The End Games (10 page)

As startling as if the moon itself had been turned off: the balloon’s flame, untouched,
snuffed out with a puff.

Michael and his pursuers flinched. The balloon loomed, and the basket creaked.

A shadow rose, up from the basket’s floor.

The moment stretched and twisted. It could not have been more than half a second,
but the pilot seemed to rise ponderously, like a terrible jack-in-the-box unfurling
in slow motion. The pilot had no visible eyes—he was total silhouette—but Michael
felt him scanning them all. As the pilot reached full height, a second shape rose,
in his hands. A gun shape.

Michael fell on Patrick, hugging him into the snow as the shadow opened fire.

Light flashing: thunder trying to tear the world.

The Bellows had been staring up at the pilot, like Patrick. So they had no chance.
One shot each, one bullet each: skull center, every one.

It was impossible, even with an automatic, but the pilot seemed to catch all of them
at once, as if some unseeable scythe had cut them with one shining swoop.

The motorcyclists who had been madly pursuing were now madly attempting an escape.
There was a momentary, somehow considering pause from the pilot; he cocked his head.

As the motorcyclists reached the rim of the forest, the pilot plucked three quick
gun bursts.

Three bodies fell face-first into the shadows of the tree line.

The aerial assassin pivoted one final time and aimed his weapon at Michael.

“No no no, wait, no!”
Michael screamed.

He kicked back in the snow, pinned naked on a bull’s-eye.

The balloon descended slowly on its own. The pilot stood preternaturally still, like
a statue in a hurricane, even as the basket settled in the snow, dangerously near
the cliff.

Night-vision goggles were strapped to the man’s head, the lenses protruding on stalks.
An oxygen unit covered his mouth. With his breath curling from the mask’s side cylinders,
he looked like a knight and a dragon both.

“S-sir?” Michael said.

The gun aiming at Michael never moved.

Patrick squirmed out from under him and sat up, his eyes big and clear with awe. “Who
is that?”

It could have been anybody. The man was a blank.

The pilot raised a hand.

“Name,”
he said. The voice rang. Hard. Cold.

And without waiting, the pilot cocked the gun’s slide in preparation.

Michael shot to a stand.
“Wait—”

“Your name!”

“What?”

“SAY THAT
GOD
DAMN NAME OF YOURS!”

“Wha—Michael Faris!”

“Count,” the voice said. This word came calmer; for the first time, Michael noticed
a slight hill-country accent in it.

Count?
He thinks you’re a
Bellow
!

“Sorry, wait wait! One two three four five sixseveneightnineten.”

The man didn’t answer.

Michael paused, swallowing dryly.

“Is that okay? Is that enough? Sir?” Michael said. “’Cause honestly, if you want me
to count higher than ten, I gotta take off my shoes and use my toes.”

The joke was for Patrick’s sake. But Patrick didn’t laugh.

“Him too.” The pilot pointed his rifle at Patrick.

Michael stumbled left, shielding his brother.
“Hey!”

“Move.”

“Sir, he’s fine!”

“Damn, but I
looooove
proof,” the man said.

Patrick stared. “What’s your name?” he asked softly.

“Count.”

“He’s fine. Bello—those things can’t talk like he’s talking!”

“Are you the Game Master?” Patrick asked.

“Patrick—”

“The
what
?” the man said.

“Are you the soldiers Michael saw?”

Pause. Pause. “Where’d you see soldiers?” the man said.

“Pretty close,” Michael said; he cringed inwardly. “Sir. Please. We’re fine.”

The shadow considered it.

“Well. I’m Captain Horace Jopek of the United States Army 101st,” he said. “And I’m
wonderin’ if anybody’s lookin’ for a ride to the Safe Zone.”

A soldier. Captain Horace Jopek.
Captain
Horace Jopek.

Michael stood, feeling curiously light.
I did it,
he thought.
I freaking
did.
Oh my God, we’re safe. Game, the eff, Over.

“Jeezus, why didn’t you say so?” Michael said, laughing a little.

Patrick was grinning shyly, half hiding his face against Michael’s leg. “It’s okay,
huh, Michael? We won, huh?” Michael nodded.

