Nowhere Blvd: A Horror Novel (14 page)

Spencer headed north.  Given the weight of the gas can on his pack, he regretted that his plan involved more than a little backtracking.  What was worse was that he couldn’t be sure how much time he had to get all the preparations done.  The first time he'd come to Nowhere Blvd. it was about the same real world time as it was now.  At the time there'd been at least eight hours of daylight left in Nowhere Blvd.  Going along that theory, he’d have about eight hours of daylight again.  Except he wasn’t at all sure that Nowhere Blvd. moved on a 24 hour clock.  He hadn’t had a watch when he'd come over and never stumbled upon one in the old scavenging missions.  His internal clock could read the day/night cycles of the place almost perfectly, but that depended on having seen the beginning or end of that day/night.  Because the sun in Nowhere Blvd. stayed in the same place all day, you couldn’t figure it out if you showed up somewhere in the middle. 

The thought of it made him nervous.  If he couldn’t be in position by sunset he had a much smaller chance of getting to Suzie in time.  Jack tended to do his lab work early in the night, doing God knows what else the rest of the time.  Running would sap Spencer’s energy, but should he try anyway?  He was working blind here.

Well not entirely
, he thought. 

As he marched he began to realize that he had in a short time forgot a lot about Nowhere Blvd.  It was a surprise, he hadn’t thought he could have forgot any details even  he tried.  Yet now he remembered how you could tell the time here by subtle temperature variations.  Unlike in the real world, it didn’t get cooler towards sunset.  Without the sun hitting at an angle, it got hotter and hotter the whole day, and colder and colder the whole night.  He tried to remember what other details he had forgot.  He reminded himself of the ways to tell if you were in danger.  The
tap tap
of the Hollow Men patrolling in the streets, the
clop clop
of Smiling Jack’s black shoes, the shifting of dead leaves and the smell as a Rejected Thing was stalking you.  And the sound Mr. Buttons made...well the thought of that brought a smile to his face. 

He settled on a fast march, estimating by the heat he had at least a few hours before dusk.  The bright light after the dark night of the real world gave him the curious feeling that he’d  just woken up, that the real world had all been a dream.  The smells of the forest, the crunch of sticks beneath his feet, it was all so much more familiar than his room back in his parents house. 

The whole thing really would have been a very pleasant homecoming, if not for the overwhelming fear of being murdered.

He tried to plan what he would do if a Rejected Thing came after him.  He realized he’d also forgotten his fear of them, his longtime neighbors.  But he was no longer sick from the soars and weakness that came from malnutrition, and a steel hunting knife was a lot more deadly than a sharp piece of bone.  To his surprise he realized there wasn’t a single one he could think of who could survive a fight with him now, and he was pretty sure he knew them all.  Of course if things went poorly a few hours from now, a
single
one of them wouldn’t be his problem.

Spencer walked a horseshoe path around the north end of the forest.  Snacking on an energy bar from his backpack, the hill and mansion always at his left just a little ways out of view.  Finally arriving near Nanny's bone pile just as the sun began to darken.  He sensed the presence of Rejected Things nearby, caught a few shadowy glimpses in the distance.  A few wasn’t enough for what he had in mind though.  He needed to see all of them, and the only time that happened was during a feeding. 

The feedings didn’t happen every night.  But over time he’d noticed that the bodies of the failed experiments tended to remain in Nanny Gurdy’s basement for a couple days or so before being dragged in their half devoured state to the bone pile behind the tall hedges.  Which meant he was going to have to go to one of the few places in Nowhere Blvd. he never had.  As dusk fell there was no need to wait for dark.  Nanny would be at the long cabin saying goodnight to the latest group of “recruits.”  The comfy house at the edge of the woods would be abandoned for a little while.

At least theoretically
, he thought with some trepidation.  He could never be entirely sure what it was in Nanny’s basement that gnawed at the bodies before delivering them to the starving masses.  The answer seemed fairly obvious after a while, horrible as it was to contemplate.  But on the other hand, maybe there was a completely separate monster living in her basement.

