Michael wheeled for the tunnel to the lab.
Patrick whispered, “Wait . . .”
Michael reached the tunnel, lifted the flap.
“Michael! Wait, Michael! It’s back here, outside the vault!”
Michael had to hand it to his brother: he actually sounded afraid. “’Kay-yeah-no, nice try. Mine’s in there.”
“No. Not ‘the cure,’” Patrick replied.
He showed his teeth, like a monster.
He said, “The ‘It’ . . .”
At first it was just peripheral eeriness.
Outside the vault, on the ceiling of the bank proper, visible through the frame of the vault door, a new shadow hung, like a great bat. With a whispery click sound, the shadow moved. Eyes shone, like black lamps.
Michael’s heart seemed to have shut off.
The Shriek moved toward the vault. Something gleamed: its finger bones. The skeleton of its fingers flashed clean white, the skin and sinew there ripped away like tips worn from old gloves, so its fingers were not just bones, but sharp exquisite axes that could pass your throat and make it smile red.
Michael’s first shot, fired while whirling, missed by yards, two more he squeezed coming closer, not much.
The Shriek cried out and skittered out of sight.
Michael held frozen, the echo of the gunshots cracking around him like caged earthquakes. Then he burst out of his shock and went to the door. It was too fast last night, it will be now too, he thought, panicked. But he also thought: if I can kill it, if I can shoot it in the head, it will die.
Every bad guy has a weak spot in every game.
It’s the last really dangerous one in Charleston. Kill it, and all this is over.
How do you know that’s true?!
Because . . . it has to be.
“Bub,” he whispered, “you stay here while I go out and—”
Except Patrick was at his side as he stepped out of the vault, flattened himself against the wall, like a SWAT member.
“Stop tryin’ to trick me! He’s on your team!” Patrick hissed.
“What?”
Far too loudly: “You’re the Betrayer! The Game Master told me you’re even supposed to have guns!”
“Bub, shh—”
“You have to play right! MICHAEL, PLEASE!”
“Sit. Down!” Michael whispered.
“Pfft, you sit down!” Patrick came back.
Oh my God, omigod.
A call of claws, clicking the ceiling. Shadows coiled all across the ceiling like snakes in a basket. Then the Shriek cried out.
The sound was followed by a second cry, nearer, and suddenly Michael knew where the creature was, on the dark ceiling above the bank’s rows of desks, so Michael breathed out like a Modern Warfare sniper, aimed, and tugged the trigger.
The shot struck absolutely nothing.
One reason: Michael heard another click-click-click movement now, far from where he’d aimed. The Shriek was using the echo in the Bank of Charleston for misdirection.
The second reason: Patrick had laced his finger into the triggerhold, attempting to take the firearm, and this sorta compromised his aim.
Patrick tugged the gun down with a grunt.
Another round accidentally discharged between their four feet.
“Play right!” Patrick pulled the gun toward himself, like he was fighting over a TV remote. He spied down the barrel.
Michael said, “I’m not the Betrayer, let’s switch teams, I want to be on your team!”
“A-la-la-la-la-can’t-hear-you!”
Stone dust rained from the ceiling, this time the cry of the Shriek issuing from directly above. The rippling air pressure came down on Michael’s head like a cold cap. It’s trying to paralyze its prey, shock us, like it shocked us last night, right before it jumped.
The corpse landed on all fours in the aisle leading to the counter and wove among the desks, like a feral wolf.
Michael shoved Patrick and gained the gun.
Patrick stumbled back, over a rumpled orange carpet, and landed on a black metal box, grabbing his butt in pain. Michael was wheeling his aim back to the Shriek when the box began to roar. The creature echoed the cry. But this box’s roar was mechanical: this box was an air pump.
The carpet jerked, which would have been odd except it was not a carpet; it actually was a tarp, a great orange inflatable man with pennants for limbs, and in the adrenaline-soaked brightness of his mind, Michael knew that it had been used as a Halloween decoration, and the employees had brought it in for the night, not knowing the tarp-man would never dance for customers again. Now the tarp-man furled high.
