Aaron reached for the sleeve, but Boone grabbed his hand just before it entered it.
“I do mean silent. Do not make a sound.”
Aaron turned and looked behind them. Boone had chosen the spot wisely; it was a public place, but their corner was around the wall from the main section of the restaurant, and no one could see them. He nodded at Boone, and the man released his hand. He picked up the opening of the sleeve and let the tips of his fingers enter the frayed cuff.
He stopped, looking up at Boone. “I can trust you?”
Boone laughed. “You don’t have much of a choice! You’re already their slave. This is a way out.”
Aaron paused, unsure if he was prepared for the pain.
“And yes, you can trust me,” Boone added.
Aaron took a deep breath and let his hand slide inside the cuff. He used his other hand to pull it up onto his arm until it rested over the spot where the scar had been, his hand extending out from the other side.
He jumped a little when he saw the sleeve move, the cloth rising. At first he thought it was inflating like a blood pressure sleeve, but then he saw movement. Something was inside it.
“Hold still now,” Boone said, grabbing his hand that extended from the sleeve and grasping it firmly. “Just let it work.”
Aaron winced as the first stab of pain raced through his arm and up to his brain. It felt like a bite; something was chewing into the soft skin on the underside of his forearm. He instinctively tried to pull his arm away, but Boone held him securely.
“It’s biting me!” Aaron said, panicked. “Oh my god, it hurts!”
“It’s doing a lot more than that,” Boone replied. “It’s going to dig into your arm until it finds the head, and decapitate the mortipede. Then it will devour the head.”
The pain doubled and tripled in intensity, soon becoming an unbearable burning sensation. He could feel something entering his arm, moving between the muscles and the tendons and the veins, searching. The idea of it was freaking him out, and the pain made him clench his teeth. He grabbed at his leg with his free arm, his fingers clawing into the flesh of his knee.
“The same thing happened to me, years ago,” Boone said. “I was seated across a table just like this, someone else holding my hand while the sleeve did its thing.” With his free hand Boone reached into his jacket and pulled out a large bandage, still wrapped in paper. He raised it to his mouth and he grabbed an edge of the wrapper in his teeth, then he pulled at the package, freeing the bandage, which spilled onto the table next to the sleeve.
“When your arm comes out, there’ll be a hole,” Boone said, still holding onto Aaron’s hand. “Slap that bandage on it right away. There won’t be much blood. The thing inside there has tongues to suck up the blood while it’s working.”
“It’s drinking my blood?” Aaron asked, panic evident in his voice.
“Yeah, it likes blood,” Boone said, “but don’t worry, it’s not your blood it wants; it’s the head. I wish it would eat the whole thing, but it only likes the heads. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Aaron felt the movement inside the sleeve begin to slow, and the sensation of withdrawal from his flesh. “I think it’s done,” he said, wanting desperately to remove his arm.
“Let’s just be sure,” Boone replied. Slowly the sleeve returned to normal, and after a few moments Boone released his hand. Aaron slowly slid his arm from the sleeve. In the spot where the scar had once been there was a hole the size of a quarter. It was free of blood, but he could see small droplets of red beginning to pool in the bottom of it.
He placed the bandage over the wound, and looked up at Boone.
Boone smiled at him and raised his arm, pulling back the sleeve of his jacket. There, on Boone’s forearm in the exact same place, was the scar of a similar hole.
“Now they can’t track you,” he said, “just like they can’t track me.” He reached for the sleeve and slipped it into a pocket in his coat.
“So I’m good?” Aaron asked. “They’ll leave me alone?”
“Hardly,” Boone replied. “We’re just getting started. Come on, we’re going to my place.”
They rose from the table. Mrs. Morrison was just receiving her food, and Aaron waited while Boone talked to her.
“You’re OK going with Boone?” she asked Aaron.
Aaron rubbed the bandage on his arm. “Yeah,” he replied.
