The New Kid (21 page)

“I give you . . . the lead singer for Blood Eyes . . . CORREL SHAMES!”

Correl was so practiced in making grand entrances that he had no problem captivating this audience of high schoolers. With a wave of his hand and the bang of a drum the lights went out. Then a solitary spotlight came on. Correl had ripped his shirt open and now held the mike and cut loose with a throat-rending scream that sent chills down the spine of every kid in the place as the band slammed into overdrive and Correl chewed his words of pain and suffering and spit them into the microphone like venom.

As Will and Natalie watched, the kids on the dance floor moved their bodies rhythmically, faster and faster, jumping and leaping to the beat until they shook like they were in a Voodoo zombie trance. Soon the entire dance floor of kids undulated and roiled in unison as though they were not separate beings but rather one living organism.
A creeping sense of alertness rose through Will as the spotlight morphed red and hit the singer full on and Will got a good long look at Correl Shames’s obsidian eyes.

Aggression rose on the dance floor as though the gym were filling up, flooding, with a rising tide of poison. Kids slam-danced and some slapped each other and before long, just as Correl Shames hit his ear-splitting crescendo, a fight broke out across the gym. Will thought he recognized Rudy’s whiny voice and bristled in defense. It looked like Rudy needed him again. He was probably getting thrashed by some of Duncan’s posse and Will actually looked forward to bailing his little buddy out of a scrape again. It meant they had found him—and before anything too bad had happened to him.

With Natalie in tow Will moved swiftly through the throng of onlookers—they’d smelled blood and moved in for a closer look. Some kid was pounding away on a smaller guy, had him down and was hammering him pretty good.

Will shouted out, “Rudy!”

The bigger, stronger kid whirled around and stood defiant. He had fire in his eyes and blood on his knuckles. It was Rudy.

Will and Natalie stood looking at him, shell-shocked. He was wearing jet black jeans and a black tank top and his hair was gelled and spiked up and cut into a Mohawk. His formerly pimpled face was smooth and clear and he had tattoos of a skull with wings on his left bicep and a red pentagram on his right hand, his hitting hand.

Will got over the shock and pulled Rudy aside. Rudy was sweating and his pupils were huge. He pulled a bandana from his back pocket and wiped the blood off his knuckles.

“Will, my man, Natalie, how you guys doin’?”

“What the hell happened to you?” demanded Will.

“Nothing!”

“You’re taller, Rudy, and you look like you’re wearing Batman’s Under Armour,” accused Natalie.

“You never heard of a growth spurt?” growled Rudy.

“Not overnight, no” said Will. “And I see your face cleared up. They got to you, didn’t they.”

“You are so freakin’ clueless, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course I do. We all do. Come with us, Rudy, maybe I can help you,” pleaded Will.

With surprising strength Rudy shoved Will backward.

“Stay away from me. Both of you. And if I were you I’d watch my back.”

The music flared up again and Rudy disappeared into the horde of throbbing dancers. Will pulled Natalie along as he followed Rudy and then stopped when he found him dancing with Sharon Mitchell. Rudy’s wildest dream had come true.

“Looks like Rudy got his wish,” said Will, then added, “Too bad he has no idea the price he’ll have to pay.”

“It’s not your fault, Will.”

“I should have paid closer attention to him, I should never have let this happen. I let you guys into my twisted life, and now Rudy’s messed up.” Tears welled up in Will’s eyes. He’d let his friend down.

“Isn’t there anything we can do? Some kind of intervention or something?” asked Natalie.

“I don’t know,” said Will. He’d never actually tried. He’d been developing a device, but it was as yet untested. He needed time. And looking at Rudy, he wasn’t sure he had any. His funny little friend, who was now not so little and definitely not funny, was filled with prideful bliss as he gyrated with Sharon Mitchell.

Rudy turned and focused his eyes on Will and Natalie. Gone was the optimistic, friendly light. In its place was pure malevolence. It was a look that said,
I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill you both.
Natalie shuddered as Will led her out of the gym.

T
he dance thumped along wildly for another ten minutes until Correl Shames made his exit and the black-clad crowd, deeming the whole affair to be suddenly very uncool, made a mass migration to the parking lot where Will and Natalie waited in Will’s EVO. They slouched in their seats and watched as Jason and Jimmy and the rest climbed into cars and, yipping and yelling like ordinary teens, squealed out of the parking lot, all heading in the same direction. Rudy was one of the last to exit the gym and climbed into Duncan’s xB with Sharon. Will waited a beat, then fired up his Mitsubishi and followed the pack. If Natalie was frightened by Will’s driving before she was absolutely petrified now as he downshifted, laid his rice rocket out, and even had to go into a couple of corner drifts to keep up with the pack of cars screaming into the night. He had to push it; he had to keep up with his prey.

“Will, slow down!”

“If I do I’ll lose them.”

“No you won’t, it’s obvious they’re staying on the highway!”

Her pleading voice got to Will so he throttled back, thinking,
Maybe she’s right, they’re all heading in the same direction on the highway,
it won’t hurt to pull back. How can I lose them?
But as they rounded the next curve the road ahead of them was clear.

“Damn!” shouted Will as he double-clutched and downshifted and stomped on the gas. The Mitsubishi rocketed forward. Natalie knew she’d just caused him to fail so she kept quiet, even as the lights along the street flew by in a blinding smear. Will pushed the EVO hard, gunning it up to a hundred and ten and still there was no sign of tail lights ahead. Then without warning the backs of Will and Natalie’s head were lit up by headlights. The pack was behind them. Now
they
were the prey.

“Will, what’s happening?” cried Natalie.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The headlights grew closer and closer until the chase cars were right on their tail and began knocking into Will’s back bumper. Natalie screamed as the EVO went into a brief sideways skid at ninety-five miles per hour but Will pulled out of it and flipped a lever. As the nitro plunged into his turbocharger the EVO jet-blasted forward in a burst of speed. But their pursuers came on relentlessly, three cars taking up the entire highway behind them. An oncoming logging truck in the left lane flashed his high beams and laid on his horn but the demonteens didn’t give a crap and wouldn’t yield. The guy had to swerve around them through a ditch, laying hard and long on his horn.

“What do they want?” screamed Natalie.

“Not sure yet,” answered Will as calmly as he could. One of the chase cars, a jet black Nissan 350Z, roared up beside them and the smoked window on the passenger side powered down, revealing a kid with pasty white skin, gold bridgework on his teeth, and a bloody nose. He licked at the blood on his upper lip and laughed, then started to crawl out the window.

“My God, he’s going to kill himself!” yelled Natalie.

“If only,” said Will.

Still grinning, the kid pulled himself into a crouch and then jumped out of the speeding 350Z. But instead of falling and slamming into the pavement he went airborne, sprouting hideous pimply, fleshy wings and flying ahead of the speeding pack of cars. A hundred yards down the road he swooped up, twirled around, and then tucked into a dive and bulleted right at Will’s EVO, waggling his tongue. Natalie let out a horrific scream as Will tried to swerve but the flying demonteen turned with him and smacked into their windshield face first, his teeth cutting through his tongue, which went flying. But the bulletproof glass Will had installed all around the EVO only yielded a hairline crack as the demonteen’s neck was broken. His body slid off the front of the hood and Natalie winced as the EVO’s tires thumped over the demonteen’s body. Looking back she saw that they’d severed it in half and the remains crackled and sparked and then disintegrated.

“This is so not what I had in mind for my first dance date,” said Natalie.

“Hang on!”

Two more cars hit his left flank and forced him to yank his wheel right, taking them onto a narrower roadway that snaked up the mountain. As Will fought to keep the Mitsubishi on the road the chase cars again pulled closer and then one overtook him. Now he was boxed in and to make matters worse two more flying demonteens appeared, carrying weapons. The first had a heavy chain and was swinging it, slamming it over and over against the passenger window. Number two had an iron harpoon and flew ahead, took aim and threw it. The harpoon hit the window with such force that it pierced it and lodged in the passenger seat next to Natalie.

“Okay, that’s IT!” yelled Will.

He kept fighting to maintain control of the EVO as the chase cars side-banged him, trying to knock him over the edge of the road, which now skirted a massive drop-off. It was a long way down. More
flying demonteens filled the air, all with primitive but deadly weapons. As they continued to attack the car, the EVO’s wheels veered to the shoulder and scraped the guard rails, sending up a shower of sparks. One more bad collision and Will and Natalie would smash through the railing and plunge over the cliff.

“You’ve got to drive now!” shouted Will.

“Do you have a
death wish?
I can hardly back out of my own driveway!”

“You better learn quick, it’s our only chance.”

Still holding the wheel with one hand as they screamed up the curving mountain road, Will shifted out of his seat and with his other hand helped Natalie maneuver around the harpoon and into the driver’s seat.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this!” she screamed as he relinquished control of the steering wheel and she replaced his foot on the gas pedal with hers.

“If you’ve got a better idea, let me know,” shouted Will.

He hit a button and the sliding moonroof speed-retracted, revealing the star-filled sky. Then he reached around and tapped out a code on the retrieval patch on his neck. High in the sky the power rod, which was hovering at five thousand feet, hummed and shone brighter and then dropped fast.

A mace-wielding demonteen surged right at Will like a hawk and took a swing but in one smooth super-quick motion Will yanked a mini-grappling hook from his belt, hooked one end on the EVO’s roof, ducked beneath the mace, and caught the demonteen’s heel with the hook, bringing him down out of the air with such force that when he slammed into the pavement he was pulverized immediately. Three more flying demonteens formed a “V” and hurled themselves toward Will, who raised his hand and caught his incoming power rod. He activated it instantly and fired a salvo of flaming balls into the guts of two of them. They reacted with shocked surprise and then
screamed as their bodies exploded from within. Their comrade glared at Will.

“You killed my friends!” he shouted.

“Deal with it,” said Will.

And then he fired up the dual saber on the power rod and sliced the guy in half. The demonteen’s scream was so loud it split open the night sky as the two halves of his body disintegrated.

The chase cars backed off momentarily, then slowed and turned on their fog lights as the mountain road wound its way into a thick bank of mist. Natalie instinctively slowed the Mitsubishi down, too, and then her face twisted into a mask of disgust as the mist seeped in through the moonroof.

“What’s that smell?” she complained, almost gagging.

“It’s the smell of evil,” said Will. “Try not to breathe too much of it. Here.” He whipped a bandana out of his pocket and handed it to Natalie, who tied it bandit-style over her nose and mouth.

Suddenly the pack of chase cars suddenly gunned their engines, raced past the EVO, and kept going on up the mountain.

“What do I do?” asked Natalie.

“Slow down, but keep going,” said Will. “I don’t like the feelings I’m getting.”

“That makes two of us.”

They kept on driving through the fetid fog, Will’s eyes searching for more demonteens to waste. He was certain an ambush was imminent. But no demons appeared and in the moments that passed, the mist grew thicker and thicker and fuller of stench. With the killing behind him for the time being Will felt his heart slowing down, felt the red-hot pleasure in his battle-fueled blood begin to wane. And then he heard it. A rumbling guttural voice, like the sound of someone dragging a sack of giant bones, echoed through the night.

“You’ve come to enjoy the killing, haven’t you, Will?”

“Show yourself!” Will shouted, his eyes darting around, catching shapes moving, glimpses of eyes in the dark, but nothing he could aim at or take a swipe at with his power rod. Something was circling him but he couldn’t see it through the mist.

Natalie shrieked as a bat zipped down and flew just inches past Will’s face. Then a demonteen flew out of the darkness, teeth bared, and zoomed right at Will, taking him by surprise and raking his neck with razor-sharp fingernails. Will managed to duck the brunt of the blow but he was bleeding now. He pivoted and when the demonteen swooped down, coming in for another strike, Will ducked then popped back up and struck with his power rod’s dual sabers, slicing the morbid creature into pieces, its guts and bones churning out of its body as its mouth released an unholy screech of death and the severed parts crackled and dissolved into a gas that blew away in the wind. The thunderous, rancorous beast-like voice spoke again.

“That’s good, Will, just a few more kills, you’re almost there!”