Chapter 4 - Horsemen

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4.  Horseman

       

        The door banged against the frame like war drums.  It was clear that the wooden sheet wouldn’t last; the force of his kicks vibrated the barrier savagely.  I was trapped inside the dark security room with only the dead faces of gray monitors for light.  I felt like a panicked, trapped guppy with an angry kid knocking furiously on the glass.

        “Open… the f*****g… door!”  he shouted between kicks.  He shot through the door; the bullet tore through the panel like a rock breaking the surface of still water.

        There was a long pause as he tried the doorknob again.

        “If I can’t see you, you can’t be you,” the leader mumbled angrily. 

        I crouched underneath my desk and pulled my knees to my chest.  All I could do was pray that one of those bullets didn’t rip through me. 

        I shouldn’t have come to work today.

        “I don’t necessarily want to kill you, whoever you are.  I just need that footage.” 

        I remained completely silent.  The last thing I wanted was for him to know I was in there, but there was no use hiding it really. 

        “I know you’re in there!” he shouted, exasperated.

        F**k!

        “I know this door only locks from the inside, and I know there’s only one door that leads into that room.  Just open the door and toss the hard drive with the footage out; I will stand back. Do as I say and you won't be harmed.”  As though he had only just realized he was screaming at me, he softened his voice.  “Hey, it’ll be fine.”

        I didn’t say anything.  My vast experience in hiding had taught me that assailants often talk to you kindly and offer empty promises just to lure you out.

        At last, the bullets had weakened the door enough for him to kick his foot through.  He cursed as he struggled to pull his boot out of the hole he’d made.

        I had pressed myself into the corner underneath my desk.  I saw his thick hand, adorned with a single large ruby ring, reaching through to turn the doorknob.

        The leader stepped into the room and pointed a large silver pistol at me.  I noticed that his beard and hair were a striking dark crimson color"the color of fresh blood.  He was maybe six feet tall, made of hard-earned lean muscle.  What I could see of his forearms and hands was, well, strong, calloused, and abused.

        The intensity of being in the same room with him was unbearable.  It felt like I was standing in the same room as Napoleon, Hitler. This guy was some kind of Genghis Khan, I swear.  There was some presence to him that was overwhelming just from being in the same room.  I held my breath until he looked at something other than me. 

        “Where are the tapes?”  he asked angrily, staring directly into my eyes. 

        I cowered and stuttered, “They’re""  

        “They’re where?”  He cocked the gun meaningfully and pressed the long barrel into my temple.

        “In that locker,” I said, pointing a trembling finger toward the security box that held the taping mechanism.  The security boxes were made of heavy steel with large locks.

        He tried to open it, to no avail. The lock didn't seem as scared of him as I was.

        “Key,” he said simply.

        My heart dropped, and I couldn’t respond.  I didn’t want to have to tell him that I’d lost the key, but I truly had no idea where it was.  I’d never used it.

        “Key!” he roared, this time pushing the gun into my face again.  “I am going to kill you if you do not give me the key.”

        I was too petrified to respond. The keys had gone missing earlier that week, and they’d never mattered before. Certainly they'd never been a matter of life or death.

        My head shook back and forth again.

        “S**t!” he screamed, kicking my chair with his alligator-skinned boot and sending it tumbling.  “Get up!” he shouted.  When I couldn’t move, he grabbed my wrist and yanked me from my hiding place, banging my head against the top of my desk as he did so.  I stumbled to my feet. “Are you there?” he asked, shaking me violently.

        “Yes,” I mumbled.

        “Where is the key to this locker?  I don't have time to waste standing here.  What is your name?”

        “Clark,” I said.

        “Clark, despite the fact that you are acting like a pants-wetting child, I have to commend you for your bravery.  Normally, I would spend time with you and help you to change your mind about me.  You see, I am not a bad person"if you knew why I killed the people I killed, you would most likely even agree with me.  But I don’t have time for that.”  He stopped shaking me and put an arm around me so that the gun was resting against my chest.   He tapped the barrel against my sternum to accent his words. “I’m not a bad guy, Clark.  Just open the lock for me,” he said.

        “I can’t,” I forced out. 

        “Okay, look, I actually am a bad guy.  I’m going to do horrible things to you until you give me that key.” 

        My mind was caught in the same endless feedback loop of terror"I couldn’t form thoughts, make plans, or argue.  Just that constant Fsscccccccccccchhhhh, the static of over stimulation, running through my head.

        He brought his pistol up to my shoulder, and it looked like he was going to shoot me. 

        “Last chance to…” his words trailed off, and his eyes averted to the host of monitors in front of us. “S**t,” he said.  He released me, and I crumpled to the floor in a fetal position as he stalked out of the security room.  He turned out the door and pointed his gun at me; he fired a shot without looking, as though it were an afterthought.  The sound was deafening in the closed quarters, and the bullet hit the floor only a few inches from my left eye.  Dust and fibers erupted from the carpet and into my eyes.   

