“David! David!” Someone calling his name from the top of the stairs. He looked up and saw two silhouettes standing in the place where the curtain had been. Annabelle and Gooty, he could tell by the shape of them. Gooty’s voice.
“He was sneaking up behind us,” David said, his voice weak and wavering.
David heard footsteps behind him, heavy boots pounding down the back hallway, heading for the Green Room. He snatched up the guard’s rifle, jostled it awkwardly for a moment trying to figure out how to hold it, then pointed it at the shadowy hallway across the room and crouched down. Gooty started to say something, but then the back door of the Green Room flew open and banged off the wall. David flinched, and the rifle fired. The recoil shoved the butt of the rifle into his shoulder so hard it almost dislocated his arm. He cried out and fired again, and this time he lost his grip on the rifle and dropped it.
As he scrambled to retrieve it, he saw a blur move past him. He heard the crack of Cakey’s pistol as he emptied his magazine. With each shot, David lost a little more of his hearing, until the whole world faded behind a curtain of white noise. And then the room light flickered to life. David rose and stumbled back into the wall, and the moldy paint and plaster crumbled at his touch. Except for the body sprawled out at the foot of the stairs, he was alone in the room. The guard—dead or dying, he could not tell which—lay in a spreading pool of blood, the curtain unfolded across his legs as if the man had just stumbled out of bed.
Gooty appeared and knelt beside the body to examine it.
“I killed him” David said, his voice muffled by the ringing in his ears. “I killed him with the knife. I didn’t mean to. I never wanted to kill anyone.”
Gooty turned the face—David saw no facial features, only a mask of blood—and grimaced.
“I don’t think you killed him with the knife, amigo,” Gooty said, standing up. “He got shot somehow. Did he shoot himself?” He made a disgusted sound. “Bullet right up through the chin. Nasty business.”
“I got scared,” David said, clutching his belly. “He was sneaking up on us. I had the knife in front of me when I landed on him. I didn’t mean to—”
“Kid, you might’ve saved our lives,” Telly said, stepping over the body. “Sneaky, sneaky rube trying to flank us like that.”
David’s hearing was slowly coming back, and the voices seemed to rise out of the roar.
“Should we make sure he’s dead?” Annabelle asked.
“Feel free to probe around in the missing parts of his face, if you want to,” Gooty said. “If he isn’t dead, he will be very soon.”
David groaned. He didn’t like this. He didn’t want to have anything to do with this terrible place. Fighting and violence were Vern’s domain.
Cakey came back into the room from the back hallway. He tossed the pistol onto the ground. “Well, folks, looks like good ole Officer Mayes got away. I don’t know if I hit her or not, but she took off across the parking lot. Peavey’s car is still parked out there. Not sure if they’re leaving or getting reinforcements or getting bigger guns.”
“Let’s not find out,” Telly said. “We are vacating the premises immediately. David, bring the rifle. You may have to use it again.”
“I don’t want to shoot anybody,” David squeaked.
Telly sighed. “Very well. Karl?”
Karl strode over, stabbed his knife into the arm of the couch and picked up the rifle. Then he rooted around on the body and found a pistol in a holster at his hip. “None of us wants to shoot anybody, kid,” he said. “But we also sort of want to live a little bit longer, if possible.” He drew the pistol and tossed it to Cakey, who caught it nimbly between thumb and forefinger. Then he retrieved the knife from the couch and slid it under his belt.
David felt an itch on his cheek and scratched at it. Only when his fingernail raked through a layer of goop did he realize he still had makeup all over his face. It had mingled with carpet water to make a thick soupy mess, and he felt it trickling down his neck. He was the only one still wearing it, and he desperately wanted it off.
“I have to get this stuff off my face,” he said, clawing at his cheeks with his fingers. “Please, I can’t stand it anymore.”
“I can help with that,” Annabelle said, holding up the knapsack. “Quit digging at it.”
“Please.”
Annabelle squatted down, put the knapsack on her thighs and worked at the knots for a moment. But suddenly she stopped and cocked her head to one side.
