Nocturnal

by Scott Sigler

  Alex Panos had nothing on Rex’s mother.

  He sniffled back tears. They didn’t have money for this. They didn’t have insurance. But Alex had broken his arm … what was Rex supposed to do?

  She came through the doors, saw him immediately and made a beeline right for him. Roberta: too skinny, nasty wiry hair that smelled like cigarettes, and that disgusting skin.

  She stood in front of him. His chin tried to dig itself even deeper into his chest. She stared. He wanted to just die.

  “So you were fighting again?”

  Rex shook his head no, but even as he did it, he knew better.

  “Don’t lie to me, boy. Look at your goddamn nose. You were fighting again.”

  He felt the tears coming. He hated himself for crying. He hated her for making him cry. He hated Alex for all of it.

  He hated his life.

  “But they attacked me, Mom, and—”

  “Don’t you call me that!” Roberta’s voice carried through the waiting room of St. Francis, drawing stares from the walking wounded awaiting treatment. She saw the glances, lowered her voice to a nasty hiss. “You just stop it right now, Rex. Do you have any idea what this is going to cost me?”

  Rex shook his head again. The tears streamed down his face.

  Roberta huffed and strode over to the billing desk. Rex tried to slink even deeper, but there was nowhere left to go. Roberta and the woman behind the counter exchanged words, then the woman handed Roberta a bill.

  Roberta read it.

  Then she turned to look at him, and the world grew colder.

  Rex hid his face in his uncasted hand, tears wetting his palms. He rocked back and forth. He didn’t want to go with her, but he had no place else to go.

  He had no one.

  Sharrow Sends Bryan Home

  Clauser.”

  Someone shook his shoulder. Bryan tried to say something to the effect of leave me alone or I’ll kill you, but all that came out was a three-syllable mumble.

  Another shake.

  “Clauser!”

  Captain Sharrow’s voice. Bryan blinked awake.

  “Clauser, this isn’t the place for a nap.”

  Damn … he had fallen asleep at his desk.

  “Sorry, Captain.”

  Jesse Sharrow glared down. His white hair and bushy white eyebrows framed his weathered scowl. Bryan started to stand up; his butt cleared only one inch of airspace before aching muscles and bones froze him in place, then promptly dropped him back down on the chair.

  “Good God, man,” Sharrow said. “Wipe that drool off your chin, will you?”

  Bryan touched his cheek: cold and slimy. Well, that was certainly a way to score points with your boss. He wiped away the spit.

  Sharrow pointed to the stack of paper on Bryan’s desk. “Reprint that.”

  Spots of drool had soaked into Bryan’s report.

  “Sorry,” Bryan said.

  “Go home, Clauser. You’re a dumb-ass coming in here like this, bringing your germs in with you. You want to put the whole department down?”

  “I wasn’t planning on making out with anyone, Captain. Except for you, of course.”

  “Blow it out your ass,” Sharrow said. “You’re so ugly you make my wife look hot. And that’s saying something.”

  “It sure is.”

  Sharrow snarled and pointed a finger a Bryan’s face. “Watch it, Clauser. Don’t talk bad about my wife.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Seriously, go home.”

  “But, Cap, I still have paperwork for the shooting review board to—”

  “Shut your piehole. Get out of here. In fact, don’t bother reprinting that report, just email it to me — I don’t want to touch anything that’s come anywhere near you. Be out of here in the next ten minutes.”

  Sharrow turned and stormed off.

  Bryan hadn’t taken a sick day in four years. But falling asleep at his desk, drooling on paperwork … maybe it was for the best if he cleared out. With both hands flat on the desk, he pushed himself to a standing position, every muscle screaming the biological equivalent of horrid obscenities.

  A crumpled-up twenty-dollar bill landed on his desk.

  Bryan looked up. Pookie had thrown it.

  “Take a cab,” Pookie said. “I’m not driving you.”

  “Don’t want a sick guy in your car?”

