A Dark Place

by Travis Hunter

Genres: Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

When poor babies wind up missing, no one seems to care.

A Dark Place is a chilling story about the untold struggles of the disenfranchised that inspiringly illustrates how one man cannot turn his back on the problems of his former community—even though he so desperately wants to leave that troubled place in his past forever.

When poor babies wind up missing, no one seems to care.

A Dark Place is a chilling story about the untold struggles of the disenfranchised that inspiringly illustrates how one man cannot turn his back on the problems of his former community—even though he so desperately wants to leave that troubled place in his past forever.

Release date: January 23, 2024

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

“Get yo’ hands in dem pockets, cracker,” said a deranged-looking man, who was obviously high on some form of narcotics, while pointing a big silver pistol at his victim. “I gotta have it, and you gonna give it to me.”

The man’s victim stood in front of him with his hands in his pockets. He seemed a bit startled but not to the point of panic. He surveyed the man with his eyes but never bothered to remove his hands from his pockets.

“You deaf? Come out with the cash, cracker,” the robber barked again, then stuck the gun closer to the man’s face. “And I mean all of it. ’Cause I got places to be, goddamn it.”

A car turned onto the street, shining its lights on the robbery in progress, but the robber continued as if nothing was out of the ordinary. The victim, on the other hand, smiled. The car’s lights allowed him to see something that instantly placed him at ease. Suddenly, this potentially life-threatening moment turned into a somewhat amusing one.

The victim had once before faced the barrel of a gun, and he remembered being so scared that he couldn’t think straight, but not this time. One quick glance and he knew death’s door wasn’t in his immediate future.

He pulled his hands from his pockets and showed two clean palms. “Flat broke,” he said with a smile.

The addict’s eyes bulged, as if they were going to fall out of their sockets. “You think I’m playing wit’ yo’ ass, don’t ya? You better reach again and come back with more than some damn lent,” the robber warned. “I ain’t no plaything.”

“I don’t know what to tell ya,” the victim said, turning his attention to the dark and grimy streets of the surrounding area. He was in the heart of inner-city Atlanta, and he couldn’t wait to leave.

The robber placed the barrel of the gun against his victim’s forehead and pulled back the hammer. “I . . . ain’t . . . gonna . . . tell . . . yo’ . . . ass . . . no . . . mo’!” he barked.

The victim was trying to locate his sister. Suddenly, the robber’s behavior went from amusing to annoying to him. He pulled his head back and glared at the addict.

“You must be crazy. This is a gun, fool,” the robber said, removing the gun from the victim’s forehead and shaking it in his face. “Is you blind? Do you see this steel? I don’t know if anybody ever told yo’ ass, but guns kill.”

“Go play with someone else, man,” the victim said, trying to walk around the robber, but he was stopped when the gun was jammed into his back.

“Go play!” the robber repeated, his voice rising a few octaves.

“I’m not going to ask you again,” the victim said in a very low, serious tone.

The addict looked perplexed; he furrowed his brows and cocked his head to the side. “You the police?”

“No,” the victim said, turning around and facing his pitiful-looking nemesis.

“Don’t lie, cracker, ’cause that’s contrapment if you is. I know the goddamned laws.”

Urban Brown chuckled, amused once more. As much as he wanted to destroy the man standing in front of him, he couldn’t help but find him to be nothing short of hilarious. He shook his head and looked around again. This was not a social call, and he wasn’t trying to be out here all night.

“Why don’t you just ask me if you can have a few dollars?” Urban asked when he gaze fell again on the addict.

“’Cause I don’t want a few dollars, cracker. I want all the goddamned dollars. And I know you the police, but I don’t give a shit. Cop or not, I’m robbing yo’ ass, and I ain’t telling you no mo’.”

Urban shook his head and took a deep breath.

