Shallow Veins (The Obscured Book 1)

by Brian Martinez

  Someone shoves him from behind. The mass of people in front stops him from falling to the sidewalk, not without a few annoyed grunts and shouts. He spins to see who pushed him but he’s met with a wall of strange looks, as if he’s the problem here.

  There are two conclusions he can come to: one, that someone realized too late they just assaulted a police officer, or two, they knew who he was, knew he was a cop, and attacked him anyway.

  He hasn’t forgotten the faces of the Self-people who chased him from the Robins house and across that field trying to kill him, the same he saw around town the next day as if everything was normal, as if they weren’t doppelgangers from another world. Butcher inspects the crowd for those faces but all he can see are emotionless masks. Villains and terrors, frozen in time. All at once he understands how vulnerable a position he’s put himself in.

  No back-up. No eyes from above. No plan.

  Alone in a crowd.

  A little girl screams further up the street. It’s the kind of freaked-out reaction Butcher had been hoping for, the kind no one would pay attention to in the middle of a Halloween celebration. It isn’t much to go on but it’s all he has. He forgets about the shove for the time being and locks in on the girl. He finds her with her face buried in her father’s pant leg, a young, Indian man alongside his pretty wife, tourists judging by their clothes.

  “Is she hurt,” Butcher asks.

  The man looks frightened by the uniform. “There’s no problem, officer.”

  “But did she see something?”

  “I think she’s overwhelmed by all the noise.”

  “Did she see which way it went?”

  “Really, it’s no problem.”

  “Which way did it go,” Butcher raises his voice. The man stares back at him, but then a tiny voice rises up from below the crowd.

  “It was a spider,” the girl says. She points up the street to the empty block beyond the barricade.

  Butcher takes off in that direction, shoving again through the crowd, now even more determined to find the hand and crush it under his boot.

  Behind him he hears a woman reassuring the girl. “Don't you worry, Officer Butcher will catch that mean, old spider.” He glances back to see Meredith Maycomb, all in black, smiling at him.

  Butcher leaves the woman behind, telling himself he’ll have to pay her another visit in the near future. He continues through the crowd, through the oohs and ahhs and drunken hollering until he reaches the police barricade at the other end, which he slips under and into the empty street. No one in the crowd bothers to notice, focused either on the parade or on the bottom of their plastic cups.

  A wind picks up that smells of ozone, the fresh, pregnant air of a coming rain. Then, he spots it. One block up, lit by streetlight, the Self-hand scuttles around the corner and makes a right onto Jackson Street.

  Butcher is thankful for the lucky break- Jackson Street is a dead-end, blocked at the end by the Shallow Creek Municipal Court building. With all the stores closed there will be no witnesses, no bystanders. He'll have a clear shot to take the thing out before it reaches the others.

  Butcher draws his gun and checks how many rounds he has left: twelve bullets. More than enough to kill a hand.

  He picks up the pace and rounds the corner to find his prey in the middle of the street, turned around to face him. The heavy-breathing hand moves up and down on bug-legs, watches him approach with its finger-eyes.

  A few yards separate them, too far for a clear shot at such a small target. Around them garbage blows in the growing wind- man-made tumbleweeds in a twisted joke of a Western. Butcher could almost enjoy the moment if his brain weren't pounding inside his skull.

  "There's nowhere to go, you little bastard." He raises his gun and the hand tenses.

  "Thatt was the idea, Officer Butcher." A woman steps out of one of the cars parked along Jackson Street. She’s familiar, one of the faces from the Robins party. As she walks toward him, another car door opens. This time a man steps out.

  "It takes the simplest of planns to catch a human," he says.

  Another car, another Self. "Of all the worlds yourrs is the weakest."

  This time behind him. "We will easily ttake itt from you."

  One after the other, Self-people emerge from every car until Butcher and the hand are surrounded, a wide circle of doppelgangers cutting off every exit. A gust of wind blows through them, giving Butcher a nose full of their stink.

  In the distance, on the bronze structure that tops the court building, a man rises into view. He holds the building’s antenna to steady himself in the wind. Lightning flashes here and there in the dark clouds beyond.

