by Dan Padavona
Sweeping the halls while the flood of people poured out the doors, Jacob had ducked into the boy’s restroom, realizing no one would stop to wonder where he was. They were too worried about Lupan to recall Jacob’s flight risk. Yet as he crept along the rows of lockers, the cool metal of the doors bleeding into his back, one man remained between Jacob and the exit.
He knows I’m still in the building.
Jacob knew he could outrun the fat cook, and killing him would be easy, too, even with the flimsy steak knife. But his instinct told him to stay hidden in the shadows. If Jacob was right, and Humphrey knew Jacob was still inside the school, then Humphrey had a plan. He might shout through the window, alerting the entire complex of Jacob’s escape. Or the fat man might be armed, playing possum as he scraped grease from the fryer, one hand resting on a handgun’s hilt. If Jacob was to kill Humphrey, he would need to catch him by surprise. But how? The open floor of the cafeteria afforded few places of concealment, and Humphrey’s eyes would be locked on the entranceway, awaiting Jacob’s approach.
Jacob seethed. He hated the cook, despised the technician’s perpetual vigilance. Edging through the gloom past the lockers, he saw the azure glow of moonlight beyond the school’s front doors. His hand pressed against chilled wall tiles, he moved on cats paws toward the cafeteria, whose doors were propped open and locked in place. Now Jacob was close enough to touch the smooth wooden surface of the nearest door, his hand running along the metallic entrance bar. Pieces of dried gum, relics of the students who had once roamed these halls, were plastered to the wood.
Hey, Jacob. How many times did your mom blow Principal Mitchell to keep you in school?
Look, Jacob. It’s Tori Daniels. Are you going to ask her to the prom, or will your hand be too jealous?
Shut the fuck up, Jacob thought, trying to squelch the risen ghosts screaming in his head. Blood coursed through his veins, pulsing in his brain with a fury which made it seem as if his head might explode. Dark splotches danced before his eyes, obscuring the moon’s glow at the hall’s end. A sudden thought occurred to him—what if Victor Lupan stood in the shadows outside the school, waiting for Jacob to burst through the doors? He tried to purge the memory of Masters’ and Harsted’s faces as they lay dying, stricken by an unspeakable terror which left them pleading for Jacob to aid them. What had they seen when looking upon Lupan’s face? A chill trickled down Jacob’s spine.
He leaned against the tiles until his vision cleared, as the clanging continued from inside the cafeteria. Breathing deeply, he willed silence upon the ghosts, creeping forward with his hand running along the entrance bar. Here, at the edge of the door, a splash of reflective light interrupted the hallway’s murk, drifting like a frozen river back toward the grill. If Jacob took one more step, he would stand in the entranceway in full view of Humphrey. He imagined Humphrey aiming a gun at the doorway, ready to pull the trigger as soon as Jacob showed himself.
Heart racing, Jacob slunk along the edge of the door, hugging so close to the frame that he felt he could merge with the wall and become one with the school’s framework. Apparently the cook had not seen him, as now Humphrey leaned over the grill, scraping the top clean. Jacob crept along the wall, past the first row of skeletal tables, fleeing from the pool of light originating from a Coleman lantern set next to the grill. The stench of fried food grew until Jacob could almost taste it, overwhelming him with a hollow nausea.
As he prowled along the wall, deeper into the cafeteria’s shadows, his confidence grew. He would catch the cook unawares, slice his throat before the man’s shouting gave Jacob away, and be out the double doors before anyone noticed he was missing.
And run right into the waiting arms of Victor Lupan, spread wide like a black incubus.
No. Lupan is gone.
The goosebumps along Jacob’s skin belied his confidence.
A loud bang brought Jacob’s eyes back to the grill area, and for a second he believed Humphrey had fired a gun. He saw the cook hunched over, stuffing a dropped pan into a steel drawer and cursing to himself. Jacob exhaled.
Humphrey suddenly raised his eyes in Jacob’s direction, and Jacob crouched in the darkness. The cook went still, his attention fixed on the shadows along the far wall.
