Limbo's Child (57 page)

There was a lot of indistinct jumping and screaming and crashing and yelling.

“What in the bloody…YEARGH!!!” That was Miles.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHH!” That was Tim.

“Not the blazer!!”
THAT
was Sky.

Lucy hunkered down for a second in the car, thinking desperately what to do. She clambered over the back seat and plopped down into the driver’s seat. Fortunately, Sky had left the keys in the car. She turned the key and it started. Outside, the fight intensified. She looked down and saw three pedals. She stomped on the gas hard. It revved, but the car didn’t move. DANG!

“ARRGH!!”

“PHARRNT!”

“GET THAT THING OFF OF ME!!”

“WOOOONT-ParfarNAAWWWNT!”

“SWEET BRIGID!!” Things were not going any better outside. She stomped on the first pedal and tried the gearshift. “Ack!” She flinched at the screech of grinding metal.

Tim shook off the fear of the monster outside long enough to exclaim, “NOT THE TRANSMISSION! What? OH, CRAP!!”

“FAAAAARNT!!” The monster flailing around with the enormous butcher knife obviously took offense at its lack of precedence.

She tried the other pedal and yanked hard on the gearshift. More grinding, but this time it stuck. She sat back up and grabbed the steering wheel. Her mother had let her drive for a few yards on the driveway, but she had never driven a clutch before. All self-doubt disappeared however when the point of a butcher blade came through the roof of the car.

“AAAAAAH!!” she screamed and stomped on the gas. The car leapt forward and the thing on the roof rolled off with a thud and a painful hoot.

“MY IMPALA!!” screamed Tim.

She swerved madly from side to side, overcorrecting as she went. The car lurched like a boat dragging its anchor. Thank goodness there were no other cars on the road! She let up on the gas. A few seconds in she had gotten it under control enough to look back. The thing was charging after the car and right behind it was Miles. He was running on all fours like a dog, a cloud of black smoke surrounding him. Why was everybody always chasing her?!

“LUCY!!” Yo-yo pointed out the windshield. Lucy spun around. They had veered off the road and onto the shoulder and the guardrail was missing! She let off the gas and stomped on the brake, but the car barely slowed and just squealed a high pitch whine, then she remembered the clutch and stomped on both it
and
the brake and yanked the wheel to one side. The car turned 180 degrees and skidded to a halt, stopping just short of where the guardrail was supposed to be. The engine sputtered and went out. She tried the key. The starter whined but the car did not start. Coming right at her was the THING, ka-chunk barrap, ka-chunk barrap, getting closer with its massive knife and hooting and panting in rage the whole time. Right behind it was this monstrous, black dog surrounded in a thick black fog!! What in the heck was that!! Was that the red-headed vampire?!! She decided she had to abandon the car. She flung open her door and scrambled out.

“C’mon Yo-yo!!” She reached into the back seat and grabbed Yo-yo by the hand and dragged him out behind her. She went over the edge and the steep embankment and the two slid down to a small copse of trees lining the road. Then she froze and slowly looked up. She knew the place instantly. She was standing under a tree with two trunks in the shape of a “V,” each trunk was badly scraped up and scarred from last night. The car had been cleared away, but she could still feel the shattered glass and broken plastic from the lights under her toes. This was the site of the accident. This is where her mother had died.

She lost all sense of time and place and horrible visions leapt through her mind. She had to grab on to her head. It was like she was falling in slow motion.
The woman with long hair. Yo-yo in the high beams. A boy with a shaved head. Was that the boy they had just seen?!!
That strange pig-thing chasing them!! A boy with blond hair and a red-haired sullen boy! She had seen them all!! And more. A city of tombs under a pall of darkness, blind children screaming, running everywhere and flames of ice! Her mother was with them. Why was her mother with them?!! An army of abominations and monsters, each worse than the previous one, gathered on the edge of a vast swamp, crushing everything in their path. Behind them, an enormous pit that was growing larger and larger consuming all – the swamp, the city, the children, everything!

And then suddenly another vision. A house in a wood. A large, elegant manor of brick and stone. She is there. She enters. She sees a vision of her mother, no her mother’s body, lying on an old-fashioned lounge. Amanda is there too, standing behind her mother, along with the others, Miles and Sky and even Tim. Lucy approaches her mother’s body slowly, stepping up a low set of stairs to reach her. She leans over her, her mother’s body is lifeless until suddenly, her eyes open, but they are nothing but blind, white orbs.

