by P. T. Hylton
Henry shook his head. “No, that’s not why I’m here. Christine, they’ve taken Meadow Park. The Unfeathered have taken Meadow Park.”
Hours later, Will, Frank, and the Hansens staggered into the gymnasium, escorting a dozen wounded men and women. The guys looked like Christine felt – near total exhaustion. They stood by, their eyes distant and hollow, while she tended to the new arrivals. After she had seen to the most pressing of their wounds, Christine pulled Frank and Will away from the others.
“Tell me,” she said. “How bad is it out there?”
Will shook his head.
“We’re losing,” Frank said. “They’re gaining ground. A few more days, maybe a week, and it will be over.”
Christine didn’t respond. She didn’t know how.
“I’m sorry.” Frank’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. “Zed was right. I’ve killed us. I’ve killed you. And Jake… I let down Jake. He called to his brother for help, and I failed him.”
Will’s head snapped around. “Wait. What do you mean he called to his brother?”
“When he talked to Sally Badwater, he asked for my help.”
“What exactly did he say?”
Frank swallowed hard before he spoke. “Tell my brother to meet me at the quarry. And if Frank comes, tell him to bring the Cassandra lock.”
Will and Christine looked at each other.
“We have to get Sean,” Christine said.
“Why?” Frank asked.
Will grimaced. “We know what Jake’s message means.”
Night Seven
The sun was starting to sink by the time they all gathered at Sean’s house. Christine had managed to get a few hours of sleep and Sean had only gotten off his shift fifteen minutes ago. They didn’t have much time before the singing would start; they would have to talk fast. Will, Christine, and Frank met in Sean’s living room. Sean’s face, as usual, was unreadable.
“A couple of months after Regulation Day, a farmer named Dan Johnson brought me a cane with the broken clock symbol on it,” Sean said. “He’d found it half buried in his field. One of the Regulations says any item with that symbol needs to be turned in to the police or selectmen.”
“Regulation 2,” Frank said. “I remember.”
“Yeah. Regulation 2. That cane was the first Reg 2 item anyone had turned in, and I told Dan Johnson to keep quiet about it. I knew even then how badly Zed wanted those objects. He came and spoke to us at the station about them. He called them the Tools. He said to avoid touching them as much as possible. And when he talked about them, his eyes were… greedy. I don’t know how else to say it. They were greedy.”
Frank nodded. “I saw that look too. When he saw the knife.”
Sean continued. “I was supposed to hand it over to the selectmen immediately. Thing is, life in Rook Mountain was already getting pretty weird. People had taken to the Regulations. They were actually excited about enforcing them. I was seeing it more every day. I’d get called to a scene and by the time I got there, the people had already taken matters into their own hands. Something inside me didn’t want to give Zed any more power than he already had. So instead of calling the selectmen, I called my friends. And we decided to hang on to the cane.”
“We started calling ourselves the Unregulated,” Christine said with a smile. “It was Sean, Jake, Will, Wendy, Todd, and me. That was when we realized some people react differently to the Tools. Will picked up the cane and everything changed.”
“Remember when I said that I zone out when I touch the Tools?” Will asked. “Drifting, I think you called it? There’s a little more to it than that. I see things. The Tools, they show me what they’re for.”
“What do you mean?” Frank asked.
“They are Tools, right?” Sean asked. “They have to have a purpose. And the purpose of the cane is to find the other Tools.”
“The minute I picked up the cane and touched the broken clock symbol, it sort of came to life in my hands,” Will said. “It started vibrating. And it was pulling me somewhere. It was like a divining rod. Except it wasn’t finding water. It was finding the Tools. We found the first one buried out by the cabins. It was a lighter.”
“We were off and running,” Sean said. “We started using the cane to look for other Tools. It wasn’t long before we found this.” He pulled out a small object wrapped in an old t- shirt. He slowly unwrapped it and held it up for the others to see.
Frank gasped.
A wave of déjà vu swept over him. His emotions—guilt, anger, despair, fear—swirled within him at the sight of it. It was a silver coin with the symbol of the broken clock.
“Where did you get that?” Frank asked.
“Brett’s ex-wife had it,” Christine said. “When the cane led us to her house, she was more than happy to hand it over. She didn’t want anything to do with the coin. She told us Brett had it with him the day he died. That was when we started piecing things together.”
“What’s it do?” asked Frank.
“I don’t know,” Will said. “Not exactly. But when I held it, I felt death. I know that sounds weird, but I don’t know how else to describe it. That coin radiates death. The Tools seem to want things. The cane wants to find its brothers. The mirror wants to pull you in. But this coin? It wants everything to die.”
“I felt it,” Frank said. “The day I… I killed Brett. That coin touched my foot and I felt so angry.”
“The Tools affect people differently,” Christine said. “Some people, like me and Sean, they don’t seem to affect at all. Others, like Will, are more sensitive to them. We think that you are as sensitive to them as Will is, but maybe in a different way.”
Frank felt a flash of anger at that comment. What did she mean? She had no idea what he’d been through or felt the day Brett died. Then he stopped. Were those thoughts and feelings his own? Or was he being affected by the coin?
