Liar's Harvest (The Emergent Earth) (10 page)

Anne and KC were statues as the panic broke out all around them.

Anne cocked the hammer of her pistol for effect. “Leave.”

KC slowly put his gun away and then flashed his empty palms at Anne. Then he turned and walked away without comment. I figured a man like that would normally have had something to say at this point, some bravado or attempt at intimidation, but the look on Anne’s face ruled that out. It was very clear that nothing existed for her now but the shot. She was unreachable.

His shoulder clipped Verna on his way out. I don’t know that he did it on purpose, but she was between him and the door and he had no intention of slowing down. She stumbled and fell into the hostess podium, toppling it. Both she and it crashed to the floor.

He kicked the front door open hard enough to shatter the glass as it rebounded off of the outside wall, and then was gone. We left the gorilla staring up at us from the floor, one hand clutching his shoulder.

Henry and Chuck joined us at the front of the diner, picking their way through the stunned customers. Henry’s face was a thundercloud.

Anne extended a hand to Verna to help her up, but Verna didn’t take it. Instead she stood up ponderously on her own and righted the podium as if Anne weren’t there with her hand outstretched.

I said, “Miss Verna...”

She cut me off. “I think it’s best if you don’t come back for a while. When that man starts looking for you, I don’t want him finding you here. While I appreciate that you helped Nell, the truth is that you turned an argument between her and her ex-boyfriend into open war. And that I do not appreciate.”

Ex-boyfriend? “I’m sorry.”

She turned to Anne, who was holstering her weapon. “I thought you were such a nice girl.” She shook her head as if wondering how she could have been so easily deceived. “Please, all of you leave. Someone already called 911, so the police are on the way. Don’t worry about your bill, just go.”

A man in overalls showed me his phone, 911 clearly displayed on it. He looked defiant, brandishing the phone like a weapon.

Leon looked like he wanted to slap the phone out of the man’s hand, so I grabbed him by the arm and hauled him out the door. The eyes of everyone in the diner burned into my back as we walked out.

Outside the diner, Anne shoved Leon hard in the chest, forcing him back a step. “What’s wrong with you? I can never go back there again. You know that, right? I liked Miss Verna, and now she thinks I’m the kind of person she can’t have in her place or around her family. Do you have any idea how that feels?”

Leon didn’t shout back. Instead his voice got low and even. “Anne, he was going to shoot someone.”

“Because you went up and punched him in the face! You do whatever you want, and to hell with everyone else. Just like you had to use the thorn and ...” She stopped.

Leon looked away. “And get Paulie killed.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. I said it to Aunt Emily and I’m saying it to you. I killed Paulie. End of story.”

“You can stop trying to take all the blame, “ I said. “I gave you the thorn, and all three of us, you, me and Henry, agreed to use it.”

Chuck said, “Well, I didn’t agree to shit and I’m still having to deal with it. Maybe what we need is less finger pointing and more monster finding. How about that? What did Henry call it, Prime? Well, Mr. Prime isn’t going to sit still while we hug and cry in the parking lot. We need to get a move on.”

I looked at Leon. “You know it’s bad when Chuck is the voice of reason.”

“True.” He blew out a deep breath and pretended to look at the sky while he got himself together. “How about we drop Uncle Henry back at the house and then try searching the woods where they found Paulie. Maybe Anne can pick something up.”

I doubted that would do any good, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

We got back into the truck and started heading out of town. We were on a smaller street, just a few blocks off of Main. It was still the business district, as much as Halfway could be said to have a business district, which meant it was mostly secondhand shops and contractor supply stores.

Anne bolted upright in her seat.

“What is it?” I asked. She held up one hand for me to be quiet and kept looking intently out the window. A second later she spun and looked left. I turned my head in time to see a dark shape slam into the driver’s side door, rocking the truck on its springs. I hit the brakes.

An open hand slapped into the windshield with a solid crunch and the glass fractured into a white starburst at the point of impact.

Prime’s wooden face clicked against the driver’s side window, not six inches from my own.

He winked.

16

L
eon’s doppelganger shoved away from the truck and ran. It took me a couple of precious seconds to fumble out of the seatbelt and throw the door open. By the time I was clear of the truck, Prime had a good fifty yard lead on me. I sprinted after him.

His wooden feet thunked dully as they pounded against the asphalt. He careened around the corner of the nearest building, heading away from the street. I was forty yards behind and gaining. Prime was fast, but not fast enough.

