The New Kid (7 page)

“Don’t leave me, Emily, don’t you dare leave me!” And then Natalie cut loose with a scream that rose from a place she didn’t even know existed, a scream that lifted birds from their nests and drove rodents farther underground—the howl of a twin torn asunder. And just as suddenly as the sky had darkened the clouds above parted and the river seemed to calm down. For a split second Natalie thought she saw eyes, yellow and green eyes, again in the river, near the bottom. Fury cleared the sluggishness from her body and she ran and dove in.

“Jesus, what are you doing?” yelled Hal. He hesitated, and then dove in after her. They were both underwater, their thrashing kicking up silt that swirled up from the river bottom and turned the water a murky green. Hal’s hands found Natalie’s wrists and, gasping, he pulled her from the river and onto the bank.

It was a night that Natalie prayed to forget and yet her heart would never allow it. It was the night when it seemed as if the river itself had risen up and claimed her soul mate, her sister, her other half. Without Emily, Natalie felt utterly incomplete.

In her bedroom Natalie put the picture of her twin sister back on top of her nightstand. The night of terror and loss was the past. The only thing that mattered now was getting her back. Everyone thought Natalie was crazy, thought she was just another wounded twin who lost her sibling and would be forever haunted, a loony who held out hope when there was none. But Natalie knew different; she knew her twin sister was alive.

 

On the streets of Harrisburg a chilly wind buffeted Will as he rode his turbo scooter, carrying the megaspatial awl in a small telescope case that stuck out of his backpack. He had a rule about weapons, which was never design anything that couldn’t be jammed into a backpack. This device, though technically not a weapon, was capable of exuding great force, so he had to be covert. Like all his weapons and gear it was of his own design and manufacture and
Will knew he had to be careful hauling it around. The boys at the Pentagon would love to get their hands on any one of Will’s inventions, including this one.

Any curious onlooker would no doubt conclude that Will was riding his scooter up to high ground, up to the local lover’s lane, Netter’s Ridge—some called it Makeout Heaven—to set up his telescope and gaze at the constellations. What a good boy, studying the stars for his science class. In fact Will loved to stargaze, but he had no time for that tonight, not after seeing the blip on his geothermal radar screen.

When he reached an intersection, instead of heading up the hill he turned and took a long street that sloped down to the lowest part of town, the city blocks that held the Harrisburg Cemetery. As cemeteries go it wasn’t bad, no better or worse than others he’d spent far too much time in. This one had a rustic split-rail fence surrounding the perimeter, as though the land held sheep or cattle instead of decaying corpses. Using his infrareds Will scanned the grounds. No creatures larger than a small rabbit were in attendance, so he unpacked the megaspatial awl, loaded it with blast cartridges, and then powered four sensor spikes into the ground in a quadrant enclosing the cemetery. Then he zoomed down another street and every few hundred yards or so blasted another spike into the ground. It took him more than three hours but he eventually had Harrisburg plugged in, letting him monitor demonic movement as far as the city limits. When he was done he was thirsty enough for a Big Gulp and swung by a 7-Eleven.

Inside the small convenience store he pumped himself a root beer Slurpee, paid for it, and took it outside where he found a low wall to sit on, enjoy his drink, and feel the cool night breeze against his skin. Sometimes it felt so good to be alive that he ached. On occasion he would allow himself to enjoy these simple moments, quaint pleasures of a normal life, but invariably his thoughts would bring him back to reality. He wasn’t normal and he never would be.
He looked up at the sky and closed his eyes.
I miss you, Dad
, he said in his inner voice. And he thought he heard his father say,
I miss you, too, son.

Will was sitting in the shadows so he was pretty much obscured when the beat-to-crap ’91 Taurus pulled in, blaring “Sista Killer” from six speakers and two huge subwoofers in the trunk. A couple of gansta wannabees chugged down the last of some cheap tequila then pulled ski masks over their heads.
Crap
, thought Will,
I’m
so
not in the mood for this. Can’t a guy take a break, enjoy his freakin’ Slurpee, and commune with the cosmos without the long slimy arm of crime reaching out to him?
He guessed not. He watched the punks carefully, studying their eyes. They were bloodshot, pupils dilated from drugs, but not liquid black. Maybe these two were just a couple of drunk, doped-up losers. They sure looked that way on the surface. When he saw the 9mm come out and the clerk so scared he was going to wet his pants, Will sighed and knew what he had to do.

