“It’s not a tr—”
Her eyes sliced his sentence off before he could get it all out. “I don’t care, Brick. What’s on the other side of this truck?”
His grin pulled across his face even tighter; firelight flickered in his slightly crazy eyes. “Just remember, I told you not to freak out.”
The drums found their beat again, the pounding not as loud, the rhythm not as urgent. Skid had read once that Mexican restaurants played up-tempo music to encourage patrons to eat faster so the tables could empty and refill. The earlier drums were at Mexican-restaurant pace; they were for battle. These drums were more at the pace of an Italian restaurant playing Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year.”
They won, Skid thought. They’re celebrating. No. The sound was all wrong. They’re mourning.
“What’s on the other side of this truck?” she said through clenched teeth, each word hard and sharp.
Brick leaned back to give Skid and Cord room to slink around and look. Cord lurched back and vomited near the back wheel of Humvee.
“You’re freaking out, Cord,” he said. “I told you not to.”
The light from the full moon showed Skid more than she wanted to see. The cold feeling burrowed deeper. The body, thick at the shoulders, narrow at the waist, with arms like back deck supports, was clad in a hardened leather shirt studded with rough iron bolts. Whatever the clothing, it couldn’t stop bullets. But it was the face that chilled her. She buried her hands into the grass, grabbed fistfuls and held them as tightly as she could to keep herself from falling over. The thing that lay in the stench of its own blood wasn’t human.
Deep, scarred lines crisscrossed the creature’s face, as if someone had tried to sew something back together it had never seen before. A piggish nose covered more of the face than it should, its ears pointed. But the still-open eyes nearly sent her running. The pupils, visible in the bright light of the moon, were horizontal rectangles, like the eyes of a goat.
“What the hell is this?” she asked, her voice weak, lost.
“It’s an orc,” Brick said from behind her.
Skid sat in the grass and leaned her back against the Humvee’s front tire, the corpse of the dead orc and fiery scene below now far away. But not far enough. Brick loomed over her, the scimitar in his fist. She didn’t like the look on his face.
“An orc. A sure-as-shit, Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons orc.” He pushed his muscular arms behind his back, cracking his shoulders, the blood-stained, chipped sword terrifying in his hand. “Listen, this is it. This, right here, is the reason my friend Mitch and I planned a trip into the sewers with machetes and flashlights during sophomore year. It’s the reason I didn’t go to prom senior year because it fell on D&D night. Orcs, guys. Real live orcs.”
Skid was pretty sure the amount of adrenalin pumping through Brick’s system right now would worry his doctor.
“This is what I dream about,” Brick said with a wink for her. “This is my time.”
The big man stepped over Cord, who sat by a puddle of vomit at the back of the vehicle, and unslung his explorer’s pack, dropping it onto Cord’s lap before he disappeared around the side. Skid leaned forward, trying to keep her eyes off the corpse of the orc, or whatever it was, and watched Brick. He darted through the grass and ducked as he reached the next Humvee. He looked back and gave thumbs up.
“He took the sword from the dead guy,” Cord said from behind her.
“So?”
“So, I played D&D in high school and I never understood why everyone was so eager to pillage bodies.” He’d crawled close and sat next to her, his back propped against the big tire. “I mean, whatever armor or magic ring or scimitar the dead guy had, it didn’t do him any good.”
Skid sat silently and watched Brick spring from the shadow of the overturned Humvee and rush the circle of orcs.
Damn it.
4
The Sanderson living room exploded into a cacophony of chatter. Some questions bounced around the room; others were thrown directly at Susan.
“What was it like living with a psycho?”
“What would you have done if you were here?”
“Do you bake pies?”
“Come on, people,” Tamara said, her words buried beneath the questions that had turned to shouts. She stepped into the middle of the room, her fingers pressing into her scalp. “Quiet,” she shouted, the room shushing to a series of unintelligible grumbles. “She didn’t come here to be attacked or make pies.” Tamara lowered her arms and faced Susan.
“I have only one question, Mrs. Meek,” Tamara asked. “Is that all right?”