“I gots places to be, where folks get high in the sky, baby,” the robber said, taking a whiff of the high, which would be forthcoming after Urban’s money was in his possession. “You think I got all night to be out here robbing yo’ preppy-looking ass?”

Urban actually laughed at that one.

“Oh, I see you think I’m Eddie Murphy, Chris Tucker, or some damn body. But let me tell you this, you simpleminded, cracker-ass cracker. I’ll shoot the shit outta you.”

This little game was getting old, and the temperature was dropping by the second. Urban hunched his shoulders and pulled the fur collar on his coat a little closer around his neck in order to knock off the chill.

“Listen, man,” the addict said in a frustrated tone, as if he were trying to reason with his victim. “I don’t wanna shoot you. Lord knows, I ain’t no killer. But I will. And check this out. If I shoot you, I’ma still rob you. I’m tryna help you. Damn, white people some a da dumbest muthafuckas I ever seen in my life.”

“Allen Johannesburg Timmons,” a voice shouted from about twenty feet away. “Whatchu doing, boy?”

“Damn it, Mama,” the addict snapped, turning his head toward the voice.

Urban used the distraction to his advantage and reached back and slapped Allen hard across his skinny face. The impact sounded like a gunshot, and Allen stumbled back, holding his stinging face. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and then jerked the gun back toward Urban.

“Pull the trigger,” Urban said. He was no longer smiling and was now stalking Allen. Allen was backing up when Urban reared back and smacked him again.

“You crazy? You better recognize who you dealing with, cracker. I’m the devil, goddamn it!” Allen yelled, his voice cracking as the pain registered. “You don’t slap me like I’m some bitch.”

Urban slapped him again.

Allen yelled and pulled the trigger.

Click, click, click, click. The hammer hit an empty chamber over and over again.

“Mama,” Allen called out to the skinny woman.

With no help coming from his mother, Allen reared back as if he were kin to Satchel Paige and threw the gun at Urban. The gun hit Urban in the chest, and he caught it. He flipped open the cylinder, turned the gun, and showed Allen six empty chambers.

“Well, Mr. Devil, I’m going in here for about five minutes. Run and get yourself some bullets and try again,” Urban said as he wiped his prints off the gun with his sweater, dropped the gun to the ground, and then kicked it in the sewer.

He nodded respectfully at Allen’s sickly-looking mother, then turned and walked into the building behind him.

“Good thing you came round here when you did, Mama. I was about to kill a white man,” Allen said. “Ain’t no way I’ma let a white boy whup me. Shit.”

“I know that’s right,” his mother said. “But you did the right thing. You get prison time for fooling with white folks.”

Three hours ago, Urban was resting comfortably on his California king bed, with the sleep number set at thirty-five, when the phone rang. He was tempted not to answer, because he was in such a peaceful place, but the continued ringing shattered that state of mind to bits.

“Hello,” he said in an incoherent tone. He had always been a hard sleeper, and it generally took him a minute or so to gather himself.

“Urban, you asleep?” a familiar voice said.

“I was.”

“Well, get up.” His foster mother’s voice finally registered as he lay there in a semiconscious state. “Jamillah done lost her complete mind this time.”

Upon hearing his sister’s name, he was tempted to hang up the phone and go back to sleep, but the respect he had for the woman on the other end of the phone kept him talking.

Jamillah was Urban’s younger sister, and she happened to be strung out on any kind of illegal drug one could imagine. But to hear her tell it, she had only a nagging cold and was taking too much Robitussin.

“What did she do this time?” Urban said, lying on his back, trying to hold on to his sleep.

“She showed her little narrow behind up here with a baby. Baby couldn’t be six months old, and now she done up and disappeared. Now, she can go out in the streets all she wants, ’cause she’s grown, but I ain’t ’bout to let her have that baby out in this night air like that. It’ll give him pneumonia and the whoopin’ cough. She didn’t even take the baby’s bag with the milk and diapers in it. She showed up here without that. What the baby gone eat?”