“Do you hear that?” she said, standing up.
David’s ears were still ringing, so he heard nothing at first. Then, very slowly, the noise seemed to bubble up. He had no idea what it was, some kind of high, chaotic instrumental sound, like a thousand crude flutes being played all at once, all at difference pitches.
“Is that what I think it is?” Telly asked.
And then David understood. Voices. Hundreds of voices hooting and hollering and shrieking. The army of sick filled the night with their terrible cries.
“Looks like you’re gonna have to wear the makeup a little longer, kid,” Telly said. “We gotta go. Hess and his mob are here.”
Chapter Eighteen
Every Rube in the World
Cakey pulled his glove off, licked the tip of his thumb and wiped a clean spot on the back window. Then he peered outside. The alarm continued to blare, but the cacophony of voices grew to rival it.
“Let me take a look, would you?” Telly said.
Cakey stepped aside and waved Telly to the window, but Telly was too short to reach the clean spot. Karl gave him a boost.
“Alright, put me down,” Telly said, after a moment.
Karl got a look next, then Gooty and Annabelle. David looked last. He was frazzled and sick and didn’t really care to see what new madness was on its way, but he looked anyway. The parking lot was empty, Councilman Peavey’s car gone, Mayes and Cooper and Findley all gone. David did see what appeared to be a sizeable pool of blood, slick and shiny in the streetlight, near the dumpster. Officer Mayes’s blood? Cooper’s or Findley’s, perhaps? Whoever it was, David hoped the blood had been spilled by Cakey and not by him. David didn’t want to have killed anyone else.
In the street beyond the parking lot, he saw a steady stream of people, young and old, in nightgowns, bathrobes and pajamas, carrying bags and boxes, some pushing handcarts piled high with their possessions, adults holding the hands of children, all heading in the same direction. In the few seconds he watched, he saw dozens and dozens pass, yet these people were not the source of the terrible cries. Beyond them, in the sea of gray rooftops, he saw the flicker of orange light moving here and there, like a molten river working its way through the streets. The fire had spread to some of the buildings, and flames and smoke licked the midnight sky like tongues.
He felt a hand on his arm and turned away from the window. The back door was open, Cakey and Telly already outside.
“Let’s go,” Annabelle said.
David followed her outside into the parking lot. The night smelled bitter and acrid. As they stood there getting their bearings, looking this way and that, the distant alarm gave a last gasp and wound down to silence. And now only the symphony of crazed voices filled the city. The fleeing citizens were all heading north, away from the conquered gate. David saw a young woman in an oversized t-shirt pushing a wheelchair. He recognized the old man in the wheelchair—an ancient, huddled shape in a red robe—the one Officer Mayes had called Pops when escorting them to the Council House. The old man had a small crate in his lap stuffed with clothes and knick-knacks—framed photographs, an alarm clock, bronze figurines.
“Alarm’s done,” Telly said. “Wonder if that means the Council House is taken.”
“Does it matter? Let’s go,” Gooty said.
What say we head the same direction as the people?” Telly said, gesturing with the shillelagh. “Maybe they’re all heading to shelter.”
“These people are not our friends,�
�� Karl said, “anymore than Hess and his mob are our friends. We’re better off heading to the east or west, see if they’ve got other city gates.”
“Not west,” Annabelle said. “Whatever we do from this point on, let’s move away from Tockland.”
“Fair enough,” Telly said. “To the east gate. David, where are these hidden guns you mentioned?”
David led them to the pile of trash in the alleyway, and they retrieved the rifles. It took a minute of hunting to find the magazine that Cakey had removed from the second rifle, and in that time, the sound of the encroaching invaders grew alarmingly close. David glanced over his shoulder and saw the fires bearing down on them. A house just a block behind the abandoned storefront gushed black smoke. Telly offered a rifle to Annabelle, but she refused it. He then offered it to David, who shook his head. Gooty took it instead, and Cakey, pocketing the pistol, took the other one.
