Nocturnal

Battle Royale

Bryan dropped into darkness, things smacking him in his face, his arms and his hands as he fell. He hit hard on his head and shoulder and came to a stop. Landing — something he’d have to work on.

He struggled to stand. He still held a five-seven in his right hand. His left hand was empty. He’d lost that gun and it was easy to see why — his pinkie and ring fingers flopped sickly, both broken at their base knuckle.

Cracked boards surrounded him. Old dust choked the air. He’d smashed through the upper deck and apparently one below that. Fifteen feet above, he saw the jagged hole in the deck and the mast lights rising above it. He had to get up there, had to reach Pookie and the others. Bryan struggled to stand amid the angled pile of wood. He got his footing, then bent and jumped. He cleared eight feet and landed on the second deck. Another quick leap took him back to the main deck.

Gunfire and screams echoed through the cavern. At the back end of the ship, the cabin wall and door blazed with crawling flame. Something inside cried out in a deep voice. Monsters beat frantically at the flames, trying to put them out. Bryan saw Pierre and Sly and Firstborn, the whip-woman who had killed Robin, all of them trying to fight the fire, but he couldn’t take them on now: he had to get the hostages out first.

He looked toward the poles holding Verde and Chief Zou and the others. Blocking the way stood the nerdy kid with the distended belly. He wore bent horn-rimmed glasses and held a silver Zippo in his right hand.

In a practiced motion that would have made the most hard-core hipster chain-smoker green with envy, the kid brought his left hand up, flipping open the Zippo and lighting it with the same motion.

The kid’s cheeks puffed out, like he was about to puke. His stomach made a gurgling noise Bryan heard even over the crackling flames. The kid held up the Zippo and let out a sound that was half-belch, half-roar.

Flames billowed out, a spreading fireball ripping toward Bryan’s face.

Bryan stepped back over the hole in the deck and dropped down as the fireball ripped the air above him.

From John’s right, an insectile monster scrambled over the dead body of one of its brothers and rushed in. John spun to face it, pulled the shotgun trigger twice — the first blast hit it in the chest, the second in the head. The thing flew back, half of its obscene face ripped away. Something hammered John’s left shoulder, driving him against the cavern wall. Clumps of dirt and stone broke off around him — someone was shooting at him.

“Alder! Sniper!”

“I have him,” Alder said. Alder knelt, aimed his cane at a blanketed gunman on the cavern’s opposite ledge.

Fingers scraped at John’s left foot. He looked down — a little red-haired girl, no more than ten, crawling up from under the ledge, her tiny fingers reaching out for his foot. The look in her eyes: murder, hate, hunger.

John swung the shotgun muzzle down, held it an inch from her face and pulled the trigger. A cloud of brain and bone, the girl spun away down to the trenches below.

Alder’s cane-gun fired; the sniper fire ended.

“Damn, I’m good,” the old man said.

More monsters were closing in from the right and also from the left, where Adam fired away with his five-seven.

John reached for his grenades.

Hands and feet tied, Pookie fought to standing position. He had to act. The fat kid — the one who had breathed fire at Bryan — was only a few feet away, looking down into the hole in the deck. Pookie pushed off both feet and hopped toward the boy.

Got to keep my balance, I swear I’ll hit the treadmill if I get out of this alive …

The boy heard Pookie coming; he started to turn but he was too late. Pookie threw himself at the boy’s legs. The boy wavered for a moment, arms whirling, then he fell into the hole.

Bryan saw the fire-breathing kid fall through the hole in the deck. The dying words of a burn-covered teenager flashed through his mind: demon, dragon.

He aimed his five-seven and fired three times as Jay Parlar’s killer crashed down to smash face-first into the broken wood. Bryan jumped high again, this time putting his right foot on the second deck and pushing off that, the one-two leap carrying him up to the main deck — he had scrambled fifteen feet straight up, just like that.

Bryan found himself standing over Pookie Chang.

“Untie me for fuck’s sake!”

Bryan holstered the five-seven and drew his Ka-Bar knife. He sliced through Pookie’s ropes and helped the man to his feet.

A big, resonant voice screamed from inside the burning cabin. “Elle brûle … elle brûle!”

Explosions echoed from the ledges, joining the cacophony of gunfire, crackling flames and the echoing screams of fear, pain and anger.