Susan’s shoulders raised and dropped like they were pulled by a string. “I suppose.”
Tamara took a step toward her. “What are you going to do if you see him?”
The smile that grew on Susan Meek’s face sent a chill through Tamara. “That’s easy,” Susan said. “I’m going to kill him.”
5
“What’s he doing now?” Cord asked through what sounded to Skid like a mouthful of food. She turned her head away from the bloody scene on the other side of the truck to find Brick’s pack unzipped and open in Cord’s lap. Cord was eating something that looked like a piece of old boot.
“Look for yourself.” Skid crossed her arms and frowned at him. He ripped off another chunk and chewed the food like it didn’t want him to. “Didn’t you just throw up?”
“I don’t want to look for myself. I want you to tell me. I’m just waiting for the world to change again.” He moved the dried food to the other side of his mouth; Skid thought he looked like a dog with a strip of rawhide. “And yes, I just threw up. That’s why I’m hungry.”
He held the boot food toward Skid, who took it without hesitation.
“I got this out of Brick’s magic backpack. I think it’s jerky.” He dug through the open pack. “There’s also dried fruit in here and a box of Ding-Dongs. You want?”
Yeah, she did; all of it. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. “Later.”
Skid ripped a strip of jerky off with her teeth. The dried, seasoned meat was tough to chew but tasted semi-normal. She sat back against the Humvee, closed her eyes and chewed slowly, focusing on the act of eating. The drums, the monster, the world around her, the Adventure, none of it as important as the act of eating.
Cord ruined the moment. She figured he was probably good at that.
“Skid.” His voice shook, the tenor urgent. It didn’t sound like he’d found those Ding-Dongs. Cord slapped at her arm with the back of his hand. “Skid.”
Her eyes slid open. The orange glow from beyond the Humvee and the yellow glow from the mostly full moon bathed the world in soft light. Except in front of her, where a shadow loomed. Brick’s back.
“Hey, Brick,” she said before she saw what stood before her. Tall, metal-shod boots gave way to leather pants and a leather jerkin. The dried beef in Skid’s mouth dropped onto her shirt. This wasn’t Brick. The pig nose of the orc snorted, and the beast reared back, swinging a six-foot-long mattock.
Oh, no, she thought, then self-defense training kicked in.
Skid rolled and popped to her feet in one seamless motion, Brick’s tekpi in her left hand. The blunt side of the mattock thudded into the ground where she’d just been. A great divot of grass and sod flew up as the beast yanked the weapon back into the air. The monster bent low and roared, spittle and mucus spraying the grass.
A knife appeared in Skid’s right hand and she threw. It spun and struck the orc’s chest, the blade glancing off an iron peg in its leather mail. The knife disappeared into the darkness.
“Damn it.”
The orc roared and swung the mattock again. The great overhead arc came at her in slow motion. She hit the ground in another roll and popped up a few steps from the monster just as the head of the weapon hit the ground in a blow that would have crushe
d her. She waved her hands over her head as it started to lift the enormous bladed hammer again.
“Hey, hey, hey,” she shouted. Come on, Skid, she thought. What are you doing?
The orc snorted and glared at her, dropping the head of the mattock onto the ground, the blade side glowed orange in the nearby firelight. A grunt escaped the cruel, V-shape in its face; tusks protruded from either side.
“Hundur, mat nalt,” it said, the words vaguely Slavic. Then it grunted again, trailing off into a snort. It was laughing at her.
“Sure. You bet, asshole.”
All up to you, kiddo. The words kept playing themselves in her head like a bad song she couldn’t shake. All up to you. She started to reach for another knife when Cord’s voice reached her.
“Use the Ninja Turtle thingy,” he whispered from his huddle by the Humvee. The rest of his body apparently wasn’t interested in answering what his brain should have been telling him, which was to run.
Ninja Turtle thingy? The tekpi. All up to you. Yeah. It is.
She stood upright slowly. She didn’t want to give the orc a reason to raise its mattock again. It cocked its head like a dog as it watched her pull another throwing knife from her belt and aim it at Cord.
