John Crowley - Beasts

“Well, why did you delay us all night?” Barron’s voice was a tense whisper attempting a shout, It was hideously cold in the corridors of the old hospital; he felt tremors of anxiety and cold and sleeplessness contract his chest. The corridors were dim; only every third or fourth light was lit, glaring off the particolored green enamel of the walls, as though the place were lit with fading flares. “We’ll take him out a back way.”

“I think they’ve discovered all the exits.”

The guards and overcoated marshals whom Barron had brought in to organize this release stood around looking stupidly efficient, waiting for orders to execute. “We’ll have to get the van around to the back.”

“They’ll follow that for sure. Leave the van where it is. Send some people out the front way, to make it look as though he were coming out that way. Then we’ll go out the back. The car that brought me is across the street; one of your people is driving it. Use that.”

“That’s crazy,” Barron said. He was in an agony of indecision. “How did all those people find this place? What do they want?”

“However they did,” Reynard said, almost impatiently, “they certainly won’t go away until the leo is gone. In fact, more are collecting.” He looked at the marshals, who nodded. “You’ll have a mass demonstration if you don’t act quickly.”

Barron looked from the marshals to the door through which the leo was to come. He had meant it all to be so simple. The leo would walk freely out of the building and into a waiting van. A single camera would record it. Tomorrow, his arrival at the barracks in Georgia. The news would show it, with understated commentary. Later, when a fully articulated program had been developed, the film would be a powerful incentive to other leos.

All spoiled now. The leo refused to leave unless Reynard was present. Reynard fussed and delayed. The crowd condensed out of the city like fog. And Barron was frightened. “All right,” he said. “All right. We’ll do that, We’ll take him to that car. You’ll remain here.” He steeled himself. “I’ll go with him.”

Reynard said nothing for a moment. Then his pink tongue licked his dark lips: Barron could hear the sound it made. “Good,” he said, “It’s brave of you.”

“Let’s get it over with.” He signaled to the marshals. From the car he could radio to be met somewhere. He wouldn’t have to be alone with the leo for more than ten minutes. And the driver would be there. Armed.

They opened the heavy doors along the corridor, and signals were passed down. A dark figure appeared at the hallway’s end, and came toward them. Two guards on each side, and two waiting at each branching corridor. He passed beneath the glare of the lights, in and out of pools of darkness. The men at his side, since they chose not to touch him as guards usually do, appeared more like attendants. The leo, draped in his overcoat, seemed to be making some barbaric kingly progress past the guards, beneath the lights.

He stopped when he reached Reynard.

“Take off the shackles,” Reynard whispered. The attendants looked from the fox to Barron. Barron nodded. He must retain control of this situation; his must be the okay. He chose not to look at the leo; a glimpse showed him that the leo’s face was passive, expressionless.

The shackles fell to the floor with a startling clatter.

“Down here,” Barron said, and they began a procession — marshals, Barron, Reynard, the leo, more marshals, a hurried, undignified triumph: only the leo walked a measured pace.

Through the dirty glass of the back exit they could see the deserted street lit by a single dim streetlight and the pale light of predawn. Across the street, down another street, they could just make out where the threewheeler was.

“Can’t we get him closer?” Barron said. “You. Go over and tell him…” A knot of people appeared in the street, searching. Someone pointed to the door they stood behind; then the group turned away, running, apparently to summon help.

“Don’t wait,” Reynard said. “Do it now.”

Barron looked up at the leo’s huge, impassive face, trying to discover something in it. “Yes,” he said; and then, loudly, as people do to someone they aren’t sure will understand, he said: “Are you ready now?”

The leo nodded almost imperceptibly. Reynard, at his elbow — he came not much higher, stooped as he was now — said: “You know what to do.” The leo nodded again, looking at nothing.

Barron took hold of the bar that opened the door. “You,” he said, sectioning out with his hand some of the marshals, “Watch here till we get off. The rest of you take him” — Reynard — “to the front, to the van. If they want something to look at, they can look at him. Quick.”

With some bravado, he pushed open the door and held it for the leo, who went out and down the steps without waiting. From both ends of the street, people appeared, sudden masses, as though floodgates had been opened. Barron saw them; his head swiveling from side to side, he skipped to catch up with the leo. He reached up as though to take the beast’s elbow, but thought better of it. The car was just ahead. The crowd hadn’t yet seen them.

Good-bye, Barron, Reynard thought. Exhaustion swept him; he felt faint for a moment. The marshals collected around him and he raised a hand to make them wait a moment. He leaned on the stick. Only one more thing to do. He summoned strength, and straightened himself, leaning against the glass door facing the marshals. “All right,” he said. “All right.” Then he raised the stick, as though to indicate them.

The charge in the stick killed one marshal instantly, hurtling him into the others; two others it wounded. It threw Reynard, wrist broken, out the door and into the street. He began to scuttle rapidly across the pavement, his mouth grimacing with effort, his arms outstretched as though to break an inevitable fall. The crowd had swollen hugely in an instant; when it heard the blast and saw Reynard come stumbling out, it flowed around him as he went crabwise down the street opposite the way Barron and Painter had gone. Behind him, the marshals, guns drawn, came running; the crowd shrieked as one at the guns and the blood, and tried to stop their motion, but they were impelled forward by those behind.

The cameraman turned on his lights.

One person pushed out of the crowd toward the hurrying figure, ran toward him as the marshals ran after him, the marshals unable to fire because of the crowd. The swiveling, jostled blue light turned them all to ghastly sculptured friezes revealed by lightning.

Caddie reached the fox first. The crowd, impelled by her, surged close to the wounded, spidery creature. He grasped Caddie’s arm.

“Now,” he whispered. “Quick.”

Quick, secret as a handshake, unperceived clearly by anyone — later the police would study the film, trying to guess which one of the fleeting, flaring, out-of-focus faces had been hers, which hand held the momentary glint of gun — she fired once, twice, again into the black creature who seemed about to embrace her. The gun sounds were puny, sudden, and unmistakable; the crowd groaned, screamed as though wounded itself, and struggled to move back, trampling those in back. Caddie was swallowed in it.

They made a wide circle around the fox. The blue light played over him; his blood, spattering rapidly on the pavement, was black. He tried to rise. The marshals, guns extended, shouting, surrounded him like baying hounds. His spectacles lay on the pavement; he reached for them, and stumbled. His mouth was open, a silent cry. He fell again.

Far off, coming closer, sirens wailed, keening.