by Leito, Chad
Asa felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. His hands instinctively balled themselves into fists.
Standing there, in the glow of the small flame was a female trying to light a cigarette. She had thick, one-inch black bangs, and the rest of her hair fell down to her shoulders in a Cleopatra haircut. Her eyes were heavily shadowed in smoky makeup, and her lips were a stark red. She was slender. She wore a leather jacket that went down to her black boots. There was not a zipper, but instead, one side of the jacket was connected with three leather straps that could be threaded through three large silver buckles on the other side. At the moment, her jacket was open. Beneath her jacket, she wore a dress, and the skirt ended ten inches above her skinny knees and showed almost the entirety of her pale legs.
Asa was just beginning to notice that there was someone else standing behind her when the lighter flame cut off. Now, all was dark except for the glowing end of a cigarette out in the foyer. It was bouncing up and down, as though the female holding it had Parkinson’s disease.
“Put that out!” came a hushed growl from the foyer. The noise was unmistakably from a Multiplier—Asa knew that human’s couldn’t talk in that low of a tone.
The cigarette wavered, as though the female was taking it out of her mouth. “Screw you!” she slurred. She sounded drunk.
“Seriously, put that out!” growled the low voice again. Asa couldn’t see the source of this voice, and he wondered how many of them there were. “What if the Sharks come in here and see your cigarette? Get back into hiding!”
Asa was alarmed to realize that several Multipliers had snuck into the foyer without him noticing. Did they hear Jen and I whispering a moment ago? Did they hear the desk move as I pushed it out from the wall? Did they hear it when Jen moved it back?
The cigarette’s red glow intensified for a moment as the female took a hard drag. “They’re not coming. We were given bad information from that brat, Stan.”
Now a third voice came from the foyer. This one was unmistakably male, and he sounded big. “Both of you, be quiet. Let’s wait another twenty minutes. If they’re not here by eight thirty, they’re not coming.”
“Yes, sir, Allen,” came the low, rumbling voice.
The cigarette end glowed a brighter red. The female spoke: “And then are we jetting out of here, or what?”
Allen’s voice came back low and contemplative. “I want to investigate the classroom before we go.”
After this, it was silent. The female finished her cigarette, and then Asa watched as the glowing tip dropped to the ground and was extinguished with the heel of her boot.
Jen put her mouth up to Asa’s ear and whispered very softly—“Do Multipliers have a mutated sense of smell? Can they smell us?”
I was wondering the same thing, Asa thought. Seeing no point in telling Jen this, he whispered back, “No.”
After he said this, he was acutely concerned that he had whispered too loud. Do they have super hearing? He couldn’t remember. As he sat there, he felt his stomach gurgle, but it did not growl audibly. He knew that he should eat again, but he didn’t dare reach into his pocket to pull out another food item.
Why did Allen say that he wanted to investigate the classroom? Had he heard something? Can he smell us?
Time went by without a sound. Asa wondered how Bruce was doing in the closet. He wished he hadn’t come. What good is it to have three of us here? We really only needed one.
He wondered if the Multipliers would kill them if they were caught, or if they would turn them into Multipliers. They’ll probably turn us. That way we can help them in whatever attack they’re planning.
Asa had to stifle a groan at this thought. He would rather be dead, he believed, than turned into a Multiplier.
Again, Asa was overcome with that odd, unshakable premonition that he would be bitten. He shivered, and stared out into the dark foyer. He could only see shadows. He wondered if Edna, Michael, and Joney were with them. The Multipliers he had heard speaking didn’t sound like the ones he had encountered in the woods.
FLICK
A shaking blue-green flame erupted from the female’s lighter and she directed the tip of her cigarette into the fire and inhaled.
“Damnit, Rose! Allen told you to…” the low voice began.
Rose retorted quickly, cutting the low voice off—“Shut it, Ned! It’s past eight thirty, you idiot—they’re not coming! Allen, what’s the plan?” She took another drag.
