Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

by Cory Doctorow

focus, he saw Mimi standingbeside Krishna, barefoot in a faded housecoat. Her eyes were very wide,and as she turned away from him, he saw that her stubby wings weresplayed as wide as they'd go, forming a tent in her robe that pulled itup above her knees. Alan bit down and clamped his lips together andfound his keys. He tracked mud over the polished floors and the ancient,threadbare Persian rugs as he ran to the kitchen, snatching thecoach-house keys from their hook over the sink.

  He ran back across the street to the little park, clutching hisshovel. He jammed his head into the centerpiece and tried to see whichway the tunnel had curved off when it turned, but it was too dark, thedirt too loose. He pulled himself out and took the shovel in his handslike a spear and stabbed it into the concrete bed of the wading pool,listening for a hollowness in the returning sound like a man thuddingfor a stud under drywall.

  The white noise of the rain was too high, the rolling thunder toosteady. His chest heaved and his tears mingled with the rain streakingdown his face as he stabbed, again and again, at the pool's bottom. Hismind was scrambled and saturated, his vision clouded with the humid mistrising off his exertion-heated chest and the raindrops caught in hiseyelashes.

  He splashed out of the wading pool and took the shovel to the sod of thepark's lawn, picking an arbitrary spot and digging inefficiently andhysterically, the bent shovel tip twisting with each stroke.

  Suddenly strong hands were on his shoulders, another set prizing theshovel from his hands. He looked up and blinked his eyes clear, lookinginto the face of two young Asian police officers. They were bulky fromthe Kevlar vests they wore under their rain slickers, with kind andexasperated expressions on their faces.

  "Sir," the one holding the shovel said, "what are you doing?"

  Alan breathed himself into a semblance of composure. "I..." he started,then trailed off. Krishna was watching from his porch, grinningferociously, holding a cordless phone.

  The creature that had howled at Krishna before scrambled for purchase inAlan's chest. Alan averted his eyes from Krishna's shit-eating,911-calling grin. He focused on the cap of the officer in front of him,shrouded in a clear plastic shower cap to keep its crown dry. "I'msorry," he said. "It was a -- a dog. A stray, or maybe a runaway. Alittle Scottie dog, it jumped down the center of the fountain there anddisappeared. I looked down and thought it had found a tunnel that cavedin on it."

  The officer peered at him from under the brim of his hat, dubiousnesswrit plain on his young, good-looking face. "A tunnel?"

  Alan wiped the rain from his eyes, tried to regain his composure, triedto find his charm. It wasn't to be found. Instead, every time he reachedfor something witty and calming, he saw the streaks of blood and tornclothing, dark on the loose soil of the fountain's center, and no soonerhad he dispelled those images than they were replaced with Krishna,sneering, saying, "Lost another one, huh?" He trembled and swallowed asob.

  "I think I need to sit down," he said, as calmly as he could, and hesank slowly to his knees. The hands on his biceps let him descend.

  "Sir, do you live nearby?" one of the cops asked, close in to hisear. He nodded into his hands, which he'd brought up to cover his face.

  "Across the street," he said. They helped him to his feet and supportedhim as he tottered, weak and heaving, to his porch. Krishna was goneonce they got there.

  The cops helped him shuck his drenched shoes and socks and put him downon the overstuffed horsehide sofa. Alan recovered himself with an effortof will and gave them his ID.

  "I'm sorry, you must think I'm an absolute lunatic," he said, shiveringin his wet clothes.

  "Sir," the cop who'd taken the shovel from him said, "we see absolutelunatics every day. I think you're just a little upset. We all go alittle nuts from time to time."

  "Yeah," Alan said. "Yeah. A little nuts. I had a long night lastnight. Family problems."

  The cops shifted their weight, showering the floor with raindrops thatbeaded on the finish.

  "Are you going to be all right on your own? We can call someone if you'dlike."

  "No," Alan said, pasting on a weak smile. "No, that's all right. I'll befine. I'm going to change into some dry clothes and clean up and, oh, Idon't know, get some sleep. I think I could use some sleep."

