Messenger of Fear (13 page)

His answer was sharp and angry. “Be silent, or you will regret your careless words later.”

And then, in the usual Messenger style, we were gone from Samantha Early’s school. Though not from her story.

I would learn more of Samantha and Kayla, much more, and I would cry bitter tears over that final chapter.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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THE NEXT THING I SAW WAS A CAGE WITH chipped-paint steel bars. That cage was large enough to contain eight long steel tables bolted to the bare concrete floor, a television mounted on one wall, two filthy, open cinderblock-walled bathroom areas. It was also large enough to comfortably hold three dozen men, and was at the moment holding twice that number.

The men ranged in age from their fifties down to their teens. Each was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, though there were variations within narrow limits: Some wore the jumpsuit with sleeves down to cover track marks; others wore the sleeves rolled up to show off tattoos. Some had their zippers down to their navels; others had peeled the top off entirely to let it hang loose; still others were zipped up tight.

It was not difficult to see that the dayroom of the Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez was divided along racial lines. African Americans occupied the closest tables, Latinos took the next group, and white prisoners, many sporting Nazi tattoos, were farthest away and smallest in number.

Food had been served. Bologna on white bread, canned peaches, something that might once have been broccoli. Men ate with plastic forks, their shoulders hunched forward, their heads low over their food. The room was ear-splittingly loud from the television, which showed a mixed martial arts match that earned catcalls, groans, and shouts, as well as a more generalized yelling, guffawing, and even, here and there, unimpressive attempts at singing or rapping.

Messenger stepped through the bars. I watched him as he did it, suspecting he would do so, and wanting to observe closely to better understand just how he performed this particular bit of magic. But again, it was as if my eyes were simply not adapted to seeing what was happening before them. The closest I could come to describing it is to say that the bars seemed to avoid Messenger.

He motioned me forward, and though I had by that point walked through more than one solid object, I hesitated. I might be invisible to the inmates, but that was a knowledge that did not reach down with so much certainty that it could easily override my natural caution. Put plainly: the men in there frightened me. It was a mundane, real-world, and thus all the more compelling fear, different from the fear of the supernatural evoked by something like the Game Master.

But when Messenger jerked his head impatiently, I followed, and my fear of the men distracted me so that I scarcely noticed that I was once more suspending the laws of physics and passing through case-hardened steel bars.

Messenger moved on to stand across from a particular young man, an African American, maybe seventeen but maybe fifteen, it was hard to tell. He was tall but not muscular, good-looking without rising to the level of handsome. His most notable feature were his eyes, which were large and luminous, a light brown at odds with his dark skin.

He was afraid. He was shaking. He was chewing the bologna sandwich in a dry mouth, mechanically working his jaws, as two men, one to either side, leaned in far too close, pressing muscular biceps against him. Squeezing him and looking past the boy to wink at each other, to laugh conspiratorially.

“His name is Manolo,” Messenger said.

“He’s too young to be in here.”

“Yes. But even the young are sent here when they are accused of murder.”

I looked at Manolo with new eyes, searching for something to connect with that most terrible of crimes. Murder? He was a scared boy.

“You going to eat them peaches, boy?” one of the thugs asked.

Manolo couldn’t speak—his mouth was full—so he nodded yes and hunched closer around his food.

“Hear that, G? This young man wishes to eat his peaches.”

“Huh.”

The first inmate stuck his hand out to Manolo. “I’m Andrews. What they call you?”

Manolo stared at the hand, then reluctantly shook it. “Manolo.”

“Oh, that is a weak handshake, little brother. That is a limp handshake, Mamomo. Yeah.”

“Manolo.”

“Yeah. Mamomo. That’s what I said.”

“Mamumu?” the other inmate mocked, his voice thick to the point of incomprehensibility. He laughed and slapped his hand down hard on the steel table. “Mamumu ma ma, moo.”

“You a sword swallower, Mamomo?”

