Nocturnal

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

The biggest man Pookie had ever seen held Jessie Sharrow tight, only it wasn’t a man, it was two men, one with a professional wrestler’s size and a tiny head, the other with a withered body, a huge head, and a tail wrapped around the bigger one’s thick neck.

A bunch of monsters stood on the shipwreck’s prow. The snake-face; Tiffany Hines’s dog-face, who wore a too-small tuxedo jacket and orange Bermuda shorts; a black-haired girl with a pair of chain whips curled on her hips; a tall, black-furred, cat-faced man wearing jeans and a black-fur cape; the wrinkled old babushka lady; and a little guy with wire-rim glasses and an obscenely distended belly who kept flicking a gold Zippo lighter. These creatures, along with the two-men-in-one, seemed to have some privileged standing with Rex.

Rex stood on the prow’s farthest point, arms again raised to address the audience. “You have heard the arguments. Now, we must pass judgment.”

There hadn’t been any arguments, just a long list of accusations against Sharrow — accusations like aiding and abetting murderers, conspiring to kill people, being a bully, and hating on us like a dick. They were the accusations of an awkward teenage boy who suddenly had all the power in the world.

Rex raised his left fist, his thumb pointed in parallel to the ground.

The crowd roared guilty! guilty!

Jesus … the kid thought he was a Roman emperor or something, and this was his coliseum. Rex turned slowly, letting everyone see his fist, his thumb. He gazed up at his people, his eyes wide with murder, his upper lip curled and his teeth gleaming in the lights of the ship’s skull-encrusted mast.

Guilty! Guilty!

Rex lifted up on his toes, then pointed his thumb down.

“Sir Voh,” he said. “Carry out the execution.”

Pookie shook his head in denial, pulled at the ropes, wished for a miracle.

The big one lifted Sharrow and set him down on the deck. A sprawling right hand the size of Pookie’s chest pressed down on Sharrow’s stomach, holding the police captain in place. Sharrow’s blue uniform — which had always been so clean and perfectly creased — was covered with dirt from the long haul to the ship.

“Please,” Sharrow said. “Please!”

The little one crawled higher to perch on the top of the big one’s head. Tail still wrapped around the big one’s neck, he stood on emaciated, spindly legs. He looked down at Sharrow. “For the king. Fort, finish him.”

The big man raised his left hand to the sky and made a fist.

Guilty! Guilty!

“No!” Sharrow grabbed at the hand on his stomach, he punched, he scratched, he even lifted his head to bite but his mouth wouldn’t reach.

The fist slammed down onto Sharrow’s chest, crushing him like a fluid-filled lightbulb. Blood sprayed out of his mouth, the droplets arcing high into the air to fall on the deck, the dirt, and on Sharrow himself. His legs and arms spasmed briefly, then fell limp.

The monster stood. Sharrow’s bloody chest had been smashed flat. He didn’t move, didn’t twitch — he was just gone.

Rex pointed at the corpse. “Remove the criminal!”

White-robed men scrambled out from somewhere behind Pookie. Four of them lifted the shattered body, which flopped in the middle as if the chest were the broken spine of an old blue book. As the masked men carried the body past Pookie to somewhere behind, Pookie closed his eyes.

Jesus save me from this madness.

“Him!”

Rex’s voice again. Pookie couldn’t look — was Rex pointing his way? Would he be the next one to face the boy’s judgment?

“No, leave me alone!”

The voice of Dr. Metz.

Pookie opened his eyes to see the white-robed men dragging the silver-haired medical examiner up to the prow. Rex was watching, nodding, smiling wide with a closed-jaw grin.

“Bring that bully here,” Rex said. “Let the next trial begin!”