Surrogacy

by Rob Horner

  Disregarding that even in my own mind I couldn’t manage to keep a southern accent separate from a 1920s New York gangster accent, it still wasn’t a good defense. Our best indication lay in what Brian noticed. No police officer would fire on a moving vehicle, not in a residential neighborhood, not even on a deserted street, unless there were no other options and the choice came down to which was the greater threat.

  Those had to be Dra’Gal wearing human skins, and if they were from Brian’s precinct, then they’d had five days to solidify their hold.

  It was after the mall, and after we did something to the police.

  Other than meeting here, we hadn’t done anything at the mall.

  “Uh, Johnny,” Angie said. “You know how you wanted me to keep my eyes open for…stuff?”

  “Yeah,” I answered, still deep within my own thoughts.

  “Well, the mall is glowing.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled. Then her words sank in. “Wait. What?”

  Iz was suddenly paying attention too.

  “Well, it’s not glowing red, like Dra’Gal do. More like the idea of a glow, or like a lightbulb seen through a lampshade.”

  “So, it’s there, but not very bright?” Iz asked.

  “Yeah, like it’s being filtered,” she answered.

  Iz looked at me, holding my eyes with his, as the second van pulled up and parked beside the first.

  “Could it be a resonator?” he asked.

  Thinking about Angie’s description, it didn’t seem to fit the way you’d talk about one of those things. In my memory, the trailer at the carnival loomed bright, red, and evil, as if just having one of those things inside had so tainted the structure that the red light blossomed out of every crack in the paneling, leaked around every bolt and hinge. None of the words I would use could be construed as “filtered.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “I don’t think so, but it’s something we should check out.”

  “My man!” Chris said, slapping me on the back.

  Chapter 18

  I fought the law

  After a brief discussion between Fish and Iz, we entered the mall through the Sears’ Department Store entrance. The helmeted Quin was adamantly against the idea, arguing the police already knew where we were, and we shouldn’t be risking ourselves any more than necessary.

  Both very good reasons not to enter.

  But the mall glowed, and if it wasn’t because of a resonator, then it was because something else inside the building gave off an aura indicative of a large Dra’Gal presence. This was war, and in war you didn’t just focus on the big attacks. If you got a chance to disrupt the enemy, even in a seemingly superficial manner, you took it. Those were Iz’s arguments, and the rest of us agreed with him.

  The automatic doors opened, releasing a blast of cool, air-conditioned air.

  And…everything looked normal.

  Customers browsed through the garden supplies and health care products. Off to our left, Sears’ representatives manned the customer service desk, answering questions and handling merchandise exchanges and refunds on faulty or incorrect items. There was nothing overtly antagonistic in the mannerisms of either the salesmen or their customers. The products lining the shelves and the sales floor looked normal as well. From Craftsmen tools to John Deere lawn equipment, Bowflex exercise equipment to Nike shoes, nothing looked wrong. There weren’t any demon heads adorning water bottles or glittery-glitzy demon faces on the exercise shirts.

  Light flashed in short bursts as we entered.

  “What the—?” Iz whispered as Brian removed a hand from the grizzled veteran’s back.

  “Just hiding the hardware,” Brian said, reaching out another hand to make Raymond’s rifle disappear.

  “You’re not taking my sidearm too,” Ray growled, laying a hand protectively over the holster on his hip.

  “Those should be fine,” Iz said. “Good thinking, Brian.”

  “The way I see it, you look like soldiers of some kind, so a sidearm won’t occasion too much comment,” the cop said. “But not even soldiers walk around the mall with rifles slung over their shoulders.”

  “I feel naked without it,” Bart commented. “I hope you can bring them back if we need them.”

  Bradley made a comment to Chris, who giggled in a decidedly un-Superman way, which made Bart spin around to glare at the two of them. The comment didn’t come over the Port-Comms, but their laughter at the soldier’s reaction did.