Asa’s breath caught again in his throat as he remembered that Stan had said the Multiplier he had met with in the woods had been named Allen. This is the guy that broke Stan’s wrist, and has been giving him all those bruises. This is the Multiplier that made Stan so scared that he vomited. Allen is the reason that Stan’s eyes kept nervously glancing at the door while he was talking to me in Viola’s dwelling.
“Let’s go in the classroom.” Asa heard shoes clicking on the concrete floor as Allen quickly approached the room. He flicked on the fluorescent lights, and it took Asa’s eyes a moment to adjust.
The one that Asa believed to be Allen was tall (roughly 6’4”), with finger-length messy blond hair. He was wearing a blue button down tucked into a pair of black pants. He had a crooked black tie on, and his dark shoes were shined to perfection. Allen had long arms that hung beside his hips and ended in big hands—they reminded Asa of an orangutan’s arms.
Beside Allen was the cigarette smoking, trench coat wearing female—Rose. She took a drag and exhaled blue smoke into the room. There was only one other Multiplier with them, and Asa assumed this one was the source of the low voice he had heard. Rose had called him Ned.
Ned reminded Asa of some of the oil field workers he had seen growing up in Texas. He stood just under than six feet tall, but looked like he outweighed Allen by twenty pounds of muscle. He looked like a linebacker. His thick arms filled out his flannel shirt, which was unbuttoned to reveal a stained white wife-beater underneath. He wore jeans and brown work boots. He had an enormous jaw, and a protruding forehead. He looked like a bulldog. His head was shaved except for a strip of short brown hair that ran vertically over his head—a short and thick Mohawk.
Allen walked in, straightened his tie, and licked his lips with a black tongue. Every movement he made was fast and sure. He looked around the room, and something in the way his blue eyes systematically took note of his surroundings made Asa come to the conclusion that Allen was very smart.
Asa felt naked underneath the desk. He retreated further into the darkness and wished he were anywhere else in the world.
Rose moved into he room with an unsteady gait and knelt down on the concrete on her bare knees. The cigarette was shaking in the corner of her mouth, and her eyes were bloodshot. She reached a jittering hand into her coat pocket and pulled out a small bag of white-yellow powder.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Ned asked.
“Heroin. What does it look like?” She untied the bag and poured a hefty line onto the top of one of the desks.
Allen wasn’t paying attention to Rose. He was standing a couple feet back from the blackboard with his fingers interlaced in front of him. He was examining the Winggame plays.
“That’s going to kill you, you idiot! You can’t snort heroin! You’ll die!” Ned looked angry.
Rose laughed musically. “Honey, I know you’ve only been a Multiplier for a few weeks, but something that you need to learn is that it’s hard to kill us. We’re like cockroaches. We’re a lot sturdier than those fragile little humans.” She bent over the heroin, plugged one of her nostrils, and snorted heavily. As soon as the drug was in her system, her eyes drooped a little.
“You’re high!” Ned’s voice was rising, and his hands were thrown up in frustration. “When we’re on a mission from the Hive, we’re supposed to do our best work! How are we supposed to do our best work when you’re high!”
Rose stood on shaky feet; her knees were wobbling, and for a moment, Asa thought that she might f
all over. She poked Ned’s chest with one of her petite fingers. “I may be high,” she slurred, “but you’re a prude. The Hive isn’t my boss here, Allen is. And I don’t hear Allen bitchin. I hear you bitchin. So shut your mouth.”
Ned’s face had turned red and veins were popping out on his forehead.
Rose laughed again. “Look at you! Ha! You’re pissed! Look at him, Allen, the baby Multiplier can’t hold his temper!”
Allen gave no indication that he heard. He still seemed to be examining the blackboard.
Asa saw that drops of Salvaserum were leaking out of Ned’s mouth now, showing that he could either smell the humans nearby or was indeed becoming dangerously angry.
Rose kept on trying to annoy him, though, despite Ned weighing three times as much as her. She moved closer so that her red lips were inches from his face and continued to taunt him. “Baby Multipliers have a hard time controlling their temper, Ned.”
“You smell like booze,” he growled.
