Something Stirs, page 22
A cat paced him.
He spat at it until it spat back and disappeared.
Staying out of the light. Always in the dark. Using the shadows the way the shadows used him, teased him, taunted him in his dreams. Crawling at one point under the low branches of an evergreen tree, shuddering at the needles prickling across his neck and cheek, freezing when he heard footsteps, closing his eyes and waiting until the footsteps receded. Moving. Fast when he could, and when he could barely move anymore, using lampposts and shrubs and mail boxes and hydrants to propel him along, to keep him on his feet.
Sweat in his eyes.
His legs half-filled with lead.
Finally reaching the tracks where they indented the street and hurrying south along them, slower by necessity, head down to make sure the ties didn’t trip him.
Despite the cold wind, more sweat dribbled into his eyes, stinging, not warm at all.
The night filed with his panting, and with sirens, both sounding so distant he wondered if maybe he was really dreaming after all, that he hadn’t yanked the little girl away from the creature he couldn’t really have seen, that he hadn’t run away when all Leg had wanted to do was talk to him, thank him, that the Queen was still back at the Mission, standing on the sidewalk as he walked out, cleaner than a baby’s washed ass and grinning just as dumb.
Getting out.
God damn.
Stumbling over one of a partially splintered ties and falling forward, crying out and landing on his hands, one on each rail, feeling like a jerk because he was still on his feet. Straddling the bed. Staring at his shadow.
Cold iron; too cold.
Carefully he pulled his right hand away and paused to catch his breath, easing down a little, not quite kneeling, mouth wide open to catch snatches of the wind.
Feeling, then, the rail began to vibrate, softly.
He ran.
He had no choice.
There were no trains this hour, and the rails began to sing.
Hat Trick Boy on the move, down the ice, faster than spit, faster than the wind, catching up to his shadow and leaving it in his dust.
Faster than the snow that fell heavily again.
“Ah,” said the Queen of Foxriver.
She smoothed her coat, touched at her muffler, made sure her turban crown was firm against the wind.
“Ah,” she said.
Blade saw the flickering headlamp of the train that shouldn’t have been.
He saw the Queen rise from her bench and move to the edge of the platform.
He couldn’t run any faster.
Not even when he saw the first rat.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
On the way out of the lot, tires skidding as they tried to find traction in the wet new snow, Tang sideswiped another car, but no one made her stop, no one yelled when she spun the sports wheel right and racked another vehicle’s fender.
Pancho in the front seat, hugging himself, muttering that sounded more like incantation; Barnaby behind her, staring blankly out the window, his left hand level with his cheek, palm against the glass; Fern in the middle, an arm around Scott’s shoulder and wishing she’d never left the house tonight. She could be home now. Safe. Dad watching TV, Mother complaining that all the shows were about nothing but sex and killing, and she would be curled in her chair, wondering how long it would be before Scott got the hint and decided to call.
Katie. Dead.
The car shot down the slope toward the river.
Laine and Dale, Pancho had said, taken to Foxriver Memorial on the north side of town, where her father did his out-of-clinic surgery; most of the other victims on their way to St. Francis, closer in the South End.
Dark and light swept through the inside as it passed under the streetlamps. Light and dark.
The windshield wipers scraped and thumped the snow away, bunching it on either side, turning it to ice, smearing it until Pancho leaned over and turned on the blower. The rear window was already covered.
A great shudder made Scott sit upright, and Fern held him more closely, smelling the fear in him, mixing with wet wool and damp leather. She didn’t want to read his mind. She didn’t look at the prosthetic lying across his lap.
The car’s engine hummed steadily, not changing pitch, barely stuttering when Tang reached Bank Road and turned right, shifting gears.
No one told her to slow down.
Light and dark.
