Chapter 24
San, San, Go Away
Following the plan, Ty led the charge toward San, Gentry trailing behind him. San watched them approach with amusement.
“What are you two cooking up? Something good I hope; that last attempt was rather disappointing.” He stood at his full height, relaxed. He appeared to have recovered from Gentry's lucky shot and returned to his default overconfident state.
Ty was reminded of what San told the monkey in his office about not underestimating Gentry. He should take his own advice.
Ty kicked off the cement as hard as he could. Gentry sped under him and fired his hands at San who held his own up, preparing to catch Gentry's. The puppet had something else in mind. He yanked the strings down, changing the hands' courses and going under San's own hands, instead focusing on his feet. Gentry's fingers burrowed into the ground, holding San in place.
Ty, still in the air, flew closer to San but was losing altitude fast. Gentry offered help with that, his strings reeling in and pulling him along with it. He tucked in his legs and flipped forward onto his head. Ty landed on the puppet's feet, Gentry kicked him up, and Ty jumped at the highest point, soaring back into the air.
San stared at Ty, now above his head with his sword held back as he plummeted toward him, visibly impressed. Then his smile flared almost maniacally, giving Ty a sinking feeling in his gut that had nothing to do with his fall.
It happened fast. First, San clapped his hands together and caught Ty's sword on the flat of the blade, stopping it inches from his face. San's hands and feet now occupied, Gentry went for the key again, aiming to break the orb with his head. Something long darted from San's mouth, wrapped around Gentry, and pushed him back to the ground. The puppet screamed in pain but Ty couldn't see why. The thing binding him looked like a tongue but something was odd about it. It was shiny, sort of glowing, and appeared more liquefied than solid.
Ty struggled to pull his blade free from San's grip. The skeleton let go of Ty's sword and smacked him with the back of his hand. The boy's body hit cement with an awful crunch.
“Ty!” Gentry cried through his pain.
San sucked in the strange red thing and transferred Gentry to the palm of his hand. The puppet and San stared at each other, brimming with hatred.
“I grow tired of this.” San drove Gentry face first into the cement, over and over again.
Ty got back on his feet in seconds and sped to his friend's rescue. He slashed at San's back without a word, hoping to catch him off guard. He didn't. San dodged the swipe with ease.
“You want me to put him down, do you? I think that is an excellent idea!” Laughing, San held Gentry high above his head and threw him at the ground with ungodly strength.
Gentry hit, creating a crater in the cement, then popped back up, the momentum bouncing him along the ground and leaving a trail of craters as he went. It was several hops before he ran out of speed and came to a stop. Gentry did not stir.
In a rage, Ty lunged at San, his enemy easily dodging the blow. Ty swung to the side and San pushed the blade away with little effort. Ty tried again and San kicked him roughly in the chest, knocking the boy off of his feet.
Ty caught himself with his free hand and pushed himself back up, into another swing. This time, San caught his wrist and twisted. Ty yelled in pain and lost his grip on the sword. San lifted Ty off the ground and tossed him over his shoulder.
San bent down (quite the task for one of his stature) to pick up Ty's sword. He ran his hand up and down the multicolored blade. “What is this toy?”
He gave it an experimental swing, the usual brilliant streaks of light nowhere to be seen. The longer San held it the less real it looked, slowly returning to its more blocky appearance.
With a grunt of effort, Ty got back onto his feet. He was out of breath and his body ached, but Ty didn't care about any of that. He wouldn't let San win. Without thinking, without even considering the fact that he was unarmed, he dashed in San's direction.
He turned around, saw Ty, and said, “Ah, there you are. Tell me, boy! Where did you get this?” Ty threw a punch at one of San's kneecaps, one of the few places he could reach. San used just one finger to push Ty's fist down, then flicked the boy on his forehead, knocking him back several feet.
“Well then. You must not care too much for it. How about,” San smiled evilly, held the sword with both hands, and brought one of his knees up. “I break it?”
Ty watched in horror as the sword went down to where San would snap it like a twig.
“Give,” Ty leapt into motion again, “that,” he jumped into the air, “BACK!”
The sword shattered, a whole second before it would have hit San's knee. The bricks scattered and swarmed toward Ty's outstretched fist. He quickly opened it, the bricks rushing to fill the gap, reforming his sword with lightning speed.