Moving around the hedge to within view of the house he felt very exposed.  Walking crouched down in stealth seemed silly given the sun still shining down on him.  But it would be all too easy for someone to be standing inside that kitchen looking out at him, the glare preventing him from seeing he was walking into a trap.  Having no option for stealth, he decided on speed instead and made a dead run to the trapdoors outside the kitchen that lead into the cellar. 

Not surprisingly they were locked.  But the wood of the doors was anything but new, making it easy to pry the lock out with the hunting knife.  The doors came open revealing a short flight of stairs leading down into the darkness.  He wished that his night vision goggles hadn’t broke, and wished even more fervently that he’d been able to get his hands on a gun. 

He had at least one advantage though, that being the powerful flashlight he’d brought.  Even better he was still able to hold it in his right hand, despite the loss of dexterity in the paw that now lived on top of it.  Flashlight in right and knife in left, he used his old stealth to silently move down the stairs.  Silent not because he had any illusions of surprise at this point, but so that he could hear anything else moving. 

What he saw in the basement couldn’t have been more horrific if it had been designed that way.  Dirty meat hooks hanging from the ceiling.  Saws along the walls with bits of dried blood and hair on them.  Dirt floors and wooden tables with nicks taken out of them from ax blades and machetes.  A thick smell of sweat and mold and coppery blood.  He’d hoped to never see anything like this, and yet had always suspected he would end up somewhere
exactly
like this.  It was terrible to look at, and he wanted to leave right away. 

Except it wasn’t nearly as frightening as it should have been.  He’d expected he’d be shaking with fear, yet the beam from his flashlight held steady.  He breath came not in rasps of terror but steady, alert yet controlled.  He wondered at himself, was he so jaded? 

Am I incapable of being afraid now?  Of being horrified,
he wondered. 
Except that I was damn near shaking in my boots when Mr. Buttons walked out of that wardrobe just an hour ago...

No, it wasn’t him.  It was the place.  When you really looked at it, there was an unkempt feeling to it.  Trash in the corners, dirty clothes lying about.  Not an evil mastermind at work here, just a dirty room.  Not a place of terror, but a place of shame. 

It was the opposite of the laboratory that haunted his dreams.  All the pain and suffering was over by the time the children got here.  The things that were done in this basement only hurt the one doing them. 

Still, there was the body on the table.  A baby black girl no older than four.  It was easy enough to sling her naked and mangled corpse over his shoulder and head back the way he had come, closing the doors behind him to hide Nanny's secret from the light of day.  Involuntarily his mouth watered at the smell of the corpse, reminding him of many other meals he’d had in the woods.

God help me,
he thought.

Spencer left the body at the edge of the bone pile as the last rays of the sun faded to black and the giant moon began to glow in place, knowing
they
watched hungrily from the woods.  He walked back around the giant hedge and stood just on the other side, waiting for the sound of them.

He didn’t have to wait long.  If you didn’t know already what Rejected Things sounded like as they moved, you’d never be able to guess what it was just by listening.  Slithering and hopping and crawling and dragging all mixed together into one mass, the very antithesis of music.  He steeled his nerves and his stomach and turned the corner, walking towards the mass in a way he hoped looked not threatening but definitely not afraid.  Weakness was death with them, a lesson Spencer had learned well at this exact spot long ago.

It was an unprecedented event to the whole of them, a form coming back from the house while they were feeding.  A few fled, a few became hostile.  Most milled somewhere in-between, afraid to lose their food and not knowing how to react.  Spencer was sickened by the look of them, these sad monsters and freaks and remnants of children.  Ruined beyond all redemption.  What had become numb in him while living amongst them was once again raw to the sight of their freakish forms. 

