Chaos Calling, page 10
When she’s in fresh pyjamas, Malcolm tucks Anna into bed. As he lies down beside her, a wave of vertigo crashes over him. The pillow swims beneath his head. The alarm clock on his nightstand reads 3:09 a.m. He closes his eyes. But his mind, no longer preoccupied with tasks, brims with questions. Why didn’t she tell me? What are those things? Where’d they come from?
Malcolm rolls over. As his eyes adjust to the room’s darkness, Anna’s face comes into focus on the other pillow. He vividly remembers the first day they met. Early into his time with the force, he’d attended one of Chief Montcalm’s community picnics. Anna, at loose ends after finishing her Classics degree at the University of Toronto, had been recruited by Sarita Montcalm, the chief’s wife, to help organize the event. Malcolm had spotted Anna standing by the barbecue station, hip cocked, clipboard in hand, giving instructions to the volunteer cooks. Instantly, he was smitten. Still, it had taken him the better part of the day to find an excuse to talk to her.
He tries to fit both Annas together: the confident young woman who’d turned with a knowing smile and saw right through his dumb question about where to find more serviettes, and his level-headed wife of nine years who snuck out to kill monsters.
It makes no sense, he thinks, brushing a piece of damp hair from her face while a wounded feeling tightens his chest. I know you better than anyone. What were you thinking? The temptation to shake her awake and ask is overwhelming. Instead, Malcolm watches her eyeballs flicker behind her eyelids like fish darting in an aquarium.
A soft chime echoes in the bedroom, accompanied by the false dawn of his phone flaring with an incoming text. Malcolm reaches for the device. It’s from Staff Sergeant Mitchell Waddington:
Folks, I regret to inform you that we lost Constable Marc Ernsting tonight. Wanted you to hear it from me first. Happened outside the SkyDome. I just left his house.
His family is gutted. I’m gutted. He was a damn good investigator.
We’ve had other officer and civilian fatalities and are actively working to determine who’s missing. Please confirm your receipt of this message.
Instantly, the thread explodes in a mix of confusion, sadness, and outrage. Malcolm flicks the phone’s sound off and turns it face down on his nightstand as his eyes burn. He doesn’t know Marc well. They were both at the academy, both married with kids. He and his husband have girls, Malcolm thinks. Older than our kids. Jesus, his family. How will they cope?
He tosses in the dark for another hour. Sleep doesn’t come. At 5:45 a.m., he sits up and flips his phone over. A missed call notification jumps to his attention. It’s from Chief Montcalm.
Anna’s car, he thinks with a sudden rush of unease. They found it downtown. Malcolm forces himself to get a drink of water from the bathroom and scrub the grit from his eyes. Easy. No one’s worried about cars when people are missing or dead. Closing the door, he calls back.
“Nazarenko, what time did you turn in last night?” Chief Montcalm demands without preamble.
“Around eleven.” Malcolm clears his throat. “I heard about Ernsting,” he says, hoping the chief will attribute his strain to shock. “What do you need—”
“The situation’s evolving,” the chief says in a tight voice. “I’m on site at the SkyDome, which seems to have been the epicentre of last night’s attack. I’ve got Bob Cloar putting together a task force. I want you here by 0700.”
Malcolm swallows. “Anna’s sick, sir. I’ve got no one to watch—”
“Nazarenko, I’ve got over three hundred confirmed dead and a thousand reported missing,” the chief says in his zero-nonsense voice. “I’ve got three officers down, carcasses in the streets straight out of a Hollywood horror movie, and the mayor on the horn with the prime minister and the premier formally requesting a state of emergency. No one’s got tape of the monsters, but the media apparently have footage of someone who fought back and then disappeared without a trace.”
The chief pauses to take a breath. Malcolm, realizing he’s been holding his, angles his mouth away from the speaker and lets the air out in a controlled rush as the chief continues. “Call Sarita if you must. She’d never say no to your family. But I need my best here.”
“Yes, sir.” Malcolm hangs up. Thinking of his flat tire, he texts his partner for a ride, grateful that carpooling isn’t unusual in their working relationship. One less complication.
As he comes out of the bathroom, Tim stumbles into their bedroom, knuckling his eyes.
