by John McCrae
“They’re winning,” Cody said. ”Beating her.”
“She just dumped who knows how many monsters into this city,” Jess said, “And some of them are here. Near us. We’re not close to being safe.”
“And Noelle’s hurt pretty bad,” Marissa said.
Krouse grit his teeth. He didn’t want to think about that, about how he was jostling her, how she might be dying as he ran. He was carrying her, his legs, back and stomach screaming from the hundred-and-fifteen or hundred-and-twenty pound weight he was carrying piggyback, but he couldn’t check on her, couldn’t see how well or how badly she was doing.
“Luke, are we moving in the right direction?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Fuck me, this sound in my head-”
“Focus!” Krouse barked the word.
“It’s… I got turned around. This isn’t an area of the city I’ve spent any time in. Did she throw us a few blocks?”
“She couldn’t have,” Jess said. ”The building would have shattered.”
“Then we’re on some side street I’ve never been on,” Luke said, “Sorry.”
“Think! Which direction is the nearest hospital?” Krouse asked.
“I don’t know. I can barely hear my own thoughts over this noise in my head.”
Krouse growled with inarticulate frustration.
“Ease up, Krouse,” Cody said. ”He doesn’t know.”
“Noelle might be dying!”
“-And we’ll get to safety first, then someone can take us to a hospital,” Jess said. ”But we can’t help her if we’re hit by some flying piece of concrete or laser beam. And… they thought that it was better to kill that guy than to let him live, because he’d been here too long. He’d heard too much of that sound in our heads. So his own side killed him. Think about that. We’ve been here longer.”
Krouse shook his head. ”But if Noelle-”
“We’ll help her, Krouse!” Jess said. ”Save your breath for running!”
He grunted affirmation.
They crossed paths with another monster. A man, pale, with a head twice as large as his torso. His arms and legs were atrophied, and he crawled, dragging his head along the pavement. It looked as though he’d sustained some damage in being flung halfway across the city, his head was nearly caved in at the top, a bloody ruin with fragments of skull sticking out.
“Help me,” the thing pleaded. He reached out with one emaciated hand.
“How?” Marissa asked.
“Mars!” Krouse shouted, “No stalling!”
She ignored him. ”How can we help?”
“Give me your memories,” the monster said. Marissa backed away a few steps in alarm. ”Give them! I want to dream again! I haven’t dreamed in so long!”
Marissa bolted, the hard heels of her boots clacking on the hard ground.
The ground shuddered with a distant explosion. One of Scion’s beams speared into the sky, parting clouds in tidy circles as it passed through them. There was the sound of something howling behind them. A minute later, it howled again, closer. Is it chasing us?
One by one, they each came to a complete stop. Krouse noted how the screaming in his head seemed quieter. Were they almost out of her range?
Krouse’s eyes widened as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing. If we are nearly out of danger, then this is some sick joke at our expense.
“No,” Luke whispered. Louder, he repeated himself. ”No! Why!?”
A chain link fence barred their way. It was topped by barbed wire.
In the distance, on the far side of a park, there were squads of men and women in army fatigues, with jeeps and other army vehicles helping to add presence to the already formidable line of defense. Each of the soldiers was aiming a gun at the fence.
Krouse flinched as a howl sounded, closer than the ones before. Caught between a rock and a hard place. Not to mention Noelle’s condition, or even Luke’s. He winced at the noise in his head. It was quieter, but his stress here, his alarm and confusion, it was making the screaming spike to a brutally high pitch.
“Step away from the fence!” The voice sounded over a loudspeaker, gruff, authoritarian. ”This area is under quarantine! Seek shelter and wait for further instructions! If you approach or touch the fence, you will be shot!“
17.03
“Hey!” Krouse screamed at the soldiers. ”We need medical attention!”
There was no response.
“They can’t hear you,” Jess said. ”They’re too far away.”
“Fuckers!” He shouted. Stepping forward, he roared, “Why!?”