“Glad to see I’m not the only pacifist in the Kroo,” Annabelle said and smiled at David.
“Ah, neither one of you are pacifists,” Karl said. “You’ve both got blood on your hands. Tonight is a night you’ll wish you had a gun.”
“Tell that to the Fayette guards,” Annabelle said. “Seems like they had plenty of guns, but they still lost their city.”
Gooty slid the magazine into his rifle and cocked it. “I’ve seen this kind of weapon before,” he said. “Based on the old AK-74, wooden stock, thirty round magazine. It’s not a Tockland weapon. Tocklanders prefer a version of the AR-15 made in their own factories. This weapon here is used by Southwest Territories.”
“You know your guns, my Goot,” Cakey said.
“Man, where I come from, there are a lot of guns.”
“As long as you know how to point and shoot at the right people,” Telly said, “then the model number hardly matters. Come on, folks. We’ll cut through the alley and turn east.”
He led them up the hill into the dark alleyway. At the top of the hill, they left the nightclub behind and found themselves on a broad street lined with old, empty shops.
“That’s east,” Telly said, pointing down the street. “Run like the wind all the way to the city wall and pray there’s a gate.”
They took off down the sidewalk, passing darkened buildings, busted windows like empty eye sockets, crooked doors and crumbling awnings. The sidewalk was cracked and pitted, torn asunder by weeds and neglect. David heard the crunch of glass under his shoes, and he smelled the interior rot of the many broken down buildings. Whatever this neighborhood might once have been, the people of Fayette had clearly long since abandoned it.
Telly, despite his short legs, set a brisk pace. David found himself out of breath by the end of the first block, but he pushed through the pain. Off to their right, behind the row of empty shops, the army of the sick closed in from the south. He heard the swell of voices, smelled the smoke, and when he passed between buildings, he caught the flicker of fire at the bottom of the hill. Too close.
“We have to turn north,” Karl shouted between gasps for breath. “Put some distance between us and them.”
Telly nodded and dashed across the street. He stumbled in a pothole but kept his balance and led them toward a narrow side street. High brick walls between shops rose up on either side, creating a shadowy path, and much of that path was strewn with a dense layer of garbage. Bags of trash, many of them burst open, spilled their rancid contents like pierced stomachs. Instead of turning back, however, Telly kicked his way through rotting papers and broken bottles, bits of wood and rat-chewed cloth, working his way down the narrow street. The clutter hampered their progress. Karl slung his rifle over his shoulder and took to heaving the bags and larger bits of trash out of their way, snarling and cursing as he went.
David glanced over his shoulder—they were maybe twenty yards down the little side street—and saw flames moving back and forth in the spaces between the old shops across the broad street. After a moment, he realized they were makeshift torches. He saw dozens of them, all moving, bobbing from side to side. And then the first of the people appeared in the street, rag-draped wretches holding torches made of broken bits of two-by-fours or pieces of doors or wooden fence posts, the ends wrapped in old clothes or curtains or blankets and, he assumed, soaked in something flammable. Many of the people lacked hair, and he could see the long, ugly scabs on top of their heads.
“They’re here,” he yelled. “The sick, they’re here!”
Telly and Karl froze in their garbage-clearing efforts and turned. Cakey and Gooty turned. Annabelle took one more stumbling step and turned. Half a dozen sick rubes running across the broad street became a dozen, then two dozen, then three. Some of them ran out of the gaps between buildings. Others, having entered through back doors, poured out of the front of the shops, setting the decaying interiors alight in passing.
“We have to stop and fight,” Cakey said. “Mow down enough rubes to make a wall of bodies, so they can’t get to us.” He raised his rifle.
“No, no,” Telly said. “Terrible idea. Look there.”
Telly pointed back to the north, down the narrow side street but up into the air, as if he thought they might somehow climb the walls of the buildings. But then David saw what he was pointing at—a fire escape. It looked brittle, a rickety, rusty framework of steps and landings going up three stories to the rooftop.