Bryan drew the five-seven, then gave it and the knife to Pookie. “Cut everyone loose!”

Pookie nodded and ran toward Chief Zou.

Bryan’s other five-seven had to be around here somewhere, or maybe he’d lost it below, but either way he didn’t have time to find it. He looked up at the crucified Erickson thirty feet above — he couldn’t leave the man up there. Bryan ran to the mast … made of human skulls?

All the eyes … all the teeth.

Bryan jumped onto the mast, his feet breaking skulls as he climbed. He was so strong now, so agile; he scaled the mast like a chimp shooting up a tree trunk. His ravaged left fingers screamed in white-hot complaint, but there was no other choice.

He found himself face-to-face with the Savior.

ba-da-bum-bummmm

Bryan stared at Jebediah Erickson. Jebediah Erickson stared back.

This was his brother.

Bryan hooked his left arm over the crossbeam. With his right hand, he grabbed the spike sticking out of Erickson’s right palm.

He met Erickson’s eyes again. “You ready?”

Erickson’s bloody, split lips smiled. “I’m glad I was wrong about you.”

Dangling thirty feet above the deck, Bryan yanked the spike free. Erickson snarled, but he didn’t cry out. Blood splattered down on the white skulls and the dry wood below.

Bryan swung behind the mast and moved to the other side. He again hooked his left arm over the crossbar, grabbed the spike pinning Erickson’s left hand and ripped it free.

The old man slid his right hand behind the mast, holding himself up as he bent at the knees and reached down with his left to yank at the spike nailed through his feet.

Another explosion, more screams — John and the others were using their thermite grenades, using everything they had. The air started to fill with smoke. Bryan felt the cabin fire’s heat even from up here on the mast.

“Bryan!” Pookie’s voice from below, followed by gunfire.

Bryan let go and dropped. He bent his legs as he landed, absorbing the impact but still stumbling to the right. Mr. Biz-Nass cowered at the base of the skull-mast. Zou and her daughters ran to him. Robertson had the knife and was cutting away at Verde’s ropes. Pookie stood tall, firing away at an advancing wave of white-robed men. The masked men would fall or flinch, but there were too many for him to stop them all.

Spreading flames danced up from the deck’s dry wooden planks. Some of the white robes were already burning. Blast-furnace heat billowed away from the ship’s cabin — in those flames, shimmering images of man-shaped creatures moving, trying to get inside.

The slide of Pookie’s five-seven locked. Empty. Bryan hadn’t given him the extra magazines.

Bryan gripped his broken pinkie and ring finger. With a grunt, he snapped them back into place. He slid his right hand into his left-arm sheath and came out with the ceramic knife. He forced himself to do the same with his ruined left hand — each fist held one of the slim killing blades.

Pookie backed up. His foot caught on a broken board and he fell to his ass. The Halloween-masked white-robes reached for him but Bryan rushed forward, cutting and stabbing. Slice-slash-slice — bodies fell, red blood painted long, wet splashes on white fabric. He kicked out, the sole of his foot smashing into a chest, sending the man flying back into the flames. In seconds, not a single masked man remained standing.

A flash of heat made Bryan reactively stamp his feet — flames licking the cuffs of his pants. He turned and ran back to the skull-mast. Biz-Nass and Robertson were there, helping Erickson to his feet. Zou held one of her daughters, Verde held the other. The fire’s heat seemed to press invisible fists against them all, forcing them to lean away, to shield their faces. They blinked madly, coughed against the thick smoke that filled the cavern like a fog.

He urged them to the tip of the shipwreck. “To the prow, go, go!”

“Bryan!”

Pookie was pointing back down the deck.

Fifteen feet away, the nerdy kid crawled out of the hole in the deck. Blood sheeted his face. His glasses were twisted and wobbly on his broken nose. He stood, golden Zippo in hand. Behind him, Pierre rushed out of the flaming cabin, long mouth open in a roaring, skewed-jawed snarl, flames dancing on his back and from his shorts.

Pierre and Bryan locked eyes; the dog-face was coming for him.

Erickson grabbed the knife out of Bryan’s left hand. The bleeding, half-naked old man stepped forward and threw it.

