Нил Шустерман - Scorpion Shards

“You loved your mother very much, didn’t you,” said the Devil. “It’s sad she died so young.”

“Wh . . . What do you know about it?”

“I know enough. I know your Daddy worked the timberline and was always gone. I know he never gave a rat’s ass about you. I know how he, and how most everyone else called you names . . . but your Ma, she defended you against all those cruel people, didn’t she?”

Slayton lowered the rifle a bit and nodded slightly.

“She had a special name for you. Something secret—between the two of you. What was it?”

Slayton swallowed hard and lowered the gun to his side. How does he know this?

“Little Prince,” said Slayton. “Just like the book.”

The fat Devil-boy smiled. “When she died your Daddy just left you. How old were you, fifteen?”

“Just turned it,” said Slayton. “Then he drunk hisself to death. I was glad, too.”

“I know you were.” The Devil began to move closer and Slayton couldn’t turn his eyes away.

“This is important, Slayton. After your father died, you lived in a city for a year or so, before you moved back into the woods . . . Tell me the name of the city.”

Slayton bit his lower lip to keep it from quivering. The Devil knows everything, don’t he?

“Come on, Slayton. Tell me the name of the city.”

“Tacoma,” said Slayton weakly.

“Tacoma!” The Devil smiled in some sort of deep re­lief. “Listen to me, Slayton,” he said. “I’m going to make you the most important man in the world, and all you have to do is listen to me.”

“I’m listening,” said Slayton, his gaze locked onto the Devil’s swimming blue eyes.

Then the Devil got as close as he possibly could to Slay­ton’s ear, without touching him, and whispered in the faintest of voices:

“There’s someone in Tacoma . . . who owes you.”

It took a moment to register . . . and then the words hit home, ringing true as a church bell in Slayton’s mind. Every fiber of his soul resonated with the thought, until he felt as if his very brain would be rattled apart. Yes! Someone in Tacoma did owe him. He didn’t know who it was, but whoever it was, Slayton would find him and make him pay!

Even Slayton could sense that this was the start of a grand chain of events that would greatly affect his life and the lives of many, many people.

He was about to turn to his munitions locker.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

Winston had grasped the gun in his pocket for so long, its cold handle had grown warm in his palm. A tip in the nearest town led them to this shack, and now as they kicked in the crooked door, Winston held the revolver out in front of him, afraid to pull the trigger, but also afraid not to. Everything was crucial now. No mistakes could be made.

The room was dim as they burst in, and it was hard to see. The others filed in, creating commotion, getting in the way.

There were two figures in the room, and in a moment he had identified which one was Dillon—but as Win­ston’s eyes adjusted to the dim lamplight, he hestiated. They all hesitated, because they could not believe what they saw.

“Madre de Dios!” cried Lourdes.

Dillon barely looked human—his body had bloated like a balloon, his face was swollen with festering blisters. His eyes were blazing sapphire holes.

Winston could feel the presence of the creature that had laid waste to his own soul in there as well. It was true—all of their monstrosities were now inside of Dillon!

“No!” screamed Dillon. He tried to make a break for it, but the five of them lunged at him, trapping him in a web of ten hands. He twisted free of their grasp and backed into the corner, a terrified, caged animal.

Across the room, the hermit could only stand there by the open closet door and gawk, while the little boy, Carter, looked in from the cabin’s threshold with his awful empty eyes.

“Do it!” Tory, shouted to Winston. “Do it now!”

“It’s too late!” Dillon screamed. “It doesn’t matter now, whatever you do won’t matter!”

“Shut up!” shouted Winston.

“It’s too late!” cackled Dillon again.

Winston stared at this creature in the dark corner and raised his gun. The plan, the plan, follow the plan.

Winston tightened his two-handed grip on the re­volver, steadied his shaking hands, then leveled his aim and pulled the trigger.

The roar from the six beasts drowned out any sound the gun could have made.

A flash of light—a flash of darkness—shadowy figures leaping in six different directions—screaming—blue flames—tentacles—horrid fangs! Six dark shadows cling­ing to the walls screeching and wailing in fury . . .

. . . And in fear.

“They’re afraid of us!” shouted Tory. “Look at them!”

The beasts recoiled from the kids in the room, leaping, slithering, flying from wall to wall.

“Don’t let them inside you!” shouted Michael. “Fight to keep them out!” Although none of them knew how to do that, they willed themselves to stand firm against the raging, snarling shadows, and the creatures did not dare come near them.

Without a host, the beasts could not survive long in this world.

And so they left it.

It was something the kids could not have anticipated. The six hideous leech-things came together in the center of the room, and with a blast that rocked the weak foun­dations of the tiny cabin, they ripped the world open.

A ragged hole tore in the fabric of space, and the crea­tures escaped through it, into blind darkness.

The hole! thought Winston, before he even understood what it was, we’re all too close to the—

Dillon’s limp body slipped into the gaping breach— Deanna grabbed him, losing her balance. Winston caught her, and before any of them knew what was happening they had all grabbed hold of one another, in a twisted huddle as they lost their footing and slipped into the vor­tex, from light into darkness.

And for an instant . . . just an instant they felt it:

Wholeness.

The six of them touching.

Complete and invincible.

Perfect and joyous.

The sum of the parts.

But the feeling ended when the six of them came through the darkness and hit a hard, unearthly ground, crashing apart once more like fragile pieces of glass.

Slayton watched them go.

It had all happened so fast, he wasn’t sure what he had seen . . . but then he realized that it didn’t matter because someone owed him in Tacoma.

Nothing mattered but that simple fact. Not the sudden disappearance of the Devil-boy and his devil friends. Not even the hole to Hell that still hung in the middle of the room. Nothing mattered because he had a mission.

Five minutes later, he had loaded most of his weapons into his pickup truck. He hadn’t noticed the little boy who stood there watching, until the boy spoke.

“Mister, you playin’ a game?” asked the boy, his head lolled to one side like he was half dead.

Slayton didn’t have time for questions, or things that got in his way, so he reached into his pickup bed and grabbed a loaded shotgun.

“Are you a cowboy, or an Indian?” asked the boy.

Slayton took aim at the boy. No one would get in his way between here and Tacoma.

Dillon felt his mind, body and soul ripped apart, then a moment later he was torn from the world.

He never heard the gunshot, but the pain was very real. It exploded in the back of his head where the bullet must have left his skull.

All was still now. Silent. He felt his blood pouring from the back of his head, and he moved his hand toward his forehead, certain that this would be the last action of his life. He would touch his own shattered forehead and then die.