Cloak (YA Fantasy)

by James Gough

  A picture next to a guide to Istanbul caught his attention. He gently shook the water off the glass. The photo had been taken when he was six, back when he and his mom and dad were still trying to pretend Will could have a normal life. Dianna and Edward Tuttle stood tall and gorgeous in the picture. Both blond, tan, and perfect. They could have just walked off the cover of a fashion magazine. The couple was posed in front of a Christmas tree loaded with presents. Sandwiched between them was a scrawny, pale boy with a curtain of ink-black hair and blue-gray eyes, grinning through the mask of his ugly plastic suit. He held a glass box—his ant farm.

  Ants had been Will’s only pets. They were fascinating. He could watch them dig for hours. Their tunnels seemed to reflect his mood—flat when he was sad, squiggly when he was agitated, pointed toward the air holes when he longed to be free. When no one was around, he would talk to them. It was like they listened.

  Nurse Grundel had caught Will speaking to the ants and dumped the farm in the snowy garden the day Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle left for a ski trip to Switzerland. Will was furious. He had stared at the garden wishing his ants would crawl up Nurse Grunel’s pant legs and bite her. The next morning, the nurse was covered in tiny red dots. She’d woken up with ants in her bed. Will still thought it was a Christmas miracle.

  The glass box now sat empty on the shelf. That seemed like a lifetime ago, a time when the Tuttles still did things together. A time before his parents lost hope that their son could be cured, and before Will started using his condition as an excuse to ignore the rules—a time when the Tuttles were still happy. He stared at the photo again, then slipped it out of its frame and into his backpack.

  From under his mattress, Will recovered his yellow-bound allergy journal, a vintage train schedule and a tin full of the pre-1960 money he’d collected. It all went into the pack along with an extra medical tag. Will had several sets identical to those hanging around his neck. The tags used to be Army dog tags. Now they all read:

  Wilhelm Tuttle - Acutely Hyper Allergic

  1 Tuttle Way

  Bronxville New York

  914.555.0862

  In Emergency Take to Mt. Sinai Hospital

  He changed into a fresh pair of latex gloves and hung a World War II medical mask around his neck. Behind the desk was a parcel of food he’d been saving—a few boxes of Korean War k-rations, tins of sixty-year-old Spam, and several glass bottles of flavorless distilled water. Disgusting but edible.

  After zipping up his parka, Will threw his backpack over his shoulder and stood still, listening for Nurse Grundel. Nothing but snores.

  He scrawled a note on a damp paper and dropped it on the bed.

  Moment of truth.

  His old penknife was sharp. It sliced the plastic bubble like soft cheese. Will ducked and slipped through the hole. The window opened with a tiny squeak. He took a deep breath. The cool breeze was a stark contrast to the humid confines of the bubble. With one leg over the windowsill, Will hesitated—Nurse Grundel’s words circled his brain. Helpless. Not going anywhere.

  “Watch me,” he said.

  He shimmied down the drainpipe and made his way down the long driveway just as dawn began to creep over the horizon.

  Back on the bed, the wind blew through the hole in the bubble and fluttered the edge of Will’s note.

  It said:

  To whom it may concern,

  Gone to the city. Don’t wait up.

  -Will

  The steam was already beginning to blur the ink.

  2

  Commuter Roulette

  Every second Will spent on the train was life threatening, which was why he couldn’t stop grinning. The adrenaline rush was euphoric. This was his thrill ride, his roller coaster, his extreme sport. Will called it commuter roulette. The rules were simple—survive a trip on public transportation. He’d played at least a dozen times on the late-night buses that stopped near the Tuttle estate in Bronxville, but this was his first time on a train. It was incredible. Night buses were cool, but usually empty. The 5:16 a.m. southbound local to Manhattan, however, was packed.