        When I could breathe again"when I could think again"I looked up at the monitors and saw what had worried him.  Police cars were filling up the camera view outside Tasumec Tower.

        I watched as he rushed down dozens of flights of stairs, a cell phone to his ear.  There were several police cruisers outside the building, and I could see officers approaching the lobby.

        The two people he’d brought with him"the Strangers waiting for their leader in the lobby"were apparently talking with him over their cell phones.  One of them repositioned himself so he could ambush any police officers who dared entered the building.  The other, a woman, pulled out a large revolver and lazily loaded it, pinching one bullet at a time between two fingers and dropping it daintily into each chamber of the six-shooter as though she thought they were filthy things. 

        Their uniforms"if you could call them that"consisted of the vast tumbling granite gray trench coats that stretched out over their bodies until they seemed impossibly large and nebulous, a mummy of layers meant to announce their presence as nothing other than unwelcoming.  The female"a fact made apparently by her long dark hair and tall stiletto heels"was crowned with an enormous black Sunday hat, fashionable a century ago, if even if then.  From the viewpoint of the security camera, she seemed to float over the checkered floor of the lobby like a bishop set to convert his prey.

        I wanted to scream to the approaching policemen to warn them of the ambush, to tell them not to move through the door, but there was nothing I could do.  Two officers rushed forward, guns drawn, only to be attacked the moment they stepped through.

        The male Stranger, who’d been waiting in ambush, moved his two cavernous sleeves to the first officer’s head and snapped his neck with a powerful, grossly unnatural twist. 

        Before the body had even crumpled to the ground, the cloaked figure had already moved to his next target.  He was hunched menacingly as his enormous cloak billowed away from him.  I saw his lithe, lizard-like frame outlined perfectly until the fabric caught up to his movement. 

        The second policeman was met with the same dark hands around his neck as he was pushed to the ground and the Stranger kneeled over him, the fabric from the coat seeming to eat them both, and then I lost view of the horror.

        Just as I saw more police cars pulling up outside the tower, the leader reached the lobby.  He grabbed his female compatriot, and they bolted out the front into the swarm of cops.

        At first, the police seemed tense and ready to open fire, but then the female stepped forward and seemed to be talking to them, lecturing them.  The uniformed men soon began to lower their weapons, faces filling with inexplicable sadness.  It seemed impossible, like the woman was scolding small children. 

        Next, the leader pulled her away, and the trio continued down the street, out of camera view.

        The police snapped back into motion.  I watched dumbly as they swept into the tower.  They came storming up the staircases and took their time searching every room.  The whole thing took hours; they didn’t even question me until the very end.  I was stuck in that tiny room, staring at the bullet hole in the floor, for what seemed like forever.  I was terrified to move out before that, certain someone would mistake me for one of them and shoot me.   

        I watched with a general sense of dread as they worked their way up to me.  Soon, we made hesitant contact as radios were frantically barked at until I was identified.   Inevitably, my room was crowded with officers, who intruded on my personal space and touched my computer.  I fidgeted as they asked me about what footage the cameras had of the intruder; I watched them try to bring up the digital file, only to find that it had all been erased somehow.

        I wasn’t surprised.  The man who’d broken down the door had gone straight for the hardcopy backups, which he shouldn’t have known about.  They were locked up in a heavy cage and were rarely touched except twice a year to switch the hard drives out.  The copies we used daily were stored on the network, where others could access it; this is what had been erased. 

        The hardcopy cage is what I’d lost the key to, but the detective never asked me about it, so I never admitted to losing it.  I’d just be in more trouble, and then I’d have to lead them to the key. I'd have to let them tear my place apart looking for it, and in the end, I'd probably get fired. I didn’t want to go through it all after today.  Instead, I let them think the attacker had erased all footage of himself except the last shot of him fleeing the building and escaping the police. 

        The whole world was falling apart anyway.  What was evidence of one more crime going to help? I figured it didn’t matter.  The bad guy didn’t have the footage, and the police didn’t have it. It was just like it’d never existed, except in my head, of course.  Whatever they had planned for that film, they could just forget about it and leave me out of it.  The police clearly weren’t up to the task of protecting me.

        “Do you think he was trying to kill me?”  I asked the detective while I stared at the hole in the floor of my office.  It was probably the closest I’d ever come to dying, in the most literal way possible.

        “War is to man as motherhood is to woman,” the detective said, writing me off with some kind of ridiculous proverb. 

        “What?” I asked.  “What does that even mean?”

        “It’s just a saying… and Escher doesn’t miss,” the detective said quietly.  He was distracted, reading some sort of file as he talked to me.

        “Is that who was up here?”  Escher? So the leader had a name.

        “I haven’t even seen the tapes yet, and I can tell you it was Escher,” he said.   “The SSS are his.”

        “SSS?”

        “Secret Society of Strangers. Sorry.”

        “Well, did you guys catch him?”

        The detective’s grip tightened on the file he was holding. “No.” 

