Scott Sigler - Nocturnal - A Novel

Bryan reared back to punch, but Erickson’s feet whipped up, black shoes hooking behind Bryan’s head, shins scissoring Bryan’s neck. Bryan grabbed at Erickson’s legs. The old man twisted hard to the left, driving Bryan face-first into the sidewalk.

Pookie tried to draw a breath, but his stomach wouldn’t respond. Where was his gun? His hand found it and he tried to stand.

Out on the sidewalk, Erickson snarled as he squeezed his legs tighter on Bryan’s neck. Bryan’s feet kicked, shoes sliding uselessly against the sidewalk.

Pookie lurched to the broken railing. He still couldn’t breathe. He rested his gun hand on the broken rail.

Erickson reached his right hand behind his back — when the hand reappeared, it held a Bowie knife.

Pookie aimed.

Erickson raised the knife.

Pookie fired.

The bullet whinged off the concrete just a half-inch from Erickson’s hip. The old man flinched, his knife thrust paused. Bryan’s left foot kicked forward, the toe driving into Erickson’s mouth and snapping the white-haired head backward.

Erickson rolled away. Bryan scrambled to his feet, but the old man was faster, raising the knife and rushing forward to swing it down. Bryan’s hands shot up, forearms crossing, catching Erickson’s wrist in the V. Bryan turned and twisted, using Erickson’s momentum against him even as he wrapped his fingers around the old man’s hand.

Erickson flipped, his back hitting the sidewalk for a second time.

Bryan now held the knife.

In that moment, Pookie had a terrifying glimpse of Bryan’s face — that wasn’t his friend, that wasn’t his partner, that was a wide-eyed psychopath. He tried to shout out, to scream no! , but he still couldn’t draw a breath.

Erickson started to rise. Bryan snap-kicked the old man in the mouth, driving him back down. Bryan closed and knelt, moving so fast — streetlight flashed off the Bowie knife’s blade as Bryan drove it into Erickson’s stomach so deep that Pookie heard the point chink into the concrete beneath the old man’s back.

Everything stopped. That crazy look vanished from Bryan’s face — now he just seemed confused.

Erickson struggled, used his elbows to sit up halfway. He looked at the knife handle sticking out of his belly.

“Well,” he said, “I never planned for this.” His head lolled. He slumped backward and lay still.

Pookie’s diaphragm finally opened up, letting him suck in a deep, halting breath. John stumbled down the steps, then to Erickson’s side. He examined the wound even as he pulled out his cell phone and dialed for an ambulance.

Pookie followed, moving down as fast as he could. He saw Bryan stand slowly, saw a patch of wetness soaking the right shoulder of his partner’s black sweatshirt.

“Bryan! You’re hit!”

Bryan looked at his shoulder. He grabbed his collar, stretched the wet fabric away to see underneath. “Shit. I think I need a doctor.” He reached his left hand up and squeezed his right shoulder.

Pookie prayed his hunch was wrong, that Bryan actually did need a doctor, but he didn’t want to take that chance. If Pookie was right and Bryan went to a hospital …

The sound of handcuffs clicking home drew Pookie’s attention. Black Mr. Burns had cuffed Erickson’s wrists, moved the hands up over the wounded old man’s head.

“John,” Pookie said, “you got him?”

John looked up. “He’s hurt bad and he ain’t going nowhere. Ambulance is on the way.”

It was bad to leave a scene, double bad as they shouldn’t have been here in the first place, and triple bad because Pookie was technically a civilian, but he had to get Bryan out of there.

Pookie put a hand on Bryan’s back and started guiding him toward the Buick. “Bri-Bri, come on, we gotta go.”

“Go? Dude, I’ve been shot . I need an ambulance.”

“I’ll take you to the hospital,” Pookie said. “Way faster, come on.”

Pookie lightly pushed again, and this time Bryan walked toward the car.

Tard saw the brown car pull away from the monster’s house.

And down on the ground, with a knife in his tummy … the monster .

Tard watched all this in utter disbelief. He looked an awful lot like the tree in which he hid. He didn’t much care for being a tree, because all the bugs crawled into the cracks in his skin. They tickled and sometimes they bit him.

Sirens blared. Tard hated that noise; it hurt his ears. Down the street he saw cop cars, and … was that?… yes! The pretty, white-and-red amberlamps truck!

The monster wasn’t moving. A blackish stain slowly spread across his brown shirt. The amberlamps was coming for him, because he was wounded .

Sly was going to be so excited!

Sly, Pierre, Sir Voh & Fort

Ba-da-bum-bummmm

Rex felt strong arms holding him, cradling him. As he woke, the grogginess faded away — the pain in his belly did not.

Pain wasn’t really the word for it. He’d felt pain before, courtesy of Roberta, courtesy of Alex Panos and BoyCo, courtesy of Father Maloney. This was something different, something on another level altogether.

Despite that burning agony Rex Deprovdechuk felt warmth exploding in his chest. He took in a slow, deep breath — so powerful, so relaxing. It felt like when he’d met Marco, but more so.

ba-da-bum-bummmm

Rex moved his hand, felt at his belly.

Wet.

Wet with blood.

“You’ll be fine,” said a voice that sounded like sandpaper on rough wood. “The wound is already closing.”

Rex opened his eyes.

First, he saw the night sky, black and starless, the clouds above slightly lit up by the streetlights below. He was on the flat roof of a building. Then, Rex saw them .

He should have been afraid. He knew that. He should have been crapping in his pants, screaming, trying to rise and run, but he wasn’t afraid. Not in the least.

He recognized them from his dreams and his drawings.

“Hello, Sly,” Rex said.

The one with a snake’s face smiled wide. A snake-face, but he looked … young . Smooth features, tiny scales that gleamed with health. A thick body, each motion athletic, confident. He looked like a bodybuilder covered with a rotting gray blanket that hid his bulky form. Only his head was exposed, showing his pointy face with its yellow eyes and angled black irises.

Sly smiled, a mouth full of needle teeth. He looked at the others. “He knows my name.”

“It’s thim,” whispered the second something. “It’s thim, I can thmell it!”

This one was also covered in a threadbare blanket, and he was bigger than Sly. Well, taller anyway, but not as thick. He had a fur-covered face and long jaws, like those of a big dog, but the bottom jaw was a little offset, sticking at a slight angle to the right. His features were also soft, almost like he was in that middle zone between puppy and adult .

“Hello, Pierre,” Rex said.

Pierre’s long, pink tongue lolled out the left side of the cockeyed mouth. It dangled, dripping spit down onto the rooftop.

Behind Pierre, a third something stood. Taller than Pierre, wider than Sly. Rex had never seen anything so big.

“My king,” it said. The voice was thin and high-pitched. It didn’t seem at home in a body of that size. Rex looked closer and understood why — under its blanket, there were actually two somethings. One was a massive man, like one of those pro-wrestling guys, with a tiny head the size of a large grapefruit atop a wide neck. The other something rode on his shoulders. The little one had a tiny, shriveled baby’s body but a head that would have been normal on an adult. It had spindly legs and arms. It had a tail that wrapped tight around the massive man’s big neck.