The blade whipped through the air and slid into the nerdy boy’s distended belly. The boy dipped inward at the waist like he’d been punched, shock and surprise etched behind his bent wire-rims. A stream of thin, white vapor jetted out of the hole in his gut.

A flaming Pierre ran right through that stream.

The flame caught the vapor and shot back into the boy’s bloated stomach like a reverse flamethrower. His belly blew open in a fireball that swallowed Pierre and threw the monster forward. Engulfed in flame, he tumbled into the people packed on the prow, knocking Erickson and Biz-Nass hard to the deck before landing heavily on top of Amy Zou, pinning her beneath his burning body.

Bryan dropped his knife and grabbed Pierre’s ankles. The flames scorched his hands, but he ignored the pain long enough to yank Pierre off Zou and toss him a few feet back down the deck. The big creature seemed limp, weak. The skin on Bryan’s hands sizzled. He started to reach down to beat at Amy Zou’s burning clothes, but Sean Robertson and Rich Verde were there, rolling Zou over to smother the flames.

A girl’s voice: “You killed my daddy.”

Bryan turned toward the voice. Little Mur held the knife he’d dropped. She stood over the smoldering dog-man. Pierre lifted a hand to stop her, but he was too weak and too slow. Before Bryan could reach Mur, she clutched the knife in both hands, point down, and plunged the blade into Pierre’s right eye.

Pierre flailed and swung out blindly. Mur fell away. Bryan rushed in and grabbed her, pulling her away. Knife handle still sticking out of his eye, Pierre rolled to his hands and knees. He tried to rise, but his shaking arms wouldn’t support him. He slumped to his right side and moved no more.

The flames had engulfed most of the ship, driving everyone to the tip of the prow. Mur held tight in his arms, Bryan became aware of a whistling sound, some kind of low, airy hiss. He looked left, eyes scanning the ledge — there, a man in a dark-green cloak, another in a black peacoat, bodies piled up on the ledge around them.

John and the others had held.

And just to the left of John’s position, barely visible through the growing smoke, Bryan saw the thin ribbon of steep steps angling up the wall from the cavern floor to the ledge. He and the others would have to cross the trench maze to reach it. The maze walls rose up to flat islands of dirt, like little mesas that defined and separated the trenches. Bryan could jump from mesa to mesa, but the trenches were too wide for the others to do that and he couldn’t carry them all. They’d have to go through the maze while he stayed up on the islands, calling down directions.

He cupped his free hand to his mouth, shouted to be heard over the roaring flames. “Off the ship and into the trenches. Stick together, we have to move fast. Erickson, help me get them down.”

Bryan and Erickson each grabbed one person at a time and jumped off the deck to drop to the trench floor twenty feet below. As soon as Bryan hit, he scrambled back up the side of the shipwreck for the next person.

In seconds, everyone was down. A growing wind whipped dirt, dust and smoke through the trenches, feeding oxygen to the hungry flames. The survivors gathered together for their run to freedom. Verde and Biz-Nass were under Zou’s arms, helping the badly burned woman walk. Blisters dotted her red face. Most of her hair had melted away. Robertson handed Bryan the Ka-Bar knife, then scooped up Tabz. Erickson lifted Mur.

Bryan slid the knife into his belt-sheath, then vaulted onto a mesa fifteen feet above, putting him at the same level with the dying shipwreck. It blazed like a burning ship at sea. Bryan turned away to scan the trenches, searching for the best way through the maze.

He looked down to the people and pointed. “That way! First right, then first left, move!”

The huddle of people made good time. Bryan jumped across two trenches, moving to a new mesa. So close now, so close.

He looked down to give them the next direction just as a shot rang out — Rich Verde’s forehead ripped open in a cloud of red and pink. He and Zou dropped hard. Bryan dove into the trench, using his body to shield the rest.

The gun fired three more times, two rounds hitting him in the back — the bullets dug into his coat like a sledgehammer tipped with a small nail.

Armor-piercing rounds, had to be.

He looked over his left shoulder.

Rex Deprovdechuk stood on the inferno ship’s prow. One hand held the broken, smoldering rail, the other held the missing five-seven in a rock-steady grip. The left side of the boy’s face dangled in a fleshy flap from his lower lip and chin, exposing the teeth and part of his cheekbone. A bloody, unlidded eye stared out. His jaw hung slack, as if he couldn’t close it. Rex seemed to ignore the smoke, the heat, even the flames that were already crawling up his long red robe.

