Nowhere Blvd: A Horror Novel (9 page)

The second looked something like a giant snake.  It had mottled black and white flesh (human like, not scales) and squirmed along the ground.  On closer inspection he noticed it had fingers in the front instead of a head.  The head itself seemed to be lower down, the face presumably dragging along the ground.  Unlike a true snake or worm, you could tell by the way it moved that it was clearly jointed in at least four places.  No snake would ever move in such an inefficient manner, and he wondered if it might be injured.   

He thought about where they might have come from, tried to think up different theories about how they might be born out here in the underground forest.  But all his theories were hazy, didn’t seem to make much sense.  Until the third creature came along.  Unlike the first two she was clearly human.  A girl of perhaps eight, with bright red hair.  Also unlike the others, she was dressed, as if she hadn’t been out in the forest very long.  She wore dirty jean coveralls and a green shirt and was normal in all ways except for the second head attached to her left shoulder.  The head, which seemed to belong to a younger Asian girl, was clearly dead and was starting to turn black with rot.  It hung there lifeless, stretching the stitches that held it on.  Thick black stitches which Spencer could see even at a distance. 

He looked at her and was somehow reminded of his last glimpse of the twins, and then suddenly he
knew
where they came from.  He felt stupid for not seeing it before, it was obvious even if it was too horrible to think about.  After all, it was all in their name.  The Rejected.  He realized that his assumption had been wrong.  The Perfects weren’t the only ones who survived, they were just the only ones who came out right. 

Why did Smiling Jack make these?  Was it for some kind of monster’s fun?  Jack hadn’t looked like he was having fun when working on the twins.  He’d looked frustrated.  And in retrospect, maybe even confused.  It was like Julie said, Smiling Jack just didn’t think like people, didn’t understand them right.  Spencer knew now that whatever else Jack was, he was batshit crazy. 

Once Spencer realized the poor girl was a person he thought about calling out to her, trying to talk to her somehow.  But how?  What would be the point?  She wasn’t really human anymore, and even if she
was
human, there was nothing he could do for her.  He would just be putting himself in unnecessary danger, just like when he had come back to warn the kids from his original group. 

He watched as she wandered away without seeing him, carefully never looking to her left.  Finally he turned away to renew his watch on the bone pile.  He thought about Julie again.  He no longer felt guilty, not even a little. 

*   *   *

He only saw one other Reject from his perch that day.  An older boy, maybe twelve, who looked familiar somehow.  His right leg had been moved about a half foot further up the side of his body.  And while the boy still walked upright, it seemed to cause him some pain.  By nightfall Spencer was beginning to think that he would have to wait another day for his plan and was getting ready to climb down from the branch.  But just after the last rays of the sun faded to black he saw movement from Nanny Gurdy’s house. 

A form was coming out of the exterior basement door in the back of the house, moving in and out of view as it rounded the tall hedges that hid the bone pile from the house.  It was hard to be sure in the dim light, but the shadowy figure was round and walked on two legs and was clearly an adult.  Nanny maybe, dragging something heavy behind her.

Spencer climbed down two branches then jumped to the ground, falling hard onto legs that were too cramped to hold him.  He fought quickly back to his feet, hiding  his blanket/pack under some dead wood and securing the fork and telescope in his waistband.  Ignoring the pins and needles pain of his legs he started running as best he could to the bone pile.  He had to time it just right.  Had to get there after Nanny was gone, but had to be there and gone himself with the prize before the Rejected caught wind of the meal. 

Making the distance to the bone pile in record time, he ran to the end furthest from the woods.  There was a sickly sweet smell rising from the bones, but surprisingly not an overpowering one.  Only a faint miasma in the area to let you know how many bodies lied below.  No meat left on the bones meant nothing to decay but the bones themselves. 

The moon shone white off of those pale bones, but there was no need to make a pretense at stealth.  It was still dark enough to hide practically in plain site.  He only hoped that nobody was hidden and waiting for him nearby.  This very darkness cost him precious moments finding the new corpse.  Finally discovering it on the other end of the pile, he tried not to think about what he was doing as he grabbed it.  Thought he could avoid looking directly at the body, but was wrong. 

A boy, probably.  About the same age as Spencer.  He had dreaded the thought of mutilating the body to complete the plan, of smashing the face to a pulp with a rock.  But to his further horror he saw he didn’t need to.  The face was gone, as were some of the other soft tissues.  In the moonlight it looked very much as if they had been torn off, or even chewed off.  Was this done in Smiling Jack’s lab?  It didn’t look like the clean cut of a scalpel. 

Something half eats these kids even before the Rejected Things get their taste,
he thought with a shiver.  For some reason it made him think of the fairy tale of the gingerbread house, but there was not time to dwell on it.  He picked the body up as best he could under the arms, ready to drag it away.

Got to hurry, got to get out of here before...

But it was already too late. 

They had already come from the forest, were already moving towards the bone pile.  They could see him, he knew they could.  Even in the dark it would be impossible for them not to by now.  At least twenty of them, shambling towards him in some form or another.  They didn’t have him surrounded yet, he could still run for it, but he couldn’t take the body with him.  He felt like he was trapped even if he wasn’t.  He had to convince them to let him take the body this one time.

As they closed in and he began to speak, some small part of his mind tried to tell him that he was just jumping off a cliff to escape from a tiger.  But his reason was gone, panic had a hold of him. 

“Wait a minute,” he said to none of them and all of them as they formed a circle.  “Just wait, I need just this one.  If you let me have just this one I promise I won’t take anymore.  Really I promise.”

Most advanced slowly, but all advanced.  Boldest of all was the one he had seen earlier, the older kid with the bad leg.  He frowned down upon Spencer with a bully’s glare.  All in a flash Spencer realized why he looked familiar.  It was Marcus, the oldest kid from Spencer’s original group.  He wanted to say something but was speechless with the surprise of recognition.  He felt a moments twinge of relief, and was entirely unprepared for the backhand strike that caught him across the face and sent him sprawling. 