  Pookie let out a pfft noise of disgust. “You’ve already been in my car. I’m not driving you because you said you’d make out with Sharrow and not me. I have feelings, you know.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  Pookie shook his head. “Men. You’re all pigs. Do I need to call you an ambulance instead of a cab?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  Bryan shuffled out of the office and headed for the elevator. The sooner he got to sleep — in an actual bed — the better.

  Robin Gets the Call

  A rare, quiet moment at home.

  Robin was taking advantage of the time to sit on her couch and do nothing. Nothing but scratch the ear of her dog, Emma. Emma’s head rested on Robin’s lap.

  Emma wasn’t supposed to be on the couch. She knew that, Robin knew that, yet neither of them was motivated enough to do anything about it. Robin was home so little these days she didn’t have it in her heart to scold the sixty-five-pound German shorthair pointer for wanting to be closer. Robin slowly swirled the dog’s floppy black ear. Emma moaned in happiness with a doggie equivalent of a cat’s purr.

  As Robin’s responsibilities grew, so did her time at the morgue. Thankfully, her next-door-neighbor, Max Blankenship, could almost always swing over to take care of Emma if Robin worked late. Max would take Emma to his place to play with Billy, Max’s gigantic pit bull. Max was sweet, kind, clever, handsome, sexy as hell and had a key to her apartment — the perfect man, if not for the small fact that “Big Max” was as gay as gay gets.

  Robin’s cell phone rang. She looked at it, but didn’t recognize the incoming number. She thought of ignoring it, but it might be work related so she answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Doctor Robin Hudson?” asked a woman’s voice.

  “This is she. Who is calling, please?”

  “Mayor Jason Collins’s office. The mayor would like to speak with you. Can you hold for a moment?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  The phone switched to elevator music. The mayor’s office? It was ten o’clock at night. And more than that, the mayor’s office? Why would the mayor be calling her?

  Because it was the mayor who appointed the chief medical examiner.

  Oh, no … had something happened to Dr. Metz?

  The on-hold music clicked off. “Doctor Hudson?”

  She’d heard his voice dozens of times on newscasts. This wasn’t a prank. Holy shit.

  “Yes, this is Robin Hudson.”

  “This is Mayor Collins. Sorry to bother you so late at night, Doctor Hudson. Do you prefer to be called doctor or can I just call you Robin?”

  “Robin is fine. Is Doctor Metz okay?”

  “Sadly no,” the mayor said. “Doctor Metz suffered a heart attack earlier this evening. He’s at San Francisco General.”

  “My God.” Her heart suddenly pounded at the thought of never seeing her friend again, of death taking him away forever. “Is he going to make it?”

  “They think so,” the mayor said. “He’s in stable condition, but he’s not out of the woods yet. I’ll have my office put you on the notification list. The hospital calls me with any information, I’ll be sure to relay that same information right out to you.”

  “Thank you, Mister Mayor.”

  “I assume you understand why I’m calling?”

  Robin nodded to herself, scratched Emma’s ear. “Someone needs to run the Medical Examiner’s Office.”

  “That’s right. I’m hoping our famous Silver Eagle will make a full recovery. If he is unable to return to work, we’ll launch a nationwide search for a new chi
ef medical examiner. Until we know if he’ll be okay, however, can I count on you to run the ship?”

  Was she ready for this? Could she run the department and not screw it up? There wasn’t any time to doubt herself — Metz would expect her to handle things in his absence.

  “Of course,” Robin said. “I’ll keep everything running smoothly, just the way Doctor Metz likes it.”

  “Excellent. Now I know this is upsetting news and a lot of information to process, so I’ll let you go. I will say that I’m pleased a representative of our active Asian American community is there to take care of things in the interim.”

  Were she not so shocked and saddened by the news of her mentor’s heart attack, Robin might have laughed — Mayor Collins would find a way to spin this into votes. Asians made up a third of San Francisco’s voters. He probably didn’t know she’d grown up in Canada, the daughter of an immigrant Englishman. Still, she’d inherited her mother’s looks, and that meant she’d make a good potential photo op for the mayor. Not that she’d mind taking a picture with a hunk like Collins; with his tailored suits, expensive haircuts and big-jawed smile, the handsome mayor had topped most eligible bachelor lists for years.

