Under the clear blue sky, Darius and Nova sat at the counter in bent and dinged metal chairs surrounded by the destruction that would be left by a tornado. Debris lay strewn across the entire length of the mesa. Where the diner, the garage and the outbuildings had stood now, only the antique gas pumps remained untouched. It hadn’t been a tornado, though; it had been worse; it had been Chaos.
They thought they knew why, why the pumps remained. Because this was still neutral ground. Chaos couldn’t wipe out the entire place. It was supposed to be some sort of galactic magical waystation, well, a remote one, but the fact that it was a waystation mattered. There were rules, after all. Rules even Chaos had to abide by. The problem was that Darius, Brock and Nova were just beginning to comprehend their situation and the rules that went with it. Juro and Doctor Joy were here but they could only help as much as they could. That seemed to be another rule too.
Nova and Darius leaned against the broken peach-coloured counter and sipped tea.
Juro was on the other side of the counter. It was a small section of the original peach counter of the diner he dug out of the rubble.
He was wearing his floppy hat in the bright sun and was cleaning their dishes in a warm pan of sudsy water. Master Juro never changed, well, except when he transformed into an animal, but as a man, he always seemed happy and smiling. He had knocked the dents out of one of the old camp stoves and had set it up to cook from. He had sorted through the mess until he had found every salvageable can of food. Most of them were dented, but still, he had wiped them all down and arranged them along a metal shelf. He had even found the old fake wood box of jerky treats in their cellophane wrappers. He had placed them on the counter beside the blue steel cash register. Further down the counter, he had reassembled the small display rack with what remained of the earrings, necklaces and sunglasses.
Nova had a finger on the display, and she turned it slowly as she sipped her tea. The rack let out a little screech of complaint due to its newly bent condition. Dr. Joy had given Nova one of her outfits to wear which had improved Nova’s disposition considerably. The black military outfit and boots fit Nova perfectly. The Dr. had even added a black Red Cross vest that had extra padding and pockets that made Nova grin.
Nova plucked a different pair of sunglasses off the stand, put them on, and looked at Darius again.
“How bout this ones?”
Darius looked at her, considered, then shook his head ‘no.’
She returned them to the rack and continued to contemplate the other glasses that hung there.
Darius set his empty cup down.
“Thank you, Master Juro, for the meal. You’re sure you don’t want us to help you clean up?”
Juro shook his head ‘no’ and bowed to Darius, dish rag in his hand.
“Ok. Thank you again. I’m going to go see how they are doing with the limo.” He said, and as he walked away, added, “I don’t think any of the glasses will work Nova. They are all too big.”
Nova’s lips turned down in a contemplative pout, and she turned the wire rack and stopped it at the earrings.
They had spent most of the day searching the rubble for anything that was still serviceable. It hadn’t been much. The only thing Darius had found worth wearing was a brown zip-up hoodie with chain shaped writing that read ‘ace chains’ on the chest and ‘be better bound’ on the back. He wore this now over his ball jersey. He still had his uniform pants, complete with shin guards and cleats.
He walked by the gas pumps.
Electrical cords that the doctor had fashioned out of the electrical wiring ran helter-skelter across the ground. A crumpled refrigerator box they had dragged behind the counter had started running as soon as they had plugged it in. Juro had made a new door for the fridge out of a freezer lid and a bunch of rope. They had found some clean water and not much else other than the canned food and the camp stove.
They were roughing it, that was for sure.
Darius made his way through debris and cast-off parts that surrounded the limo. They had to get the car rolling. None of them had any idea how long they would be here, and they definitely needed supplies if it was going to be a longer stay. The place was a ruin. Also, finding some other type of civilization wouldn’t be a bad thing either.
Darius made his way through twisted metal sheeting, crumpled parts of the old silver bus and water truck parts to where toolboxes surrounded the limo. Some things had been added to the limo.
Both Brock and the doctor were under the open hood with that clacking ratching sound coming out from underneath.
Dr Joy had done a lot of work to the car before they had arrived, and she had asked for one of them to help her complete the repairs so the car would be once again road-worthy. Brock had immediately volunteered. Darius admired the new low wide metal tracks that had replaced the front tires. He could tell that it was the dual wheels from the silver bus that now made up the back axle of the limo. The big rear tires lifted it up in the back like a cartoon vehicle. He knew the car had been originally bulletproof, the glass and metal body having been reinforced, but even then, they had added steel sections cut and shaped from the tank of the water truck. Darius was a little concerned about where they might be going, and what they might encounter out there in the plains that would need an armoured limo to be armoured more. Even the sunroof had been fitted with a shield in the front like a tank with a peephole in it.
The engine had been changed into something that Darius didn’t think he had ever seen before.
Doctor Joy stood up and wiped her hands on a rag.
“There. I think he has the last of it. It was good he was able to help me. I have been able to show him a lot about what I’ve done. He’s a natural. Very mechanically inclined. You three should be able to head out soon.” The rachet noise steadily slowed and he heard Brock begin to grunt from the strain.
