He needed to call a few folks in his inner circle and let them know how to reach him. He’d discarded his Blackberry yesterday-had taken a hammer to it and smashed it until the electronic guts leaked out. It was a prepaid he’d picked up and activated earlier that day. He sat at the table, gun at his side, and devoured three of the sandwiches and two of the sleeves of fries, before he even bothered to check his new cell phone. He would have been better prepared, in fact, to deal with the zombie apocalypse.

In spite of his obsession with physical fitness, he’d been unprepared to handle the terror that had begun three days ago. He still hit the weights and the track six days a week, determined to stay fit as he crept through his mid-thirties his grueling workout routine demanded he consume a high amount of calories. He was six-three and two-fifty, heavily muscled, his physique almost as solid as it had been twelve years ago, during his days as a starting defensive linebacker at Morehouse. He had a big appetite under normal circumstances. After twenty-four hours without eating, he was ravenous. He’d bought five chicken sandwiches and four large orders of waffle fries. He grabbed the bag of food and headed into the kitchen. He’d dropped his suitcase in the entry hall and left his bag of Chick-fil-A sitting on an end table. Until he could figure out what the hell was going on. It was a safe place for him to spend the night, and, he hoped, at least the next few days. Every room, closet, and corner was as vacant as he’d expected. He’d dab some hydrogen peroxide on it whenever he got a chance. A monster mosquito-he’d assumed it was a mosquito but hadn’t really seen it-had bitten him a couple days ago, and the swollen sore itched like a mother. He didn’t hear the noises he feared: the whispers and the soft laughter that had been following him like his own shadow. The only sounds in the house were the rain drizzling on the roof, and his labored breathing.

He’d been so terrified the past three days that his sure grip gave him confidence that he was taking back control of his life. His other hand was steady with the gun, a good sign. His real estate company advertised the place as “fully furnished, utilities included,” which helped to maintain a steady stream of new tenants, mostly transient types who needed a pad for a few months.Īs he searched each room, he kept one hand clasped around the gold crucifix that dangled from his necklace.

A few pieces of no-frills furniture occupied the rooms, only the essentials needed for simple living. It was a three-bedroom, two-bathroom ranch in East Atlanta. When Reggie King stepped inside the rental house on that rainy Saturday evening, the first thing he did was draw his Glock nine millimeter and begin searching from one room to the next, opening doors and flipping on lights as he moved.

In the Dark by Brandon Massey