  At every stop, a stream of New Yorkers poured through the doors like a human flood. From the last seat in the last cabin of the train, Will could see each passenger that entered. Expensive suits on cell phones, construction workers in heavy boots, artsy types with black-framed glasses, pierced college students with white headphone cords dangling from their ears—the parade of commuters was fascinating. Any one of them could be carrying the allergen that would end Will’s adventure very badly, but he didn’t care. Feeling like a normal person was worth the risk. And besides, he hadn’t had a reaction all morning; just a small, purple rash from touching a lamppost, and some blistering on his wrist where he was bumped by a briefcase.

  “Next stop, Harlem,” crackled the loudspeaker.

  Will sat up, anticipating the next round of new faces. It was raining again. The droplets and the sunrise turned the window into a glowing mosaic, obscuring the approaching platform.

  With a long squeal, the train lurched to a stop and the pneumatic doors hissed open. The smell of wet asphalt, bus exhaust, and street vendors engulfed Will. He was ecstatic.

  The first drenched commuters staggered out of the downpour. A gaggle of green-uniformed junior high girls raced to get the window seats. An old Chinese woman lugging a bag of groceries and a wet tabby cat sat near the door. Several more sodden New Yorkers tromped in from the rain and filled the compartment, leaving only one seat unoccupied—the one next to Will.

  “Final stop, Grand Central Station. All aboard!”

  Grand Central Station—Will had only seen pictures. He’d been to Manhattan before, but always for doctor appointments, and always in the Bubblemobile. That’s what he called the 1954 ambulance the Tuttles bought to transport him. It was a humiliating way to travel, like being chauffeured in a big, white hearse while wearing a vintage radiation suit. Everyone stared and pointed at the boy in the Bubblemobile.

  A bell rang and the doors slid closed.

  With a bang, a briefcase wedged between the doors and forced them open again.

  The tardy passenger ducked through the door. He was enormous, bending low to avoid hitting his head on the exit sign. His body filled the entire aisle.

  Will went rigid.

  The man was a yak, a giant, shaggy, horned yak. He wore a hooded overcoat the size of a tent and a rumpled business suit that stretched across his frame, straining at every seam. A battered briefcase hung in one hoof and in the other he clutched a tiny umbrella that looked like a toy next to his bulk.

  It was another hallucination, one of Will’s allergic reactions. The only reaction that his medicine didn’t seem to affect. Huge half-men/half-yaks don’t exist, much less wear ties and ride public transportation. But to Will, the wooly commuter looked as real as anyone else aboard.

  No one took any special notice of the yak-man lumbering down the aisle, not even when he slopped his wet raincoat across the hissing tabby cat, then apologized in a sonorous bass voice. Rain dripped from a thick mass of shaggy gray wool on top of the man-yak’s huge square head. Under his hood, two fat horns jutted out above each hairy ear, curving upward at the tips. His hair was cropped short, revealing a human-like face with heavy gray eyebrows over large, brown eyes. A neatly trimmed beard traced his jaw until it faded back into sideburns. He walked hunched over, his massive shoulders brushing the ceiling as he made his way to the last empty seat.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  Swallowing back panic, Will stared up and shook his head. “Um, no.” His voice cracked.

  The yak nodded and folded into the seat.

  Will scrunched against the window. Usually, his delusional sightings had something to do with animals, like the three rat women in sunhats he’d seen from the Bubblemobile last June, or a llama-faced man jogging down the Bronx River Trail. On the bus to Tuckahoe, he’d once seen a man with the head of a salamander and slimy hands with only three fingers on each
. Will shook his head, trying to dislodge the disturbing images. Once, he’d mentioned them to Nurse Grundel, who threatened to have him committed to a funny farm. That was the last time Will had spoken about it to anyone. Being crazy was something better kept to himself.

  Inches away, Will’s latest hallucination attempted to open a newspaper in the confined space. ‘New Jersey Clothing Warehouse Burns, Two Guards Perish in the Arson,’ read the front page headline. As the yak fumbled and flapped the paper, a wisp of air brushed Will’s cheek. Instantly, a familiar sensation seized the back of his throat. It moved up his nasal passages, pressed against his inner ears, and expanded behind his eyes.