Scott fumbled for Fern’s free hand, and she let him take it, squeeze it, watching his profile, the hair that bounced slightly over his forehead whenever the automobile swerved, hair that looked white now, ghostly, even in the dark. Watching him think though his gaze never shifted from the back of Pancho’s head. She didn’t want to read his mind, but she knew what he was thinking; and she didn’t doubt for a second that Katie’s monster had really killed her. No accident. No freak of nature. No wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time. Katie Ealton was dead, and something huge had done it.
It was true.
No bedtime story this time.
She didn’t know why it was, why she believed it, why there were no angry questions, no denials. It just seemed … right. Horribly right. To think anything else, now, would mean everything since Eddie’s dying had been nothing more than insanity taking seductive hold of her, cradling her, whispering to her. Touching her.
Which meant that the guys had been right about Eddie somehow wanting to conjure a childhood monster; and wrong. Because if all that energy Scott had talked about was real, if the Pack really did absorb all that Eddie Roman had created, it should have been gone by now. Eddie was dead. The energy should have died too.
There should be nothing left to hold the Pack together.
There should be nothing left to call their nightmares back.
The increasingly slick roadway forced Tang to reduce her speed as she approached South Bridge, the lights planted here and there along its skeletal superstructure blurred and rung by haze. There were no cars here. The headlamps drove the snow ahead of them, swirling it across the blacktop, and what didn’t stick gathered on the shoulders. She couldn’t see the river, but she knew it was black.
“Stop,” Scott said.
“Jesus, man,” Pancho said, wriggling lower in his seat, “we gotta get away, Scottie. We can’t stay here. We—”
“Stop.”
“Shit on that! We gotta keep moving, man, this ain’t a game, Katie’s dead.”
“Tang.”
Without argument she pulled over, thumped over the curb, and came to a halt in the middle of the block, in the unlighted fan between two distant lampposts. Only then did Fern hear her choked sobbing.
The engine grumbled; the blower melted the snow.
The wipers, thumping back and forth.
Fern eased her arm from his shoulders. “What, Scott?”
He used the back of Pancho’s seat to pull himself forward, leaned down and across her to stare out the opposite window. His hair was darkly wet. She wanted to touch it, instead tried to see what he saw and saw only bare trees. A quick inhalation then—this was where Joey had died. Had been killed. “Scott—” A sideways glance cut her off. She looked outside again, half expecting to see those goddamn beetles swarm over the snowbank.
“Eddie,” he said quietly. “That sonofabitching Eddie.”
Pancho groaned.
Tang lowered her forehead to the steering wheel.
Scott held up a hand, not pointing, though she couldn’t stop herself from following his finger up, out, up again and gone into a loose fist.
“He … his monster. It vanished, or something, as soon as he died. That’s why the cops couldn’t find the killer.”
Warm in the car.
Fern felt the sweat gathering between her breasts.
Barnaby’s head turned slowly, his face barely seen.
“Joey,” Scott said, pointing now toward the river. “The cops shot at something.” He looked at Garing. “It disappeared before they could find it, or see it. Because Joey was dead.” His hand dropped from the seat, he eased back and slid down, staring at the roof. “Probably the same for Slap.”
“Longer each time,” Barnaby said.
Scott nodded.
Fern looked from one to the other. “Why?” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I don’t know.”
Without thinking, nerves and temper taut and close to snapping, she grabbed the front of his coat, and when he took her wrist gently, she glared. What the hell do you mean, you don’t know why? What the hell kind of an answer is that, you creep? He shook her wrist just a little. She stared at it, opened her fingers.
Then she told him what she’d thought, how the energy should be dissipated by now, that none of this—especially Katie—was right, if Scott was.
“I know,” he said. “Don’t you think I know that?”
“For Christ’s sake, drive!” Pancho yelled, a fist slammed to the dashboard. Tang’s head snapped up.
“Jesus, guys, who the hell cares, huh? I mean, this shit ain’t real, and it’s killing us off, you know?” He grabbed Tang’s arm. “Goddamnit. Will you drive?”
“Where?” she said flatly, not looking at him. “Where do we go?”