A hand on Bryan’s shoulder, a mouth near his ear.

“Get them out of here.”

Erickson.

The old man tossed a little girl at Bryan. Bryan reacted automatically, grabbing her, and as he did the old man snatched the Ka-Bar out of its belt-sheath. Erickson rushed back down the trench toward the shipwreck. He ran faster on ruined feet than any normal man could sprint.

Bryan’s brother rushed away to fight the enemy. Bryan wanted to go with him, fight by his side, but the little girl in his arms had done nothing wrong, had made no choices that brought her to this horrid place. He looked at the others: Pookie, helping Zou to her feet; Robertson, face bleeding again, holding the other little girl; and Biz-Nass, coughing and cowering, looking left and right for the next threat. They were all crouched low, waving away smoke and waiting for Bryan to lead them out.

Gunfire from the ship. Bryan looked back to see Erickson, arms in front of his face, leaping up to the rail, Rex firing the five-seven as the old man came on.

Good luck, brother.

Bryan turned his back on the ship and ran down the trench.

Rex tried to scream come on, but his jaw wouldn’t move. The monster landed on the burning deck, knife raised, his old face snarling with evil. Rex pulled the trigger two more times, put two more rounds in the monster’s chest, and then the monster rushed in. They tumbled back into the flames.

These demons had invaded his world, his kingdom.

Kill them kill them all killthemkillthemkillthem

Rex scrambled to his feet. He tore off the burning cape, tried and failed to find a place without flame. Erickson stood on ruined feet already scorched black. His skin bubbled, his scrap of clothing disintegrated into floating bits. Rex reached down to grab a flaming piece of wood, then stepped deeper into the fire to attack Savior.

Rex would slaughter the monster, then gather his people and start over.

“Go right!”

Bryan held the girl tight as he leaped across the trench to the next mesa. Sweat soaked the shirt under his armored jacket. Below and to his left, the others ran through the trenches as fast as they could. Pookie was in the lead, carrying Zou in his arms. Robertson, Biz-Nass, the girls; all of them were coughing heavily — Bryan didn’t have much time before people started collapsing.

They were almost to the cavern’s wall. He looked at the trenches, traced the path toward the stairs that would take everyone up to the ledge. So close! The smoke burned at his eyes, shoved its way down his throat to scorch his lungs. Wind whipped through the cavern, scattering dust, blowing the smoke around like some vision of hell.

“Take the next right!” he shouted down. Pookie adjusted his grip on Zou, then led them forward. The group exited that trench and stood at the base of the stairs. Bryan jumped down to join them. His feet hit, then his legs gave out and he fell, turning to shield the girl as he did.

A rattling cough shook his chest. Hands pulled him to his feet. He looked at Pookie, saw the man was just about exhausted. Bryan set the girl down, then took Zou out of Pookie’s arms. He threw the woman over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“We’re almost out,” he said between coughs. “Just make it up these stairs.”

Bryan coughed once more, then started climbing. He kept Zou on his right shoulder so his left hand — with its blistered skin and broken fingers — could feel along the wall. Fifteen feet up, he was high enough to look to his right, out across the maze to the burning ship.

Flames soared so high they kissed the arena roof some fifty feet above. Old pieces of wood all along the ceiling had caught fire — they burned like little flaming suns set into a smoke-filled sky made of dirt, brick and rock. Bits of the roof broke free, plummeting down to smash into the burning ship or pummel maze plateaus and trenches.

Bryan kept climbing.

Three steps from the ledge, a crack and a whuff drew his attention back to the ship as the captain’s cabin sagged, then collapsed in a billowing puff of swirling flame. Bryan saw an impossibility: Firstborn, fully ablaze, straining to pull a flaming cart out of the cabin.

On that cart, even through the shimmering heat, Bryan saw the thing Aggie had described — Mommy.

His mother.

Bloated beyond comprehension. Little arms flailing. Little legs kicking. And in that massive, distended belly, Bryan saw things moving, twitching, saw bubbles forming and joining and popping.

The fluid in her massive belly was boiling, boiling and swelling.