He carried the flashlight in his right hand, currently turned off.  The knife in a sheath on his left, un-drawn.  If one of them charged he planned to blind then stab it.  Bloodshed wasn’t what he wanted here, but the loss of a few wouldn’t matter.  And more meat would only ensure a more captive audience.  He stopped before them and held up his left hand in a gesture he’d always made in his mind when he thought about this moment.

“Listen to me,” he said.  Surprised to the point of shock at the sound of his own voice.  A voice which he hadn’t heard in over a year.  One which wavered with unsteadiness from disuse and didn’t sound like he remembered it.

“Listen to me,” he said again.  “Remember me.  The boy who lived amongst you.  The one who fought and fed with you.  I
was
one of you, one of The Rejected.  I am one of you...”

The admission caught him by surprise.  He’d hadn’t meant to say it.  Hadn’t even thought it consciously before.  But he couldn’t deny it.  He realized now the truth of it, of what he had become.  What they were on the outside, he was on the inside.  He paused for a moment, shook to the core by the truth of it.  Here, before them, he finally felt at home.

“You thought they killed me,” he continued in a stronger voice now.  “But I escaped.  You thought I was dead by the hand of Smiling Jack or Mr. Buttons.  But Mr. Buttons is dead by MY hand.  And I wear his claws!”

With this he passed the flashlight into his left hand and held the paw above him, shining the light upon it.  A shuddering gasp rose up from the mob, rising even to a wail from some. 

He lowered his hand after a few seconds and brought the light up under his face, as if to tell a ghost story. 

“I earned my freedom with the kind of courage that comes from knowing you’ve got nothing left to lose.  Tonight when you see a light in the sky it will be your only chance to take the town.  Fight as one and there will be nothing left that can beat you.  Hide now and you’ll cower in the dirt forever.” 

With that he turned off the light and backed away, not willing to turn his back on them until he got past the tall hedge and began to make his way south east.  He thought of a night a long time ago when he had tried to warn another group of children then ended up walking away alone.  There was every possibility that these ones also would not listen to him, and instead would believe whatever was easiest.  But it didn’t matter, they would make a good distraction rampaging around the town, but not a vital one.  The real showstopper was sloshing around in the plastic gas can strapped to his backpack. 

Tonight,
he thought. 
Spencer Williams is coming home to Nowhere Blvd.  And I’m bringing all hell with me.

*   *   *

Spencer’s emotions while he cut across the town were complex.  A smoldering rage burned inside him, one that had been there a long time without his being fully aware of it.  Walking away from his speech he felt like he could tear the whole place apart with his bare hands.  He had to remind himself that getting caught by the Hollow Men out here would still probably mean death.  He had to force himself to be afraid, to remember to listen for them. 

In a larger way though he was already afraid, not for himself but for Suzie.  Even though he was taking the risk of cutting through the town instead of taking the safer path through the forest, he was wasting precious time.  Time that could cost her a terrible death.

Apart from both these feelings was a nostalgia so powerful it almost hurt.  Walking through the same streets he had spent so many nights wandering and scavenging alone.  As he walked by the bungalows of the Perfects he wondered if Jack had made a new Perfect Girl Julie yet.  He thought that it would be very easy for him to sneak in, to look at her while she slept.  Just to see what she looked like...

He walked on by, shaking with the thought of it.  He hadn’t felt things this directly in a long time.  He felt human for a change, not despite of but
because
of his spoken confession to The Rejected Things.  Here in the dark of night he was finally awake to what he was, and it made him aware in a new way to all the world around him.

Just in time,
he thought as he beheld the towers of the amusement park. 
To destroy it.

He didn’t expect any Hollow Men to be at the amusement park, and didn’t find any in a cursory search.  After all the time he spent and all the spying, he never really was sure where they went at night.  Back when they were patrolling for him he’d assumed they walked around all night, never sleeping.  But after he’d faked his death and the patrols had stopped, they had disappeared at night just like everyone else.  His best guess was somewhere in the mansion, the only building big enough to comfortably hold them.  Which was exactly why he needed the distraction, since the mansion was exactly where he needed to go.