Lucretia and the Kroons

by Victor Lavalle

  Because she was concentrating so hard on finding the other exit she didn’t immediately notice the sound of thunder rolling toward the playground. But as the sound got louder, Loochie looked up. The rain had already stopped throughout the rest of the park though the skies remained as gray as before. Loochie tried to track the clouds. She missed one fence post then another as she moved. Loochie saw only one cloud in the distance. It was enormous. That deep gray that signals a serious downpour is coming. The cloud glided across the closer meadow but it looked like the wind would carry it elsewhere.

  But then the cloud shifted. She watched it happen and couldn’t quite understand what she was seeing. It wasn’t like when wind directions change and a cloud moving east begins to slowly move northeast. No. As Loochie watched the great dark cloud seemed to bend. There was no way of mistaking the movement. The cloud turned.

  It steered toward the playground.

  Toward her.

  And once it changed direction it seemed to increase speed. Moving so quickly that Loochie barely stumbled back five or six steps before she could understand what that noise in the sky really was. Not a thunderclap but the beating of wings. Like she’d heard when she passed that lopsided door in the hallway of 6D. Hundreds of wings. Maybe thousands. She’d passed the room and felt lucky she didn’t have to know what was causing the sound. But now she could see.

  A cloud of rats. No, that’s not quite right. A flock of rats. The worst of the New York City varieties. The kind that plague subway tunnels and platforms. The kind that live in building basements, in the deepest cracks, and come out late at night to gnash through heavy-duty plastic bags of trash left on the streets for pickup. These were the big, bulky rats. Their fur was as gray as ashes, and their long thin tails as pink as torn flesh. She could already see their small, black, expressionless eyes. How many pairs? Too many to count. In every way they were familiar to her, every way except one: These things had wings.

  Pigeon’s wings. Loochie had always found New York City pigeons’ wings to be quite pretty. The blend of dark gray feathers with nearly white ones, the iridescent rainbow flashes, made patterns that she marveled at. So it only horrified her more to see the rats bobbing on such beautiful wings. Each time the wings flapped the rat’s claws scrambled in the air, as if they were galloping through the air.

  Loochie hurried along the fence line again but she couldn’t find the second set of gates. Instead she found herself slowing down. She kept looking over her shoulder as the cloud of rats drew nearer. As she ran she ducked down and threw her hands up over her head.

  The rats were almost directly overhead now. Under the flapping of their impossible wings, she heard them squeaking, high-pitched shrieks volleying back and forth. A sound that burrowed under Loochie’s skin and made the sides of her face itch. New York City rats could chew through sewer pipes and industrial wiring in record time, so how hard would it be for a flock of them to tear through a twelve-year-old girl? To chomp through her clothes and even her skin until they were left to gnaw on her bones.

  Loochie lost a sense of what she was looking for and ran around the perimeter of the playground wildly, trying to get away. She ran toward the jungle gym, thinking she might climb into one of its tunnels, but then thought better of it (the two sides of the tunnels were completely open) and broke for the metal awning instead. But this wasn’t any better. The rats could certainly fly right underneath.

  The rats flew in circles above the playground. They squeaked in high-pitched choruses as their wings flapped. She headed back to the gates she’d first come through. Maybe the Kroons really would be there waiting for her, but she didn’t know what else to do.

  She didn’t even make it halfway to the open gates before the rats attacked. She felt them approaching. Their wings sent gusts of air downward. The winds shook her mother’s wig and almost knocked it right off her head.

  The cloud of rats descended. They slammed into Loochie’s back and sent her facedown on the playground’s plastic mats. The cloud passed over her prone body. She felt claws scrambling across her back. Her sweater and T-shirt were no protection. She screamed but couldn’t hear herself over the beating of those wings.

  She was too dazed to do anything but watch them come for her. The flock of rats spread their wings as one, which made the cloud seem to expand to twice its size. Each rat slowed, gliding down.

