The Object: Book One (Object Series) (12 page)

As if things couldn't get any crazier, a white cat suddenly leapt out from the alleyway and squared off against the beef jerky man.  They encircled e
ach other like two wild animals.

Sherman
couldn't believe what he was seeing.  The man grabbed up a trashcan, the contents of which immediately burst into flames, and chucked it at the cat, who leapt to the side.  Suddenly two cars parked on opposite sides of the street slammed together, squashing the beef jerky man.

Sherman
looked away but only until he heard the cars slamming into the walls of different buildings.  He opened his eyes to find the man intact and searching about the area.  The cat had disappeared.

The beef jerky man spotted
Sherman
and spat out, "It's you!"
  He began to hobble
Sherman
's way, but as he drew near, his gaze turned upward.

"There you are!" the man said. 
Sherman
recognized him as Ted
and in the same moment
realized Ted
was no longer looking at
him but
at
something behind him.

He turned and nearly fell, for behind him
,
and matching the height of the nearest building, hovered a gigantic squid creature, glowing a warm orange-gold, with
a big skull-like head, black eyes the size of beach balls, and
more tentacles than he could count in a week.

And two of those tentacles snaked down from the head of the translucent beast and hovered just overtop the back of the car where Drake lay dying and Kate was all alone.

~ ~ ~ ~

Barry waited on the front steps of the bank for half an hour, the duffle bag at his feet.  He watched
some of Mr. Morgan's boys canvas the block, slyly peeking into backseats of parked cars, around corners, and along the ledges of rooftops.  He'd seen the smoke rising from three or four blocks down on
Muhammad Ali Boulevard
.
  This meeting needed to go just as he expected, but
c
uriosity was eating away at his patience.

Mr. Morgan came around the corner with Ray flanking him.  He was dressed in a brown suit fit only for church.  When he reached the steps, Barry snatched up the bag and came down to the sidewalk.  He tossed the bag past Mr. Morgan at Ray's feet.

"In a hurry this morning, Mr. Schafer?"

"As a matter of fact I am," Barry said, standing toe to toe with the man.  "Looks like a building is on fire over there, and I want to see it."

Mr. Morgan huffed.  "What do you want from me, Mr. Schafer?"

"Damn!" Ray interjected.  "How much money is this?"

"One million dollars," Barry said.

"And what are you paying us to do?" Mr. Morgan asked.

"I want you to kill every cop in this city."

Barry started for his car, and when Mr. Morgan inquired if that included his brother, he said, "Especially my brother."

Mr. Morgan called after him.  "I'll be glad to spread the word.  Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Schafer."

~ ~ ~ ~

He left his car idling in the street with the door open and peeked around the corner just in time to see a horribly disfigured and burned man get crushed by two cars smashing together as if magnetized.  Then the cars shot away from one another and smashed into the buildings, one not far from where Barry stood.

The gigantic squid thing came slithering down the side of a building and hovered in the air over a black man--that one, the one he'd chased yesterday--who was staring off underneath the belly of the thing, if it had a belly.  Suddenly one of its tentacles shot down behind a car.  When it raised up again, Barry saw that it had swallowed a young boy.

The tentacle brightened for a moment and then suddenly the inside of it exploded in red, as though the boy had simply burst apart.  Just then a little girl ran out from behind the car.  Another tentacle followed her.

Barry smiled and gritted his teeth.  The glowing tentacle followed the little girl as she ran up the street towards the black man, who called after her and started towards her when the tip of it stretched open like an elastic mouth, encapsulated the girl, and then shrink
-
wrapped her.

The black man was howling, and behind him, the man who looked burned laughed hysterically.

The tentacle holding the girl flashed with glittery light just like the other one
, and then in an instant the girl misted out and up into the tentacle, reduced to particles.

The burned man ran out in front of the black man and ripped a blue
USPS drop
box out of the concrete.  He threw it at the squid creature, but on impact the metal disintegrated into white hot sparks and disappeared just as the children had done.

Barry studied this man who possessed superhuman strength as he drew fearlessly toward the otherworldly beast before him.  The closer he got, the brighter the thing on his charred head glowed
,
the same orange-gold that emanated from the beast.

Barry didn't know what that thing was
on the man's head
--an LED yarmulke, a glow-in-the-dark shower cap--but he knew he wanted it for himself.

And he would have it.

A Change of Clothes

Hayden watched a local news chan
nel at low volume.  He wanted the girl to wake up so he could find out
what that doctor had meant when he said,
Son, she was
floating.  An absurd notion
, and despite the compelling footage on the news of glowing, translucent sea creatures adrift along the
Louisville
skyline, sparking with bright blue forks of lightening, his mind kept drifting back to that word: floating.  Might he have said something else?  Gloating?  Bloating?
 
No, he had said floating.  Absurd, yes
, but absurdities weren't so unbelievable these days.  It was a little after two in the afternoon and pitch dark, the sun blotted out for most of the day by that gigantic rock.  And those creatures they kept cutting to on the news--if they could float, why not this girl?