“I think,” Frank said, “that I’m feeling it now.”
Will grimaced. “Yeah, me too. I can feel the hate coming off the damn thing. Here’s the worst part. You have to touch the broken clock symbol to activate the Tools. That coin is not even turned on. There’s no doubt in my mind that the coin is more powerful than the rest of the Tools put together.”
Frank squeezed his eyes shut. Was it possible? Had he been under the influence of this thing, this Tool, when he killed Brett? He replayed the scene in his mind. He had punched Brett in the stomach. That move had been all Frank. But then the coin had rolled out of Brett’s bag, and Frank had flown into a killing rage.
“This is what we’ve been protecting,” Christine said. “This is the Tool Zed wants above all the others. We think this is why he came here in the first place.”
“You think Zed is powerful now?” Will asked. “If he had that coin, it would be game over. He’d have what he wanted and he’d have no use for the town anymore. I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible that the moment he touched that thing, every living creature in Rook Mountain would die. The coin’s that powerful.” Will paused and looked at the floor. “We’ve done things. I’ve done things. I’ve killed. What I did was wrong, but it was all to protect this coin. I knew Zed was watching me closely, and I had to be above suspicion. We all did.”
“That’s why you turned me in to Zed that day?” Frank asked Sean.
Sean nodded. “I’m sorry, Frank. I knew they would find out you’d been here. If it came out that I knew you were breaking into City Hall and I didn’t say anything, they would take a really close look at me. And my home. I couldn’t risk that.”
Frank nodded. He understood. For maybe the first time, he was starting to understand that this was bigger than him.
“When we found the coin, we agreed that we had to keep it separate from the other Tools,” Christine said. “Sean was the least likely to fall under suspicion, so we left it with him.”
Will sighed. “It was a burden knowing this thing even existed. I can’t imagine what it must have b
een like having it in your home.”
Frank thought for a moment. “You said this had something to do with Jake’s message to Sally Badwater?”
Christine nodded. “It was our code. In case one of us were caught and needed to get a message to the others. 'Meet me at the quarry' meant the coin might be in danger. It meant that we needed to move the coin.”
“How would Jake know the coin was in danger?”
None of them had an answer for that.
“Okay,” Frank said. “What about this? Why did he say, 'Tell my brother'? Why would he use your code to give me a message?”
Will and Christine exchanged a glance.
“Things were different after you went to prison,” Christine said. “Jake was more upset than he let on. After Regulation Day, when they stopped allowing visitors at the prison, he felt like he had lost a brother.”
“He and I were spending a lot more time together,” Will said. “He said he considered me a surrogate brother. We even started calling each other brother.”
“So when Jake said, 'Tell my brother to meet me at the quarry'...” Frank said.
“That message was for me,” Will said. “What I don’t understand is why he was so cryptic. Why not say 'Tell Will to meet me at the quarry,' or 'Tell Christine to meet me at the quarry'?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said. “What about the other part? ‘If Frank comes, tell him to bring the Cassandra lock.'”
“Maybe those were two separate thoughts,” Christine said. “Maybe what he meant was, 'Tell Will to meet me at the quarry. And if Frank comes, tell him to bring the Cassandra lock.'”
“Guys,” Sean said. “I don’t mean to break up the speculation session, but the sun is dropping fast. I’ll do what Jake said and move the coin. I know somewhere else I can hide it. But we need to get out there.”
“You’re right. Let’s get going.” Frank nodded toward the coin that was resting on the coffee table. “And put that thing away. I don’t want to see it ever again.”
Morning
The night had been hell, but it was almost sunrise.
They had relocated the surviving residents of Meadow Park into three main locations downtown: The Middle School, the High School, and Anderson Elementary. All three were centrally located and had plenty of rooms. Still, the scene at all three locations was grim—they had long ago run out of cots and movable beds. The residents of Rook Mountain were jammed in like refugees, lying on the floor in sleeping bags or blankets. Whatever artifacts they had been able to salvage from their homes were jammed into garbage bags and paper sacks and stacked next to where they lay.
Frank, Will, the Hansens, the Beyond Academy students, and some other men from town patrolled the downtown area throughout the night, taking out the few Unfeathered that flew into their paths. Will had brought Trevor with him this time; the Unfeathered were getting too close to the Osmond home now, and the boy had proved himself to be both careful and effective in the fight.
Compared to the last few nights, it was quiet. There were attacks, but the creatures came in groups of twos and threes. Not like last night’s wave of Unfeathered that descended on Meadow Park as if by some silent command. It was almost as if the creatures were gathering themselves, preparing a final assault to destroy the residents of Rook Mountain once and for all.
In Fifth Avenue Baptist, Christine and her band of helpers dragged themselves from cot to cot, caring for the injured. The death toll was above twenty, and it would likely be twenty-five in the next few hours.
Sean too was having a difficult time remembering when he’d last slept. There were a few smaller neighborhoods the Unfeathered had attacked that had been overshadowed by the battle at Meadow Park. It was in these smaller neighborhoods that Sean and his partner were working tonight. They fought the creatures when they could and convinced residents to leave when the battles were lost.