The clicking stopped. “There Doc. I think that’s the last of them.” Brock said.
“So…, what way are we to go, exactly?” Darius asked. “You guys got any idea at all?”
Nova had her elbow on the counter and a hand on her cheek as she slowly turned the display. The earrings glittered in the sunlight. All silver, or some type of fake silver-looking metal, she wasn’t sure. She stopped the rack at a section of earrings crafted into the shapes of animals. Juro had finished putting the remaining unbroken or only slightly chipped plates onto the open shelf behind him and turned to watch her.
She studied the selection of various silver animal shapes for a moment and then continued to turn the display. Juro wiped the top of the long counter.
“I’ve been thinking about you guys,” Nova said, none too loudly. Juro continued to wipe the counter as if he hadn’t heard. “The White Master, and Badrik, you know, I think have places to be. Or maybe the White Master, Master Ebisu is getting too old. Badrik still works, does the voodoo, you know.” She ran her fingers through the affirmative, “You and the Doctor are here in this no-where-land to help us. But not to lead us.”
She stopped the rack at the animal ear rings again. “Feed us. Get car fixed. You know. But not lead us. It is the three of us have to figure out the game. What base to steal. When to wait, when to run.”
She glanced at Juro, and he nodded.
She ran a finger over an elephant and then down to a tiger. She stopped on the tiger and looked to Juro.
He stood, watching. She moved the finger off the tiger and into a series of monkey shapes. A spider monkey, its arms forming a hoop. Juro stepped closer. She let her finger drop to another set of earrings, this time she turned the tag over and read it.
“A silver…?” the last word she enunciated the English slowly,“mar-mow-set. Is good monkey?”
Master Juro held up his hand as if to cup something, and mimed petting something in his hand with a fingertip. He nodded his approval.
“Little as that. How much do I owe? We don’t have no money.” Nova asked, taking up the earrings. Juro shook his head no and pushed them into her hand. She smiled at him and unfastened the earrings from the mount and attached the first one.
“I think we should go now. The limo is ready.” As she went to put the second one in her earlobe, Juro touched her hand, took the earring and laid it on the counter. He gestured to the rack again.
“Oh. Pick another silver?” Nova said and she ran her finger down to another monkey shape.
“Silverback gorilla.” Nova said as she removed the earrings from the rack. Juro nodded his approval. She gave him the earrings and he removed one gorilla and placed it in her palm. By the time Darius was returning, she was wearing both earrings.
“Alright, Nova. Looks like we’re ready to scout around a bit. If you’re ok with it, I think Brock has the most driving experience out of all of us. I put some water and stuff we might need in the car. Some full fuel cans the Doctor said we could probably trade for stuff to bring back here. You ready to go?”
Nova smiled at Juro. “Yes, it is time we go.”
The darkness around the car was complete. They had stopped somewhere in the midnight landscape of no-mans-land. Darius was slouched low in the front passenger side. The long wide leather bench seat cool in the desert air. On the far side, Brock sat, one arm straight, wrist draped on the steering wheel, the dashboard lights outlining him in a faint red. Darius’ eyes were closed, head back against the seat.
It had been a long, boring night.
There had been a long silence in their conversation. Darius picked it back up again because the doubt hadn’t left him. He had heard what Brock had said, but it hadn’t changed things.
“I just don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, is all I’m saying. How do we know if we’re on the right path?” Darius said.
“How does anyone ever know they are on the right path? We don’t ever know the future so we never know where we’re going. We never knew before this, before we were ‘recruited’, or whatever they did. Before they saved us. We never knew our path then, so why are you worried about knowing it now? We just gotta do what we gotta do, just like any folks ever do, that’s all I’m saying. Mister Mercury, Badrick, The White Master. They know, ok, I get that. Doesn’t mean we know too. Maybe you’ve been hanging around them too much. You can’t be like them because we’re not like them. They’re different, man. We’re just dudes, mate. We don’t know what they know, and we don’t know this new place we’re in.”
The limo sat still, its new engine at an idle was a much different sound than the old engine. Instead of the chug-chug-chug of an old nineteen-seventies giant gas engine, the limo now sounded like it was powered by a jet engine. Right now, it made a barely perceptible howl.
Darius turned his head to gaze out of his open passenger window.
“I can’t see a damn thing. I don’t know how she can.”
“Ya it sure gets dark out here at night, that’s for sure. Lucky this thing doesn’t need a road to travel on.” Brock gave the steering wheel a few adoring pats.
“I don’t know Brock. I just don’t know. They came into the hospital and saved me from that operation. They think I have some purpose and I have no idea what it is. And this is a strange place. We haven’t seen the sun since we left the diner. It should be morning by now. It feels like we have been driving forever. How am I supposed to know what to do when we can’t even find the sun?”
