by Ben Farthing
He rounded the corner around the cement foundation to see the wrought iron staircase ahead.
Here, away from the spider-lamps, the phosphorescent constellations were visible again. Purple and blue stars glowed above. Or below. He wanted to believe it was something painted on a high ceiling, but he knew it was probably some glowing fungus on the floor of a cavern.
He avoided looking at the edges of the light. Something moved in the darkness, and he wasn't interested in discovering what.
He wondered if he dug into the ground right here, would he break through to the green lawn of the Mall? He doubted it. Six inches of dirt couldn't hold up museums and monuments. Something weirder was going, and millions of people up there had no idea.
He approached the staircase. His heart roared in his chest. The reality he knew was just a few feet away.
A young woman blocked the stairs, a baby on her hip, struggling to fold up a stroller with one hand. "I'm sorry, but you could help me?"
Everard didn't want to spend another second down here, but her stroller was in the way, and he couldn't just push past it. He took a deep breath.
"Sure." He set down George's carrier to take the stroller. He fumbled with it until it clicked into position.
"Oh, thank you," she said, then looked at him, wide-eyed. "I know you. You're..."
"Nope," said Everard. "I'm not."
"But you look just-"
"No," he said, frustrated. "I don't." He felt a slight tinge in his gut, like when the Perforated Woman had dropped her weapon. He got a sense of thick, heavy atmosphere pressing down around him, and then his mind muscled through it.
"I guess you don't." She tilted her head. "Must be the cat."
"People keep saying that. Doesn't anyone else own cats around here?"
"They don't usually carry them around."
That was fair.
"Although I never saw him use a cage. Anyways, thanks for your help." She took the folded up stroller back, then went down the stairs.
Everard started to follow, relief coursing through him, then heard someone say: "coward."
Fury flashed in his gut. There was a difference between running away because you were afraid, and leaving when you were in over your head. He looked around, ready to give someone a piece of his mind.
An elderly couple walked toward the stairs, but they were too far away to have said it.
He lifted the carrier. "Was that you?" he asked George.
"I'm not a coward," whined another voice behind Everard.
Two hooded figures stood in the shadow of the cement foundation. The protesters. They must have thought Everard was already gone, and they were alone.
"Why didn't you help us? Don't you care about Ryker?"
"You didn't need me. And what if the NSA grabbed us?"
Everard didn't know who they were talking about, but he found himself siding with the accused. If someone else had things under control, why get involved? Unless you were the only one who could. Regardless, he hated cowardice. If you let other people bully you away from what you wanted, you'd live a sad, pathetic life.
"Shut up. We'll see what Eddie says about you bailing on us. And I can't imagine what Ryker will say once we get her out."
The teenagers slinked out of the shadows, toward the stairs, then froze when they saw Everard still standing there.
"For what it's worth," Everard said, "I'm not whoever I look like."
They lowered their heads and brushed by him down the stairs.
Everard stood with one hand on the iron railing, thinking.
Coward.
It wasn't cowardice. It was being smart.
He didn't sign up to get involved with this supernatural shit.
But he'd told Bill Bill about Abby. And if they'd tapped his phone then they knew about Liz. If he ran away, the Burgesses would doubtless go after them.
He squeezed the cold railing.
He hadn't felt this unsettled since he walked into Liz's hospital room, fifteen years ago. The day he disappeared from the foster care system.
No more abusive, high school dropout parents. No more well-meaning, sterile foster parents. No more cheery social worker, fighting harder to hold on to enthusiasm than to actually do his job well.
Fourteen-year-old Everard had a best friend—or maybe a girlfriend, depending on how you looked at it—named Liz. Liz had a stutter, so she got bullied by a senior with cigarette burns on her arms who took out her frustrations in the weight room and on freshmen. Everard kept Liz safe. But then Mr. Social Worker said it was time to go stay with another family, and maybe this time try to see them as his family, not as temporary roommates. Everard explained that he had to protect Liz, but Mr. Social Worker didn't listen, so Everard moved and two days later Cigarette Burns shoved Liz in the locker room, and Liz's head connected with a blue Master Lock combination dial, which caused a large amount of external and internal bleeding, and suddenly ten years of cognitive development disappeared.