Several times since she'd fallen unconscious, Hayden had grown concerned by her strange breathing and had approached the bed. 
He touched her small shoulder and said, "Hey, are you okay?"  No response, of course.  Whatever the doctor had injected in her thigh had knocked her out instantly.

She was a beautiful girl, probably just entering high school.  In all this madness--his mother murdered by his father, the arrival of an alien species, the entire city of
Louisville
regressed to a Wild West state--he found himself wondering if the girl was old enough for him, if she had a boyfriend.  Simple things, normal things.  Would things ever go back to normal?

A light knock came from the door.  Hayden jumped to his feet and raised the gun to meet the doctor's bruised and blood-encrusted face.  Once Hayden had caught the girl and returned her to the bed, he'd given the doctor the beating of his lifetime, and the cop, so stunned by the events, had fled the room.

Now the doctor entered
with his head down.

"Just wanted to
check up on the girl," he said, standing in the shaft of light from the hallway, waiting for permission.

Hayden moved between the bed and the doctor.

"You got any needles?"

"No," the doctor said.  "May I?"  He took a step forward.  Hayden leveled the gun.  "Look, kid, I wasn't trying to hurt her.  When you administer Ketamine, you have to monitor the patient's breathing.  Unlike most anesthetics, it stimulates rather than sedates the circulatory and respiratory systems.  Increases blood pressure, makes breathing shallow and rapid."

Okay, maybe he wasn't lying.  "
I think she's
breathing funny," Ha
yden said.  He stepped back and allowed the doctor to approach, but when the doctor reached into his pocket, Hayden yelled at him.  "Hands where I can see them, Doc."

The doctor looked irritated.  "It's just a stethoscope."  He pulled his hand out slowly and showed it to Hayden.

"Okay," Hayden said.

He watched the doctor with caution as he pulled on the girl's collar and stuck his hairy hand down her shirt.  One inappropriate feel and he was going out the window.

It must have been the iciness of the stethoscope's diaphragm that woke her.  One moment she lay motionless, chest rising and falling quickly but steadily, still in the awkward, ragdoll position she'd been in for the past hour.  Then suddenly she sprang to her feet in a way that defied gravity and sent a roundhouse kick to the doctor's face that impressed even Hayden.

The doctor went flying back into an IV stand, pulling it down on top of him as he
crashed to the floor
cursing and screaming.

Now she was looking at Hayden, her eyes wild, her hair a tousled, frizzy mess.
  Her body jerked as if she
'd
started to run but paused.  He saw familiarity in her eyes, her cute rounded face, until the doctor started shouting.

"She's crazy!  See?  I told you!"

Say something, stupid.

"I'm Hayden," Hayden said, drawing her attention away from the doctor for only a moment.  "He was just checking your pulse.  I had the gun on him the whole time."

"Who are you?" the girl said.

"Hayden Schafer," he said.  Pain shot suddenly through his chest and he felt a hitch in his throat.  An image of his mother flashed through his mind.  "Hayden," he repeated.  "What's your name?"

The girl was quiet for a moment.  Then she said, "Lillia."

"Nice to meet you."

The doctor was on his feet now and backing toward the door.  "I want you two to get the hell out of my hospital."

"Where's the baby?" Lillia asked.

"You have a baby?" Hayden said.

"No.  It's not mine. 
I found it. 
Where is it?"

The doctor threw up his hands.  "I don't know.  Frankly, I don't care.  If you two don't get the hell out of here, I'm calling the cops--the national guard, the FBI, whoever wants to come and deal with
your
ass."  He was pointing at Lillia.  Then he rushed out the door and slammed it shut behind him.

Hayden turned back to the girl and realized, from this angle, he could see far enough up her skirt to note the color of her underwear.  He averted his eyes and said, "I guess we should get out of here."

She followed him reluctantly into the hallway, and when he turned toward the Emergency Room doors, she said, "We shouldn't go that way.  It's packed out there and I think I scared everyone."

"So you
were
floating."

"Yes."

"How?"

"I don't know," she said.  "Let's go this way."

He met her back at the door to her room and asked her to wait a moment while he knelt and tied his shoes--he still hadn't done so.  Then they walked together through a set of doors and into a dark, empty hallway that led to the surgical center and the main lobby.  It was quiet here, chilly.  When they spoke, their voices trailed down the hall and echoed back to them.

"Thanks for helping me."

"No problem."

"Where'd you learn to fight like that?"

"I'm a black belt in
Tae Kwon Do.
"  He smiled.  "You're not so bad yourself, you know.  I thought you took that doctor's head off."

"That's the first time I've ever kicked anyone," she said.

Hayden pulled open another door and motioned for her to step through.  "Might as well embrace what you're good at," he said.

Lillia stopped.  "What happened to your shoulder?"

"I got shot."

"By who?"

"My dad."

