Shard

by John Richmond

  Loraine let go and began to turn away. Childe grabbed her wrist and spun her around. Pink circles stood out on his cheeks and his eyes were glassy with tears, “No! You listen now! Red birds came in and ate those bad people. Mr. George and Constable Will shot Howard Sams and then he got up.”

  Loraine was shaking now and all the color had drained from her face. George and Will shared a look, but let it play out. Will had been planning on bringing Loraine up to speed but a hell of a lot more gently than this. Apparently, her son had other ideas. Shit, they probably didn’t have time to be gentle now that he thought about it anyway.

  Finally, Loraine managed a horse whisper, “You’re just a kid. What do you know?”

  Childe erupted, “I know that we saw a giant web in the forest! I’ve met the thing that made it.” He jabbed a finger at Will. “He used its name when we were pullin’ away from the house.” Now Childe dug his fingers into her arms. Loraine was looking everywhere but her son’s eyes. The light of the world was proving a tad too bright at present. He shook her, tears streaming down his face. “What’d Constable Will call it, Loraine?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Mom? I love you. What did Will say its name was?”

  “Dunno’.” She muttered and sank to her knees with a little moan.

  Kiddo went down with her, but kept his hold on her arms. “Mom,” he whispered. She was crying now. “Look at me, okay?” She did and smiled as if she hadn’t seen his dear face in some time. Loraine wiped a tear from his cheek. Childe wiped one from hers then pinned her eyes with his own. “What’s its name?”

  Loraine squeezed her eyes shut and frowned like a little girl, her lower lip stuck out and quivered. “Yïn,” she said at last and opened her eyes. “Its name is Yïn and it’s a giant fucking spider, okay?” She reached forward and hugged her son. “I’m so sorry about Howard, Kiddo.” For a long time they held each other, kneeling on the floor and crying softly. After a little while, Loraine looked up at Will. He saw two things in her face that filled him with relief: acceptance and sanity. She also looked like ten years older. She whispered, “What else do I need to know?”

  * * *

  “A dragon? Seriously?” Loraine said as George drove her and Kiddo in Erica’s rented Subaru. He had been laying out the rest as they rolled over darkened streets toward the movie theatre—Childe’s suggestion as a starting point.

  “Oh,” George said, “You can get your head around a giant shape-shifting spider but a dragon’s what, too far fetched?”

  Loraine sat back in the passenger seat. Childe and Darwin were in the back. The boy spoke up, “Wow, a dragon? I mean, I saw Yïn in the woods that one time, but I didn’t know there was a dragon.” Awe crept into his voice. “Was it really big?”

  “Well, I was kinda dr—confused at the time, but I’d say it was big. I remember having to crane my neck a lot.”

  “Wait,” Loraine said and turned around to face her son. “You already knew about the spider? How come you didn’t tell me?”

  Kiddo just looked at her.

  “Would you have believed him?” George said quietly.

  Loraine faced forward. “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t have.” She looked back over her shoulder, “I’m sorry, Kiddo. I guess I’d believe you now if you told me Darwin was really a robot under all that fur.”

  Kiddo threw on a flat Austrian accent and lowered his voice, “Sarah Connah? Woof.”

  “God, it bothers me that you’ve seen The Terminator.”

  George smiled. He couldn’t help it. “What self-respecting twelve year-old boy hasn’t seen The Terminator?” He glanced at the twelve-guage pump shotgun propped against the door next to Loraine. Will had shown her how to use it before they’d split up, but if that thing didn’t blow her on her ass the first time she fired it, George would be amazed. “Man, I wish we had a few terminators workin’ for us right about now.”

  Loraine brushed a finger along the stock of the shotgun. “What else is there for me to know?” She said. “Other than those people? Will there be more of them? What’s with the wasps in their mouths?” She shook her head. “God, I feel like everyone knows more about what’s going on than I do.”

  “Well, you’re the mom,” Kiddo said as if that explained everything.