Her stomach tore — a thin, high jet of steam shot out, but the belly continued to swell like a filling helium balloon. Another jet of steam appeared, then she popped, exploding outward in flame-spinning chunks of sizzling flesh.

Bryan climbed the last three steps toward the ledge, toward John and Adam and Alder.

Rex tumbled off the rail and crashed down hard to a trench floor below. The monster was too strong! Rex looked back up to the prow to see his enemy — the old man stood on the rail, naked and blistered, blood and soot covering his skin. Savior looked more like a monster than ever before.

He had a knife in his hand and madness in his eyes.

The old man gripped the handle in both hands, bent his legs, then lunged out into the air.

Rex reached up in time to catch the monster’s wrists. He fell back hard, struggling to keep the knife point from driving into his eye.

Eyes watering, his vision a shimmering blur, Bryan fell to a knee. He couldn’t make it. He heard screaming — Adam’s voice — shouting over the whipping wind, urging him and the others on, telling them to hurry. He looked up to see John Smith holding the black-haired girl tight, his green hood up around a face that dripped with sweat.

“Get up, Clauser,” John said, then carried the girl into the tunnel. The others ran past Bryan, a coughing mass of legs and arms following John in.

How could Amy Zou feel so heavy?

Bryan felt hands on his shoulders, dragging him up by his coat.

“Bri-Bri,” Pookie said, then coughed so hard bits of blood flew out of his mouth. “This is not nappy-time. Move.”

Bryan stood, adjusted Zou on his shoulder, then followed Pookie to the tunnel entrance. They stumbled over corpses stretched out all over the ledge — John and the others had been busy. Before he entered the tunnel, Bryan looked back out at the cavern one last time.

The flames were already dying down. The ship glowed like living coal, waves of orange light washing through the sagging vessel. The mast burned like a torch; a steady rain of skulls dropped off to tumble into the embers below. As Bryan watched, the mast tilted, then fell, smashing through the deck in a shower of sparks and spinning cinders.

The arena spectators had fled. The place was empty.

Almost empty — in a trench in front of the ship, Bryan saw Rex on his back, Erickson on top of him trying to drive a knife into the boy’s throat. Rex fought, his torn face screwed up into a horrid mask of rage, his shaking hands holding Erickson’s wrists. Smoke swirled through the trench around them, reminding Bryan of the thick San Francisco fog that rolled down streets in the late-night hours.

The knife pushed closer.

Then a blur of smoldering black hit Erickson and drove him into a trench wall. The Ka-Bar knife spun and dropped to the ground.

Rex slowly rolled to his feet. So much pain. His knight had saved him. Firstborn looked horrible — his fur gone, his blistered skin smoking in places, sheened with oozing wetness in others. Burns from head to toe, yet still he fought for his king.

Rex pushed past the pain. He bent and picked up the knife.

“Bryan, come on!” Pookie’s voice. Bryan carried Amy Zou to the tunnel entrance, never taking his eyes off the scene below. Wind shot out of the tunnel, sucked in from beyond to feed the hungry fire. In the center of the cavern, a large chunk of ceiling gave way, dropping down to smash the trenches like an asteroid hitting a planet. The place was collapsing.

Rex watched.

Rex waited.

The end of one era, the beginning of another.

Firstborn’s back muscles flexed and rippled. He had his hands around Erickson’s neck. Erickson reached up to claw at Firstborn’s face, but the old man was already weakening.

Movement on Rex’s right. He turned to look — his heart surged with joy.

“My king,” Sly said.

Rex tried to talk, tried to say you’re alive! but winced at the pain shooting through his mouth.

“Don’t speak,” Sly said. “I am here.” He smiled wide, his needle-toothed grin full of love. He had a few burn marks on his clothes, but looked mostly unharmed.

Sly held his hand out, palm up. “May I kill the monster?”

Rex looked over to Firstborn. The great knight still had his hands locked around the monster’s throat. The monster’s hands moved weakly — he didn’t have long.

Rex nodded, then put the knife handle in his friend’s palm.

Sly’s green-skinned hand closed around the handle. “Thank you, my king,” he said, then thrust the knife deep into Rex’s chest.

