Prodigal Blues (10 page)

Arnold wore a small, floppy fisherman's cap, the type used to hold hooks and flies, and sported a bright white, long-sleeved cotton shirt.
 
It didn't take a genius to figure out why; if asked to describe him, a witness would say, "A black kid in a white shirt."
 
They'd remember only the colors, nothing more.

He was sitting on the opposite side of the bed from Rebecca.
 
In front of him was a cheap metal typing stand, the kind on rollers that you can buy at any office supply store for ten bucks.
 
An expensive laptop computer was set on the stand, while another, equally expensive laptop was on the bed, by his right side.
 
Both computers were running; the one on the stand displayed what looked like an enlarged map detail, full of colored lines and areas highlighted in either red, blue, or orange; the computer on the bed showed a complex grid, in the center of which was a blinking white dot.
 
Attached to the grid computer through a USB port was a smaller device that I at first thought was a cell phone because of its extended (though short) antenna, except that it had an LCD screen bigger than any I'd ever seen on a cell; this screen also displayed a white dot which blinked in perfect synchronization with the one on the grid.
 
It took me a moment to figure out what this device was—until now I'd only heard about universal locators, or read about them in tech-geek magazines left lying around the common areas I cleaned in the Science building.
 
I wondered where they'd gotten all this equipment.
 
I wondered how they'd learned to use it.
 
I wondered what it was they were tracking with the locator.

The boy in the wheelchair coughed, made a hawking noise, then swallowed loudly and resumed his song, this time singing it in a whisper.

"The crooner in the corner," said False-Face, "is Thomas.
 
Until Denise, he was the youngest of us."

Denise.
 

Jesus.
 

This was the first time since the restaurant I'd really thought about her and not myself.
 
I turned back toward False-Face.
 
"In the restaurant, Denise said that she wasn't traveling with the man who took her."

"That is true."

"Who took her?
 
Do you know?"

"Yes."

"Where is he?"

His eyes narrowed, then he gave his head a quick shake.
 
"It does not matter anymore."

"Has Denise… had she been with the four of you since she disappeared?"

He sighed.
 
"What do you think?"

"She didn't"—False-Face winced again—"talk like the rest of you."

"Of course she did not."

"She used contractions when she spoke."

I'm real sorry, mister.

I now understood why she'd said that:
 
she knew False-Face and the others had targeted me for… whatever it was they had in mind.
 
God, she must've felt terrible about it.
 
I wished I could see her to tell her that it was okay, that she didn't have to feel bad—poor little thing had more than enough to deal with without feeling guilty over me.

"She used contractions," said False-Face, "because Grendel did not have her long enough to… teach her otherwise."

"Grendel?"

"Our master," said Rebecca.

"Our watcher," said Arnold.

"Our keeper," said Thomas from under Elmer Fudd's face, then went back to humming.

"Our Eternal Lord of life, of death, of reward, of punishment," said False-Face.

"Grendel," said Rebecca.
 
Or it might have been Arnold.
 
Even Thomas.
 
For the next few minutes, as they spoke rapidly in turn, their tones and inflections became so similar in my ears they might as well have been one voice; I suppose, in a way, they were.

"…'So the company of men led a careless life…"

"…all was well with them…"

"…until One began to encompass evil, an enemy from Hell…"

"…Grendel they called this cruel spirit…"

"…the fell and fen his fastness was…"

"…the march his haunt…"

"…this unhappy being had long lived in the land of monsters…"

"…since the Creator cast them out as kindred of Cain…"

"…for that killing of Abel the eternal Lord took vengeance.
 
There was no joy of that feud…"

"…far from mankind God drove him out for his deed of shame…"

"…from Cain came down all kinds misbegotten—ogres and elves and evil shades—as also the Giants…"

"… who joined in long wars with God…"

"…He gave them their reward…"

"…and so with the coming of night came Grendel, also…'"

I couldn't even begin to grasp—let alone understand—this:
 
how in the hell would a bunch of
children
know
Beowulf
well enough to recite it from memory?

Then False-Face said:
 
"Our Eternal Lord
Grendel
did not allow the abbreviation of speech…"

And the litany started again, spoken by them in the rapid, well-practiced cadence of children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or the alphabet or basic multiplication tables:

"…contractions are for the lazy…"

"…the simple-minded…"

"…the disrespectful…"

"…and the ignorant…"

"…and there is no place in the House of Heorot for the discourteous…"

"…and there is no room in the burg of the Scyldings for the ignorant…"

"…Grendel was proof of that…"

"…he told us over and over and over…"

"…and over and over…"

"…there is no forgiveness…"

"…not for forgetting that…"

"…for lessening the flow and music of God's language…"

"…no forgiveness…"

"…only a new lesson…"

"…a different approach…"

"…God does not reward the lazy…"

"…He does not love the simple-minded…"

"…He does not tolerate the discourteous…"

"…to Him, they are as monsters…"

"…and there is no heaven for monsters…"