He gave her an overview of the morning's events, chopping his father's behavior up to temporary insanity caused by the threat of the end of the world.  He didn't want to tell her the truth about Barry yet.  He'd always feared people would equate him with his father, and he already knew he didn't want to
be separated
from this girl.  This was the first time since long before the object appeared that he didn't feel quite so alone--quite so directionless.

They stepped out into the false night and he led Lillia around the corner and two blocks down, where he'd parked his car.

"Anywhere specific you need to go?" he asked.

She nodded.  "The library on 4th.  My brother and sister are waiting for me."

Hayden drove and Lillia recounted everything that had happened since the sky went dark.  She told him about her foster mother abandoning her and the two children, taking her biological children with her, about the two men breaking into the house, the homeless man and the shootout, the house burning,
waking up in midair, hovering like a hummingbird,
and finally finding the baby locked away in the office.

"Is he trustworthy?"

"Who?"

"
Sherman
."

"Yes . . . I think so.  He's been nothing but nice
so far
.
  He refused to sleep in the bedroom with us.  Afraid he'd scare the kids.
"

"Well, let's round everyone up and find somewhere
comfortable
to stay.  Somewhere secure.  The streets aren't safe.  Have you seen those alien things on the news?"

She ducked her head and touched her temple.  "No," she said.

"They're freaky.  Really freaky."

"I'm more worried about people than I am aliens."

Hayden nodded.  "
You g
ot that right."

He drove on and for several blocks neither of them spoke.  Lillia looked nervous, hands in her lap, one gripping the other, knees locked together, head ducked.  A couple times she stole a quick glance at him.  She was studying him, he knew it.  Trying to decide if she should trust him and relax or go tumbling out the passenger door.

Hayden's thoughts kept going back to what the doctor said--that and how Lillia had sprung up from the bed.  Difficult to put together.  Like if you were to record someone falling backwards and landing on a bed, and then you played the footage in reverse.  That was how she'd come out of her sleep.

"I need a change of clothes,"
Lillia
said.  "And a shower.
"

Hayden nodded.  It occurred to him that he and Lillia shared a newfound dilemma of no longer having a home.  Lillia because hers burned to the ground; Hayden because
he couldn't go back there and see his mother's body cooling and stiffening on the kitchen floor.  And even if he could, Barry might be there.  These thoughts sent a cold chill through his body.
 
"I could stand a new shirt
," he said
. 
"
How about we stop somewhere and I'll buy us some clothes?"

"I have to get back to Drake and Kate
."

"That's what I mean
t
," Hayden said.  "They'll need clothes, too.
  I've got money.
"

"O
h.  O
kay.
"  He couldn't tell if she was just modest or worn down by fear and sleep deprivation.  "
Thank you
," she said in almost a whisper
.

"No problem.  That is, i
f we can
even
find a store that's open."

"Right.
"

Hayden leaned forward.  Up ahead black plumes of smoke billowed up between buildings, only visible against the narrow rim of orange sky not bl
acked out
by the object.

"This whole city's gonna burn down
," he said
. 
"
See that?"

He pointed it out to her.

"I hope no one got hurt,"
Lillia
said.

"Maybe we should avoid that area right now.  Looks like Muhammad.  In fact. . ."

Hayden pressed the brake and cut left onto
1st Street
instead of continuing on to 3rd.  Three blocks down, he turned right onto East Breckenridge and then had to backtrack a block up 2nd to reach York Street, where he parked on the curb in front of the Louisville Free Public Library.

Lillia was out of the car before he put it in park.  He had to hustle to catch up with her
, and as he jogged up the steps he realized why she was in such a hurry.  The glass on one of the doors had been shattered.

"Drake!
 
Kate
!
"

She grabbed the handle, stopped.  Her head lolled
to her chest.  She was
crying.

Hayden started to put a hand on her, but he stopped himself.  His face turned red.  Then he stupidly punched her on the arm and said, "Hey."  No follow-up in mind.  She looked at him, her eyes bloodshot, her cheeks glistening.  "I'll go in, okay?" he said.  "Just in case."

Lillia began to take deep breaths and she backed away, nodding.  Her foot slipped down the top step.  She stumbled and Hayden came forward but she quickly grabbed the rail and steadied herself.

"You okay?"

"I shouldn't have left them
," she said
. 
"
Sherman
told me not to."

"They could still be okay," Hayden said.  "Just hang tight.  I'll be right back."

When he opened the door, Lillia
let out a strange gasping cry and
spun around to face the
awkward and constipated-looking
statue of George Prentice
on the other side of
York Street
.  F
ounder of the two publications that merged in 1868 to form
The Courier-Journal
.
  A Know Nothing supporter and a bigot.
  Hayden had learned all about him in school.  His legacy
was
a bittersweet one.  Just as Hayden regarded
his father
,
this city o
wed
part of its identity--part of its existence--
to Prentice
but
at the same time
detest
ed him for his cruel nature
and the malicious things he'd done.