When Everard heard, he stole his new foster parents' keys and drove to the hospital. Liz was thrilled to see him, but it was the look of a toddler excited about a plate of cookies. He left without saying a word, ignoring the wordless shouts and sobs behind him. Mr. Social Worker had never shared his personal address, so Everard drove to the foster care office, threw a brick through the front window, then lit a fire in a trashcan which evidently jumped to a curtain and then the rest of the building.
"Coward!" he'd screamed, more at himself than anyone else.
If Everard had stood firm, if he'd told Mr. Social Worker to shove it, then Liz would be home working on geometry homework, not sitting in a hospital bed, wondering why everyone looked so sad, and looking forward to tomorrow's Looney Toons marathon.
It was years before he worked up the courage to find Liz and rekindle their friendship, this time as a sort of older brother.
He should never have accepted Mr. Social Worker's authority. He shouldn't have accepted that the only option was obeying.
There was always another option.
Everard had run. He couldn't keep the car or they'd find him, so he pushed it off a bridge into the James River. When the cops pulled it up, they assumed he was dead, a mistake he never bothered correcting. Instead, he started calling himself Everard, and learned to work the system when you weren't technically a part of it. He could walk away any given day, and no one would know who he was.
Except now someone did, and that someone didn't follow the same rules of reality as everyone else.
Everard leaned against the iron post.
He wanted to go home and watch baseball, enjoy his time off. That wasn't an option.
He could cut town. It wouldn't be hard to restart his business anywhere he went. New York had a certain elitist appeal, attracting the sort of people eager to pay for high-end finish carpentry.
Coward.
If these Burgesses had been watching his house, they probably knew about Abby. Maybe even knew about Liz. What would Abby do against the Perforated Woman when she came questioning? He didn't want to imagine Liz panicked and shrieking at the two-tongued man.
Cutting town wasn't an option.
But if he didn't get away, the Burgesses could tip off his existence to the authorities, and bring his whole life crumbling down.
He stared down the staircase, to the street above. This underground pocket of D.C.—this nook, as Lucy had called it—loomed around him like an expectant audience, holding its breath in anticipation.
There was always another option.
The Burgesses wanted something from him. So Everard would have to convince them that they didn't.
He turned around, patted the Ruger under his waistband. He could deal with freaks. And he could deal with whoever the Burgesses were. He'd keep his life, and keep Abby and Liz out of it.
When he thought about it, the phosphorescent glow from above gave the white, stringy grass a pleasant color.
That town meeting was probably stil
l going on. Lucy said the Burgesses would be there. He'd drop in, make a scene, force them to tell him what they wanted. Lucy made them sound like some kind of embattled political authority in this freakshow, so he was willing to gamble they'd hate any kind of negative attention worse than he did.
Everard headed back toward the marketplace, his planning drowning out his fear.
Chapter Six
INTERLUDE
Three hundred miles outside the city, both to the northeast and southwest, two ancients feel a lure.
It's an insulting wrongness that draws them, a pulsating, slowing heartbeat, only reversed, accelerating into a maddening boom boom boom. To each, the thrumming sounds like the other, a counterfeit heartbeat like a duck call or doe urine. For centuries, they have existed, hunted, haunted, ignoring the other, leaving a buffer, a no-man's-land only populated by the new, soft prey. But now, each hears a threat from the other, and neither will permit such an offense. They move towards the boom, towards their imagined challenger.