"…so lonely…"

"…and how do monsters begin…"

"…they are born first with lazy tongues…"

"…careless grammar…"

"…which makes their voices ugly…"

"…and the songs they sing shrill and tuneless…"

"…and that ugliness spreads to their faces, and then to their souls…"

"…but some of them cannot see it even then…"

"…because the soul of a monster is a tricky thing…"

"…a mischievous thing…"

"…and Grendel would quote something whenever we did not understand what he meant…"

"…over and over and over…"

"…about what monsters would walk the streets…"

"…and over and…"

"…if our faces were as deformed as our souls…"

"…and Grendel would punish those whose speech fell offensive on his ear…"

"…offensive speech deforms not only the soul of the speaker…"

"…but of the listener, as well…"

"…and with each transgression, you would lose a part of your soul…"

"…the part that was hidden in your face…"

"…what monstrosities would walk the streets…"

"…if we lost enough of our souls, then we would understand…"

"…and if we lost enough of our souls…"

"…the part hidden in our faces…"

"…then he would turn to our bodies…"

"…because the monstrosity spreads, you see…"

"…it spreads
so fast
…"

"…and our souls continued being punished…"

"…terrible punishment…"

"…awful, painful…"

"…lonely…"

"…and if you dared to scream or call out…"

"…so lonely…"

"…if you cried…"

"…if you so much as whimpered…"

"…or even wept…"

"…so lonely…"

"…Grendel's outrage was openly to be seen…"

"Slow down," I said.

"…you did
not
want Grendel to be angry…"

"…oh, no…"

"…so lonely…"

"…because his anger would not be just yours to suffer…"

"…oh, no, never…"

"…always never…"

"…not ever…"

"…a family suffers together…"

"…if one hurts, you all hurt…"

"…he told us it was only
fair
…"

"…only just…"

"…only moral…"

"…only honorable…"

I lifted my hands.
 
"Stop it, please."

"…if one of us made a mistake in speech…"

"…or in actions…"

"…then it was all our faults…"

"…
our
mistake…"

"…and mistakes must be chastised…"

"…only fair, that is what Grendel said…"

"…and so he hurt us…"

"…he hurt us
so much
…"

"…I still bleed down there…"

"…I still leak…"

"…still feel the burning…"

"…the pieces of skin that are missing…"

"…the taste…"

"…
his
taste…"

"…all over…"

"…inside…"

"…sometimes his taste was all the food we were allowed…"

"…for days and days…"

"Jesus Christ!" I shouted.
 
"Stop it, please.
 
I can't—"

"…sometimes he would lock us away…"

"…one by one…"

"…lonely…"

"…and leave us in the dark to think about what we had done…"

"…and wonder what he was going to do to us when he brought us back out into the light…"

"…so bright and scary…"

"…I miss my mommy…"

"…I wonder if Dad will remember me…"

"…if they are even still there…"

"…do not want them to have forgotten me…"

"…hurts so much sometimes I just want to die…"

"…scared, I am so scared of the light all the time…"

"…please do not be afraid of us…"

"…do not scream or call out…"

"…it is important…"

"…you have to understand…"

"…we do not want to hurt you…"

"…honest, Mark, we do not…"

"…oh, no…"

"…but this is something we cannot do by ourselves…"

"…not like this…"

"…not the way we are now…"

"…so safe in the dark because Grendel was not there…"

"…because we were discourteous…"

"…we were lazy in speech and manner…"

"…and did not know any better…"

"…until Grendel…"

"…our Eternal Lord Grendel…"

"…taught us what we needed to know…"

"'…Grendel, they called this cruel spirit…'"

"…I hate him…"

"…he came with the coming of night…"

"…oh, God, how I hate him, too…"

"…cut them off…"

"…and I know it is wrong to hate someone like this…"

"…but I do not think he was human…"

"…always lonely…"

"…he just wore a really good mask that made him look that way…"

"…I thought he had a nice face when I met him…"

"…cut them off…"

"…he smiled and told me not to worry…"

"…do not cry…"

"…I will help you find your mommy…"

"…that is what he told me, too…"

"…you do not have to be scared…"

"…
he cut them off!
 
HE CUT OFF MY LEGS!
" screamed Thomas from his wheelchair, wrenching forward with such anguished force he almost fell face-first onto the floor, but Arnold was there in an instant, grabbing him underneath his arms, steadying Thomas as his body shook, wracked by sobs as he reached up and tore away the mask—

—and revealed his burned, terrible, ruined face.

I did not blink at the sight of him.

I did not look away.
 

I did not gasp, cry out, groan, or whimper; to have done any of those things would lessen me in his eyes—his
eye
, his one, perfect, azure-blue eye—and I did not want him to think ill of me; I wanted his understanding, his strength, his respect and blessing:
 
I was looking at a face that had known more pain, horror, and suffering in its few brief years on this earth than any ten people who lived to the age of ninety would ever know or imagine or turn away from when confronted by.