  “All I know is what I’ve seen,” George said. “There’s a big fuckin’ dragon—pardon my French, Kiddo—under the mines in a cavern full of jewels. It called itself Dampf and said its giant spider buddy was called Yïn. They’re guarding a doorway between our world and a different one. In this other world there are some monsters trying to get to into this one. This would be a very bad thing. One of these monsters—which are apparently giant shape-shifting wasps—has already come through. The dragon called him ‘The Pompiliad’. He wants to open the door and bring all his buddies over here. We’re supposed to help Dampf and Yïn keep him from doing that.” George took a breath.

  “Dampf? Yïn?” Loraine asked, “What’s with all the German?”

  “I’m guessing they can call themselves whatever they want. They’re older than German or English or Martian for all I know. I think Dampf is like ‘damp’ as in Firedamp. It’s coal mine speak for a pocket of combustible gas. You know that whole thing about canaries in coal mines? The poor little suckers are more susceptible to the gas fumes from a firedamp, so they crap out before the people do. I’m not sure what Yïn means.”

  “Yes and no,” Loraine said, staring through her own reflection in the window.

  “What?”

  She looked at George, “Yah unt nine. Yïn. Get it?”

  George smiled in spite of himself. “Cute.”

  “What about T.R.?” Childe asked.

  “Yeah, him,” George said, his fingers creaked on the steering wheel. “I’m not sure what’s going on there, but I get the distinct impression that he’s workin’ for the black hats on this one.”

  “Black hats?”

  “Bad guys, honey,” Loraine said.

  “Oh.”

  George continued, “When he snatched Erica,” his voice wavered just a bit on her name, “he said she belonged to the ‘Outrider’. I figured he was talking about The Pompiliad.”

  Childe thought for a moment. “Is T.R., you know, like Howard and those other people? Dead an’ stuff?”

  “I don’t think so, buddy,” George said. Poor little guy didn’t just lose his best friend, he watched him die twice and get up. And speaking of poor big guys, how didn’t George himself feel after blowing away a small child with a big gun? He felt like he needed a drink was how he felt. And he felt like he could do it again. Something in his hindbrain told him that thing wearing Howard Sams wasn’t Howard Sams. George didn’t think it would be too far a stretch for him to unload on another one. And as far as T.R. was concerned, there would be zero hesitation. Maybe he’d start with the kneecaps. “T.R. looked really wrong, sick, and I get the idea that anyone who gets in good with the Pompiliad probably doesn’t do very well in the end.” George hoped like hell that whatever sickness was coursing through T.R. like bad electricity hadn’t found its way into Erica. “God, I need a drink,” he muttered.

  “What?” Loraine asked.

  “Nothing,” George pulled the car over and killed the lights. He left the engine running and checked his gear. He still had the little knapsack with the flashlight and first aid kit. The M16—which he had begun to think of as the Incredible Boom Stick—was in the hatch back stinking of cordite and machine oil. He grabbed his walkie and thumbed the talk button. “Will.”

  The radio squawked back, “You’re a minute late.”

  “Try to keep your pantyhose dry about it. We’re just down the street from the theatre.” George’s nose wrinkled, “Man, the sulfur’s really strong down here.”

  “Say again all after theatre?”

  “Nothing,” George said. “Listen, we’re going to check it out. I’ll call back in five.”

  “Don’t be late this time.”
/>   “Won’t. Where’re you?”

  “About two minutes from Amy’s Winnebago.”

  “All right, man. Good luck.”

  “Thanks, Georgie. Be careful. Out.”

  “Out,” George said. The walkie-talkie made it difficult to be sure, but he thought there was something odd in Will’s voice. Loraine articulated it for him. “Doesn’t sound like he think’s she’ll be there.”

  “No,” he said, “It didn’t, did it.” George stared out into the night and let his eye rove along the main street. There were a hundred hiding places behind those boarded up windows and T.R. could be in any one of them, training his rifle on them right now. The gouge in George’s head throbbed. He half-turned in his seat, “Okay, here’s how we’re gonna do this.”

  * * *

  Will drove the Jeep Cherokee into the weedy parking lot outside the abandoned offices of the Shard Mine Co. He knew what he’d find before he even got there. Amy’s RV was gone. When he’d left her this morning, there had been some smell on her, some intention that got behind his eyes just a bit. Not enough at the time to put him on alert for her, but enough so now that he found her gone it wasn’t a surprise. Well, good, maybe that was one less person he’d have to worry about.

