Westlake Soul (19 page)

So this was it. Our final battle.

I couldn’t see him, but knew he was there. Crouched high up on the catwalk, or behind one of the machines. Or perhaps he
was
a machine. He’d open his eyes and lights would flash. The motor would start, the conveyor would roll, and I’d be sucked in and chewed up, spat out at the other end in grisly red pieces. I felt like one of the kids in
A Nightmare on Elm Street
. Jesus, I was even wearing my pyjamas. Not exactly becoming of a superhero. No cape. No dandy boots. I’d never felt so powerless. I tried to fly; if I could reach the catwalk, I’d have a better view of the factory floor, perhaps anticipate his attack. I hovered three feet above the ground—could go no higher—and came down with a thud.

This wasn’t looking good.

A sound from up ahead: scratching, followed by a crunch, like a ball-peen hammer striking bone. I peered through the gloom and saw him, low to the ground, shoulders rounded. He’d dropped from the ceiling, where he’d clung like a spider. I took a step back as he rose to his feet. His wings rippled, black as my fear.

“So this is the end,” I said, my voice fragile. I edged away from him, but he took a huge, booming step forward and covered more than half the distance between us. The catwalks shook and the chains rattled. I saw fire inside his cowl.

Westlake Soul
, he said. He so loved to say my name.

I wondered if I could fight—if I had anything left after being starved for eleven days, and after using so much energy on Wayne. I had always foiled Dr. Quietus, but things were different now.

He spoke my name again and—
THOOMP!
—stomped his foot. Machinery woke. Cranked dials and blinking lights. Everything shuddered, including me. I turned and ran, weaving between incinerators and spinning saw blades. No doubt I was in Dr. Quietus’s world. A place of fire and smoke, with rattling chains and machines that cut and crushed. I had no control. This was his show. He came after me, swinging his fists. I pushed with everything I had, but how long could I keep going? A bird with two broken wings hopping away from a hungry cat.

You’ve been running for a long time, Westlake Soul.

And I would
keep
running until he caught me, pinned me down, and finished the job he’d started more than two years ago.

It’s almost over. So very close.

I ran through a welding bay lined with hideous sculptures. I tipped one over behind me. It broke into sharp pieces, littering the floor. This slowed Dr. Quietus but didn’t stop him. He stumbled and roared, then flapped his oily wings and took to the air. I glanced upward and saw him circling above the catwalk. He cried out and swooped, hands like talons.

You can’t get away from me!

He grabbed the back of my pyjama shirt and hoisted me off the ground, worked his wings and took me higher. I kicked and struggled but he held fast, then whipped me around and slammed me into the side of an industrial press.

SPRRAAANNKK!

I felt every bone crack. My ribcage collapsed and my skull split from the middle out, following the sutures, like tearing along the dotted lines.

Dr. Quietus howled and I twitched in his claws, drawing what were surely my final breaths. They felt like fishhooks catching on my lungs. He tossed me away and I tumbled through the air long enough to wonder if I would land on one of the spinning saw blades, or in a vat of sulphuric acid. It was the end, no matter what. I’d been beaten at last. It had been long and hard, but the final blow—the actual moment of death—would be quick as a blink.

Or so I thought.

I landed on the catwalk. A pile of broken pieces. I groaned and flopped onto my back, looked up and saw Dr. Quietus touch down at the other end of the walkway. He folded his wings and stepped toward me.

You used to be more of a challenge
. He flickered like polished stone.
Where’s the fight, Westlake? Where’s the will to live?

I got to my hands and knees and started to crawl. I recalled how I had once been able to fly away from him, break through walls, jump into the Soulmobile and gun that puppy to a place where the shadows weren’t so long. Not anymore. Even crawling hurt. Most superheroes lose their powers at some time or other. They always get them back, though, and resume the duty of kicking ass. Wasn’t going to happen to me. This was The End, baby. The Death of Westlake Soul. No chance of being brought back by the Entity, or resurrected in the Kryptonian Regeneration Matrix, like Superman. There wasn’t a roomful of comic book dudes waiting to draw me back into existence. My final breath would be exactly that.

