Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop (16 page)

“
You have a
survival chamber?” I asked.

“
Who’s this?”
Bruce said, gesturing towards Kayt and me.

“
A friend,”
Annalise held up a hand to quiet me. “Since when has the room been
ready?”

“
A couple
weeks after you went recluse on me,” he said. “I’m sorry about your
dogs, by the way. The son’s a’boot lickers ain’t had a shred of
decency in them since the colonizin’.”

“
I don’t
blame them, Robert.”

“
I’m not
sayin’ you should; I’m saying sorry, though.”

Annalise revealed the box she
grabbed at her house, and Bruce smiled at it. He shook his head and
looked back out the blinds, then to us. He sized us up. After a
moment of staring at Kayt – longer than he had at me – he grunted.
“Braver than me. That’s gonna call them right over here,” he said.
“I’ll go get to hidin’ in any case. Don’t suppose you’re gonna
explain what you’re doin’, are ya?”

“
Running. We
don’t exactly have a year or two’s worth of foodstuffs in a near
impenetrable closet,” she paused. “We have room in the car, Robert.
You should come with us.”

“
Or you could
stay with me.”

“
It’s never
worked that way, Robert. You know I’d never last down there. Nor
would anyone else, considering it can only fit one man.”

“
I’m not
leavin’ my wife behind,” he said. “Not so long as she’s buried
here.”

They both looked at each other
and grinned.

“
Damn
Homeowner’s Association,” they said, in sync.

After a brief moment, Annalise
hugged him and said a quiet thank you. I didn’t know what was going
on, or the history, but I also never asked. It was something
personal. It reminded me of Daniel, and how we would talk as if
everyone knew how much we were in love. It would come as a shock
whenever someone scoffed, or shook their head at us when we held
hands down the street, so I said nothing to Annalise or Robert. I
didn’t want to ruin their moment.

“
My house is
at your disposal. Just don’t tell them where I’m at and I’ll be
fine,” he said. “And don’t do anything stupid, y’hear me, Lise?
Nothin’ that’ll bring down the wrath of the Gods,
y’hear?”

Annalise nodded and placed a
hand on his cheek. She smiled, bit her lip, and he laughed.
Shortly, Bruce fled, while Annalise called out: “If you hear
anything, don’t come up. Anything. I don’t care if it’s me saying
everything is safe and that you should come up. Don’t do it.”

“
I’m older
than the Gods you follow; you actually think I’ll hear you from
down there? I’m not leaving until I’m done reading the Greats of
the Twenty-First Century.”

Annalise laughed quietly, and
the man twirled his finger in the air. It wasn’t long before Bruce
pulled the stairwell door shut, letting the creases in the wall
conceal the opening. We heard a shuddering lock from down below. If
I hadn’t known it was there, I never would have noticed the
opening.

“
Why aren’t
we going down there?” Kayt asked.

“
As I said,
it’s a closet. And it only has lengthy provisions for one occupant.
We’d never make it, especially if we were in there without the
ability to leave,” Annalise looked at me. “Trust me, he’ll be fine.
Even the house inspectors couldn’t find that enclosure. Or the one
inside it. Bruce is about as paranoid as they come, so he wouldn’t
leave anything to chance.”

“
They really
are rounding them up,” Kayt moaned, pointing out that two more had
been escorted to the pack. They were getting closer. Just three
more houses – a corner away – until they were in front of
Annalise’s home. The trio of Belovores must have felt it easier to
corral their prey in the southeast corner of the neighbourhood,
right on the turn of the road.

We watched in horror as one of
the newcomers – a teenager who couldn’t have been more than fifteen
- whose nose had been bloodied, lashed out at one of the Belovores.
He struck the creature in the chest, pounding one of the
breastplates with a fist. The Belovore took a deep breath and
pushed the kid away. The woman with him wept and yelled something
indecipherable. The boy attacked again, this time kicking the
Belovore in the shin, and running into the Belovore’s waist with as
much force as he could muster. The boy pulled back and fell to his
knees. We could faintly hear the scream of agony as he fell to his
knees; only, it was a woman’s scream.

