Nocturnal (81 page)

They weren’t far away. He was going to get Marie’s Children for what they had done to Robin, for what they had done to Pookie.

Monster, human, alien, angel or demon — whatever was down here, Bryan Clauser was going to make it pay.

B
ryan saw light — a distant, narrow arch of illumination just a hundred feet away.

Shapes moving in front of that light.

He kept moving forward, his steps quiet and sure.

The sound of a single person talking from far away, words blurred by echoes and the crowd’s murmur, until the crowd roared in unison.

Guilty!

Closer. Fifty feet.

The shapes up ahead took form. Mounds that were people covered with blankets, sliding in front of each other as if craning to see something beyond.

Bryan stopped, turned. Adam was right behind him. Not so brave now. Mouth pursed, Adam was forcing himself to breathe slowly. No, not so brave, but still
here
, ready to fight — was bravery really anything more than that?

Behind Adam, Alder. Not afraid. Maybe he’d had decades to accept his mortality. Everyone dies. You can go out swinging, or you can die shitting yourself in a hospital bed as they feed you through tubes.

And in the back, John Smith. He had to be scared, but he didn’t look it. Maybe six years of cowardice had taught him how to hide it. Or maybe John was just ready, because one thing was for certain — no one could call him a coward anymore.

Bryan stepped closer. Twenty-five feet.

ba-da-bum-bummmm

He stopped. He closed his eyes tight, opened them again. The smell of the baby, the
thrumm
of his people buzzing in his chest. Those behind him were
not
his people.

ba-da-bum-bummmm!

Why was he going to kill Marie’s Children? Why was he going to kill his brothers, his sisters, his
real
family?

He closed his eyes. He pictured the two people who had stood by him through everything.

ba-da-bum-bummmm!

Why was he going to kill Marie’s Children? Because they had taken Pookie. Because they had murdered Robin.

Bryan opened his eyes and again looked down the tunnel. He was only
fifteen feet away, close enough to see the feet under one of the blankets. Blue feet. Furry. The feet of a monster.

ba-da-bum-bummmm! ba-da-bum-bummmm!

Wait a minute … had he missed Aggie? Bryan looked back and took in the faces: Adam, Alder, John, all ready to fight alongside him.

But no Aggie?

Bryan signaled to John, held up both hands in a questioning gesture. John looked confused, then understood. He quickly looked behind him, saw nothing, then turned and shrugged apologetically. Aggie had slipped away. It didn’t matter. The man had done his job. Bryan hoped he made it out alive.

Five feet. So close he could reach out and grab the blue-footed person at the back of the ledge, probably grab it so fast the ones in front wouldn’t even know.

That echoing voice again, coming from an unseen spot beyond, close enough now that Bryan could make out the words, close enough now that Bryan recognized the speaker.

Rex.

“And for crimes of hating on the people, how do we find the defendant?”

Guilty!

A new voice: “Killing me won’t change the fact that you’re a worthless douchebag, you little shit!”

Bryan stopped. Pookie’s voice —
he was still alive
. Bryan drew in a slow breath.

Rex started shouting again, his hoarse words far louder than seemed possible from such a small person. “And for the crimes of making sure we all die, how do—”

“U-G-L-Y,” Pookie yelled, his voice echoing just as much as Rex’s. “You ain’t got no alibi.
You’re all fucking ugly!
”

“Stop it!” Rex screamed, so loud Bryan heard the boy’s vocal cords starting to fray. “Stop interrupting me, or I’ll cut out your tongue!”

Bryan drew his knife.

He stepped forward. His hand reached out, wrapped around a furry mouth and pulled hard. Blue-foot fell back into the tunnel. Bryan had a glimpse of shocked blue eyes, felt a scream try to escape his hand, then he slid the knife under the chin and pushed up at an angle. The creature started to kick. Bryan pushed the knife in deeper and twisted it.

Blue-furred eyelids stared, blinked, stared, then lost focus.

Bryan pulled the knife free and sheathed it. He pulled the smelly blanket from under the corpse, then whipped it around his shoulders.

Out in the cavern: “And for the crimes of, uh, wait a minute … oh, right, the crimes of making sure we all die, how do you all find the defendant?”

Bryan waved John and the others forward as the crowd shouted
Guilty!

Bryan’s companions moved in close. They looked at him with shock, with fear — like
he
was a monster, a brutal killer. He was all that and more. He stared back at them: John and Alder, their faces deep inside dark green hoods, and Adam, his black jacket collar flipped up around his neck, his skullcap pulled down to his eyebrows.

“Pookie is down there,” Bryan whispered. “I’ll find a way to reach him. With this blanket I’ll blend in — maybe they won’t notice me right away. I’ll get as close as I can.”

“What then?” Adam said.

Bryan reached into his pocket and pulled out the button-box Adam had given him back in the hospital parking lot. “Will this work down here?”

Adam nodded, pulled out a small device from his own pocket. “Yeah, if that cavern out there is open and you don’t go into more tunnels, I’ll get the signal right here.”