  Will killed the engine and got out of the jeep. He swung a big MagLite around the lot. A group of red eyes flared at the edge of the woods. Will’s breath caught in his chest and then let go. Deer—just a small herd of deer. He moved the light on and the deer crashed off into the undergrowth. Will walked over to the empty spot that had been occupied by Amy’s rolling apartment-slash-laboratory. He got a flash of her sunbathing on that rock, smiling at him in bed, bending over the kitchen table, tattoos writhing. God, what a wildcat. But now she was gone. Will kicked a pebble and tracked it as it skittered across the broken macadam. She would probably have been able to pick that little sucker up, squint at it and tell him exactly what it was made out of. Will smiled. Amy was gone and that was fine.

  * * *

  Amy James watched the jeep turn around and trundle out of the parking lot from the upper corner office of the Shard Mine Co., crimson brake lights flaring like a couple of robot eyes in the dark. Behind her on the dusty floor was a sleeping bag, camping stove and a serious backpack stuffed with rope and other gear. If Will kept looking, he’d find her Winnie abandoned on a mining road about three miles into the woods. Not far enough back that it would never be found (at least she didn’t think so, but around here who the hell knew) and then the worst would be suspected. She had ransacked the inside of the Winnie so thoroughly it would appear as if an entire tribe of meth fiends had gone over every inch of it and made off with its owner.

  Amy waited until the sound of the jeep was a distant hum and the sound of the night—crickets, a night hawk’s call, frog songs—found their way back into her little squat. Her eyes had already gotten used to the moonlight pushing through the filmy windows. She plopped down on the sleeping bag and dragged her pack over. It made a loud rasping on the gritty concrete floor and sent up a cloud of mildewy air, but she barley noticed. She unzipped a large side pocket and pulled out the diamond sphere she’d taken from the cavern. A low jolt of pleasure ran up her arms and settled, humming in her gut. Amy held the huge crystal in her lap and stared into its milky heart. Moonlight found her eyes and washed all the color away. Her face was empty.

  She planned to wait for first light before starting out for what she had begun to think of as The New Mine. It would take her a while and some serious muscle power, but she could probably haul at least another five of these amazing diamonds into the light before the day was through. Amy turned the sphere over and over in her lap. That subtle buzz of pleasure, a liquid cold that did not chill but invigorated like negative electricity, spread down through her pelvis and into her legs. Soon she was suffused with it and began to rock gently back and forth. Something moved in the corner, but she didn’t care. It was probably just a mouse. If it came near her jewel she’s simply grab it and bite its head off. Even if it was a coyote (she’d heard them howling at night) she’d just use her rock hammer and gouge out its eyes or even bite its throat until her face and short hair were tacky with blood. It was her jewel and that was final. There would be no taking it away from her.

  Amy pushed it into the hollow of her belly and a low moan slid over her lips. She was taken with the urge to strip and rub the crystal all over her skin, rolling it along the curves and divots of her body. The very idea sped her heart and gave her the shakes, but if she took her hands away from the diamond to unlace her boots or pull off her shirt she would lose skin contact with it. The pleasant cold throbbed in her every pore now and began to drag at her eyelids. She was tired, so tired. Careful to keep her hands on her jewel, Amy lay on her side and curled around it. She fell asleep and dreamed nothing.

  The hours crept by in the warm summer night and the world wound on its way outside, but in Amy’s little keep time was told only by the travels of the moon over the floor. It slid up to Amy and outlined her, stealing the colors from her painted arms except for one tiny patch on the back of her shoulder. It winked in the light like a scale of mica. Amy’s rib cage rose and fell, rose and fell, the sphere grasped tight to her belly with hands that looked more like claws in the strange light. The moon moved on, sparking a second flake of mica on the back of her hand, and a third behind her ear. The moon moved on and so did Amy James.