“Get to the roof,” Telly said. “We’ll might have some sort of tactical advantage from up there.”
“Not if they set the building on fire,” Cakey said. “We’re as well off here.”
“Trash’ll burn easier than brick buildings,” Telly said. “If we get caught down here, we’re dead.”
Cakey raised the rifle again. “Nah, boss, I’m stayin’ and shootin’.”
“Gavril, you do what I say,” Telly shouted, shaking the shillelagh over his head.
Cakey lowered the gun and spun to face Telly, a cold look in his eyes. “Don’t you call me that.”
But Telly waved him off and pointed to the fire escape. “It made you listen, didn’t it? Come on. Up there.”
Telly set off in that direction, and the others followed. Cakey hesitated a moment, scowling darkly, then blew his breath out between his lips and joined them. They still had to fight their way through trash to get there. David dared another glance over his shoulder and saw, to his horror, that they had been spotted. A handful of raving sick ran toward the side street, waving their torches over their heads to signal others. Behind them, filling the broad street, were more rubes than David had ever seen in his life. It looked like every rube in the world was bearing down on them.
Telly reached the fire escape, but the lowest set of stairs had a spring-loaded hinge that kept it folded up out of reach. Karl boosted him up onto his shoulders, but he still couldn’t quite reach it. So Karl grabbed Telly in both hands and tossed him straight up into the air, and Telly managed to snag the bottom step. In the process, his hat flew off his head. Annabelle caught it and tossed it back at him. He caught it between his teeth, as his weight caused the stairs to descend. Behind them, the lunatics cried out in bloodthirsty glee. David turned and saw them racing down the side street, a long line of them, stooping as they ran. The one in the lead, a long-limbed, pale woman with wild eyes, had fresh blood smeared around her mouth and nose, dripping from her chin.
Cakey and Gooty both brought their rifles up and opened fire.
“No, no, you morons—” Telly yelled, but his voice was drowned out by the report of the rifles.
The woman fell, then the rube behind her, but as they fell, they dropped their torches among the trash, and immediately old bits of paper and cloth caught fire. More rubes came, stepping on the fallen bodies, oblivious to the spreading flames at their feet. Gooty lowered his rifle, but Cakey kept firing. More rubes fell, more torches dropped.
“Stop firing, or I’ll use your real name again, you idiot,” Telly screamed from above. He had climbed to the first landing and leaned out over the edge.
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Karl climbed the stairs next. Annabelle tried to motion David in front of her, but he shook his head, so she climbed after Karl. Only when she reached the first landing safely did David pull himself up. The steps shifted underfoot, and the whole frame wobbled as he moved. He wondered if the fire escape would even be able to hold the combined weight of all of them. Telly and Karl were already climbing to the second landing.
Below, Gooty tapped Cakey on the shoulder and started up, but still Cakey lingered, pointing his rifle at the approaching rubes. The sick continued to pour into the narrow street, leaping through the flames. Their ragged clothing caught fire, their feet came down on burning paper and wood, but still they came, waving torches and screaming. Cakey took one last shot, hit nothing, then shook his head and followed Gooty up the steps.
As Cakey reached the first landing, the bottom stairs retracted back into position, out of reach of the rubes on the ground. David could hear the frame around them creaking and felt the slight vibrations of weak metal being taxed to its limit. Telly and Karl were on their way to the third floor. Annabelle was just now reaching the second, and David started up after her. Below, rubes gathered on the ground beneath them, leaping into the air to try to grab the stairs. One rube tossed his torch onto the first landing, narrowly missing Gooty. Cakey opened fire on them, and they scattered. Two fell, torches dropped. The side street was rapidly becoming a sea of flames. Smoke as black as tar swirled up around them, burning in David’s nostrils.
More torches sailed up at them, but now the rubes were caught by the flames. He heard screams of madness turn to screams of agony. Cakey and Gooty came up beside him as he reached the second landing. Cakey grabbed his shoulder and pushed him toward the third set of stairs.
Shadows of Tockland Page 23
