One of Us

by Craig DiLouie

  Goof jumped from his chair and went out in the hallway.

  Officer Baby huffed toward him.

  As usual, the giant cop didn’t say a word.

  Goof ran as the corridor turned red. Fixtures in the ceiling flooded the hallways with angry light. A deafening Klaxon wailed, followed by a polite British woman saying, Special Facility is in lockdown. Code Five is now in effect.

  He stopped to catch his breath and wheeled to look behind him. The corridor stood empty, just blank walls that smelled like cleaner. Then Officer Baby turned the corner, breathing hard through his mouth. Keys jingled on his belt.

  Like something out of a nightmare, Goof knew he could run and run like a rat in a maze, but eventually the giant would corner him. The big fat cop would sit on him and crush his chest. He’d die gasping and squirting like a McDonald’s ketchup packet.

  He ran anyway, howling in terror.

  He should have taken the gun. Present-time Goof was always smarter than past Goof. Past Goof didn’t pay attention, act smart, or plan ahead. Present Goof was a genius compared to that guy. He hadn’t brought the gun, and now he’d die for it.

  A figure appeared at the end of the hallway. Automatic weapons fire popped somewhere in the facility. He reeled in blind panic and stopped again as Officer Baby showed up at the other end.

  The guard pulled out a shiny black baton. It looked like a toy in his hand, but Goof knew once it hit his head it’d be bigger than anything.

  Officer Baby smiled. Goof just knew the big cop was going to enjoy this.

  “Get down,” a voice called behind him.

  He whirled in place, almost tripping himself. Pussy advanced with her arms pointed forward, the wrists of her clawed hands pressed together. He wheeled again and saw the giant guard stomping toward him just ten feet away.

  “Get down on the ground, you big dummy.”

  He threw himself on all fours.

  Air ripped over his back, pushing his shirt up to his neck and scraping his skin like sandpaper.

  Officer Baby staggered as his chest disappeared. Goof could see right through him. Ribs, heart, and lungs rocketed fifty feet down the corridor like a big red basketball and exploded against the far wall.

  The guard fell on his face. A bloody paste slid down the wall.

  Goof gaped while Pussy helped him up. “What did you do?”

  “I broke him,” she said.

  “And then some. They’re fixin’ to kill us all. That’s what Code Five means.”

  “I know that, dumbass. That’s why I’m here. They tried to do me in already. We’re busting out of here.”

  “That’s amazing, what you did. You saved my ass.”

  “Guess you owe me one now.”

  “Owe you? I think I love you.”

  “And I think you’re—”

  “A big stupid idiot,” he said with a grin.

  Gunshots rang out in another part of the facility.

  “Can we go now?”

  “Wait. Future Goof says we need to get Officer Baby’s keys.”

  Tramping feet. Three guards turned the corner. Black uniforms and helmets. Automatic rifles in their hands.

  “Stop there,” one called.

  Goof screamed, “WHILE I KILL EVERY MAN HOLDING A GUN.”

  The guard staggered before righting himself. He shouldered his rifle and fired into his comrades’ backs. Then he walked up to pump more rounds into their writhing forms. This done, he positioned the barrel against his right eye. Goof turned away at the gunshot so he didn’t have to see it.

  “Well, shut my mouth,” Pussy said and took his hand. “Come on.”

  They ran down the corridor and found more guards, whom they killed, and kids, whom they rounded up into an army. Some they found dead, riddled with bullets in front of walls painted with blood. Mr. Hand’s little body sprawling in a red puddle, his six arms splayed around him. Most, though, they found alive. A boy covered with growths that looked like fungus. A girl with an enormous head perched on a squat body grown strong enough to support it. Many more with powers Goof couldn’t even guess.

  Security cameras swiveled to follow their progress across Special Facility. The Klaxons blasted full volume.

  They reached a set of doors. Goof shook the keys in his hand while he looked for a lock with a keyhole.

  “It’s got a keypad,” Pussy said. “You got to know the code.”

  “Too bad Mr. Hand ain’t alive. Ain’t that what he did? Open things?”