Baby!

The mentioning of a baby got his attention. For as long as he could remember, he had had a soft spot in his heart for kids, and babies were even more special to him.

Jamillah was a hot, ridiculous mess, and he wanted no part of her, but if she had a baby and had him out there living in her world, then he had to do something about that. Besides, his foster mother’s stress had always been his stress. The woman on the other end of the phone had raised many kids, but his number seemed to be number one on her speed-dial list when things needed to be done.

“Call the police, Mama,” he said.

“Lord Jesus, that Jamillah tryna kill me. My pressure already high, and now she done ran out and did this,” said Wilma Jackson, otherwise known as Mama Winnie. “Why would she want to have that precious baby out in this weather?”

Mama Winnie had taken in Urban and Jamillah when no one else wanted them. Their biological parents were killed when Urban was thirteen and Jamillah was ten years old.

Urban could picture Mama Winnie sitting on the side of her bed, wearing her tattered night dress, clutching a well-used Bible to her bosom while praying to her God to deliver a person who wanted no part of deliverance.

“Why won’t you call the police, Mama?” Urban asked. It wasn’t the first time he had suggested this to her.

“Oh, boy, don’t be like that. You know all they’ll do is put her in jail, and I can’t stand to see nothing I raised behind no bars. That ain’t no place for people.”

“That’s a good place for her.”

“No, that’s not a good place for her. She needs a little help, that’s all. I’ve been trying to get her to go to church with me and let Reverend Power lay his mighty hands on her. You know he knows how to get them evil spirits out of her, but she won’t ever stay round here long enough for me to get her over there.”

Urban shook his head at his mother’s foolish belief in a man who charged twenty dollars to heal someone by slapping them senseless. He could see the pastor and his hustling cronies sitting at a bar laughing at the pathetic members of his congregation, who put their undying trust in his velvety words.

“Mama, that crap doesn’t work.”

“I ain’t about to get into that with you this morning, boy. Now, if you wanna stay a nonbeliever, then you’ll have to answer for that on Judgment Day.”

“I’m not a nonbeliever. I just don’t believe in that fool. Anyway, did you give Jamillah any money?”

“I’m gonna pray for you, Urban.”

“Thank you. It’s always nice to know that you’re appealing to the man upstairs on my behalf.”

“Boy, I don’t know how the devil done got such a hold on you. Good Jesus, I swear I don’t know.”

“The money, Mama,” Urban repeated. “Did you give her any?”

“No, I didn’t give her any money, and she didn’t ask for none either.”

“Did she steal any?”

“No, and I want you to stop being so doggone negative. I don’t know why I even bother to call you,” Mama Winnie said, fussing, as usual. “You sho’ get on my nerves sometime with all that negative talk.”

“Mama, go and check your purse.”

“Urban, I don’t need to go check nothing. That girl wouldn’t steal from me. She said she was done with all that stealing, and I believe her, even if you don’t.”

“She’s done it before,” he said as he stood and walked into the bathroom. He knew he wouldn’t be getting back to sleep for a while.

“You need to learn to forgive. Read your Bible sometime. ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’” Mama Winnie said, quoting her favorite scripture.

“Mama, go and check your purse,” Urban said, shaking his head.

Mama Winnie was as sweet as the day was long, and she was an eternal optimist, but she was as naïve as a newborn when it came to the ways of a drug addict.

“Oh Lord, hold on,” she said.

Urban could hear her mumbling about how foolish he was and how she was going to prove to him that Jamillah hadn’t taken anything. The moan he heard in the background told him that the purse was a little lighter than it had been before Jamillah arrived.

“I’ll go see if I can find the baby,” he said when she came back to the phone.

“I can’t believe she would go into my purse after I already told her how I feel about thieves,” she said, genuinely hurt by her discovery.

“Get some rest, Mama. I’ll check back in with you after I locate the nutcase,” Urban said before hanging up the phone.