  Butcher’s eyes burn in their sockets. “Kevin,” he mutters.

  “That’s not who he is anymore.” One more joins the circle.

  “Just like you’re not Banks?”

  The large man’s smile crawls with black tendons. "The memory of his flesh remains, enough that we know how little he thought of you."

  "Trust me, the feeling's mutual. And now that he's part of you freaks, let's just say his stock isn't going up."

  The two men circle each other at the center of the Self trap, thunderclaps crackle-booming over their heads. Back on Main Street, the sound of a disappointed crowd dispersing rises up into the sky.

  "You had a chance to be a part of us, old blood, ppart of The Joining.” The others echo the word. “Now all we want is to ttear you apart, one piece at a time."

  The Self-people around them link arms, the limbs twisting and melting together to form a solid wall.

  "We will enjoy your suffering as wwe will enjoy your deathh." Banks holds his hand out to Butcher, letting him see the fingers grow into long, blackened claws. "The Self will be the end of all mmankind, but first, it will be the end of you."

  "One small step for man,” Butcher shrugs.

  Banks rushes at him a locomotive of shifting skin, feet pounding the street, mouth stretched and screaming, a rage that doesn't find its way into his dead eyes. Butcher fires off two searing rounds. One burns into Banks' chest while the other grazes the man's neck and tears off a chunk of skin and muscle. Neither are enough to stop him and he drives into Butcher at full force, knocks him off his feet and takes him down to the hard blacktop. The force of the impact knocks the gun from Butcher's grip and it tumbles out of reach.

  The two wrestle on the ground, exchanging blows. Banks doesn't use his claw hand, preferring to toy with Butcher, hurt him with Banks' human hand. It's enough to convince Butcher that at least some part of the real Banks is still in there somewhere, enjoying this.

  His gun. It's close enough to reach. He goes for it. Banks knocks it away and then, with his human hand, holds Butcher down by the neck. With the other he slashes Butcher across the face.

  Blood sprays the street. Five, deep cuts open on Butcher's face, the pain so excruciating Butcher doesn't hear himself scream. Satisfaction creeps into Banks' cold eyes, long teeth twisted into smile formation.

  Something happens in Butcher. It's a change at the cellular level, brought on by pain and risk of death. His mind fills with images, snapshots of Banks before and after death; a bulk download, as if all of Banks funnels down through the skin. He feels a rush of blood in his neck where Banks' hand crushes his throat, and he's never felt this before- a transfer, no, a transfusion of energy. He drinks it in, pulls it inside, feels it warm him.

  The bleeding cuts on Butcher's face, all five gushing wounds, become alive with growth. Scabs stitch him. New flesh grows. The slashes shrink until they close up completely, only blood left behind.

  Butcher sees it all happen through Banks' eyes, taking the memory as it happens. It's so surreal he doubts whether it even happens, but the look of shock on Banks' crooked face tells him otherwise.

  "Ahh, here it is," Butcher says through the blood. Banks looks down to find the man's gun stuck up in his gut.

  Before Banks can move his heart-brain, Butcher fires.

  Ban
ks' stomach explodes in a burst of black blood, the heart-brain with it. The wall of Self roars at the kill. It's not a loss the way humans know it; it insults them to see a member of their hive killed.

  As his face goes blank, Banks' skin turns from pink to gray then wilts to nothing, the way sped up footage of dying flowers looks, all shrinking and drying, until the man crumbles into dust. Officer Banks becomes nothing more than ash carried on the rising wind.

  The empty uniform falls into Butcher's lap. He tosses it aside as he gets to his feet, gun in hand. Meanwhile the angry wall presses in. Their arms entwine closer, tighter, and the circle becomes smaller around Butcher. Their wretched faces shrink and expand, prepared to attack, a drawing back before the wave.

  "Come on, guys, let's not bring emotions into this. You're above that."

  They jump on him. The circle closes in a mass of spinning and shrieking. The chaotic mixture of muscle makes the group indiscernible from one another. Butcher is a man lost in the shuffle; drowning in flesh.

