Nocturnal

by Scott Sigler

  “All the eyes,” he said. “All the teeth.”

  He walked out of the apartment.

  The Rude Awakening

  Pookie’s eyes opened slowly to nothing but whiteness.

  Don’t take me back to the white room …

  That’s what Aggie James had said. Terrified, freaked-out Aggie.

  Pookie blinked against the pain in his throat. He reached up to touch his neck — his hands felt metal.

  A collar.

  MMMMM HE’S AWAKE.

  Pookie sat up and looked around. He was in a circular white room. All around him were people with collars, chains leading from the collars through metal flanges in the white walls.

  Rich Verde.

  Jesse Sharrow.

  Sean Robertson.

  Mr. Biz-Nass.

  Baldwin Metz.

  Amy Zou, twin girls with black hair on either side of her, clinging to her.

  Pookie stood. He looked from person to person. “What the hell is this?”

  Rich tilted his head toward Zou. “Ask her,” he said. “She sold us out.”

  Zou dipped her head, pulled her girls in tighter. She squeezed them. One of the girls was crying hard, her body shaking with tired sobs. The other stared out with murderous eyes through scattered, heavy black hair, as if she was looking for someone to hurt.

  Pookie turned back to Rich. Rich had never looked like a pleasant person, but now he stared at Chief Zou like he’d put a fire ax in her head the first chance he got.

  “Verde, what do you mean she sold us out?”

  Rich spit in her direction. “Lying whore!”

  “Knock it off,” Robertson said. “She had to do it. They killed her husband. They took her daughters. The Mason Tunnel murder was a setup. She called me, Jesse, Rich, Metz, got us all to the tunnel, and then … these things took us.”

  Robertson wasn’t wearing glasses, not that they would have fit over his horribly swollen right eye. A cut on his head oozed a thin trail of blood. Someone had worked him over real solid. Pookie wondered what their assailants had looked like. Then he realized he didn’t want to know — his own run-in with beak-nose and the human snake was plenty to think about.

  Maybe Zou had had a choice, maybe not. All Pookie knew was she had sold him out, sold Bryan out, and if there had actually been a fire ax within reach, Pookie would have sharpened it, polished it, then handed it to Polyester Rich with a dramatic flourish.

  Pookie took a better look around the room. A floor of white-painted stones, walls of the same material curving up to form a domed ceiling, and the white bars of a jail door.

  “So where the hell are we?”

  Robertson shrugged. “We don’t know. Underground, we think.”

  MMMMM MARIE’S CHILDREN HAVE US. WE ARE FUCKED. YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE MONKEY-THING THAT CAME AND TOOK ME. WE ARE SO FUCKED.

  At least they’d left Biz his voice box. He had to jam it up under his collar to talk.

  Pookie tried the collar again: tight, solid, didn’t feel like he’d be able to get it off. Behind the collar, a heavy chain led back into the wall. There was a way out of this, there had to be — he would not die down here.

  Down here … with the cannibals.

  “Chief,” he said, “what happens now?” He could judge her later. All that mattered now was getting out of here alive.

  She pulled her daughters a little closer, but stayed quiet.

  “Answer him,” Verde said. He pulled at his collar, as if it was the only thing stopping him from attacking her. “You traitorous cunt, answer him.”

  She looked up. Her eyes … Pookie wasn’t even sure if she knew where she was. Amy Zou had gone bye-bye.

  A metallic sound clanged through the walls. Pookie was yanked backward by his collar. He stumbled, tried to stay on his feet — his back hit the wall. The collar clanged into something and the pulling stopped. Pookie tried to pull away, but he couldn’t budge.

  A squeal of metal drew all eyes to the opening jail door. A fat old lady walked in. She wore a dowdy, knee-length dress, a gray sweater and a babushka — yellow with a pattern of purple plums.

  “You are all criminals,” she said in a voice as pleasant as you’d expect from a wrinkled gramma. “It is time for your trial.”

  She stepped back out of the white room.

  A swarm of men rushed in, all wearing hooded white robes and rubber masks. They filled the room, groups of them moving to each chained person. As if that wasn’t surreal enough, the first one to rush Pookie looked like the Burger King. Pookie threw a straight right jab that knocked the King off his feet, then quickly went down under the weight of the others.