Manolo shook his head.

Andrews leaned in closer. “Nah, I think you are. That weak handshake there? You all scared. All shaking, hey, that’s okay, you’re a fish, you maybe ought to be scared—there’s some bad men in here. Like Carolla here. He’s a bad man, aren’t you, Carolla?”

“Bad man,” the other one confirmed.

“See,” Andrews said. “You need to make friends fast here, fish. Need someone to watch your back.”

Carolla stuck his hand into Manolo’s plate, scooped up a peach slice, and popped it into his mouth.

“See? There you go. You let Carolla eat your peaches, maybe he won’t hurt you. If you don’t be nice, he’s going to hurt you. He’ll knock the teeth out of your mouth and bust you open, that’s a fact.”

Manolo swallowed, stiffened, and tried to stand up, but both men grabbed his shoulders and slammed him down hard into his seat. Both men began eating his peaches, making a joke of it, slurping and slopping, while Manolo sat helpless, pinioned.

“Let me go!” Manolo yelled.

Andrews put a hand behind Manolo’s neck and slammed his face down into his tray. When his head came back up, there was blood pouring from his nose.

All the while I was growing increasingly uncomfortable. I told myself that this boy was a murderer, that he had taken a life and therefore deserved none of my pity. But even a less active imagination than my own would have seen where this was heading, what these two brutes intended for him. I did not wish to see it.

“Do we have to watch this?” I demanded.

“Don’t you want to alter the fabric of time to rescue him as you wished to do for Samantha Early?”

“It’s not the same,” I said through gritted teeth. “Samantha is just a victim. This boy killed someone. But that doesn’t mean I want to watch him . . . like this.” A thought occurred to me. “He did kill someone, right?”

“Yes,” Messenger confirmed.

“Then, do we have to summon the Game Master and all of that?”

“Manolo is not our charge. We are after another one.”

“Then, why are we here watching this?” I demanded, quite angry, feeling that I was being tricked.

The room froze. One second it was a brutal and threatening video; the next it was as still as a photograph. And then, it began to move in reverse. Regular speed at first, with movements that seemed oddly normal, though reversed. Then the actions sped up, faster and faster so that we were standing in a swirl of orange jumpsuits and then an interrogation room with tired cops seeming to wave their hands at Manolo as he went from tears to sullen defiance, to his own hand-waving defiance.

On and on it went, out of the police station, into a squad car, back through a drive across a city I did not recognize, and slower then as red and blue strobes flashed and neon rippled across the wet skin of police cars in the rain, and then were gone.

The action backed past something that happened in a flash, then slowed, stopped, and began to move forward again in normal speed.

Manolo, no longer in jailhouse orange, was walking out of a fro-yo shop. He wore a name tag, so I assumed he was leaving a part-time job. The fro-yo was at an aged mall with a sparsely occupied parking lot. The lot was illuminated by the worst of tall fixtures that cast a silvery light, like moonlight drained of all mystery. Manolo walked toward his car, a beater sedan he must have inherited or perhaps saved his money to buy.

Two boys climbed from an SUV parked nearby. The boys were not particularly tough looking. They were almost identically dressed in jeans, T-shirts, and jackets. One wore tan work boots, the other sneakers. Two things marked them instantly as dangerous. First, the way they moved: quick, almost hurried, directly toward Manolo, but furtive as well, with many glances behind and to the sides.

Second, they were each armed. Boots carried a metal baseball bat. Sneakers had a crowbar, hooked at one end, tape-wrapped at the other, which formed the grip.

Manolo was no fool—he knew as soon as he heard their car door shut that he was in trouble. It was easy to see that he knew the boys.

He tried to get the car door open, but they afforded him very little time, and his first attempt to insert the key failed.

Had he managed to get the door open . . . Chance. The fourth of the forces that define our lives.

“Hey, guys, come on,” Manolo said.

I noticed then that he had a bruise under one eye, and that a discreet flesh-colored bandage lay across his nose.