  "That sounds like an excellent idea," the cop who'd taken the shovelsaid. He looked around at the bookcases. "You've read all of these?" heasked.

  "Naw," Alan said, falling into the rote response from his proprietorshipof the bookstore. "What's the point of a bunch of books you've alreadyread?" The joke reminded him of better times and he smiled a genuinesmile.

  #

  Though the stinging hot shower revived him somewhat, he kept quickeninginto panic at the thought of David creeping into his house in the night,stumping in on desiccated black child-legs, snaggled rictus undermummified lips.

  He spooked at imagined noises and thudding rain and the dry creaking ofthe old house as he toweled off and dressed.

  There was no phone in the mountain, no way to speak to his remainingbrothers, the golems, his parents. He balled his fists and stood in thecenter of his bedroom, shaking with impotent worry.

  David. None of them had liked David very much. Billy, thefortune-teller, had been born with a quiet wisdom, an eerie solemnitythat had made him easy for the young Alan to care for. Carlos, theisland, had crawled out of their mother's womb and pulled himself to thecave mouth and up the face of their father, lying there for ten years,accreting until he was ready to push off on his own.

  But Daniel, Daniel had been a hateful child from the day he was born. Hewas colicky, and his screams echoed through their father's caverns. Hescreamed from the moment he emerged and Alan tipped him over and toweledhim gently dry and he didn't stop for an entire year. Alan stopped beingable to tell day from night, lost track of the weeks and months. He'ddeveloped a taste for food, real people food, that he'd buy in town atthe Loblaws Superstore, but he couldn't leave Davey alone in the cave,and he certainly couldn't carry the howling, shitting, puking, pissing,filthy baby into town with him.

  So they ate what the golems brought them: sweet grasses, soft berries,frozen winter fruit dug from the base of the orchards in town, blindwinter fish from the streams. They drank snowmelt and ate pine cones andthe baby Davey cried and cried until Alan couldn't remember what it wasto live in a world of words and conversations and thought andreflection.

  No one knew what to do about Davey. Their father blew warm winds scentedwith coal dust and loam to calm him, but still Davey cried. Their motherrocked him on her gentlest spin cycle, but still Davey cried. Alanwalked down the slope to Carl's landmass, growing with the dust andrains and snow, and set him down on the soft grass and earth there, butstill Davey cried, and Carlos inched farther and farther toward theSt. Lawrence seaway, sluggishly making his way out to the ocean and asfar away from the baby as possible.

  After his first birthday, David started taking breaks from hisscreaming, learning to crawl and then totter, becoming a holy terror. IfAlan left his schoolbooks within reach of the boy, they'd be reduced toshreds of damp mulch in minutes. By the time he was two, his head wasexactly at Alan's crotch height and he'd greet his brother on his returnfrom school by charging at full speed into Alan's nuts, propelled atunlikely speed on his thin legs.

  At three, he took to butchering animals -- the rabbits that little Billkept in stacked hutches outside of the cave mouth went first. Billyrushed home from his grade-two class, eyes crazed with precognition, andfound David methodically wringing the animals' necks and then slicingthem open with a bit of sharpened chert. Billy had showed David how toknap flint and chert the week before, after seeing a filmstrip about itin class. He kicked the makeshift knife out of Davey's hand, breakinghis thumb with the toe of the hard leather shoes the golems had made forhim, and left Davey to bawl in the cave while Billy dignified his pets'corpses, putting their entrails back inside their bodies and wrappingthem in shrouds made from old diapers. Alan helped him bury them, andthen found Davey and taped his thumb
to his hand and spanked him untilhis arm was too tired to deal out one more wallop.

  Alan made his way down to the living room, the floor streaked with mudand water. He went into the kitchen and filled a bucket with soapy waterand gathered up an armload of rags from the rag bag. Methodically, hecleaned away the mud. He turned his sopping shoes on end over the grateand dialed the thermostat higher. He made himself a bowl of granola anda cup of coffee and sat down at his old wooden kitchen table and atemindlessly, then washed the dishes and put them in the drying rack.