“What?” San's face slackened, showing a new emotion: shock. Ty enjoyed the sight so much that he almost forgot to attack. Almost.
Ty spun in the air, rammed his sword into the eye, glass shards going everywhere—as well as the key. Ty landed on the ground and it fell neatly into his hand. “I... caught it!?” He said the words as a mixture of a shout of joy and a question, the perfection of what he’d just done was so unlike him, he found it hard to wrap his head around.
San, on the other hand, caught on.
Ty, still taken aback by his accomplishment, was oblivious to everything... including the pair of hands set on tearing through his flesh.
#
A familiar shadow rushed to Ty's rescue, scooping him up and depositing him out of San's reach. Ty was disoriented, not certain as to what just happened. But the details didn't matter—he was overjoyed to see Gentry up on his feet.
“Look,” Ty held up the key, grinning ear to ear. “I got it! I actually—”
He stopped talking when Gentry turned to look at him, revealing a ghastly sight. He was a scratched and mangled mess. More cuts covered his face like cobwebs. The wood above his left eye had been broken, a chunk of it pushed over the orb, giving it the look of a black eye.
“I'll admit, that was quite the beating,” his voice was cheerful but weaker, tired.
He attempted a chuckle but couldn't quite manage it, whatever mechanism inside of him that handled the sound giving off an unpleasant crunching and clinking noise. Gentry closed his mouth, embarrassed that the sound came from him.
“Anyway, don't worry about me. That's great that you got the key; be sure to put it somewhere safe.”
Ty was worried—but he did as he was told and slipped the key inside his pocket.
“Bravo, Gentry,” San mocked his foe with a round of applause. “If it wasn't for you, the boy might have died. I apologize, to the both of you. I lost control. Gentry, you should understand that very well...”
Gentry opened his mouth to speak but Ty cut him off, saving him the trouble of asking, “What do you mean?”
“You don't know.” He leaned forward, looking closer at his enemies. “You both don't know, do you?”
He roared with laughter, leaning way back, holding his stomach. He quickly recovered, wiping a fake tear from the corner of his empty socket. “Ahaha, oh, this is rich. You are pathetic, puppet. You can't even face what you are—after all this time! Allow me to jog your memory.”
With a sinister smile, San snapped his fingers and a small troop of sock monkeys stormed out of the factory, carrying something on their backs. They went straight to San, dropped their load at his feet, and marched back the way they'd come, closing the huge doors behind them.
There were three bags. Their size and shape familiar to Ty; he'd seen them many times in movies and TV shows.
Body bags.
San unzipped them, one by one, revealing the bat-monkeys inside. “Remember them? What did the two of you think happened to them? That they made it back safe and sound and I had them tucked away in a cozy corner of the factory? He,” San pointed an accusing finger at Gentry, “murdered them. Well, okay, not this one.” San kicked aside one of the bags. “But the others? All him.”
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“That isn't...” Gentry began, unsure how to finish the sentence.
“Isn't it? Would you like to know where I found them? In a dumpster. Not only did you kill them, you threw them away like pieces of trash.”
“You're lying.” Gentry stepped back, fear clear on his face.
“You know I'm not. Deep down, you know.”
Ty looked back and forth between San and Gentry, finally focusing on his friend. “Don't listen to him! It's just mind games, you know that.”
“Is it, Ty?” San cocked his head to the side, still grinning wide as he pointed to the Elves. “Did you think him capable of something like that? You watched as he killed my Elves without a single ounce of emotion or restraint. It was fast and clean... the work of a killer.”
Behind Ty, Gentry crumpled to his knees, the truth of San's words brought back the memories of what he’d done. Ty could see the images reflected in his eyes. At first it was only the monkeys, how he killed and disposed of each of them, but then it got worse. Flashes of violence flew around the inside of his head, showing Ty places and people he did not know. Each new face was wiped away as the puppet cut them down, moving onto his next memory, his next victim.
Gentry screamed, his cloak flapping all around him in a frenzy.
“Gentry!” Ty ran to his friend's aid.
“Stay back!” The booming command frightened Ty into stopping. “You have to get to the door!”
Gentry got back on his feet somewhat, one hand pressed on the ground to keep him up while his other held his head.
“Not without you.”
“You have to. I... don't want to hurt you.”
Ty stepped closer to his friend. “Gentry, what—”
“KEEP AWAY!” The words burst from his mouth, screams following close behind.