“Who’s that? Anyone still in the building?”
His voice reverberated for a long time, rebounding off the walls of the cavernous cafeteria, ringing like bells down the empty corridors. Unmoving, Jacob waited and waited, Humphrey’s stare burning a hole through him. When Jacob was sure Humphrey spied him, the cook stood up and stretched, his knees popping as he slammed shut the drawer. Jacob began to move again.
Crawling past tables like a puma on the prowl, Jacob stayed below the threshold of Humphrey’s line of sight. His palms collected dirt and dust, and at one point an old, blackened french fry. He no longer believed Humphrey had a gun or knew Jacob was inside the room, creeping up on him. No longer a threat, the cook became an easy target, the final obstacle between Jacob and freedom, the night, and Tori Daniels.
Yet time was of the essence, and it ticked against him. Any second now, Victor Lupan might return, whatever business he needed to attend to completed. If Jacob killed Humphrey without raising alarm and escaped, all would be lost if the mysterious Lupan stood waiting for him in the Iowa night. He had to take a chance. He had to make his move now. Would another opportunity like this arise?
Jacob moved faster now, sliding from table to table, staying below the table tops as he hugged close to the walls. With the seating area behind him, he slipped between the last table and the edge of an elongated steel buffet line. The air was pungent with the phantom memories of dinner—flank steak, grilled onions, french fries, and a buttery vegetable concoction. Pressed against the end of the buffet, he glared around the corner. Humphrey stooped over, stuffing supplies into a duffel bag, his back turned from Jacob.
Jacob slipped the knife from his pocket, the point having dug a tiny hole into his thigh from which a thin strand of blood streamed, discoloring his blue jeans. The weapon felt flimsy in his hand. No matter. The knife need only slice across Humphrey’s neck or plunge into his soft, ample underbelly.
The lantern spread yellowish light about a stunted radius. As Jacob crept along the back of the buffet, so too did the inky doppelganger of his shadow. The cook faced away from the shifting shadows, packing his supplies before calling it a night. Jacob drew closer, a predator crouched behind its prey. He lifted the knife, the lantern light glistening along the blade surface like moonlight on a rippling pond.
Humphrey spun around, and Jacob saw the cook held a small revolver.
“Going somewhere, Jacob?” The cook’s eyes contained unbridled glee. “Drop the knife.”
Jacob lowered the steak knife to his side, but did not drop the weapon as Humphrey ordered. He met the cook’s glare with his own hatred.
“I’m holding a gun, kid. I’ll blow a hole through you before that knife gets anywhere close to me.” Humphrey cocked his head toward the doorway. “Mr. Lupan won’t be pleased when he finds out you tried to abandon our cause the minute his back was turned. What’s the matter, Jacob? Couldn’t go another minute without seeing that girl again?” Jacob straddled the border of light and darkness. “Of course, I can make this much easier on you. I can shoot you here and now, and Mr. Lupan will understand, seeing as it was self-defense.”
The cafeteria shadows seemed to converge on them, the border of lantern light driven back.
Humphrey glanced at the shimmering blade. “Put down the weapon, and I’ll let Mr. Lupan decide what to do with you.”
Jacob’s glare softened, his right hand fingers slowly uncurling from the knife.
Humphrey grinned wide, displaying a row of crooked teeth, bits of fleshy meat from dinner wedged between teeth and gum. The man exuded an oily stench, like perspiration and greasy onion rings. The armpits of his shirt were painted with long, oval sweat stains.
“That’s right. Hand me the knife, and
we’ll sit here nice and quiet until the boss returns.”
Jacob’s right arm extended toward Humphrey, the knife balancing precariously on the palm of his open hand. With a countenance of assured victory and utter contempt, the cook began to move his hand toward the knife.
“Easy does it. No tricks, Jacob.”
Jacob lowered his eyes, not hiding the humiliation of his defeat at the hands of the cook. He willingly held the knife out for Humphrey to take, his hand shaking with tremors that might have been the result of holding his arm extended for so long or from restrained sobs.