“And you’d be in a better mood if you smelled like booze! Something about being a Multiplier that you’ve got to get used to is the anger.” She cocked a thumb behind her, pointing at Allen. “Allen, he can control his temper. You know he’s got a bad one, because all Multipliers do, but you don’t see it too much. Multipliers like you and me, we have a hard time. If we’re not medicated, we can lose control. Get medicated, otherwise, your going to find that you’ll black out, and you’ll wake up with blood on your hands. And a big guy like you, you could pound a lot of blood out of someone’s face.”
Ned’s chest was rising and falling with furious breaths that were coming in and out of his dilated nostrils. He looked like a bull about to charge.
“Sssooo, brother,” Rose said, slurring and stumbling a step. “Take my advice, and join the party!” Though she was under the influence of several substances, she could still move incredibly fast, being a Multiplier. She grabbed the bag of heroin and flung it, covering Ned’s face with the white-yellow powder.
Ned screamed in rage and then let go of all restraint. He charged Rose, grabbed her by the neck, flung her up into the air, and then threw her down with all the force he had onto the concrete floor. There was a sick WHAP sound as her head struck the concrete that made Asa feel even sicker than he had before. Rose’s eyes glossed over, and she seemed to lose consciousness for a moment. Ned got on top of her and began to choke her slender neck with his big hands, using all the force he could get. His neck strained with the effort, and his heroin-covered face was contorted into an ugly grimace as he grunted. Salvaserum ran from his open mouth and fell in gobs onto Rose’s unconscious face. Ned’s teeth were coated black.
Allen didn’t seem to care. When Ned threw Rose down, he didn’t even flinch, but just continued to stare at the board.
Rose’s eyes twitched, and Asa saw them widen as she woke up. Her hands groped at Ned’s chest, trying to pull him off her, but he was too strong. He choked her even harder and her eyes widened. The back of her head was bleeding where she had struck the concrete.
“Let’s see how hard you really are to kill, you bitch!” Ned screamed.
He’s completely lost it, Asa thought.
Allen turned from the board as though he had just heard the fight. “Stop, Ned,” he said calmly. He looked mildly perturbed with the situation, but no indication of alarm could be seen on his face.
Ned appeared to have not heard Allen’s words. He was smiling now, his face red with effort as he squeezed down even harder on Rose’s neck. He was up off his knees and on his toes; it looked like he was trying to press his thumbs through Rose’s neck and into the floor.
“I said, stop,” Allen repeated calmly.
Still, Ned continued on. Rose was turning a sick shade of purple.
BANG!
Ned’s chest exploded with a spray of blood and Salvaserum and he rolled off Rose.
Asa hadn’t seen Allen draw the gun, but when he looked over, the Multiplier was holding a large, silver handgun. The weapon was polished to perfection, just like Allen’s shoes.
“I told you to stop,” Allen said simply.
Rose rolled over and began to cough up mucus and Salvaserum onto the floor. Her face slowly returned from purple to her usual pale color.
Ned was on his back, holding the large bullet hole in the side of his chest. His breath was coming in and out of his mouth in harsh wheezes, and he was bleeding heavily onto the concrete.
“I’m sorry that I had to ruin your shirt,” Allen said, “but you wouldn’t stop.”
Ned responded in an incredulous tone; he could only say about one word in between his harsh, gasping breaths. “My,” gasp, “shirt? I’m,” gasp, “dying!”
Rose’s coughing fit turned into giggles, and she spat more mucus onto the floor. Her face was covered in slick blood and Salvaserum from being under Ned when he was shot. “You’re not dying, you idiot!”
Ned continued to lie on his back and his breathing grew shallower. Asa watched as his face paled.
Allen scratched the side of his head with the barrel of the handgun, and his eyebrows drew together. “Actually, don’t hold me to my word. You might die. You look pretty bad.”
Ned began to cry softly in between his harsh wheezes, and Rose broke out into another fit of cackles. She took a flask out from her bloody jacket and drank heavily. Her hair was slicked to her skull with blood.