  Chapter 33

  T.R. sat on the cool earthen floor of Missus Najarian’s cellar and tried not to think. When he thought about stuff he heard a voice and that voice sounded a lot like his mother. Tommy Ray Dalton did not, as did many of the yokels around these parts, fall off a hay wagon yesterday. He knew it couldn’t really be his mother’s voice. She was dead. He understood that now. He put the bullet in her himself. He hugged his bony knees to his chest. It was nice down here in the basement, peaceful—when his goddamn dead mother wasn’t nagging him, anyway. Something about being in their den or whatever (hive would have been more accurate) kept the buzzing in his poor skull at bay and even kept the throbbing down in his priapic member. The smell was terrible, of course, but it was safe. This was where they’d been sleeping? Would you call it that?

  T.R. glanced around the room. The only light came from a hissing Coleman lantern he’d found hanging from a hook near the top of the steps. They didn’t need it to find their way around, but he had almost fallen and broken his fucking neck getting down here with the Outrider’s slut. She was a little thing, sure, but solid. T.R. was thinking that some serious gym time went into making a bod as tight as that one. The dishwater glow from the lantern illuminated her in the corner. Well, illuminated her face anyway. The rest of her was kind of covered up. He grimaced with the memory.

  As soon as he’d gotten her down the stairs, they’d, well, swarmed him, the stinking walkers—Najarian, the Owenses and the rest. They’d taken Erica’s unconscious bulk from his shoulders and spirited her toward the back wall. They’d been doing some digging, enlarging the cellar, a little renovating in their off hours. There were holes gouged in the hard packed earth all around the cellar walls, their sides roughly hexagonal. Some of them were neatly stacked with only a thin partition between. T.R. was sure they should collapse, but some sort of coating caught the light. Glue, cement? Something.

  He stood at the base of the stairs, swaying, exhausted and then suddenly marveling at the blessed silence in his head. The buzzing was almost gone. A smile spread across his face like an overheated child’s melodramatic relief when he walks into air-conditioning after a hot day’s play. T.R.’s hands stole to his crotch—yep, still hard as a rolling pin, but not so bad it was like he was going to bust his own sausage casing.

  A wet scratching, crumpling noise was coming from the back of the room. He wanted to see what they were doing. Some ghoulish sensibility told him they might be eating her and he had to make sure she was in one piece for the Outrider. He clumped up the wooden risers and grabbed the Coleman f
rom its nail by the door. With each step up, the buzzing grew louder, his face more contorted; as he moved downstairs, the buzzing grew more faint. It was as regular as a volume knob. T.R. held the lantern up and sprayed the cellar with hissing white light.

  A little crowd of walkers was busy at the intersection of the east and south walls. They had Erica propped up in the corner. T.R. could just see her face—eyes closed, mouth hanging slack. That swampy squishing sound was very loud now, and then he saw what they were doing he understood why the hexagonal cells were able to stay up. They were cementing her in place. Charlotte Najarian—her skin now mottled as a moldy squash—leaned forward, jaws stretched to the breaking point and took a huge bite out of the earthen wall. She began to chew with rapid, machine-like quivers, her jaw spasming on her load of dirt. The half-burned one that T.R. was pretty sure was Luther Becket was on his hands and knees, the bow of his arched back flexing as tarry muck pumped out of his mouth. He laid a thick bead in a half circle, penning Erica into the corner. He was already up to her knees. Najarian leaned forward and added another layer of processed earth to the cell. The others were working from her chin down, closing the sides in around her in a gluey hug.

  T.R.’s sense of time was pretty much gone down here in the dark, but it felt like they’d finished at least a half an hour ago. They had stood and walked away, each shuffling for one of the hexagonal holes. They’d wriggled into the shoulder-wide cells head first, but somehow managed to turn around. The mud clotted tops of heads crowned just inside the lip of each cell like a nightmare birth canal. And there were more than when he first met them in the kitchen upstairs. He hadn’t noticed the extra tenants before—at least fifteen of them—because he’d been distracted by the construction crew. All told, there had to be something like twenty or twenty-five. It was like most of the town was down here. Now, with his back propped up against what seemed like the only section of wall not honeycombed, T.R. tried to keep his mind clear while he waited for whatever came next.