“Ya, we’re doing this without a map. That’s for sure. I know what you’re saying. I feel it too. Uncertainty. The strong feeling of uncertainty, man.”
The car roof thudded with the sound of boots and Nova dropped through the open sunroof and settled into the back seat.
“It good I come back.” She said. “Not stay outside any longer.”
“Why? You see something bad out there?” Darius bolted up and peered through the windshield.
“No. I need to come back in. You two sound like little babies. I have to come back to calm you down.”
“Lookit Nova…” Brock turned to the back seat.
“No. You look-it Nova. We are on path now. You think we fall into accident at swim pool? You think we become birds accident? You think we in super limo car is accident? You both stupid. Good thing I here or you would be crying like babies without mother.” She gave the seat back a kick with a black boot that rocked the boys. “Since Chaos came, we have been playing the game.” She thrust an arm between them to point across the front of the car in a slightly right-hand direction. “Now shud-up and drive that way. I see something far off that way. Maybe light, or fire, or something. Maybe shop. Maybe I buy baby toys for you.”
Brock pulled the chrome shifter arm down one notch on the side of the steering column.
“Could be anything.” He said. “Something good or something bad.”
“That right.” Nova replied. “So we play game. Time for you boys to get your game on.”
The new front caterpillar tracks, rear truck tires and suspension let the limo roll over the sedimentary rock and shale of the table hills with as much ease as if it were a hovercraft. The sound of the engine grew to a low whine as it took up speed across the open plain. The car had no trouble crossing any terrain just as long as it wasn’t steep enough to actually cause the car to begin to tumble and whatever modifications the doctor had done to the engine, it seemed to have unlimited power.
After driving through the darkness in the direction Nova had indicated, Brock and Darius were able to make out a flickering glow off in the distance and Brock began to slow. The four beam headlamps panned through the darkness as Brock steered the car towards a glow that looked more and more like the flickering orange of a campfire. He cut the engine and the lights. The three of them peered out the windshield, Nova leaning forward from the back between the boys.
“It looks like an old abandoned building.” Brock said, “With a fire in it. All the windows are smashed out.”
“Ya.” Darius said. Nova got out of the car and stood.
“Gives bad feeling,” Nova said.
“Well, you brought us here. You think we should leave?”
“No. Be careful though.”
They had stopped the car a fair distance away so they had a fair distance to walk. The darkness enveloped them. It was strangely silent, each of their footfalls a loud crunch into the dry ground. Nova put a hand on Darius’ chest, and they halted.
“I think I should go look.”
“If anyone should go, it should be me.” Brock said.
“And why not me? Because I am girl?”
“No. Not because of that. Just of all of us, I can take a better hit. Plus I have this.” And he lifted the two-by-four off his shoulder. He had dug it from the rubble of the diner. It had the look of a cricket bat with a notched grip wrapped with electrical tape. He had tossed it in the trunk.
“Ya. Brock is tough Nova. He may be right.”
“You take a hit, sure, and whatever it is catches you. Then we have to rescue. I go. No one catch me. No one hit me.” Brock looked at her with a frown of worry.
“You know that is a good idea,” Darius contemplated. “Distrations and all that. We go straight in really slow. She zips around from the outside. Has a look. Comes back. Fast and quiet. Tells us what she sees.”
Brock stood pondering them both for a moment. Then gave a slow nod. “Ok. But we should agree on a signal or something.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like a sign. If she gets caught, or can’t sneak away for some reason. Like in the movies. They do like a bird call or something.”
“Ok now big idea. Like other big idea of hypnotize. Bird call. You watch too many movies. If I have trouble the signal will be scream. Lots of scream. And swear. I probably swear too. So whatever bird sound is scream and swear loud in you language Nova will make those sounds same as that bird. Then you know big problem. Ok?”
“Right.” Brock said with a sigh of frustration.
“Don’t worry. No one touch me. You may be toughest. I am fastest.”
And with that she was gone. It was as if she had simply stepped off into the dark and vanished.
“Wait…” Darius said, peering into the darkness. “Where did she go?”
Brock stepped up next to Darius and peered off into the darkness on the right of the path. Nova had been on that side as they walked towards the dilapidated house.
Darius took a step to follow her, and he could see her again, standing there in the dark.
“Whoa. We lost you for a second. I wanted to say meet back at the limo if there is any trouble, but it was like you were gone. Man, it sure is dark here.”
“There is a fire inside an old house. A campfire. Something or somone around it. Like a picnic.” She said as she stepped closer.
“How do you know?”
“I went and looked. There is a wall around the building. Short wall. The old house has a little tower on it, like bell tower.”
“There is no way you made it there and back in that amount of time.” Brock said, lowering his homemade bat and gesturing at the house.
“What do you mean? You two have been here forever. Take me no time to run up and look and come back.” She replied to Brock.
“Nova. You were gone, like, for just a moment.” He said.