Bryan held up the button-box. “When I press this, you guys start killing. Shoot them in the head and they’ll go down. Move onto the ledge and
hold this position
. We don’t know any other way out. Cause as much damage as you can, I’ll try and use the confusion to rescue Pookie.”

He didn’t wait for them to answer. He flipped up his peacoat collar, adjusted his mask, then pulled the blanket over his head to hide his face.

All the eyes … all the teeth
.

Bryan Clauser walked out onto the ledge.

Y
ou have heard the arguments,” Rex shouted. “Now, we must pass judgment.”

Guilty! Guilty!

Pookie had always known that someday he would die. He’d always hoped it would be as an old man in bed with four women, each a quarter of his age. A quadruple Chang Bang with a final orgasm into oblivion. That was how a real pimp checked out.

Not like this.

Rex raised his emperor’s fist, thumb pointed in. The psycho kid had done this act twice already — you’d think the crowd would be over it. Hardly. They screamed and roared, waiting for the decision.

A surging sense of
belonging
overwhelmed him.

ba-da-bum-bummmm, ba-da-bum-bummmm, ba-da-bum-bummmm

The ledge was four feet wide, five in some places. Chairs sat near the front edge — lawn chairs, metal chairs, cinder blocks, logs, beat-up pieces of society’s discards set up as front-row seats for an execution. In every one of those chairs, standing behind them and between them: Marie’s Children.

Bryan moved to his right, along the bumpy, irregular wall. Through the packed bodies, he saw the narrow set of stone steps leading down — just like Aggie had said. No one seemed to be using it. He couldn’t take that way down, lest he draw attention to himself.

He kept moving right, sliding along between the wall and the spectators. Most of the monsters/people didn’t even bother to turn and look at him. And why would they? Bryan
felt
right, Bryan
smelled
right, because he was
one of them
.

He could see down into the cavern below. Nothing Aggie had said could have prepared Bryan for this. It
was
an arena, an oblong, irregular dome big enough for a hockey rink. The floor, some thirty feet below, was lined with winding, intersecting trenches. At the back of the oblong, to Bryan’s right, sat a shattered shipwreck from centuries past.

Down on the blood-spattered prow stood Rex Deprovdechuk, dressed in a red velvet cape and wearing a crown. Monsters surrounded Rex.
Bryan recognized Sly from his nightmares, the dog-face from the fight at the hospital. He knew, instantly, that the tall one with the black fur was Firstborn.

Firstborn held someone in front of him, someone in an ill-fitting sport coat — Pookie Chang, tied at the hands and feet, helpless.

Bryan instantly started forward but stopped himself. He only had one shot at this and couldn’t afford to miss anything.

Next to Firstborn stood a nerdy kid with a horribly distended belly flipping a Zippo. Bryan didn’t recognize that one. The nerdy kid moved to the side, revealing a raven-haired woman.

Robin’s killer.

A white, broken mast rose high from the ship’s center. High atop that mast Bryan saw Jebediah Erickson,
crucified
, hands nailed to a wooden pole atop the mast.

Past the mast stood a line of posts jutting up from the deck, each with a person tied tightly to it: Zou, her daughters, Mr. Biz-Nass, Rich Verde, Sean Robertson. Three posts stood empty.

Beyond the posts there was what looked like a squashed captain’s cabin. Something moved inside there, but Bryan couldn’t make it out. The crowd screamed for Rex’s decision. The boy stood tall. He held his fist high, his thumb pointed in, parallel to the deck.

Bryan couldn’t wait a moment more. He slid farther down the ledge, pushing past his family members and moving closer to the ship.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the button-box.

Pookie didn’t bother struggling anymore. He’d tried. The devil himself held him in a crushing grip. Seven feet tall, the lean, muscular, black-furred creature wore combat boots and jeans with MK23s in sidearm holsters strapped to each thigh. Gray hairs peppered the black-furred face.

Pookie couldn’t move.

A crazy thought — maybe Rex would find him innocent, maybe the thumb would point
up
.

Rex lifted up on his toes. He looked back at Pookie and smiled a madman’s smile. Rex pointed the thumb down and threw his fist toward the deck like a singer finishing off a rock crescendo.

“Firstborn,” he said. “Carry out the execution.”

This time, Pookie would not close his eyes.

Mother Mary, full of grace
 …

A furred hand closed on the back of his neck. Firstborn pulled Pookie close. Slanted green eyes glittered with excitement for the task at hand.

Deliver us from evil as I walk in the shadow of the valley of … the death-shadowy valley in
 …

Shit. What a time to forget the Lord’s Prayer.

The hand slid to the front of his neck, lifted him, started to squeeze …

I don’t want to die oh shit oh shit
 …

John Smith’s hands flexed on the reassuring bulk of his automatic shotgun. The cloak surrounded him, hid him, made him feel like a different person. Any moment now, he’d be called upon to step up, step forward and start shooting. Were all these monsters guilty? Would he be firing on individuals who had nothing to do with the crimes committed by others? Would he be killing based on nothing but race?