“You’re really pathetic, kid. And here I thought you were dangerous—”
Jacob’s left hand flashed upward, ascending from the shadows with shocking speed. Humphrey never saw the makeshift weapon and had no time to react. Jacob drove the fork tines into the cook’s eye, the disfigured utensil jutting out from his face as the gun fired erratically. Frantic screaming filled the cafeteria, and if the gunshot hadn’t alerted the community, the cook’s squeals soon would.
Jacob swept the steak knife across Humphrey’s neck. The cook stumbled back, his cries stifled by a crimson waterfall pouring from his neck. His one good eye opened wide, terror replacing the confidence that had existed seconds earlier. He crumpled to the floor, coughing, gagging, choking on the torrent of gore, splayed out on his back with the fork wedged deep through his cornea. The cook died as a bloody pool swelled outward, painting the soles of Jacob’s sneakers as he stood watching the man’s death, listening to the roaring silence. No one cried out in alert. Nobody came to save the cook.
Running out of the cafeteria for the corridor, Jacob pushed through the double doors and descended the school steps. The night was sultry, the wind stifled, the sky kindled by the lightning of a faraway storm. There was no Lupan to stop him, no community member crouched in the gloom to prevent his escape. Jacob fled into the Iowa night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sneaking Out
Night enshrouded the encircling wilderness, turning dark to obsidian. If someone had traversed the copse, actively searching out forewarning danger, none could have known he stood among the trees. A clammy dew settled down from the trees, portents of a midnight fog, while a millions crickets and peepers sang shrilly to the night.
Victor Lupan observed the awakening beast, which an hour ago had been nothing but an emaciated hyena stalking the brush. Nothing in this world could stand against Lupan, but his power was not unlimited. The altering of hyena to beast took precious time and cost energy, and he had little of either to waste.
The gift of traveling from one end of the world to the other also drained him, but when full of rage, he was prone to act on impulse. He had felt one beast die in the Illinois wilderness. The two men he pursued through Okbeth escaped him again. They were a danger to him, but they were mortal, and like all mortals they would kneel before him or perish once the final battle was over. Incensed over his loss, Lupan had left the Iowa compound and traveled south.
Now the humidity cloaked all like a wet blanket. The beast stirred and ascended to its feet, sniffing at the brackish night, glowing eyes traveling over lush ferns and spidery palms. The trees parted, and Lupan stepped beyond their line into an undulating field of grass divided by a silvery drainage creek. The beast padded to his side as Lupan looked down the valley. A few hundred yards beyond the meadow, the lights of the living sparkled back at him. Lupan strode toward the lights, his footfalls preternaturally silent against the brush as though he were a phantom floating. His target in sight, Lupan knelt next to the beast and pointed toward the glistening lights.
“Go and feed,” Lupan said, turning back and disappearing into the trees. The beast raised its huge snout and sniffed, as though it caught scent of the moon and stars. Then it stalked forward, head lolling from side to side, misshapen fangs jutting over black lips.
The beast came for Florida Bliss.
“Be quiet. Someone will hear us.” Joline tried to shush the two boys, but Duncan Casey and Michael Murphy kept breaking into laughter as they challenged each other to jump off the swings from ever higher arcs.
Slipping past her sleeping mother’s bedroom had been easy for Joline, and she felt an undefinable excitement from being out in the moonlight, playing in the community park while the neighborhood slept. But if the boys didn’t lower their voices, all three of them would be caught, and Joline bristled at the thought of her mother catching her sneaking out so late at night.
Ten-year-old Duncan unloosed a jubilant hoot, leaping from so high an arc that Joline worried the swing might hit 180 degrees and drop the boy onto the support bar. He flew fifteen yards through the air, sandy hair aglow under the moon and stars, and miraculously landed on his feet.
Laughing as he dared Michael to beat his record, Duncan laid a stick down where he had landed. “Beat that.”