Rex stared into Sly’s smiling face. What was happening? Rex looked down. The knife handle stuck out. He couldn’t see any of the blade. It hurt. It burned.

Sly put his arm around Rex and pulled him close. “Thank you for making me your successor,” he said quietly. He gripped the knife handle, pulled it out, turned it, then shoved it home again. Rex felt the hilt thump against his sternum, felt the tip poke out of his back.

It burned.

Sly had lied. He was just like all the others. Rex’s only true friend had hurt him, just like everyone else in his life.

Rex fell to his knees.

Sly knelt with him. “I could never have taken over on my own. Firstborn was too strong. Now, I will tell everyone that Firstborn killed you. Good-bye, Rex.”

Sly let go. He ran off down a trench, vanishing into the smoke.

Rex closed his eyes and fell to his side.

Bryan saw Firstborn let go of Erickson. The old man didn’t move. The smoldering creature turned.

Firstborn stared at the knife sticking out of Rex’s chest.

It was over.

Bryan walked into the wind rushing out of the tunnel. Everyone stood there, waiting for him — everyone except Alder Jessup. The old man lay on the ground, unmoving, a neat, black hole in his blood-smeared cheek. Bryan looked up at Adam, had to shout to be heard. “I’m so sorry.”

Tears streaked Adam’s face. He shook his head. “It’s what Gramps wanted. We can’t help him. Leave him here.”

Bryan started to object, but Adam was right — they couldn’t get a dead body through the booby-trapped columns.

He heard another chunk of ceiling give way somewhere behind him. The ground trembled beneath his feet, just a little.

The columns.

“Come on, we have to move!”

He held Chief Zou tight and ran deeper into the tunnel.

Bryan’s flashlight beam danced across a jagged, stacked column. He skidded to a halt before he hit it, sliding feet kicking dirt onto the hodgepodge of masonry. The people behind him — he braced his feet just as someone big plowed into his back.

“Everyone, stop!”

The sound of panting and coughing filled the air. Almost there …

He set Amy Zou down on her feet, gave her a little shake.

“Chief, snap out of it,” he said. “You have to walk on your own.”

She blinked at him, a glazed look in her eyes. So many blisters, so much scorched flesh; she had been beautiful once, but would never be so again.

“Step where I step, Chief. If you stumble, if you fall, you die and so do your daughters.”

That hit home. Zou straightened, seemed to call upon some inner reserve of strength. She nodded.

Bryan looked at the little girls. Now wasn’t the time to be nice. “No room for mistakes. Step where the person in front of you steps. You screw it up, you die and kill everyone around you. Got it?”

Their eyes were wide, their little faces streaked with sweat and smoke. They nodded just like their mother.

He looked at the rest: Adam, Robertson, Biz-Nass and Pookie nodded as well. Everyone knew the stakes.

Bryan took a deep breath. The air was clearer here, pouring in from the train tunnel beyond. He eyed the narrow spaces between the columns and the wall.

“Hey, Pooks,” he said.

“Yes, my Terminator?”

“You better suck in that gut.”

Pookie did, tried to hold it, but he was exhausted and his air let out in a tummy-puffing huff.

“I guess I’ll go last,” he said.

Bryan nodded, then trained his flashlight beam on the floor and started working his way through.

He made it out, then waited. Zou came next, then Tabz, then Mur, the one who had killed Pierre. Biz-Nass followed, then Adam. As Sean Robertson crawled out of the hole, the ground trembled again.

Bryan leaned in. Pookie was halfway through the columns.

“Pooks, move!”

A pebble dropped from the ceiling and hit Bryan in the head. Both men looked up — the ceiling above Bryan was a single, wide piece of chipped concrete.

More pebbles dropped from around its edges, trailing little comet-trails of dust.

Pookie drew in a big breath, then scooted faster.

Two columns to go.

“Pooks, slow down.”

“You slow down.”

Pookie was panicking. He moved too fast. His elbow hit the second to last column.

Bryan stepped through the hole and reached. He grabbed Pookie’s arm and yanked him forward. Bryan grabbed his stumbling friend in his arms, then threw himself backward out the hole as the tunnel collapsed. A thick cloud of dirt and dust billowed out around them.

As the dust settled, eight people sat on the train tunnel’s narrow walkway, coughing and gasping.

They had made it out alive.