Havoc

by Jeff Sampson

  “Did you jump in my window?” I asked, incredulous. “But it’s not even night yet! Someone could have seen you!”

  He shrugged. “No, I snuck in your back door. Someone left it open. I just got hot while I was waiting.”

  “Oh.”

  He turned on the bed to face me. “We should go out again tonight, Emily,” he said, his voice hushed. “We were having so much fun. It was cut short. I don’t want it cut short.”

  I sighed. “No, Dalton, we can’t. Something happened to me last night that I can’t explain, and there are those shadowmen out there.”

  “Aren’t those shadows in here, too? It’s not like hiding in your room is safe.” He scooted close to me, his eyes wide and focused on mine. He clutched my arm with two strong, large hands. “We don’t have to drag race or anything. We can do what you wanted last night. We can go to BioZenith. We can find out what you wanted to know about shadowmen that wasn’t in those dumb books.”

  Biting my lip, I looked around my room. Saw the pile of books I hadn’t yet returned still sitting on my desk. Useless tomes all about ghost folklore and sleep, nothing about what I truly wanted to know.

  But I couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling about being that weird hybrid … thing. It hadn’t happened before, not that I knew of. Who knew when it would happen again? Maybe it was even caused by the shadowmen, meant to debilitate me. It was when they showed up that Nighttime disappeared.

  Well, we won’t let them make me disappear, will we?

  “Come on, Emily,” Dalton begged. “Please. I need to go out again. I want you with me. Please.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed. Spencer’s scent had long since gone away. I couldn’t deny it—I missed the strength, the confidence. And I was pretty annoyed by the lack of details about, well, everything.

  Before I could second-guess myself, I said, “Fine. Let’s do it. But tonight, we’re going to BioZenith.”

  10

  BUSTING INTO THE ENEMY FORTRESS

  I made Dalton hide in my room while I went through the motions of family time downstairs. He occupied himself with my computer, browsing forums about bodybuilding and other boring stuff. Meanwhile I ate dinner with Dad and Katherine and Dawn, forcing myself to laugh at bad jokes, making up stories about my day, swallowing homemade lasagna that was super delicious, but that my knotted stomach made hard to keep down.

  Then, finally, I was able to head back upstairs under the guise of doing homework. Dalton and I sat on my bed, watching each other as the clock clicked past eight. Waiting.

  And then, we shifted. Nighttime was back.

  Dalton and I left my room by way of the bedroom window, per usual. Not that I minded jumping outside, but it just wasn’t nearly as thrilling as it had been at first. Front door would have been quicker.

  Dalton was back to his jittery, verging-on-nuclear-explosion self, same as he’d been the night before. He hummed to himself constantly and randomly pounded his fist into his palm as we stalked down the street.

  “I want to race,” he announced as we reached the end of the street.

  I grinned. “What’s with you and races?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at me. “We could arm wrestle. Want to arm wrestle?”

  I laughed. Running forward, I spun around and walked backward, facing him. “No, I’m good with racing. You know where we’re going, right?”

  He nodded rapidly. “Yeah, I’ve been there.”

  “Then try and catch up.”

  Before he could protest, I turned on my heel and burst down the sidewalk. I was in sneakers again, but I was getting used to the advantage it gave me over a pair of Dawn’s date-night Jimmy Choos. Even if I did love those shoes.

  Behind me, Dalton grunted, and before I knew it he was next to me. Chest thrust forward, veins bulging on his neck, he pumped his arms in a blur as his powerful legs thrust him forward. Our feet slapped against concrete, the sound echoing through the neighborhood.

  But no matter how fast he ran, I kept stride easily.

  Neither of us said a word, just continued to force ourselves to move faster, faster, so fast that we were like a pair of fighter jets whooshing through the air. My feet barely touched the ground anymore. The night’s cool, wet air carried my hair back in streamers. I hollered a laugh, loving the surge of blood through my veins, the freedom from being so averagely human during the day.

