The evening sagged low over the carcass of the old meatpacking plant. The air hung heavy, a rank mix of rust and sour meat that crawled into the nose and sat there, thick as regret. The broken windows reflected the dying sun like blind eyes, the empty lot stretched wide as a wound, and the silence pressed in from all sides.
By the eroded concrete wall, half-swallowed in shadow, three figures had gathered: William, Cain, and Leticia. Tonight wasn't practice. Tonight was the night — their plan moving from anxious whispers into brutal action.
Cain showed up last, his gray van crunching over the gravel, coughing smoke. It was the kind of van you'd dismiss on sight, worn and plain, painted in a shade no one would look at twice. Unremarkable. Except inside, where something wrong shifted in the shadows. From its gut seeped faint sounds — strained, broken whimpers, the muffled sobs of someone gagged. The noises carried like the off-key moans of a busted violin string.
