Frightened Boy, Scott Kelly [book suggestions .TXT] 📗

third time you’ve had me at gunpoint, Rush. You didn’t get it done the other two times. What makes you think this time will work out for you?”

“I don’t even really want to say,” Rush said, rubbing his palm into his the side of his face. “You’re just gonna get all trippy on me anyway. I do this because I have to, Escher, not because I enjoy it. We’ll start killing people if you resist.”

“That would be foolish. Look at that boy there.” To my horror, he pointed at me. “He’s not one of us at all. He's just an innocent office worker—the embodiment of your failure to protect your citizens, an avatar of fear and anxiety.”

I was still wearing my red cap; I certainly did not look very threatening.

“That ‘boy’, that 'innocent office worker' is a wanted terrorist,” Rush said.

Escher shrugged in response. “He’s still a nice guy."

“Thanks,” I murmured, which earned me a rifle barrel to the spine.

“Don’t kill him just yet,” Escher said to no one.

Rush didn’t have time to voice the confused look on his face. Sam’s arm wrapped around his neck and a bulky revolver pressed against his forehead. The nigh-invisible Stranger pulled Rush to the corner of the office as the two nearest soldiers stormed the office.

Bullet holes cracked through the front of Escher’s desk, and the two men fell down at the door. Escher stood up, knocking the table onto its back as he did so, and continued firing the small machine gun I'd seen dangling from his hip earlier. Two more men fell, including the one standing over me.

“Get down to the tunnels!” Escher yelled. Gunfire shattered my perceptions as every thunderous crack distracted me from any action I might make. Strangers around me struggled with their captors—some had guns, but more fought with their bare hands.

It was Erika who tugged at my arm and pulled me toward the stairs leading down to the loading area, down to the tunnels from which we'd arrived.

I looked back to see carnage shaking the very walls of the building. Escher was dragging an unconscious Rush with one hand and firing his gun with the other—Mal ran past us and ripped the helmet off of a soldier with one hand while spearing two fingers on his other hand three knuckles deep into his eye socket. Grundel lay bleeding on the floor; several other Strangers appeared to have been shot. More of Escher's men poured down the stairs from the upper floors of the building.

A gaunt woman with short green hair wielded a thin knife and was practically dancing from man to man, swishing her long, straight blade like a conductor’s wand; she seemed as mad and violent as Mal. Blood streamed from the stiletto point like sparks from a child’s sparkler. In the close quarters of the office building, the invading soldiers were having a hard time aiming their high-caliber rifles in a way that wouldn’t hit one of their own. Escher’s giant hound, as vivid in my memory as during my first horrifying encounter with it, bounded up the steps behind me, nearly knocking me over.

At last, I tore my eyes away from the battle and stumbled down the steps into the relative calm of the loading bay. Erika was in front of me, looking back every few steps to make sure I was following. Escher was close behind, an unconscious Rush in tow.

Sam appeared at the door and opened it for us.

Whisper stood behind it. “Come on, come on! We’re evacuating."

“What about the others?” I asked as I passed through.

“They know the drill. They know where to go. Don’t worry about them,” Sam said. “And if not…well, it’s what they signed up for.”

I shook my head as I followed them down the tunnels. A fat rat guarded the tunnels up ahead, with patches of mangy peach skin pocking its fat, hairy body.

The Black Plague. A tracking collar. Genetically-tuned nano-viruses. There were a hundred reasons I used to fear rats, and now I wondered how many were Little Brother's creation.

I looked over to the leader of this rebel uprising. He loped easily along a few steps ahead of me with Rush over his shoulder like luggage. Occasionally, he looked back and pointed his gun at the tunnels behind him, but only Strangers followed us. The number of them in tow seemed very small in comparison to the hordes in the old office tower.

As I rounded the bend, I saw Escher stopped at a crossroads in the tunnel system. He waved me forward, and I turned and watched as other Strangers reached the crossroads. Escher passed Rush’s body off to one as he waved the others to the right or left.

He directed everyone away from the path he told me to take.

A shot fired down the tunnel behind us. The first armored soldier had rounded the bend.

“Just go!” Escher shouted at me and pointed down the tunnel.

I turned back in time to see Whisper aiming and firing her giant silver revolver at the men who were rounding the corner.

“Fuck this,” Erika panted behind me, catching up. She jogged heavily, with leaden hands and feet. Apparently fear did not give her the same infinite adrenaline that it did me. Either that, or she just wasn’t afraid. “I'm an artist. This isn't my scene,” she panted.

“I think Escher would say the same thing,” I said as I jogged along with her.

A burst of gunfire retorted behind us. Escher and Whisper were following, firing down the tunnel at the policemen.

