Читать книгу Between The Doors - Wes Peters - Страница 12

chapter four

what lies beneath

I

Nick led the way to the stable. In the distance they heard yelling and heavy machinery. The time had come. Joe Freeman had brought war to Sunsetville.

The boys headed north into the city, up a tall winding street. They passed a street-side banker who cried out for them to stop and invest. Next came a few sleeping drunks, whose naps had lasted the entire day. The road did not seem as though it would end. When it did, they reached the top of Sunsetville. Andrew peered back and saw a great wooden tower creeping steadily toward the Clock Tower.

“That’s just crazy,” Andrew muttered.

“Here!” Nick cried. “The stable’s in here.”

Nick led him inside to a wide barn, filled with horses housed by stable walls. Sunlight streamed into the stable. Andrew decided this was the first rural thing he had seen in Sunsetville. Nick beckoned him over to the last horse in the barn. The horse was brown and young, but strong. It was a fine horse, with a thick chestnut mane. Nick began to untether it after he’d opened the gate.

“No time to lose,” Andrew said. Nick nodded.

Andrew led Home Sweet Home out of the barn while Nick put a saddle on his back. Home Sweet Home warmed up to Andrew, and nuzzled the side of his face. Andrew jumped, and Nick laughed.

“I think he likes you!” Nick said. “I’m nearly as old as ‘im, you know. We grew up together.”

The boys led the horse out of the barn. To their left, a fat old man with a grey beard stood gawking at the side of the barn. There were the strange colorful markings on the wall.

“It’s a crime!” the man cried. His arms were crossed over his thick chest. “As if they haven’t got enough walls to draw on, now they mark up my stable!”

“I think it looks nice,” Andrew said. He liked the hipster-writing. The man didn’t even turn to look at the boy.

“Nice?!” the old man cried. He covered his eyes with one hand. “Nice, he says!” At last he turned to look at the boys. “Do you boys know what this says?” They shook their heads.

“It’s hate speech,” the man said, and narrowed his eyes at the boys. “The youngsters, they wrote it. The cross-dressing folk. Hate-speech, for the people of the desert. Of the east.” Andrew raised his eyebrows.

“Oh,” he said. Nick, sitting on the front of the horse, lent him a hand. Andrew climbed up and sat behind Nick.“You’d think the youngsters’d be a little more forward-thinking, but some things never change.” The old man turned back to the wall. “When you get to to be my age, boys, you learn hate’s a universal tongue. Don’t matter how you dress it up, with colors or however you like it.”

Andrew nodded. The two boys rode off.

II

By the time the boys reached the square, the wooden tower had arrived. The creaking and groaning of the gigantic wheels was deafening as the ‘youngsters’ inside rowed away. There were dozens of them inside, helping turn the wheels of the tower. Andrew thought it was all absurd. Joe Freeman sat at the top of the tower, wearing a pair of ridiculous orange goggles to match his fluorescent and flowing orange suit. Had the boys been closer they would have seen his skinny legs pedaling away on the stirrups he’d designed himself. Nick laughed at the sight.

Andrew hadn’t wanted to stop, but they did anyway. The two boys sat on their horse by the walls of Sunsetville, not far from the foot of the Clock Tower. As the leaning wooden tower rolled by, Andrew heard the heaves and ho’s from the young men and women inside, operating the great wheels. Up at the top, Joe Freeman shouted commands and encouragement to the people below.

Nick started. “Tom,” he said. “Tom’s in there!”

“Who?” Andrew asked.

“Tom Treeson!” Nick cried. “My friend!”

“Oh,” Andrew said. He remembered now. All of Nick’s friends were in there. As the tower came to a halt at the foot of the tower, Andrew groaned. Things were going to get ugly. Joe Freeman’s caws pierced the air.

“St. Gerardo!” Joe screamed from the top of the wooden tower. “Come out! Face justice, by my hand!”

“Stop this!” came a new cry. It was so close to Andrew that he started and nearly fell of the horse. Beside him a plump young woman with red hair and a redder face had both her hands upraised to the sky.

“Is that the mayor’s daughter?” Nick asked. Andrew shrugged. This was too ridiculous.

“Stop this, Joe!” she screamed.

“No” replied Joe, in a small voice.

She groaned and stomped her large legs on the ground. “What are you doing? This isn’t your job!”

“Go away” was the next reply. The woman began to mutter.

“Why I ought to kill him! He’s going to make a horrible mess! Who the flying hell does he-” she went silent. St. Gerardo stood atop the Clock Tower now, facing his audience.

III

“Did you need me?” St. Gerardo asked. No one said anything. The square was quiet. Then Gerardo continued, in a deep and powerful voice.

“Did you need something? From me?”

Joe at last spoke up, having prepared himself. “Yes! Yes we do. The game’s up, you wizardly fuck!”

St. Gerardo threw his head back in laughter. To Andrew and Nick he was only a speck standing atop the great tower. Still, his voice carried. It was thin and hateful, as it had been when the old man had tried to take the gun from Andrew in the sewer.