Pitiful
, Dr. Quietus said, stomping toward me, the catwalk creaking under his weight.
And you used to be so strong. You used to tame the ocean.

Yes. The fury beneath the board and the exhilaration of controlling it, tempering the most powerful thing known to man, if only for a moment. This feeling . . . I
used
it. I got to my feet and staggered three or four steps before being knocked down again. But Dr. Quietus didn’t touch me. Didn’t need to. His boot came down on the steel walkway—
BRRROINNGG
—and the vibration was enough to send me sprawling.

I got to my feet again. Staggered on.

Dr. Quietus laughed. I heard his wings catch air and turned around to see him floating high above. Made me think of the butterfly I had seen. I had thought it trapped, but maybe I was wrong. It occurred to me now that it was too natural—too
alive
—to be a part of Dr. Quietus’s environment. Which meant that it was a part of mine.

I gazed into the darkness at the far end of the factory, where the insect had disappeared. Had it come to show me the way out? A hole in the wall or ceiling, butterfly-sized, that would give me another shot at life, however frail?

It was my only hope.

I grasped the catwalk’s rails and pushed on.

That’s it, Westlake
, Dr. Quietus said. He swooped and perched on the catwalk ahead of me. Head low, oozing smoke.
Keep pushing. Keep fighting, Oh, my bleeding heart!
He took wing again, through a curtain of steam, out of sight. I heard him laughing. Wild sound that wanted to break me.

There was still so far to go, and Dr. Quietus was playing with me—drawing out his pleasure, my pain. The urge to concede was consuming, but I didn’t. I worked
harder
, through the suffering, one agonizing step at a time.

The end of the world, Westlake.
He swept beneath the catwalk, his wings tight and muscular, then up and out of sight again.

Sweat boiled from my body. My pyjamas clung to my skin, heavy and smeared with oil. I licked my lips, taking moisture that rolled down my throat like ice (and back in the groovy room I groaned, devoid of moisture for so long). I pressed on—could now see the factory’s back wall. No sign of any frailties, but there was the butterfly, as bright as a flame, tacked to the underside of a rafter.

Get me out of here
, I said, and it fluttered, orange wings ticking, to another rafter closer to the corner.

I gathered strength from somewhere and shuffled faster—hell, it was almost a run. The catwalk was coming to an end, though, and I still had at least thirty feet to go. Below me: conveyors and pistons, clouds of steams, cogs turning. It was a loud world, everything grinding, wheezing. I looked for Dr. Quietus and saw him crouched on an oversized engine that coughed toxins. He pointed at me, wreathed in smoke.

What are you going to do, surfer boy?

I looked at the distance between the end of the catwalk and the butterfly. Pipes hissing. Chains hanging. A conveyor loaded with scrap metal, chugging toward a crusher with a throat like a black hole.

It’s over
, Dr. Quietus said. He leapt from the engine and spread his wings. I lost him for a second as he meshed with the darkness, then he was on me, striking hard and fast. No time to react. His boot connected with my chest and lifted me clear off the walkway.

KA-WHUNK!

I spilled over the edge and fell to the conveyor below, so close to being impaled on an ugly jag of steel. I screamed and puked blood. Tried to move but the pain was unimaginable. The conveyor rumbled and through the tears in my eyes I saw the crusher, less than twenty feet away, swallowing snarls of metal and spitting out perfect cubes.

Dr. Quietus whirled above me, howling triumphantly, then touched down on the conveyor and planted his boot on my chest.

And in the end
, he said,
you die, just like the rest of them—the millions of heroes who have come before. You’re not so special.

I screamed again, spraying blood from the back of my throat, teeth stained red. With huge effort, I grabbed Dr. Quietus’s boot and tried to lift it from my chest. He shook his head and tensed the muscles in his leg, exerting more pressure.

I don’t think so
, he said.

The conveyor rumbled on. I heard the crusher sucking in ugly chunks of metal, smashing its jaws. Twelve feet away. Eleven.

Your final seconds
, Dr. Quietus growled. His smile was a blackened grille, too wide, too hungry.
And
you get to spend them with me. How delightful.

He threw back his head and laughed in true supervillain style.

A bead of orange in the corner of my eye. The butterfly, still on the rafter. I was moving toward it. A flicker of hope . . .