Gentry fell back, holding his head with both hands as his cloak thrashed faster, spreading out in a circle around him. It spun, becoming more of a black blizzard than a piece of clothing.
Ty rounded on San. “What's happening to him!?”
“How should I know? Personally, it looks like a psychotic breakdown to me.” His joyful smile angered Ty.
Gentry's screams reached new heights. Inside the eye of the storm, his friend changed. The strands of the cloak latched onto him like ropes. As more attached, they overlapped, overtaking Gentry's body in darkness.
Ty couldn't stop himself any longer. He disobeyed Gentry's wishes and plunged into the tornado of spinning black.
“Ohoho, this should be an interesting show,” San said as he pulled a small box of popcorn out of his coat pocket, shoveling uncooked kernels into his mouth.
#
The cloak—or living shadow, he really didn't know which anymore—was all around, devouring him once he stepped inside. Two feet in and shadows moved to block his entrance, becoming an impenetrable wall of black.
There was nowhere else to go but forward.
Every step felt weighted down by tons of pressure. The cloak didn't want him anywhere near its master. In his hand, Ty's sword shoke, the light show following suit. At once his body felt lighter, the pressure pushing against him still present but hesitant; afraid. He held the sword out in front of him, lighting his way toward the center.
The cloak couldn't stop him. Only a few feet remained between the boy and Gentry. His mouth opened in a scream, but no sound escaped his painted lips. His body was almost all black, small patches of the brown wood underneath all that remained.
The closer Ty got, the more the pressure returned, determined to hold him back despite his guardian light. He felt solid things and realized that strands of the cloak touched him directly, pulling him away from Gentry. The tendrils focused on Ty's sword and made sure to bind the hand holding it. Ty had no way of fighting back.
He reached for Gentry with his free hand before the cloak could tie it down. The tip of his middle finger touched Gentry's face and the puppet reacted, his eye looking at him, desperate and afraid. Then the cloak conquered it and the rest of his friend, its conquest complete.
The pressure evaporated, the ropes retracted, and the storm of darkness rushed inside of itself—inside Gentry.
Ty was disorientated by the climate change and stayed frozen in place. Gentry slumped forward onto his knees, his features hidden under black, making it impossible to tell if he was dead or alive. Movement came back to Ty's body as he inched closer to his friend and touched him lightly on the shoulder.
The puppet's head swiveled irregularly to face him, and a wave of shadows exploded from inside of Gentry, blasting Ty off his feet. Ty rolled along the ground and landed in front of San with a thud.
“Huh,” San said, tossing his popcorn aside. “I was hoping that would have lasted longer...”
Ty rolled away to put some distance between them. He noted how close the door was, how easy it would be to slip by and open it... but the thought was discarded at once—Gentry needed him.
The shadows around the puppet were gone. His black figure stood in the middle of the square, his head bent toward the sky, hands limp at his sides.
San sighed, loud and drawn out. “This sure is boring. Is he even alive?”
Gentry's head moved, looking right at San.
Then he vanished, reappearing on San's head as his feet pounded against it. San's body disappeared into an alley on the complete opposite side of the square.
Gentry slowly turned to face Ty. Bad vibes poured out of the puppet, urging him to run. He tried to bolt to his feet but was back on the ground in a millisecond with Gentry on top of him. Ty brought his sword up in an arc, a tendril of shadows stopping his hand mid-swing and slammed it against the ground until Ty's grip broke and his sword spiraled out of reach. More tendrils bound his arms and legs for good measure.
Gentry raised a fist, prepping it for a crash course to the inside of Ty's skull.
In the seconds before the punch hit, Ty wondered why his friends kept trying to kill him.
#
BOOM!
The blow was deafening, the sound echoed through the town and rang in Ty's ears.
Ty didn't feel anything. Was death supposed to be so calming? He opened one eye, and there was Gentry. To his right, a large crater in the cement. It missed his head by inches.
“Ty.”
Did he really just hear that? It was faint, barely more than a whisper but...
“You need to...” It was Gentry, the shadows around his mouth moving aside, allowing his friend to speak. Only in short bursts, it seemed, the darkness seeping back over his mouth. Gentry fought hard for control.
He spoke again, “Get out of here. I... can't hold it back much longer.”
The shadows released their death grip on him and Ty slipped out from under Gentry, over to where his sword fell.