  Cloaks and Daggers

  John Smith didn’t know what to think.

  His Harley roared down the street. He followed the black station wagon. For once, he wasn’t afraid of some random gunman. He didn’t have the bandwidth to fear them, not with trying to process what he’d seen. That woman had delivered electrical shocks with metal whips. Did the whips generate the shocks, or did she generate them? Oh, and the small detail that he’d shot her in the face. Instead of hitting the deck and joining Club Bodybag, she’d jumped out of a third-story window. She should have been a broken thing on the sidewalk, but when he got down to the street, she was gone.

  And it wasn’t just the girl with the chains. What was the deal with the gigantic, bony head? Robin had shot that man four or five times at point-blank range, yet the man had stood up.

  So, yeah, maybe there were worse things to fear than snipers.

  Robin, dead. Murdered like a goddamn druglord, gunned down in her own apartment. And her last words to John: looks like you’re not afraid to be a cop anymore. Well, she was wrong about that. He was still terrified, but Bryan needed help and that was that.

  Lives were in danger. Time to step up and do his part.

  The Magnum’s brake lights flashed. The car pulled into the parking lot of a closed Walgreens. The drugstore itself was on one side of the empty lot. Two-story buildings lined the rear and the other side, creating a walled-in space viewable only from the road. The Magnum drove to the back and parked. John pulled up next to it.

  Bryan got out of the station wagon, a flat-black pistol in his right hand. A mask, the same color as his peacoat, hung down over his face. He looked around, then aimed the pistol up at a corner of the parking lot and fired. A camera erupted in a small cloud of sparks. He did it again with a second camera. Another look around to be sure he’d got them all, then he opened the front passenger door, reached in with his left hand and dragged out a black man by his neck. The man had a handcuff locked on his right wrist; the cuff’s partner dangled free from the short chain. John didn’t recognize the guy.

  Bryan pulled the man to the front of the Magnum, then pushed until the man sat on the hood.

  “You came out of a Muni tunnel at the Civic Center,” Bryan said. “You’re going to show us where.”

  The man shook his head, shook it hard. “No sir, I don’t know where I was.”

  Still holding the man’s neck, a masked Bryan leaned in. “Aggie, you’re going to show me.”

  The man — Aggie, apparently — shook his head so hard his lips bounced from side to side. “No way! I’m not going back there!”

  Bryan’s right hand came up; the barrel of his gun pressed into Aggie’s left cheekbone.

  John’s hand shot inside his motorcycle jacket to the handle of his own weapon. “Bryan, stop it!”

  “John,” Bryan said without turning around, “you’re either with me, or you’re an obstacle. Back off.”

  Bryan was way past the edge. If John moved too fast, if he did anything wrong, that poor guy’s brains could splatter all over the car’s hood. Bryan had already killed one person that night, and acted like he wouldn’t hesitate to kill another.

  “Backing off,” John said. “Just take it easy.”

  The Magnum’s driver’s door opened and a man got out slowly. John didn’t recognize the heavi
ly pierced, thirty something rocker.

  Bryan pushed the gun in a little harder, tilting Aggie’s head to the right. Aggie’s eyes scrunched up tight.

  “I don’t know you,” Bryan said. “I don’t care what happens to you. You’re either going to take me into that tunnel and show me where they kept you, or I’m going to pull this trigger.”

  Aggie’s breath came in fast, short bursts. “Tunnel is hidden,” he said through clenched teeth. “Don’t know where it is, exactly.”

  Bryan shook his masked head. “Not good enough.”

  The rocker raised his hands, palms out. “Cop, listen. He can’t help us. Erickson has been hunting for their lair for fifty years. He never found it.”

  “I’m not Erickson,” Bryan said.

  John thought of going for his gun again, but that would only aggravate Bryan. Any added stress could make him pull that trigger. Come on, Terminator, snap out of it, he’s just a civilian.

  Bryan leaned in until his eyes were only an inch from Aggie’s. “You’re going to take me down there, Aggie. I know that’ll scare you and I don’t give a shit. The only way you see the sunrise ever again is if you show me what I want to see.”