Somewhere, as if from very far away, someone called her name. She heard it as if from under a thick pillow. Something was tugging on her. It was Yo-yo.

“LUCY, we have to go!!” Yo-yo yanked on her arm desperately and she came back to herself. She looked back. The pig-goose thing was already clambering down the embankment. The dog monster was right behind it. Yo-yo tugged hard on her hand and dragged Lucy away from the accident scene and into the woods. “He was amazingly strong for someone so small and skinny,” Lucy thought. Lucy didn’t think to look back, she just ran headlong into the woods, Yo-yo leading her on. At first, her heartbeat was pounding in her ears so hard it was the only sound she could hear at all, until she heard the thing crashing through the brush behind her. Ka-chunk barrap, KA-CHUNK BARRAP!! PHAARNT!! She could feel the swishing of the large blade at her heels, and her eyes began to dim. The blade stabbed at her bathrobe and pinned it to the ground.

“Aach!” She pulled at it frantically. It tore, but it did not break free. Lucy could feel the blade in the bathrobe pulling her back. Everything was becoming dark. In front of her, the woods were disappearing. A swirl of darkness emerged from nowhere and enveloped Yo-yo, completing engulfing him. She looked down at her hand, still clinging desperately to his. Only Yo-yo’s hand was still visible, emerging from the black cloud, the rest of him had disappeared into the darkness.

“PHAAAARANphhbttt!!” The thing was dragging her back!!

Yo-yo’s hand gave one last sharp tug forward and the bathrobe tore free! The monster bleated out a cacophony of angry notes. Lucy took one last, deep breath, as if jumping off a pier into deep water and plunged forward into the icy blackness.

Chapter Thirty
The Diner

“Anything?!” Schuyler shouted to Miles as he emerged from the woods.

“Nothin.’ Not a bloomin’ thing!” Miles shouted back as he made his way down the embankment to the road next to the Impala where Schuyler and Tim were waiting.

“Sonofa!!…” Schuyler spun around and began a stream of profanities.

Tim’s shoulders fell. “Nothing? Nothing at all?”

“Nope, nothin. Nothin’ at all. It’s like they just plum disappeared into thin air.” Miles wiped the dirt on his hands off on his pants.

“Do you think that
thing
, the hooting, pig-duck thing, got them?” Miles could hear the fear in Tim’s voice.

“Nah, I don’t think so.”

“And why not?” Schuyler had broken off of his reverie of obscenities to turn on Miles accusatorily.

“Cuz it’s still out there, crashin’ around the bush lookin’ for ‘em. It…”

Sky barked at him before he could finish, “You’re certain? You
saw
it?!”

Miles paused. “Not exactly
seen
, but…”

“So you know this
how
, exactly?!” Sky demanded clarification.

Miles took a deep breath. “I can see the thing in
me head
. It’s still raging around out there in a bloody fit. It must ‘ave jus missed ‘em too.”

Schuyler just blinked. So did Tim.

“Let me get this straight,” Sky looked down and gestured at Miles with one hand. “You can SEE it, and I quote ‘IN ME HEAD?!!’”

Miles shrugged, “Aye, I have the sight now, Sky.”

Sky goggled at him. “You have the
sight
?!! When did THAT freakin’ happen?!”

Miles shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “I dunno. Around the time I started turning into a dog, I figure.”

“You
figure
?” Sky folded his arms and looked at Miles.

“See, I told you!!” Tim added.

Sky looked like he was desperately trying to come up with a good putdown, but nothing came to mind. Schuyler had a lot on tap, but he had obviously never prepared for Miles turning into a smoke-monster-dog creature before. Miles almost felt sorry for him. Seeing some second-rate bloodsucker you never had much respect for suddenly develop serious vampire skills had to be infuriating.

Sky suddenly blurted out the only thing that made sense to him, “Did Hokharty teach you that?!”

Miles almost laughed, “Nah, it just sorta
happened
,” Miles said in a sort of off-hand way rubbing the back of his neck.

“
Really?”
Sky said, obviously annoyed.

Miles said nothing but just stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. He tried to act sheepish, but it was hard not to reveal a secret smile.

“Dude, that was really weird,” Tim interjected, “You looked like that thing Wallach turned into.”

Sky shot a nervous glance back to Tim, as if something important about that observation had just occurred to him.

“Really? Go on.” Miles didn’t really like the association, but the comparison made him a little giddy. Wallach may have been a monster, but he was a powerful monster.