The offended Belovore leaned
forward. Not to hit the boy, or to say anything, but because the
Belovore had to. The Belovore twisted its chelimb slightly, and we
all saw it. The chelimb stuck through the boy’s stomach. With a
thrust, the pincers broke out through the boy’s shirt. The woman,
his mother I assumed, screamed and tried to run to him. Someone
from the pack held her back. The Belovore leaned forward, scowled,
and jerked its chelimb out.

The boy collapsed. Something
stuck between the claws. I was certain – in that moment – it was
one of the boy’s vertebrae. The boy convulsed on the ground as the
Belovore dropped the bloodied bone and barked something out to the
group.

The other two watched and
responded with nods. They then continued to circle the group,
waiting for the rest of their team to bring in more prisoners. The
crowd pulsed together even more, the circle grew smaller.

Annalise turned to Kayt. She
held up the box she’d retrieved from her room and pressed the red
button on top. A small projector screen displayed hundreds of
titles – all songs, most of which I recognized, including the one
by Betty Harris that I’d heard coming off the transport.

“
When I start
this music, Kayt,” she started, “I want you to run back to the
house – use a silent count to 15 – and tell them to start up the
engine when you reach zero,” Annalise ordered. “I will play this
music as loud as possible right before you need to leave. The
Belovores will come to the music. They won’t see you. I promise.
They’re too occupied with their group. They will find Leon and me,
but I’m certain we can avoid any trouble until Davion and Melanie
get the car working.”

“
This is a
terrible idea,” I said.

“
Would you
rather the Belovores hear the car?”

“
No,” I
stammered.

“
Then do you
have something better?”

I suddenly resented how she’d
taken control of our group. My headache had gone away, but I felt
like the reminder had been hanging over me. Daniel’s voice told me
‘I wouldn’t trust you to make another plan, either.’ As it was, I
didn’t have any better ideas. With the Belovores getting closer, it
seemed Annalise would have to save us. Again.

“
It’s a
stupid idea,” she said. I wanted to tell her I understood, even
though all I really wanted was to not hear it. “Life is filled with
them. But we’re going to follow through with this one and hope it
turns out for the best – in these situations, smart goes out the
window, runs down the corner, hits some trash cans and then gets
nailed by oncoming traffic.”

I had nothing else to add.

Annalise asked Kayt if she was
ready, and repeated her instructions. Kayt acknowledged with a nod.
She took a deep breath and almost choked on it. I wanted to hug
her, to offer some kind of comfort. Maybe that would have been more
active. But I couldn’t, even then. Kayt walked to the door nearly
hyperventilating, and set her hands flat. She then put her hand on
the door handle. After another deep breath, and a wipe of her
cheek, she said she was ready. We made our way to the couch
opposite the windows, and Annalise set her – what I assumed to be –
stereo system on the table. She fingered the button, and made sure
it was ready to play.

“
Tough girl,”
Annalise whispered. She climbed over the couch and surveyed the
small space between it and the wall. “Kayt? Make sure they pick us
up, okay?”

Kayt stopped breathing. She
held it in her chest and furrowed her brow quizzically. It wasn’t
until Annalise broke her sturdy expression and winked that Kayt got
the joke and laughed. She covered her mouth with her hand. She
stretched her arms out and shook them, and popped her neck. She
laughed again, letting it die away.

“
Why haven’t
you been asking me to do anything?” I asked. Annalise and I set
behind the couch. I lowered my voice so Kayt couldn’t hear.
Annalise paused, and attempted to hide a grimace by looking in
another direction.

“
You aren’t
ready for that,” she shrugged.

I saw red. My skin was on fire,
and I could feel anger boiling in the pit of my stomach. This time
my head pounded, throbbed where I’d impacted the Belovore a few
hours earlier. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m more
than capable of acting on my own and helping us survive.”