She gave him a quizzical look. “Really.” He continued.
“Well. I don’t know. I did nothing. Just run up quiet and look. Shadows hanging out around fire inside old house.” Darius gave her a confused look. “Really.” She mimicked.
None of them were in a hurry walking up towards the house. As they got closer, Brock and Darius could make out what Nova had described. Something sitting around a campfire inside the old smashed-out building. Occasionally there was a little movement, someone’s shadow passing in front of the fire.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
The building looked very unusual. It had a church steeple, but not made in the way a church would have; it looked more like it had been added later as an afterthought, like a town hall with a bell tower, but it was crooked. They approached the low wall Nova mentioned. A perimeter low enough to nearly step over, but too wide and made from a jumble of stone, wooden pickets and broken marble. Portions of words were traced by shadows across faces of the broken blocks. The building had a broad wrap-around porch like an old Inn and a platform to one side with an old wagon resting up against it amongst a pile of bleached white bones.
The path they walked led to a gap in the wall to a place where a gate would normally be, but only broken boards and pickets lay against the wall ends. A tall large post stood up on the left of the opening. It had a small cage suspended from a large wrought iron hook.
Something shifted in the cage that caused it to swing slightly.
Brock stepped up to peer into the cage.
“Careful.” Nova said, staying behind the boys.
Brock leaned forward and peered between the bars.
“It’s a little black kitten.” He said with a touch of amusement in his voice.
‘Meow’
A little black shape stepped closer, tipping the cage, and rubbed against the bars.
‘Meow’
The kitten batted a paw playfully between the bars at Brock.
‘Meow’
“Hey little buddy.” Brock stuck a finger in and scratched behind one little furry ear.
“I wouldn’t,” Darius said.
The cat nuzzled against Brock’s finger and began to purr.
“He’s just a little fella. Harmless.”
“We don’t know who belong.”
“He’s gotta’ little white collar here…” there was the tiniest tinkling sound. “With a little bell on it.” It tinkled again.
Then there was another tinkling bell. But the sound hadn’t come from the cage. They all looked beyond the cage, towards the house, for the location of the sound.
“There.” Nova said, pointing.
In the darkness of the courtyard, a wooden stake was plunged into the dry earth. Something small on the top of it had moved causing a rusty bell hung there off a nail to ring.
“Look at them all.” Nova said, pointing. “All in a line.” A long pole stood off beyond the stake, closer to the house. Something on the top of it moved. A clear glass bottle took up motion and swung from a length of twine off the pole. A lose stone clanked around inside the bottle.
“Something’s moved the bottle. There it goes.” Brock said, pointing. A little dark shape flickered off into the night.
“Is that a bat?”
“It looks too long for a bat. A flying lizard, maybe?”
“Tiny woman. Flies. Scales and fangs.”
“I think you’re reading too much into this Nova,” Brock replied.
And then another pole, a taller one, closer to the house had a piece of metal hung from it and now they could definitely see some small figure there strike the metal to make it ring out like a tiny gong. Some movement came from inside the house. Someone had stood up in front of the fire. Boot heels thumped across boards, and a slight figure wearing a cowboy hat came to stand in the doorway.
“Ah, company,” a voice said with a cowboy drawl. The shadow withdrew back into the house, boots thumping, and they returned with a flaming shaft of wood, carrying it like a torch, they strode off the porch towards them.
The torch lit up the yard to reveal oblong holes and dirt piles. Someone had dug up the entire yard between the wall and the house.
Little shapes fluttered in the night like starlings. A bell rang on a skeleton of a tree even closer to the house, and then another bell rang.
“Let’s see what the cat drug in.” the young cowboy voice said.
Darius thought he could see a tiny figure in the orange glow move from the last bell that rang and scamper up on top of the roof. A second little figure moved there in the eves, and another ringing noise accompanied it. Then he noticed another similar figure sitting on the windowsill of the second story that began hitting an old coffee tin with something.
The man carried the torch to them down the path. The face beneath the hat was in shadow, but Darius could see the glint of an old Western six gun as it swung low with each stride. He glanced at Brock and the homemade two-by-four cricket bat. Brock met his gaze with raised eyebrows.
“Holes is open grave,” Nova said from behind them.
Darius realized she was right. All the holes were grave-shaped. In the torchlight they could now make out coffin-shaped score marks at the head of each grave where a tombstone had once pressed or a hole where a cross had been yanked out of the dirt.
“A graveyard,” Darius said.
Darius glanced at the pieces of stone and wood that had been piled to form the wall. Smashed and broken wooden crosses, tombstones and coffins.
The man drew closer to them and stopped.
“Well.” He said and nodded. The voice did sound young. He wasn’t large. Somewhere between the size of Darius and Brock. His hat brim tipped a welcome to them. “You’re expected.” He said and turning to call over his shoulder, he said, “Go ahead girls and ring the big one. It’s them.”