“Come on?” Sneakers asked. “What do you mean, come on, faggot?”

“You already beat on me for no good reason!”

“Yeah, I seem to recall that,” Sneakers said. “You got us both detention for that.”

“That wasn’t even the worst part,” Boots said angrily. “Sensi—what did they call it?”

“Sensitivity and awareness,” Sneakers said with a sneer. “An hour-long video. Plus the counseling. See, Manolo, you gotta pay for all that. It’s not just you being a homo—you were a homo who ratted us out.”

“That’s extra beating.”

“That’s blood. And something broken. And maybe a dead faggot,” Sneakers said.

Manolo cried and tried again to insert the key. Boots grabbed his hand, crushing the keys in his grip. Manolo yanked his hand away, and Boots smashed the fat end of the baseball bat into his solar plexus.

Manolo lost every atom of air in his lungs, clutched his stomach, and sagged into the side of his car.

“That hurt, homo? Did that hurt?” Sneakers gave him a shove with the crowbar, sending Manolo staggering into the other attacker.

“What, you think you eyeball me in the shower and all you get is one beating?” Boots demanded.

“I didn’t . . .” Manolo squeezed the words out but could say no more.

“Are you saying he’s not good-looking enough for you, faggot?”

“I think he’s dissing me,” Boots said, picking up on his companion’s snark. “Except we know better, don’t we? Because I saw him watching me. Yeah. And the more I think about it, one little beating is just not enough.”

“Just let me go . . . My mom . . . Someone will see you,” Manolo said. He had his elbows down to guard his sides and stomach, while keeping his hands up, scrunching down to guard his head.

Sneakers swung the crowbar into the back of Manolo’s legs.

“Ahhh!” Manolo cried. “Ahhh. Ahhhh!”

“Cry, you pussy!” Boots said. He shouldered his bat, just as if he was at home plate waiting for a fastball. He swung at shoulder height, cutting slightly upward, aiming squarely for Manolo’s head.

Manolo ducked. The bat ruffled his hair as it flew past and smashed into Sneakers’s cheek. The sound of breaking bone was as loud as a firecracker, followed by a howl of pain from Sneakers, who dropped his crowbar to grab his face.

“Dude!” Boots yelled.

“Ow ow ow ow!” Sneakers cried as tears filled his eyes.

Manolo tried to run but tripped over Sneakers’s feet and landed hard on the blacktop, elbows and knees.

Boots cursed furiously and aimed a hasty blow that punched into Manolo’s kidney, bringing new cries of pain to join those still pouring from Sneakers.

“I will kill you! Kill you, you—” Boots raised his bat again, but Manolo lashed out desperately and drove a foot against Boot’s knee, and the bully staggered back.

In a flash Manolo had rolled over, powered to his feet, and come up holding the dropped crowbar.

Boots saw it and grew wary. “Oh, you want to throw down, faggot? I was just going to beat you. Now I’m a kill you! You hear me?”

Sneakers rallied and came rushing in a murderous rage to hit Manolo from behind with a flying tackle that drove him into Boots. The three of them went down in a tangle of fists and feet and elbows, all yelling, crying, cursing, and then, somehow Manolo was up again, still holding the crowbar. His breaths came in furious gasps, loud, almost musical, and he swung the crowbar down once, hard, hitting Sneakers and shattering his collarbone.

Boots was trying to get to his feet while still holding the bat, but he was too slow and Manolo caught him with a hard, horizontal blow that broke his elbow. The bat went twirling off across the parking lot.

An adult male voice yelled, “Hey, hey! We’ve called the cops!” I glanced over and saw a youngish married couple next to their car, watching cautiously.

But Manolo was in no condition anymore to hear. He was in a rage. He was pure, distilled fury. He swung the crowbar again, and this time the thick steel bar landed with a horrible crunch on Boots’s head.

Boots stopped trying to stand.