  Aggie opened one eye. He raised his eyebrow in an expression of a man hopeful to make a deal. “The baby?”

  Bryan shook his head. “No fucking way.”

  Aggie opened the other eye. He stared back with fearful defiance. “Then shoot me. I’d rather eat a bullet than go out the way they do it.”

  Bryan paused. He nodded. “Okay. You take us in there, and I’ll see what I can do. But I can’t promise anything.”

  “If you did promise, I’d know you was lying,” Aggie said. “Now can you let go of my throat and get that goddamn gun out of my face?”

  Bryan leaned back, pulled Aggie to his feet. Bryan’s right hand slid behind his back and into a hidden slot in the peacoat. Like a magician’s trick, prest-o change-o, the pistol vanished.

  “One more thing,” Aggie said. “I ain’t going in without a gun.”

  Bryan seemed to consider this.

  “No way,” John said. “Bryan, he’s a civilian. Do you even know this guy?”

  Bryan turned. Green eyes stared out through mask slits. “He’s taking us down. The man wants a gun? The man gets a gun.” Bryan turned to the rocker. “Adam, let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Bryan started walking to the back of the station wagon.

  “Hold on,” John said. “Bryan, what the hell is going on? Taking us down? Down where? And would you lose that retarded mask?”

  Bryan lifted the black fabric and tucked it somewhere in the back of his skullcap. He suddenly seemed like the old stone-faced Bryan, emotionless save for a wide-eyed anger that didn’t waver.

  “The monsters have Pookie,” he said. “Aggie said there’s a tunnel complex under the city. If Pookie is alive, that’s where Rex took him. I’m going in there to get my partner, and to get some payback for Robin while I’m at it.”

  Payback for Robin. That was obviously shorthand for I’m going to kill anything that moves, and I want you to help me with the slaughter.

  “You said Rex? You mean Rex Deprovdechuk? That little kid?”

  Bryan nodded. “He’s the leader of the monsters, Marie’s Children, the things with the Zed chromosome that Robin told you about, whatever you want to call them. I don’t have time for this, John. I’m going to get Pookie. Those things in Erickson’s basement we told you about? Aggie says there are hundreds of them down there. That’s where I’m going. You can come with me, or you can leave.”

  They’d taken Pookie. Robin hadn’t done anything to anyone, yet they’d killed her. She wasn’t the first person killed by Marie’s Children. The cult — or monsters, or whatever the hell they were — had a centuries-long history of murder. On top of those things, the man who had saved John’s life was asking for help.

  John nodded. “I’m in.”

  Bryan slapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. Let’s get geared up. Adam?”

  Bryan walked to the back of the Magnum and everyone else followed. Another man, much older, got out of the back of the car. He walked with a cane. He offered his hand to John.

  “Alder Jessup,” he said. “The younger fellow there is my grandson, Adam.”

  John shook the older man’s hand, a normal action that seemed somehow bizarre considering the situation. “I’m John Smith.”

  “Inspector John Smith,” Bryan said. “John is a cop.”

  Adam rolled his eyes as he opened the back of the station wagon. “Another cop. If I was any luckier I’d piss rainbows and shit a pot of gold.”

  The older man sighed. “Please excuse my grandson. He is on less-than-friendly terms with law enforcement.”

  Metal pull-out drawers packed the Magnum’s payload area. Up on top of the drawers, in the narrow space where the driver could see out the rear window, sat Emma. Someone had bandaged the dog’s face, wrapping it with gauze and tape that was already stained with her blood.

  Adam looked at Bryan. The rocker rubbed his hands together as if he were about to open a stack of presents on Christmas morning. “What do you need, cop?”

  “Armor,” Bryan said. “Whatever you’ve got. And firepower.”

  Adam started sliding out drawers as Emma looked down from her perch.

  John looked all around, then back at the cases full of weapons, then at Bryan Clauser. A few hours ago, John had been cowering in his cozy, warm apartment. And now? “Bryan, are we really standing in a Walgreens parking lot passing out guns so we can find an underground complex and shoot monsters?”