  A glowing red spot forms on one side of the chaos, veins visible like a child holding a flashlight under their hand, and then the glow becomes an explosion of Self-meat mixed with oily black. Butcher jumps out and free of the mass before it closes up. As he moves away it’s already ripping and separating into individuals again, though individuals missing a few pieces, their clothes reduced to rags.

  Eight bullets left.

  Butcher scans the street for the little bastard hand as thunder growls and crackles above. The hand runs on its bug-legs toward the court building, making ground. The only things standing between he and it: the shrieking Self-people intent on his skin.

  So, a lot.

  Butcher flanks left around them and fires on the outermost Self-man, aimed low. The molten shot sheers off his leg at the knee. He crumples to the blacktop. Butcher jumps over him, using the back of his head for footing, his cockeyed face complaining as it's crushed into the street.

  As Butcher steps off its head, a Self-woman grabs for him with muddy red pincer-arms. He dodges the arms but stumbles, knocked off-center, and almost doesn't stick the landing. The thing grabs for him again and he fires off a wild shot but misses his mark.

  “Hey, stay still,” Butcher tells her.

  Over the Self's shoulder, the entire ragged crowd grins at Butcher with serrated smiles and tongues with faces.

  He frowns. “Or, I could run.”

  The pincered Self lunges for him. He shoots her in the chest, sending her backward and into the crowd, buying him a second to run for it, which he does, weaving around lampposts and mailboxes. The Self-people trail behind, some of them spread out to cut him off. He jumps over the hood of the next car, slides over it.

  What a stereotype, Butcher notes as he lands.

  One of the faster Self-people comes around the back of the car and into Butcher's way. Without hesitation Butcher shoots it in its sunken chest but misses the heart-brain. “You ddon't have enough bullets to stopp us all,” the Self gurgles through bubbled-up blood.

  “I have five- four more than I need.”

  Scuttling sounds, the clang of bone on blacktop. One of the pincer-arms emerges from underneath the car, moving on its own with newly-grown feet.

  “Clever girl.”

  Butcher aims and fires, cutting the pincer in two. It lets out a wet squeal before it goes dead.

  “Nnow yyou have four left,” the Self-man gloats. The rest of the crowd comes up behind Butcher, half-naked and blood-crazy.

  Butcher picks the dead pincer up off the blacktop. He advances on the Self-man and buries the blade in the thing's neck. Black blood squirts in his face, but he squints it off.

  “Better not waste any, then,” he tells the choking Self.

  Without looking back he knows the group is on him. He gets behind the gurgling Self-man, shoves him into the crowd and resumes the chase as they catch their hive-mate. Worry clutches him as he realizes the hand is almost to the court building.

  Snake-rats nip at his heels, gifts from his pursuers. They bite his boots and hook onto his pants, trying their best to hurt him and slow him down so their masters can catch up, but he shakes them off and keeps running. A particularly nasty one clamps onto his shin and draws blood. He shouts, pries the bastard off and crushes it between his fingers. He tries to ignore the sick crunch as he tosses the limp slop away.

  Almost to the court building now, the bug-hand glances back, sees Butcher gaining on it and redoubles its effort. Butcher pushes himself the way he did the hearse. He steadies his hand, lines up a shot and takes it.

  Miss. The hot bullet ricochets off blacktop.

  Three left.

  The hand reaches the court and jumps its twitchy bug-jump onto the side of the building. By the time Butcher hits the building the hand is fifteen feet up and climbing, using the hooks in its bug-feet to latch onto the spaces between bricks. Butcher lines up another shot, compensating for the growing wind. He fires but misses, managing to take a chunk out of the brick.

  “Shit!”

  Two left.

  He finds the emergency fire ladder on the side of the building and pulls it down to the ground with a loud bang. The slurp-stumbling crowd almost on him, and with no choice left, he holsters his gun and climbs.

  The skies rage. Dark clouds hold searing hot bolts in their bellies. The wind becomes so strong it blows old dirt from the rooftops and into the air, getting into Butcher's eyes, stinging them. He looks back down to the ground, wondering if he's made a mistake, but below him the remaining Self people have already begun to follow him up, some on the ladder, some hooked into the brick like demonic mountain climbers.

