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

becoming slaves, or because they couldn’t run as fast as me when danger came. For five years, Erika, I survived the worst of it. Five years of hiding, of scrambling, of watching everyone adjust to the fact their way of life was gone. And you know what the biggest problem was, out there in the Red? Other people. Just look at the front page there.” I pointed at the newspaper on my coffee table. “That guy molested his step-daughter. Statistically, if you know 100 people, you know people who molest children and steal and lie on a regular basis, and who knows what else. Do you really want to have to deal with that? I don’t. People can’t hurt you if they don’t know you. I mean, just look at this.” I held up the daily newspaper, which sat open-faced on the table in front of us.

That day, another person afflicted with IED—Intermittent Explosive Disorder—had gone off his meds. It was becoming more and more common, as though we didn’t have enough to worry about. This particular IED had unloaded a clip of automatic gunfire in a crowded fast-food restaurant.

“Why do you think people do that?” Erika asked, voice sad now.

“People still think they’re owed a certain way of life. When they don’t get it, they get angrier and angrier at the world around them, I guess. Without medication, half of the people in the city would probably snap,” I said. “I just…I don’t need people in my life. I’m happier alone.”

“In the wild,” Erika said, “animals control their own population density. Some animals need a lot of space—each tiger might have ten square miles to herself. If you tried to fit more tigers in that space, they would kill each other until there was only one left. Maybe we’re like tigers, Clark. Maybe they just can’t fit ten million of us into one city.”

And then I heard it: the sound of cloth on glass—a soft knock against my window. Erika and I were instantly silent; it wasn’t a natural sound and demanded our complete attention. It was the sort of sound only a living thing could make.

I studied Erika’s face and was certain that until this precise moment, she hadn’t believed a word I’d said about Escher or the Strangers.

“They’re coming for me,” I said into my hands as I rubbed it over my clean-shaven face. “I was going to tell you, but you wouldn’t believe me. The Strangers are coming to kill us.”

I looked at the window, and all I could see was that brim of a large hat and tall, upturned collar. There was no face. I looked out the front window, and it was the same thing. I ran into the kitchen—the same thing. They had surrounded the house. He’d come for me.

I sat on the couch for what seemed like an eternity of quiet madness as I gripped the cushion beneath me with both hands. Maybe two or three minutes of just sitting there, knowing I was trapped.

I turned to check on Erika, who had become pale with fright. A thin layer of sweat shone on her forehead. My mind was in terror overload. I couldn’t talk. All I could do was tremble and keep my death grip on the couch.

The door came open—softly, even though it was dead-bolted.

It wasn’t Escher though. It was the woman, the one I’d seen in the alleyway, Whisper. I realized she was the second Stranger who’d been at the tower. She stalked into the living room, appearing to float over to us. A small black cat peeked out from one of her sleeves. It made its nest alongside her pale, slender arm, which she kept crooked to hold her pet in place. “It’s time,” she said. “I was told you were warned?”

I could see more Strangers outside the door.

“Nice to see you again,” Erika said meekly to Whisper.

“It was smart not to run,” she said.

My mouth wasn’t working.

“Where are you taking us?” Erika asked.

”You can’t know that,” she said, voice like silk.

Whisper reached into her robe with her crooked arm and revealed a small amber vial. She poured a few drops of it onto a small handkerchief and offered it to me. “Breathe,” she said. “It will go easier if you comply.”

I reached my hand up shakily to take the soft white square of cloth.

“Now,” she said.

I couldn’t bring myself to inhale the fumes from the cloth. I didn’t know what was on it. Is this going to kill me?

Just as I thought the Stranger was going to say something, Erika leaned over and pressed the cloth into my face for me. I could feel the heat from her small hand as her fingers cupped the side of my cheek.

Smelled funny. Smelled like sleep.

As the light dimmed around my eyes, I saw Erika hold the rag up to her own face and inhale.


6. Fish and Frogs

I woke up in the trunk of a car with a hood over my face and my hands cuffed behind my back. I could feel Erika’s body jostling against mine. I tried to comfort her, but she seemed unconscious.

The car stopped, and I was carried out of the trunk and tossed around some more. Again, I reached around for Erika and called her name, but it was no use. I spent maybe an hour with my hood on in a cold room and my hands pinned behind me on a cement floor, listening to my heart thump.

Finally, strong hands lifted me up from the floor and placed me in an aluminum chair. A hand dove into my pants pocket and pulled out my cell phone.

When they finally took the hood off, Escher’s face was only inches from mine.

Five Strangers stand behind him, some in trench coats and others dressed savagely in torn clothes, tattoo-strewn skin greasy in the light.

“Where is Erika?” I asked Escher, trembling. My voice cracked as I spoke, and I blushed.

“She’s our prisoner.”

Escher paced back and forth in front of me. He was dressed like some sort of pimp caricature with a deep purple velvet robe and matching top hat. I couldn’t see a weapon on him, but that didn’t make him seem any less dangerous.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you Clark Horton? You aren’t the only one. Do you know what really killed America?” he asked.

“No…no, I don’t.” I would say anything to get out of the spotlight.

“Fear killed America. We thought that if we were just secure enough, if there were enough safety procedures, we’d be safe, but safety is a myth. They used airplanes against us, and in response we made airplanes unusable. We used trains instead. Then they put a bomb on a train, and those were taken away. Soon just the threat of an attack was all they needed.

“We choked our own society. We thought that lions and wolves eat with knives and forks. We didn’t realize our enemies would use our fear against us. It’s a sick cycle, Frightened Boy. You, like America, need to wake up.”

I sat petrified, watching him.

“Excuse me,” Escher said suddenly. A lithe, dark-skinned man with set of quotation marks tattooed over his temples stepped up to the purple-robed leader and opened a wooden box, similar to one a wealthy man might use to store his cigars. Inside was a syringe filled with a thick red liquid. It looked like blood.

Escher took it out of the case and carefully injected it into his arm with the familiarity of an experienced junkie. When it was empty, he appeared dizzy for a moment. Then he looked down at his arm, at the injection site. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. I don’t use drugs. My dreams are frightening enough.”

I stayed quiet.

“Now, for you.” The leader of the Strangers bent over until his eyes met mine. He stared into my face, gaze unfocussed. I sat uncomfortably for thirty, forty seconds until at least he blinked again and began speaking. “Let him go,” he said.

Someone I couldn’t see stood over my shoulder, and they untied my hands at his command.

“You are free to move about, but be cautious. You cannot leave, and there is more to be afraid of here in the Orange than the Strangers. You are welcome to stay with us for a period of time, but you must know—I know you have the footage taken of me while I visited Tasumec Tower. I know the police don’t have copies of it, which is the only reason you are still alive. You will be free to leave when I have my hard drives, and I am satisfied yours are the only copies. As you could imagine, I have a lot on my hands. Enjoy my hospitality.”

I stood up and rubbed my wrists. I was feeling extremely nervous, like I may as well have had green skin considering how much I stood out. But then again, given my company, green skin may have helped me blend in more.

A slender white cat slid out from under my chair and coiled itself around my leg. Its small, wise face seemed to be smiling at me.

I felt a presence behind me and turned. It was a face I’d been seeing a strange amount of.

“Whisper,” I said.

“Hello again. Fancy we should meet here.”

“Where’s Erika?”

“She’s around, I believe. She isn’t captive. She’s been asking for you…seems to think highly of you.”

“Something like that,” I murmured.

I took in my surroundings for the first time. I was in an abandoned shopping center. Racks and shelves had been restacked to create rooms and corridors, and shopping carts had been torn apart and welded back into makeshift fences. Everyone I saw was eccentric and bizarre; it felt like being in some burlesque army. I didn’t really understand what everyone was doing around me, but they seemed busy. Pots of stew boiled over small fires, knives were sharpened around flaming trashcans, and weapons were being taken apart, cleaned, and reloaded. Modern computers were hooked into old gas generators, and assault rifles were stacked in large heaps under bulging camouflage tarps.

I walked around the chamber I was in, marveling at the inner walls they’d built from the gutted store. As I neared a curtained doorway, I heard a low growl. It seemed too monstrously low to be animal; I could feel the vibrations in my stomach.

A hand gripped my shirt and yanked me backwards. I nearly fell over and immediately panicked as I saw the ferocious, scarred black head of a Doberman peering at me through the curtain. I felt like I had awoken Anubis.

“It snarls at foes, it guards his throne, it gnaws on bones,” the man with quotation marks said to me. The lithe, long arms were contoured with ropey muscles, and I realized with startled revulsion this was the same man who murdered those policemen with his bare hands, in the Tasumec Tower lobby. He offered no other explanation, but none was needed.

I noticed that Whisper’s cats were watching from a safe distance.

I stumbled backwards and found my way out of the gutted shopping center, feeling as