“What do they care?”
“I don’t know. But they’ll want to call your parents.”
“Lay him in the sunlight, Bails.” Laylea called. “The Ruckers will bury him.”
Bailey arranged Woodford with his wound down. He curled him up so all his feet lay together the way he liked.
Jay pulled the second Consortium SUV up in front of the truck. He hopped out and went to the scruffy brown and white mutt still watching everything from the grass.
Clark grabbed Bailey into a hug and carried him down the steps like he was a little kid. “If we haven’t made it to the safe house by the time you need to start school, go. We’ll find you in Chicago.”
Sher added, “You can trust Orin with everything.”
“We about ready?” Before anyone could answer he blew the air horn. “Better be.”
While Sher and Clark transferred their bags and the tinkering case to their stolen SUV, Jay unclipped the dog’s leash from the collar.
“You can come with us if you want to or—” Jay stopped midsentence as the little dog ran past him and leaped in the open driver’s door of the SUV. Jay followed him. “Let’s go.”
A single siren screamed from only a few streets away. The SUV driven by Trask had turned around and headed out of the neighborhood.
Sher and Clark kissed their children one more time.
Sher looked into the familiar eyes set in the new face of her little girl. “I am your mother.”
Laylea woofed once. She turned to the dad, her Dad, and licked his nose.
Bailey climbed into the driver’s seat. Clark closed the door.
Sher patted the roof twice, “Quickly now. Before the police get here.”
Bailey leaned out the window as his parents rushed to hop in the SUV.
“Hey!”
Clark and Sher looked out their windows as Jay pulled away. Laylea leaned out of the passenger side, Bailey out the other.
They both called, “Fair winds!”
Their mom and dad’s voices were torn away by wind as they yelled back.
Bailey made sure Laylea was belted in. He looked back at the house he’d lived in for his entire life. He thought about running back to close the front door but a siren blast made him focus on avoiding the bodies as he drove away from his home. Past the rosebushes. Past the leaning trees of foothills. He turned right where left would have taken him towards school.
“It’s you and me now, Lee. You’re not worried are you?”
She barked twice.
He looked over. The Laylea he knew sat surrounded by clothes.
“Maybe a little worried?”
She barked once.
“Me too.”
Chapter Forty-Five
The Director flipped through the five working views. A figure appeared behind the stone wall leading to the deep forest. He brushed dirt from his gray Consortium issued pants. The sun was still high enough to keep him warm, especially with his enhancements but he wore a homespun poncho over his issue snap-front shirt. Likely the poncho was to help him blend into the trees. He ran so quickly out of the shot the Director lost him. Scanning the few monitors around him he caught a glimpse of the man near the entrance to the street where an old sycamore leaned precariously against a hemlock. The figure dug at the roots like a dog. Soon he circled the trees and threw his body at the trunks. Three body slams and a sustained push knocked both trees down across the street.
The CF surveyed the bodies. He snagged a handful of King’s pant leg and dragged him by one foot. He tossed 251 over one shoulder and 511 over the other. The Director was thrilled to see his cameras facing the house had resumed broadcasting. He watched the CF take care to haul his catch up the porch steps without disturbing the dead dog.
Red and blue lights flashed through the branches of the downed trees as he disappeared into the so-called Hillens' house. The Director disconnected his audio feed and blacked out the screens though recording continued. He tried to leave his monitoring room with the headphones still plugged into his console. They jerked him back and he whipped them off his head and threw them at one of the inoperable screens.
A high school letter jacket waited on the banister for just this kind of moment. He buttoned it closed over his technical fiber shirt and reached the porch just in time to lock eyes with the CF holding the dead dog in his arms on the Hillens' porch. He nodded. The man slipped inside and closed the Hillens' door.
The Director jogged over to the downed trees. A driven young policeman had climbed his way past the hemlock. He eyed the Sycamore with little enthusiasm.
“Officer, hi.” The Director waved cheerily.
“Sir, is everyone okay?” The officer pulled a tablet from a pocket on his tool belt.
“I am everyone, I think.” The Director looked behind himself as if to confirm. “I’m okay.”
“We had reports of shots.”
“We’ve had a good deal of excitement here, officer, but no gunfire. I just moved here but I thought Foothills was a peaceful town.”
“Normally is.” The cop’s tablet flashed and went blank. “Dead boring in fact. But there was a shooting on Elm an hour ago.”
The Director put a hand to his mouth. “That’s awful.”
“Are your neighbors okay, sir?” He punched the power button several times.
“No neighbors here. A woman went into labor when the trees fell. They’ve all gone to the hospital.”
The tablet finally flared to life. “Who’s they all?”
“I don’t know. Sorry. I just moved here.” The Director waited while the boy fiddled with settings. “Probably need to get this tree out of here, ya think?”
“I called City Services. They might be a while. Do you need help?” He looked up.
“I’m okay. Plenty of food in the house.” The Director shrugged. “No job to go to.”
“Sir,” the officer stuffed the computer back into its pouch. “I can’t conduct this interview with a tree between us. I’m going back to the station to get some help. Here’s my card.” He flicked three cards through the branches before one reached The Director’s outstretched hand. “Call if you need help.”