And slapped the gun from Michael’s hand.
The pistol zipped across the marble, skidding underneath a wooden desk between him and the Shriek.
The Shriek stopped, head cocking, as if amused.
The orange, faceless giant jigged.
“Stay,” Michael whispered, “down.”
“Pfff, whateve—”
Michael ran. He ran for the gun.
The Shriek dropped behind one of the desks like a magician into a trapdoor, then rematerialized behind the desk closest to Michael. Michael grabbed a leather roller chair, and thrust it at the Thing.
The creature bounded over the chair, seemed to hang midair before coming down in a cougar’s crouch.
The creature scrabbled toward him. Michael reached behind himself blindly, found on the desk an energy bar, not helpful, then something better: an orb-crystal paperweight. He hurled it. A thud and a snap: the ball slammed into its target’s neck, both a bludgeon and a blade because it shattered on impact. Blood hit a floor fan and flew up: black mist.
The creature went still. Surprised or angry?
Its cry answered that.
“Oh, you are effing pissed,” Michael whimpered.
Michael reared his hand back like he had another weapon, and the Shriek responded by going for the nearest wall, which, with its bone-grips, it scaled in a vertical sprint.
For glowing moments, Michael thought it was over, the Shriek was retreating to some secret place in the ceiling. Then the pattern of the monster’s movements on the ceiling became clear. It wasn’t searching for an exit: it was circling overhead, as vultures do.
Michael rotated on his heels with a craned neck, not daring to let it out of sight. Speed and shadow hid the creature: it would slip out of one shadow and seem to teleport to the next instantaneously. But its all-black lamp eyes were always on Michael, even when its body faced the opposite direction: its head twisted and contorted to unnatural angles, its neck breaking again and again.
Its circle was tightening.
The click of its claws was a race of scorpions across the tops of tombstones.
“You guys are butt-monkeys,” Patrick said.
At Patrick’s voice, the Shriek came at last into a jag of light.
The Shriek was wearing torn, striped track pants.
“Hank?” Michael gasped.
It wasn’t Cady Gibson. It was Hank.
If you hadn’t known Hank had been mauled—if you’d just been looking for Hank, and seen this Thing—you wouldn’t have known they were the same.
Hank’s face was rivuleted, as if he had been dragged across a field of razors. Cady must have bitten Hank after Hank’s death, for Michael saw a bite point above his ear. He could see the black brain.
Hank.
Dead.
Changed.
Alive.
Mutated.
The ramifications went like chain explosions in Michael’s mind. The Bellows outside. All those Bellows outside.
Cady bit Hank, and Hank came back.
Cady bit the ones outside. And they’re all going to come back—
“Haaaaaaaaaaaannnnk!” The word, coming from Hank’s throat, was like hearing your own ghost call a warning from beyond the grave.
“Patrick?” Michael said. All things considered, he thought he sounded good: his voice trembl
ed only horribly. “Get ready.”
“I’m—not—” Patrick replied, singsong, “—listening—to— the—buuuuutt-monkey—”
“Hey, Hank,” Michael said softly, sliding his feet over the floor. He was inching diagonally toward the counter. If he moved any quicker, it wouldn’t work; the Shriek would spring.
Michael felt the tarp-man’s fingers whisk his scalp. Hank’s spirals tightened. . . .
The gate that led behind the counter swung open at Michael’s hips, like doors of an Old West saloon. A pneumatic tube tangled between his feet. For one electrifying moment, he thought he would fall.
He moved toward his brother. Patrick, beside him, still had his hands cupped on his head, grooving back and forth to his tune, now a club mix: “Listening—not—listening—not—not—not listening—”
Hank’s stalking circle ceased.
The Shriek hung upside down, watching.
It hung over Patrick, luminous like a guillotine blade.
Black blood dripped from Hank’s forehead. It struck the crown of Patrick’s head. Patrick’s face raised up slowly, still vaguely singing, now to Hank.
And Hank: he smiled.
“HEY, COME EAT IT, YOU NEEWWWWWBB!” Michael roared.