  He'd have to go speak to Krishna.

  #

  Natalie answered the door in a pretty sun dress, combat boots, and abaseball hat. She eyed him warily.

  "I'd like to speak to Krishna," Alan said from under the hood of hisponcho.

  There was an awkward silence. Finally, Natalie said, "He's not home."

  "I don't believe you," Alan said. "And it's urgent, and I'm not in themood to play around. Can you get Krishna for me, Natalie?"

  "I told you," she said, not meeting his eyes, "he's not here."

  "That's enough," Alan said in his boss voice, hismore-in-anger-than-in-sorrow voice. "Get him, Natalie. You don't need tobe in the middle of this -- it's not right for him to ask you to. Gethim."

  Natalie closed the door and he heard the deadbolt turn. *Is she going tofetch him, or is she locking me out?*

  He was on the verge of hammering the buzzer again, but he got hisanswer. Krishna opened the door and stepped onto the dripping porch,bulling Alan out with his chest.

  He smiled grimly at Alan and made a well-go-on gesture.

  "What did you see?" Alan said, his voice tight but under control.

  "Saw you and that fat guy," Krishna said. "Saw you rooting around in thepark. Saw him disappear down the fountain."

  "He's my brother," Alan said.

  "So what, he ain't heavy? He's fat, but I expect there's a reason forthat. I've seen your kind before, Adam. I don't like you, and I don'towe you any favors." He turned and reached for the screen door.

  "No," Alan said, taking him by the wrist, squeezing harder than wasnecessary. "Not yet. You said, 'Lost another one.' What other one,Krishna? What else did you see?"

  Krishna gnawed on his neatly trimmed soul patch. "Let go of me, Andrew,"he said, almost too softly to be heard over the rain.

  "Tell me what you saw," Alan said. "Tell me, and I'll let you go." Hisother hand balled into a fist. "Goddammit, *tell me*!" Alan yelled, andtwisted Krishna's arm behind his back.

  "I called the cops," Krishna said. "I called them again and they're ontheir way. Let me go, freak show."

  "I don't like you, either, Krishna," Alan said, twisting the armhigher. He let go suddenly, then stumbled back as Krishna scraped theheel of his motorcycle boot down his shin and hammered it into the topof his foot.

  He dropped to one knee and grabbed his foot while Krishna slipped intothe house and shot the lock. Then he hobbled home as quickly as hecould. He tried to pace off the ache in his foot, but the throbbing gotworse, so he made himself a drippy ice pack and sat on the sofa in theimmaculate living room and rocked back and forth, holding the ice to hisbare foot.

  #

  At five, Davey graduated from torturing animals to beating up on smallerchildren. Alan took him down to the school on the day after Labor Day,to sign him up for kindergarten. He was wearing his stiff new blue jeansand sneakers, his knapsack stuffed with fresh binders andpencils. Finding out about these things had been Alan's first experiencewith the wide world, a kindergartner sizing up his surroundings at speedso that he could try to fit in. David was a cute kid and had the benefitof Alan's experience. He had a foxy little face and shaggy blond hair,all clever smiles and awkward winks, and for all that he was still amonster.

  They came and got Alan twenty minutes after classes started, when hisnew home-room teacher was still briefing them on the rules andregulations for junior high students. He was painfully aware of all theeyes on his back as he followed the office lady out of the portable andinto the old school building where the kindergarten and theadministration was housed.

  "We need to reach your parents," the office lady said, once they werealone in the empty hallways of the old building.

  "You can't," Alan said. "They don't have a phone."

  "Then we can drive out to see them," the office lady said. She smelledof artificial floral scent and Ivory soap, like the female hygiene aisleat the drugstore.

  "Mom's still real sick," Alan said, sticking to his traditional story.

  "Your father, then," the office lady said. He'd had variations on thisconversation with every office lady at the school, and he knew he'd winit in the end. Meantime, what did they want?

  "My dad's, you know, gone," he said. "Since I was a little kid." Thatline always got the office ladies, "since I was a little kid," made themwant to write it down for their family Christmas newsletters.

