Land of Shadows (2.02) Shadow of the Confounded

[Stormm]

On the outskirts of Geneva, Nebraska, steady tones and soothing sounds were the only noise heard inside of the family owned convenience store most of the evening. A late sixty-something man, in a red polo with the store’s logo embroidered on the chest, sat behind the counter reading a magazine. His nametag red “Chuck”, which everyone in town, including his wife, referred to him as.

It was well after midnight, in a community that most people wouldn't find even if they were lost, but Chalres Pennington didn't seem to mind, as the smile on his face would suggest. Very seldomly did he even have customers this time of night, but he promised a 24/7 shop when he opened years prior, and even into retirement age, happily worked the late shift to keep his word.

His wife had pleaded with him to retire, and sell off the business, but nobody who had made an offer on it agreed to keep it open late at night, as it wasn’t profitable, so he pressed on.

Good old Chuck was about to have his mind changed.

The door opening triggered a loud chime that echoed inside of the store as a large man entered. A nasty cut above his right eye had started to scab over, but not before discoloring his dirty blonde hair, and staining that side of his face. His clothing was much more of the same, blood-soaked and tattered. Completing the nightmare was a limp from an injured left leg.

Needless to say, it wasn’t long after the stranger had walked into his store that Chuck’s smile went away, and his decisions to stay open all night were questioned.

Glancing at the security feed with concern, he gained his composure and turned back to the unknown customer, regaining his smile. "Are you doing alright young man?" He asked, hoping for the best, but not ruling out any possibilities as several ran through his mind.

A smirk appeared, and then disappeared as quickly as it came on the man's face as he approached the counter. The short walk from the door to the counter was excruciating, no matter how well he tried to hide it. Resting his dirty, bloodied hands on the counter to take some of the pressure off his injured leg, he took a deep breath. "I'll be honest with you." he paused to look at the old man's name tag. "Chuck, I'm not doing so well." The man finished his statement, still trying to catch his breath from a long painful walk.

"Do you want me to call for help?" Chuck asked back as he reached for the phone behind him.

Extending his right hand out, the man painfully grabbed onto Chuck’s shirt, keeping him from picking up the phone. "I'm not quite sure what all has happened to me tonight, and I think it would be better for the both of us if you tried to help me figure a couple things out before you go calling anyone." With a handful of the senior’s shirt, he spun Chuck back towards him. A look of uncertainty fell over the shop owner’s face, and the only thing he could think of was his wife, safe and sound in their bed at home. A place he longed, in that moment, to be at.

Glancing through his bifocals at the man's hand, his gaze alternated between it and the eyes of the young man before him. The stranger, not wanting any trouble sensed the fear in the man he desperately wanted help from, and released his grip. He placed his hand back on the counter. "I'll help you with what I can, but I'm no miracle worker." Trying to stay relaxed, and hopefully relieve some tension, Chuck replied with sarcasm.

Another smirk formed on the man's face, only this time it stuck. "I just need to know if I look familiar to you at all?" He asked with hope.

Headlights shined through the windows at the front of the store, drawing Chuck’s attention away from the man for just a second, but not distracting him enough to not turn his attention back to him. "I'm sorry son, but I'm afraid I've never seen you in here before; or anywhere else around town for that matter." Bracing himself for something bad to happen he answered the question.

Instead of getting upset like he had expected, the man let out a very disappointed sounding sigh, and hung his head before taking two steps back away from the counter. "Could you at least tell me where I'm at?" Staring at the ground, he asked.

Before Chuck could reply, the door to the store opened once more, and the loud chime echoed through the store again. Turning around, out of curiosity and instinct, the confused man quickly realized his night was about to get worse, as two police officers approached the counter. "Shit!" He exclaimed, and without hesitation, or giving Chuck the opportunity to aid him, he took off as fast as his battered and bruised body would allow him to go.

...Shadow of the Confounded...

My trip up to Nebraska was mostly uneventful. Nobody seemed to care that a Kansan was poking his head around, asking a bunch of questions, no matter the intentions or not. I kind of got the feeling that something bad might have happened, and nobody wanted to talk about it.

I basically had to pay off some high school kid working for the local newspaper to get me into their archive so I could look around. That in itself was a struggle, as no news older than three to four years, at that point, had been digitized. Their filing wasn’t any better, and it took me a majority of the morning just to find the right month and year.

But I did manage to find one little snippet about the night an out of town visitor terrorized a local convenience store, and caused chaos for the police. There were only a handful of names attached to the story, and I had already spent more time than I wanted to in Nebraska for one day, so had to clip the story and drive home, so we could all catch a flight to Greenville for that cluster-fuck of a match I had to be apart of.

Which, wouldn’t you know it, after surviving the last one, and picking up the victory, nearly single-handedly, what do Pure Class Wrestling suits go and do? Yup, put me in another tag-team match.

They have a way of tossing champions and contenders together on teams at the take home shows for pay-per-views for some reason, but it sold tickets, so I just had to grin and bear it.

But about those names I found. In between my normal training, and getting ready to team with the guy that had an opportunity to take my World title from me a few weeks away, I got ahold of one of them.

Apparently he was one of the two cops working that evening, and based on what little we did talk, he lost his job as a result of whatever happened to Kaden in that little town all those years ago. Regardless, he agreed to meet up. But I think I’ll save that for a little later, because before that, I had that wild match to get through to even make it to that meeting. Another predictable booking to work before I’d have to face Gerard Angelo again, who already proved he was willing to do whatever it took to regain the World title.

Not only that, but on the other side of the ring was a monster who had been waiting nearly a year to cash in his opportunity on the title I held. Whether he thought Grimm was actually going to hold the title for that long or not, I had to survive another tag match.

I needed to stay healthy, because the last thing I wanted to do was give Dominator a third World Champion to prepare for at Living a Legacy since he issued his challenge for winning the Icemann Invitational the year prior.

Plus, I still needed to pay him back for taking the North American title from me!