by Jesse Jordan
Across the street, two boys knelt in a yard, drawing. Matching sandy blond hair, maybe ten and seven, heads down as their arms described furious circles on the ground. As James watched, the motions continued without the slightest change of pattern or speed.
His ears reported that Dink was once again speaking to him, but James couldn’t tear his focus from the boys—that voice in his head again. Something’s wrong.
The boys both drew with chalk, absorbed, neither one looked up or paused, even as James stepped onto their driveway. The littler one, he noticed, wasn’t even drawing. His hand followed the same shape again and again but uselessly dragged the chalk through the grass off the edge of the driveway.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
“Hey.”
Nothing.
Dink was silent now. James saw him in his periphery, rigged, watching the boys—He can feel it too.
James stepped closer. “Hey, can I ask you guys something?”
And in unison the boys snapped their heads up, full open faces turned to James. “We didn’t see anything,” they said in one voice. Dull eyes looked through him, the hands never stopping. Then back down, the tops of their heads, sandy hair and arms frantically spinning.
James’s gut went tight and cold.
“Who told you to say that?”
Blank stares up again. A two-boy chorus. “We didn’t see anything.”
James felt Dink slump on his shoulder, settling into a four-point crouch. James looked at the homunculus, then followed the gaze of those little dark eyes to what the elder boy was drawing over and over on the sidewalk.
Two eyes. Crude. The eye on the left was almost completely filled in by iris, though, while the right eye held only a pinprick.
And seeing it, James realized he knew. He already knew.
His phone rang, and he dug it out of his pocket to see Dorian’s name and smiling face.
“Hey, Dorian, where—?”
“James?” Whispered panic. Trembling. “Help. Please. He took me. We’re at the factory. I—no! Get away from—”
“Dorian? Dorian!” But the double beep announced the end of the call. James called her back, but after four rings, her voice mail picked up.
It was Dink who finally spoke. “He’s taken the girl.”
“Dorian.”
“He’s taken Dorian.”
“To Taloon.”
“Yes.”
“To force me there.”
“Yes.”
James lifted his bike from the ground. “He can’t make me do anything. You said so. I can choose.”
“I doubt it’ll be that easy.” For a moment neither spoke, and James searched for possibilities, for obstacles, for what could be waiting for him, and he had to admit he was naked and lost. “James, look at me.” James turned, and the little man leaned against his jaw so he could look as fully into James’s eyes as possible. “You don’t have to go there. Asmodis can’t make you follow him.”
James felt his back curl, his shoulders drooping as the breath left him. There, Dink, you’re wrong. James knew he had to follow her, and the certainty of this must have played all over his face, because Dink didn’t question it again. He squatted into his runner’s stance and gripped James’s shirt like reins. “Alright, then. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
James rode over lawns and zigzagged through intersections, declaring himself trump of all stop-sign disputes. He shot through Orange Street, skidding to avoid a collision with a rusty Ford Fiesta, then continued down Oak. In his mind, Dorian screamed for him; she tried to fight off Ezra’s hands as he dragged her through; her eyes took in Taloon and were white pools of fear, nothing but tears, and she balled up and whimpered and pleaded for someone, anyone, to save her. James turned hard and rode between houses, over lawns, through the community center parking lot, and then he was flying past George Washington High School, and already it felt like a relic, like a home to a part of his life long-since lost.
He heard the two-note metallic chime of the train signal, saw the flashing lights as the arms descended up ahead, and he slowed, but just as he did his world was filled with the shrieking of tires, and turning he saw the Escalade leaping forward from the parking lot to his left. It swept out, barely missing his back tire, and spun up over the opposite curb on the grass, frozen and perpendicular to the road for a moment.
“Go!” Dink shouted in his ear.
Then he was up and pedaling, racing parallel to the tracks as the Escalade righted itself behind him. James saw the freight train approaching—middle track, westbound, staring him right in the face. It’s too close.
“Faster, James!”