“Thank you, Officer Young. I’m sure I’ll be okay.”
The Director waited to see Young contorting himself through the branches before he turned away.
“With a woman in labor, you said.” Young grunted. “How did they get out?”
The Director looked back. “Human ingenuity is amazing.”
The Director strolled along the street, pausing at each bloodstain on the concrete. The CF met him at the curb.
“Nice cleanup. I hadn’t expected my Biotech team to be so prepared.”
The man held an appropriately subservient pose. “Trask works for you.”
“Yes. I’m the Director.” He brushed a strand of the Asian’s hair from the soldier’s shoulder. “You should consider my orders above theirs. The blood will need to be scrubbed before the City Services arrive.”
“I know how to clean blood.”
“Good. I’ll keep an eye on things from my station. If you need help, give me a sign.” The Director turned to return to the comfort of his monitors.
Behind him, the CF began humming. The humming grew into singing.
Another soul today. Her life is in my hands and I will not throw it away.
He turned to see a green book descending at his face. There was no time to duck. He was thrown to the ground by the blow. The CF pounced on him. He punched the Director in the neck and he found he couldn’t scuttle out of the way. He couldn’t hit back. He couldn’t speak.
“No one else will hurt Little Girl.”
The CF lifted the Director in his arms and carried him up the Hillens' steps.
“My name is Tracy Hardwick. I remember why I was in prison. I remember everything Trask and her scientists did to me.”
Hardwick laid the Director in a pile with the dead CF and King. The dog lay on a table, his head resting
on a bundled jacket. The CF pushed through a swinging door leaving the Director alone with the corpses. He wanted to scream. He couldn’t see anything but the dog and the front door. He couldn’t hear anything outside of this room.
Hardwick returned carrying a red gas can and a shovel.
“No one else will hurt Little Girl.”
He poured gasoline around the Director and the bodies. He splashed some into the rooms all around. He set the can down in the doorway. The Director heard him walk into the room behind him. He passed through the Director’s line of sight tucking a worn patchwork lizard into his thigh pocket.
When he returned to the gas can, he had the dead dog in his arms, its head resting over his shoulder. The CF picked up the shovel and gas can and started out the door.
The Director tried to scream. A sad little groaning was all he could manage.
The CF turned back. “I’d like to kill you. But I can’t. Jay fixed me. I don’t kill anymore.”
He trailed gasoline out the door, down the porch steps, and into the street. He poured gasoline over each spot and puddle of blood ending near the yard across the street. He dropped the empty can and lowered the dog to the grass. The shovel glinted red in the early evening sun as Tracy Hardwick dug a hole and buried the dog beneath some rose bushes. He bowed his head over the spot.
The Director heard sirens in the distance. Sirens coming closer.
Tracy Hardwick didn’t seem to hear them. He stayed still over the little grave for several moments.
Then he raised the shovel over his head and struck it against the cement.
A spark caught the gasoline. The gasoline erupted in flames. The flames raced along the winding path, washing away the blood. It followed the path up the porch steps, into the house. The bodies burned. The house burned.
But there were no cameras in the house. No microphones. So nobody heard the Director’s screams as he burned looking out over Woodford’s rosebush grave.
The only surviving footage showed a cat prowling on a glowing porch roof with audio of a clear tenor singing.
I find
my mind
By listening to my heart
Together they will keep my soul from fracturing apart.
•••
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For other books in this world, check out the Wyrdos Tales. For a sneak peak of Junior: A Wyrdos Tale, read on.
Junior
A Wyrdos Tale
By
Gwendolyn Druyor
Wyrdos.net
Text Copyright © 2017 by Gwendolyn Druyor
All Rights Reserved
1
DON’T SLEEP
Don’t sleep with your closet door open.
When you were a child, you believed there were monsters in the closet. You watched your mom or dad or legal court appointed guardian leave your bedroom. They’d snake a hand back in through the doorway and flip off your light. With no consideration for the sliver of light they could leave you through the crack of that door, they shut it with a click. In the dark—no matter how many siblings share your room, in the dark you are always alone. You try breathing quietly, but he can hear the beating of your heart. You stare at the closet, thinking that if you don’t blink he can’t sneak up on you. But the dark is his ally. He can see your eyes glowing in the dark. And he can move invisibly through your room, under your bed. He’ll paralyze you with fear so that you cannot escape. So shut your eyes tight and pull the covers over your head if it makes you feel better. But it won’t help. If you leave the closet door open, the boogeyman can get you.
2
The Trap
“Sorry, wrong room.” Junior turned to flee back into the bedroom closet.
He rebounded off a shimmering, intractable wall of air. The force sent him tripping backwards, avoiding the wailing infant that had drawn him into the room.
A few feet beyond the magical circle, under an outdated mobile of the solar system, a dusky boy of about ten sat cross-legged on a rag rug, his hands poised over the shuttle of a Ouija board, his jaw hanging open.
The kid squeaked, coughed, and then exclaimed, “Holy crap, it worked! I caught the boogeyman!”