  The streets rushed by; a car honked at us as we zoomed in front of its fading headlights. Past the wooded hiking trails, past the smaller houses into the richer neighborhoods, into the industrial streets. We pounded through the dark, abandoned road where a night before a bunch of teenagers had raced their souped-up automobiles.

  And then, the fenced-in compound that was BioZenith was straight ahead: a pair of boxy, white, two-story buildings protected by barbed wire.

  Dalton and I were still neck and neck. But I’d been reserving an extra boost for the final stretch.

  Let him win.

  Daytime Emily.

  I groaned. “What? Why?” I muttered between gulps of air. “Screw that, I’m faster.”

  Let him win, she said again. Give him a little ego boost.

  He’ll be easier to handle.

  I arched an eyebrow. How devious, Daytime! I liked it.

  I let myself falter ever so slightly as we neared BioZenith. Dalton zoomed ahead and ran into the fence hands first, followed by his body. The clang echoed through the empty parking lot beyond.

  “Hell yeah!” he shouted, pumping his fists. “First!”

  I slowed to a jog, came up beside him, and slapped the panting boy on the back. “Bully for you!” I said. “But we have to keep it down. We’re on a mission, remember?”

  He glowered at me. “I thought you were supposed to be a party girl at night.”

  I patted his cheek and smirked up at him. “Not tonight, sweet cheeks. The race is as much as I’m gonna give you. The shadowmen are pissing me off, and I need them gone.”

  I strode past him, looking through the fence at the buildings beyond the large and currently empty parking lot. They were innocuous enough: plain, two-story square buildings made of white brick, with a glass walkway connecting the two. They blended in with all the other modern-style business buildings up and down the street, with the exception, of course, of the fifteen-foot-tall fence topped with barbed wire.

  Headlights glared from down the street. I grabbed Dalton by his arm and yanked him to get him to follow me, and the two of us dove behind a stone sign in front of the fence that read 304. We crouched behind the sign, and the car passed, hopefully without noticing the two suspicious-looking teenagers skulking about.

  I looked back to the BioZenith buildings. They were dark save for a low blue glow from some of the upper windows. Just like the morning Spencer had taken daytime me to scope out the place, there seemed to be no one around. Despite the heavy-duty fence, the front gate was unguarded. Though it did have a pesky surveillance camera watching.

  “How are we getting in?” Dalton whispered to me. His fingers tapped out a drumbeat on his knee as he looked up at the razor-sharp barbed wire.

  My eyes went from the gate to the fence. It was high enough that I couldn’t jump over it without landing directly in the midst of those razors. And the last thing I needed was to scar up my face.

  I turned to Dalton, grinning. “I think you were wrong about this being boring,” I said. “You up for some acrobatics?”

  His brow furrowed. “How?”

  I peeked over the sign. The coast was clear. I grabbed Dalton by the arm and led him around the fence—we’d need to take the next step out of view of the street.

  “We aren’t just strong at night,” I said as we walked.

  “We’re also pretty nimble.”

  We rounded the corner of the fence and made our way into the shadows near the side of the building.

  “Okay,” I whispered. “Crouch down and face the fence. Follow my lead.”

  He did s
o. “Ready for you,” he said.

  I took a few steps back from him, then ran forward, jumped up, and landed on his shoulders, straddling his head. Unprepared, he almost tumbled forward and dropped me. I grabbed onto his stubbly head and held myself steady.

  “What the hell?” he said. “I thought you were gonna use me like a jump-off point.”

  “No, we’re going full cheerleader,” I said. “Stand up. And you’d better not drop me.”

  Dalton wrapped his arms around my legs and his chest, then easily rose to stand at his full height. I held on to his head and looked up, judging the distance between me and the row of curled wire.

  “All right,” I said. “We’re going to put your giant guns to work. I want you to grab me by the underside of my feet, then when I say go, shove me upward. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  I raised my arms and leaned forward in a sort of crouched position, carefully keeping my balance while Dalton took hold of my feet and began to lift me up. His biceps and shoulders tensed, tightening beneath his shirt.

  “Ready, on three,” I said.

  “Three!” Dalton shouted. And he threw me upward.

  The sudden shove off startled me, but I reacted instinctively. Pushing off with my feet right before he let go of my sneakers, I flew up in the air. I pulled my knees up to my chest as I passed over the barbed wire—and then braced myself to land neatly, quietly, on the asphalt on the other side.

  I was in.

  “So,” Dalton said behind me. “How do I get in?”

  Snap. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Not that I was going to admit that to Dalton.

  “Here, follow me,” I said.

  I ran along the fence, Dalton on the other side, my finger grazing the metal wire and looking for a weakness. We reached the back of the fence, but as far as I could see: nothing.

  “Hey,” Dalton grunted. “Wait. Let me try something.”

  I stood back and crossed my arms. In the pale glow from a nearby floodlight, Dalton went up to the fence, gripped it with both hands, and began to pull it apart. His biceps threatened to burst from his shirt, and his neck was so tight I was certain that his head might pop off. Clenching his teeth, he yanked as hard as he could—and the wire fencing snapped apart in a line down the middle, like someone unzipping a zipper.

  Dalton ducked through, smirking at me. “Told you I was strong.” He flexed forward in a parody of a bodybuilder—at least, I hoped it was a parody. I patted him on his stubbly head.

  “Good boy. Now let’s keep moving.”

  We stalked up to the back of the building, then began to follow it, searching for some sort of rear access door. I didn’t want to bust a window and set off an alarm, or kick open a door and do the same. I thought back to the movies I always watched as Daytime, and they told me: the roof.

  “Look for a way to the roof,” I whispered to Dalton.

  He nodded, then pointed. “There,” he said. “There’s an access ladder.”

  I followed his finger and made it out in the shadows, just above us. This one was easy: It was no higher than the sill of my bedroom window, and I jumped into that all the time. I leaped up, gripped the bottom rung, then dug the soles of my sneakers into the craggy brick wall to climb up. Once I was high enough up, Dalton did the same.

  I hefted myself up and onto the roof, then settled into a crouch to scan the area. It was straight out of any action-movie roof you’ve seen, with boxy metal structures and vents for the air-conditioning and circulation system.

  I crouch-walked forward, the gravelly rooftop crunching beneath my sneakers, and peered over the edge of one of the vents.

  In the center of the roof was an access door. It was sturdier-looking than I’d expected—no rusted hinges or easily busted chains here. A fluorescent light was attached to the wall above the door, lighting it up, and just as with the front gates, a security camera kept a watchful eye. Next to the door handle was an access panel, what looked to be a glass screen embedded in a steel frame. A blue light blinked above it.

  Dalton crouched beside me, bouncing from foot to foot. “This is awesome,” he whispered. “Busting into the enemy fortress.”

  “Not so boring, after all,” I said. “Looks like the door to get in is pretty heavily protected.”

  Dalton snorted. “I can bust that camera off and smash that panel in. Who’s gonna stop us?”

  I tilted my head, considered. It was as good a plan as I had.

  The door beeped, the sound echoing across the roof. I held up a finger, hushing Dalton. The door squealed and creaked as someone shoved it open from the inside.

  A man appeared from the dark depths behind the door. He was dressed in a navy blue uniform that was halfway between police issue and military standard. A bulletproof vest covered his chest, and a rifle hung from his shoulder.

  An identically dressed, similarly built man followed him out. They nodded to each other, and one placed his palm on the panel. The light blinked green, the panel beeped once more, and the door slammed shut. The two men—guards, apparently—began to walk around the perimeter of the roof.

  “Armed guards at an innocuous bioengineering firm in the middle of Skopamish,” I whispered. “Yeah, nothing secret being kept here.”

  “My father is full of crap,” Dalton growled.

  “Apparently.”

  Dalton didn’t seem to hear me, slowly shaking his head back and forth. “I say we take them down, you go left and I go right. We knock ’em out and drag them to the door and use their hand to get us in.”

  I watched the man who’d gone to my left. He looked out over the parking lot, his shoulder slouched, his expression bored.

  I grinned at Dalton. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s go.”

  He nodded, then crawled on all fours to our right, toward the back end of the building where the other guy was wandering. I snuck to the left, crouched behind the convenient air vents, carefully taking each step so that I made no noise. I breathed in calmly, evenly, focused on my prey.

  Prey? Ha. I could sense her, then, in the back of my head, speaking to me—Werewolf Emily. But her thoughts didn’t speak to me in words, like Daytime had the night before. Werewolf’s thoughts were flashes of images of her—me—skulking through underbrush. They were memories of smells, to differentiate between the scent of fear and the scent of wariness. They were ingrained memories of how to position myself depending on which way the wind was blowing.

  They were also incredibly useful.

  Sick.

  I made it to the last vent duct between me and the guard. He hadn’t moved from his spot, though now he was looking up at the stars. He wasn’t a big guy, but his vest, his gear, made him appear bulky. My ears picked up the sound of his breathing, slow and steady, with a slight whistle every now and again through one of his nostrils.

  He sensed nothing.

  I placed the tips of my fingers on the ground, putting myself in a position like an Olympic runner at the start of a track. I tensed, about to race forward.

  And behind me, Dalton roared. The other guard shouted in surprise. There was a clatter as his gun fell to the roof.

  Then a thud as Dalton tackled him to the ground.

  My guard jerked to attention, fumbled for his gun. He spun around and saw the commotion. “Holy hell, what the—”

  He raised his rifle and began to hoof it toward his coworker.

  So much for stealth.

  I shoved myself off and raced forward, a dashing shadow. My guard saw me a split second before I was in front of him, but it was too late for him to react. I leaped up, grabbing his arms and shoving the gun to face the night sky. He struggled to fire, but his finger slipped off the trigger. And I was too strong for him to wrench the gun free.

  Behind me I heard sick, wet thuds as fists hit flesh. I ignored it, focused on my guy. His eyes were wide, his breathing rapid. Hot breath washed over me. He looked like a scared child.

  With a shout, I yanked his arms to the sid
e. The gun fell from his hands and landed at our feet. Not wasting a moment, I placed a hand on his shoulder and propelled myself so that I was spinning around him, piggybacking him with my legs around his chest, my right arm grasping him around his neck. I tensed my arm against his throat, squeezing as hard as I could, cutting off his air. His gloved fingers clawed uselessly at the sleeve of my turtleneck as he stumbled back and forth, whipping and jerking his body to try and fling me off.

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered in his ear. “Just go to sleep for a bit. That’s a good boy.”

  After a few moments of this, he fell to his knees, his jerks becoming slow and sluggish. Finally, he went slack in my arms, and I let go of his throat, plopped my feet firm on the ground, and grabbed his shoulders to guide him to lie gently on his back. I crouched next to his prone form and held my hand over his lips and nose. Hot air seeped out, and he sucked cool air in. He was still alive.

  I felt exhilarated. Of course I’d known I could take down a man solo; I’d done it before. But this was all so stealthy and hard-core. All those years watching action movies had paid off.

  “Thanks, Daytime,” I muttered as I stood back up.

  And realized that the fleshy thuds of fists against skin were still echoing across the rooftop. I snapped to attention and saw Dalton straddling his guard’s chest. He raised a fist and pounded down against the man’s face. Then hefted his arm back to do it again.

  Blood glistened from his knuckles. His eyes were wide and laser focused. His smile was unfaltering, tight-jawed, crazed.

  I ran across the roof, pumping my arms and racing as fast as I could. I leaped over a duct and skidded to a stop as I neared Dalton and his fallen guard.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed. “He’s down!”

  The guard’s face was unrecognizable. His cheeks and eyes were swelling, turning purple. Blood leaked from cuts on his forehead and his lips, seeped from a nose that looked as though it had been caved in. The man was clearly unconscious, his breaths strained and ragged.