One comes from the northeast, this divine error of evolution, hunter of the lost, eater of hands, long ago genocidal slaughterer of its peers. It is bats' wings and Satan's hooves propelling a thousand pounds of primeval force. It is lanky arms and a mangy tail. Feasting on flesh and reveling in fear, it hunts with blurred speed and behemoth strength. Those poor victims who become its meals see only a flash of ebony wings or the dull yellow of sharp fangs, if they see anything before it feeds. The breath of its snout has fogged the windows of countless cowering children, the razor edge of its antlers has rent them from their parents. It is terror, it is alpha.
It leaves its evening of stalking, one moment a silhouette against the trees, then a wind across the grass and a silent intruder in a home locked up tight.
Soaring past the stiff winged metal creations of the new, soft prey, it hears the slow pulsing, senses the encroachment on neutral territory that is really a farce. It is the apex predator of this reality, and it will not be intimidated, not even by that immigrant from elsewhere, that cowardly confusing hunter that doesn't belong, that twists earth and prey until nothing belongs.
The apex leaps into the sky, spreads its wings.
South.
Southwest of the city, another hears, it that doesn't belong, the oft-glimpsed mourning god, runt outcast of its species and mourning ruler of the blue hills. Fled from a distant corner of ethereal, incomprehensible existence to this new corner of coal veins and conifers, of poverty and pride. There it is king, as man is king of the insects: ignorant, uninterested until his fancy strikes.
Banished from its plane, it mourns in a magnitude and substance beyond man's primal emotions, just as man's sorrow is incomprehensible to his own insect subjects.
This earth has become its refuge, but it offends sanity, ignoring faith and physics.
It howls and moves from treetop to nightmare, from mirror to mineshaft, from winged, antennaed figure glimpsed in foglights, to garbled voice of the asemic divine, drifting up from the rusty drain.
Tonight it is warning a woman lonely on meth and Jesus, speaking to her from the trusses over the river called Gauley, comparing her sorrows to its own, but she hears only the rip between breaths, sees only compound eyes and powdery wings that fill the night sky to block out hope and stars.
Over her screams, it hears the offensive pulse, the threats from the hubristic bully of this weak reality. In the booms, it senses the other moving south to claim what is not its own. It must counter, refuse to allow the lesser being larger territory. That primitive beast would only slaughter and devour these beings, before they ever have a chance to understand true sadness.
It abandons the woman to contemplate loss, to spend her few remaining days in madness.
High above, a migrating V of mallards sees the predator yank itself out of reality. They grrt panic; an unseen hunter is not hungry long.
But their fear subsides as it moves north, flying, running, swimming toward its destination, then pulling the pocket of existence that holds its destination toward itself. It swings from treetop to starlight, swoops through a cellar door to glitch into a cement and rebar wall, then slips along a busy highway. It takes the most direct path available, a route seen only by its kind, although its kind has long since abandoned this corner and this king. Those unfortunate, open-minded ones who see its journey catch only a glimpse, a flash, a shadow, and feel something like loneliness, if that could describe the weight of being crushed by a cold, dead star.
The two hunters move to converge, each perceiving the other as aggressor, one flying lightning quick, one traveling in a way only comprehensible to itself, both toward the source of the signal: the city of wealth and waste, of fear and promises, of tradition and rebellion.
Chapter Seven
He still got a few odd looks as he retraced his steps. He tried to ignore all the impossible shit that filled the market. As he passed the reflecting pool again, the crowd grew, shuffling towards the square. The buildings thinned out. A crew of street performers entertained passers-by with a melody of fife and synthesizer. Before them, a girl danced with jerking, then flowing movements. She leapt into the air and lingered there a second longer than gravity should have allowed.
Further on, a voice like a drill instructor turned auctioneer rose above the drone of the crowd. "You filthy botflies think they're paying you well enough here? You'll make five times your current salary overseas right now!"
Everard located the voice. A goateed man in desert fatigues stood on a table, luring people to military men with clipboards and informational brochures.