Junior fell against the side of the prison closest to the kid, who flinched. Junior used the magical wall to steady himself with one combat-booted foot on either side of the six-month-old’s flailing limbs. His pale hands glowed where they touched the magic. The gauze wrapped around each palm lit up. The bandages sizzled though he felt nothing on his burnt fingers. He pressed a hand flat and saw the bones through the bandages and skin as clearly as on an x-ray. Of course, skeletal as he was, he could see them almost that clearly without a magical prison wall for enhancement.
The wall rose from a chain of silverware encircling Junior in his peacoat and the wailing baby in her too-big Ewok onesie. It trapped them in the middle of a larger-than-average bedroom with books, clothes, and action figures strewn literally everywhere. Harley Quinn straddled the deep bowl of a torchiere floor lamp on the far side of a bed covered with a tangle of Star Wars sheets and a Batman comforter. A disturbingly muscular Spiderman dangled by red yarn from an air vent high on one wall. Just outside the circle of silverware, Junior saw Deadpool laying face-down in a pile of dirty socks, threatened by Wonder Woman wielding his own katana.
Junior couldn’t smell the socks. He could barely hear the hiss of the standing humidifier half-buried in a Slytherin cloak. The shimmering walls of his prison dulled everything outside. Inside the bright, nose-tickling powder of freshly-washed baby battled his own indefinable homeless musk. He brushed his teeth as often as he could and washed his face, socks, and underwear every few nights. His jeans and t-shirts got cleaned much less frequently.
Pretty much every square inch of the bedroom’s plush carpet was covered except for a swath of space just in front of the closet door and within the circle of Junior and the baby’s prison. The walls fared no better. Pale green paint peeked out from the rare spaces between overlapping posters of superheroes, scientific theories, astrology, and Ohio.
The kid leapt to his feet, whacking his head on Jupiter and sending the planets spinning. He gripped his curly black hair with both hands and then grabbed his Captain America pajama pants before they fell down. “I caught the boogeyman!”
Junior was too hungry and tired for this. He had somewhere to be. He reached up and ran a hand along the impenetrable, shimmering barrier of air stretching from ceiling to floor, searching for weaknesses. He found none.
“Let me go.”
His captor laughed. “Hell no.”
The wailing settled to silence as the towheaded baby sucked in a tiny lungful of air. Her mouth opened wide in an astonished O and she seemed to look right into Junior’s hazel eyes. Then she squeezed her own eyes, opened her mouth and renewed screaming. Junior crouched to comfort her. It was why he’d come through the door in the first place. “There, there. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
The kid chanted, “I did it! I caught the boogeyman. I caught the boogeyman.” He kicked the Ouija board aside and danced around the room, scattering toys. When he passed the full-length mirror on his bedroom door, he spun around to announce to himself, “I, Ethan Durnell, caught the boogeyman.”
Junior stood, bouncing the baby girl in his arms, careful at first of her weight on his ruined hands. “No. You didn’t.”
Ethan turned, his brown eyes glowing. He held his arms out to the sides, inviting his guest to come at him. “Really? You can get out of there?”
Junior considered kicking the silverware but he was pretty sure he
wouldn’t be able to break the spell. He sighed and crooned at the crying baby. “Please let me go. I’ve got somewhere to be and I’m not the boogeyman.”
The kid smirked, “Yeah right. You came out of my closet, but you’re not the boogeyman?”
“It’s complicated.”
“You have to grant me three wishes now.”
Junior raised an eyebrow at the kid. “That’s a djinni.”
“Isn’t the boogeyman a genie?”
“No, he’s an as—” Junior censored himself. The kid was a jerk but he was still a kid. “The boogeyman is a type of goblin.”
“Ewwww,” Ethan plopped down on the edge of his bed. “You’re a goblin?”
Junior cooed at the baby. “Is this your sister?”
“Half-sister.”
Junior noted the bile in Ethan’s tone. “What’s her name?”
“Dawn.” He spit the word. “She’s the dawn of their new life together.”
At that, Junior looked up. He stopped bouncing. “Really?”
Ethan nodded.
Dawn’s cries increased.
“Okay.” Junior rocked the unfortunately named baby as he paced around the small circle. This wasn’t an easy life. Jane said he should think of it as a calling. And Jane was a god; he should trust her advice. But it wasn’t a calling. He could travel from closet to closet and paralyze people with fear. That didn’t sound like a calling. Or a life. It sounded like the genetic lottery had handed him a sack of lemons.
“You’re not so ugly, for being a goblin. Aren’t goblins hideous?” Ethan lay on the bed, examining Junior.
Junior let his pacing take him back around to face the kid before he responded. Ethan could see him. Most people were so racked with fear every moment of their lives, they couldn’t see Junior at all. But Ethan, in the dark of the middle of the night, could see him. What ten-year-old was so fearless? He looked at the boy. “A) Thanks. B) I’m half-goblin. I’m not the boogeyman, kid. I’m the boogeyman’s kid.”
WereHuman - The Witch's Daughter: Consortium Battle book 1 (Wyrdos) Page 32