The last bell. The bell in the bell tower was flocked by a dark swarm of flying shapes. A swirl of bats, Darius thought, swooped to push against the big cast iron bell and it was raised sideways. The swarm cleared and the bell fell to swing.
‘BONG!’ Darius winced. The sound was unnaturally loud. Amplified a thousand times, like the sound of a bell at a rock concert. The house shuddered and dust fell away from the dry, loose boards. The ground shuddered, and the noise rolled away into the distance. The figure threw the burning log on top of the broad low wall. Instantly the flames caught on the dry smashed wood and ran out along the wall top.
The man smiled. Darius could see now, closer to them that he was, it wasn’t a man. More like a teenager, or older boy. Somewhere around the same age as them.
Fire streaked across the wall, almost as if it had been doused with gasoline.
Kerosene. Darius thought. It would have been kerosene, in the olden days.
He had no idea where he had brought his friends to. Where they had wound up, with these open graves and kids in cowboy hats talking like they were in an old western movie, walking around with gunslinger guns on their hips.
The cowboy caught Darius’ gaze.
“It’s a signal fire. Along with the bell. He’s gonna’ know where to come for you now…”
The kid touched a finger to the brim of his hat and pointed off into the distance behind them.
They all turned to look.
Far off, a bolt of lightning flickered, ripping the distance with a zag of silver. For a moment, the lightning lit black bulbous clouds that were rolling towards them from the far horizon.
“Shouldn’t be long. We can chat while we wait.”
Fire continued to consume the old wood along the top of the wall. The swarm of flying things dove away from the bell tower to flow like a flock of sparrows, dividing and spiralling between the flames.
“What shall we talk about?” the cowboy asked.
Darius, Brock and Nova watched the oncoming electrical storm. A definite increase in the pulse of lighting arcs that was certainly coming closer.
“Who’s coming?” Nova asked.
“Oh, you know.” The fire had made the full circle along the top of the wall. The meowing noises became steady as the flames spread up to the base of the wooden pole and the birdcage.
“You should let your kitten out,” Brock said as flames began climbing up the post.
“Not mine,” He replied and leaned back against a portion of the wall that was only smouldering now. “Allow me to take this opportunity to introduce myself,” He held out a hand to Brock, who was the closest, “Alfonse Hector, but most just call me Alfie.” Brock didn’t take the hand, and his attention was on the kitten in the birdcage. The cowboy withdrew his hand and doffed his hat with politeness. Under his hat was an open skull. The top part of his head and hair was gone; it had been cut clean away surgically to reveal the plump, round pink of his brain. There was something moving there that could just be made out in the firelight. He bowed slightly and whatever it was fell to the ground.
Darius glanced down. Maggots. Live maggots writhed on the ground at the toes of the cowboy’s boots.
A retching sound came from Nova, directly behind him. She had a hand over her mouth. The young cowboy stood and set his cowboy hat back on his head.
“Ooops. Sorry about that. You’ll have to forgive me. I just keep forgetting. It’s how he put me back together.” He studied his open palm. “I keep forgetting. Woke me right up and put me back together with much less age showing compared to when I went into the ground. ‘New job, new opportunity’ he said.
“I’m going to let your cat out,” Brock said, reaching to the door of the birdcage as the fire began to lick around the base.
“I already told you, not mine.” The kid cowboy replied, “But do what you like. Me casa, sou casa partner.” He said with a friendly smile.
Brock barely touched the catch, but as soon as he did, it let go with an audible ‘click,’ and the door popped open like a jack-in-the-box.
They had left the limousine a far distance back behind them. With the low jumble of wall now fully engulfed with flames, the chrome of the limo grill winked at them across the distance.
The thing that had been a black long-haired kitten with a bell around its neck flowed out of the cage in a blur and struck Brock like a locomotive. The cricket bat he had been holding was shattered into wood splinters, and its loose ends pinwheeled where Brock had stood a moment before. Brock ‘whooshed’ through the air as he was carried off into the darkness, draped around a ram of dark muscle. The blur streaked back to strike the front of the limousine. The impact echoed with a ‘boom’ of crumpling metal.
“Brock!” Darius spun to race after his friend. “What the hell was that?! Nova…!”
“Hold up!” They heard the ratcheting click of a revolver. The sound stopped them in their tracks.
“Now stand still. Both of you, or you’ll be whistlin’ dixie through your necks.” They turned to face the cowboy and the big revolver. He grinned at them.
“He’s just gonna play a bit.” In the distance, they could hear claws ripping at the metal of the limousine. The cowboy whistled. “The Breaking Man left him. I see you got yourselves one of those new fan-dangled automobiles. Yowlers are pretty smart. It will wreck it so you can’t leave. You both best settle in. He won’t be long.” And again, there was that head nod towards the oncoming storm.