The Shriek burst from the ceiling with the fused strength of four coiled limbs. The frozen wind of its hypersonic monster-cry slammed into Michael like a blast of cold bullets. The computer monitor beside Michael shattered and exploded.
Midair, the Shriek’s jaw unhinged like a python’s. The back of its throat was brilliantly white. Suddenly, Patrick’s song died. And now he was screaming and so was Michael, and the Shriek flying more quickly than seemed possible—
—and so was Michael—
—dodging himself to the ground and to the left, tackling Patrick alongside him—
And the Shriek bayed while whipping through the empty air and it crashed into the mouth of the vault—a drumroll of bones—slinging against the far wall, and safe-deposit boxes sprang open, like surprises.
Michael rushed his shoulder into the vault door.
But the door did not swing with crazy ease. Slow, nightmare slow: it began to inch. A ruined arm shot through the opening, Michael thrust harder—the dead arm snapped—the Shriek cried out, withdrew the limb. Michael closed the door, swung the pirate-wheel locked, and slid to the ground.
Patrick, freshly tackled, looked at the vault. At him. At the vault. At him.
“Hey,” breathed Patrick. “You triiiicked him.”
And gave a tiny gobsmacked, admiring smile to the “Betrayer”—to his brother.
Just a smile, that was all, but it was better than his satisfaction at outsmarting Hank the Shriek; better than his almost-insane gladness that he had not, in fact, been eaten. Yes, it was something so much finer.
So Michael hardly heard the sound at first, barely audible through the steel door. Then he paid attention to it; and everything within him tumbled.
It was the shattering of the vials of the cure being destroyed by the Shriek.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Everything you do will be worth it in the end: You can control it.
One belief. One point on a compass. One guiding Instruction.
The belief had been Michael’s comfort, and his weapon, for a very long time. He’d walked with it inside himself through mountains that roared and hungered around him. He’d lain with it on nights Before, when he had to wrap a pillow around his head to erase the sounds of slamming doors or crashing dishes or tears. When Michael knew so many secret pains that he could share with no one, the thought, the belief, had talked to him. Comforting him unconditionally. Like a best friend. Or like a mother.
You can control it, Michael thought.
As he sat in the bank, the thought seemed far away. Weak. His ears were filled with roaring wind, like a television with the AV wires cut.
Glass breaking. Vials.
Day 27. Dear Diary, Today I was a foot away from the cure.
I almost made everything okay. I almost changed
everything for—
—for myself—
—for Patrick. But then I kind of messed up. LOL, actually, when you get right down to it, I pretty much effed the world.
No, said the thought. It will be okay.
Really?
Yes.
What about the shattering?
Michael screamed and roared and kicked at the money-cast floor, as if afraid the world would open a pit underneath him and swallow him whole. The oxygen vacuumed out of his lungs. His tongue was cracked sandpaper. I’m Freaking, Michael thought.
“WHAT THE?!” Patrick shouted.
Michael’s head turned slowly, as if on a screaming rusted hinge.
He looked past Patrick. The vault door. His blurry reflection. His own black mouth and screaming face, pale and blank as the moon. Michael saw himself and his throat tore with his scream and oh my God stop, Michael, seriously stop please, stop Freaking.
Gone, he thought. I lost. It’s gone it’s GONE.
Patrick scrabbled away from his brother. His mouth was quivering, his hands went to his hair.
“Michael, you okay?” he said. “Hey, are you—?”
Michael stopped screaming, not because he’d regained control, he’d just run out of breath.
Tell Bub everything is okay, even though you just accidentally locked the monster in with the only things that can save you and Bub, his mind said—Instructed.
Patrick blinked at Michael, then yanked, hard, on a hunk of his own hair.
Tears leapt to Michael’s eyes. He shot to a stand, his stomach going hot and loose with shame and terror. Patrick ripped at his hair again. He whined in his throat, his face smashing down in pain.
Yes, tell him everything will be okay, Michael. You’re so good at promising, aren’t you, asshole? But how are you going to lie your way out of this?