  Some of the rats landed on top of her head, on her mother’s wig. They landed on her shoulders. They grasped on to her arms, digging their claws into her sweater, through the cotton, cutting into her skin. Ten rats settled on her back. It was like being trampled on by a panicked crowd. They wriggled and clawed at her. And before she could even register her disgust all those rats started flapping their wings again, furiously.

  If she shut her eyes she might’ve thought she was standing up, by her own power. But she didn’t shut them so she saw what was happening. The rats had pulled her up. The rats on her head snatched off the wig. They looked down and squealed when they realized they hadn’t caught her scalp. They dropped the wig and it fell to the ground, then they dug into her real hair. They pulled and Loochie cried out. The rest of the flock had gone to the air a second time and came back at her again.

  Now that Loochie was upright another dozen rats clamped on to each of her legs. They crawled on her thighs, her shins, her butt. They dug their claws into her jeans and she felt their weight tugging at her. She watched their wings expand.

  They lifted her into the air.

  She was flying.

  Floating, really, and only a few inches, but the rats kept beating their wings and her body rose. She was three feet high and rising. They were taking her somewhere. Whatever they were going to do to her, they weren’t going to do it here. Maybe they’d drag her back to that darkened bedroom, with the door hanging off its hinges. Maybe that was where they’d taken the all children who’d once played with the abandoned toys in the playground. It wasn’t the Kroons that got them, but the flying rats. Loochie imagined a room the size of her bedroom empty except for mounds of children’s clothes, torn through and bloody. In one corner lay all the bones.

  Loochie didn’t have any fight left in her. She’d finally accepted it. Horrors come for kids. Louis had said so. Well, now it had come for her. And she couldn’t fight it alone anymore. In fact, Loochie was so busy giving up that she didn’t see a small girl charging toward her.

  “You get the fuck off Loochie!”

  Loochie was so startled by the voice that she didn’t know which direction she should turn. She looked up before she looked down.

  Someone had a torch, bright fire, and was swatting it at the rats. One of the rats, down near her ankle, burst into flames. Its fur flared and it screeched and let go of Loochie’s pants and flew off. The girl swung again and again. One by one the rats were singed and they screeched and they flapped off to safety. After three or four let go of Loochie, she was no longer rising. Her body descended. The ground came closer. The remaining rats struggled to hold her up. The ones on her head were pulling out strands of her hair as she fell from their grip and she screamed.

  “Kick them off, you dummy!” yelled the girl holding the flaming torch.

  Loochie knew that voice. Loochie knew that voice!

  She kicked her legs and twisted her arms. On the ground the torch swatted at the rats some more. One after another tore away terrified. Loochie’s weight became too much for the rats grasping her sweater. Now Loochie wriggled and struggled. She found new strength. And the rats lost theirs. They tore away pieces of her sweater, a little more hair from her scalp, but they let the girl go.

  Loochie landed on the ground, on her butt. Standing over her was her friend. Her best friend. That was no torch in her hand; it was a tennis racket set on fire.

  “Sunny!” Loochie shouted.

  But this wasn’t the time for a teary reunion. The rats circled above them. A small group of them broke off from the others and shot down at the girls, a first salv
o. More followed behind in waves. Sunny swatted them back, singing their wings. But she couldn’t stand there doing that forever.

  She looked at Loochie and screamed, “We have got to run!”

  9

  Loochie had found Sunny. Or, really, Sunny had found her. Sunny had saved her. Which would have been kind of funny, ironic really, if there’d been any time to sit around and chuckle about it. But the flock of rats had only been pushed back, not scared off. As Sunny and Loochie booked across the playground the rats swarmed in the air, a cloud of fury.

  “This way,” Sunny said. Her voice was raspy; she sounded nearly breathless. She was so small beside Loochie. Her bald head bobbed up and down as she ran. She held the racket up, its head still burning but starting to die down. Some of the racket strings had already melted. Loochie surprised herself by scurrying over and picking up her mother’s wig. Somehow, even in the midst of all this, she didn’t want to get in trouble for losing it. After she picked it up Sunny led Loochie toward the jungle gym.