James heard the engine whine behind him as someone stomped it into the red. The train was terrifying and undeniable, but looking back was worse, and so he charged forward as fast as he could. His shoes gripped the pedals. He pumped and yanked on the handles, using any and every part of himself to make the damn bike go faster. Faster!
Fifteen feet from Main Street James looked back and saw the Escalade closing, growing larger. He swerved left hard, preparing for the tight right turn, and heard the Escalade’s tires squeal for an instant. Go, go, go!
The train looked as big as a house and moved like nature itself. He saw the conductor in the thin glass eye at the top, and when their eyes met, there could be no mistaking James’s intention. The train’s horn exploded, filling the air with painful sound so that James couldn’t even hear himself screaming as he ripped the bike to the right, closing his eyes, the train only feet away as he bump-da-bump-bumped across, and then there was only pavement under the tires and James opened his eyes and swung his head around just in time to see the Escalade make it halfway across the tracks before the nose of the train met its driver’s side door. There was a sound like a metal punch as the train continued through, crumpling the Escalade, whose front tires popped out the front bottom as the back end was whipped around by the force. Catching on the end of the track, the vehicle tipped up and over and out of the train’s way.
James coasted, staring behind him at the torn metal, a shock of hair and blood visible through a shattered window, and he wondered why it didn’t explode, or if it was going to, and if they were dead and if maybe he should do something. He heard a woman shriek and the train’s brakes, and he could not look away, which is why he didn’t notice when a second Escalade blocked the road in front of him and stopped.
James collided with the hood and pitched up and over the handlebars of his bike. He heard metal give as he landed on the hood, and then there was a sickening upside-down sensation as he slipped off, landing squarely on his forehead.
Doors opened. A sharp, deep-down, first-time-in-his-life pain had a hold of James’s right hand, and when he looked down, he saw the first two fingers pointing in new and creative directions. The view, however, was obscured by what felt like sweat running over his brow into his eyes. When his left hand went to his head, it came back with a horrifying smear.
“Grab him!”
It was Adam’s voice. James wasn’t surprised he remembered it. He figured you probably remembered things like that forever. Then hands had him—hateful, rough hands that felt like they could snap sixteen-year-old bones like kindling. They lifted him, and he saw Adam and another man, both holding short black machine guns with long magazines.
The man next to Adam looked back to the tracks, where a loud squeak announced the train’s continued braking. “Oh, Lord, what has he done?”
The man holding him leaned in close and said, “Where’s Donny?”
“Later,” Adam said. “Get him in the car.” It seemed like Adam saw what was happening a fraction of a second before anyone else, but if that was the case, it didn’t make much difference. His eyes bloomed with panic, and a single whispered word slipped from his mouth: “Demon.”
James felt it then, felt Dink’s feet against his clavicle as the homunculus pushed off, launched himself, flying toward Adam, completely extended like a flying squi
rrel. Adam seemed about to raise his gun, but there was barely time for his fingers to clutch the barrel, and then Dink was on him. He smacked against Adam’s chest and climbed up him like fire. The man next to Adam let out a squeal, turning and stepping away from him. Adam released the gun when Dink reached his throat. He grabbed at the homunculus, but it was too late. Dink stretched out his arms as if to deliver a great big hug, and then he plunged his little arms into Adam’s throat. All four of them screamed then, James included, and Dink squeezed his evil little hug as tight as he could and twisted like a crocodile, and voila, he was holding Adam’s Adam’s apple.
There was a gurgle and a spitting sound, and before Adam could fall, Dink threw away the hunk of blood and gristle and flung himself on the other one. Adam screamed as Dink attacked his eyes, his hands attempting to pull the homunculus from his face.
James heard the soft trickle of water on stone and, looking down, realized the man holding him had lost the adult functioning of his bladder. He noticed the hands on him now: shaking, loose.