  Bryan nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Hoo-kay,” John said. “Just wanted to clarify.”

  Adam reached into a drawer and pulled out what looked like an M-16 on steroids.

  “Jesus,” John said. “Is that an automatic shotgun?”

  Bryan jerked his thumb at John. “Give that to him.”

  Adam handed it to John, then passed over six full magazines. “That’s a USAS-Twelve. You know how to use one of those, Piggy Pigerson?”

  “I’ll figure it out,” John said.

  “Knives,” Bryan said.

  Adam opened a smaller drawer to show three sheathed knives. “Only got three, and I get one.”

  The old man reached out and tapped one with his cane. “I get one as well.”

  Adam looked up. He didn’t look excited anymore. “Grampa, you can’t go in.”

  The old man regally drew himself up to his full height. “I’ve been a part of this for my entire life. If there’s a chance we can find the home of these creatures and wipe them out, I’m going.”

  “But, Grampa, you—”

  Bryan reached in, took a knife and handed it hilt-first to Alder. “He knows the risks. We don’t have time for this.”

  Adam looked angry, but he said nothing. He handed the last knife to John. John pulled the Ka-Bar out of its sheath. The flat-black blade absorbed the dim streetlights. Only the edge gleamed.

  “A knife,” John said. “They eat bullets like candy, so you want me to stab them?”

  Bryan nodded. “The knife is poisoned, just like the blade I put in big-head’s neck. Stab them in the heart, hold it in till they stop moving.”

  John hoped he wouldn’t get close enough to put the blade to the test. He slid the knife back into its sheath, then attached the sheath to his belt.

  Adam pulled out another drawer. Inside were three handguns just like the one Bryan had. Now John recognized them: FN five-sevens.

  Bryan grabbed one, then held it in front of Aggie.

  “Self-defense only,” Bryan said. “You will show us where to go, but I don’t expect you to fight. And if you point this weapon at me or anyone else here, even by accident, you’ll be dead before you have a chance to realize how stupid you are. Understand?”

  A wide-eyed Aggie nodded and took the gun.

  Bryan handed an FN to Alder, and one to John. Adam passed out magaz
ines. John was running out of room to hold it all, so he made a little pile at his feet.

  Adam again rubbed his hands together. “Now the good stuff.” He pulled a case out of the back and set it on the pavement in front of him. He opened it, then turned it toward the others as if it were a display case of fine jewelry.

  John looked in the case and wondered if it wasn’t too late to get on his Harley and just start driving to anywhere but here.

  Aggie leaned in. “Grenades?”

  “Yup,” Adam said.

  “Cool,” Aggie said. “Can I have one?”

  Bryan shook his head. “Not for you.”

  Adam pointed to the twelve grenades packed into the black foam in three rows of four. “Four thermite, four shrapnel, four concussion.”

  Everyone but Aggie took one of each.

  John looked down at his pile — USAS-12, FN five-seven, magazines for both, three grenades. “How the hell am I supposed to carry all this?”

  Adam smiled. “That’s the best part.” He pulled out another long drawer, the biggest of them all. He reached in and handed over a bundle of cloth. John held it, let it unfold.

  It was a dark green cloak with a hood.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he said.

  “Put it on,” Bryan said. “When this is all done, you’re still a cop. You need to hide your face. It’s all armored up, might save your life.”

  Adam handed another cloak to Alder, who rested his cane against the Magnum and started to put it on. Adam pulled one more thing out of the case — a jacket like Bryan’s.

  “Hey,” John said, nodding at the jacket, “can’t I have that instead?”

  Adam shook his head. “I made it, I get to wear it.” He slid it on, then looked at John. “Put on the goddamn cloak already.”

  John did. He slid into the sleeves The front zipper turned out to be magnetic, a simple strip that sealed tight when he pressed it together. Inside the cloak, he found several deep pockets. He scooped up his toys and put them away.

  Bryan took off his hat. He undid the mask and looked at the dangling fabric. “Adam, you got a marker? Something I can use to draw on this?”

  Adam looked at him with a why would you want that expression, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he reached for another case, opened it, then handed over a white paint pen. “Will that do?”