“I’ll continue with the introductions. The little ladies runnin’ the bells are dark shimmerlings. The yowler is his, but those little ladies he gave to me directly. I always marvelled at that sort of pixie thing ever since I saw this play in New York back in nineteen aught something. About this chap Peter that could fly. Had this little sprite faerie girl thing in it supposed to be about the size of a dragonfly. In the play, they had some fellow with a mirror reflecting candlelight around the stage, makin’ it look like this little faerie was flicking around talking with bells and such. The Breaking Man, well, he can open you up and read your memories. When he brought me out of the grave he read that memory in me and the girls here was his gift. A cloud, or a cauldron, he called them, all like that Tinker Bell pixie, but they don’t put out any niceness at all.” He said and shook his head.
Nova and Darius stood blinking at him. He held the gun straight into their faces.
The cowboy became quiet and glanced over his shoulder at the storm. He took up a confiding tone and said as if sharing a secret, “Funny thing was The Breaking Man told me it was You that gave him that power. That power to see into memories.” The kid raised his eyebrows and nodded apreceately. Leaning in close like he was, Darius couldn’t help but notice the guy was kinda handsome, a sandy blonde young movie actor handsome. With the movement, Darius couldn’t also help but notice how the gun barrel had been carried even closer to him. “Now that I’ve introduced everybody, it’s only polite you all do the same…” Nova took a step back.
“Now there, little girl, you stay put.” The gun barrel was now pointing directly at her. “You both stay here with me. You’ll be safe. You try runnin’ off, and that black magic cat will have a go at ya.”
“We need to see to our friend,” Darius said. He realized if he edged just a little closer, he would be slightly blocking Nova from the gun.
“You’ll see him later. He’ll be ok. Probably. Eventually. Well, maybe. But don’t let yourself fret about that, or you could step yourself into a heap of trouble, and you’ll wind up like your friend out there.” The gun barrel winked back to point at Darius.
“Darius. Brock…” Nova began and stopped. He voice was nothing but worry.
“I know Nova. Sir, we can’t stay here.”
“Sorry but my job is to keep you here till he gets here. I say you stay. He heard the bell. He sees the fire. Your friend there sprung his trap. Now he’s coming. Best you both settle in for a little spell.”
The storm was getting closer. Gentle currents of wind began to buffet the calm. Smoke roiled around them from the fire along the wall. The post and the birdcage were fully engulfed in flame.
Darius turned back and stepped towards the gun barrel.
“Let us go so we can check on our friend.” And with his right hand tucked slightly in beside his leg, he flashed Nova the hand signal that any baseball player would know.
Nova took off. A big cat materialized out of the darkness, but it was too late, and its mass of black sleekness swiped through the air where Nova had stood a moment ago. Its momentum carried it across the open space to slam into the stone wall beside Darius. The ball ans streak of muscle and claws spun and disappeared after Nova into the dark.
Where the cat had hit the wall, sparks from the fire danced, and broken chunks of tombstone tumbled to thud into the dirt.
“You move, I plug you one.” Darius stared back into the big dark hole where the bullet would come out. He realized he had never really looked right down the barrel of a gun before. He never had the opportunity to stare down into the bad end of a gun like staring down a dark tunnel. This was a strange place. From the black magic cat that had been a kitten, to the shimmer things ringing the bells to the speed that Nova seemed to be able to move. Nothing seemed right. He didn’t know what to do next. Nova and Brock needed his help, but he didn’t think he could. Not right now. He thought that if he tried, he would die. He was much too close to the business end of that gun.
Darius felt a light grip on his shoulder. He glanced behind him, and there was a ghost man standing there. An old man with a big white colonel saunders moustache. A ghost lady held the old man with a hand that wore a fine lace glove, and with the other, she held a parasol. Darius watched as the couple materialized, changing from wraiths into solid people he could no longer see through. The hand became heavy on his shoulder. Beyond the couple, behind them in the darkness, buildings were appearing. It was if they came into being, became more solid as Darius watched. Wood and glass forming out of a hint of an outline. He could see ghost shapes that were becoming more solid like the buildings were strolling down the covered porches across the street.
Darius stood with a cowboy holding a six gun to his chest as a ghost town was becoming real around him.
The noise and crash of Nova evading the beast now came from behind the row of buildings that stood across the old country town street. Darius realized the limo, and Brock, would be now somewhere on the other side of those buildings.
“Is that you, Alfie?” The old gent with a hand on Darius’ shoulder asked. Darius could smell cigar as the warm breath spoke over his shoulder.
“Yes, Mayor. It sure is. And you came along at just the right time. Don’t let your grip off that one there. We’re supposed to hold em’”
“No problem, Alfie. Glad to help. Saw your six gun out, so thought there might be trouble and figured I’d sneak up and put a grip on him for ya. Now son,” The man continued, his attention on Darius, and gave his shoulder a little shake, “You be good there and no tryin’ to run off, ya hear?” the old man peered back at the cowboy over Darius’ shoulder, “I must say, Alfie, for us bein the same age, you don’t look a day past havin’ your first beer.”
“Hector was buried in oh-eight, dear.” The lady interjected, tipping her parasol to the cowboy. “Before you.”
“By gosh, that’s right. I remember now. That’s the same night old Albert got so drunk he fell in the well. We didn’t find him till morning. Don’t tell me they didn’t take you?”
“Yep I guess. For some reason, they didn’t take me under, and left me planted.” The cowboy dipped his head so his hat brim gave a little affirmation. “But the breaking man came buy, gave me a new job catching these young ones here and said he’d make it fair, make me the same age as them.”
“That’s good Hector. We’re glad to have you back. You come to the house once this is done and we’ll have us some new flesh off these ones you’re helping him catch.” The lady said.
A chill ran through Darius and his mouth went dry.
The Mayor glanced around them, “I must say it’s nice to have the town back.” And this time it was the mayor’s turn to dip his hat. He dipped his hat at the oncoming electircal storm. It was much closer now. “And you got them with the ol’ Yowler in a birdcage trap.”
“Ya. The Breaking Man said they would be dumb, and they are. Not a stitch of wisdom between the three of em.”
Darius could hear another crash from between the buildings and then the chilling scream mixed howl of a big cat.
“And he’s having a good ol’ time of it. That one it’s chasing must be quick. Should have caught her by now.” The Mayor said.
“It doesn’t matter. As long as we’ve got them here, he’ll come.” Alfie’s pistol never wavered.
“But what are those tiny things flying about?”
“Ah. He said he wanted to give me all the help he could. Thought these kids may give me the slip. They are dark shimmerlings. Like that Tinkerbell thing in that play in New York, we saw that time. He wanted to make sure the summoning bell got rung once they tripped the trap in case I was ‘indisposed’ he said.”
“Well I wonder what is going to indispose you, the quickest gun I ever did see? I commend you, Hector. I’ll make a special toast to you tonight once everyone gets woken. We’ll have us a shin-dig.” The Mayor said with a grin in his voice. “It is so good having everyone back again, the town back again, you know?”
Another howl came screaming out from behind the buildings on the far end of the street. Darius didn’t know how long Nova could continue to avoid the beast, the yowler, the man called it. And he didn’t know how Brock was. He was losing. Darius could feel the worry beginning to course through him. He was going to get his friends killed. With that thought, Darius started to feel that heat of anger come up and replace the chill of worry. The anger made him think of Bucky, think of his old man, and all the damn days of torture they had both put him through. He was tired of it. Tired of it all. Had enough, actually.
“You’re going to let me go. Now.” Darius said.
“No. I don’t think so. He said I could shoot you if I had to. And I will.”
“Reginold. Let’s go, shall we? You’ll have time to talk with Hector later.”
“Ah darlin', this little lad’s gettin’ feisty,” the Mayor said. “I think I’ll keep my grip on him.”
A scream carried to them from the other side of the buildings. This time Darius thought it was Nova’s scream, but he wasn’t sure. It was Nova or something else out there, chasing her now. He had never heard her scream before. It was something she didn’t do, even though she may threaten to swear and scream all the time, he knew she was dead serious when it mattered, and she would never scream. Not like that sound. Not unless she couldn’t help it. Not unless she had just got hurt. Hurt really bad.
Darius was going to lose his friends. He had led them into an ambush. Led them into a trap that the Chaos/Bucky thing that he was sure these folks referred to as The Breaking Man had set for them.
And with Nova’s scream, Darius knew he had just run out of time.
Darius jerked out of the Mayor’s grip and the gun exploded.
He felt the hot thump of something on the side of his head, but no pain. The glass of a store window crashed into a waterfall across the street.
“Missed,” Darius said, more to himself than anyone else as the puff of smoke from the old gun drifted away from between him and Hector.
“Hector don’t miss.” Said the Mayor. The Mayor had moved. A moment ago, he had been standing behind on his right side, and now the Mayor was directly behind him. Darius felt the old man drop his hands onto both shoulders.
“I’ve got em now Alfie. I won’t let him slip away this time. But the kid is right. You missed em. Maybe you’ve been in the ground too long. You or your gun is rusty.”
“I cleaned my gun. And I don’t miss. Ever.” Alfonze Hector said with definite anger. The ever present friendly tone was gone and he had snapped at the old Mayor. He tipped his gun over his shoulder and took a blind shot of the bell tower behind him and the town bell rang out with a loud ‘gong.’
“Now hold em’ still Mayor. I’m gonna give him a shot right in the chest. He’ll still live long enough till He arrives.”
The six gun boomed. Darius felt the Mayor’s grip fall away at the same instant. This time, when the smoke cleared, it was the Mayor in front of the gun barrel. Darius, standing off to the side, watched the Mayor drop to his knees.
“Sonofa…!” Alfie hollered in surprise as he crouched to catch the Mayor.
Darius ran. He went straight across the street. The shortest path to any form of cover; the row of shops on the other side. The six gun boomed behind him and he felt the whisper of metal crease his shirtsleeve. The next boom thumped lead into the corner of the building directly in front of him. He waited for the sear of pain that would announce he had been shot as he drew up to the building corner and rounded it. A hole appeared in the wall just in front of his cheek and he felt the whip crack of pressure on his face. And then he was in the alleyway in cover. He didn’t let up his stride but rounded the corner and sprinted between the narrow wooden walls.
“Go get him girls!” He heard Alfie command.
Darius sprinted down the narrow alley and took his first right and the next left. The screeching of the dark shimmerlings carried through the air behind him. To him, they sounded like a flock of rabid seagulls.
Darius sped around the next corner. In this clearing was a small shed. He ran past it and behind another shack and this time ran a full circle around the small building. The swarm of dark bat things blasted by him, their speed carrying them on past too quickly to be able to swoop and follow him. He caught blurred glimpses of them as they passed, naked bat-sized women shrieking with mouths full of needle teeth. Darius pressed his back against the shed wall, glanced in the three new directions he had to run in the maze of narrow back alley passages behind the buildings, and the shed exploded behind him.
The black cat with lizard eyes and fangs like hunting knives ran out of a cloud of wood splinters toward Darius. The big cat's jaws snapped down on Darius, but Darius was not there. At the very last moment, he dove into the dirt, and the cat slammed into and through the shed he had been hiding against. Darius was surprised the move had worked, and now he rolled, picked himself up, and was around the closest corner. In the opposite direction the flying swarm had flown, and he ran.
“Nova!” He yelled. “Nova! Where are you?!”
Nova came careening in a blur around the closest corner and crashed into him. They both fell back in an expulsion of air to land on their butts in the sand. Nova was puffing for air, like a sprinter. Darius realized he was doing the same thing.
“Brock is getting the car.” She said. She plucked an earring off and spiked the little chunk of silver into the dirt between them.
The bolts of lightning were almost steady now and a gust of wind swirled dust into their faces that made them squint and shield their eyes. When they looked back, a silverback gorrila was hunkered down between them. The thing was so big. It’s hair shone black silver in the storm.
“Master Juro!” Nova exclaimed.
Something crashed into the building beside them, the back door erupted into a cloud of wood splinters as the yowler crashed through it. It tackled the gorilla, and the ball of writhing, twisting muscle thundered into the far wall and disappeared into that building.
Nova was in front of him. Up off her feet already and she pulled Darius up to stand. The crazy seagulls sound blasted out of the far end of the alley.
“Run!” Nova yelled. They both took off. Darius kept sprinting the same way down the alley and took the next corner as fast as he had ever run, his baseball cleats digging into the dry dirt. The black swarm was on him, but before he knew it he was on the ground like he was sliding into home plate. The dark swarm tore through the air where his midsection would have been. Darius rolled onto his back. He looked up at the narrow band of sky he could see between the buildings. Dark clouds rolled into the grey buildings like sludge traced with electricity.
The swarm spiralled up into the sky, turned, and swung back down towards him.
He jumped to his feet and ran, continuing in the direction he had been going. The direction that their car should be.
He sprinted around another corner and ran to the open end of an alleyway. He stopped. He had made it through the town. But the car. It should be there. He knew he had been running in the right direction. The car was gone.
He didn’t know where to run. The shimmerlings screeched behind him, and he turned to face them. Their cloud swarmed along the top of the alley below the black rolling clouds, but at the last moment, they flew up and away from him.
At the end of the open alley stood Alfie. His gun levelled.
“Now, enough running about! I’ve had damn well enough of all this carrying on. Stand still, or I’ll shoot.”
“Something tells me you can’t,” Darius said.
The big gun boomed in Alfie’s hand. Darius felt that same swoop of heat and the same shift as before. He looked down at his cleats and his footprints. His shoes were beside his previous footsteps. Something had moved him. It hadn’t been that the Mayor had moved every time Alfie had pulled the trigger. It had been Darius who had been moving.
“Sonofa…!” Aflie Hector exclaimed. He tipped his six-gun back, broke open the revolver and let the empty casings rattle into the sand at his feet. He dug fresh bullets out of his shirt pocket.
“I introduced myself all polite. Told you what my new job was and asked real kind for you to all stay here while the Breaking Man arrived.” He talked as he clicked the rounds into the gun. “And you repay me by…”
The big black limo replaced the cowboy at the end of the alleyway. One moment, Alfie was about to click the last fresh bullet into his revolver, and the next moment, he was gone. Darius stood simply stunned as Brock waved at him, his left arm flung out the open driver’s side window of the limo.
“Hey Bro, are you coming, or what?”
The car horn blasted twice. He saw that Nova had leaned forward from the rear seat.
Darius grinned, looked up into the sky for the swarm of evil pixies, and ran.