“Come on, big guy.” He sweeps his seven-year-old son into his arms before the boy can climb onto the bed beside his mother. To Malcolm’s surprise, his back doesn’t ache at all. “Let Mommy sleep.”
Downstairs, Malcolm plunks Tim at the kitchen table with a bowl of Cheerios and a book, setting out extra food for Erin. After making coffee and gulping down the first scalding sip, he turns on the TV. The screen fills with crowd-control barricades and impromptu shelters. Before Malcom can absorb much, Tim comes into the playroom, book in hand. Hurriedly, Malcolm turns on Netflix.
“I’ve got to work,” he tells his son. “Watch TV with your sister if you want. Mommy’s upstairs in bed if you need her. She’s not feeling well.”
“Okay.” Tim yawns. “Are you going to take me to summer camp?”
Damn. “I don’t think there’s any summer camp today, buddy. It’s probably canceled.”
Tim’s skeptical expression is exactly like his uncle Jason’s. “Why?”
Malcolm wracks his mind for the child-appropriate version of events. “There was a big accident last night. Some people got hurt and they need help, so I’ve got to go.” He pulls his son close, running his hand through Tim’s silky hair. “You’ve got the whole day to play with Erin. Mommy won’t be going to Grandad’s house today. And I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Tim’s gaze is already sliding past his face to the TV. “Okay.”
Outside, a horn honks. Malcolm drops another kiss on his son’s head and rushes upstairs to change. From what little he saw during his midnight jaunt, the attack site will be messy. He opts for slacks and a Toronto Police golf shirt instead of his usual suit. He buckles his plainclothes holster and clips on his badge. On his way outside, he slides on a Toronto Police windbreaker and grabs a travel mug full of coffee and his key to Anna’s car.
“Crazy times, my man,” his partner says as Malcolm gets into the car. Fortunately, Detective Constable Christopher Barry is the extrovert in their partnership. He easily fills the car with one-sided speculation for the whole ride before dropping Malcolm off. “I’ll park and join you.”
By daylight, it’s worse than Malcolm feared. This is a goddamn apocalypse, he thinks. Ruined condo buildings dot the horizon. The summer air, already hot, tastes of sulphur and smells of decay. Inside the police line, the area swarms with first responders controlling foot traffic, triaging the injured, and setting up impromptu shelters for people who can’t return to their cordoned-off homes. Instinctively, he heads to the place where he found Anna.
“Nazarenko!” a deep baritone bellows.
Malcolm spots Chief Henry Montcalm, a stocky man of sixty-five with greying hair and whiskey-coloured eyes, standing with Deputy Chief Bob Cloar and a group of officers almost exactly where he’d found Anna the previous night. The fallen officer’s body is gone. A chalk outline marks the place where she fell. Behind the chief, crews in yellow hazmat suits are hastily assembling white tents around the two monster corpses. In the distance, Malcolm spots the peak of a third tent shining in the morning sunlight. Another? How many did she kill?
“Nazarenko?”
Malcolm jerks to attention. In his fog state, he’s somehow followed the chief and the deputy several metres past Anna’s battle site toward a white-shrouded body a little farther down the road. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep much.”
The chief places a meaty palm on Malcolm’s shoulder, his firm grip steadying. “We need you sharp.” Sighing, he steps back. “I’ve got a press conference in five. Cloar will brief you.”
Cloar, a force veteran of an age with the chief, leads Malcolm toward the draped body. “Forensics did a back-of-the-napkin estimate. They think a third of our victims were killed by falling debris or collapsing structures. But they also think the creatures directly killed two-thirds of the deceased. They have the same puncture wounds on their torsos. But a few . . .” He pauses. “A few got special attention.”
Cloar nods to two police officers standing next to a young man in a coroner’s jacket. The closer officer swallows, visibly steeling herself. Her partner shifts, subtly angling his body to keep the corpse out of his line of sight as she folds back the cloth. Her face is stoic as she stands, gaze on the horizon. Only the coroner joins Malcolm and the deputy in observing the body.
It’s a teenager. She has four puncture wounds in her basketball pyjamas, the blood dried to a crisping black. But it’s her straight dark hair and brown eyes that freeze Malcolm’s guts. She could be Anna, he thinks, grateful his stomach is empty. She could have died, and I wouldn’t have known until it was too late.