“Just be still for a bit, Ned. Try to keep breathing. You’ll be alright.” With the handgun dangling by his side, Allen turned away from the blackboard and his blue eyes locked onto the desk that Jen and Asa were crouched under.
Asa thought, Jen and Bruce said that they wouldn’t notice us, if they didn’t look carefully. He’s going to look carefully! He can see us!
Allen’s blue eyes went over the legs of the desk, onto the top, and over the back of the desk where the holes for the electric wiring were. Asa held his breath. Allen licked his lips. Something about the desk must have interested him, because he began to walk towards it, with his handgun at his side.
The hole that Asa was watching through was about two centimeters in diameter; Asa was sure that Allen could see both his and Jen’s eyes shining through the holes. He wanted to back away into the darkness and hide behind the more solid regions of the desk, but was scared that the movement would be even more noticeable than the eyeballs.
In those moments, Asa thought of his father, and the contract he had made. He wondered if Charlotte had gotten back safe. If Multipliers got her this evening out in the woods, and they bite me or kill me tonight, it’s all over.
Allen stood close enough to the desk that Asa could have reached his finger through the small hole and touched Allen’s black pants. There was a heavy sound up above Asa as Allen’s gun touched the top of the desk. Asa closed his eyes, bracing himself, believing that Allen would shoot them down through the top of the desk.
But the blast didn’t come. Instead, Asa heard rustling papers as Allen turned the pages on the notebook.
“What’s that?” Rose asked. Asa couldn’t see her anymore, but he heard the FLICK of her lighter and thought that she was smoking another cigarette. Ned was still wheezing.
“Some kind of grade book,” Allen responded. “I don’t think it’s from the Sharks, though. I think it’s from before them.”
Asa could smell Rose’s cigarette. “Are you ready to go, boss?” she asked.
Asa rubbed his sweaty palms on his suit. He couldn’t believe the words he had just heard Rose say—he never thought he would get out of this situation alive.
“Do you hear something?” Allen said.
Asa stiffened and saw Jen glance over at him in the dark.
“No,” Rose said.
Allen shut the notebook on the top of the desk and took a few steps towards the center of the room. “Everyone be quiet,” he said. He stood there, head cocked, for what felt like an eternity. Asa held his breath.
Rose was seated atop one of the school desks, her
legs crossed, with blue haze drifting around her as she inhaled cigarette smoke into her lungs. Ned was still on the ground, wheezing heavily. His chest was rising and falling in shallow increments. He had his palms pressed against the bullet wound, trying to slow down the bleeding.
“Ned, stop breathing so loud, would you?” Allen asked. He was staring blankly out the doorway into the dark foyer.
Ned nodded, and his breathing actually grew more normal.
Rose poured a drop of heroin onto her thumbnail and snorted. Blood and Salvaserum were dripping from her hair. “What do you hear, boss?”
Allen shook his head and relaxed. “It’s nothing. I hear nothing. Let’s get out of here. Ned, do you think you can get up for us?”
Ned spoke softly. “Yeah.” He removed his hands from the bullet hole, which Asa noticed was now no longer pouring with blood. He had been shot in the chest only moments ago, and yet he was bleeding as much as a normal person would with a small flesh wound. Color was returning to his face.
“I knew you wouldn’t die,” Rose said. Her eyes were limp and red from the heroin she had just snorted; she broke out into sick cackles as she sucked on the end of her cigarette.
31
The Interrogation
Allen walked over and looked out the doorway into the dark foyer, and then he turned to the open door. “Was this door locked when we got here?” His blue eyes looked at the knob, then around the room.
“I didn’t open it,” Rose said. She dropped her cigarette and it sizzled out in a puddle of blood.
“Something isn’t right here,” Allen said, returning to the room. He was striding quickly in between desks, his eyes on the area where Asa and Jen were hiding. At first, Asa tensed. He believed that Allen had heard he or Jen breathing under the desk and was on his way to reveal them. But something in Allen’s blue eyes made Asa think that there was a different motive behind his action. A faint smile played on Allen’s lip, and then he turned, sprinting towards the door that Bruce was behind.