Urban brushed his teeth, took a swish of Listerine, and washed his face. He walked into his spacious closet and got dressed. He had cussed his sister out so many times that he didn’t even bother to waste his words this time. He couldn’t count the number of times he had made the same trek out in the middle of the night, in search of his wayward sister, after Mama Winnie had called him crying. And here he was, doing the same thing again.

Urban drove around the areas of Southwest Atlanta where Jamillah was known to hang out. He scanned the streets as he drove at a snail’s pace, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. These trips were always hard on him because he loved his sister with every fiber of his being, yet he hated what she had become.

Urban slowed down and started asking the people of the night if they had seen a scrawny mixed-race woman who might be carrying a baby. Most of the natives looked at him like he was a cop and had no words for him. He guessed it wasn’t every day they saw a well-dressed white man riding around in the middle of the night, asking about a drug addict.

Urban figured he needed a different plan of attack, and so he started opening up his wallet as he asked the questions. Amazing! All of a sudden, folks had had all kinds of Jamillah sightings. Urban had to marvel at the power of a ten-dollar bill with the folks who were considered have-nots.

After a few palms had been greased, he used his powers of deduction with the information he’d been given and figured he’d heard the word Ritz too many times to ignore it.

“The Ritz-Carlton?” he asked the guy he’d been talking to for the past five minutes. Confused, he immediately wondered what in the world his sister would be doing at a high-priced hotel.

“Nah, brah,” said the guy, who was short and had about ten teardrops tattooed on his face. “The Ritz Zoo.” The short guy pointed to a warehouse behind them. “Roll up in there. You’ll see what I mean.”

Urban pulled his Chevy Tahoe into a space across the street from the ghetto Amsterdam and wondered what he was getting himself into. He reached into his glove compartment, removed his gun, a .40-caliber Glock pistol, and slid it into his coat pocket. It was three o’clock in the morning, and he found himself walking into a scene right out of the documentary film Crackheads Gone Wild.

Urban crossed the threshold into the land of damnation. The second he entered the building, the odor of the place attacked his senses like a pack of rabid coyotes. He started to turn around, but the thought of an innocent baby being exposed to this horrible environment forced him to continue moving forward. He used his forearm in an attempt to filter the disgusting aroma of drugs, urine, and human feces, on top of the smell of unwashed bodies, as he moved deeper into the crack house.

The scene before him was enough to drive a preacher wild, and yet these people were up in there as if it were the new juke joint. Urban stepped over bodies, empty beer bottles, and only God knew what else and winced time and time again at the human destruction lying before him.

If there was a hell on earth, this had to be it. The only light illuminating the den of drug fiends came from a street post on the corner and the constant flicker of the addicts’ cigarette lighters and matches.

“You wanna date, Daddy?” asked a girl who sounded like she couldn’t be any older than fifteen. “I’ll suck yo’ dick so good, you’ll wanna marry me.”

Urban ignored her and kept moving. Fresh off of smacking some fool outside who had tried to rob him without bullets, he was now fighting off women who were trying to sell him their polluted bodies.

“Hey, man,” said a man with a baritone voice. “She can’t do it like me. I’ll suck you better than that li’l skinny ho ever could. Give me ten dollars and I’ll make you real happy, bro.”

Urban frowned and fought the urge to vomit at the mere thought of the homosexual man touching him.

Nasty bastard! he thought as he stepped and stumbled on what felt like someone’s leg, but somehow he managed to find his footing. He looked down and saw a man sitting Indian-style while placing a needle into his arm, oblivious to all the chaos surrounding him.

Damn! How can someone shoot up in the dark?

The place was so dark that he could barely see his own hand in front of his face, yet he kept moving as he tried to get an eye on Jamillah.

This is some ridiculous shit, he thought.

Urban had always taken pride in the fact that he never stood in judgment of people, but he had to wonder how in the world his sister had let her life com. . .