  We moved like we had a destination in mind, and because of that focused look, or maybe because we were a group of nineteen, no one got in our way. Through housewares and children’s clothing, past the photo lab and women’s lingerie, we made our way out of the anchor store and into the mall proper.

  And still there didn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary. Angie made no comments about people or things glowing red, despite that Iz walked beside her, constantly drawing her attention to one display or another.

  The sharp yips and barks of a litter of adorable golden retriever puppies called out to us from the show window of the Pet-Go-Round on our left, an enticing appeal that drew both Gina and Bradley in that direction, before a grunt from Iz made them stop. To our right was Waldenbooks, with its well-lit display of new titles mounted on one wall. The benches placed outside the bookstore were in use by shoppers too excited about a new book to wait until they got home to start reading it. I knew that kind of impatience. When The Great Hunt came out the previous November, I must have sat on one of those benches for at least an hour, unwilling to leave Robert Jordan’s fantasy world until a creeping pain in my rump and a numbness in my legs forced me to get up and start moving again.

  Everywhere there were shoppers, diligently moving from one store to another, some like they were on a mission, knowing exactly what they wanted, where to get it, and intent upon securing their purchase and leaving as fast as they could. Others wandered aimlessly, checking out price markdowns and weekly specials. There were young women walking in pairs, chatting amiably about tops, guys, skirts, guys, food, guys, shoes, and guys. Our presence drew a little attention, but not so much as you might think. While it was odd to see a group as large as ours, the sight of young men dressed similarly and carrying weapons was not so uncommon in this city as it might be in others. Virginia Beach was home to an army base and three Navy bases, one of which also housed the SEALs and a contingent of Marines. In neighboring Norfolk there was another large Naval base. And in Hampton, where Tanya lived, there was an Air Force installation. We had no shortage of military presence.

  At the back of our pack, Angie began pointing things out to Iz, James, Bradley…anyone who would listen, but I ignored her for a moment, wanting to figure it out for myself.

  Something was off about the people, though not in a flashing red eyes and razor-sharp claws kind of way. It was in their demeanor, an almost-imperceptible sense of wariness they exuded while they walked from one store to another. More than Lynnhaven or Military Circle Mall, Pembroke had always been welcoming to me, an attitude shared by employees and fellow shoppers alike.

  But now, as I watched closely, the other shoppers moved with a slight hunch to their shoulders, like they were powering through a wall of fear. People watched where they walked, taking small steps sideways to avoid bumping into each other, as if dealing with an “Excuse me” was asking for more trouble than it was worth.

  I stepped forward, coming close to a young man in business clothes and brown loafers. He flinched noticeably, mumbling something that might have been a curse or an apology, and quickly shifted away.

  Five days had passed since the resonators were activated and the Dra’Gal began infesting our population. Only a fool would try to convince himself that the invasion and this new fearfulness in the population weren’t related.

  Iz brushed past me, dragging the others along. I fell in beside Angie, noting the look of fear in the older woman’s eyes. “What is it?”

  “It starts down there,”
she said, pointing ahead.

  Moving with the crowd, we passed a men’s clothing store, a Kinney’s Shoe Source, and a Woolworth’s, finally coming to a small knick-knack booth set in the center of the mall walkway. The sign on the top of the spinning racks said Things Remembered. I’d shopped there before, once buying a Zippo lighter as a Christmas present for my uncle. The prices were reasonable, and they even boasted an engraving service for an additional fee.

  Among their collection of gold and silver lighters, bracelets, and rings, nestled among the gilt baubles on the small wooden shelves were exquisitely detailed silver and crystal demon figurines. Red rubies gleamed from transparent skulls, just the right size to add definition to the carvings without seeming gaudy. Long curving claws, gold-plated, glistened an ominous red in the light.

  “It all glows!” Angie whispered fiercely.

  “Want me to torch it?” Michael asked.

