Scorpion Shards (18 page)

W
INSTON, WITH THE PHYSIOLOGY
of a five-year-old, found his days swinging back and forth between complete exhaustion and uncontrollable energy. Had he been exhausted when they asked him to stay, he might have just curled up, thumb in mouth, and fallen asleep before the big blast came—but Winston was feeling very much alive and did not intend to go quietly. Today was a day to live.

As he leapt down the stairs two at a time, he had to keep reminding himself that he hadn't abandoned the other three. They, in fact, had abandoned him. They had given up. Now he would be alone. He would chase the tail of the other two shards until he could no longer walk, until he could no longer crawl. When his body had withered itself out of existence, he would die knowing he fought to the end.
That
was dying with dignity, not being buried beneath ten tons of shattered concrete.

Winston bounded down the stairs to the first level and was surprised to see, just twenty yards away, a worker in a hard hat, facing away from him. Winston could see he was double-checking the wires, and the realization that there were still a few minutes till the building blew made him reconsider his options.

There was time to save the others! Even if they didn't want to be saved, he could save them. He would run up to the man in the hard hat, he would tell him of the others still upstairs, he would ruin their awful plan.

Winston took a few steps closer, about to shout out, when suddenly a second figure that had been eclipsed from Winston's sight came into view. It was a boy—no older than fifteen, and he was staring straight at the worker. The boy had red hair.

Immediately Winston felt a rush of dizziness that took the wind right out of his lungs. This was wrong. This was very wrong. He ducked behind a pillar and watched.

The worker was frozen, his flashlight at his side, casting a light on the dusty floor. The boy with red hair seemed anxious and sweaty, and very, very intense.

“You've placed the explosives wrong,”
suggested the boy to the man in the hard hat.
“You should do something about it.”

The worker just stared at him. “Okay,” he said dreamily and strolled off into the shadows.

Winston gasped, and the red-haired boy snapped his eyes to Winston.

The second their eyes met, Winston knew
exactly
who this was.

He was the fifth shard.

Winston couldn't break eye contact with the redheaded boy. His gaze riveted Winston to the ground. If there were indeed six shards, then this boy had inherited the largest, most powerful one, and in its shadow had grown the worst parasite. Winston knew he was no match for the force behind those eyes.

The redheaded boy stood stunned by the sight of Winston—but only for a moment. Then he turned and disappeared down a hole in the concrete floor.

Once he was gone, a hundred thoughts flew through Winston's mind fighting for purchase.
Run for your life! No—follow him! No—break the worker out of his trance!
But the one thought that overrode them all was the urge to race back upstairs and tell the others!

He bounded up the stairs, racing past the demolition man, who mindlessly whistled a Beatles tune as he moved a pack of explosives from one end of the building to the other.

O
N THE SEVENTH FLOOR
, Lourdes, Michael, and Tory waited in silence. They could hear the sounds of morning in full swing. Car horns, diesel engines. The occasional shouts of the demolition workers as they diligently prepared for the morning's spectacle.

Then they heard footsteps racing up the stairs and knew by their lightness that it had to be Winston. He had changed his
mind. In the end they would be together. As it was meant to be.

Winston burst through the stairwell.

“We've got to get out of here!” he shouted.

“Winston . . . ,” said Michael. “We've made up our minds . . .”

“We're not leaving Lourdes . . . ,” said Tory.

“No! You don't understand!” He grabbed Tory by her plagued arms and looked into her eyes. “Tory, you were right! You've been right all along—
The Others are here
!”

Realization slowly dawned in Tory's eyes.

“What?”

But the only answer was a blast louder than thunder that shook the world and sent pulverized concrete dust flying into their faces.

Seven floors below, the foundation of the old Dakins warehouse blew apart, and the building began its freefall journey to the earth.

T
HE
C
HINESE
T
ONGS THAT
had built the impossible maze of tunnels beneath Boise were long dead, and the opium dens those tunnels once connected were gone and forgotten. Now, more than a hundred years later, Dillon and Deanna traveled those lost passages. Dillon should have found the pattern of twisting, intersecting tunnels easy to figure out, but as he raced wildly to reach Deanna, he found himself lost. He had never been lost before, but what had happened in that old warehouse had thrown him for such a loop, he wasn't thinking straight.

They were here.

The Others.

Somehow they had found him, and he was convinced that they were here to kill him.

At last, down the long dim underground corridor, Dillon saw Deanna, just as the blast went off somewhere above their
heads. The explosion was so loud, it sent pain shooting through his ears, and the rumble that followed rattled his teeth. He fell into a puddle of stagnant muck, while behind him concrete dust shot through the tunnel like steam through a pipe.

Then, through the dust blasting into his face, Dillon saw and heard hideous things. Sinewy gray tentacles reaching for him through the dust cloud—blue flaming hands around his neck, sharp claws digging into his chest, fangs, and eyes—so many angry eyes!

It must be my imagination,
he thought in a panic.
It can't be real,
yet even so, he felt a tentacle wrap itself around his ankle and dig in. Dillon clawed at the ground to get away, he gripped a stone in the wall, but something stung his hand.

Choking from the concrete dust filling his lungs, Dillon could swear he felt hot breath on his face and heard a sound in his mind louder than the collapsing building.

Knocking.

Many hands knocking on a door—a furious horde demanding to be let in.
Anything!
thought Dillon.
Anything to stop that horrible knocking in his brain.
He opened his mind as easily as opening a door, and the creatures were gone, leaving only the blinding dust in his eyes.

As the dust around him began to settle, Deanna appeared in front of him.

“Dillon! What's happening?” she asked desperately.

Dillon coughed out another lungful of dust. And forced himself not to think about the monster-hallucination. Instead he let himself feel the wrecking-hunger feed on the collapse of the Dakins building. But that was only a first course.