  “Something else to think on,” he said. “While we will, if necessary, do a search for a new chief ME, you’re in charge right now. If you want that job long-term someday, this gives you a hell of a leg up.”

  She was already being considered for the top spot? “Of course, Mister Mayor.”

  “Just one more thing, Robin. The Paul Maloney case is sensitive. Delicate. I know Doctor Metz finished the examination, so I’m having Maloney’s body removed from the morgue.”

  “And you’re taking it … where?”

  “Somewhere safe,” he said. “I’m too worried that, with Maloney’s past, victims or relatives of victims might want to desecrate the body.”

  Someone would try to break into the San Francisco morgue?

  “Mister Mayor, I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

  “I am worried about it,” he said. “I know the morgue is at the Hall of Justice, but remember that cops are parents, too. With Doctor Metz out of commission for the first time in recent memory, someone might get ideas. I want to remove the temptation. Maloney’s body will be gone when you arrive tomorrow morning. Understand?”

  She didn’t understand. At all. The processing of the deceased was done under a strict protocol. But maybe this was how politics worked. At any rate, Jason Collins was the boss, and she wasn’t going to rock the boat so soon, not when her future career might be on the line.

  “Yes, Mister Mayor,” she said. “I understand.”

  “Great. Robin, I’m thrilled you’re on this. We’ll let you know when Doctor Metz can have visitors. Good night.”

  “Good night,” she said. She hung up and stared at the phone. She stared at it so long that Emma wondered what was going on, thought the phone might be a treat, so she stared at it as well.

  Robin put the phone down, then scootched both of Emma’s ears. The dog’s eyes narrowed sleepily and she growl-moaned with pure love.

  “Hear that, baby girl?” Robin said. “I’m sorry, but it looks like you might be seeing more of your uncle Max. A lot more.”

  Hunter’s Blind

  Like any good hunter, Bryan waited. He didn’t know how he’d come to be here, but he recognized the place. He was on Post Street, his back to an abandoned, boarded-up laundromat at the corner of a little alley called Meacham Place. A gate of square, ten-foot-high black bars blocked the entrance to the alley. Beyond those bars, he would take his prey.

  Covered by a damp, smelly blanket, he lay perfectly still. Streetlights lit up most of the concrete sidewalk, but couldn’t chase away all of the darkness. Shadows flexed and moved in time with the passing of late-night cars and taxis.

  The blanket covered every inch of his body, everything except for a narrow slit through which he could watch. People ignored his presence, and why not? Just one more nasty-ass bum sleeping on the streets, an everyday sight in San Francisco. People walked past, only a few feet away, oblivious to the concept that death hid beneath tattered, filthy, third-hand fabric. Many times on nights just like these, he had grabbed such people and dragged them into the darkness.

  He waited for the boy with the curly black hair.

  Hail to the king.

  First had come the visions. Visions of hateful faces, tastes of fear and the flush of humiliation, of helplessness. Waking dreams made Bryan feel what it was like to be bullied by a pack of boys, to be beaten by a woman who should have protected, to be violated by a man who promised love.

  All of those people had wronged the king. All of those people had to be punished. How dare they hurt him, how dare they. Bryan and the others searched, they watched, they hunted, until the faces of dreams matched faces of flesh and blood.

  The priest had been first. He could only die once, so they had made it last.

  Now the bullies would pay the same price.

  Bryan wanted the blond boy, the leader, but he was hard to find. He was difficult game. The curly-haired boy, though — he was predictable. He often came this way.

  It would not be enough to just take the curly-haired boy away, to make him disappear. There was too much rage for that, too much anguish: like with the priest, the world had to know.

  Hail to the king.

  The curly-haired boy turned the corner. Bryan stayed calm, stayed motionless inside his hunting blind, moving nothing except his eyes. Bryan wasn’t the smartest, he knew that, but he could hunt like no one else. As big as he was, the prey never saw him coming.

