Donny's Inferno

by P. W. Catanese

  The murmuros leaped across the room and headed for the door. Massey woke from his trance and reached for something on the desk that Donny hadn’t noticed before. A handgun. Massey stood up, groggy, and stumbled toward the windows.

  Carlos peered over the sill. “Dios mio!”

  The murmuros flung the door open and slammed it closed again. While it was open, Donny caught a glimpse of Angela on the other side, her knuckles raised, ready to knock. She looked startled and amused at the same time.

  “Get down!” shouted Carlos, because Massey was at the window. He raised the gun with a wobbly hand and squeezed the trigger. A shot exploded, and a splintered hole appeared in the window over Carlos’s head.

  Donny heard a crunch and splinter of wood from inside the apartment. It had to be the door getting smashed open. There was a second roar of gunfire with a different sound—fired in the other direction, Donny thought. He heard Angela’s voice. “Idiot! You want to get someone killed?”

  Then came another, louder crash. Glass rained on ­Donny’s shoulders and bounced off his goggles. The murmuros had burst through the window. He jumped over the net they’d failed to raise and landed in a crouch, facing Carlos. The creature swiped at Carlos, driving him back, and then turned to head for the stairs, where only Donny stood in the way of escape.

  “Oh, crap,” Donny said as the murmuros ran toward him with one arm poised to rake him with claws. An explosion of nerves made Donny do the only thing he thought might protect him: he threw the net up in front of him.

  The murmuros charged into the net. Donny ducked low to avoid the swiping arm. The monster was partly entangled, his toes and one hand caught in the mesh. The murmuros hissed, an awful sound made up of a thousand hateful whispers. With his free hand, the creature reached down for Donny, grabbed him by the front of the sweatshirt, and threw him aside. Donny’s back struck the railing, his legs flipped up, and his momentum carried him over. Then he was falling, three stories toward the ground.

  CHAPTER 23

  Donny saw the hard paved surface of the alley a fatal distance below. He tried to grab the top of the railing, but he was too late. Instead his arm went between the bars and closed on a handful of net. It slithered out between the bars as he fell, and he thought for a moment the whole net might come with him. But he jerked to a stop and winced as the net cut into his fingers. There was another awful snarl, and he saw the murmuros tumble down the stairs, tripped up by the net that had tangled around one of his feet.

  Momentum swung Donny in, and when he looked down, he saw the second floor of the fire escape just below. He let go of the net and sprawled onto the grating. When he looked up, he found himself in the exact same predicament, but one floor lower. The murmuros had rolled down the entire flight of iron steps and smashed into the railing. He got to his feet, wobbly at first, but then his eyes focused on Donny.

  The murmuros rushed at him, claws first. Donny saw Carlos race down the steps to help, but there was no time. He threw himself sideways to get out of the thing’s way, and hoped he would be more interested in escape than in tearing a boy to pieces.

  Apparently he was, because the thing headed straight for the next flight of stairs and didn’t bother to slash him. As the creature went by, Donny did something that surprised even himself. He stuck his foot out and caught the creature’s ankle.

  The murmuros hissed again, and Donny thought he heard a rude word mixed in there somewhere. This ­tumble down the stairs was even more spectacular than the first. It ended as the murmuros’s head slammed straight into the railing on the next floor below. It rang like a gong, and Donny felt the vibration run through the iron grate where he sat.

  He figured the thing would be dead after that crushing blow, but the murmuros staggered to his feet again. The chase ended there, because something dropped from above—a sleek, acrobatic human form who used the fire escape like a gymnast. It was Angela. She landed next to the murmuros and grabbed him by the neck in one smooth motion.

  “That thing almost killed me,” Donny squeaked.

  “Sure, but now you have a fabulous anecdote,” Angela replied.

  The murmuros stared up at her. “Is that you, Angela?” he asked in a perfectly civil voice.

  “Hello, Gus,” Angela told the thing. “Been a long time. I’ll snap your neck if you make one move I don’t like.”