The loudspeaker blared, ”Step away from the fence!“
The man in charge must have given an order, because every gun present moved to point their way. As one, Krouse and his friends backed a healthy distance away from the fence.
“Bastards,” Krouse muttered.
There was a distant rumble. The Simurgh ascended from the skyline a mile away, a half-dozen uprooted buildings orbiting lazily around her. As chunks of concrete came free of the ruined ends of the structures, they too orbited her, a protective shield.
Or a weapon. Each of her wings curled forward, and the smaller pieces orbiting her went flying ahead, simultaneously striking a hundred targets Krouse and his friends couldn’t see. Scion fired one beam, and she moved one of the apartment complexes she was lifting to put it between herself and Scion. The goal seemed to be less about blocking the attack and more about hiding herself from Scion’s sight so she could take evasive action.
“Cover!” Cody shouted.
The angle of the beam meant that they were in the path of the resulting devastation, the remaining chunks of the building sent flying in their general direction. Shouting incoherently and screaming, they ran to take shelter around the corner of the nearest building.
Chunks of concrete, pavement and metal hit with enough force that they cracked brick and etched divots intp the snow-covered road.
“Oh god,” Marissa said, sliding down to sit where the sidewalk met the base of the house, “Oh god.”
“How’s Noelle?” Krouse asked.
“Pale,” Jess answered. ”You awake, No’?”
There was no response.
“She’s still breathing?”
“Yeah,” Jess said, pulling off a glove and reaching over.
Krouse closed his eyes. There was nothing they could do for Noelle just yet. He glanced at each of his friends, to gauge how they were handling things. They looked scared, Jess most of all. But she was the one with the biggest idea of what was going on. She was the one who read the websites and magazines about capes, who had the best idea of how the Simurgh operated. Marissa looked lost in thought, no doubt grieving over the brutal death of her best friend. Luke’s face was drawn with tension, suggesting he was in more pain than he was letting on, and Cody looked angry.
Not that Cody was wrong to feel that way. The people who were supposed to be on their side were putting them in danger with attacks that sent chunks of concrete flying halfway across the city. Or, on a more mundane level, they were fencing them inside the city’s limits and threatening them with guns.
“Luke? Your leg?”
“Doesn’t hurt that much. I think it’s pretty shallow,” Luke said, bending down and touching his pants leg. It was red-brown of blood, and had frozen stiff enough that it was only about as flexible as cardboard.
“It doesn’t look shallow.”
“I’m more worried about Noelle,” Luke said. ”We should get inside, try to get her warmer and see if there’s anything we can do for her. If we can find supplies to bandage my leg, that’s a bonus.”
“Let’s go, then. Is this place okay?” Krouse looked at the house they were huddled beside.
“It’s a little close to the guys with guns for my liking,” Luke said.
“Yeah, but if there’s trouble, maybe they’ll come help us,” Krouse pointed out.
“Doubt it,” Jess said.
He turne
d her way, but the way her lips were pursed suggested she wasn’t planning on elaborating.
They moved around the building until they found a door. Use of the doorbell and liberal knocking didn’t get a response from anybody inside. After Jess was set down, Cody and Oliver took turns kicking at the door, to little effect. They quickly abandoned that idea. Not like it is in the movies.
They had to wait while Cody used a fencepost to shatter a basement window and climbed inside. It would be a minute or two before he reached the front door and unlocked it from the inside.
“Hope there’s nobody hiding in there,” Oliver muttered. Mewled might have been a better word.
Krouse didn’t generally dislike Oliver, but the guy was hard to like, too. He’d joined the group when they’d started their gaming club at school, had once been one of Noelle’s friends, back when they were in kindergarten or something. Now he was in a few of Krouse’s classes, but despite the associations, he remained a second string member of the group. Krouse was willing to admit to himself that Oliver was a second string friend, too. He was short, a little pudgy, with an unfortunate haircut and no real personality, rarely joining in of his own volition.