“No seriously, dude, it was cool.” Tim went up for a fist bump. Miles didn’t really know what to do and tried to return with a high five and they mussed it so bad they just let it drop and stood around looking awkward as if it had never happened.

“Well that was a symphony of dweeb,” Sky rolled his eyes at them and kept pacing.

“C’mon, dude, lighten up,” Tim whined, “I’m just saying that Miles’ new…
trick
…is awesome that’s all.”

“Yeah,
dude
, because getting our butts handed to us by a mutant duck is soooo awesome.”

“It’s not THAT bad.”

“Oh, really?! So far, we’ve been bested by Hokharty and Graber, Ulami and Forzgrim – Wallach’s ol’ goons, (
Rest in pieces, rotten
...)” he muttered more insults under his breath before going on, “A lawyer in heels, a little girl with a magic finger and now a screeching anteater with a meat cleaver! What’s next?! A troop of zombie girl scouts?!” Sky paused long enough to regain his sarcastic composure. “Do you two give lessons in getting your butt kicked? Because seriously, you really should consider going pro.
I
on the other hand am SICK of getting my rear handed to me by every freak we’ve met tonight! Now if you two are through?!”

Miles and Tim tried to look away.

Sky turned on Miles, “So you’re certain this thing didn’t get them?”

“Nah, I dunno what the bloody heck it was, but it didn’t care a thin’ about us, only them, and it’s still lookin’. So, I guess they’re still out there,” Miles replied. “But he…
it
…won’t find them. They aren’t out there. I can’t see them no more. It’s like they have been covered in some kinda darkness.” Miles folded his arms across his chest and bit his lip. He thought of that darkness and where he had seen something like it before, and then he thought of the first time he realized he had the sight and seen Lucy and Yo-yo running in the park.

“Great,” Sky replied, breaking Miles’ train of thought, “That’s just
freaking
great.
Now
what are we supposed to do!?” He didn’t wait for an answer because he was just venting his frustration now. He went back to pacing and muttering curse words to himself, trying to think what to do next.

Tim stepped back from Sky’s circle of rage and leaned in to speak quietly to Miles, “Dude, I didn’t think it could get worse than that psycho-witch, but that
thing
scared the living bejeebus outta me. I don’t think I’ll ever eat pork again…or duck…or whatever.”

Miles nodded consent. It had looked like a set of bagpipes to him, but that was a bit too crazy a thought to share with Tim. Whatever it was, that thing certainly took the biscuit. Miles bit his thumbnail and thought about it. There was still something familiar about it he couldn’t place. The two of them watched Sky wear a rut in the pavement next to the Impala.

“Do you think that thing was with…y’know…
her
? That lawyer-witch-ghost-vulture
thing?
” Tim asked somewhat anxious.

Miles shook his head. “I dunno. Hokharty said there would be others, but this didn’t feel the same. It was different somehow.” Miles didn’t know how he knew that either, but he could feel it all the same.

“Well, she’s gotta be out there somewhere, Lucy I mean,” Tim said to Miles quietly. “How far can she get on foot, really? We know she’s heading for her old house, it can’t be far,
can it
?”

“And WHERE exactly do you expect us to start looking?!!” Sky suddenly broke out of his swearing fit and answered Tim’s question himself. He had been listening to them the whole time despite his free verse profanity jam. “There’s miles of farm road out here and she could be down any freaking one of them! By the time we even got through a few of them, she’d be long gone!!”

“Well maybe they’re in the phone book or something.” Tim was just spit balling now.

“HELLO!!” Sky pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “I’ve already checked, MORON!! They aren’t listed!!” He went back to pacing and swearing.

“Well she’s gotta have hospital records, right? So what if we go back to Harrisburg and see if we can find an address somewhere?”

Sky stopped dead mid-pace. “Let me get this straight.” Sky pinched his nose bridge in thought. “You want to drive the
whole
way back to Harrisburg, more than an hour away, in an Impala that was nearly involved in a hit and run, in front of dozens of witnesses, right in front of the hospital lobby and then walk into that same hospital, where you two trashed a whole floor I might add, and ask them for the file of a missing girl, who was last seen with the person
driving
that aforementioned Impala?!”

There was a long pause before Tim said, “Well when you put it like that.”

Sky threw the cell phone at him. It bounced off Tim’s forehead and landed in the dirt giving a faint beep of protest.

“Ow!”

“Think, doofus!!” Sky yelled. “That whole hospital is going to be
crawling
with cops asking questions because of the trashed floor, the hit and run,
and
the missing girl!! That’s the last place we want to go!”