“Where are the rest of the Strangers?” Erika shrieked.

“I sent them away!” Escher shouted over his continued blasts of gunfire. “It’s just us.”

“Why didn’t you send us away?” I shouted.

“You’re good luck,” Escher replied. “Now come on…we’re going up.”

He ran ahead a dozen yards to a small service ladder. He clambered to the top, stopping occasionally to fire at the soldiers who were coming up behind us. I watched the barrel of his gun nervously, preying it didn't intersect with me.

Escher pushed open the manhole to reveal daylight he pushed it the rest of the way open and climbed through. Erika and I followed, then Whisper.

The shock of the bright light was nearly as great as the realization I was in the middle of a crowded outdoor subway station. We'd interrupted life-at-average in Banlo Bay. Maybe the last place life worked like this in the world. People walking, talking, communing. Fake laughter, cold coffee and gold watches.

And Escher with his big gun, and Whisper with her magic voice, and Erika with her acting life of acting out life. What the fuck did I get myself into?

Escher pulled us out of the way, struck out an arm and shoved us back he crouched over the sewer opening, weapon trained on the black hole. A helmeted head passed through; Escher fired. The head snapped backwards and dropped down the hole again, like a groundhog checking for predators. The helmet must have contained the blood spatter.

The crowd began to panic. Women’s high-pitched screams filled the air like sirens across a Dresden skyline. This wasn't the New World anymore.

Whisper leaned over me, gripped Escher's sleeve and tugged.

Escher turned, angry, half looking at her and half down the scope of his gun. Like I was watching mom and dad fight while he drove us to church.. Whisper grabbed his eyes with hers and led them to the crowd around us, to the terrified civilians. The Red King seemed to reconsider, standing and jogging down an alleyway between ourselves and the city.

I grabbed Erika, pulling her along as I rushed to follow.

*

The train station we popped up out of was on the outskirts of town, and it didn’t take long before we were under the nearest freeway and within the safe confines of an Orange Zone. The moment we passed the marker designating the upcoming socio-economic wasteland as hazardous, Escher relaxed. Homeless men roasted garbage in trashcans; they smiled and waved at him. Street urchins ran away from their games of catch and peeked out from behind corners to see him pass.

As the day wore on, I noticed that for the first time in my life, I was walking through an Orange Zone and wasn’t afraid. This was nothing like the Blue areas of Downtown, or even the Green safety of my suburban neighborhood. This was lawless, the police did not patrol here. No one gathered the trash, or powered the generators.

Were these really just people trying to get back on their feet? I spied three men standing on the corner together and know that before, I would’ve guessed they were a gang looking for someone to rob.

An old car drove past, and I wondered if the driver was going to throw gasoline-soaked rags at us. I heard a crying baby and wondered if it was a tape recording made to lure women to their deaths.

Were there really thieves with loaded syringes who’d rob you and leave you with a some incurable disease? Gang initiations that required robbing, stealing, killing, beating people, or running over pedestrians? Did some gangs really require new members to knock on the door of a stranger and kill them when they opened the door?

Could there be LSD and Strychnine on the pay phone buttons? AIDS-infected syringes glued to gas-pump handles? Nails in the fruit? Staged medical emergencies? Wolves at the door? Blood in the river of souls? Was it really such diabolical times?

We walked for several hours. My feet ached, and each time Erika began to voice a complaint, I squeezed her hand to remind her we were the uneasy guests of two armed murderers. “I forbid it,” I murmured into her ear.

She seemed to accept that.

At last, Escher stepped up to an abandoned auto shop and pounded at the door. An elderly Mexican man opened it. As he realized who knocked, his look of disgust dissipated and was replaced by an apologetic stumbling over his own speech. Escher didn’t say a word, but rather put a hand down on the man’s shoulder and stepped inside. He motioned for us to follow.

The inside of his shop was transformed into a haphazard living room, constructed of gutted cars. Car seats were made into beds and chairs, and reconstructed air conditioning units and fans pumped air in from outside; a sedan in the corner purred softly, a host of wires running from underneath its hood to the fans and lights. An exhaust system led from the car-turned-generator and pumped out the open window.

“We’ll be safe here,” Escher said. “It’s been a long day for all of us. I think you should rest.”

He jumped into a disemboweled convertible and laid across the back seat, combat boots in the air. Whisper moved to the furthest corner from the main entrance and sat cross-legged on the bare cement.

Erika and I found space on the floor together.

Whisper had focused all her attention on a white cat that bore a single black stripe from its nose to tail—like a reversed skunk. Escher was dismantling his gun and cleaning it. Erika and I mainly tried