“Bring him back to my place,” Mrs. Morrison said to her brother. “His bike is there.”
“Will do,” Boone answered.
Boone made for the door, and Aaron followed. They walked along Alki Avenue, past the businesses and restaurants that lined the popular street. Aaron looked to his left, out over the water. The wind was picking up; he could see white caps on the waves.
“I’m a couple of blocks,” Boone said. “I live up there.” He pointed farther down the street to a row of large condominium buildings.
“What was that thing, in the sleeve?” Aaron asked.
“I’ve always called it a Head-Eater,” Boone replied, “which, I suppose, is very simplistic, but I’ve never figured out if it had some other name. I’ve never seen what it looks like. It lives inside that sleeve, it does its thing, and I don’t mess with it.”
“How did you get it?”
“That’s a long story,” Boone replied. Aaron got the feeling Boone didn’t really want to tell it.
“I’m guessing you went to the School of Revenge, like I did,” Aaron said.
“You are right,” Boone replied. “Thirteen years ago.”
“And you wanted out, like me.”
“Right again.”
“And you met someone who helped you get out.”
“Three for three.”
“Who was it?”
“Someone you wouldn’t know,” Boone replied, with a tone of finality that told Aaron he didn’t want to discuss it more. “Here we are.”
Boone punched a code into the pad by the door and they entered the condo building. They rode the elevator to the top floor, which opened into a small vestibule with only two doors. Boone led him to one of them.
Inside was a large, long space with spectacular views of the sound. Aaron walked to the windows and looked down at the cars driving along Alki Avenue. “Wow!” he said. “What a nice place!”
He turned, but Boone wasn’t there, so he returned to the view out the windows, watching as a ferry slowly chugged across the bay, on its way to Bainbridge Island.
“Come here,” Boone said as he returned to the room, a spray bottle in his hand. He walked through to the kitchen. “I want to show you something.”
Aaron left the window and followed Boone into the kitchen. He watched as Boone removed a cutting board from a cabinet and placed it on an island.
“I’m going to show you how to make something very important,” Boone said. “I want you to watch and learn. You need to be able to make this for yourself.”
“What is it?” Aaron asked.
“Just watch,” Boone replied. “It’s simple, but you’ve got to do it right.” He walked to the refrigerator, removed a foot-long plastic storage box, and brought it back to the island. He pulled off the lid; inside were several sprigs of green.
“This is rosemary,” Boone said. “You can buy it at the store, but it grows all over the place here. Once you remember what it looks like, you’ll notice it everywhere. Take a look.” Boone handed him a sprig.
Aaron took it. It had dark green needles sticking out from a central twig. Each needle was about an inch long.
Boone took another sprig and began removing the needles, which he placed on the cutting board. He picked up one of the needles and held it to Aaron’s nose. “Smell.”
“Hmm,” Aaron replied. “Smells nice.”
“I want you to keep a supply of rosemary in your refrigerator at home, just like I’m doing.”
“My mom will think that’s weird,” Aaron replied.
“Tell her it’s for
a school project or something.” Boone slid a knife from a block and began chopping at the rosemary. “You want to chop them up so that each piece isn’t much bigger than an eighth of an inch or so.” He kept chopping until he was happy with the result.
“Now, put these into that spray bottle.” Boone turned away and began searching through a cabinet.
Aaron unscrewed the head of the bottle and scraped the chopped rosemary from the cutting board. He carefully fed them into the narrow opening of the bottle.
“Don’t close it up just yet,” Boone said, lifting a jug of cider vinegar and a funnel. “Hold it still while I pour some in.”
Aaron held onto the bottle and steadied the funnel. Boone poured from the gallon jug of vinegar until the level inside the bottle reached a drawn line on its side, about two inches from the bottom.
“OK, see that mark? That’s how much vinegar you put in. This is cider vinegar, not white. Take note.”