  “Stand down,” Iz answered. Then, to Angie, he asked, “Is this all of it?”

  She pointed.

  To our left and a little farther into the mall was a small jewelry store which specialized in the inexpensive gold- and silver-colored necklaces and earrings favored by teenagers who couldn’t afford the real thing. The store also sold plastic rings and bracelets for younger girls, just old enough where they appreciated adornment but still fascinated by cartoon figures, unicorns, and fairies.

  Among those painted-plastic and metal-plated pieces of innocent decoration sat more evidence of the Dra’Gal’s insidious threat—horrid countenances leering from darkly-colored plastic earrings (with the patented antimicrobial steel posts), luminous eyes gazing up from red-skinned faces set onto bracelets like grotesque hood ornaments. Above the display rack was a small sign with bright red letters surrounded by small white lightbulbs. That it was meant to be seen from the hallway, a lure to bring more customers into the store, was obvious.

  As Seen on T.V.

  “Oh my God,” someone, I think it was Gina, whispered behind me.

  “I can’t believe they’re advertising openly, like this is nothing more than a talking doll,” Michael said.

  Now it was obvious, if it hadn’t been before, why something needed to be done about the mall, and why it might lead to the retaliatory strike on our base by the police that featured so prominently in my dream.

  “We gotta do something about this,” Jason said.

  The sheer audacity of the display combined with the intuitive knowledge that it would work, probably a lot more efficiently than just grabbing people at the carnival, rendered me speechless.

  If we could damage this place of business, especially if we could do it in such a way that no physical means would be detectable, we’d be sending a sign to the Dra’Gal that we weren’t going to just stand still and let them take over our world. We would fight! And we’d do so using every means at our disposal.

  It didn’t matter that the Dra’Gal would be angry enough to attack us. Like Jason said, we had to do something about this!

  “Keep it down,” Iz hissed.

  Two things happened that rendered his warning too little, too late.

  First, Fish’s voice came over the Port-Comms: “You’re going to have to get out of there. I see three, no…four police cruisers turning in. They’re spreading out to block the anchor-store exits.”

  “All right, we need to move for one of the center exits,” Iz said, reaching out and grabbing my arm, starting to pull me away from the jewelry store.

  I wasn’t the one he should have been worried about.

  “There’s also a SWAT van coming in, running silent,” Jeff added. When had he teleported away? “I think I can get inside and start moving you guys two by two.”

  Iz started to say something, but suddenly there was fire arcing out from where we stood to the display window of the children’s jewelry store.

  “What the hell? Michael?” Iz said.

  The tall ginger stood a few feet away from us, arms out and hands together, looking for all the world like a man holding a pistol in a two-handed grip. Except his hands held nothing but living fire, which he directed as though each hand was a flame thrower.

  “We’re not leaving,” I said, wrenching my arm out of the older man’s grip.

  “Hell yeah, let’s stop this!” Bradley added, pivoting on the spot and sending streaking bolts of light at the Things Remembered stand behind us. The flashes of white, like slivers of brightness shooting through the air, caused no damage that I could see, but each one struck the display unerringly, as if he couldn’t miss. What would Angie see, if she bothered to look? Did each little dagger of light remove the red taint from whatever it touched? Would she see it as lightbulbs burning out, or as something else?

  A burst of air blew the hair back from my forehead, and suddenly Jason was standing in front of me. “There’s-a-lot-more-of-them-on-the-other-halls!” he said, his words running together.

  “Let’s get to the center,” Gina said, pulling away from our group. “I can put up a wall to protect us while Johnny does his thing. Maybe we can purge everything at once.”

  I didn’t know if my power would reach that far, but I was willing to try. Iz must have seen the look of determination on my face, because he gave up trying to convince us to leave.

  A crash to our left showed the display window collapsing. Michael still had his arms out, flames pouring from them like water from a firehose, now dousing the horrifying display within the store. Within seconds the plastic earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings, the cheap vinyl purses and plastic jewelry boxes, were nothing more than lumps of pink and red sludge, some of it so hot that it ran down the metal frame and puddled on the floor.

