Billy's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Billy wanted his block empty. He had spent a year running people off it, one broken window and one threat at a time, until the shopkeepers left their doors open out of fear and the corner belonged to him. Now something else worked the same corner at night, and it worked better than he ever had. The black dog came just after dark. It was lean and half rotted, ribs showing through torn skin, eyes burning red. It snarled at anyone who stepped near Billy's stretch of sidewalk. The people he wanted to scare didn't wait around to be scared. They ran from the dog instead. An empty block was fine. An empty block he couldn't touch was useless. Billy went looking for someone who knew about dead things. He found the taxidermist in her workshop, hands stained with ink, apron dark with old smears. Stuffed animals lined her shelves, their eyes small black mirrors that caught the lamplight. "There's a dog on my block," Billy said. "It's dead but it walks." Sue Vox didn't look up from her table. "Then something's driving it. A shadow. It moves through anything that reflects." She set down a knife. "Kill the mirror it uses, you stop the thing inside." "What mirror?" "Find where it hides in daylight. Look for glass." Billy left before she finished. Outside, a scruffy man in a sandwich board blocked the doorway. His voice was raw from shouting no one ever heard. "That dog isn't the worst of it," the preacher said. He didn't blink. "Worse is coming. You'll open a door you can't shut." "Move," Billy said. Theo Vox stepped aside. "They said that too." Billy waited until the sun was high the next day. He found the dog under a rusted stairwell, curled and still, red eyes gone dark. Beside it lay a broken car mirror propped against the brick, its cracked glass catching a thin line of light. He picked up a chunk of concrete. His hands shook. The dog's leg twitched, like it felt him coming. He swung before it could rise. The mirror shattered. Glass sprayed the pavement. The dog jerked once, then fell flat, truly dead. No red light. No snarl. Just an old carcass in the shade. Billy grinned his gap-toothed grin. The block was his again. That night he stood on the empty corner, waiting for the shopkeepers to creep back so he could remind them who ran things. They didn't come. The street stayed dark and silent. Then he heard it. Bone on stone, slow and even, from the alley behind him. Something walked there. He turned. A skeleton stepped into the streetlight, each bone clean and white, moving on its own. The shadow had found a new door. And this one couldn't be scared, couldn't be killed, and didn't run. Billy's grin fell. The preacher had been right.