“Her name was Marissa Chang,” Cloar says as the officer respectfully covers the dead girl’s face. “Witness reports say the creatures chased her down.”
Malcolm tries to speak, but only a gasping sound comes out of his throat.
The deputy takes out his phone and flips to his photos. He hands the device to Malcolm, pointing to a condo building on the horizon. “I’ve got two more just like her outside that condo tower.”
Malcolm stares at the photo, which shows a blond teenager with long, skinny arms in a pink Hello Kitty nightshirt lying on a patch of grass, her chest heavily punctured.
“Megan Kolpak.” Malcolm’s barely taken her in when the deputy reaches over and flips to another photo of a boy face down on a sidewalk, clad in green pyjama pants, the same puncture wounds visible in his back. “Asan Ghanei.”
Malcolm stares at the wrenching image, remembering the texture of his son’s hair between his fingers that morning. “God have mercy on them,” he murmurs. “And their parents.”
“All students at Oasis Alternative High,” Cloar tells him. “Beyond that, we don’t understand the connection. I’ve got people interviewing the families and canvassing the area for security footage. Our working theory, however, is this was a second attack. The first seems to have been stealthier. Remember the three South Asian kids who died out in the Beaches on Sunday night? Same injuries, same pattern of leaving the house in the dark.”
Anna! Malcolm’s mind screams, thinking of the grotesque thing hidden in the garage. They came for Anna, too.
“But that’s not why the chief called you.” Cloar moves away from the other officers. Struggling to stay impassive, Malcolm follows. “Witness reports say someone else fought back and”—he gestures at the white tents—“did that. We’re looking for a woman dressed in black. Whoever she is, she has more answers than we do. Brenda Edwards fell assisting her, and someone with a police vest carried her from the scene.” He looks Malcolm square in the eye; Malcolm’s stomach turns in a squirming flip. “I’m leading the task force to find them. I want you on it.”
No. No. This cannot be happening. Malcolm stares at the deputy’s exhausted face while the world seems to lurch around him. I’m going to get fired. “Me?” he manages when it’s clear Cloar expects an answer. “I’m not Homicide anymore, sir. Wouldn’t they be more qualified?”
“Son, no one’s qualified for this mess.” The deputy leans in. “But the chief needs answers fast. The army’s going to be called up. We need to know what happened before they get here.” Cloar’s hand falls on Malcolm’s shoulder with the weight of a boulder. “I need lateral thinkers. The chief personally recommended you.”
Malcolm swallows. “Yes, sir,” he says. “Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll take you to see the kills,” Cloar says. “We can’t photograph or film them, even dead. The physics prof we hauled out of bed over at the university can’t explain it. But seeing the corpses will help you see how dangerous our vigilante could be.”
Dangerous? Malcolm follows him toward the tents. Anna, what have you dragged us into?
Chapter 11
Anna — Muffins
Toronto, ON: Tuesday, August 19
Anna opens her eyes. Her bedroom ceiling fan whirls gently overhead. Despite the room’s warmth, there’s a duvet tucked under her chin. I’m home, she thinks, surprised.
The pale curtains over the bedroom’s bay window aren’t fully drawn. Between the thick cracks, a familiar pattern of light and shadow splashes across the bed, walls, and ceiling, cast by the swaying evergreens outside. She’s incredibly hungry, but the idea of getting up is also overwhelming. Instead, Anna drifts as she watches the dance of light, her sense of time spinning slow and long, like she’s swallowed a couple of cannabis candies.
“Mommy?” Erin appears in the doorway. There’s a reddish stain—jam?—down one side of her blue pyjama shirt. She turns bright, inquisitive eyes on her mother. “I’m hungry.”
“Me, too. What time is it?” The clock reads 11:43 a.m. I was supposed to meet Walter at ten!
Anna sits upright, the words to ask Erin where her father is and why no one woke her on her tongue, when the night comes rushing back: the garage, the burning city, Jason, the skyworms, Edwards, the dead teenager, Kalos—everything. She stares at her five-year-old daughter, her mouth hanging open, unable to articulate the thousand thoughts cascading through her head. I touched xhen. I killed skyworms. And they killed all those people. How many died?