Marissa had done everything her mother had asked of her, fought to be number one in ballet, number one in violin, number one in dance, in the pageant circuit, in grades and in countless other things. In each case, Marissa had either broken down under the pressure or it had become clear that first place wasn’t in reach. Her mom would let up for a few weeks, and then push the next thing. It had only been at the start of eleventh grade that Marissa had finally put a stop to it and pursued something that her mom didn’t understand and couldn’t pressure her on. The gaming club. The drive to win had stuck with her, and she’d still remained Marissa at the end of it all.
Oliver’s mom was a hardass in her own way, too, but he had buckled under that domineering pressure, breaking rather than thriving. In contrast to Marissa, his identity had been ground away.
“I’m scared,” Oliver said.
Grow up. ”We’re all pretty fucking scared,” Krouse said.
“Look at them,” Oliver was looking past the fence and across the park to where the soldiers were standing. ”When Cody broke that window, they tensed, like they thought we were a danger to them.”
Krouse glanced at Jess, saw her staring hard at the ground. ”Maybe we are. Jess? You seem to have a better idea of what’s going on than any of us.”
“You never followed this stuff? You really don’t know?”
“What is she? What can she do? Why are we under quarantine and why did Grandiose’s team kill him?”
She averted her eyes. ”Let’s wait until Cody’s with us, so I don’t have to explain twice.”
“Fuck waiting for Cody,” Krouse said.
“Krouse!” Luke admonished him.
“This shit is important! She’s stalling because it’s bad, but we need to know if it’s that bad.”
“We’ll wait for Cody,” Marissa said. Luke nodded in agreement.
Krouse scowled.
It was another minute before they heard the clatter of the latch on the other side of the door being opened.
“Place is empty,” Cody said. ”Basement was such a mess I had to wade through all the crap down there.”
Krouse was the first inside. It was someone’s house, but messy. Stacks of magazines covered every surface in the living room, there were plastic bags with the tops tied sitting underneath the hall table, and artwork that included paintings, clay figures, vases, and bird sculptures sat on every surface that wasn’t occupied.
Where are they? He wondered. He’d assumed that anyone who hadn’t evacuated while he and his friends were getting free of the toppled apartment building was hiding out. Had the residents here cleared out?
He found a couch and got into a sitting position, easing Noelle down. He rubbed his shoulders where the sleeves of her shirt had been pulling at him while Marissa and Oliver handled getting Noelle from a sitting to a prone position.
“On her side,” Marissa said. ”There’s a lot of blood in her mouth, and we don’t want her choking.”
Oliver nodded, and Krouse found space to get close and help them shift Noelle over. Once she was in position, he seated himself on the oak coffee table, elbows on his knees, facing her.
She was white to the point that she was pushing pushing past pink and moving into the bluer hues, and she had a purple-brown bruising around her eyes. The blood around her nose and mouth was caked on thick. Some had gotten onto her coat and sweatshirt.
“She’s still breathing?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Marissa said. She touched Noelle’s throat, and Noelle shifted, pulling away. ”Shhh. It’s okay. Just checking your pulse. It’s weak.”
Can’t stand this. Seeing her like this, when I can’t help her. Krouse turned to look at Jess, where Cody was settling her into an armchair. ”You were going to explain.”
“I don’t know if I should.”
“We have to know what’s going on, what to watch out for. This screaming in our heads-”
“Don’t remind me,” Cody said. ”Fuck me, I’m losing my mind.”
“That’s what I was going to ask,” Krouse said, staring at Jess. ”Are we losing our minds?”
“Not… not permanently,” Jess said.
“Oh god,” Marissa said.
“It’s what happened in… what was that place called? Lausanne? Switzerland. She showed up, and nobody wanted to pick a fight with her, and they were curious, so they studied her, and tried to communicate with her. Tons of people gathered. Then she… sang? Screamed? Whatever this is. There was chaos, people didn’t know what was happening, so they weren’t able to evacuate that well. Roads clogged. And then they started flipping out. Emotions ramped up, inhibitions lowered, flashbacks to old traumas. And a lot of the emotion that got juiced up was fear. People can do pretty stupid, dangerous things when afraid.”