As the robbery was going down Will felt his anger bubbling up but he kept cool and calmly walked over and knelt down behind the swinging front door. He loaded up the megaspatial awl with a spike and blast cartridge and waited and watched the scene unfolding using a parabolic mirror. If the guy with the gun had put his finger on the trigger Will would have had to go on inside. But the money was being handed over without a fight so he aimed the megaspatial awl at the Taurus.
Bye-bye
. He fired a spike into the gas tank and KABLAM! The Taurus went up in a ball of flames, all four doors blown cleanly off their moorings. The punks turned and mouthed the obligatory F-words and then charged out the front door. That’s when Will stood up and clocked them both at once with dual upper-cuts that rattled their pea brains and dropped them in the doorway like two sacks of yesterday’s rotten apples. He felt a thrill course through his body, a feeling so seductive and pleasurable that it scared him. He shook his head, ashamed, willing the feeling to go away.
It shouldn’t feel this good to hurt people
, he thought.

Will picked up the gym bag they’d used to grab the loot and returned the cash to the open-mouthed clerk, who was still in shock but not so numb he couldn’t mutter a croaking, “Thank you.” And then, as Will started to cruise away into the night on his turbo scooter, the clerk came out from behind the counter, dialing the cops, and called after Will. “Hey, who ARE you anyway?”

Will just muttered to himself, “The New Kid.”

 

Fifteen minutes later Will was back in his basement refuge, powering up all his monitors. He studied the one linked to the geothermal sensors and the spectral scalar and vector magnetometers he’d just planted. The magnetometers had the capability to measure the component of the magnetic field in a particular direction, which meant that in combination with his ground-penetrating radar he could detect movement underground.

The cemetery looked dormant, no corpses rising, no catacombs active. The rest of the town was quiet, too. He moved to his main computer and hit some keys that began the recording process, then pushed his chair back and rubbed his eyes. Even Will Hunter needed sleep, and right now he needed it badly. He dimmed the lights, exited his lair, and climbed upstairs. Moments after he did, the monitor showed movement, a tiny red light flickering in one of the sectors. And then the light grew brighter. And began moving.

Upstairs, Gerald was multitasking, brushing his teeth and scratching his ass. He grunted as Will passed by him, then blurted out something nearly unintelligible. Will ignored him.

“May, I’m dalking do doo!”

Yeah, you’re talking doo-doo alright
, thought Will. He sometimes wondered if Gerald wasn’t a human but a monster of some sort, but knew that was just his bitterness talking. The guy wasn’t anything so spectacular as a monster; he was just another middle-aged washout, and Will was duty-bound to make nice for his mother’s sake. So he smiled his good teenage boy smile.

“What’s up, Gerald?”

“How’d it go at school today? You didn’t cause any trouble, did you?”

“No more than usual.”

“That’s not funny. Be straight with me.”

Gerald grabbed Will by the arm, and Will stiffened. The red curtain formed in his brain and could have closed easily, in which case Gerald would have sustained grave bodily injury. Will was shaking, his anger coming to life swiftly and powerfully. But he knew better. He was tempted to give Gerald a good panda kick that would send him through the wall and probably crack his skull. Instead he thought of how much he loved his mother, remembered the smile on her face when he’d surprised her with daffodils on her birthday, and the scarlet curtain faded away. Will forced himself to stay in this quiet place while he relaxed his muscles and actually managed to produce another saccharin smile for Gerald.

“It was just another day, Gerald. I hope you enjoy your delicious cleansing beer while you watch Leno tonight. Goodnight.”

Gerald let go and muttered something foolish and vaguely threatening while Will quietly retreated to his room and collapsed onto his bed. Another violent storm averted. Will remembered how his father told him to choose his battles and make them few. Gerald wasn’t worth a battle.