“Listen,” said Dillon. “Listen, it's wonderful!” The relief filling him soon grew into joy, and then ecstasy.

The first building had come down far above them, but the
roaring had not stopped. From the right came another rumble, just as loud as the first, and then another, further away, and then another until they couldn't tell where one ended and the next began.

Deanna sank to the ground, shivering as if it were the end of the world. “It's like a war out there,” said Deanna.

Dillon beamed a smile far too wide. “Oh, it's much better than that!”

His dim flashlight went out, but that was all right. Dillon didn't want Deanna looking at him right now, because something was beginning to happen to him. He was beginning to change; he could feel it all over.

Dillon closed his eyes, imagining the beast he had learned to ride so well . . . only now when he tried to picture it, he saw a whole team of beasts instead: a wave of dark horses teamed together by a single yoke carrying him along at a breakneck pace.

There in the dark, his flat stomach began to slowly swell, and his many freckles began to bulge into a swarm of angry zits.

I
N THE DIM LIGHT
of this awful morning, the foreman of the demolition crew could do nothing but watch as his well-orchestrated detonation became a nightmare.

It should not have happened. The way the explosives had been set, the building should have come straight down . . . but it didn't. Instead the entire building keeled over backward and landed on Jefferson Place—an office building across the street that had been evacuated as a precaution. The old office building shifted violently on its foundation, and keeled over to the left . . .

 . . . Where stood the Hoff Building—a city landmark.

No one had thought it necessary to evacuate that one.

The Hoff Building took the blow, and for a moment it looked as if it was only going to lose its eastern face. But then it, too, began a slow topple to the left, its domed tower crashing into the Old Boise Post Office.

Dominoes,
thought the foreman.
They're going down like dominoes.
It was impossible; it would take a pattern of incredible coincidences for each building to hit the one beside it with just the right force to bring it down as well . . . but the evidence was here before their eyes.

Debris struck the capitol building, which seemed to be all right . . . until the pillars holding up its heavy dome buckled and the dome crashed down and disappeared into the building, hitting bottom with such force that all the windows shattered.

And it was over.

Seven buildings had been demolished.

Beside the foreman, his explosives expert just stood there, rocking back and forth, and happily whistling “Twist and Shout.” Another crew member was screaming at the top of his lungs.

They're insane!
thought the foreman.
They've completely lost their minds.
And finally, the combination of everything around him was exactly enough to make the foreman snap as well. As he felt his own mind slipping down a well of eternal madness, he realized that the destruction he had just witnessed was somehow not over yet. In fact, it was just beginning. In a moment he started laughing hysterically. And he never stopped.

M
ICHAEL
L
IPRANSKI NOW UNDERSTOOD
death. It was blind, cold, and dusty. It was filled with a loud ringing in one's ears that didn't go away. Death was oppressive and choking.

These were the thoughts Michael was left with after having died. There were, of course, many questions to come, but the
one question that was foremost in his mind was this: Why, if he was dead, did he still feel like coughing?

Michael let out a roaring hacking cough and cleared concrete dust from his lungs. He opened his eyes. They stung, but he forced them open anyway. Around him were three other ghosts . . . or at least they looked like ghosts. They all began to stir, and as they sat up, a heavy layer of white dust fell from them.

“What happened?” asked Winston.

And as they looked around, the answer became clear. They were still on the seventh floor . . . or at least what was left of it. Just a corner really. The rest of the building was gone. So were quite a few other around it. It looked as if downtown Boise had been hit by a small nuclear bomb.

“He did this,” said Winston.

“He, who?”

“The Other One . . . the fifth one. I told you I saw him!”

“He saved our lives?” asked Tory.

“I don't think he meant to,” said Winston.

They looked out at the devastation once more. Lourdes, her death-wish forgotten, stood and walked to the jagged edge where the seventh floor gave way to open air. The rest of the building had shorn away and had turned to rubble. Had they been anywhere else on that floor, they would have been part of the rubble . . . but they weren't anywhere else, they were right here . . . and Lourdes began to wonder idly what sort of intuition had made her collapse in the north corner rather than the south corner, or was luck so incredibly dumb that it didn't even know an easy target?

Tory looked stunned. “I guess it takes more than a few thousand pounds of explosives to get rid of us.”

“Lourdes, you're standing!” Michael approached Lourdes
at the jagged edge of the concrete floor. Indeed, she had found the strength to lift her weight again . . . or was there less weight to lift? “Is it my imagination . . . or do you have one less chin?”

The others came closer. The change was almost imperceptible . . . but the others were able to notice.

Tory looked at her hand and flexed her fingers. Her skin was still as awful as before, but the swelling that had come to her joints was fading. Tears came to her eyes, and the salty tears didn't even sting, for her sores were slowly beginning to close.

They looked at each other, afraid to say what they now knew, for fear that speaking it would somehow jinx it. Finally Tory dared to utter the words.

“They're gone . . . ,” she whispered. It took a few moments for it to finally hit home. Then, in the midst of the devastation Tory's voice rang out from the top floor of the ruined Dakins building, a clear note of joy in the midst of sorrow.

“We're free!”

T
HE JAGGED BROKEN WALL
provided them with a treacherous path down to the rubble below.

There was chaos around the scene, but not the chaos one might expect. People screaming, crying, wandering like zombies—it was as if the shock wave of this event had driven everyone around it completely insane.

Winston looked around him and fumed. The redheaded boy had created this wave of destruction. The physical wasn't enough for him—he had to destroy the minds of the survivors. It made Winston furious . . . furious at himself for having seen him and not trying to stop him! Not even the knowledge that his own parasite was gone could calm his fury.