  The boy walked down the sidewalk like he owned the whole street. His turf, his neighborhood, his territory. Big enough that most would avoid him. Young enough to think he controlled his life, to think that no one wanted to mess with him.

  One womb.

  The heat of the hunt boiled inside Bryan’s skin, a feeling so primitive it bordered on lust. Bryan wanted to kill, needed to kill.

  The black, curly hair stuck out beneath the boy’s white baseball hat. He wore a dark-crimson jacket with the big, angled letters BC on the left chest. An eagle — forever paused with wings back and talons outstretched — sat in the middle of those letters.

  The boy drew closer. Bryan breathed slowly. The boy glanced at Bryan’s blind, then wrinkled his nose and looked away. The boy drew even with Bryan, took two steps past, then came the voice.

  “Help … me …”

  That voice came from behind the black gate. The boy stopped, looked through the gate’s bars into Meacham Place’s still shadows. Bryan knew what the boy would see. On the right, scraggly, ten-foot-tall trees growing up out of the narrow sidewalk, trunks only a foot from a brick wall, their leaves casting down lightless pools of deep black. On the left, the laundromat’s crumbling masonry, broken windows and layers of grafitti. And in the middle, lying on the cracked pavement, a bearded man in a white tank top.

  Bryan waited. There were enough cars passing by that if the boy ran, Bryan would have to let him go. If the boy went into the alley, Bryan and the others would move.

  Take the bait.

  The boy looked down and to his left, again examining Bryan’s blind, again deciding the unmoving, blanket-covered homeless person wasn’t worth worrying about.

  The man in the alley called out a second time, so softly that no one but the boy would hear. “Help me … please. I’m hurt.”

  Take the bait …

  The boy gripped the gate’s black bars. He quietly climbed over, careful to avoid the pointy spear-tops, and dropped down on the other side.

  Bryan moved without a sound, turning his head slightly to look down Post Street — empty enough to act. He quietly stood, but remained hunched over. Bryan was careful to keep the big blanket looped around his face, like a hood, so that no one could see what was underneath. The rancid fabric cut off his peripheral vision, but that didn’t matter: it was almost over.

&nbs
p; A crawl of fear washed over him. The monster was always out there, somewhere. Bryan looked up, scanned the buildings above, looking for movement, for an outline.

  Nothing.

  He had to draw the symbol, and soon, or the monster would come for him.

  “Mister,” he heard the boy say. “You okay?”

  Was the boy going to try and help? Or was he just looking for an easy victim?

  It didn’t matter.

  Bryan bent slightly, then jumped. He sailed over the gate and came down silently on the other side.

  One womb. One family.

  The man in the white tank top lay on the ground, his beer-gut spilling out from under the shirt and over his dirty jeans. He wore a green John Deere ball cap. He reached up a chubby hand toward the boy who stood a few feet away.

  “Help … me. Please.” Marco was a good actor. Really good.

  The boy moved closer. “You got any money, asshole?”

  The heat of the hunt bubbled Bryan’s soul. He took a step toward the prey. When he did, his foot ground a small rock against the asphalt, making a slight skritt sound that caused the curly-haired boy to turn.

  Bryan smelled fear. The boy realized he’d made a mistake — he was cut off, trapped between two men. His hands clenched into fists, his eyes narrowed and his head dipped down a little, as if he might lash out at any second. Like most trapped animals, the boy growled a warning.

  “Fuck off,” he said to Bryan. “Don’t fuck with me, you piece-of-shit bum.”

  Behind the boy, Marco silently rose to his feet.

  Bryan finally stood tall and let the filthy blankets drop to the ground.

  The boy’s face changed. The haughty look slowly slipped away, his angry, icy stare melting into puzzlement.

  He took a step back, right into Marco’s belly.

  The boy turned, found himself face-to-face with Marco. It was hard to see anything under that beard, but Bryan knew Marco was smiling.

  Marco reached behind his back. When his hand came out again, it held a rust-spotted hatchet. The alley’s feeble light flickered off the sharpened edge.