“That’s not what I meant,” Cord said, his voice sounding far away.
The orc’s head tilted the other way. It wants to know what I’m doing, Skid thought.
It’s what people think that matters, said the voice of Constantinople Phargus, operator of the Polar Ring Toss on The Roe Bros. Traveling Circus midway. This game is just giving them what they expect.
She hoped the old drunk was right.
Skid smiled as she hadn’t the night at the bar of Slap Happy’s Dance Club, the night she’d met Bud Light Dave and entered this nightmare. She turned to the side and, with the tekpi still in her right hand, whipped the throwing knife toward Cord. The point sank into the government rubber of the Humvee’s tire right next to Cord’s ear. He whimpered and closed his eyes.
I’m sorry. Skid bit her lower lip to hold in a scream.
The orc barked and slapped its leg with its free hand. This game is just giving them what they expect. Skid curtsied, feeling the beast’s eyes on her back, knowing it might want another show. You got it.
She planted her weight on her right foot and sprang upward. The orc, not realizing she’d moved, stood stupidly over her. The tekpi, tight in her grip, entered the thing’s skull under its thick, knotted chin with a pop. Hot, sticky blood gushed over her hand and down her arm. A gurgle escaped the orc, the tip of the tekpi emerging from crown of its skull, and the gurgle turned into a wheeze. Then all sound from the beast stopped.
Skid pulled the blade to the left, and the orc fell lifeless to the grass.
She tried to regain her breath, heart pounding like Mexican-restaurant music. She nudged Cord’s leg with the tip of a Hello Kitty shoe, and his eyes sprang open like a broken toy. He looked from Skid to the dead orc and back again.
“Does Brick have any Purell in there?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Cord dug into the pack and pulled out a handful of white packets the size of condom wrappers. “How about an alcohol-based moist towelette instead?”
She didn’t respond.
“Skid?”
She fell to her knees in the grass beside the dead orc, her head in her hands, body racked with sobs.
“Oh no, don’t cry.” Cord fought with the moist towelettes as if freeing one of them would wipe this whole problem away. “If you’re crying, what chance do I have? Come on, Skid, tell me we can make it through this.”
A bellow, from what seemed like the other side of nowhere, split the night. The bellow had erupted from Brick. Did that mean he was gone?
“This is bad,” Cord reiterated, but Skid couldn’t find the words to calm him down.
Cord threw up again.
6
The group fell silent. Susan’s words hung in the air as if a storm had moved into the house, the atmosphere charged and heavy. The firefighter shifted in his chair, and the nurse coughed. The plump man opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it and looked at his shoes instead.
The woman dressed in blacks and dark grays raised her hand slightly, then lowered it. “How are you going to do it?” she asked.
Someone whispered in the back. Someone else told them to shut up.
“I’ve had close to forty years to think that over,” Susan said, looking around to take in all the faces. “I could poison him, but there’s a big margin for error. Bigger than I want. I could use something sharp and slice him up like he did my mother. You know, chop him right to bits.” Some gazes remained fixed on her as she said this, while others danced between each other and the floor. “But I might not be able to reach the sword before he does, so that’s not a good option. Or—”
The sentence stopped as Susan took in the room, the room where she’d spent the first quarter of her life watching TV, having Saturday night popcorn-and-a-movie, the first place she’d kissed a boy, praying her crazy-assed father didn’t walk in on them. A lump grew in her throat.
The woman with the long black bangs stepped from her position against the wall, hands buried into the deep pockets of the long, thin dark gray cardigan she wore. “Well?”
“I think,” Susan said, moving away from the chair and toward the stairs that lead to the second floor. “I think I will wait for him upstairs before he gets a chance to kill my mother. Then I plan to shoot that psychotic monster in the face.”
7
The screams. If he survived the night, Cord knew he would always remember the screams. Brick launched himself from behind the nearby Humvee howling like an Icelandic berserker. The orcs in the rough circle howled back, their voices starting deep and guttural then rising to pig-like squeals when they turned and ran toward the guy in the red flannel shirt.
Cord took back that last thought—Brick had shed his red shirt before launching himself toward the cast of Lord of the Rings. The muscles of his shoulders rippled, scimitar held high as he closed in and met the first leather-clad creature with a downswing of his blade. The thing lifted its own sword and the two blades clashed and sparks flew. The orc grunted and crumbled as Brick’s foot came up and caught it in the midsection.
“Not seeing this,” Cord whispered. “Nope.”
The scimitar flew in a backswing and caught the next orc across the face, slicing through its brow and ruining its eyes. It dropped, squealing. Its limbs thrashed mindlessly with pain. Brick slammed his scimitar into the grass where the first orc had fallen. A spray of blood followed when he whipped it up and thrust it through the throat of the third.
“Oh, do you know the Muffin Man,” came from somewhere deep in the recesses of Cord’s brain, a brain quickly losing track of itself. The words made their way to his lips and ventured out soft, singsong into the night to join the sounds of battle.
A long knife flew by Brick’s ear. It might have nicked it, but Cord couldn’t tell. The big man reached out and grabbed an orc by the throat and brought the pommel of his scimitar down atop its bald, misshapen skull. The crack reached Cord’s ears.
“The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man.” The song stuck now, his brain on autopilot.
An orc, one as large as Brick, appeared from the doorway of one of the few round houses that still stood. It squeaked a piggy sound and rushed toward Brick, who had lifted the last living creature from the broken circle and thrown it into the nearby bonfire. His sword had disappeared into the grass.
“Oh, do you know the Muffin Man—”
The night was suddenly strangely silent, save for the crackling fire, Skid’s sobs, the heartbeat in Cord’s ears, and the screeching orc closing quickly on Brick, a knotted club in its knotted hand. The club pulled back to deliver a blow to Brick’s head, but it didn’t land. Brick shifted weight onto his back foot and threw an uppercut at the mo
nster that connected with its scabby chin, sending the creature’s head back farther than it was allowed to go. A sickening crunch dominated Cord’s universe for a second. Then the orc dropped lifeless onto the ground.
The last words dropped when Brick threw his shoulders back and screamed to the moon and stars. “That lives on Drury Lane?”
Cord’s song died as surely as an orc when Brick’s bellow vanished into the sky. “No. You do not know the Muffin Man at all.”
Brick stood in the ruined village, the sword back in his hand, and surveyed his surroundings. No orc charged him, no weapons flew. He heaved in heavy breaths. Cord could see the Muffin Man’s muscles twitch. He stood and waved at Brick. Brick waved back.
“Hey,” Cord shouted, his mind somewhat back in his control, still intact, but a bit loose. “How’d you know how to do that stuff?”
Brick put a bloody hand to his mouth and shouted back. “I’ve seen ‘Conan the Barbarian’ forty-six times.”
“Oh, yeah,” Cord mumbled, turning his back to Brick. He moved toward Skid, who had risen to sitting sometime during Brick’s battle.
She wiped the tears her cheeks with her shirttail and raised her face toward Cord, eyes swollen. “I killed that guy. I flat-out killed that guy.” Her shirttail came back up and went away with the contents of her blown nose.
Orcs, swords, Humvees, ghosts, time-traveling scientists, dimension-hopping and Tamara quite probably at his house wondering where he was tonight. It all came and went. His mind was suddenly clear, as clear the one time in college he dropped acid and ate “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as it flowed from his stereo like spaghetti.
A smile appeared on his face. Not a sales-seeking grin, but an honest smile. Skid balked like she couldn’t believe he was capable of it. He reached out a hand and pulled her onto shaky legs. “When the orc came around the truck, what did it have in its hands?”
“That great big mallet.”
“Right, the mallet he tried to kill you with, Skiddo. You were defending yourself. But you weren’t just defending yourself, you were defending me. Thank you.” He held out his arms. “Now, come in here.”
So You Had to Build a Time Machine Page 19