by Jerry Hart
Curtis peeked into the car through the passenger-side window and saw a pair of bright blue eyes staring back at him. The window lowered and Curtis saw the shiny metal face the eyes belonged to.
He was staring at a robot. The surprised just kept coming. The robot was wearing a brown fedora and trench coat.
And now Curtis noticed the driver. It was the blonde from the park.
“Where’s Nikki?” he asked Curtis.
“I don’t know.”
“I thought they were with you,” the blonde said, a little worried.
“They were, but I lost them in the woods. I waited for them in town, but they never showed up.”
The blonde punched his steering wheel. “Damn her! I’ll bet she went back.”
“What do we do now? I’m not going back there, I’ll tell you that right now.”
The blonde sat there for a moment, thinking. Then, he said, “No, we’re not going back. I doubt any more zombies will show up there, though.”
“How can you be sure?” Curtis asked uneasily.
“They only showed up because of this.” Blondie held up a polished dark-red bowling ball.
“What the hell is that?”
“I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to get out of here. I think you should go home now.”
Curtis was about to agree when it suddenly hit him how he knew the guy.
“Do you know a girl named Alyssa Turner?”
The blonde flinched and his mouth hung open for a moment. Then, he said, “Yes. What about her?”
“Oh, nothing. I just realized I remembered you from somewhere. Your name is Owen, right?”
“Yeah. You’re Curtis, aren’t you? You’re friends with David Hernandez. I know him, too.”
Now it was Curtis’s turn to flinch. This guy must not have known about David’s death.
“Like I said,” Owen said after a moment’s silence, “you should go home. You’re not safe with me. Good luck and...I’m sorry. About everything.”
Curtis nodded and backed away from the car. Owen peeled out and sped down the lonely stretch of highway with his robot.
Tonight is so messed up, Curtis thought. And then he remembered what Nikki had told him when he met her and was told about Marco’s death.
He was murdered by the same man who killed David, she’d said. But it was what she said next that struck him. In fact, there’s someone here I think you should talk to.
Had she meant Owen or the creepy-looking guy? If the latter, then Curtis would’ve just forgotten the whole thing and gone home. But something told him she had been referring to Owen.
Curtis hopped in his truck and followed the boy and his robot, and judging by the direction they were going, it looked like their destination would be San Sebastian.
Chapter 28. Return to San Sebastian
Patrick was grateful to be home. He closed the door to his apartment and sat down on his recliner. Toby, his black-and-white tabby cat, hopped into his lap. He patted him gently. After a hard day, coming home to him made it better.
The past twenty-four hours had been hellish. Finding the damaged SUV (which he now knew for a fact belonged to Alyssa Turner) had just been the start of it. That was where he also found little Toby, adopting him after finding out he’d belonged to murder victim David Hernandez. Then there was Daniel Hudson’s death, which was still unexplained.
The icing on the cake, however, had to be the parking garage that had collapsed a few blocks away from Daniel and Alyssa’s condo. When he and the other officers showed up to block off the area, they had been met by a few curious bystanders. These citizens, however, had been a strange bunch.
There had been nearly twenty of them, all ranging in age and race. All of them had blank expressions and seemed completely directionless. Most, if not all, looked like they had just woken up. Patrick had had to get a little forceful with some of them, for they kept insisting on approaching the rubble. Finally, after a few threats of arrest, everyone seemed to come out of whatever stupor they had been in and dispersed, scratching their heads in confusion. Patrick had heard a few people ask each other where they were and how they had gotten there.
Then there was the old woman, the one who had attacked him in her apartment. That was strange by itself, but Patrick had the even stranger notion that the woman had been dead before he even showed up. That would mean he’d been attacked by a zombie....
That couldn’t be true, though. Could it?
Only in San Sebastian, folks, he thought with a nervous grin. Plus, Halloween’s a few weeks away.
He tried to put such troubling thoughts from his mind. His weariness aided in that task. And then he fell asleep.
* * *
Calhoun Street was only a block away. Owen parked as close as he could and he and D walked the rest of the way. Montleroy Estates, the condo that was his former home, had its own indoor garage, but it was difficult to get in and out of; Owen wanted a clear exit if he wound up needing to leave quickly.
He saw the cream-colored building that was Montleroy Estates. The place had been swarming with cops a day earlier. Not wanting to risk going through the lobby, Owen and the robot hopped the security gate that led into the garage. From there, they took an elevator to the top floor.
His door was blocked off by yellow police tape. He and D walked through it and entered their dark, cold abode. The place reeked of blood. Owen ran back out to the hallway. The memory of Daniel’s body, lying in a pool of his own blood, came rushing back to him, and it was overwhelming.
D stood just inside, his shiny blue eyes staring out at Owen. He took a deep breath; he was here for a reason, and he needed to prepare for the trip he was about to take. He had to get out of the city.
Owen stepped back inside.
After closing the door, the condo was plunged into darkness. Owen turned on a light. He went to the armory and immediately saw the white outline of Daniel’s body on the floor. There was no doubt that the police had confiscated all the weapons they could find the night they raided the place, but Owen knew about the tricks up Daniel’s sleeves.