  To most people, the feeling that their head was filling with cement might induce panic, but not Will. He reached into his backpack and removed a metal syringe of epinephrine. Pushing back his sleeve, he jammed the needle into the well-worn vein in his forearm. The medicine cleared his head. Will turned, hoping the meds had taken away his hallucination. No luck. The yak-man was still there, watching him.

  Darn it.

  Will rubbed the injection spot and tugged at his sleeve. He retrieved the yellow-covered allergy journal from his pack and flipped through the meticulous lists until he came to Ns. When Will found newspaper ink he added another tally mark—that made fourteen. Fourteen times of almost being snuffed out by the morning news.

  He thumbed back through the journal, skimming the entries. The As alone took up twenty-seven pages: aloe, aluminum, alfalfa sprouts. Allergy collecting had become Will’s secret hobby. Sometimes he had even provoked reactions to see what would happen. Each entry had a story, some small adventure outside his bubble. Like the midnight trip to the kitchen where he learned Dill pickles produced swollen lips, shortness of breath, and itchy tongue. The word Dishwater was followed by red bumpy rash, stiff joints, and bloating. Will had every episode memorized—his painful little treasures.

  When he scanned Dogs, he stopped. A bold, red H was written next to it—H for hallucination. It happened on his first late-night foray outside his bubble. He’d been on Main Street in Bronxville peering at the forbidden foods in Giovanni’s Pizzeria—calzones, baked ziti, veal parmigiana—when a dog in a sweater came running down the street, chased by a man in a hooded jacket. When the dog sprinted by Will, it barked, “Excuse me.” Will was petrified until he saw that the man following had the face of a bull terrier.

  Will ran his gloved finger over the H, then another, and another—page after page of red Hs—his own personal code for the insanity that he feared was slowly getting worse. It was too much. Snapping the book closed, he mashed it into his bag. What was happening to him? Will thumped his forehead against the window a little harder than he had intended. He groaned and kneaded the sore spot with his palm.

  “Hey, you okay?” rumbled a deep voice. The yak-man looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “I said, are you okay?”

  Will nodded and shrugged.

  With an occasional glance at Will, the hallucination returned to The New York Post.

  The train lurched forward as a high-pitched squeal filled the tunnel. Will hadn’t noticed they had gone belowground. Outside the window, signs for Grand Central Station appeared, shining in the darkness. Passengers collected their belongings in preparation for a speedy exit.

  After a long, eerie howl from the brakes, the train jerked to a stop and the doors swished open. The yak stayed until the aisle cleared. He got to his feet, eyed Will once more, and tromped toward the door. Will slung his pack over a shoulder and followed. Bending low, the yak-man attempted to exit, but his right horn was too high to clear the doorframe.

  “Hey, watch your horn!” Will blurted.

  The yak-man stopped, swiveled his huge head and stared. Shock, fear, and suspicion filled his face. Pushing away, he banged his horn on the exit sign with a resounding clank. The yak-man stumbled off the train, almost bowling over the giggling junior high girls who loitered on the platform.

  Will watched the yak press deeper into the crowd. The enormous creature turned back once, talking frantically into a cell phone and craning his neck to get a full look at Will. The giant nodded, closed his phone and merged into the sea of commuters.

  The hallucinations had always felt real. But something about the look of panic in the yak’s eyes and the giant dent in the exit sign made him feel, for the first time in his life, that he might not be crazy after all.

  3

  The Director

  To his subordinates, he was known only as the Director. He could have been an immense statue silhouetted against the glowing wall of monitors, except for the muscle that twitched in his clenched jaw. His heavy, hooded eyes jumped from image to image. Battery Park, Wall Street, Times Square, Union Station—every bridge and tunnel, every subway and train. All of Manhattan was laid out in front of him. But right now he focused on Grand Central Station where a disturbing situation was unfolding.

  The twitching stopped and his dry, gravel voice scraped across the ears of the eight agents controlling the cameras.

  “There. Next to the clock.” He lifted a leathery, gray hand and poked at one of the screens. A tall, thin boy dressed in black picked his way through the crowd, scanning above the heads of the moving mass.