Oliver put his hands to his head, his fingers scrunching up his hair, his eyes wide. ”She’s getting into our heads?”
We have nothing to fear but fear itself, only it’s taken literally, Krouse thought. Aloud, he asked, “It goes away?”
“A temporary break in sanity can be pretty devastating,” Marissa said, her voice small.
“Yeah,” Jess said. ”But it’s still temporary.”
“So that’s why they’re scared? They think any guy with superpowers that loses his mind is too big a danger? And the army guys are there in case we turn into a rabid, panicked mob?” Krouse asked.
“…Yeah,” Jess replied.
Krouse hadn’t missed the delay before she’d spoken. It had only been a fraction of a second, but it had been there.
“So we just need to minimize the damage we can do if worst comes to worst,” Luke said. He’d settled in the armchair beside Jess, and was rolling up the frozen leg of his jeans.
Krouse studied Jess, saw how she was looking hard at the ground. That pause: there was something she wasn’t saying. Was she lying about it being temporary?
“I’m going to go see if I can scrounge up anything to take care of that leg,” Marissa said.
“Thanks,” Luke said.
“Oliver,” Krouse said. ”Find blankets? Look for a linen cupboard. Something we can put around Noelle to warm her up. Maybe around Luke, too.”
“And me, if it’s no trouble,” Jess said. ”The circulation in my legs isn’t so good, and the idea of what might happen if they get cold is pretty scary.”
“Okay,” Oliver said, hurrying to obey.
Jess added, “And what are you doing, Krouse?”
“I’ll watch Noelle,” he said, his voice firm.
She frowned. ”Can you get us some water? Or juice, maybe? Both Noelle and Luke have lost blood, they’ll need to avoid getting dehydrated.”
“But Noelle-”
“I’ll watch Noelle in the meantime. I’m not good for much else right now. Don’t worry. You�
�ll be in earshot if there’s trouble.”
“Right,” Krouse reluctantly agreed. He stood and went looking for the kitchen.
He found a carton of orange juice, a plastic container of cranberry, and glasses. He had to search for a pitcher to put water in, opening cupboards.
He stopped when he reached the far corner of the kitchen. There was a small banging noise, repetitive. Too small to be the house’s residents.
No. the back door of the house opened into an enclosed back patio with a dining room table and heavy green curtains blocking each of the windows. On top of the table was a cage with a small bird inside. A cockatoo or something. The bird was standing on the floor of its home, slowly, steadily and monotonously banging its head against the raised metal lip of the cage. Blood and bloody bird footprints joined the bird shit that spattered the newspaper that lined the cage.
She affects animals too. Is this what’s in store for us? It was unnerving to watch, to imagine that it could easily be him doing the same thing, sometime in the near future. That steady, mindless kind of self harm. Suicide by compulsive repetition, beating his head to a pulp against the nearest solid surface… if he was lucky. He was a human with opposable thumbs, and there were a hell of a lot of ugly things he could do to himself if that fucking bird woman decided to push him that far. Just as bad, there were ugly things that he could do to others.
He looked away to find something that could serve as an improvised pitcher for the water, and his eyes caught on something.
He returned his eyes to the cage. He’d been scared, earlier, had felt genuine fear for Noelle’s well being, for his own. But this was something else entirely. What he was experiencing now wasn’t fear, but despair. He backed away, thinking hard. Too many things weren’t making sense, but this threatened to bring everything into a kind of clarity he didn’t want.
He found a knife, returned to the cage, and then grabbed the bird in one fist. It didn’t struggle or resist as he held it down, severing its head with one clean stroke.
It’s just a dumb fucking bird, but it doesn’t deserve to suffer.
Maybe he could hope for the same.