“Bull crap. You landed way back here.” Michael moved the stick back two paces.
“Nuh-uh. Hey, Joline. You saw how far I went. Tell him.”
But Joline no longer paid attention to their game. She concentrated on the long, marshy field running between an older neighborhood a few miles to the north and the Florida Bliss development. Dessicated trees reached out of the marsh with skeletal fingers. Tropical flora crowded together like the army of the dead, thick fronds concealing more than they revealed. The trees seemed to lean toward the park, as though reaching for her.
“Hey. What’s with you?” Michael’s voice broke her trance, and she saw him climbing into the swing for another leap. The boy was older, bigger, and stronger than Duncan, and under more normal circumstances, she thought she might develop feelings for Michael. But as Michael brushed dark hair from his eyes, she felt a tinge of worry.
“Maybe we should get back home,” she said.
“You’re not chickening out on us now, are you?” She had known Michael for less than a day, but already she had grown accustomed to his mischievousness. He would sneak out each and every night until the doctor caught him, and with Michael’s uncanny ability to move without making a sound, she doubted the boy would be collared anytime soon.
The night went eerily silent, and it took several seconds for Joline to register the change. The marshland frogs no longer sang, a pall having fallen over the land. As her legs filled with pins and needles, she found she was unable to pull her eyes away from the field. A shadow moved behind a clump of palms, so subtle she almost missed it.
“We’d better get out of here.”
Michael bit off his protest even as Duncan began to celebrate his victory. Michael must have seen something in Joline’s eyes, for he simply nodded and grabbed Duncan by the arm.
“We’re going,” Michael said.
“Aw, man. Why do you have to go and let her spoil all the fun?”
Ignoring Duncan’s protests, Michael grabbed his arm and got him moving. They passed the swings and the fort slide and emerged at the border of the grove. The smell of peaches intermingled with the growing dampness of the night.
The three figures slipped through the park as ghostly silhouettes, crossing the street toward Sue and Joline’s home. Joline kept glancing over her shoulder at the fields, and just before she reached the doorstep, something huge and terrible slunk out of the marsh.
Around the corner and several houses down from Tori and Blake, Lance Benin sat awake in bed, listening to the rattle and chirr of katydids from out the backyard window. The bomb blast that had taken his sight had done so completely: he couldn’t discern contours or vague shapes, nor did he sense light and dark. All that was left was a vast nothingness, a black hole.
Yet today he had seen something—the red outline of a girl, burned into the backs of his eyelids the way staring into the sun leaves a harsh imprint. When she had moved, so too had the strange outline. Half the neighborhood had been there to help the boy and girl move into their home, and Lance had heard all their voices in the driveway. But he couldn’t perceive any contour except the girl’s.<
br />
I saw her.
He had sensed a combustible danger about her he couldn’t explain.
Mitch had pulled him away from the driveway, nervously telling Lance that he was staring at the girl, though Mitch couldn’t have forgotten Lance was blind. “What’s gotten into you? You’re giving the poor girl the heebie-jeebies.”
While Mitch pulled him toward his house, Lance looked back toward the driveway, transfixed with the fiery shape moving through a sea of darkness.
He grabbed the new cane Hank Jenner had brought him and walked toward the open window. Listening to the night sounds, he sat upon the floor and breathed in fresh air.
He searched for shapes—maybe the light of the moon as it beamed through the trees, or the flash of fireflies. There was no sign his vision was miraculously returning. Only darkness.
What does this mean? Did I imagine the whole thing?
A branch snapped below the bedroom window. Lance’s breath caught in his chest. Was someone in the backyard, looking up at him as he stared blindly into the gloom? The katydids went silent.
“Is somebody out there?”
No reply, only the moaning wind.
Another faction of survivors might become hostile toward us someday. Isn’t that what I told Mitch? His skin crawled. He knew he was being watched.
“Who’s there?”
The breaking of another branch brought him up to his knees, and something growled, deep and guttural. His skin prickled as something heavy prowled through the grass, snorting and sniffing.