“No. I'll drag you if I have to,” the boy said.
Ty made to do just that when a dozen of the shadowy vines sprouted from Gentry's back. They lunged for Ty, surrounding him on all sides. He hid behind his blade, the best he could manage against the tendrils' speed.
The vines stopped before they ever even touched him. Ty lowered the sword, looking over it at Gentry. The shadows on his face bubbled like boiling water as the puppet fought against his cloak, freeing first his mouth and then an eye.
“Listen to me,” Gentry's voice was a growl, deep from within his throat. “If you stay...” The cloak won a temporary victory, covering Gentry's mouth before he could regain control a few seconds later. “Next time, I won't be able to stop it. I will kill you.”
The puppet's eye was what got to him. His pain, his worry, his need to know Ty was safe; it was all reflected in that glowing glass orb. What choice did he have?
The fight went out of Ty and he asked, “Will I see you again?”
His painted mouth quivered, about to give him an answer, when a red vine whipped around Gentry's waist. Ty dove for his friend, but was too slow. San pulled the puppet off across the square and into his grasp. He reappeared from the alley, furious.
Ty went for the door, digging around for the key in his pocket as he ran.
“No you don't, boy,” San said as he tossed Gentry back the way he came.
Ty noticed in time and dropped to the ground as Gentry whizzed over his head, the puppet still attached to the red stuff. A long line of it led from him to San with Ty in the middle. He rolled aside as it fell, burning the ground where it landed.
San walked closer with a kind of grin that said he was up to something. When he yanked the rope, Ty figured out why. He fell to his left, narrowly avoiding Gentry as San pulled him back. Ty could see where this was going.
San hit the puppet with his fist and knocked him back at Ty like a tetherball. Ty ducked under it and made a dash for the door, only to be cut off by the puppet's return trip.
This “game” continued, San eventually pushing Ty all the way back to the center of the square. His strategy was annoying in its effectiveness as it both hurt Gentry and kept Ty from the door at the same time.
San stopped throwing Gentry. He looked very smug, happy with where Ty was and at the number of craters he'd made with the puppet's face. He held Gentry up to eye level.
“You know, old friend, I am disappointed in your performance. You put on that wonderful transformation, and I thought you were actually going to pose a challenge. And yet, here you are, so easy to throw about. Is this new look just for show?”
Gentry made no reply. San shook him up and down to inspire some sort of response. Still nothing.
“Boy, I think your friend is broken,” San said, just before he hurled him with the speed of a bullet.
Halfway to Ty, Gentry made his move.
A small collection of shadows shot out of the puppet, freeing him from his binds. He twisted in the air, grabbed the rope, and yanked, taking a page from San's book of tricks.
“This is more like it!” San laughed maniacally as he flew across the square.
He aimed a punch at Gentry but missed when the puppet used the red thing to pull himself down. He touched the ground for a split second, jumped, and delivered a powerful kick to San's chin. The blow knocked him into the air.
Ty couldn't follow everything that happened, but he knew enough that pointing his weapon at Gentry seemed like a capital idea. Thankfully, he ignored Ty and his shaking hand, and gave chase after San into the sky.
Gentry was a blur. He tossed punch after punch into San's gut, each blow bringing them higher until Gentry decided to end it. He flipped around San's body, kicked down, and turned San into a meteor, flames the only thing missing from the picture.
All of this happened in the span of a few seconds, Ty missed most of it as he made another attempt at the door. When he risked a glance up, San plummeting toward him was the least of his worries.
Gentry spread his arms wide and thousands of tendrils sprouted from his back, the sky filling with wiggling darkness. With a downward swipe of his hand, the shadowy vines obeyed their master and rained down after San.
Ty pretended he didn't see any of this, looked straight ahead, and ran as fast as he did when escaping the factory for the first time. The same as back then, he got to where he needed to be in record time, but was unable to stop. He face-planted into the door, bouncing off of it and landing on his back. Right where he'd have a perfect view of the shadowy spikes coming to kill him.
He dug the key out of his pocket, slammed it into the lock, and turned. The door swung inwards on its own, nothing but black inside. No time to think, no time to worry about Gentry, no time to even consider the horrible possibilities of where the door could lead. There was only room for action.
Ty threw himself through the door as the tendrils pounded the cement outside to dust. The door slammed shut, leaving Ty alone in the darkness, and with the strong impression that he was falling.