“How the hell should I know?” Pitch rising. “Just keep going north, shit, I don’t know.”
“Canada?” she said.
“Tang—”
“The North Pole?” She whirled on him, punching his hand away. “Where the hell are we going to go,” she yelled, “that those … things aren’t going with us?”
Pancho wiped his face with the crook of his elbow. “Tang, I don’t know.” He sounded ready to cry, and Fern didn’t blame him. “Can’t we just—”
Scott’s head rolled to the side, and Fern felt him stiffen suddenly, hold his breath. “Tang, he’s right. You’d better get moving.”
“At last!” Pancho said, applauding.
The car moved.
Fern looked over Scott’s head and saw the dark man on the sidewalk. Standing just beyond the reach of the nearest light.
They’re ours, Fern thought as Tang drove slowly into the dark; Tang’s more right than she knows—they’re all our monsters, there isn’t just one, and they won’t go away until we’re all dead.
A prolonged gust buffeted the car.
Just like Katie.
She didn’t give a damn when the tears began to fall.
Scott didn’t look to see if the dark man had been left behind. It didn’t matter. He would be there, anywhere, not long after the car stopped again.
Bad Dale had said.
He grunted a bitter laugh. Poor kid didn’t know what he was talking about, and he was right anyway. Of all of them, somehow he knew when things would be bad; somehow he knew before it happened.
“You know,” Barnaby said duly, still looking out his window, “I know what I saw, I was at the funeral, but I can’t get a grip on this. I feel like … like I’m sleepwalking or something.”
No one answered.
“I mean,” he went on, “I don’t feel like I’m gonna die.”
No one answered.
And suddenly Tang wailed, “All those people! God damn, all those people dead because of us!”
Scott sat up so hard he had to grab the back of his neck to ease a sudden sharp pain.
“What?” Fern asked.
He ignored her. “Tang, go to the hospital. Memorial.”
The car didn’t turn.
“Tang, damnit!”
Pancho threw an arm over the seat, his hand catching him on the cheek. “Shut the fuck up, Scottie! We’re getting out of here. Just shut the fuck up!”
Tang made the next corner, started up the hill, and Pancho slapped her. Raised a hand to slap her again, and Barnaby lunged forward and grabbed his arm.
“Barn, don’t, man. Don’t do this.”
When Fern tried to pry them apart, Scott elbowed her and nodded at the plastic leg as he fumbled with his belt buckle. “Hold it.”
She blinked stupidly.
“I can’t walk without it, Fern.”
Pushing deep into the corner, he wriggled his jeans down for the second time that night, glad for the dark that hid what he knew would still be an angry flush of skin where the stump protested. He was glad too she didn’t seem to react, though he didn’t look at her face. Instead, he wiped the inside of the prosthetic’s cup as best he could, then slipped it on, made sure it gripped properly, and began winding the straps around.
At the next intersection they crossed, the dark man took off his hat.
Barnaby sat back again; Pancho rubbed the feeling back in his arm,
“Tell me where I’m wrong,” Scott said, still working on the straps around, setting them in place. “Eddie got his monster, right? I mean, he brought him out. Joey got his, probably from listening to Eddie.”
“Clap your hands,” Tang said. She was crying.
“Something like that. Maybe. I don’t know yet. But it’s real. We know it is.”
Pancho groaned his despair.
“But we’re not the only ones they’ve hurt. If it was all phony, all in our minds, Mr. Tobin, the others, they’d still be okay.”
The car skidded. Tang’s hands darted across the steering wheel to bring it straight again.
So it didn’t necessarily follow that each of them would have to die for their respective childhood nightmares to die with them. The things were real. And if they were real, they could be hurt. Maybe driven away. Maybe destroyed.
“Right,” Pancho said sarcastically. “We’ll just call up the army, let the tanks take care of them.”
“No,” he said. “We talk to Dale.”