Erin meets her flummoxed gaze. “I want pancakes, Mommy,” she says after a moment. “Can you make some? Please?”
“Yes,” Anna manages, trying to compartmentalize her wild thoughts and slow the frantic beat of her heart. “Give me a hug.”
Instantly, Erin flings herself onto the bed and scrambles over the duvet. Small hands wrap themselves around Anna’s neck. Erin’s knee thuds against her left side as she wiggles closer. Pain flares along Anna’s torso. She grunts. “Sorry, Mommy.” Erin starts to pull away.
“It’s okay.” Anna holds her daughter close and rests her chin on top of Erin’s head, inhaling the familiar smell of baby shampoo, Cheerios, and milk. If she closes her eyes, she can remember how it felt to hold Erin as a baby, to feel that soft, trusting weight against her body. With her child in her arms, the battle is a distant nightmare.
Until the dead teenager’s face pops back into Anna’s mind. I was too late. She shudders. Were you like me? Did Kalos train you, too? Are there more of you?
Erin squirms. “Too tight!”
“Sorry.” Anna lets go. Erin slides down to the floor. Anna starts to follow her, but when her calf flexes, a swift, stabbing pain claws up her leg. “Go ask Tim if he’s hungry, too,” she manages, struggling to keep the distress from her voice. “I’ll be down in a sec.”
“Okay.” Erin scampers down the hall. A moment later, her feet pound their usual furious rhythm down the hardwood stairs. “Tiiiiiiiim,” she calls. “Are you hungrrry?”
Anna flips the duvet back. There’s a wide bandage wrapped around her right leg. The wounds on her hands and side are clean; her deeper scrapes are bandaged.
Malcolm, she thinks with gratitude and apprehension. How do I explain what happened? Will he forgive me for leaving? How did he find me downtown? She has no idea.
“Mommy!” Erin calls from downstairs. “Are you coming?”
“Yes, let me get changed!” Anna slides her legs off the bed. Tentatively, she stands. The stabbing pulses, and white haze lines the edges of her vision. It eases as she shifts her weight to the other leg. I’ll manage.
In their en suite, she finds a sopping clump of torn fabric in the shower. The small room reeks; bandage wrappers litter the blue and white floor tiles. There’s a tiny chunk of metal on the back of the toilet, which she guesses came out of her leg. It’s smaller than she feared. She wrings water from what’s left of her clothes and throws them in the garbage with the wrappers, tying the bag shut to contain the smell, leaving the metal fragment. Proof for Jason when he comes. She expects the thought of him to sting as much as her insides do as she carefully sits down on the toilet, but her awareness is factual. Kalos can deal with him.
Her stomach rumbles as she washes her face and dresses in jean shorts and a T-shirt, running a brush through her hair before stuffing her phone into her back pocket. Anna glances in the bedroom mirror, some part of her expecting a change. Something in the set of her eyes, perhaps, or the lines of her mouth. Some confirmation of what’s happened. But it’s just her face, eyes shadowed from her late night and pillow creases on her cheek. The scar on my leg will have to do. Sighing, she pops a couple painkillers and goes downstairs.
In the kitchen, a second wave of more intense hunger twists her belly. Anna rummages through the cupboards for something high in protein and finds a jar of almonds. She eats them in handfuls as she assembles the ingredients for pancakes. There’s half a pot of cold coffee on the counter, too. She drinks its remnants as she cooks, not bothering to heat it in the microwave, and welcomes the ensuing buzz of caffeine.
Once the table is set and the children are eating, Anna devours three large banana pancakes with sliced strawberries and maple syrup. She chases that with yet more coffee, hot this time, which she swallows in four scalding gulps. She cradles her empty mug, which bears a hand-painted daisy that Tim gave her for Mother’s Day, and watches the children eat, wishing she’d made more food. When they rush back to their blanket fort in the playroom, Anna shamelessly cleans the food from their plates.
How am I still hungry? She sits back in her chair, listening to the babble of their voices. The house seems too normal. She touches her leg dressing. Pain flashes through her body. You didn’t dream it, the throb insists. It happened.
A moment later, her phone chimes with a text. It’s from Walter Delal:
