Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Cory Doctorow [big ebook reader .txt] 📗

it flop
back down to the bed.

"It's all right, babe," he said.

He and Brad ate dinner in silence in the kitchen, boiled hot dogs with
cheese and sliced baby tomatoes from the garden and lemonade from
scratch. Bradley ate seven. Mimi had three bites out of the one that he
brought up to her room, and when he went up to collect her plate, she
was asleep and had the covers wrapped snugly around her. He took a spare
sheet and a blanket out of the linen closet and brought it downstairs
and made up the living room sofa. In moments, he was sleeping.

This night, he was keenly aware of what had roused him from sleep. It
was a scream, at the back of the house. A scared, drunken scream that
was half a roar.

He was at the back door in a moment, still scrubbing at his eyes with
his fists, and Bennett was there already.

He opened the door and hit the switch that turned on the garden lights,
the back porch lights, the garage lights in the coach house. It was
bright enough to dazzle him, but he'd squinted in anticipation.

So it only took him a moment to take in the tableau. There was Link, on
the ground, splayed out and face down, wearing boxer shorts and nothing
else, his face in a vegetable bed in the next door yard. There was
Krishna, standing in the doorway, face grim, holding a hammer and
advancing on Link.

He shouted, something wordless and alarmed, and Link rolled over and
climbed up to his feet and lurched a few steps deeper into the
postage-stamp-sized yard, limping badly. Krishna advanced two steps into
the yard, hammer held casually at his waist.

Alan, barefoot, ran to the dividing fence and threw himself at it going
up it like a cat, landing hard and painfully, feeling something small
and important give in his ankle. Krishna nodded cordially at him, then
hefted the hammer again.

Krishna took another step toward Alan and then Natalie, moving so fast
that she was a blur, streaked out of the back door, leaping onto
Krishna's back. She held there for a minute and he rocked on his heels,
but then he swung the hammer back, the claws first.

It took her just above her left eye with a sound like an awl punching
through leather and her cry was terrible. She let go and fell over
backward, holding her face, screaming.

But it was enough time, enough distraction, and Alan had hold of
Krishna's wrist. Remembering a time a long time ago, he pulled Krishna's
hand to his face, heedless of the shining hammer, and bit down on the
base of his thumb as hard as he could, until Krishna loosed the hammer
with a shout. It grazed Alan's temple and then bounced off his
collarbone on the way to the ground, and he was momentarily stunned.

And here was Link, gasping with each step, left leg useless, but hauling
himself forward anyway, big brawny arms reaching for Krishna, pasting a
hard punch on his cheek and then taking hold of his throat and bearing
him down to the ground.

Alan looked around. Benny was still on his side of the fence. Mimi's
face poked out from around the door. The sound of another hard punch
made him look around as Link shook the ache out of his knuckles and made
to lay another on Krishna's face. He had a forearm across his throat,
and Krishna gasped for breath.

"Don't," Adam said. Link looked at him, lip stuck out in belligerence.

"Stop me," he said. "Try it. Fucker took a hammer to my *knee*."

Natalie went to him, her hand over her face. "Don't do it," she
said. She put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll call the cops."

Krishna made a choking sound. Link eased up on him a little, and he drew
a ragged breath. "Go ahead and call them," he rasped.

Alan took a slow step back. "Brian, can you bring me the phone, please?"

Link looked at his sister, blood streaming down her face, at Krishna's
misshapen nose and mouth, distorted into a pink, meaty sneer. He
clenched each fist in turn.

"No cops," he said.

Natalie spat. "Why the hell not?" She spat again. Blood was running into
her eye, down her cheek, into her mouth.

"The girl, she's inside. Drunk. She's only 15."

Alan watched the brother and sister stare at one another. Blaine handed
him the phone. He hit a speed dial.

"I need a taxi to Toronto Western Hospital at 22 Wales Avenue, at
Augusta," he said. He hung up. "Go out front," he told Natalie. "Get a
towel for your face on your way."

"Andrew --" she said.

"I'll call the cops," he said. "I'll tell them where to find you."

It was as she turned to go that Krishna made a lunge for the
hammer. Billy was already kicking it out of the way, and Link, thrown
from his chest, got up on one knee and punched him hard in the kidneys,
and he went back down. Natalie was crying again.

"Go," Alan said, gently. "We'll be okay."

She went.

Link's chest heaved. "I think you need to go to the hospital too, Link,"
Alan said. The injured knee was already so swollen that it was visible,
like a volleyball, beneath his baggy trousers.

"No," Link said. "I wait here."

"You don't want to be here when the cops arrive," Alan said.

Krishna, face down in the dirt, spat. "He's not going to call any cops,"
he said. "It's grown-up stuff, little boy. You should run along."

Absently, Link punched him in the back of the head. "Shut up," he
said. He was breathing more normally now. He shifted and made a
squeaking sound.

"I just heard the cab pull up," Alan said. "Brian can help you to the
front door. You can keep your sister company, get your knee looked at."

"The girl --" he said.

"Yes. She'll be sober in the morning, and gone. I'll see to it," Adam
said. "All right?"

Brian helped him to his feet and toward the door, and Andrew stood
warily near Krishna.

"Get up," he said.

Mimi, in his doorway, across the fence, made a sound that was half a
moan.

Krishna lay still for a moment, then slowly struggled to his knees and
then his feet.

"Now what?" Krishna said, one hand pressed to his pulped cheek.

"I'm not calling the cops," he said.

"No," Krishna said.

"Remember what I told you about my brother? I *made him*. I'm stronger
than him, Krishna. You picked the wrong Dracula to Renfield for. You are
doomed. When you leave him, he will hunt you down. If you don't leave
him, I'll get you. You made this situation."

Billy was back now, in the doorway, holding the hammer. He'd hand it to
Adam if he asked for it. He could use it. After all, once you've killed
your brother, why not kill his Renfield, too?

Krishna looked scared, a little scared. Andrew teased at how that felt
and realized that it didn't feel like he'd thought it would. It didn't
feel good.

"Go, Krishna," he said. "Get out of this house and get out of my sight
and don't ever come back again. Stay away from my brother. You will
never profit by your association with him. He is dead. The best he can
do for you is make you dead, too. Go."

And Krishna went. Slowly. Painfully. He stood and hobbled toward the
front door.

Mimi watched him go, and she smiled once he was gone.

Benny said, "Kurt's shop is on fire."

#

They ran, the two of them, up Augusta, leaving Mimi behind, wrapped in
her blanket. They could smell the smoke as soon as they crossed
Kensington, and they could see the flames licking out of the dark black
clouds just a moment later.

The smell was terrible, a roiling chemical reek that burned the skin and
the lungs and the eyes. All those electronics, crisping and curling and
blackening.

"Is he in there?" Alan said.

"Yes," Barry said. "Trapped."

"Call the fire department," Andrew said, and ran for the door, fishing
in his pocket for his keys. "Call 911."

He got the door open and left his keys in the lock, pulling his shirt up
over his head. He managed a step into the building, two steps, and the
heat beat him back.

He sucked up air and ran for it again.

The heat was incredible, searing. He snorted half a breath and felt the
hair inside his nostrils scorch and curl and the burning was nearly
intolerable. He dropped down on all fours and tried to peer under the
smoke, tried to locate Kurt, but he couldn't find him.

Alan crawled to the back of the store, to Kurt's den, sure that his
friend would have been back there, worn out from a night's dumpster
diving. He took a false turn and found himself up against the
refrigerator. The little piece of linoleum that denoted Kurt's kitchen
was hot and soft under his hands, melting and scorching. He reoriented
himself, spinning around slowly, and crawled again.

Tears were streaming freely down his face, and between them and the
smoke, he could barely see. He drew closer to the shop's rear, nearly
there, and then he was there, looking for Kurt.

He found him, leaned up against the emergency door at the back of the
shop, fingers jammed into the sliver of a gap between the door's bottom
and the ground. Alan tried the door's pushbar, but there was something
blocking the door from the other side.

He tried slapping Kurt a couple times, but he would not be roused. His
breath came in tiny puffs. Alan took his hand, then the other hand, and
hoisted his head and neck and shoulders up onto his back and began to
crawl for the front door, going as fast as he could in the blaze.

He got lost again, and the floor was hot enough to raise blisters. When
he emerged with Kurt, he heard the sirens. He breathed hard in the night
air.

As he watched, two fire trucks cleared the corner, going the wrong way
down one-way Augusta, speeding toward him. He looked at Billy.

"What?"

"Is Kurt all right?"

"Sure, he's fine." He thought a moment. "The ambulance man will want to
talk with him, he said. "And the TV people, soon.

"Let's get out of here," Brad said.

"All right," he said. "Now you're talking."

Though it was only three or four blocks back to Adam's place, it took
the better part of half an hour, relying on the back alleys and the dark
to cover his retreat, hoping that the ambulance drivers and firefighters
wouldn't catch him here. Having to lug Kurt made him especially suspect,
and he didn't have a single good explanation for being caught toting
around an unconscious punk in the dead of night.

"Come on, Brent," Adam said. "Let's get home and put this one to bed and
you and me have a nice chat."

"You don't want me to call an ambulance?"

Kurt startled at this and his head lolled back, one eye opened a crack.

"No," Alan said. "No ambulances. No cops. No firemen. Just me and
him. I'll make him better," he said.

The smoke smell