  “I understand completely,” Gustus said.

  Angela reached into a pocket with her free hand and pulled out a vial with a cork stopper. She bit on the cork to extract it.

  “Is that absolutely necessary?” the murmuros inquired.

  “Afraid so,” said Angela, and she tossed the liquid contents of the vial into the creature’s face. Gustus went limp immediately and his eyes rolled up, his tongue drooping from the side of his mouth.

  Carlos trotted down the stairs and stood next to Donny. “Uh, Angela. Witnesses.” He pointed to the windows along the side of the apartment. Lights had come on, and curtains parted. Angela stared up at the building, and a fierce expression came across her face. Donny stepped back, careful to avoid the beam of fear she was projecting. Still, the skin on his arms erupted in gooseflesh again. One by one, wherever Angela turned, the curtains closed again, and the people backed away from the windows.

  • • •

  Donny was sure police lights would start to flash during the next part. Angela lowered Donny and Carlos by the arms until they could drop safely to the ground, and then hopped down herself with the insensible demon draped over her shoulder. She landed easily, despite a drop that would have shattered Donny’s ankles.

  Carlos led them to a battered sedan around the corner. Angela tossed Gustus into the trunk and covered him with a blanket. “Can I drive?” she asked Carlos hopefully.

  Carlos shook his head and replied to Donny. “I let her drive once. She has no idea what she’s doing.”

  “I did fine,” she snapped.

  “She has never taken a lesson, and she does not respect the rules of the road,” Carlos said as he took the driver’s seat.

  “Nobody died,” Angela pouted. She stomped around to the passenger’s side. Donny had the backseat to himself. They drove to a narrow two-story house a few miles away, sandwiched between other slender homes with strips of lawn in front. Carlos squeezed his car down the skinny driveway and into a cramped garage, and killed the engine. “Donny, can you do me a favor?” he asked.

  “Sure.” Please don’t be something horrible, he begged.

  “I have to bring my dog out so Angela can come inside. Would you watch him for a few minutes?”

  Angela bristled and huffed. “Sorry,” Carlos told her. She gave him a dismissive wave.

  Carlos went inside and came out with a black-and-white mutt on a leash. “This is Rocco,” he said.

  “Hi, Rocco,” Donny replied, but Rocco wasn’t interested in saying hello. He strained at his leash, trying to get away from the car where Angela sat. Rocco didn’t relax until Angela got out of the car, took the murmuros out of the trunk, and carried the unconscious creature through the back door. Even then, the dog looked nervously back at the house and whined every few minutes.

  Donny walked Rocco to the back of the yard to give him some distance from the source of his fear. Carlos, or somebody before him, had built a stone grotto in the corner of the yard. A fountain sent water trickling over stones. Behind that stood a statue, nearly life-size, of a stern-faced, long-haired angel. A wing was broken on one side. She wore an armored breastplate and held a flaming sword.

  A cement bench with ivy clinging to its legs faced the grotto. Donny took a seat and scratched Rocco’s ears while he waited.

  Twenty minutes later Angela and Carlos were back again. Carlos walked Rocco into the house after Angela returned to the passenger seat of the car. “Easy-peasy,” she told Donny. “I dropped the little rat off in Sulfur, and he’ll be locked
up good and tight. Carlos said he’ll drive us back to Midtown.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Back in the apartment on Fifth Avenue, Angela stood in front of the broad window, her hands on her hips. The lights of New York sparkled like stars. “Egad, what a beautiful city.” She heard Donny chuckle and gave him a withering, narrow-lidded glare. “Did I say something funny?”

  He shook his head and smiled. “No. You just use some words that we don’t hear a lot these days. Like egad. Or jeepers or golly or hooey.”

  She crossed her arms. “Listen, buster. I’ve been around a lot longer than you. Sometimes I forget what the current lingo is, and the old stuff slips out.”

  Donny peered at her closely. Anyone on Earth would have sworn she was a teenager. “How long have you been around?”