  The office lady smiled a powdery smile and put her hand on hisshoulder. "All right, Alan, come with me."

  Davey was sitting on the dusty sofa in the vice principal's office. Hepunched the sofa cushion rhythmically. "Alan," he said when the officelady led him in.

  "Hi, Dave," Alan said. "What's going on?"

  "They're stupid here. I hate them." He gave the sofa a particularlyvicious punch.

  "I'll get Mr Davenport," the office lady said, and closed the doorbehind her.

  "What did you do?" Alan asked.

  "She wouldn't let me play!" David said, glaring at him.

  "Who wouldn't?"

  "A girl! She had the blocks and I wanted to play with them and shewouldn't let me!"

  "What did you hit her with?" Alan asked, dreading the answer.

  "A block," David said, suddenly and murderously cheerful. "I hit her inthe eye!"

  Alan groaned. The door opened and the vice principal, Mr. Davenport,came in and sat behind his desk. He was the punishment man, the one thatno one wanted to be sent in to see.

  "Hello, Alan," he said gravely. Alan hadn't ever been personally calledbefore Mr. Davenport, but Billy got into some spot of precognitivetrouble from time to time, rushing out of class to stop some disaster athome or somewhere else in the school. Mr. Davenport knew that Alan was astraight arrow, not someone he'd ever need to personally take aninterest in.

  He crouched down next to Darren, hitching up his slacks. "You must beDavid," he said, ducking down low to meet Davey's downcast gaze.

  Davey punched the sofa.

  "I'm Mr. Davenport," he said, and extended a hand with a big class ringon it and a smaller wedding band.

  Davey kicked him in the nose, and the vice principal toppled overbackward, whacking his head on the sharp corner of his desk. He tumbledover onto his side and clutched his head. "Mother*fucker*!" he gasped,and Davey giggled maniacally.

  Alan grabbed Davey's wrist and bent his arm behind his back, shoving himacross his knee. He swatted the little boy on the ass as hard as hecould, three times. "Don't you ever --" Alan began.

  The vice principal sat up, still clutching his head. "That's enough!" hesaid, catching Alan's arm.

  "Sorry," Alan said. "And David's sorry, too, right?" He glared at David.

  "You're a stupid mother*fucker*!" David said, and squirmed off of Alan'slap.

  The vice principal's lips tightened. "Alan," he said quietly, "take yourbrother into the hallway. I am going to write a note that your motherwill have to sign before David comes back to school, after his two-weeksuspension."

  David glared at them each in turn. "I'm not coming back to thismother*fucker* place!" he said.

  He didn't.

  #

  The rain let up by afternoon, leaving a crystalline, fresh-mown airhanging over the Market.

  Andrew sat in his office by his laptop and watched the sun come out. Heneeded to find Ed, needed to find Frank, needed to find Grant, but hewas out of practice when it came to the ways of the mountain and itssons. Whenever he tried to imagine a thing to do next, his mind spun
andthe worldless howling thing inside him stirred. The more he tried toremember what it was like to be a son of the mountain, the more he feltsomething he'd worked very hard for, his delicate normalcy, slippingaway.

  So he put his soaked clothes in the dryer, clamped his laptop under hisarm, and went out. He moped around the park and the fountain, but thestroller moms whose tots were splashing in the wading pool gave himsufficient dirty looks that he walked up to the Greek's, took a table onthe patio, and ordered a murderously strong cup of coffee.

  He opened up the screen and rotated around the little café table untilthe screen was in the shade and his wireless card was aligned for bestreception from the yagi antenna poking out of his back window. He openedup a browser and hit MapQuest, then brought up a street-detailed map ofthe Market. He pasted it into his CAD app and started to mark it up,noting all the different approaches to his house that Davey might takethe next time he came. The maps soothed him, made him feel like a partof the known world.

  Augusta Avenue and Oxford were both out; even after midnight, when thestores were all shuttered, there was far too much foot traffic for Daveyto pass by unnoticed. But the alleys that