Boone capped the jug and took the bottle from Aaron. “Then you fill the rest with water.” He held the funnel under the tap until the spray bottle was full. He handed it back to Aaron. “Now you can cap it.”
Aaron spun the head back onto the bottle and tightened it.
“That’s the order you must do it in,” Boone said. “Chop the rosemary first, put it in, then add the vinegar to the line, then top it off with water. If you do it any other way, it may not work.”
“What’s it supposed to do?” Aaron asked.
“You’re going to spray it in the room where you sleep,” Boone replied. “You’ve seen the mortipedes, right?”
“Yes,” Aaron replied, remembering the sight of their bodies slithering away the night before. “But they left.”
“They didn’t leave,” Boone replied. “They were hatched in your house, and they consider it their home now. They’re still there, waiting to be activated by the Scolo.”
“Hatched?” Aaron said, confused. “Scolo?”
“Did you ever do any recruiting for them?” Boone asked, taking the spray bottle and shaking it.
“Yeah,” Aaron said. “We threw papers into people’s windows.”
“Just papers?”
Aaron remembered the powder they’d been required to sprinkle inside the paper before wadding it into a ball and tossing it inside Johnathan Woulk’s home. “The little grains of white sand?”
“Bingo,” Boone replied, and knelt by the wall of the kitchen. He pointed to the spot where the tiles met the floorboard. “Right here is where you spray, nice and thick. Make it wet. Go all around the room, and all over the floor next to your door. Who lives at home with you?”
“My mom,” Aaron replied.
“Her room too,” Boone said.
“What’s it do?”
“It’ll stop them from coming out,” Boone replied. “They won’t cross over the line. Its effectiveness will fade after a few days, and you’ll need to reapply it. If you run out, make more of your own. If you forget and the barrier weakens, the Scolo can drive them over it, and you’ll be trapped again while you’re sleeping. That’s when they’ll take you.”
Aaron felt a chill go down his spine as he took the bottle from Boone.
“The Scolo was the big thing?” he asked. “The giant centipede with the green eyes?”
“Mortipede,” Boone corrected. “They’re a bit different than centipedes, though they’re related. Think of the Scolo as the leader. He controls all of the mortipedes. None of these things are really alive, Aaron; not in the way you and I think of alive.”
“Why?” Aaron asked. “Why all of this? What’s the connection to the School?”
“Good questions, but I can’t answer you right now,” Boone replied. “I’ve got to get up to Bellingham. I’m supposed to meet someone, and I’m running late. I stopped to help you out because my sister was worried. Come on, I’ll take you home.”
Boone left the kitchen, and Aaron followed. They took the elevator to the garage, where Boone led Aaron to a black Porsche.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Aaron said, admiring the car. “This is yours?”
“Yup,” Boone replied, unlocking it. “Get inside. I need to get moving. I gotta make this Bellingham appointment.”
Aaron got in. He immediately began to admire the interior. “This is so awesome!”
Boone had the car running and was out of the garage within seconds, pulling onto Alki Avenue.
“Listen, I want you to come by tomorrow,” Boone said. “We’ll talk more. There’s a lot you don’t know, and I could use your help.”
“OK,” Aaron replied, unsure that he could offer much in the way of help.
“Between now and then, you’ll be fine as long as you use the juice the way I told you. They won’t try to nab you when you’re moving around during the day; they come when you sleep, so make sure you don’t take a nap if you haven’t protected yourself.”
“OK,” Aaron repeated. He felt completely out of his depth. He could also feel Boone looking at him.
“You’ve got to stay focused on what I’m telling you,” Boone said. “They’ve lost track of you ever since I pulled out the head from your arm back at the fish shack. It won’t take them long to conclude you’ve gone completely AWOL. From that point on, you’re on their hit list.”
“What about my friend?” Aaron asked.
“Friend?”
“My best friend, Phillip,” Aaron answered. “He’s an Adherent too. He took the oath.”
“Why didn’t he come with you to meet me?”