Fern slapped his arm. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Well, who better than a kid?”
Dark and light.
They crossed the boulevard.
He checked south and saw the lights spinning, the lights flashing, the lights reaching into the storm but not high enough to catch the clouds.
“Clap your hands.” Tang giggled.
Scott put a fist to his chin and pressed, hard. There was something missing, and he couldn’t figure it out.
He didn’t even know if it was important. Hell, he didn’t even know if anything he’d said was even right. But he was glad for one thing—he was glad no one had asked him about screaming, why they heard it, why them, and Blade, and no one else.
“Clap your hands.”
“Tang,” Pancho said. “God, I’m sorry.”
“Clap your hands. Here we are.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Like Town Hall, Foxriver Memorial was set back from the street behind a concrete plaza, though this one was more narrow, more stark, less shrubs, no trees at all. A snow-covered, free-form steel sculpture on a raised concrete island. An overhang to protect the ambulances and visitors. It was a six-story building, square and modern, strips of dark-masked windows along its face that made it resemble a square layer cake. Tang had to park a block away, and by the time they reached the entrance, they were too cold to talk. The snow fell in smaller flakes, harder flakes, but the wind hadn’t abated, jabbing at them, covering their hair, their shoulders before they’d left the car’s shadow.
The lobby was bleak—all plastic chairs and plastic flowers, warning signs and welcome signs, hidden lighting, indoor-outdoor carpeting and a reception desk in the center.
“Visiting hours are over,” the woman sitting there said. Pink smock, white hair, expression sympathetic but adamant when Fern explained about Laine and her brother. “It’s almost ten. I’m afraid you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
On the wall behind the desk a bank of elevators.
“Can we stick around for a minute?” Barnaby asked. “It’s awfully cold out there, ma’am.”
“Of course.” A finger to her lips. “Just keep it down, all right?”
He smiled and nodded, returned to the others standing in the middle of an open visitors area, and said, “No sweat. She likes me. Who’s gonna go up?”
Scott pointed at himself.
“Who else?”
“Me,” Fern said.
“No,” Scott told her. “Just one. It’s easier to cover that way.”
A soft chime announced an arriving elevator. The doors opened without a sound, and Dr. Freelin stepped out, buttoning a hunting jacket with one hand, the other holding his glasses.
“Magic,” Scott said, and they hurried over, ignoring the receptionist’s rise to protest.
The doctor was surprised to see them, but Scott was glad to note he wasn’t annoyed.
“Laine’s okay,” the man said before they could ask. “Just a few cuts, a couple of bruises.” He looked at them one by one. “Dale’s lost a lot of blood, but he’ll be all right too. Thank God. He’s already had a transfusion.
Nothing to do now but build up his strength.” He blinked, replaced his glasses. “Thanks for coming, kids. I … Thanks.”
“Can we see them?” Fern asked.
Scott saw her flash “the smile,” tried not to laugh aloud.
Freelin shook his head regretfully. “Sorry, but they’re about bedded down for the night.”
A low mumbled chorus of regret, a steady, respectful barrage of promises just shy of pleading to only peek in, grin, wave, let her know they’re all right too. Except for Scottie, whose leg was killing him but he came anyway because he was so worried. And Laine must be worried about them too, right? She hasn’t seen any of them since … the windstorm. She’ll sleep better, no kidding, Dr. Freelin, and he knew them well enough by now to know they wouldn’t disobey him. Just a quick look and a wave and they’ll go home and get a good night’s sleep, come back tomorrow, swear to God.
No one said a word about Katie.
No one asked about the casualties at the theater.
Fern gave him “the smile” a second time.
Freelin fussed with his jacket. “Look, I know you mean well, and it’s true that Laine’s been worried sick—” He glanced over their heads at the receptionist. “Oh hell, why the hell not.” He turned, but Barnaby had already pressed the “up” button. “Confident, aren’t you.”
Barnaby shrugged. “Laine’s our friend.”
