Victor Lavalle - Lucretia and the Kroons

On the other side of the fence Loochie continued to crawl off but Sunny stood at the hole in the fence and peeked inside at the rats.

“Sunny!” Loochie hissed. “Why are you stopping?”

Sunny raised the tennis racket — the edges of the head all charred — and waved Loochie back to her side. “It’s okay,” Sunny said. “They can’t come through.”

Loochie stopped moving but stayed on her hands and knees. She looked back. It seemed to be true. Loochie could see the rats through the hole in the fence. They clawed through the debris but they didn’t crawl through the hole. The rats didn’t even seem to notice it or Sunny even though the girl was standing not twelve inches from them.

Sunny raised one very small, thin hand. She pointed at the playground. “If you’re in there they can get you. And if they get you you’re dead. But out here they have no power. The rats rule the playground. The Kroons rule the park.”

“Why?” Loochie asked, finally getting to her feet. Slowly, very slowly, taking steps toward Sunny and the hole in the fence.

Sunny shrugged. “That’s just how it is.” She dropped the racket and it clattered on the concrete but the rats, now sniffing right in front of the hole, didn’t look over. They didn’t even seem to hear it.

“So we’re safe?” Loochie asked.

“I didn’t say that.”

Now Loochie stood by Sunny’s side. She touched Sunny’s shoulder. Sunny was there with Loochie. Sunny was there.

“I almost started to believe you were …” Loochie couldn’t even finish the sentence.

Sunny turned from the fence and looked up at her best friend, but didn’t seem to hear what Loochie had been trying to say. Didn’t even register the grief on Loochie’s face. Instead, Sunny pointed at the top of Loochie’s head.

“Why are you wearing your mom’s wig?”

Loochie pressed one hand on her head. “I was playing dress-up,” she said. “While I waited for you to come down.”

Sunny nodded and looked at her feet. She put her arms out and Loochie held her and they hugged. Sunny felt so frail that Loochie didn’t want to grab her too hard. Sunny wore the same pajamas Loochie had seen her in that morning. ROCK, ROCK, ROCK. But they looked dirtier now. Stained and worn. Like she’d been wearing them for weeks or months, not hours.

“I wanted to come down,” Sunny said.

Loochie felt her face getting hot. Was she feeling angry or sad? Hurt? How about all three. “So why didn’t you?” she asked.

“You really don’t know?” Sunny asked quietly.

Sunny wore a pair of purple rain boots with white polka dots, which only looked more crazy when paired with those pajamas. Though they still seemed a hell of a lot better than Loochie’s stocking feet. Sunny smiled and pointed at the rain boots.

“It all happened so fast,” Sunny said. “I had to leave in a hurry. These were the shoes I grabbed.”

“What happened fast?” Loochie asked. “Did the Kroons get you?”

Sunny looked away from Loochie and didn’t answer her.

Loochie was still confused, but she was just so happy to have found her friend. She almost couldn’t believe the luck of it, in a park as big as this. But then it was like the way they’d become friends in the first place: They found each other.

“We have to get back,” Loochie said. “I saw your grandmother crying. She’s going to be so happy to see you again. Maybe I’ll actually see her smile for once!” Loochie laughed.

Sunny backed away from Loochie and almost tripped over the tennis racket on the ground. She wasn’t offended by what Loochie had said about her grandmother. She was looking over Loochie’s shoulder. Her attention held. Her gaze rose higher, until she was staring right above Loochie’s head.

But before Loochie could turn around, she saw something moving a little ways behind Sunny . First a head, bobbing, coming into view slowly, as if the person — the thing — was trudging up a hill. And as more of it appeared she felt a terrible grip in her stomach. It was a man, skinny and severe, his clothes sagging on his body, his left arm dangling useless at his side. He was a hundred feet behind Sunny but would soon be closer. He was running toward them. They were outside of the playground, where the Kroons ruled once again. Lefty’s brothers wouldn’t be far behind.

Loochie grabbed the tennis racket from the ground. “Behind you,” she said.

But Sunny hadn’t stopped staring at a point just behind Loochie yet. Maybe Lefty was coming from one direction and Pit, or the Twins, or Chuck from the other. Loochie had a terrible feeling — dread rumbling in the stomach.

When she turned, though, it wasn’t any of the males. It was the female. The one who’d come to Loochie’s window. The one without a lower jaw. She loomed over Loochie and Sunny. Before Loochie could swing the racket the Kroon grabbed them both.

Loochie couldn’t escape the smell. The female Kroon had snatched her and Sunny. She clutched them close and ran with them. Loochie was so confused, overwhelmed, that she couldn’t be sure which direction they were headed. She was trying to squirm free but the Kroon’s grip was impossibly strong.

But that smell. It was the smell of burning plastic. Strong and toxic and it irritated Loochie’s eyes. But behind that smell, along with it, was something sweet. Once Loochie and her mother had tried to make sugar candy at home and it had gone badly. The whole apartment had smelled like this for a day. Loochie tried to pull her head back from the Kroon but each time she did the thing only squeezed tighter and Loochie lost her breath and fell into the stink again.

Loochie found herself imagining what would come next. One Kroon grabbing Loochie’s feet and the other holding Loochie’s head, then each side pulling until head and feet popped right off her body. But when they finally stopped moving Loochie was dropped to the ground, landing on a new patch of concrete. She was on her back, looking up at the endless gray sky.

And she was under the Unisphere.

It was right here. Only ten feet away. Because of its precarious angle it looked as though the great stainless steel globe was about to roll off its stand and crush her.

“Sunny?” Loochie called out.

But the face that appeared above her wasn’t Sunny’s. It was the Kroon. It was breathing hard from the run. From this angle Loochie could see the roof of the Kroon’s mouth, which wasn’t pink, like a normal person’s, but yellowed and tough. The Kroon coughed and Loochie felt a scattershot of spit hit her forehead and cheeks.

She hopped right up after that. And it turned out she’d held on to the old wooden tennis racket. The one Sunny had set on fire. Once she realized she had a weapon Loochie didn’t hesitate. She cocked back and brought the tennis racket down hard, right on the crown of the Kroon’s head.

Loochie screamed as she connected with the creature. And did the same when she hit the thing a second time. She must’ve sounded as frightening as Pit and his brothers ever did. The third time she swung the racket she only grunted, like Serena Williams during a tennis match. The racket’s head — already brittle from the fire — cracked into little pieces, leaving Loochie holding only the handle and a portion of the shaft. It had snapped off into a jagged sharp point. Loochie was basically holding a dagger now.

The Kroon had taken all three hits and seemed dazed by the attack, by Loochie’s ferocity. It was on one knee, one hand flat on the concrete for balance. It still hadn’t caught its breath from running with Sunny and Loochie in its arms. Its head dipped down so the back of the neck was exposed. Loochie could see the top of the spine, that little ball under the skin. She raised the sharp stick so she could drive it through.