 

There was but one vehicle parked on Netter’s Ridge, Duncan’s black-on-black Scion xB, and it vibrated with the sound of heavy metal death rappers enticing someone, anyone, to do something that they would perhaps enjoy now but no doubt regret later, doing twenty to life. Sitting next to Duncan was Mookie Heller, the handsome but thick-necked Thug One whom Duncan had earlier charged with guarding the boys’ room door. Their heads bobbing to the music, Duncan and Mookie smoked from a small metal pipe and sucked down rocket blasters, a combination of vodka and a popular purple
energy drink, Zing. While he bobbed his head, Mookie flipped through one of the many tattoo artist magazines he had on his lap. The Mook was a tattoo freak, no doubt about it.

“I was hangin’ out at the Puke Parlor, watchin’ Black Dog lay down some ink. He let me practice with one of the needle guns. It was sooo cool!” boasted Mookie. But Duncan just fixed him with a hard cold stare.

“The hell you thinkin’ about that shit for when you can’t even do one simple thing I ask?” To punctuate his words Duncan smacked Mookie on the back of his head.

“Sorry I messed up today, Dunc, it won’t happen again.”

Duncan didn’t acknowledge Mookie’s answer, just kept bobbing his head to the music and clenched his jaws, bringing up thick veins on his temples. It wasn’t the music that Duncan was responding to; it was a voice that only he heard. It was a voice that told him what he must do. The voice was fathomless and raspy and gave Duncan the chills.

“Someone has come. I will need your help now more than ever.”

“Whatever, sure . . . you know I’m there, man,” stammered Duncan. Mookie looked over.

“You talking to me?”

“Shut up, Mook!” shouted Duncan. And then the voice spoke again, crawling into Duncan’s head through his ears like a snake.

“It’s time to prove your loyalty,” said the voice.

Duncan could hardly believe it. What more did he have to do? When the voice told him to single out a kid for a beating, Duncan listened and did as he was told. Yesterday the voice told him his mother was a whore and the paint salesman she was currently dating deserved to die. Duncan couldn’t agree more. But the voice hadn’t told him to kill anyone. Yet. Last week when the voice requested that he steal drugs from a local dealer, Duncan had no problem setting up the phony buy, meeting the skinny hippy freak in an alley, and then using a pipe to beat him bloody and steal his
$500-an-ounce skunk. What could the voice be wanting him to do now, tonight?

“Higher, fly higher, Duncan,” said the voice.

And so Duncan smoked more, and drank more, smoked and drank until he could see the music rushing out of the speakers in neon hues, until his head floated up and parked itself above his body and watched while he patted Mookie on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go for a walk.”

They got out of the xB and Duncan led Mookie to Lover’s Leap, past the “Danger” and “Caution: Steep Cliff” signs to the craggy bluff from which you could see the whole of Harrisburg stretching out like a vast black carpet speckled with twinkling lights.

“You know what I look like when someone doesn’t do what I ask?”

“Of course I do, Dunc, you look bad, that’s why I said I was sorry. You know I’m loyal to you, hell, I’d jump in front of a train for you.”

“Really?” asked Duncan, his bloodshot eyes struggling to find Mookie’s shape, let alone any expression of truth or dishonesty on his face.

“Yeah, man. We shouldn’t even be having this discussion. We’re tight, we’re solid,” said Mookie.

“Okay, then show me. Put one foot out there, over the edge.”

“Aw, man, Dunc, don’t make me do this.”

“You said you’d jump in front of a train. This should be nothing.”

Mookie’s balance was already severely impaired by the booze and drugs but two thoughts took hold in his soggy brain. One: He
was
loyal, dammit. And two: This would be over soon, he could do it. He lifted a leg up and reached it out over the ledge while he balanced on the other. He felt good, he had an incredible buzz on, Duncan was right, this was nothing. Mookie was so high he felt like he could fly. He was invincible. He turned and smiled at Duncan.

“There. See? You trust me now, Duncan? Huh?”

“Yeah,” said Duncan.

And then he pushed him. As Mookie screamed and fell, Duncan closed his eyes and felt a sudden gust of wind, warm as hot breath. His nostrils stung as he smelled the familiar acrid smell that assaulted him whenever he had these kinds of hallucinations. Because that’s what they were, weren’t they? They had to be. This whole thing couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be. But it was. Duncan was infected, rotten to the core—a servant, a soldier, a slave.