        “Why?” I asked. 

        “Because they’re freakin’ magic, alright?  Jesus.” 

        “But it looked like"”

        “What it looks like with the Strangers and what it is are almost always two different things.  We’re doing what we can.”  He said it in a way that encouraged me to drop the subject. 

        I shut up.

        “We need to check your ID… just standard stuff,” he told me moments later, seemingly apologetic.  I couldn't blame him really. The police that were left in Banlo Bay had to do a job better suited for a military.   

        “No problem,” I said, happy to do anything to get me out of there quicker.  I reached into my back pocket and found it empty. “It’s missing,” I stammered.  “I had it when I came in. I know I did.  My card pass is in there. I couldn’t have gotten up the elevator without it.” 

        The detective asked the officers if anyone had found it.  No one had. “Is it possible that Escher took it?” he asked.

        “Yes, I guess it’s possible… but I don’t know.  He grabbed me out from under the desk, but it was all a blur.  Oh, God! He has my"my name, my address… even my city card.”

        “Don’t worry. I can issue you a temporary pass.”  He pulled out a pad of forms from his back pocket and began writing.  “This will be good for two weeks, alright?  You need to have a new card by then.”

        I sighed, dreading another trip to City Registration.  It was a sobering thought.   

        “Don’t worry. You’re here with us right now.”

        “Yeah, but I have someone at home.  Erika.  They could go over there, try to find her, and"”

        “How would they know she’s there?” he asked.

        “Why wouldn’t they?  How do I know what they know?”

        “Look, you’ve had a long day.  Go home, take a rest.  You’ll be fine.  If you need anything, all 911. We’ll come just like we always do,” he said, trying to placate me. 

        It wasn’t going to work though.  They couldn’t even protect themselves. 

        I shivered, already reaching for my phone.  I found it very unlikely this “Escher” had simply needed chump change.  He didn’t strike me as someone who had to fool with the triviality of paying for the things he wanted.  

        “How confident are you he wouldn’t try anything?”  I asked again as my phone made its maddening third and fourth rings.

        The police officer had already turned away. 

        “Yes?” Erika asked lazily over my home phone.

        “Jesus, you’re okay.  I didn’t know what to expect.  I thought someone might be after you.”
“What are you talking about?  Why would anyone be after me?”

        “I’ve got a long story for you. It’s been a hell of a day.  Am I on the news?  Is there anything about Tasumec Tower being attacked?” I asked.

        “No, nothing like that,” she said.  “Just a cat chasing a dog with a butcher knife.” 

        “On the news?”

        “There’s nothing.  Come on home, my Lord. I have an altar prepared for you.”

        “I’ll be there soon.  Keep the door locked.” 

Author's Note

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Havoc has been cried and the hounds of war are loose in Banlo Bay, the last metropolis in America. You’re either a mouth or a mouthful, and young Clark Horton survives like a squirrel in the Serengeti—during the Great Collapse he spent months diving in dumpsters and drinking from drains.

Now that he’s finally got a roof over his head and doing better than 90% of Americans in 2056, along comes Erika. She’s a vagabond, con artist, and worse, beautiful. She’s inexplicably latched onto Clark, intent on casting him in the star role of one of her elaborate schemes.

Clark has no choice but to trust her as soon both are swept into a war between the city and the Secret Society of Strangers, a terrorist group whose members possess surreal powers inspired by the work of Descartes and Lewis Carroll. This elite team includes a mystical banshee who destroys men’s minds with esoteric truth, a backpacker whose headphones play tunes that can topple towers, and a man so completely boring that he’s invisible.

At the center of the Strangers is Escher, the Red King. The gun-toting psychopath is a solipsist who is convinced all of reality is an invention of his own mind and that everything he sees is a twisted remnant of his past life as mind-bending graphic artist M.C. Escher.

Clark and Erika’s blooming romance is tested by Escher, who is convinced that Clark is destined to become one of his chosen few and has a unique, existential bond with the young man—which might be fine, except Escher has a plan to kill every other person living in Banlo Bay.

It’s up to Clark and Erika to stop Escher from achieving his ultimate goal of obliterating the city—but first they’ll have to decide if that’s the right thing to do.

I'm a young but established novelist with one published novel - 2005's Jimwamba (Flame Books) under my belt. I have recently completed work on my new story, Frightened Boy, and am presently seeking to spread the word and get feedback on the book. Thanks so much for your attention.

Reviews

[Willard Schlesinger]

Describing Escher as Genghis Khan did a great job of providing with vivid image of the character as I read -- I really can't say why either. I was writing comments with each chapter I read up until this point, where I stopped. I was to much into the story to bother with writing along as I go. The action seemed to quicken and I wanted to read on to find out more about the SSS.

[RTB]

this chapter was urgent and quick paced it was cool how the police were fast exept i ddnt like wen the woman scolded or lectured them cause i was ready for gunplay hahaha jk good work il get to the rest as soon as i can