“You have led your friends to an unfortunate end, Joe Freeman,” St. Gerardo said. He stood at least twenty feet above the wooden tower, which was only tall enough to reach the clock face. Nick gasped, and jumped off his horse. The plump redheaded woman stepped in his way.

“Let me get through there!” Nick cried. “My friends are in there!”

“No way,” said the woman. “No way you’re going near that tower.”

“It’s time to pay, old man,” Joe Freeman said. Andrew squinted and saw a butcher knife in the man’s hand.

“For your bar?” St. Gerardo asked.

“Yes!” Joe replied.

“I suppose I should pay for that,” Gerardo said, unable to hide his laughter. “All right! Come up here and make me pay.”

“You better pay!” Joe returned.

“I said I would,” the wizard returned.

“Well good,” Joe replied. “You’ve got to pay—that’s house rules.”

“I see. And you’re the house?”

“Yes,” Joe said. He began to shout. “Boys! Roll it forward! Heave!” The wheels creaked into motion, and the wooden tower began to roll forward on the downhill slope to the Time-Table Clock Tower.

“You’re the house,” Gerardo said to himself, though his voice was still audible through the square. “And the house is sin.” His yellow eyes burned in the afternoon light. The wooden tower closed in.

“No!” Nick cried, and ran around the plump woman. She couldn’t stop him. Andrew leapt off the horse and sprinted after his friend.

“Consider this your penance, Joe!” cried St. Gerardo. He threw both hands into the air, reaching for the hazy sky above. Nick stopped short, watching silently. Andrew nearly ran into him. Then the manhole beside them exploded.

If Andrew hadn’t acted quickly, the spiders would have gotten Nick. He grabbed his friend and pulled him away, back toward the horse as the humming of a thousand subterranean beasts approached the surface. Around the square every manhole cover had popped into the air. The spiders emerged from the holes, free at last from the dark sewers. Andrew had thought there were a great many when he was in the sewers; now he saw there were thousands of them. They made their way to the wooden tower as it crashed against the clock tower.

“Come on Nick,” Andrew said, breathing heavily. “We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go now.” Nick didn’t move. He watched paralyzed as the black mass enveloped the Joe Freeman’s tower from all directions. The beasts flew through the cracks of the old wood and swarmed the inside of the tower. In a matter of seconds the base of the wooden tower was black. Andrew saw the fluorescent and colorful markings on the spider’s bodies were invisible in the daylight; like the hipster graffiti, these only showed in the dark. Now the spiders were pure black, no longer hiding what lay beneath their colorful markings. Screams began to rise from inside the wooden tower. The image of the dozens of young people inside the tower, prey to the spiders, made Andrew’s head spin.

“They’re trapped!” the plump woman said. “Oh god, they’re trapped!”

“Let’s get out of here Nick!” Andrew said, directly into Nick’s ear. Nick did not respond. He was watching Joe Freeman. The man in the orange suit had not said a word. At first he had looked down at the feast below him, but presently he burst into action. He took a running start and leapt for the Clock Tower.

He missed. Joe smashed into the side of the clock tower and bounced off an arch beneath the clock face. He landed on a ledge a few feet below, his body bruised and beaten. Andrew saw him try to move, but all he could do was twitch. Then Andrew saw the wizard.

Where did he come from, the boy wondered. In all the commotion, Andrew had quit watching him. Now St. Gerardo danced on the same ledge Joe Freeman lay mangled on. As Gerardo leapt over to Freeman, Andrew grabbed Nick once more.

“Nick,” Andrew said. “Look at me!” It was no use. Nick was transfixed by the horror enveloping his friends. He could’ve been in that tower with them, Andrew knew. Prey to the spiders.

“Observe carefully, boy!” came the thin voice again. Andrew looked up and saw St. Gerardo, standing over Joe Freeman. “Took a real close look at what you’ve gotten yourself into!”

“Nick, look at me.” Andrew said. Nick blinked and met his gaze. The two boys stared at each for a moment, and Nick nodded.

“You’d be smart to run away,” Gerardo called, throwing his hands in the air like a circus clown. “Both of you boys! Before things get ugly.” Andrew couldn’t see his face, but he could picture the ugly grin Gerardo was wearing. “But leave your gun here. Give it to me, it’s mine.”

“Let’s go,” Nick said. He made his way for the horse. Andrew followed.

“Where are you two going?” the plump woman asked.

“To safety,” Andrew said, without turning. He mounted the horse, and sat behind Nick. “You’d be smart to leave town, lady.”

“Maybe I will,” the woman muttered. She saw the gun protruding from his shirt. “You’ve got a gun?”

Andrew nodded. The woman nodded nervously. “Kill him,” she said. “I don’t know who you are or where you’re from, but when you get the chance you should kill him.”

Andrew said nothing as Nick turned Home Sweet Home toward the gates of Sunsetville. Yet Gerardo wasn’t done. He called again: