Messenger of Fear

by Grant,Michael

  Andrews put a hand behind Manolo’s neck and slammed his face down into his tray. When his head came back up, there was blood pouring from his nose.

  All the while I was growing increasingly uncomfortable. I told myself that this boy was a murderer, that he had taken a life and therefore deserved none of my pity. But even a less active imagination than my own would have seen where this was heading, what these two brutes intended for him. I did not wish to see it.

  “Do we have to watch this?” I demanded.

  “Don’t you want to alter the fabric of time to rescue him as you wished to do for Samantha Early?”

  “It’s not the same,” I said through gritted teeth. “Samantha is just a victim. This boy killed someone. But that doesn’t mean I want to watch him . . . like this.” A thought occurred to me. “He did kill someone, right?”

  “Yes,” Messenger confirmed.

  “Then, do we have to summon the Game Master and all of that?”

  “Manolo is not our charge. We are after another one.”

  “Then, why are we here watching this?” I demanded, quite angry, feeling that I was being tricked.

  The room froze. One second it was a brutal and threatening video; the next it was as still as a photograph. And then, it began to move in reverse. Regular speed at first, with movements that seemed oddly normal, though reversed. Then the actions sped up, faster and faster so that we were standing in a swirl of orange jumpsuits and then an interrogation room with tired cops seeming to wave their hands at Manolo as he went from tears to sullen defiance, to his own hand-waving defiance.

  On and on it went, out of the police station, into a squad car, back through a drive across a city I did not recognize, and slower then as red and blue strobes flashed and neon rippled across the wet skin of police cars in the rain, and then were gone.

  The action backed past something that happened in a flash, then slowed, stopped, and began to move forward again in normal speed.

  Manolo, no longer in jailhouse orange, was walking out of a fro-yo shop. He wore a name tag, so I assumed he was leaving a part-time job. The fro-yo was at an aged mall with a sparsely occupied parking lot. The lot was illuminated by the worst of tall fixtures that cast a silvery light, like moonlight drained of all mystery. Manolo walked toward his car, a beater sedan he must have inherited or perhaps saved his money to buy.

  Two boys climbed from an SUV parked nearby. The boys were not particularly tough looking. They were almost identically dressed in jeans, T-shirts, and jackets. One wore tan work boots, the other sneakers. Two things marked them instantly as dangerous. First, the way they moved: quick, almost hurried, directly toward Manolo, but furtive as well, with many glances behind and to the sides.

  Second, they were each armed. Boots carried a metal baseball bat. Sneakers had a crowbar, hooked at one end, tape-wrapped at the other, which formed the grip.

  Manolo was no fool—he knew as soon as he heard their car door shut that he was in trouble. It was easy to see that he knew the boys.

  He tried to get the car door open, but they afforded him very little time, and his first attempt to insert the key failed.

  Had he managed to get the door open . . . Chance. The fourth of the forces that define our lives.

  “Hey, guys, come on,” Manolo said.

  I noticed then that he had a bruise under one eye, and that a discreet flesh-colored bandage lay across his nose.

  “Come on?” Sneakers asked. “What do you mean, come on, faggot?”

  “You already beat on me for no good reason!”

  “Yeah, I seem to recall that,” Sneakers said. “You got us both detention for that.”

  “That wasn’t even the worst part,” Boots said angrily. “Sensi—what did they call it?”

  “Sensitivity and awareness,” Sneakers said with a sneer. “An hour-long video. Plus the counseling. See, Manolo, you gotta pay for all that. It’s not just you being a homo—you were a homo who ratted us out.”

  “That’s extra beating.”

  “That’s blood. And something broken. And maybe a dead faggot,” Sneakers said.

  Manolo cried and tried again to insert the key. Boots grabbed his hand, crushing the keys in his grip. Manolo yanked his hand away, and Boots smashed the fat end of the baseball bat into his solar plexus.

  Manolo lost every atom of air in his lungs, clutched his stomach, and sagged into the side of his car.

  “That hurt, homo? Did that hurt?” Sneakers gave him a shove with the crowbar, sending Manolo staggering into the other attacker.

  “What, you think you eyeball me in the shower and all you get is one beating?” Boots demanded.

  “I didn’t . . .” Manolo squeezed the words out but could say no more.

  “Are you saying he’s not good-looking enough for you, faggot?”

  “I think he’s dissing me,” Boots said, picking up on his companion’s snark. “Except we know better, don’t we? Because I saw him watching me. Yeah. And the more I think about it, one little beating is just not enough.”

  “Just let me go . . . My mom . . . Someone will see you,” Manolo said. He had his elbows down to guard his sides and stomach, while keeping his hands up, scrunching down to guard his head.

  Sneakers swung the crowbar into the back of Manolo’s legs.

  “Ahhh!” Manolo cried. “Ahhh. Ahhhh!”

  “Cry, you pussy!” Boots said. He shouldered his bat, just as if he was at home plate waiting for a fastball. He swung at shoulder height, cutting slightly upward, aiming squarely for Manolo’s head.

  Manolo ducked. The bat ruffled his hair as it flew past and smashed into Sneakers’s cheek. The sound of breaking bone was as loud as a firecracker, followed by a howl of pain from Sneakers, who dropped his crowbar to grab his face.

  “Dude!” Boots yelled.

  “Ow ow ow ow!” Sneakers cried as tears filled his eyes.

  Manolo tried to run but tripped over Sneakers’s feet and landed hard on the blacktop, elbows and knees.

  Boots cursed furiously and aimed a hasty blow that punched into Manolo’s kidney, bringing new cries of pain to join those still pouring from Sneakers.

  “I will kill you! Kill you, you—” Boots raised his bat again, but Manolo lashed out desperately and drove a foot against Boot’s knee, and the bully staggered back.

  In a flash Manolo had rolled over, powered to his feet, and come up holding the dropped crowbar.

  Boots saw it and grew wary. “Oh, you want to throw down, faggot? I was just going to beat you. Now I’m a kill you! You hear me?”

  Sneakers rallied and came rushing in a murderous rage to hit Manolo from behind with a flying tackle that drove him into Boots. The three of them went down in a tangle of fists and feet and elbows, all yelling, crying, cursing, and then, somehow Manolo was up again, still holding the crowbar. His breaths came in furious gasps, loud, almost musical, and he swung the crowbar down once, hard, hitting Sneakers and shattering his collarbone.

  Boots was trying to get to his feet while still holding the bat, but he was too slow and Manolo caught him with a hard, horizontal blow that broke his elbow. The bat went twirling off across the parking lot.

  An adult male voice yelled, “Hey, hey! We’ve called the cops!” I glanced over and saw a youngish married couple next to their car, watching cautiously.

  But Manolo was in no condition anymore to hear. He was in a rage. He was pure, distilled fury. He swung the crowbar again, and this time the thick steel bar landed with a horrible crunch on Boots’s head.

  Boots stopped trying to stand.

  Manolo hit him again, and now blood was pouring down Boots’s face, and Manolo hit him again as the woman from the couple yelled, “Stop it, stop it, you’re killing him!”

  And he was.

  Manolo hit him three more times, sobbing as he did it, cursing, spitting down into the jellied mass that was his tormentor’s head.

  I had no time to prepare or ward off the physical reaction that took h
old of me, forcing me to bend over and vomit onto the pavement.

  How can I explain that reaction except to say that I had never before witnessed anything as violent before. Samantha Early’s death had been awful beyond anything I had seen up to that moment, but I had known it was coming. I saw it coming. It had about it an air of stateliness, almost, of inevitability. I was prepared.

  I had no preparation for the animal frenzy that had erupted before me. I had never heard the sound of steel thudding again and again onto meat and bone. And all of it had happened so very quickly that I had no time to shift my sympathies. For at first I was happy that Manolo had prevailed. Mere seconds passed from that emotion to the physical rejection of the brutality I saw following.

  I heard a siren. I saw flashing lights.

  Manolo searched the ground for his keys, but his eyes were filled with tears and his mind was deranged by the most desperate feelings of pain and anger, regret and savage triumph, all mixed together.

  In the end he just leaned back against the car, panting, spent. I heard the crowbar clatter to the ground. I heard Sneakers whining and saying, “He broke my face, he broke my face,” over and over again.

  “Tell me, Mara: What do you see here?”

  I was still wiping my mouth and trying to gather my wits, trying to focus. Messenger’s cold-sounding question was hard at first even to comprehend. But I understood that this was some sort of test, and because I am ever the striver looking to excel, even when the object of the game is something I reject, I did my best to answer.

  “He defended himself. Lost it. Oh, my God, killed that boy.” I took several deep breaths, tried vainly to slow the jackhammer insistence of my heart. “Is that the murder Manolo’s in jail for? He was defending himself!”

  “Manolo’s fate is for human agency to determine. His doom will be pronounced by a jury and a court.”

  I stared at Messenger in part because it was easier than watching the tragedy unfolding before us as Manolo was handcuffed, weeping, and Sneakers was taken away in an ambulance, his face swathed in bandages.

  “We’re not here for Manolo?”

  He shook his head.

  Slowly it dawned on me. Manolo was in jail. Boots was dead. There was only one other.

  “The other boy. The one in the sneakers.”

  “The dead boy’s name is Charles,” Messenger said. “We are here for Derek. Derek Grady. Because as surely as Manolo, Derek is responsible for this death, yet he will not be arrested and he will not see any justice . . . but that which we deliver to him.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  WE TOOK A STROLL THROUGH DEREK GRADY’S life, much as we had done with Samantha. After an exhausting and dispiriting time of it, Messenger took us away to a place I’d never been but that I knew instinctively was important to my taciturn teacher.

  My first thought was that Messenger had taken time travel to a whole new level. We were high atop a massive stone wall of such ancient creation that it was topped with crenellations and interrupted by slate gray-roofed conical towers.

  Looking inward from the walls, I gazed across red-tile roofs, limestone walls, streets so narrow they could never have been meant for carriages, let alone cars. The wall curved far in both directions, enclosing this small village.

  Gazing out from the wall, I saw a lazy river passing beneath an arched bridge of the same stone and vintage. But beyond that river was a much larger town, one still very much marked by history, but with cars and buses visible as well as satellite dishes and the other usual indicators of the modern era.

  I turned away from that and studied the village within the walls and saw that here, too, were the signs of modernity, though less obvious: people talking on cell phones, electric lights shining from within narrow windows, tourist souvenirs spilling from the low doorways onto tight streets.

  “Carcassonne,” Messenger said. Then, seeing my blank expression, added, “France.”

  “Why . . .”

  Messenger was peering down at the street, not with the casual appreciation of a tourist but rather like someone looking for something very specific. Hopefulness and wistfulness momentarily defined his features until he composed himself and regained the impassivity he wore as a mask.

  “It’s beautiful, don’t you think?” he asked. “We see a great deal of pain. Beauty can be an antidote.”

  It made sense, almost. But I didn’t believe him. He wasn’t here for a change of scenery. He was looking for something. Or someone.

  “Tell me what you learned of Derek Grady,” he said, continuing to peer down into the town as he began to walk. He had long legs and walked quickly, in a hurry, searching. I had to rush to catch up. We were not alone on the wall—tourists passed by speaking half a dozen different languages—but as with doors and prison bars, they seemed to subtly relocate to avoid touching us. I was sure that we were quite invisible and inaudible.

  “Derek’s a bully,” I said, thinking Messenger wanted the same economy of words from me that he practiced himself.

  “More,” he said.

  “Okay, he’s . . . well, he has a hard time in school, maybe because he doesn’t study very hard and maybe because he’s not very bright. He’s on the wrestling team, along with Boots. . . . That’s what I call the other boy, the one who died.”

  “Charles,” Messenger said with a flash of anger. “Charles Francis Frohlick. That’s the name of the dead boy, a boy who was a bully and who may have grown up to be a worse bully, maybe a killer, even. But who might also have grown up to repent and change and to add something positive to this sorry world.”

  “Charles,” I said, abashed at this passionate outburst. “Charles Frohlick. The dead boy. Okay, Derek and he were friends. Charles decided that Manolo was checking him out, in a sexual way.”

  Messenger nodded, distracted now as he squinted down at someone passing by on the street. I followed the direction of his gaze. He was watching a girl, maybe seventeen years old, with auburn hair, long, wavy. The girl turned to look at something we could not see from our vantage point, and her face was clear in the spill of light from a doorway. Messenger had leaned forward, and now he retreated and could not conceal his disappointment.

  “You’re looking for someone,” I said.

  He did not answer.

  “The girl Oriax mentioned. Ariadne.”

  Both of his fists clenched and still he said nothing. Silence stretched between us as he began again to walk quickly along the battlement.

  Was Ariadne a French name? Was Messenger French as well? Did such things as nationalities even matter to him?

  “Continue,” Messenger snapped over his shoulder.

  “Well . . . Charles was upset because someone teased him about Manolo. Someone teased him and asked, joking, I thought, if Charles was gay. That set Charles off but not to the point of being really angry. I mean, yeah, angry, but not crazy angry like he got later.”

  “And why did he become crazy angry, as you put it?”

  I shrugged, frowned, scrolled back in my mind through what I had witnessed in the last hours of observing Charles’s life. “Derek,” I said. “He kind of . . . pushed it. At first he was teasing, joking, but he wouldn’t drop it. Actually, he was the one who said they should teach Manolo a lesson.”

  Messenger nodded. He stopped walking. The sun was going down fast. Floodlights snapped on, illuminating the walls, the towers, turning the crenellations dark by contrast. We had come to a mounting tangle of towers and a square building, a sort of castle that grew out of the walls and lorded its grandeur over the walled village below as well as the town beyond the river.

  “Derek egged him on. Pushed him,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  Messenger turned finally to face me. The low, slanting rays of a setting sun put sharp edges on his features,
concealing his eyes but lighting his cheekbones, the side of his nose, his lips.

  He was good-looking, bordering on beautiful. And this particular light, picking out some features while obscuring others, did nothing to make him less attractive. He would certainly have stopped conversation in any schoolroom he ever walked into. If he had ever walked into a schoolroom.

  Had he? Had this . . . boy, though that word didn’t seem anything like correct . . . had this boy once attended school? Had a home? A mother and a father? A room with favorite objects on a desk, and items of clothing tossed about so that his mother had to chide him and demand that he clean up the mess?

  Had he taken out the trash? Pulled all-nighters to finish the homework he had procrastinated on? Had he gone to movies with friends? Played around on the internet? Gotten his learner’s permit?

  Was he even from the same era as me? Did he live in my time, or was he from some very different time and some place unimaginable to me?

  All that I knew of him was that he was different from any person I had ever met or imagined meeting. But was that because of who he was, or because of what he was? Was it possible to be the Messenger of Fear and remain somehow normal? It was no idle question if I was somehow destined (or was it doomed?) to become the Messenger myself.

  Was I odd enough to become him? Or someone like him? Would I inevitably become solemn and taciturn? Would my habitual flood of words slow to a trickle as this life, this experience, this power, took their toll on me?

  “There is evil in the world,” Messenger said. “It comes from within us, but there are times as well when it is . . . suggested to us.”

  “Like Derek did with Charles?”

  “And in another way as Derek and Charles did to Manolo. That is the evil that calls for justice.” He cast another longing look down at the darkening streets and said, “I can’t spend any more time here. We have our duties.”

  “Who is Ariadne? Why would she be here?” I asked. But I didn’t really expect an answer, and got none.

  With no sensation of movement we were thousands of miles away, standing in a noisy, bright-lit gymnasium. The bleachers were half-filled, but the kids and parents there were enthusiastic, shouting encouragement and occasionally cheering in a disorganized but sincere way.