  “We can’t hide in there!” Loochie shouted. She pulled the wig back on her head just to have her hands free.

  But Sunny wasn’t listening, only leading. For a sick girl she moved pretty fast. Fear had charged her engines. Loochie had to rush to keep up. The girls reached the jungle gym as the column of rats bombed down at them again. Sunny ducked under a little wooden bridge and Loochie followed after. Under here Loochie could see a hole in the fence. A tear. Three of the thick black iron bars had been pulled up like the top of a sardine can. Sunny scrambled through the hole in the fence and Loochie dove after her just as the horde of rats smashed into the jungle gym. Loochie heard the little bridge shatter. The jungle gym exploded into pieces—the slides and the stairs and the walkways and the tunnels, all of it came apart. The rats clawed their way through the rubble but Sunny and Loochie had escaped.

  On the other side of the fence Loochie continued to crawl off but Sunny stood at the hole in the fence and peeked inside at the rats.

  “Sunny!” Loochie hissed. “Why are you stopping?”

  Sunny raised the tennis racket—the edges of the head all charred—and waved Loochie back to her side. “It’s okay,” Sunny said. “They can’t come through.”

  Loochie stopped moving but stayed on her hands and knees. She looked back. It seemed to be true. Loochie could see the rats through the hole in the fence. They clawed through the debris but they didn’t crawl through the hole. The rats didn’t even seem to notice it or Sunny even though the girl was standing not twelve inches from them.

  Sunny raised one very small, thin hand. She pointed at the playground. “If you’re in there they can get you. And if they get you you’re dead. But out here they have no power. The rats rule the playground. The Kroons rule the park.”

  “Why?” Loochie asked, finally getting to her feet. Slowly, very slowly, taking steps toward Sunny and the hole in the fence.

  Sunny shrugged. “That’s just how it is.” She dropped the racket and it clattered on the concrete but the rats, now sniffing right in front of the hole, didn’t look over. They didn’t even seem to hear it.

  “So we’re safe?” Loochie asked.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Now Loochie stood by Sunny’s side. She touched Sunny’s shoulder. Sunny was there with Loochie. Sunny was there.

  “I almost started to believe you were …” Loochie couldn’t even finish the sentence.

  Sunny turned from the fence and looked up at her best friend, but didn’t seem to hear what Loochie had been trying to say. Didn’t even register the grief on Loochie’s face. Instead, Sunny pointed at the top of Loochie’s head.

  “Why are you wearing your mom’s wig?”

  Loochie pressed one hand on her head. “I was playing dress-up,” she said. “While I waited for you to come down.”

  Sunny nodded and looked at her feet. She put her arms out and Loochie held her and they hugged. Sunny felt so frail that Loochie didn’t want to grab her too hard. Sunny wore the same pajamas Loochie had seen her in that morning. ROCK, ROCK, ROCK. But they looked dirtier now. Stained and worn. Like she’d been wearing them for weeks or months, not hours.

  “I wanted to come down,” Sunny said.

  Loochie felt her face getting hot. Was she feeling angry or sad? Hurt? How about all three. “So why didn’t you?” she asked.

  “You really don’t know?” Sunny asked quietly.

  Sunny wore a pair of purple rain boots with white polka dots, which only looked more crazy when paired with those pajamas. Though they still seemed a hell of a lot better than Loochie’s stocking feet. Sunny smiled and pointed at the rain boots.

  “It all happened so fast,” Sunny said. “I had to leave in a hurry. These were the shoes I grabbed.”

  “What happened fast?” Loochie asked. “Did the Kroons get you?”

  Sunny looked away from Loochie and didn’t answer her.

  Loochie was still confused, but she was just so happy to have found her friend. She almost couldn’t believe the luck of it, in a park as big as this. But then it was like the way they’d become friends in the first place: They found each other.

  “We have to get back,” Loochie said. “I saw your grandmother crying. She’s going to be so happy to see you again. Maybe I’ll actually see her smile for once!” Loochie laughed.