“Well I was just trying to help!” Tim said, rubbing the small red spot where the phone hit him.

“Hokharty told us to be discreet. What part of stealth do you two not understand?!!” Sky said nothing more but just sighed and joined them leaning against the cream colored seventies sedan as if resigned to defeat. “The whole thing certainly was sideways,” thought Miles. Hokharty was going to make mincemeat of them for sure, but right then, oddly, Hokharty’s punishment was the last thing he was worried about. Miles was mostly worried for the girl. Lucy was all alone with that boy, and terrible, TERRIBLE things were after them; things with butcher knives and bloody tongues, not to mention lawyers that could turn into screaming phantoms, or…
vampires
. Miles sighed. They had been just as bad to her. They had lied to her, kidnapped her and told her it was the end of the world. Now most folk would turn to jelly right then. Yet somehow despite all of that, she still had the nerve to tell them to go jump and shove it up their…well shove it anyways…and then…well…
then
she jacked their ride and drove off! Nearly wrecked it too, she did. Miles laughed a little. Sky shot him an ugly, suspicious look. Miles composed himself and kept thinking. That Lucy, she was a tough one she was. Miles smiled a little, and then he thought of the witch and that crazy monster that were still after her. She wasn’t
that
tough though, and those things, whatever they were, were still after her. Then Miles had a thought.

“Hey…about a mile up the road is a all-night truck stop. I saw it while I was crashin’ around the woods.”

“Yeah, so?” came Sky’s petulant reply.

“Well…they’re local, aren’ they? Maybe they know where the girl’s house is?”

Sky looked impassively to Miles and then to Tim.

Tim’s mood brightened a bit. “Dude, I haven’t had a meal in fifteen hours, and even then I lost most of that after the whole mutant pickled baby fetuses thing,” Tim said that last part as if mutant pickled baby fetuses were an everyday part of his routine.

“He must be getting used to the whole undead lifestyle,” Miles thought.

“I know you guys don’t go for, y’know,
food
, but I sure could go for some pancakes.” He smiled brightly at both of them optimistically.

Sky stared at each of them in turn. He breathed hard through his nose a few times, flaring his nostrils in agitation.

“Fine!” he said at last, throwing up his hands. “Might as well, but I’m wearing the blazer, I don’t care if this place has a ‘no-shirt no-service’ policy.”

“Fine by me,” Tim said.

Sky walked around to the passenger side and pulled off the “Han Shot First” t-shirt. As he went, he tossed it over the car to Tim who was already taking off the dirty blazer that had once been spotless white. Sky took the blazer and brushed it off as best as he could and Miles thought he saw Sky’s lower lip tremble a little in despair of it every being pristine again. Miles crawled into his usual spot in the back and plopped down in the middle of the bench seat. Tim was already in the driver seat, struggling to get the car started. “Darn kid,” he said under his breath.

Sky pulled the door shut with a heavy “tchunk” as the car finally started. From the rear-view mirror, Miles could see Sky’s numb face. Schuyler sighed and spoke, “I just hope Hokharty kills both of you first so I at least get to watch.”

Lucy walked down the dark, single-lane road in her bare feet. There was a thin sliver of moonlight. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to walk by. They were on an access road that connected a few dozen farms that were sandwiched between Ephrata and Reamstown. The road was lined with trees. Once it had been open farmland, but most of the farms were being cut up into lots for McMansions these days, so they had allowed the land to be reclaimed by the woods.

Lucy knew exactly where she was. She was less than a mile from Grandma Holveda’s home, from
her
home, the one her mother had moved her to from Texas more than a year ago, but what she didn’t know, was
how
she had gotten
here
. She remembered Sky and Tim and Miles, those loser vampires, stealing their car and nearly crashing it, and that
thing
chasing them with the butcher knife, but then she had slipped into darkness and then…nothing. Nothing at all. No feeling, no sensation, just emptiness and blackness, like she had fallen down an elevator shaft but never hit the bottom. She had simply ceased to exist. The next thing she knew, she was walking on the road home. Walking silently beside her was a pale and haggard boy, skinny and frail looking, wearing shorts, a striped shirt and a baseball cap. He was walking a few paces ahead and to the left of her, numbly pumping a yo-yo over and over again, but he wasn’t looking at it or her, he was just
walking
. So Lucy walked on beside him silently. The two walked on quietly for a long time before Lucy had the nerve to say what had been on her mind the last fifteen minutes.