  “All y’all stand back,” Pussy said.

  Goof ran behind her. He didn’t want to be anywhere near that awful blast again. The girl raised her hands so her wrists touched.

  “If it ain’t broke,” she said.

  The air between her and the doors became supercharged and fuzzy, like looking through the bottom of an empty Coke bottle. Vibrations purred deep in Goof’s chest. Then she recoiled, releasing her energy.

  Sound of tearing metal. The doors crumpled and flew away.

  The kids poured into the room. Men and women in lab coats fled screaming. These were the scientists who ran the experiments, a different form of Discipline designed to educate themselves. Goof spotted Zack backpedaling until he struck the wall, long blond hair flying. He remembered sharing the smile one gives when a smartass recognizes one of his own. Pussy aimed her terrible hands and blew the man into more red paste. The plague kids swept across the rest like a whirlwind while Goof laughed so hard he cried.

  Cried so hard he laughed again.

  Forty

  Sheriff Burton deputized every volunteer who showed up with a weapon. Sixty shooters worth a damn and another hundred fifty who probably weren’t. He left it to Beth to get them sorted. Herding cats had never been his strong suit.

  Outside town, every farmer had a gun, but they lived scattered all around and had bunkered down for the duration. With its population of five thousand, Huntsville had raised around two hundred fighters. It wasn’t near enough.

  Buddy Parnell pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. “We brought the lights. Where you want them?”

  Burton pointed. “Right about there.”

  Buddy and his brother Vernon heaved the brace of high-wattage lights and set it down where he wanted. The generator powered up. Bright light flooded the county road that snaked northwest out of town.

  The sheriff’s department had laid a row of sawhorses on the road along with two police cruisers that sat face-to-face with their overheads flashing. An impressive show, hopefully enough to keep the creepers away.

  “Thank ye,” Burton said.

  “Glad to help out,” Buddy said. “You really think they’ll come, Sheriff?”

  “We’ll be ready if they do.”

  “Me and some of the boys, we was thinking we could make a run out there. The creepers could be halfway to the Talladega by now.”

  “Highway Patrol will be here by morning,” Burton said. “Then we’ll all go out together first thing and put this to rights.”

  “If you say so, Sheriff,” Buddy said and walked off, puzzled.

  He’d placed the volunteers on the three roads leading out of town, concentrating his strength on the western side facing the Home. The roadblocks were for show. Put a creeper behind the wheel of a car and he’d crash it into the nearest tree. If they came, they’d come on foot, and they might come from anywhere. They’d wiped out twenty men in the time it took him to brush his teeth this morning. He had a bad feeling if they came, they could jerk this town through a knot.

  The air smelled like coffee, which was being handed out courtesy of Belle’s. Matrons served sandwiches. A boy played his guitar and sang. Men and women walked past carrying rifles and gear. Burton spotted more townsfolk out to watch the excitement than the fighters. They sat on their tailgates drinking beer and making a party of it. The armed volunteers huddled in groups, casting strange looks in his direction, like they were wondering whose side he was on. He’d
driven out with thirty men to arrest some kids and returned with ten.

  And they weren’t the worst of it. The families had come to town looking for the men who now lay dead in the woods. He’d told them the truth, which they absorbed as a shock that was now turning to fury. Silent widows glared at him, unable to accept that their kin were dead while he still drew breath.

  It made him angry, too, all of it. If he’d done the right thing from the start. If he’d been quicker on the draw. If he hadn’t been worried about re-election. If any of these things, all of this mess might have been prevented or at least delayed.

  His radio bleeped. “Hunter Five to Hunter One, radio clear?”

  It was Sikes, calling from the southern roadblock facing the Home. Burton keyed his radio. “Go ahead, Five, over.”

  “Are we letting folks leave town?”

  “Negative on that, Five.”

  “Because we, uh, let some folks drive out.”

  “Whatever got in your head to let them do that?”

  “Parker and Callie had to go fetch her mama. Her mama lives out by the Home. She’s an old lady can’t defend herself.”