Wendy remained at the Academy, making sure her student-soldiers had what they needed, from weapons to food to the occasional nap. She hadn’t seen most of the faculty members in days, and she had no idea who was alive and who was dead. She concentrated on what she could control, and she kept the terrible machine of the Beyond Academy rolling through the night.
Becky Raymond wandered through Rook Mountain middle school, wondering what the hell she was doing there. The board of selectmen had agreed to spread out, to have a presence at the places throughout town where people would need the most help. The idea was to give people a sense of normalcy and convince them the selectmen still had a handle on things. Mostly she had been walking the halls, smiling and waving at people when she remembered to do so.
If she looked at it objectively, Becky had to admit that the selectmen had handled things pretty well, all things considered. They’d had emergency plans in case the Unfeathered got into town and attacked en masse, but the plans had all seemed theoretical. Why would they ever need to use those plans? They had Zed.
With the plans, some improvisation, and the help of a few great people like Doctor Christine Osmond and Frank Hinkle, they were managing to muddle through. But Becky felt no sense of pride or achievement in what they had done. It was all temporary. Sometime in the next few nights, the Unfeathered would reach downtown, and then it would only be a matter of time before there was no one left in Rook Mountain. The plans wouldn’t save them. The Regulations wouldn’t save them. And the board of selectmen, as powerful as it had seemed seven days ago, would not be able to save them.
But that was only part of the despair that clung to her like a weight. At the center of the despair was a question—a question which might never be answered.
Where was Zed?
For ten years, Becky had followed Zed, and she truly loved the man. Not in a romantic sense, for she knew he was beyond such things, and she believed that she was as well. She loved him like a soldier loves a trusted general. He had accepted her when she was an attendant at a Road Runner gas station, and he had believed in her even then. He had showed her how to be a better person, how to demand more from herself than she ever had before. And then he had shown her impossible things. He had told her secrets few had ever known and taught her skills few possessed.
The people of Rook Mountain had laughed at him. They had mocked Becky and Zed’s other followers. They’d called them the Zed Heads. But still Zed had prepared for the evil he knew was coming, and when it came he had saved the town.
He had placed Becky and his other followers into the seats of power and taken none of the power for himself. He had counseled them and guided them when they needed it and he had asked for nothing in return. He was, without question, the greatest man Becky had ever known.
And then he had disappeared.
At first she thought someone had taken him against his will. That he had been kidnapped or maybe even murdered. Perhaps Jake Hinkle had finally returned to finish the job he had started eight years ago.
But… the more she thought about it, the less likely that seemed.
Zed was a man of great power; he would not be easy to kill. Even if someone had succeeded in killing him, no one—not even the selectmen—had a key to the room that held the box. And even if someone had found the key, the box itself was locked with an unpickable lock of Zed’s own design.
She had considered that maybe someone had tortured the information out of him, but Becky had seen Zed in some rough situations. She wasn’t sure he could be tortured.
It wasn’t until after Becky started losing her Abilities that she accepted that Zed might be dead.
Zed had shared his Abilities with his six closest followers the day before he gave the town the Regulations. He’d given them the Ability to travel anywhere in town by simply thinking of the destination. He’d given them the Ability to read minds and hearts by looking deeply into a person’s eyes.
Over the past seven days, Becky’s Abilities had faded and then disappeared altogether. Now she was driving from place to place and could only guess what others were thinking. Th
at could only mean Zed was dead, right?
Becky looked out the window of the school and saw the first hint of sunlight on the eastern horizon. She walked toward the front door. It had become a bit of a ritual over the last seven days in Rook Mountain. At sunrise, people left their homes and went outside, celebrating another day of life.
A voice Becky didn’t recognize echoed through the halls. “Sunrise!”
As she walked, the displaced Rook Mountain citizens poured out of the classrooms and joined her. They walked out together, almost defiantly, and they all turned to the east. It wasn’t light yet, not quite, but the Unfeathered never attacked this close to dawn.
The refugees at the High School next door were also coming out onto the street. Among the group, Becky saw Frank Hinkle and Will Osmond, their clothes tattered and stained with the blood of the Unfeathered. For such a large group, it was uncanny how quiet they all were. A few people were chatting. Becky saw some police officers talking in hushed tones near the curb, but most of the people were quiet. They all stood facing east, watching the rising sun.
It was a good moment. Not a happy one, but at least a moment filled with relief. They had made it through another night.
Becky felt a sense of peace settle over the crowd but, underneath that, the dread was already creeping in. The beginning of the day meant the countdown to the end of it. Sundown was coming.
Becky watched the sun peek over the mountains to the east. Then a murmur worked its way through the crowd. It started small, like a group of people all whispering at once, and it grew into a wave of chatter.
Becky’s eyes went to the skies. She scanned back and forth, looking for any white shapes, but she saw nothing. Then she looked down and saw him.
He was walking down the middle of State Street, coming from the east. He wore a long coat that hid his form, and he was still too far off to see the details of his face, but Becky knew him from the way he walked.