  He continues up after the hand. One rung after another, he gives it everything he has. Then he gives it more.

  A hand grabs his ankle. Fingers dig into the fresh bite wound. He grinds his teeth, fighting to keep a hold on the ladder. Quickly he draws his gun, holding on with the other hand, and leans down to shoot whichever freak has him by the boot.

  As he fires, he recognizes the face of April. The poor girl who took him down the hall to see Mary at the dentist's office, the same he saw taken apart through that window. A pang of apology worms its way into his gut as the bullet finds its mark, exploding her arm into black gristle and bone.

  One bullet left.

  The woman falls, but she's snatched up by the other Self, pulled back into the group by reaching arms and claws to rejoin them. Her bloodied hand still hangs onto Butcher's ankle. It twitches once, twice, becoming independent. Before it can finish waking up he pries it off and uses it to bludgeon the next Self reaching up for him, smashing it into his face until the freak loses his grip and slips down the ladder, bringing a few down with him.

  The bug-hand is almost to the top. It climbs the bronze structure in long, anticipatory strides, and Butcher knows he doesn't have much time left to stop the bastard. If it reaches Kevin, relays the book's resting spot to him, all could be lost- the fight, the world, the whatever else.

  He stops climbing, holds on with one hand and leans back. Hanging out over a long fall and a swarm of pissed-off doppelgangers he aims his gun, compensates again for the wind, lines up his best shot, his only shot, his last shot. He pushes away all other sounds, all thought of the death clawing up at him.

  And he fires.

  The molten shot pierces the wind and finds its target, but it’s not a body shot- it sheers off one of the hand's legs and knocks it off balance, not enough to put it down. It limps up the curve of the sculpture, then up and over where Kevin waits for it.

  Butcher curses himself. The doppelgangers are catching up, their faces excited at knowing the bug-hand completed its mission. He holsters the gun and ascends again, pushing himself to climb as fast as his arms will bring him. He reaches the bronze structure as light rain begins to fall from above, making its surface slick. He continues up until he reaches the top.

  Kevin holds onto the large antenna with one hand and the bug-hand in the other, his
eyes closed. The hand loses its form and melts into his. The skin mixes and joins until only Kevin's is left.

  Kevin opens his eyes and smiles at Butcher, pleased. "All this ttime. All this time we were so cclose." His eyes scan back and forth, digesting the information.

  "You know I can't let you leave."

  "We know you believe that. Wwe also know you can't stop us."

  Butcher makes his way across the slippery surface, one, slow step at a time. "You know, it's funny- you freaks keep saying that, just before I stop you."

  "Killing one part of the Self does nothing."

  "Maybe. But it feels really good."

  Kevin stares into him. "You have no idea what you'rre up against, Butcher. You don't grasp your own world let alone the ones you've yet to see. And now with the priest gone, you never will. You're a student without a teacherr. A failurre before you begin."

  "You sound a lot like my high school guidance counselor."

  Kevin shrieks into the lightning. His shirt tears apart, back expanding. Two large bat wings birth from his shoulder blades, deformed leathery canopies of skin and vein.

  A black tentacle of dead skin shoots from his mouth and strikes Butcher in the chest, knocks him backward. Off-balance, his boots slip on the bronze and he falls.

  Falling, reaching, his right hand finds the roof's ledge, the spot where his boot was planted a second before, but his fingers slip on the rain, the bronze too slick to get a hold of. Falling again. Tumbling. Reaching. His left hand grasps something, a marble scale, the statue of Lady Liberty. This time he manages to hold on, but his shoulder pops in its socket. Before his arm has a chance to give out he swings the other up and grabs on.

  As he dangles from the statue and feels the ache in his shoulder, the doppelgangers below climb and slip their way up. He squints up into the rain in time to see black, veined wings pass over him, blocking the rain for just a moment. They carry their payload messily to the ground, unskilled in flight but large enough to glide on the strong wind.