  “Shucks, I don’t know exactly. We’re not good with dates in Sulfur. Have I mentioned that? Let me think. When I was born, must have been around”—she ­wiggled her fingers, counting silently—“1860, something like that.”

  Donny gaped. “1860?”

  “You got wax in your ears?”

  He shook his head and tried to process this information. “So you were alive at the same time as Abraham Lincoln.”

  “The tall one with the beard and the speech? Yep. Never met him though.” She drummed her chin with her fingers. “I didn’t go upstairs until . . . let me think, who was the president? I’m not good with presidents. The Odyssey guy. The one with the tomb.”

  It took Donny a second. “Ulysses S. Grant?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Donny rubbed his hands up his face and into his hair. “Angela, will you live forever?”

  She rocked her head back. “Of course not. ­Archdemons like me get about ten years for every human year.”

  Donny did the math in his head. “So in people years you’re . . . about fifteen?”

  “Going on sixteen,” she sang.

  “Oh.” Donny smiled. The idea made him dizzy but strangely happy. “We’re closer than I thought.”

  “Don’t get any ideas, hot stuff.” She laughed and twirled with her arms outstretched. “You know what I feel like doing now, Cricket?”

  “No. What?”

  “Dancing.”

  Donny’s eyes widened. Was she serious? Dancing? In this apartment?

  She whirled to a stop. “You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

  He cleared his throat and put his hands on the arms of his chair, ready to stand. “Um, no. Of course not.”

  “Wonderful. Don’t wait up for me. You’ll find plenty of snacks in the kitchen and a zillion channels on the TV. I’ll just change real quick, and then I’ll be on my way.” She jogged, humming, into her bedroom, and shut the door behind her.

  • • •

  Angela had been gone for hours. Donny found a carton of ice cream in the fridge and gorged on it. While he ate, he used his phone to see what the Internet had to say about a killer from the Depression called the Jolly Butcher. The answer turned out to be “plenty.” He found black-and-white pictures of Butch, grinning at the camera from behind a meat counter in 1933. His real name was Martin Franklin Whitehead and, apparently, he was a popular figure in his picturesque Missouri town, famous for his big laugh and ready smile. That popularity waned when someone got a closer look at his meat locker. After too many grisly details about cleavers, hooks, and meat grinders, Donny stopped reading.

  He turned on the TV and watched the end of a Jackie Chan movie. When it was over, he turned the TV off and tossed the remote aside. Then he walked around the place again.

  Angela had left the door to her room open. He poked his head in and saw an enormous bed with an amazing brass frame. Everything here was modern, unlike the antique look of the rooms in Angela’s pillar home.

  More stuffed animals with long plush fur were all over the bed and the bureaus. He remembered their encounters with animals, and it clicked for him: these were the only kind she could touch.

  It felt like a violation, peeking into her room with her not there, and his heart thumped wildly when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and saw a text message: Cricket, still awake? Having fun?

  “Not really,” he said aloud. But he typed: Yes. You coming back soon?

  The answer came quickly. Not yet. Get some sleep. More fun tomorrow. Emoticon.

  Donny thought about replying but didn’t know what to say after that. Although he wondered if he should explain that normal people typed a smiley face instead of writing emoticon.

  He stared at the phone. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he ached to know what was going on with his father. And were people looking for him? Donny Taylor had disappeared, after all. He was a missing person. And a few days had gone by. Would his father have even reported it, considering why Donny had run away from home?

  For a moment he thought about calling his dad. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Then he thought about Kevin. His best friend. There was someone you could trust. Would Kevin be awake? No. But he kept his phone by his bed, and he usually forgot to turn it off, which drove Kevin’s mother crazy. With his hands trembling, causing mistakes he had to fix, Donny entered Kevin’s number and composed a text: It’s Donny. Can I call u? Don’t let anyone know. His thumb hovered over the send button, and then he pressed it. He put the phone on the coffee table and waited.

  It buzzed a moment later. He scooped up the phone and read the reply: Yes, call now!!!

