Scott Sigler - Nocturnal - A Novel

The odor grew stronger as he walked. This same exact scent had made him dizzy in the hospital. Bryan felt his hunter’s excitement building. The smell started to fade, just a little, but he could tell it was weaker . He turned and retraced his steps. The scent again grew in intensity — when it was at its peak, he stopped.

He knelt … stronger still the lower he got. Bryan dropped to his hand and knees, bent his head and sniffed where the tiled wall met the narrow walkway.

Strongest of all .

He looked up at Aggie. “Is this it?”

“Maybe,” Aggie said. “I just don’t know.”

Bryan stood. He raised a foot.

Aggie grabbed his shoulder. “Wait! There’s like pillars and stuff right behind there. It’s booby-trapped to collapse. Be careful.”

Bryan lowered his foot. He tapped on the tile wall with his knuckles. It sounded hollow. He reached to the right, knocked there to test the sound — solid, like a tile wall should be.

“Give me some light.”

Flashlight beams danced, reflecting off the dirty hexagonal tiles. Bryan leaned in. Right there … was that a darker line of mortar? He drew his knife and slid the point along the line … the blade slipped through. He angled the blade down and pried. A thin, black gap rewarded the effort.

“Shine it in here.”

Adam pointed his flashlight into the gap. Bryan saw bits of a tunnel beyond. He slid his fingers into the gap. “Everyone look out,” he said, and then he yanked . The fake wall split down the middle, shreds of plywood and bits of tile flying onto the tracks.

Four flashlights played into the narrow tunnel. Inside, Bryan saw a line of hodge-podge brick-and-masonry pillars extending off into the distance.

“That’s it,” Aggie said.

Bryan didn’t need the confirmation, because he could smell that this was it. He leaned down until his nose touched the ground. Here .

Aggie leaned in. “That’s where I set him down. Go in and you’ll see footsteps in the dirt, follow them real careful.”

Bryan stood. He took a flashlight from Adam, then entered the tunnel. He played the beam across the ceiling, the walls, the floor. He saw the footsteps Aggie described.

Aggie grabbed his sleeve. “I did my part, now lemme go. Please don’t make me go back in, please .”

Bryan felt bad for the man, but not that bad. Aggie could be the difference between finding Pookie alive or not finding him at all.

And no matter what, someone had to pay for Robin.

All the eyes … all the teeth .

“You’re coming with us,” Bryan said. He turned and looked at John. “You watch Aggie. If he tries to leave, shoot him in the leg.”

John nodded. “Sure thing.”

John wasn’t going to shoot Aggie. Bryan knew that, but hopefully Aggie didn’t.

“Everyone follow me,” Bryan said, then carefully put his left foot in the first footprint.

The Eagle

The snake-face man lifted Dr. Metz up high, one hand curving up under the old man’s ass, the other cupped around the back of his neck.

Guilty! Guilty!

Pookie couldn’t draw a breath. It felt like he wasn’t taking in air at all. He closed his eyes again — he couldn’t watch this.

Rex’s horitzontal thumb lifted, then pointed down. “Sly, execute the sentence!”

Metz screamed, but it was a short scream that ended with a sickening snap .

The crowed roared in bloodthirsty approval, a passionate chorus that hurt Pookie’s ears and shook his body.

He heard and felt the masked men brushing past him to remove Metz’s body, then felt them brush by again as they returned to wherever they had come from.

“Next criminal!” Rex’s every word was a hoarse-throated scream, every syllable thick with madness and psychotic lust.

“Him! Bring me that one!”

Open your eyes, open your eyes .

But Pookie could not. He just couldn’t.

Hands grabbed at his body. His eyes opened of their own accord as panic gripped him, pulled at his heart and kicked his stomach, and when he looked forward he saw only one thing.

Rex Deprovdechuk, pointing his way.

Bloodhound

Bryan couldn’t see the smell, but it might as well have been a glowing rope hanging in the still air. There wasn’t much circulation down here — what had been barely detectable in the train tunnel now filled his nose and mind. The scent called to him at a base level, made him want to kill anything that might harm the source. It was so powerful; Bryan hoped he didn’t find that source somewhere down here — if he did, he didn’t know what he might do.

After leaving the booby-trapped pillars behind, they moved faster — as fast as he could through a narrow tunnel made of dirt and broken brick, chipped concrete, bits of rusted metal and charred wood.

Then, noises. Faint, nothing but a whisper at first, a whisper that was lost in the sounds of Bryan’s movement. He stopped, made the others stand still. He listened and understood: it was the sound of a crowd, tinny and thin from traveling some length down the tunnel.

Aggie had said this tunnel led to the arena with the shipwreck.

Bryan faced the others.

“We’re close,” he said. “Turn off the flashlights. Stay close to the person in front of you. Move careful, but move fast . And from this moment on, not another word.”

He turned off his flashlight and slid it into an inside pocket of his peacoat. One by one, the other flashlights blinked out. Darkness filled the tunnel.

They weren’t far away. He was going to get Marie’s Children for what they had done to Robin, for what they had done to Pookie.

Monster, human, alien, angel or demon — whatever was down here, Bryan Clauser was going to make it pay.

Arena Rock

Bryan saw light — a distant, narrow arch of illumination just a hundred feet away.

Shapes moving in front of that light.

He kept moving forward, his steps quiet and sure.

The sound of a single person talking from far away, words blurred by echoes and the crowd’s murmur, until the crowd roared in unison.

Guilty!

Closer. Fifty feet.

The shapes up ahead took form. Mounds that were people covered with blankets, sliding in front of each other as if craning to see something beyond.

Bryan stopped, turned. Adam was right behind him. Not so brave now. Mouth pursed, Adam was forcing himself to breathe slowly. No, not so brave, but still here , ready to fight — was bravery really anything more than that?

Behind Adam, Alder. Not afraid. Maybe he’d had decades to accept his mortality. Everyone dies. You can go out swinging, or you can die shitting yourself in a hospital bed as they feed you through tubes.

And in the back, John Smith. He had to be scared, but he didn’t look it. Maybe six years of cowardice had taught him how to hide it. Or maybe John was just ready, because one thing was for certain — no one could call him a coward anymore.

Bryan stepped closer. Twenty-five feet.

ba-da-bum-bummmm

He stopped. He closed his eyes tight, opened them again. The smell of the baby, the thrumm of his people buzzing in his chest. Those behind him were not his people.

ba-da-bum-bummmm!

Why was he going to kill Marie’s Children? Why was he going to kill his brothers, his sisters, his real family?

He closed his eyes. He pictured the two people who had stood by him through everything.

ba-da-bum-bummmm!

Why was he going to kill Marie’s Children? Because they had taken Pookie. Because they had murdered Robin.

Bryan opened his eyes and again looked down the tunnel. He was only fifteen feet away, close enough to see the feet under one of the blankets. Blue feet. Furry. The feet of a monster.