He swerved around a corner, behind a building supply warehouse. I slowed and made a wide turn around the corner to keep from being blindsided, but it was clear. Prime raced ahead, towards a fence that stretched across the alley between this building and the next.

I poured on the speed. Twenty yards between us now, and the wooden man had reached the fence. He leapt and hit the ten-foot tall barrier halfway up, then scrambled to the top and threw himself over. He landed gracefully, then sprinted away.

I didn’t bother climbing the fence. Without stopping, I jumped and cleared the top by a good six inches. I hit the ground on the other side and stumbled to a stop. There was no sign of Prime.

Neat stacks of lumber rose up all around me in steel racks, along with piles of brick and cinder block and long bundles of rebar. The place must have been closed for the day as there were no employees to be seen.

The chain link fence crashed like a cymbal behind me. I spun around and saw Anne and Leon pressed against the closed gate. It was secured with a padlock and chain, but one swift downward blow from Hunger took care of that.

“Where’s Chuck?”

“I told him to stay behind with Henry, just in case Prime doubled back,” said Anne.

“If he does, I doubt Chuck will be much of a deterrent.”

“To drive away, Abe. Not to fight.”

“Henry can drive.”

“Can he watch all sides of the truck by himself? Seriously, are you just going to argue with me until I go back and get Chuck?”

“Sorry. Just worried about Prime getting away from us again.”

I turned back towards the supply yard and let them come in behind me. Both had their guns drawn.

“I don’t see anything,” said Leon.

Something clattered to the ground ahead of us, on the other side of a tall rack of two-by-fours. I started to move forward, but Anne grabbed my arm.

“You know he made that sound on purpose, right?”

“Probably. I’ll go first, you two circle around the sides.”

“You want us to split up?”

Leon nodded. “Find, fix, flank, and finish.”

“Just like the manual says,” I said.

Anne looked at both of us. “This is stupid.”

I moved to the lumber rack. Anne went right and Leon went left.

A brick sailed over the rack towards my head. I leaned to one side and it cracked against the concrete.

I darted around the rack, but there was nothing there. A shot rang out to my right. That would be Anne. I started to run that way when another shot rang out to my left.

Dammit. Anne and Leon were thirty feet apart, separated by stacks of building materials. Which meant that they were shooting at separate targets, which meant that there was more than one bad guy in here with us.

The wooden man had led us into an ambush. Obvious in hindsight. I’d kick myself later if I got the chance.

There was a creaking sound behind me, so I spun around—just in time to catch an entire rack of lumber in the face.

17

T
he rack slammed into me and drove me towards the ground. Hunger saved my life. I wedged it between the metal frame and the concrete a split-second before it crushed me into pulp.

Even so, we’re talking about over a thousand pounds of tightly packed two-by-fours. Hunger should have just punched uselessly through the metal frame. Instead, the ends of the baton had flattened out to distribute the load enough to provide the necessary support.

I wasn’t dead, but the rack was pressing down on my chest, pinning me to the concrete. If Hunger hadn’t stopped it there, I would have ended up like a tube of toothpaste under a car tire.

This was the third time I’d seen Hunger change shape in response to my needs and each time the shape had been a complete surprise to me. It clearly wasn’t reacting to my thoughts, but instead making decisions on its own. I had no idea what that meant, but the thought of it being somehow alive gave me a chill.

As soon as the rack settled on top of me I heard the rapid clicking of wooden feet running on concrete. I craned my neck around in time to see a piece of steel rebar being thrust under the rack, missing my head by inches. It withdrew and then shot back in, this time much lower, hitting me in the ribs. Hard. I grunted in pain, but apparently that wasn’t good enough. The rebar was pulled back and then rammed back in even harder.

If I were anyone else, it would have gone straight through my ribcage and into a lung. I grabbed the end of it before the thing on the other end could try again.

It yanked, but I held fast. I could hear the hollow scraping of its feet on the concrete as it fought for purchase. After a few seconds of this, the rebar went slack and the other end hit the ground with a metallic jangling sound. The feet clattered a few times on the ground beside me, then above me on the pile of two-by-fours.

I exhaled as much as I could, grabbed the edge of the rack, and frantically pulled myself free. Once clear I rolled away and yanked Hunger out from under it, letting it crash to the ground. I scrambled to my feet, but I wasn’t fast enough. My skin parted as something sharp raked down my back.