  Donny smiled and hit call. The phone rang once, and Kevin’s familiar voice came through, whispering close to the phone. “Donny! Donny?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “I can’t believe it! Dude, everyone’s looking for you! Even the police!”

  That answers that question. “Yeah, I thought that might be the case.”

  “Where are you? Are you home?”

  “I’m not home. I . . . I can’t tell you where I am.”

  “What? Donny, where you been? You gotta come back. This is crazy. What happened? We thought you got murdered or kidnapped or something.”

  “I’m fine, Kev. I really am. But I can’t go home, not yet. It’s . . . it’s hard to explain.”

  “Explain it anyway! Wait, are you with your mother? Did you find your mother?”

  Donny sighed. “No. I told you, my mom was never in the picture. Listen. I just wanted you to know that I’m okay. And I was wondering . . . what’s going on with my dad.”

  “He’s going crazy looking for you, that’s what’s going on! He thought you might be hiding out with me. And he begged me to tell him if I knew where you were. He was crying, man. I can’t believe I saw your dad cry.”

  Donny felt a twinge in his chest, and his breath hitched. “Kevin, you cannot tell him I called. It’s really important.”

  “Are you nuts? You can’t just stay missing. Your dad is gonna lose his mind. He has the police looking for you, he’s hired people to look for you, there are posters with your picture all over the place.”

  “Kevin—”

  “Wait, I gotta tell you this, too. Your dad was here a couple times, and the last time he took me aside and said the weirdest thing.”

  Donny clutched his throat. “What’d he say?”

  “Okay, okay, I can’t remember exactly, but it was something like ‘Kevin, I know Donny and you are best friends. He might call you before anyone else. You have to tell him, I need him back. He’s everything to me. You tell him that. And you tell him, no matter the reason he left, I’ll fix it. Everything will be all right.’ Something like that, anyway.”

  Donny squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Right. I get it. Look, I’ll think about it. But you still have to promise, Kevin. Don’t tell anyone I called. Not our friends, not your sister, not your mom or dad or anyone. I mean it.”

  Kevin’s voice got lower. “Are you in trouble? I
s someone there, listening?”

  Donny had to smile over that one. “Not in trouble. Nobody’s listening. I’m telling you, I’m fine. I’ll come back eventually.” As he said it, he wondered if that was even true. “I think I should go. But, seriously, don’t talk about this. Promise me.”

  “Donny—”

  “Promise!”

  “Okay. I won’t tell.”

  “Good. Thanks, Kevin.”

  “This is so messed up.”

  “I know. But remember, you promised. Bye, Kevin.” As the last words came out of his mouth, he knew they sounded permanent. He hung up before Kevin could say anything else.

  He dropped the phone onto the table, leaned back, and covered his face with his hands. His cheeks were wet a moment later, and he made a wailing sound that he’d never heard from himself before. He flopped sideways, curled up on the couch, and pulled a pillow over his head.

  CHAPTER 25

  Donny woke when he heard the door to the apartment close, and sat up on the couch and rubbed his eyes.

  “There’s a bed in your room, you know,” Angela said.

  “Uh. Yeah. I fell asleep.”

  She kicked her shoes off and flopped down next to him. “It was a very exciting night all around. You didn’t miss me too much, did you?” She patted his knee.

  He looked away and shook his head. Angela yawned. “Well, I think I’ll crash for a while. See you in the morning?”

  Donny nodded. She started to get up, but he said, “Angela?”

  “Mmm?”

  “I did something that might have been a bad idea.”

  She stiffened and swiveled toward him. “Would you care to be more specific?”

  “I used the phone you gave me to call my best friend. I wanted him to know I wasn’t dead.”

  She shot to her feet. “Where’s the phone?”

  “Right here,” Donny said. He held it up.

  She snatched it from his hand and crushed it in her grip, pulled the battery out of the wreckage, and let the pieces drop to the floor. “That was dumb, all right. You know phones can be tracked, right? If your friend told the police that you called, you know they could find us? Right here in this apartment?”