The other one managed to grab Dink finally, but the homunculus reached back and in one fluid motion peeled off a fingernail, which elicited a horrid, warbling scream. The man dropped Dink, who caught himself on his shirt. It was then that Dink froze, and instead of climbing the man again, he turned to James. His gaze was clear: Do not wait to be rescued.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Run.
James twisted his body as hard as he could. He posted his legs, torquing through them, and brought his right elbow around in a purposeful arc until it slammed home, colliding with soft meat and pelvic bone. He flung his head back and felt the dull thwack as it connected with face—nose gave, teeth cut his head, hands released—and then he was running.
His breathing and feet were the only sounds—until he heard the other feet, the harder soles. James looked back and saw the man who’d been holding him—black hair, bloody nose—closing in. He ran much faster than James, and it was impossible to imagine any future in which he didn’t catch him within the next thirty feet or so. James blinked through blood, wiped away blood, and saw Moon’s Pub just up ahead to his right. He made for the back door with fear as fuel, feeling like he was burning off reserves he’d never known he had.
Please don’t be locked.
James ripped open the back door and looked over his shoulder; the man was only ten feet or so behind him.
The bar was much, much darker than the world outside, so it somehow managed to feel both safer and more ominous. He cleared the back room and stumbled into the main room, kicking over two stools as he emerged.
The bartender, a young guy with a Mohawk, saw him first and said, “Hey, kid, you can’t be in here.”
“Help me! Please! There’s a man after me and he’s—”
But then the Catholic appeared, and while two men stood up, presumably to do as James had requested, the large, black semiautomatic pistol in the bloody man’s hand dissuaded them. They slowly eased back into their seats.
The Catholic spit blood on the floor. “Demon.”
“Okay, look, look, I’m not who you think—”
“Shut up!” He held the gun out, adrenaline spike and bloodlust rocking it with tremors. James backed up, and the Catholic closed the gap. “You will leave this world tonight, demon.”
He took another step and leveled the gun straight at James’s face. James folded into himself and squinted. He wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t bear to look away.
This is—
A hand flashed up and pushed the barrel off and to the right just as the gun discharged. There was a crack and a pop and a little puff of smoke, and the hand turned into an arm and a back as a man thrust himself from the table next to the Catholic. He pinned the gun hand against the bar and head-butted the Catholic—once, twice—and the blood covered both of them as the man twisted the gun hand away from the bar; and when he did, James could see that it was Mr. Zoller, the bus driver, and then Mr. Zoller put his right bicep under the gun hand and snapped the Catholic’s wrist and there was a scream and the gun dropped, and James turned and ran out the front door of Moon’s Pub.
He ran, and he looked back, and he ran. Nothing. He ran past Jackson Street, then doubled back through yards. He stopped between Mr. Taylor’s house and the Huangs’ house and examined his fingers. There was an awful pressure in them, as if the knuckles were overinflated. He was sure—through no diagnostic or medical knowledge—that he would feel better once they were put to right. The very idea, however, of even touching them filled him with queasy giggles.
Dink had once told James that it wasn’t pain that paralyzed people but fear of it. The memory rushed in, bolstering him. Not pain. Fear of pain. Not pain. Fear of pain.
Fear of pain.
The memory also served to make James clinically aware of the fact that he was alone, that Dink was gone—The longer you wait, the harder it’ll be.
The truth of the thought zapped his nervous system, and the next moment, without another thought, James grabbed the two fingers and pulled on them, hard. He screamed. He felt knuckle and joint slip together once more and released the fingers and collapsed to his knees in the grass.
Tears filled his eyes as he looked around to check if anyone was there. It was hard to see. The summer sun filled the atmosphere with orange particles of light and hid the rest in shadow.
There was no one.
He chuckled as he stood. Sometimes it’s just pain, he thought.
James found that he was able to move the fingers, but when he made a fist it felt like there were shims in his knuckles.
Up! Go!