On instinct he rolled to his feet while still moving, seeing from the corner of his eye the brief surge of the crowd towards him.  He tried to look everywhere at once while at the same time maneuvering out of reach of the large Marcus-creature that still advanced on him.  Spencer pulled the fork from his waistband, brandishing it as a knife.  The bully paused at this, but did not stop.  Only advancing more cautiously on Spencer. 

Spencer made a stab at the bully, but it was ill timed and barely scratched at him.  The bully used his longer reach to counter with a blow to Spencer’s face.  One which he partially blocked with his left hand, getting knocked back but careful not to fall.  Sensing his back was almost to the wall of creatures behind him, he quickly followed it up by dodging to the right. 

The bully spun to follow him and stumbled on his bad leg, not quite falling.  Spencer didn’t need to think about it, it was only instinct to spring upon this obvious weakness.  He moved around to his right again, sidestepping crablike.  Marcus couldn’t keep up and Spencer was behind him in a flash, kicking at the back of the knee on the good leg just as the bully was twisting it to follow Spencer.  The other leg couldn’t hold his weight and he went down with a yelp of pain. 

Spencer hesitated.  It was less than a second, but it seemed as if in that moment everything slowed down and he could think with crystal clarity.  This guy was down, attacking him now just wasn’t
right
. 

It’s not honorable,
he thought.  But the moment he thought the word, it just seemed so childish.

He stabbed down with the fork, into the small of the once-kid now-creature’s back.  It cried out in pain, but even under Spencer’s weight the fork only dug in a tiny bit.  Not enough to kill even with a thousand hits.  Only enough to make the thing mad.

The bully started to get up and Spencer got ready to stab again, but he didn’t get the chance.  Something knocked him aside and he found himself amidst a crush of bodies, things pressing in on him that were terrible and unnatural to the touch.

When he fought free he saw that the crowd had surged in on the fallen monster.  They had pounced on his weakness and now were tearing him apart, eating him alive.  His screams were muffled, but still terrible to hear. 

Spencer saw he was being ignored and grabbed his original prize under the corpse's limp dead arms again, making his way towards the forest as best he could.  The sounds of unbearable pain and panic following him. 

That night was the longest of his life.  He dragged the body through the woods, knowing by the distant and not so distant sounds that he was being followed in the dark.  The burden under his arms was heavy from the start, and grew heavier by the minute.  He wanted to stop and rest but knew he couldn’t.  He pushed himself in a mad rush, far beyond the point of exhaustion. 

Navigation was easy, since he continually stayed within visual distance of the edge of the forest.  He went south around the curve of it, then east until he was directly south of the shops.  Having reached his goal he did the thing he had been dreading almost as much as the mutilation of the body he had been spared.  He traded clothes with the corpse.  He was tempted to just through away the corpses bloody clothes, which got even more gore on them as he undressed the body.  But nights in Nowhere Blvd. were still cold, and he didn’t intend to freeze.  So suppressing his revulsion he put the dead boy’s clothes on himself and his on the dead boy.

He then dragged the body to the edge of the woods, confident that it was close enough to town that the Rejects wouldn’t follow.  In fact he was pretty sure they had stopped following him a while ago.  He made his way across the short jaunt north to the candy store.  He could have climbed to a high spot and tried to pierce the dark with his telescope to see if patrols were nearby, but didn’t think he had the time and instead made the calculated gamble that someone would be in the area.  Moving quickly but quietly, forcing his footsteps to be silent as he'd learned in his candy stealing days.  Peeking around each corner, making sure not to be spotted until he was ready.

Finally he reached the candy store.  He hesitated, trying to think if there was any other way.  If  he’d overlooked any obvious holes in the plan. 

It was now or never. 

Spencer opened the door, hard and fast.  The bell above the door rang out loud and clear, squeezing a cold claw of fear and anticipation around his stomach.  He slammed the door and opened it again and again, ringing the bell as loud as he could.  Then he let it fall silent and listened. 

Tap tap, tap tap
.

They heard him all right.  Now for another gamble, he had to run for it and hope they saw him, but not soon enough to catch him.  He ran south, trying to make as much noise as possible.  The ploy was almost the end of him.  As he passed the last building on the edge of town he just missed running headfirst into a second Hollow Man who was rounding the corner at the same time.  He’d been so intent on
making
noise that he hadn’t heard the thing.  It reached for him with reflexes that fortunately weren’t as fast as Smiling Jack’s and he shot right by it. 

It was on Spencer's heels as he headed for the forest, and another one a ways behind it.  His first thought was that it was too late, they’d run him down and tear him to shreds long before he reached the forest.  Only they weren’t gaining, they were even falling a bit behind.  He’d just assumed the Hollow Men could outpace him like Mr. Buttons, but their awkward gait was actually a little slower.

Of course,
they
didn’t ever seem to get tired and he was already exhausted.  His breath came in tearing rasps from his throat and spots were forming around the edges of his vision.  He pushed himself as best he could, but knew he was faltering.  He stumbled and almost fell.

Just a little farther, he half thought and half prayed.  Just a little.

He looked back and saw the gap he had created between them was closing.  He looked for the body ahead, knowing he had to run right past it.  He saw the place where he had left it but...

But something was moving.

The body?

No, it was the Rejected.  They had been following him after all, and had found the body.  He was headed right for them. 

There was no guarantee the Hollow Men wouldn’t follow him right into the forest if he changed direction now.  He had to try something so desperate and stupid that for a strange moment he was almost sure it would work, perhaps if only because he was too far beyond exhaustion to think about what would happen if it didn’t.