"And you'll be doing good while you're at it. Doesn't matter what your bent is. Last week I wrote checks to a lunamancer, a bale shem, and a dozen other benters on my crew. Hell, my best sharpshooter is an altruist. If you've got guts, I'll put you to work. You better believe the United States Armed Forces pays a pretty penny for our services."
A few college-aged kids heckled the military recruiters as they passed.
Another structure came into view, the foundation to the Lincoln Memorial, somehow supporting the above building despite the openness around it here.
The ground dipped down into an ampitheater, curved seating facing a stage that backed up to an inverted stone and cement foundation.
People filled most of the stone benches already, but more pushed in. Everard joined them, passing an LED sign that read "Tonight: Public Meeting. Tomorrow: Wicked."
Two groups of men argued on stage. One of them had to be the Burgesses.
Everard tried to find an empty seat, but instead found himself face to face with a perturbed puppet.
"I thought you didn't leave your house," said the puppet. "That's why you turned down Undone Duncan's gracious offer."
Everard examined the masked man who he'd first taken to be a puppet. A fabric mask clung tightly to his face, mimicking the color skin. It was lined with stitches, like the skin of the men who'd chased him down here. He looked like one of the regular people on The Muppet Show had melded with one of the Muppets.
Around them, people squeezed against each other for seats, politely shoving aside anyone in their way. They all gave the puppet-man a wide berth.
The men argued on the amphitheater stage, and Everard thought he heard them mention the Burgesses, but the stranger in his face demanded his attention.
"Which is it?" The puppet-man sounded like he was chewing on cotton balls. "Do you leave your house or not?"
Everard wanted to answer. The thing was, the puppet-man's mask was extremely distracting. It was pulled snug to his face, hugging every contour and crease, the material made up of thousands of minuscule, curled fibers. It looked a lot like carpet.
"Stop staring at me, freak," said Puppet-man.
The absurdity that Everard was the freak helped him find his voice. "I leave my house all the time. I'm not your guy."
The toughness he meant to exude dissipated as someone bumped him and knocked him off balance.
The puppet-man laughed. "Good thing you always land on your feet, huh?"
"Really," said Everard, pushing past him, "go bother someone else."
A rough hand grabbed his forearm, synthetic fiber scratching his skin. Puppet-man wore gloves woven from the same fabric as his mask, stretched back under his shirtsleeves. "The boss said to bring you in gentle, so that's what I'll try to do."
Everard jerked his arm.
Carrying lumber and swinging a hammer all day left Everard stronger than your average D.C. resident. Plus, this wasn't a bodybuilder strong, where he could mainly apply his strength in stiff, slow-twitch, weightroom motions. He was country-strong, as he'd heard Bill Bill call it once. His muscles had developed to be used.
Which made it all the more surprising when Puppet-man's grip didn't budge.
"You're gonna let me be gentle, aren't you?" Puppet-man's smile showed in his eyes. The carpet-mask pulled back to reveal a glimpse of muscle and sinew between his eye and temple.
Everard jerked away again, this time involuntarily. The guy had open wounds under the mask. He gave Puppet-man a more thorough look. The fabric of the mask extended down his neck, and the gloves reached up his forearms out of sight. Had he wrapped his whole body in fabric, like those burn victims in cheap movies? Was it all open wounds? Everard imagined the scratchy fibers holding in his own insides.
George let out a slow rowl.
"Do what I say," said Puppet-man, "and everything will be just fine."
Belligerence drowned out Everard's revulsion. "Let go of my arm." Burn victim or not, he didn't like people trying to force him to do anything.
A few heads turned. This conflict happening on the steps was even more interesting than the argument on stage. Those closest tried to scoot away from the stairs.
Puppet-man didn't like the attention. "Keep it quiet if you want to get to Undone Duncan in one piece."
"I don't take orders from freaks," said Everard, louder. But that name, Undone Duncan. That father/son Revolutionary War dressup duo had said the Perforated Woman worked for him.