“So, where you ladies come from?” said Captain Jopek.

The captain took off his goggles and mask. As Michael’s adrenaline began to subside,
he realized that this captain was titanic, one of the tallest men he’d ever seen.
The captain seemed about forty, and somehow his face emphasized just how huge he was.
The wide, stubbled chin looked as powerful as the slabs of his forearms; his nostrils
were cavernous and black. And despite the cold, a kind of heat seemed to bake from
his skin. A jutted brow shadowed his eyes—they were dark double zeroes—but the remaining
pieces of his expression were full of the good humor of a man who has just come across
a secret.

“Our bike,” said Michael. Patrick helpfully pointed over the cliff, grinning.

“Just the two of ya?” the captain asked. “No soldiers with you?”

Uhh.
“No,” Michael replied.

“Well, ain’t
that
a reg’lar West Virginia miracle,” said the captain, and winked at Michael. His breath
was thick with sickly sweet tobacco.

“Whelp, I guess it’s time to hit the sky,” the captain said. “More of them bike loonies
will be back soon, believe me.” He patted the rim of the basket good-naturedly. Michael
became aware of the sounds of more Bellows in the woods.

God, The Game worked. I made it
real. He reached for Captain Jopek’s hands.

“The brat first,” said the captain.

Michael hesitated a second.

In the end, it wasn’t entirely his choice: Patrick slinked from behind his leg when
he realized they were going to fly. The man quickly lifted Patrick up and set him
on the floor of the basket. Michael felt a momentary, surprisingly brilliant pang
of separation as his brother disappeared from view under the lip of the basket.

Without hesitation, Captain Jopek turned to extend his hands to Michael.
This is real. It’s really over—

But the captain’s expression froze him. “What happened there?” the captain said, an
odd and cold and calm smile on his face.

What happened where?
Michael was going to ask—but his fingers found the same place the soldier’s eyes
had. His neck. Blood there. The tumble from the bike must have torn open the scratch
he’d gotten last night. “Oh, crap, you know what?” Michael said, half laughing. “There
was one of those monsters, in a miner’s outfit—”

In a sleek blur of movement, the cold eye of the assault rifle’s barrel raised on
Michael. Michael recoiled, almost falling in the snow. “Jeezus!” Despite his panic,
he fought to still sound respectful. “I’m not infected, sir! It’s a scratch.”

“Scratch,” the man said.

Michael nodded.

Patrick sensed the tension, tried to chuckle, hummed.

The gun went down, the soldier’s gaze came up, and for the first time Michael saw
his eyes.

What happened next could have been a trick of light, a quirk of exhaustion.

The sparks of moonlight in the captain’s eyes seemed to fly to the pupils and vanish.
Michael realized: there was nothing to read in Jopek’s eyes.

And Michael was beginning to reach for Patrick, because something wasn’t right, he
was
always
able to read people—but some black object was coming at him: the stock of the captain’s
automatic rifle, looping up and up, flying almost like his great balloon. Michael
heard an explosive hollow
thwok
, and the last thing he saw were Patrick’s fingers, his brother’s fingers, reaching
out for his.

CHAPTER TEN

The winter winds, which seemed to snarl in the alley beside their apartment before
gathering strength and pouncing out, were growing colder. The night was like a thing
you could reach out and snap. It didn’t even matter if you were inside.

Michael shifted on his quilts on the living room floor, looking up at his mother’s
face
. See, Michael baby,
she said, her smile floating above him, like a warm moon
, it’s like a adventure thing.
She palmed the quilts flatter and fit his mittens on his fingers
. You remember
Indiana Jones
? Wasn’t that movie fun? That’s what this is just like, baby.

He’d heard Mom on the phone with the gas company earlier asking how could they have
the heart in the middle of February, but it never occurred to him that the call and
the adventure had thing one in common.

All he knew was when she smiled at him, like they had a secret, he couldn’t imagine
ever feeling cold again.

He whispered to her:
Really?

Very really, baby,
she said
. Yes, yes.