He could see the great abandoned place peeking through the trees, sitting like a careless king. A stitch grabbed his ribs as the breath of overexertion shredded his throat. His chest heaved with fatigue, and he sped up to keep it at bay; he heard only his own desperate breathing and the thwap-thwap of his feet meeting the earth. Then the houses were gone and the way opened and the trees turned into high weeds and crabgrass. James raced across the neglected field that abutted the factory. Just to the south he saw the giant main gates, all brick and wrought iron, closed forever. But they touched nothing. The barriers which had once been connected to them were long gone. James stumbled and almost fell, righting himself as he sidestepped bottles and trash, closing the final ten feet to the building and coming to rest against the ancient brick.
He closed his eyes and let his head fall against the wall. He was here. I can still feel him. Then he was moving again, afraid if he stopped he’d pass out right where he stood. To the corner of the building and turning, running for the window he’d climbed through last time, when another presented itself. Ground level, glass long gone, and the board covering it was wet and rotting and split, the bottom corner missing altogether. James turned his shoulder into it, and all but the top left corner came free; then he was up and climbing over the sill.
The little room he dropped into had obviously once been a bathroom, though all the fixtures and pipes were long gone. He found the door hard to budge. A few painful shoulder thrusts cleared it enough for him to squeeze out, and then he was back on the main floor again, though this time he was looking for some way up.
He could feel Ezra still. Up!
James saw the stairs off in the back, hidden in the shadows. They were broad stone steps that doubled back on themselves, wide and efficient like high school steps. He stopped at the second floor, but it was empty. It was low-ceilinged, probably an office once. There were no desks now, though; only pillars placed at even intervals and the hard orange glow through the open windows.
Go!
James climbed the stairs—past three and four with barely a glance—and his legs rebelled against the ascent. He stopped at the fifth floor and spun, searching. There had to be some way to—
And then he saw it. In the far corner: metal rungs and rails, the ladder was built into the wall and looked sturdy as a foundation. It disappeared into the ceiling
, where it met a closed, square door.
James rushed to the ladder and scrambled up it. His fingers screamed against every requested action, but he ignored them—Up—and when he reached the ceiling, he flung the trapdoor open and saw nothing above but the bright sky and the dilapidated ChocoMalt water tower rising over one side; James could make out the words perfectly up close: CHOCOMALT EATS REAGAN’S DICK!!!
Then he was pulling himself up onto the roof, the flat surface covered with the dirt and stone of deterioration. James looked around as if he’d find his old librarian there, waiting. But there was nothing.
No, not nothing. There were footprints. Two sets, one large and one small, heading away from the ladder. James walked slow, picturing the two of them as he stared at the imprints. That’s her. Those are her feet. The footprints led to the parapet at the north edge of the roof, and for a moment he thought that maybe—but no. He looked over the side and saw nothing below. It was just the footprints. He turned back to them. This is it. They just stop here. But James knew why. He knew where they’d gone.
There was something else on the ground, dark in the shadow of the parapet. Letters. James crouched. What was it written in? James touched the words and brought his finger up, and in the sunlight he could see it for what it was.
Red-brown. Iron smell.
Two words: IT’S TIME
The words set his hands to shaking. James closed his eyes and squeezed his fists.
Breathe.
One deep breath in through his nose. Held. Machine-gunned out his mouth. Another deep breath in.
Dorian, up on her tippy-toes, her lips on mine, softly, her gentle breath.
James opened his eyes, and in one great exhale, he saw all the fear rushing out of him. He knew it’d be back, but he felt the change nonetheless. He looked out at Stone Grove, Illinois, and he Pushed; and he felt himself pass through.
15. The War
James’s ears reported that he was in Taloon before the rest of him did. The wind was strong, and just after the sound registered, he felt it against his skin and smelled the fragrance of salt water that it carried. He didn’t want to open his eyes; he could already picture the maddening shaking of the ground, the wavering of the mountains, the Moon—bigger than it had any right to be, filling the whole sky—moving and crossing itself like three-card monte.