“He hasn’t realized they’re bad yet,” Aaron said, feeling awful as he said it.
“Don’t know what to tell you, then,” Boone replied as he parked in front of Mrs. Morrison’s house. Aaron got out.
“Hey, buddy,” Boone called to him before he shut the car door.
“Yeah?”
“If you want my help, this stays just between us, got it? If your friend is helping them, you can’t talk to him about this.”
“Got it.”
He closed the car door and watched as Boone’s Porsche sped off. A light rain was beginning to fall, and he hurried to get on his bike and make it home before he got soaked.
Chapter Eleven
Aaron opened the door to his mother’s bedroom, sneaking in as quietly as he could. She was downstairs watching television, and he knew she’d remain glued to it as long as he didn’t make some kind of obvious noise that would attract her attention.
Gotta do this now, he thought, before she comes up to bed.
He positioned the bottle near the baseboards by the door and began to spray, working his way around the room. The only trouble he encountered was the bed; the headboard was against the wall, and he couldn’t get to the baseboard behind it. He decided to crawl under the bed.
Dust bunnies flew around him as he slid under, and he stifled the urge to sneeze. He delivered ten quick sprays, connecting the spot where he’d stopped to the spot where he’d started again, completing an entire circle of the room. He slid out from under the bed and stood. He was covered in dust.
Quietly he made his way back to his bedroom, and once reaching it, began to spray. He ran into the same problem with his bed, and found it easier to pull it from the wall than to crawl under. When he was sliding it back into place, it made a loud thump when it hit the wall.
He could hear his mother climbing the stairs, and he threw himself at the Xbox, launching a game.
“What was that?” she asked, opening the door without knocking.
“What?” he asked, not turning. He didn’t want her to see his dirty clothes.
“That noise,” she said. “Sounded like something heavy.”
“The bed,” he replied. “I dropped something that rolled under it. I had to move it.”
“Oh,” she said. “It sounded like you dropped a tank.”
“Sorry,” he replied.
“Huh,” she said. “This room actually smells nice. I don’t think it’s ever smelled
nice.”
“I got an air freshener,” he replied, remaining focused on the game. “Hope it’s not too overpowering.”
“Huh,” his mother repeated. “No, it’s not overpowering. I kind of like it. A lot better than it normally smells.” She closed the door.
Whew! he thought, wondering if he should have opened the window in his mother’s bedroom so it could air out.
He kept playing on the Xbox until bedtime. Before he got into bed, he knelt on the floor and used a flashlight to examine the floorboards. He could smell the solution the closer he got to the floor. He watched the spot where the floor met the floorboard, wondering if it would work the way Boone had promised.
He thought he saw something slip from under the wood, extending out a fraction of an inch, as though a thin antenna was testing the waters, encountering the barrier and pulling back. He lowered himself farther, aiming the flashlight into the crack at the base of the floor, hoping to see the mortipede.
He watched for a while but wasn’t able to detect more movement.
I might not have really seen it, he thought, standing and turning off the flashlight. I thought I did, but I can’t be sure.
He turned off the overhead light and got into bed. The room does smell kinda nice, he thought.
—
Aaron knew bad news was coming. He sat in homeroom, waiting for the morning announcements, but he could tell from the people around him that something was wrong.
He was relieved to have made it through the night without a visit from the mortipedes. However weird Boone’s juice seemed to be, it apparently worked.
The announcements started up, and almost immediately people started crying.
Karissa had died.
They also mentioned Curtis being in the hospital. He tried to listen to the update over the tears of the people sitting behind him, but it was difficult. The news seemed to be that Curtis wasn’t doing well. The announcer made a comment about how much tragedy had befallen the school.
He supposed he agreed with that, although there was still a little part of him that knew Ryan, Karissa, and Curtis weren’t the angels the school was now making them out to be. Still, he never would have wished these ends on them. He wondered how Phillip, sitting in his own homeroom, was taking the news.
The School of Revenge Page 11