Running to the far corner of the room, Owen lifted the carpet and saw a rectangular box sitting in a hole in the wood cut specifically for it. He lifted the box out of the floor and opened it. Inside were thirty Busters and a plastic bag full of trackers. Busters were midnight-blue baseball-sized bombs and the trackers were tiny white capsules with locator crystals inside that dissolved in liquids.
He took the whole box with him. On his way out of the armory, he grabbed a flashlight. Then he saw something small and blue lying on the floor. It was a Rejecter.
Daniel’s Rejecter.
The Rejecters were the red cousins to the Busters. They weren’t bombs so much as little balls of bottled-up energy waiting to be released. Not as deadly as the Busters, but still pretty dangerous. Owen picked it up and stared at it. It hadn’t been used yet. Since Owen had used his on Eric, and Chris on the brothers, that only left two. The one that was missing was Alyssa’s.
He ran upstairs to his room and grabbed a fresh change of clothes from his closet. After wearing the same thing for two days, he felt greasy. He also smelled pretty bad. He started the shower and hopped in. Feeling he could be discovered any second, he decided to make the shower short. When he was done, he put on a brown T-shirt and some jeans. Now he felt so much better.
He grabbed a backpack and dumped the contents of the box in there along with extra clothes. He then stuffed the orb into the pack, hoping the clothes would provide proper padding.
As Owen sat on his bed, he realized he was packing in order to go to a destination not yet known to him. Where could he possibly go? There was no way he was going back to Nikki’s, even if she herself had returned. He couldn’t bring himself to look upon the faces of the people he’d killed in the park.
Murderer, a voice in his head whispered.
Owen tried to tell himself that it wasn’t he who had killed them. It was the Ferris wheel. It
had collapsed because of the zombies—they killed themselves.
It doesn’t matter, the voice told him. They weren’t the last. You’ll kill again and then claim it was an accident, or self-defense. You’ll keep blaming everyone but yourself.
Owen pushed the voice away and again thought about where he could go. He couldn’t stay here at the condo—it was a crime scene. Noticing how dark and quiet the place was, in contrast to how bright and noisy it used to be, brought on a sudden pain that he wasn’t prepared for at that very moment. He leaned forward, arms locked in front of his stomach, and cried. He cried loud and long, not caring if anyone heard.
After a few minutes, he stopped and wiped his eyes. He hadn’t cried like that in a long time. He felt a little better to have gotten some of that pent-up anxiety out his system, but after a moment, he was again faced with the question of where he could go.
Suddenly he thought of Cullen Matthews, his childhood best friend. Owen hadn’t talked to him in two years, ever since running away. He had always thought of contacting Cullen while here in San Sebastian, but he could never bring himself to actually do it. His brief stay with the Matthews had been such a strange affair; Owen barely remembered it. Everything was vague, as if he had been drunk the entire time.
And then he thought of his own home. The answer had been in front of him the entire time, but he’d chosen to ignore it.
He had to go back home.
Nikki told him his father had built the orb, which was hard to believe, but could also be true. If he wanted to find out the truth, he had to go back.
After a minute, he decided it was time to go back to his hometown of Birch. He zipped up the backpack and stood. He grabbed a gray hoodie from the floor before leaving his room. When he headed back downstairs, he saw something he didn’t expect to see. Standing in the living room, staring up at him, was Daniel Hudson.
And he was alive.
* * *
Doug Hudson stood in the living room of the condo he’d only visited once, back when his brother was still alive. The first thing he noticed, regrettably, was the puddle of blood in the room to his left. He could see it perfectly from where he stood. He was about to walk into the room when he heard footsteps. His heart quickened in fear.
On the stairs stood a blond-haired kid in a brown shirt and jeans, a black backpack slung over his shoulder. At first, Doug thought it was a squatter, trying to take up residence in a newly vacated piece of property.
But then the stranger became more familiar to him. Doug had seen him before. The one time he had visited the place, the blonde had been here.
His name was Owen.
Doug had come up with a plan to get as much information about his brother’s death as he could. Obviously the police knew nothing, and Doug refused to believe his brother was associated with terrorism.
The answers had to be at the place Daniel called home. Doug hadn’t been sure what to even look for, but he figured he’d know it when he saw it.
“Oh my god,” Owen muttered, fear etched on his face. “Daniel?”
“What happened to my brother?” Doug asked, ignoring Owen’s shocked appearance.
Owen went from shocked to confused. And then recognition dawned on him. “Doug?”
Doug nodded. He wasn’t sure what to feel at the moment. He had come to the condo angry, ready to place blame on anyone but his brother. Now, upon seeing Owen’s saddened expression, Doug felt pity for him. Daniel had been a pretty good judge of character, and he’d considered Owen and the others his friends.
“What happened to my brother?” Doug asked again, less angrily.
Owen slowly descended the stairs, meeting Doug at the bottom. “I’m so sorry,” Owen said. “He was murdered. A guy named Michael came in here and killed him. But I killed Michael.”