They lay down, curled against each other, beside the crackling fireplace. He kept
humming the theme from
Indiana Jones,
only quitting when Mom stopped helping because she had fallen asleep. The winds were
really bellowing now: the front door began sounding like a barrier against the boogeyman.
But he wasn’t scared.

He was an adventurer.

He loved Mom’s tiny, dreaming breath on his cheek.

For a while, Michael watched the snow streak past the window like a billion falling
stars. He wondered if it was cold in outer space. He didn’t think so: in his mind,
it was all swooshing dark and globes of power
. If he and Mom went, they could ride comets,
he thought.

And when morning came with a smooth lemony color on his lids, he lay there, clamp-eyed.
Because he didn’t want to open his eyes. Because he didn’t want morning.

Nights were better. They made the world feel huge, fat with surprise, full of doors
to be opened. Morning made everything too bright. You could see
too much.
You could see the water stains on the ceiling, or the way the stuffing poked through
the stitching in the couch pillows. You could look in Mom’s eyes and see sadness in
them.

He clenched his eyelids, trying to hold in the private night. He’d been Indiana Jones,
running from—

—running from a soldier—

—balloon—

Michael shuddered, and his eyes flew wide.

Light, hard white spears of it, pierced his vision. For a moment, he was so shocked
that even blinks wouldn’t come.

Balloon.

Patrick.

He sat up, heart jackknifing in his ribs, and shouted as a pain like a frozen rod
pierced through his skull at the temples. Michael sucked air, clasping his head, his
brain pulsing like a black bladder.

The light was like hot, white bulbs held to his irises: the same sort of blinding,
buzzy light that seems almost supernaturally bright in emergency rooms at night.
Michael—do you go by Mike or Michael?
he remembered a doctor saying.
So Michael, I’m a doctor here. Your father—stepfather, excuse me—asked me to talk
to you. We understand that Patrick began screaming a couple hours ago. And this was
for no reason?
(Say what Mom told you to say. Yes, he was screaming for no reason. No, Ron never
touched Mom.)
Well, listen . . . 
you
know we’re here to help your brother.
He
doesn’t know that. And so our thinking, pal, is we know how close you two are, and
it would absolutely help us if you could hold him while we give him a shot. Just to
sedate him for a few hours. We could strap him down, but we’ve found that it’s better
if— Hey. Calm down. Michael, I will say this with absolute clarity: your brother is
a danger to himself. This is just who he is, and pretending he’s not won’t change
that. He is back there shrieking and hitting himself. I believe he broke his hand.
We see these things all the time with special-needs children and— Hey, Mike, you’re
a big boy, but if you’re going to use that kind of language, keep it
down
. Now are you going to help your brother or not?

Michael got his feet under him. And he felt something he hadn’t expected, something
that stopped him: something soft.

Carpet.

There was a cot behind him. He’d been lying on it.

He was . . . in
side
.

The shock seemed to short-circuit his brain. His fingertips went numb; for a moment,
he felt like he might tilt over. He told himself it was another dream.

Because even if it actually existed, the room he was in was unbelievable.

It was as if he had awakened in both a courtroom and library. Small wooden desks were
arranged in concentric horseshoes, row within row facing a center where there stood
two podiums and something like a judge’s seat. The room was cupped under a dome, ribbed
and decorated by two scenes: one of men smiling in a sparkling city, the other of
grimly determined miners and machines. The grand vault made him feel no larger than
an ant.

But it made him feel like a giant, too: he’d been a lot smaller, last time he was
here. Back then, he’d been in a line of other sixth graders, probably wearing the
Quidditch shirt with gold writing Mom only let him wear on “special days.” That was
the day C. R. Rohrbough threw up out the window on the bus ten seconds before it could
pull over to the side of the road. That was the day of the West Virginia history field
trip.

He was in the Senate chambers of the state Capitol.

He would have thought, after three weeks’ imagining, that anything would be an anticlimax.
But this was greater and more weird than he could have predicted. It was still easy
to picture governors striding over the deep-blue-and-marigold carpet, but the stately
space had been transformed. It was jammed with cots, dozens of them, rumpled with
thin brown blankets. Here and there among them were red plastic meal trays. Here and
there were mugs.