Scott Sigler - Nocturnal - A Novel

A big fist hit him in the back of the head, bouncing his face off the wood floor.

“You ruined April’s TV, you asshole!”

A steel-toed boot hammered his ribs. Rex started to scream, to cry out, but he clenched his teeth together — it didn’t hurt as bad as he remembered it.

Rex opened his eyes. Right in front of him, a foot, a shin, a knee. He reached out, grabbed Alex’s heel and yanked.

Alex went down fast, the back of his head cracking off the floor. His eyes scrunched tight and his mouth opened in a silent gasp of confused pain. He rolled to his side, hands holding the back of his head.

Blood dripped from his fingers.

Rex had done that. He had made Alex bleed .

Rex stood on shaky legs. He felt blood trickling from his own nose, his own mouth. He stepped forward and raised his foot.

Alex looked up just as Rex’s heel smashed down. The bigger boy let out a noise, part fear, part rage, part agony. He rolled away, blood pouring from his now-ruined nose. He looked confused, shocked.

Rex smiled a bloody smile, the smile of a fighter. His hands curled into fists.

“It’s your turn, bully,” he said. “It’s your turn to hurt.”

Alex scrambled away on hands and knees. Rex started to follow, but stopped when he heard a loud noise from above. Several noises. Something landing on the roof?

Both boys looked up to the ceiling, eyes searching for the source of the sound as if their eyes could penetrate wood and plaster.

“Shit,” Alex said. “The fuck is this?”

Rex’s chest started to thrum — ba-da-bum-bummmm … ba-da-bum-bummmm , the same feeling he’d experienced when he met Marco.

His family had arrived.

How perfect .

Rex looked back at Alex, but Alex had moved. He was standing to the right of the door, next to a small table. He held a gun. Too late Rex realized that’s what Alex had been glancing at while they had talked. The gun had been on the table the whole time, just an arm’s reach away, but Rex hadn’t looked.

No, no fair, I beat him I beat him I had my revenge no fair—

“Fuck you, faggot,” Alex said, then pulled the trigger.

Something slammed into Rex’s belly. His legs gave out. As he fell, he heard a combination of sounds — splintering wood, another gunshot, and then the screams of Alex Panos.

The Basement

Bryan Clauser stood in the shadows of trees that were themselves drenched in the shadows of tall buildings. He flexed his hands, fists making his leather gloves creak. He stared at the back of the gray house.

He stared at the cellar door.

The basement . Whatever bad thing was happening, it was in the basement. He had to know.

The cellar door waited for him, a demon mouth ready to open and bite, to chew and shred and tear and crunch. Dream-memories blurred his reality, merged and shifted with what he saw until he wasn’t sure what was actually there.

Come closer , the house seemed to say. Come, little fool, save me the trouble of reaching out to pull you in …

His Nikes slid across the grass, carrying him to the door. He bent, reached out a hand, touched. It wasn’t wood. Heavy-gauge metal, painted to look like the same wood as the rest of the house. In the door’s upper left corner, a key-pad lock. The thing was bomb-shelter solid — he couldn’t open it.

Was he dreaming? Was this really happening?

Did you think it would be easy? the house said. You’ll have to work harder to find your death …

Bryan closed his eyes and rubbed them hard with the heels of his hands. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t . He had to get in there.

You think a house is talking to you. Sounds crazy to me …

“I’ll burn you to the ground,” Bryan said. “Burn you and piss on the coals.”

Then you’ll never know what’s inside … neverknow … neverknow …

Bryan bit hard into the heel of his left hand. The pain rose up, clearing his thoughts. That helped. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t.

He walked to a window and peeked in. Beyond the glass, the dull gleam of metal revealed some kind of inside shutter. It looked just as tough as the cellar entrance.

He’d have to try the front door.

Bryan drew his Sig Sauer and walked down the side of the house, his left shoulder almost touching the slate-blue wood, shadows curling around him in a lover’s embrace.

Pookie turned onto Franklin Street, then floored it. The Buick’s engine roared. He kept to the middle lane as much as he could, swerving left or right when he needed to, running red lights with little care for what might happen.

He’d dressed for the occasion. No ill-fitting suit jacket this time. Black jeans, black shoes, a black sweater stretched over his gut, and the black Glock 22 in the black holster attached to his black belt. It was a fashion statement that would win the Bryan Clauser seal of approval. Pookie didn’t use the bubble-light or the siren. Couldn’t draw attention. If any other cops showed up, the Terminator was screwed.

He hoped Black Mr. Burns would get there quick.

The Harley’s big twin engine roared at the night, the sound bouncing off the buildings on either side to fill the street with an echoing, angry gurgle.

John forced himself to breathe. His neck already hurt from trying to look in all directions at once. So many buildings, so many windows, so many places for someone to hide, to point a gun.

He rolled the throttle back and the Harley picked up speed. He slipped around a truck, then lane-split between a pair of BMWs. Maybe someone was aiming at him right now, tracking him, lining up the shot.

The feeling pressed his chest inward like a tightening vise wrapped all the way around his ribs. His breaths came faster. He was starting to hyperventilate.

He shook his helmeted head. Bryan needed him. So did Pookie.

Just this once. He could push the fear down just this once , and for a single night be a man again.

Gun in hand, Bryan walked up the mansion’s wide steps. Traffic rolled along on Franklin Street behind him, but it was a part of some other world, some other dimension.

Bryan stood before the front door. The porch roof blocked the streetlights, bathing him in the night’s thick black. He reached out a hand, let his fingertips touch the double doors’ ornate wood.

Come on, little one, come and taste the end …

“Shut up,” Bryan hissed. “Shut up, I’m not hearing this.”

You and only you hear it. And they call you the Terminator? You’re a joke, and here you are walking to your own death. Come on, little one, don’t you want to know what’s inside? Neverknow … neverknow …

“You talk too much,” Bryan said, then he raised his left foot and kicked just below the door handle. Wood cracked with a cannon-blast sound. The double doors flew open, the right one tumbling into the hallway beyond to crash hard against the floor. The door had looked a lot more solid than that; must have been some cheap pine and not the old oak Bryan had thought it was at first glance.

Then came the blaring shrill of an alarm.

Bryan walked inside. He didn’t notice his surroundings. He was looking for one thing and one thing only.

Somewhere in here was a door to the basement.

The break-in tripped a magnetic sensor, which sent a signal down a thin wire to the small alarm-control box in the basement. That had triggered the Klaxon that screeched through the house, but the system wasn’t finished. A telephone wire ran out of the control box into a multi-line office phone, the kind that had once been white but had yellowed with well over two decades of age. The phone had a handset, next to which ran a vertical line of eight buttons, each with a red light. The red light next to LINE ONE lit up. The phone’s speaker let out a brief dial tone, then seven rapid digital beeps.