  “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better hurry,” Fish said. “The SWAT van is almost in position, and it looks like the cops are heading into the stores.”

  “That’s not protocol,” Brian said as we started jogging.

  “Sorry, Iz” Michael said, catching up to us. “I just thought, you know, what if my little girl saw that display?”

  A flash of light in front of me resolved into one of the strange rifles in Brian’s hands. He handed it to Raymond and summoned another.

  Raymond sneezed. “Smells like cat.”

  Brian laughed, handing the second weapon to Iz.

  Then we were in the center of the mall, a rough crossroads with a couple of food stores at each corner and a smattering of small tables with plastic chairs filling the central area. The savory smell of chicken from the Chick Fil A combined with a tangy undertone of teriyaki from the Japanese grill filled the air and set my stomach growling.

  “There they are!” someone yelled, a young man running toward us from the hallway where Michael played firebug.

  The ominous sound of rifles being readied for use, that classic “cha-chink” sound you know from television and movies, sounded all around me. Deadly barrel over barrel rifles came up, stocks pressed into shoulders as four soldiers took aim at the young mall employee.

  “I got this,” Bradley said, his tone firmer and more self-assured than the way he usually spoke.

  You’d think seeing four rifles aimed your way would make a guy rethink his decision to chase after the people who set fire to a store display. Heck, if you’d seen how the fire was started, you’d probably have thought twice about chasing them in the first place.

  But of course, he wasn’t a normal guy. He was a Dra’Gal, following the hive mind, which told him that he wasn’t alone. There were five separate police units converging on our position at that very moment, four of them coming in through the anchors, which all fed into the crossroads where we stood, and a SWAT unit about to breach the double-glass doors that gave entry directly into the food court.

  When he was twenty feet away he began to change, arms and legs elongating, skin sprouting scales like the iridescent layers on the back of an exotic lizard, a row of fleshy spikes running down the center of his skull from forehead to the nape of his neck like the
world’s freakiest mohawk haircut.

  Bradley sent out his light-knives, which moved almost faster than the eye could follow…but which the Dra’Gal anticipated…or saw coming…I don’t know. It leaped over Bradley’s initial volley, now a dozen feet away and closing fast. Another series of knives went out, this time in a vertical fan motion, but the thing jived to one side, never breaking stride, and then it was on top of us, long claw-tipped arms reaching, ready to rend.

  A blast of deafening, stuttering sound accompanied the firing of two of the rifles, as both Bart and Iz shot point-blank into the monstrous thing bearing down on us. Flesh rent under the fusillade, blood that was somehow darker than normal spraying out in all directions.

  Then the thing was down, and a dozen bodies were pushing back against me.

  “The time is now, Johnny. Light this place up!” Iz said.

  Could my power reach far enough from here? Would it be strong enough to purge the items on display at Things Remembered, as well as the other kiosks and store displays down the other hallways?

  “Don’t worry,” Jeff’s voice said in my ear, “I’ll get you back to Mandatum afterward.”

  But I didn’t want to go back to Mandatum.

  It finally made sense.

  This was what the dream meant.

  What we did here would decimate the Dra’Gal’s efforts to use the mall as a recruiting platform. Who knows how much of the resonator’s capacity was centered here in the hundreds of items on display? What we did here would also count as our attack on the police. Because if they were caught up in the blast, that would be another dozen or so hosts lost to the Dra’Gal.

  This action would precipitate the retaliation.

  Unless we acted first.

  Other shots sounded, guns being fired from farther in the mall, aimed at us. A wall of white light sprang into being, curving slightly and blocking off most of three of the hallways leading to the food court. Iz and the other soldiers took up positions that blocked me from the fourth hallway, willing to be human shields so that I could do what they wanted me to do.