Nocturnal

  Aggie grabbed his sleeve. “I did my part, now lemme go. Please don’t make me go back in, please.”

  Bryan felt bad for the man, but not that bad. Aggie could be the difference between finding Pookie alive or not finding him at all.

  And no matter what, someone had to pay for Robin.

  All the eyes … all the teeth.

  “You’re coming with us,” Bryan said. He turned and looked at John. “You watch Aggie. If he tries to leave, shoot him in the leg.”

  John nodded. “Sure thing.”

  John wasn’t going to shoot Aggie. Bryan knew that, but hopefully Aggie didn’t.

  “Everyone follow me,” Bryan said, then carefully put his left foot in the first footprint.

  The Eagle

  The snake-face man lifted Dr. Metz up high, one hand curving up under the old man’s ass, the other cupped around the back of his neck.

  Guilty! Guilty!

  Pookie couldn’t draw a breath. It felt like he wasn’t taking in air at all. He closed his eyes again — he couldn’t watch this.

  Rex’s horitzontal thumb lifted, then pointed down. “Sly, execute the sentence!”

  Metz screamed, but it was a short scream that ended with a sickening snap.

  The crowed roared in bloodthirsty approval, a passionate chorus that hurt Pookie’s ears and shook his body.

  He heard and felt the masked men brushing past him to remove Metz’s body, then felt them brush by again as they returned to wherever they had come from.

  “Next criminal!” Rex’s every word was a hoarse-throated scream, every syllable thick with madness and psychotic lust.

  “Him! Bring me that one!”

  Open your eyes, open your eyes.

  But Pookie could not. He just couldn’t.

  Hands grabbed at his body. His eyes opened of their own accord as panic gripped him, pulled at his heart and kicked his stomach, and when he looked forward he saw only one thing.

  Rex Deprovdechuk, pointing his way.

  Bloodhound

  Bryan couldn’t see the smell, but it might as well have been a glowing rope hanging in the still air. There wasn’t much circulation down here — what had been barely detectable in the train tunnel now filled his nose and mind. The scent called to him at a base level, made him want to kill anything that might harm the source. It was so powerful; Bryan hoped he didn’t find that source somewhere down here — if he did, he didn’t know what he might do.

  After leaving the booby-trapped pillars behind, they moved faster — as fast as he could through a narrow tunnel made of dirt and broken brick, chipped concrete, bits of rusted metal and charred wood.

  Then, noises. Faint, nothing but a whisper at first, a whisper that was lost in the sounds of Bryan’s movement. He stopped, made the others stand still. He listened and understood: it was the sound of a crowd, tinny and thin from traveling some length down the tunnel.

  Aggie had said this tunnel led to the arena with the shipwreck.

  Bryan faced the others.

  “We’re close,” he said. “Turn off the flashlights. Stay close to the person in front of you. Move careful, but move fast. And from this moment on, not another word.”

  He turned off his flashlight and slid it into an inside pocket of his peacoat. One by one, the other flashlights blinked out. Darkness filled the tunnel.

  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.

  Arena Rock

  Bryan 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.

  Pookie Chang’s Last Moments

  You 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?

  It was too late to debate morality — Bryan was out there, exposed and alone. Pookie was a captive. If John hesitated, both would surely die.

  John heard a barely audible buzz. He turned to look at Adam, who held up the receiver — it blinked red.

  Bryan had hit the button.

  John leaned in close to Alder and Adam.

  “Hit the head if you can, but if you’re rushed just shoot center-mass,” he said. “Clear the ledge, then start chucking grenades to cause more confusion. We need to make them think there’s hundreds of us, so they run instead of attacking. You guys ready?”

  Alder and Adam nodded.

  John wasn’t ready, wasn’t even close, but the time had come.

  He turned and walked down the tunnel toward the ledge.

  Black-furred hands held him aloft as if he weighed nothing more than a child.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  This was the end.

  From off to the left, Pookie saw something small flying through the air. Had a spectator thrown a rock? It landed somewhere behind Pookie, clattering against the old wood.

  Then he heard a hiss, like a hundred sparklers going up at once. Light flared from behind him, intense light, casting his shadow forward onto the prow and the people gathered there.

  “Mommy,” the creature said, and then Pookie felt his back start to get hot.

  The crushing hands let go. Pookie fell to the deck, surprised at the sudden freedom. Firstborn stepped over him and ran toward the back of the boat, as did the snake-face, the dog-face and the girl with the metal whips. Pookie tur
ned to see where they were going, but had to flinch and avert his eyes from the bright light blazing near the ship’s cabin. He looked back at Rex, who stood there, blinking, not moving, flickering shadows playing off his face.

  Echoing gunfire sounded from up on the ledge to the left of the prow. Pookie looked in that direction. Some kind of commotion up there: muzzle flashes, people scrambling, bodies falling off the edge and plummeting to the floor below.

  And then, off to the ship’s left, he saw something amazing — a man leaping off the cavern’s ledge thirty feet above. He sailed toward the ship, rising up nearly to the ceiling before arcing down, his blanket falling away behind him. Legs bicycle-kicked the air. Arms rowed forward like a long jumper’s. He wore a black peacoat.

  Bryan?

  Pookie locked in on the black mask, on the scrawled white death-grin coming closer, closer.

  In midair, Bryan’s hands shot behind his back and came out holding pistols.

  Pookie had a moment to think that’s pretty fucking impressive, home-slice, then Bryan started to tilt forward, out of control. Arms flailed and legs kicked awkwardly — Bryan smashed into Rex’s back, knocking the boy’s body forward and driving him face-first into the deck’s broken planks. Bryan and Rex skidded through the wood, spraying up jagged splinters and bits of board, then they fell through the deck and vanished from sight.

  Battle Royale

  Bryan dropped into darkness, things smacking him in his face, his arms and his hands as he fell. He hit hard on his head and shoulder and came to a stop. Landing — something he’d have to work on.

  He struggled to stand. He still held a five-seven in his right hand. His left hand was empty. He’d lost that gun and it was easy to see why — his pinkie and ring fingers flopped sickly, both broken at their base knuckle.

  Cracked boards surrounded him. Old dust choked the air. He’d smashed through the upper deck and apparently one below that. Fifteen feet above, he saw the jagged hole in the deck and the mast lights rising above it. He had to get up there, had to reach Pookie and the others. Bryan struggled to stand amid the angled pile of wood. He got his footing, then bent and jumped. He cleared eight feet and landed on the second deck. Another quick leap took him back to the main deck.