  Sunny backed away from Loochie and almost tripped over the tennis racket on the ground. She wasn’t offended by what Loochie had said about her grandmother. She was looking over Loochie’s shoulder. Her attention held. Her gaze rose higher, until she was staring right above Loochie’s head.

  But before Loochie could turn around, she saw something moving a little ways behind Sunny. First a head, bobbing, coming into view slowly, as if the person—the thing—was trudging up a hill. And as more of it appeared she felt a terrible grip in her stomach. It was a man, skinny and severe, his clothes sagging on his body, his left arm dangling useless at his side. He was a hundred feet behind Sunny but would soon be closer. He was running toward them. They were outside of the playground, where the Kroons ruled once again. Lefty’s brothers wouldn’t be far behind.

  Loochie grabbed the tennis racket from the ground. “Behind you,” she said.

  But Sunny hadn’t stopped staring at a point just behind Loochie yet. Maybe Lefty was coming from one direction and Pit, or the Twins, or Chuck from the other. Loochie had a terrible feeling—dread rumbling in the stomach.

  When she turned, though, it wasn’t any of the males. It was the female. The one who’d come to Loochie’s window. The one without a lower jaw. She loomed over Loochie and Sunny. Before Loochie could swing the racket the Kroon grabbed them both.

  10

  Loochie couldn’t escape the smell. The female Kroon had snatched her and Sunny. She clutched them close and ran with them. Loochie was so confused, overwhelmed, that she couldn’t be sure which direction they were headed. She was trying to squirm free but the Kroon’s grip was impossibly strong.

  But that smell. It was the smell of burning plastic. Strong and toxic and it irritated Loochie’s eyes. But behind that smell, along with it, was something sweet. Once Loochie and her mother had tried to make sugar candy at home and it had gone badly. The whole apartment had smelled like this for a day. Loochie tried to pull her head back from the Kroon but each time she did the thing only squeezed tighter and Loochie lost her breath and fell into the stink again.

  Loochie found herself imagining what would come next. One Kroon grabbing Loochie’s feet and the other holding Loochie’s head, then each side pulling until head and feet popped right off her body. But when they finally stopped moving Loochie was dropped to the ground, landing on a new patch of concrete. She was on her back, looking up at the endless gray sky.

  And she was under the Unisphere.

  It was right here. Only ten feet away. Because of its precarious angle it looked as though the great stainless steel globe was about to roll off its stand and crush her.

&
nbsp; “Sunny?” Loochie called out.

  But the face that appeared above her wasn’t Sunny’s. It was the Kroon. It was breathing hard from the run. From this angle Loochie could see the roof of the Kroon’s mouth, which wasn’t pink, like a normal person’s, but yellowed and tough. The Kroon coughed and Loochie felt a scattershot of spit hit her forehead and cheeks.

  She hopped right up after that. And it turned out she’d held on to the old wooden tennis racket. The one Sunny had set on fire. Once she realized she had a weapon Loochie didn’t hesitate. She cocked back and brought the tennis racket down hard, right on the crown of the Kroon’s head.

  Loochie screamed as she connected with the creature. And did the same when she hit the thing a second time. She must’ve sounded as frightening as Pit and his brothers ever did. The third time she swung the racket she only grunted, like Serena Williams during a tennis match. The racket’s head—already brittle from the fire—cracked into little pieces, leaving Loochie holding only the handle and a portion of the shaft. It had snapped off into a jagged sharp point. Loochie was basically holding a dagger now.

  The Kroon had taken all three hits and seemed dazed by the attack, by Loochie’s ferocity. It was on one knee, one hand flat on the concrete for balance. It still hadn’t caught its breath from running with Sunny and Loochie in its arms. Its head dipped down so the back of the neck was exposed. Loochie could see the top of the spine, that little ball under the skin. She raised the sharp stick so she could drive it through.

  “Stop! Loochie, stop!”

  Sunny threw herself at Loochie, sending her best friend tumbling over. Loochie and Sunny fell into a heap. The racket handle dropped from Loochie’s hands.