“
Really? The
last action you made was to ram your head into something and nearly
kill yourself – and if that’s the case, then why have you only been
following me?” Annalise asked. “You divide your time between
inaction and rash action.”

I didn’t get time to answer. I
wanted to scream back at her, but images of Daniel saying something
similar came back and took over. I imagined him trying to goad me
into action by saying I didn’t deserve what I’d had, and it felt
like Annalise was doing the same. But before I could do anything,
Kayt swung open the door and ran out – severing my anger. She must
have thought it was the best moment, and forgot that Annalise was
supposed to hit play on the music first. She was wrong.

Annalise cursed, jumped back
around the couch, and fumbled with the box. She had previously
looked like she was going to select a certain song. Now, she
scrambled to find something – anything. The trio of Belovores must
have spun around when the music started. When we ducked behind the
couch, we’d only hoped it was enough time to distract them from
Kayt running across the street, and that her premature action
hadn’t drawn their attention right to her, instead of serving as a
distraction.

The music
rattled the walls
. Pictures of Robert and
a woman I could only assume was his wife shook. One fell off the
wall, shattering. The holographic display inside fizzled, and the
picture went out. The song pounded into a resonating thump, and
Patsy Cline began to sing over speakers that looked far too small
to carry a voice as voluminous as hers. Behind the couch, Annalise
looked at me and began to sing along. She had no idea that I was
still furious with her insinuation. A lot of people get angry when
faced with the truth, and I was one of them.

“
Crazy,” I
could hardly hear her voice over the noise, and I was within a few
inches. I put my finger to my lips and tried to shush her – an even
more pointless gesture than assuming we could stay quiet.
“
I’m crazy for feeling…”

A pounding on the door made the
beat sound like it had lost itself. The door cracked down, and the
room grew warmer with the sudden breeze from outside. The breath of
air smelled distinctly metallic – the Belovores were here.

Annalise’s eyes teemed with
tears. She still held her smile. She ducked down behind the couch
even more, pulling her knees up to her chest. I followed suit, and
closed my eyes. She put her head on my shoulder again, but this
time sang in my ear. My head and neck throbbed from the constant
stimulation.

Annalise continued to sing
along, her voice barely audible over the explosion of music. The
Patsy Cline song ended with a crash. The silence was sudden, and
painful. The Belovore destroyed the radio device, smashing it and
scattered the pieces around the room. The pulsating red button was
near the fireplace, dead to the world. Annalise was about to sing
the next line when two large hands gripped us by the shoulders.
Pain surged down my back through my ribs as the pressure forced the
pain in my head to double. Annalise tried mouthing the words when
she was yanked upwards; a hand grabbed me by the shoulder pulling
me with her.

The Belovore stank of steel
shavings and mildew. Burnt sheet-metal. It sniffed us and pulled us
from around the couch. We went willingly, hoping it wouldn’t try
anything rash. Neither Annalise nor I said anything. We didn’t want
to end up like the boy in the street. Instead, we listened as the
Belovore pushed us out of the house to meet up with the other two
in its group.

This Belovore
had strong chest plates. They were massive, and connected in a way
that disproved that all the plates came in segments. This one might
as well have been one giant armouring. The thin red lines
connecting the muscle to the plate only showed near the chelimbs,
and around its eyes. I called this one Chest-Plate, as I can still
see the colour of red dancing beneath the surface when I close my
eyes. It’s him that I associate the burning of Sondranos with, not
the
Irene
, and not
the Belovores I would meet.

Chest-Plate pushed us forward
with one of its chelimbs – I wanted to break out into a nervous
chuckle thinking about the crab claw prodding me forward, but
Annalise caught me before it happened. Kayt stared back at us from
the group as we were neared closer. She’d been caught by the third
– which had no discernible differences other than being the third
in the trio. Kayt’s pants were torn at the knees. Blood stained the
fabric, much like the tears that caressed her cheeks and sparkled
in the sunlight. She’d tripped at the edge of the yard.