky Crew Commander Sam Waites assessment was as quick as it was brutal. The building was lost to the fire, they had arrived far too late. With every assumption that given current restrictions the premises were empty the focus was immediately on stopping the spread of the fire to surrounding properties.

A little after half an hour of emergency services arriving the Crews frantically scrambled away from the exterior of the dark star, all hoses aimed at the office building adjoining its left-hand side were diverted and stopped as the top floors of the old building collapsed in on itself.

For a moment accompanied by the ear shattering crash of the walls falling in on themselves and all three floors of the building giving way, the flames seem to extinguish before the bright orange glow returned silhouetting the jagged scorched black walls that for the time being remained defiantly unlost to the fire.

Sam Waites had no idea who owned the building, who operated the nightclub that was housed within the building. His heart went out to them at the level of destruction the fire had wrought.

The Dark Star would smoulder and burn for hours after the flames had been extinguished. Thick acrid black smoke hung over the City in the oppressive heat of the bright sunny July day, casting a dark menacing shadow that dissipated amongst the surrounding streets and buildings

As crews worked to ensure the fire was damped down and the ruins of the building made secure various onlookers were drawn to the sight they witnessed, most languishing in the spectacle of someone else's misery.

Amongst them one man stood with sunglasses partially obscuring his face, an innocuous medical face mask protecting him from air born pathogens and the occasional waft of acrid smoke. He stood there watching, a sense of satisfaction in his body posture.

The Club had burned.

Just as the Clubs legacy would burn.

Logan Hughes was certain of that; taking his phone from his pocket he pulled up Hector Salazar's contact details and typed a three-line message:

I am the virus.

You won't see me coming

You will Die

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Logan Hughes story is far from over

Logan Hughes will return

The Dark Star - Hillcliffe Coming Soon

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