The end
, Dr. Quietus said.

Not yet
, I said. I reached behind me and grabbed the first thing my hand happened upon: a stone-sized lump of iron. I curled my fingers around it, twisted my body, and threw with insane sidearm precision. It hurtled toward Dr. Quietus like a tiny asteroid, disappeared inside his cowl, and bounced hard off that black-grille mouth.

PWAAANNG!

He cried out and spilled backward, arms pinwheeling. I didn’t waste a second in following up. I sprang to my feet in one lithe movement, strutted forward, then dropkicked the son of a bitch.

KAROOOMPHH!

He crashed into the scrap pile on the belt behind him, scattering it all before falling to the ground ten feet below. I knew he’d be back on his feet in no time. I had to move, and quickly. One shot at escape, to buy—
maybe
—one more day. I spat yet more blood and looked at the crusher. So close now.

Dr. Quietus roared. He worked his wings and sent chunks of scrap metal spinning in all directions. Fists clenched, bleeding oil and anger, he came at me again.

I lurched, not away from, but toward the crusher. I planted the sole of my foot on a tangle of junk and used it to launch myself—flew through the air for a heartbeat before starting to descend. Below me, the junk I had launched from toppled into the machine and I heard the jaws do their thing.

You resilient little cocksucker!
Dr. Quietus screamed.

I swallowed blood and wept—reached out, and managed to grab one of the chains hanging from the ceiling. It jerked in my hand but I held on, kicked my legs and swung high. Over the crusher. Through a screen of blue sparks. I let go of the chain and grabbed another, like Tarzan swinging on vines, and took this one all the way to the rafters.

Okay
, I said to the butterfly.
I’m here. Let’s book it.

The butterfly opened its wings, fluttered to the exit (the thinnest seam between the wall and ceiling), and disappeared. I imagined it suddenly rising into the clean sky outside my bedroom window, above a world turning gold. I lunged after it, crying out . . . almost reached the gap when I felt Dr. Quietus’s hand curl around my ankle. He pulled hard—jerked me back.

Not so fast, pretty boy.

I clung to the rafter with everything I had, fingernails scraping along the cold metal. I was so close to the gap that I could see a thread of Surf City Blue. Smell coffee and waffles. Hear the radio playing. Dr. Quietus’s hand tightened on my ankle. I twisted around and kicked with my other foot. It connected with the dark oval of his face. It felt like stomping on a bed of cockroaches that clicked and scratched against my skin. I kicked him again . . . again. He roared, lost his grip, slumped back.

I hit that seam of light like a dart.

My eyes snapped open.

The groovy room was cool and bright. Altogether beautiful. My dry body trembled and I exhaled air that I was sure would smell of sulphur and sweat.

Jesus
, I gasped.
Jesus Christ.

That was it. I had nothing—
nothing
—left. The next fight would be my last. Judging from the way I’d pissed off Dr. Quietus (I’d
dropkicked
him, for the love of God), I had a feeling he’d be returning soon. Probably before the end of the day.

It’s over
, I said.

Yeah
, a sad voice agreed, so soft I barely heard.

My gaze rolled by chance to the doorway, and there was Hub. My dog. My best friend. He tried to smile, but I could see that his eyes were big and moist.

Hey
, I said weakly.

He closed his eyes and his mouth trembled as he whined.

Dude had finally come to say goodbye.

So much sadness, huh? And so many tears. I’ve tried to keep things upbeat here. Not exactly easy. Believe me, it would rock my socks to be able to tell you how goddamn happy everybody is. Just singing and dancing, like the Ewoks at the end of
Jedi.
Can’t do it, though. I have to tell it like it is.

My tragic life.

Here’s the thing: roll back the clock to any time before my accident, and there wouldn’t be tears. Or so few as not to matter. We were always laughing, goofing off. Sure, we had our ups and downs, like any family. Arguments and slammed doors. Then there was Mom’s postpartum depression (which I didn’t even know about until Dad told me). But the rough times didn’t last, and for the most part ours was a household of smiles. Those days are history. The stuff of memories and old home movies.

It’s crazy how one moment—one decision—can change so much.