  “That’s the one. Go tighter.”

  As the camera pushed in, the Director stepped closer to the monitor and studied the wiry teenager. He noted the medical mask, latex gloves, and the way the boy veered away from anyone who came too close.

  “Your man said the boy injected himself with something?”

  “Yes, sir. After he had some sort of reaction,” a lithe, skulking woman answered in a cold voice. She emerged from the shadows like a phantom. Several of the technicians flinched. At first glance the woman was striking, if not beautiful. Her fiery-red hair was cut close to her head, flaring upwards like a torch, and her fierce, orange eyes smoldered under her brow. She wasn’t tall, barely reaching the Director’s shoulder, and her thin, slinking physique didn’t seem to offer much of a threat, but there was something hard behind her razor-like features that caused subordinates to wither in her presence. She slid beside the Director.

  “Your man is certain the boy identified him?” grated the Director, still staring at the screen.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you are sure your agent didn’t get sloppy?”

  The lithe woman bristled at the suggestion. “Sir, Agent Tao is a level five operative, one of my best. I guarantee you that he was in Cloak Regulation head to toe.”

  “Bring Tao in for a scan, just to be certain.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the woman through her pointed teeth. “What about the boy?”

  The Director paused, shifting his substantial weight. “Special Branch will take it from here. Order your team to stand down.”

  “Special Branch?” she spat out the words. “Sir, this is ridiculous. Special Branch is a joke. My team is already in place. We will detain the boy. Five minutes with him, and I’ll know who he is working for.”

  The Director shook his head, “Your team is positioned to capture the hunter. I am tired of watching this murdering thief and arsonist slip through your fingers, especially after what happened in New Jersey last night.” He wheezed and drooped his heavy head. “J.D. Tubbs was a good agent. His father and I graduated the Academy together. And that poor Nep guard left behind a family.” The Director rubbed his temple with thick, calloused fingers. “That was the sixth Cloak facility attacked this month. Each time, robbed and burned to the ground.” He pointed toward a map displayed on a large monitor above his head where six red dots blinked in a jagged line along the Eastern seaboard—Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, and two in New Jersey. He jabbed at New York City on the map. “Manhattan is central. This is the hunter’s territory. I can feel it. When he returns, I want him put down. Is that clear, Deputy Liska?”

  “Yes, sir. But perhaps I could spare a few agents to question the boy. How difficult could he be?” the fi
ery redhead scoffed.

  “If your agent is correct in assuming that this Nep boy outted him, then Special Branch is best equipped to handle it. It’s what they are trained for.”

  “Trained,” the woman snorted. “Is that what they call it?”

  “I want Special Branch on it.”

  “But, sir.” The woman’s face tightened into a mask, her teeth grinding.

  “I know how you feel about Special Branch, Deputy. That’s why you will have nothing to do with this case.” The Director let a low rumble underline his words. “The boy is officially none of your concern. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” She clenched her fists, holding back the anger. When she spoke, it was in an even, venomous tone. “Do you seriously think that boy could be,” she choked on the word, “one of them?”

  The Director focused on the monitor that had just captured a close-up of the teenage boy. He clasped his hands behind his back and let out a deep, shuddering sigh. “I believe we’re about to find out.”

  4

  A Walk in the Park

  Will pressed through the churning crowds, keeping his eye on the strange yak from the train, hoping he wouldn’t get slammed by an allergen in the process. It was idiotic to chase a hallucination through Grand Central Station, but his overwhelming curiosity kept dragging him through the currents of commuters. This was his one chance to prove he wasn’t losing his mind.

  After passing the four-faced clock in the center of the main concourse, the giant yak ducked under an arch and turned down a side corridor. Will hurried after him, weaving through a crowd of pudgy tourists in Times Square t-shirts. The yak-man approached a boy waiting to shine shoes at the base of a raised wooden chair. He hoisted himself into the seat. Will moved closer as two maintenance men carrying a large canvas passed in front of the yak-man, blocking him from view for a moment.