Michael lifted a hand that seemed to weigh seven tons. He made a thumbs-up.
Inside the vault, he could hear Shriek-Hank really going to town.
“Don’t do that, Bub,” Michael said. It was all he could manage.
“Why’s you screaming?” Patrick looked him up and down, as if trying to decide if he recognized a stranger. “Why’s . . . ? Did you get a splinter?”
Michael clapped a hand on his mouth. Hysterical laughter had nearly ejected. Then he understood Patrick’s question, and felt like doing anything but laughing.
Asking if I got a splinter because he’s never seen me like that. He thought I was . . . his Safe Zone. He didn’t know I could lose it like that.
Oh, his mind hissed, but there’s a lot Patrick doesn’t know about you.
Suddenly, Patrick looked away, turning toward the tunnel across the dark of the lobby. “Hey, Game Master!” he called.
“Bub, wait.” Michael’s voice came out as a croak.
“But . . . you’re hurt?” Patrick began. He uncertainly stepped away as Michael came closer. He gulped, and now his voice was a little plea: “Michael, you’re hurt, right?”
Everything is still okay, right?!
“I—”
“Michael!”
Holly.
Small and muffled from beyond the mountain of rubble. She’d never made it through the tunnel.
Patrick stood there between his big brother and the tunnel, and he shifted foot-to-foot, in a heartbreaking dance of gathering dread.
“Michael got hur—I mean, the Betrayer got hurt, Holly!” he called desperately to the tunnel. “Time out, Game Master!” Whispering: “And we can still quit real soon. Right? Michael?”
And when Michael didn’t reply, Patrick pivoted and cried toward the tunnel, “Can we time OU—?” and Holly replied shakily, “Patrick, hey,” and Patrick went, “Where’s the Game Master?” and Holly asked, “Jopek?” and Patrick said, “The Game Master!” and Holly answered, “R-right,” and paused.
“The Game Master’s out, Patrick,” Holly finally called.
> Patrick asked, “Timed out?”
Silence.
“Out out,” Holly replied.
Patrick’s face grew slack. Ghostly. He looked at Michael, his eyes going wide . . . and also, far away.
“Oh no, Michael,” he moaned softly. “Ooooh, what did you do?”
Michael tried to take another step toward Patrick, but he was so sick with adrenaline and fear that the step wound up being more of a lunge, like a kid’s pantomime of a monster.
Patrick ducked back through the saloon doors to the front side of the counter, color draining from his face.
“Michael, there’s something freaky going on out here!” Holly called.
Oh God. “Are the Rapture here? The Bellows?” Michael asked.
“No, it’s . . . I don’t know what it is!”
Patrick paled even more; Michael remembered the Bellows in the city streets with dark bites in their skulls: bites delivered by the new kid, by the changed one, Cady Gibson. How long until the other Bellows came to life, like Hank? How long until all the bitten creatures sat up in the streets, their hollow eye-pits blinking, their skeleton fingers uncurling? How long until their thousands of shrieks raved in the night like sirens on a raid from Hell?
Better question: How long until you change?
“It’s not safe out there!” Michael shouted, panicked, his voice cracking.
“Michael, listen—” she called. “Jopek’s—he’s—something weird is—”
“Now!”
“But—Christ!” she said, frustrated and afraid. “Fine!”
The mountain of rubble clattered as Holly entered the makeshift tunnel.
And what will you do after she gets in here, Gamer?
What are you going to do? Use them magic protectin’ words to make some more cure, Mikey?
“Bub. Listen to me. When Holly gets in, we’re going to have to . . . to . . .”
“We were supposed to work together. You said we could just play. You can . . . you can . . .” Patrick paused.
He’s starting a sentence and hoping I finish it. And with a wave of self-hatred, Michael realized that that was the way it had always been. Patrick would start to feel something and look to Michael to make sure it was okay. That was his world: trusting Michael, playing The Game. ’Cause even if he didn’t know I was the Game Master, Michael thought, he still thought I was in charge. Michael had forged that world for him.
The End Games Page 27