  “Five, allow me to be very clear. Nobody goes in or out. Got it?”

  “Okay,” Sikes said.

  “One, out.”

  Palmer walked up with two Styrofoam cups filled with coffee. He handed one to Burton. “Anything wrong, Sheriff?”

  “Other than Bobby Sikes being dumber than a box of rocks? Not a thing.”

  “He tries real hard.”

  “It’s like he weren’t there when the creepers killed twenty armed men out in them trees,” Burton said. “Like he napped through the whole thing. One of these days, I’m gonna whup him good. Any word from Highway Patrol?”

  “They said they got their hands full near Macon. They’ll send units here soon as they can.”

  Macon was a bigger town and received priority attention. Huntsville was under siege. And for now, on its own.

  “Headlights,” a man called out from the barricade.

  A hush fell over the excited crowd. Rifles clicked and snapped as the militia checked their loads and locked bullets in their firing chambers.

  “Don’t shoot unless I give the order,” Burton said.

  The glimmer on the road brightened to glare. An engine growled in the warm night air. The truck honked as it approached the barricade. A man stood on the truck bed.

  “That’s Jud,” a man cried. “It’s the Waldens.”

  Farmers with a homestead about five miles out.

  “Move the sawhorses,” Burton ordered. “Let them boys in.”

  The militia did as they were told. Palmer ran to his cruiser and backed it out of the way. The Waldens’ truck rumbled into town, the driver pounding the horn.

  Jud stood on the bed like Caesar, legs spread apart and rifle resting on his hip. “We got one. We got a creeper.”

  People crowded around to see. They pressed in shouting. Over their heads, Burton sighted a girl sitting in the back, another child that got beat by the ugly stick at birth. She had a trunk where her nose and mouth should have been. Her wild eyes were human enough, though. He recognized human terror.

  Burton approached the cab, where Jud’s daddy sat grinning behind the wheel puffing a cigar. “Evening, Roy.”

  “We bagged one for you. How about that, Sheriff.”

  “You did good. What happened?”

  “Not much to tell. Jud were on his way to check on the livestock, and then this creeper comes out the woods and walks right up to the house.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we tied her up and drove her here.”

  “Thank ye, Roy.”

  “Hey, is there a reward or anything?”

  The sheriff shoved through the crowd. The townsfolk were all shouting, working themselves into a lather. The girl flinched in the bed as if struck by the sound.

  He noticed bruising on her face where the Waldens had roughed her up. Jud stood over her like a big game hunter posing with his kill.

  “What’s your name?” he said.

  She shrank from him, her eyes gleaming with fear. The end of her trunk timidly rose and pointed in his direction.

  “Elly,” it said.

  “I’m Sheriff Burton. I won’t hurt you, Elly. Tell me what happened.”

  “The kids, sir. They killed all the teachers and burned up the Home.”

  “And then what?”

  “I got scared. I went to get help.”

  “You did real good, Elly. I’m gonna take you somewhere safe.”

  He turned and looked around for Palmer, didn’t see him in the mob. He spotted Deputy Nagy and waved at him to come over.

  Hands reached in from the other side and yanked the girl out of the truck.

  “Hey,” Burton shouted. “Goddamnit.”

  He elbowed past faces and bodies, the bright lights glaring in his eyes. Men led Elly through the crowd. One held up a coil of rope. The girl was screaming. The sheriff cleared the mob and raced to head them off.

  He recognized their faces as they boiled up at him. Lee, Casey, Ruby, Jackie, Luke, and many others he’d known most of his life. Him standing alone. The girl hanging her trunked head, bawling with fear and shame.

  He said, “I’ll take it from here, Lee.”

  “They killed Jack, Sheriff.”

  “We’re gonna have our justice,” Ruby told him.

  “Reggie had his justice and started a war,” Burton said. “No more vigilantes. I’m the law in this town, and the law says she goes in a holding cell.”

  The crowd tried to shout him down. Lee and Ruby exchanged a wondering glance, ready to cross the line but unwilling to cross the sheriff.