Doug was speechless. He wasn’t expecting him to be so blunt. He was expecting the kid to dance around the question, to answer his question with another question; perhaps not even answer it at all. But he did answer, and Doug believed him. He felt better and worse for it.
“You killed him?” Doug asked, causing Owen to look shocked and disgusted. “My brother’s murderer, I mean.”
Owen calmed down and nodded. “Yeah. At least, I think so. He looked dead. And it was really Chris who did it. Michael’s brother took his body and left before I could really tell. I’m sorry, Doug.”
Doug nodded and looked around the condo again. The destruction was significant: the massive hole in the wall in the room where his brother died; shattered glass from the windows; a hole in the ceiling (he could just barely see this from where he stood).
“What the hell happened?” Doug asked.
“A battle,” Owen said, looking around himself. “The crap really hit the fan once Chris and I got here.”
“Where is Chris?” Doug suddenly remembered the older brunette, Chris Weaver.
Owen stood silently for a while, then said, “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”
Doug saw the look on Owen’s face and decided not to press it. Suddenly something else walked into the room with them. It stood six feet tall, had shiny electric-blue eyes, and was wearing a trench coat and fedora. Words failed Doug.
“That’s D,” Owen said. “Your brother built him.”
“Built?”
“That’s a robot,” Owen said with a smile, pointing to the newcomer.
Doug slowly approached the robot as if afraid it might bite. He couldn’t see much of it because of the coat, but its face was clearly robotic: a milky white plastic shell with circuitry inside.
“I call him Daniel,” Doug heard Owen say. He turned around and stared at Owen, not comprehending. “His name,” Owen said, pointing at the robot, “was originally D-18—Daniel Eighteen—but I like ‘Daniel’ better, or D. I hope you don’t mind.”
Doug wasn’t sure if he minded. It took all his willpower not to cry at that moment. This was all too much.
A knock on the front door spun the two of them around. Standing there was a young African American guy. His clothes were covered in dirt. He was looking from Doug to Owen.
“Curtis?” Owen said in shock. “What are you doing here?”
“I followed you,” Curtis said. “We need to talk.”
“About what? I told you to go home.”
Curtis stepped into the condo, waving absently at Doug. “Nikki told me to talk to you about my friend Marco.”
Owen shook his head, uncomprehending. “I don’t know him.”
“He’s dead,” Curtis said. “She said he was killed by the same guy who killed David Hernandez. You know him.”
Owen thought for a moment, then nodded. “Michael killed David.” He looked to Doug. “He also killed Alyssa and your brother.”
This was too much information for Doug to take in such a short amount of time. He sat down on the soft couch behind him.
“Michael?” Curtis asked, scratching his head. “You mean that weird redhead?”
Owen nodded.
“And Nikki knew that?” Curtis asked.
“There isn’t much she doesn’t know.”
“So she’s the real deal? She’s an actual psychic?”
“She doesn’t like to be called that,” Owen said with a grin.
“Well, besides the fact they were all killed by the same person, why would Nikki want me to talk to you about it?” Curtis asked.
Owen sat down at the other end of the couch from Doug and pondered the question. “For all I know, Michael is out of the picture. Maybe she just wanted us to know the connection.”
Curtis shook his head. “She already told me the connection. She told me that the guy who killed David also killed Marco. She made it sound really important that I talk to you.”
“Alyssa’s dead?” Doug asked after his long silence. Owen looked at him and nodded. Alyssa, that cute little brunette that Daniel clearly had a crush on? Dead? Doug just couldn’t picture it. “Are you sure she’d dead?” he asked Owen. “You saw he
r die?”
“Yes, I—” Owen looked from Curtis to Doug. Then he jumped to his feet. “I don’t know where her body is, though.”
He looked at Curtis, and Curtis seemed to know where this was leading.
“You think wherever Alyssa is, Marco will be?” he asked.
“I’m almost positive of it,” Owen responded. “Now, where are they?”
“The last time I saw Marco,” said Curtis, “was at the arcade over near Fairington Drive. He was talking to Michael. Michael and Les were already there.”
“Who’s Les?” Owen asked.
“Les Huntington. Big guy, kinda goofy. He and Michael showed up at David’s party the other night.”
“I want to talk to this Les guy,” Owen said. “Do you know where he lives?”
“Right down the street from the arcade.”
“I guess that’s what Nikki wanted us to know,” Owen said.
“Why didn’t she just tell us?”
“Well, we did get attacked by zombies.”
“Zombies?” Doug suddenly asked in alarm.
“I’ll tell you about it later.” Owen smiled at him. “Let’s go.”
The four of them left the condo. Owen and D got into Owen’s car. Curtis got into his pickup, and Doug in his own car.
And in a dark alley a block away, a young man with curly brown hair watched, dark tears stained on his pale cheeks.
* * *
A thunderclap woke Patrick up. Toby was lying in his lap, looking up at him. He scratched the cat’s head absently. He slowly got up from his chair (Toby protested) and looked around. The living room was packed to the gills with electronics.
His most prized possession was his high-definition TV. A few game systems were littered around it. Unfortunately, due to his erratic work hours, he didn’t have much time for gaming. The systems were already gathering dust.