  Palmer appeared behind him, backing him up. Burton spotted Nagy again. The deputy turned away as if he hadn’t seen him.

  “Hand over that girl,” the sheriff said. “Justice will be served, but it has to be done right.”

  “Tom Burton,” a voice cried.

  The crowd fell into a simmer as a young woman emerged from the crowd. Her curly red hair was tangled and wild around its bun from her pulling at it. She’d scratched her face in grief, producing bloody welts.

  “Mason went out with you this morning,” she said. “He didn’t come back. You came back, but he didn’t.”

  “I am truly sorry for your loss, Barbara. But I can’t allow this.”

  “You ain’t sorry. I’m sorry. My little girl is sorry. What are you? You led twenty good men out there, and now they’re dead. You ain’t even the sheriff.”

  Burton gazed back at her, stunned. His head filled with words but none of them proved adequate to the task of answering her grief. His eyes roamed the angry and scared faces and knew she’d voiced what they were all thinking. Twenty men had fought and died while he’d run for his life.

  She was right about one thing. Come November, he would no longer be the sheriff.

  “Step aside, Tom,” Lee said.

  The pity in his voice was hardest to bear of all.

  The mob surged forward. Ruby had knotted a noose, and they used it to drag the crying girl along toward one of the town’s four traffic lights. The rest streamed past, nudging Burton aside until he ended up outside the crowd.

  “What do you want to do?” Palmer asked him.

  The mob roared when it reached the traffic light. The rope danced and looped around the metal supporting arm. The light turned red as they hauled the girl kicking into the air.

  This wasn’t justice. It was mindless vengeance. Ritual sacrifice.

  “I’m putting an end to this,” Burton snarled.

  The sheriff waded into the cheering crowd, shoving people aside. The girl swung overhead, fingers wedged between the rope and her throat. Just enough to die even slower. Still, he wouldn’t make it in time.

  He unholstered his revolver and aimed it. The big gun roared in his hand. The slugs punched through her kicking form. The body jerked and went slack, still swinging o
n the rope.

  The crowd seethed around him, people yelling and pushing to get out of his way. He returned his smoking gun to its holster.

  “Lynching’s over,” he said. “Get back to the roadblock before I lose my temper.”

  The mob melted away, leaving the girl dangling on the creaking rope. Palmer took off his hat and ran his hand through his thinning hair. Burton stared at the body a while, waiting until time and breath took the edge off his rage.

  In all his years in law enforcement, he’d never killed anybody. His first shooting turned out to be a girl whose only crime was being a creeper in the wrong time and place. The shooting was murder, the murder an act of mercy.

  “So help me,” he said.

  “Sheriff?”

  “Help me cut her down, Jim.”

  He was still sheriff, at least for one more night. That’s all he needed. Just long enough to get his town through this crisis. Long enough to keep Anne safe.

  After that, he’d gladly hand over his badge and gun to another man, and this town could go to hell.

  Forty-One

  The mass of plague children marched up the old road at twilight, breathing freedom for the first time.

  Mary gripped Big Brother’s hand. She’d always been afraid of the dark. The dark hid scary people and noises. She’d never seen the scary people, it being dark and all, but she just knew they might be there. They were there during the day, why not at night as well? As for the noises, she’d heard them herself.

  Headlights up ahead.

  “Pretty,” she said.

  The beams swept the column choking the road. Silhouettes flickered as the kids rushed forward. Brakes squealed like a steel pig. The headlights shook. A man shouted. The horn blared once, twice. The lights winked off.

  Metal clatter. Ripping metal. A piercing scream rent the air.

  “Scary sound,” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” Big Brother said. “Look at all your brothers and sisters walking up this road together. We’re free now, Mary. Free means you can do anything you want without anybody ever bothering you.”

  She squeezed his hand tight. She loved Big Brother. Big and warm and covered in soft fur. A very gentle boy. He said he watched over her even when he wasn’t around, so she should never be afraid. She believed him, but she often got scared anyway. She couldn’t help it.