Birthmarked Page 10

“Just remember, you’re not going to do or say anything. You’re here to follow me and to understand what we’re getting into.”

  We stepped over the threshold and into some kind of mud-room. There was another door, a glass number that wasn’t locked.

  The room behind it was at least twenty degrees colder than the one before. My teeth immediately started to chatter, and my body broke out in violent shivers. “It’s so cold.” I made the whisper as quiet as I could. I wasn’t sure if he’d catch it.

  His answering whisper was even quieter. “Yep. They suck the heat out of the room. Now, we need to concentrate—and so do you. If one of these things runs into you, even if you don’t know it’s there, you’re gone. So you need to keep your eyes peeled. Look all the way around you.”

  I gulped and glanced around again, but it was still difficult for my eyes to penetrate the darkness.

  I heard a light snap, and a pale yellow beam appeared in Buckner’s hand. He shook the foot-long glow stick and handed it to me. “Low amount of heat energy, less likely to attract attention.” Another snap, and he held out one of the same length, but neon green. Next to each other, they looked like light-sabers.

  “Okay, now, pay attention. Glitches are non-corporeal, which means that they can’t be shot, stabbed, or burned. Our only chance is to get it through the door in the trailer with it going the right angle and at the right speed, so that it manages to break through. Do you understand?”

  “I—”

  “This maneuver is part of our standard repertoire, and today, Chris is going to play the lure. Now stand back, here it comes.”

  A form, cloaked in the crinkly noise of the spacesuit, zipped by me so closely I almost threw myself to the floor. At first I thought it was the glitch, but it was Chris. He stopped five feet from the door, and his hands flew in a flurry around the front of his suit. I heard a light hiss and saw a small plume of steam, and I realized that he was exposed to the outside. After three seconds, his hands moved again, and the hissing stopped. Chris dived sideways before I had a chance to ask what was going on.

  “Too early!”

  I didn’t understand Buckner’s whispered protest.

  At the top of the stairs to my right, a shadow suddenly appeared. I could feel the cold, so stiff and unyielding it was like a hard gale—what we called a trailer-tipper, a homage to the vicious winds in some passes that could literally roll an entire semi-rig.

  The creature floated down the stairs, diving like a hawk about to catch its prey. It was black, as dark as oiled feathers, and as it passed, I could see that it sucked up light from around it too, a shadow that appeared on all sides instead of just underneath.

  The closer it got, the colder I felt. I wouldn’t be able to take much more of this.

  At the base of the stairs, it paused and quivered. A single, arm-like projection snaked out, and swept from side to side in light motions, like a dog sniffing the air.

  “Oh my God. It’s hunting.” The whisper came out so quietly, I wasn’t sure if he would hear me or not, but I didn’t dare make my voice any louder.

  “Yeah, it can’t see him anymore. We’re going to have to pull back, so that he can go again. Otherwise, the angle is going to be all wrong.”

  Buckner slid backward. I tried to follow him, but my feet were frozen to the floor. I heard the hiss of the suit depressurizing, but only for a second. The glitch suddenly streaked toward Buckner, who was already diving to one side. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see movement toward the door.

  “Go, Chris!”

  Another hiss from Chris’s direction. He barely had enough time to hit the button on his jacket and throw himself to the ground before the creature reached him. It wavered over him for a second—making contact?—before flying out the door.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as it crossed the first threshold between us. The more distance between me and that thing, the better!

  And then I noticed the way that Chris lay, unmoving. I wanted to run to him, to check on his body, but I could see the glitch wobbling just outside of the open door. It had started its seeking pattern again, the long projection feeling around in the air.

  “Shawn, go.”

  I could barely hear the hiss this time—Shawn was too far away—but I could see him. He was standing halfway between us and the trailer. How had he covered so much ground so quickly?

  This time, the glitch blazed at him so fast I thought it would surely hit him, but he zagged at the last second, somehow managing to pull himself into a flip, and then a backflip, his hands moving on the front of his suit the whole time. The sudden reversal of directions was too much for the creature to follow. It bobbed, midair, obviously agitated.

  “Sven, go!”

  I looked up, and my breath caught in my throat. Sven’s trailer was open, but the inside wasn’t a virtual closet like Buckner’s had been. Instead, suspended inside was a purple hoop, almost as tall as the thirteen foot high trailer. I could see the cords that clamped it from all sides, as if it would suddenly float away. In front of it, looking small against its great, purple energy, was Sven—the last man.

  This time, I didn’t hear anything. The glitch—perhaps upset at having missed so many targets—took off like a bullet. I watched as it flew across the rest of the field, directly for Sven.

  I couldn’t help myself. I followed it out. I needed to see what would happen.

  At the last possible second, Sven threw himself against the floor of the trailer. The glitch angled down, attempting to follow his body, but too late. It blazed through the remaining distance and into the purple hoop.

  And then there was a bright explosion of pastel rainbows and shimmering lights. I could feel my brain stop, my sense of time stop, as if the whole continuum of life was bending around me.

  The lights began to dim. I saw Sven leap to his feet. In hand was an oblong object, like the glow stick but flatter. He slashed first two cords, the ones on the top, and the purple hoop started to tremble.

  A dark smudge appeared in the middle. The glitch was coming back.

  “Look out!” The fishbowl helmet muffled my scream. The blackness in the center grew as Sven slashed the last two cords. They parted like butter, and then the purple hoop collapsed in on itself.

  For a moment, there was another bright flash of light, but this one lasted only for a second—maybe not even that long—and then it was as if all of the color and warmth was sucked out of the entire world. I almost sank to my knees in sudden sadness. Seconds passed, and my body seemed to return to normal. Finally, I found I could breathe again. I ripped off the helmet and sucked in air, grateful for the sudden warmth that flooded my body.

  “What in the hell was that?”

  I turned toward Buckner, but he wasn’t there. Instead, Shawn was standing next to me, his helmet off, and a grim look on his face. “Buckner’s inside. You need to be, too.”

  At his gruff command, I felt my heart sink.

  Chris.

  I sprinted toward the house and through the doors. It was still cold, the residual effects of the glitch fading slowly. And then I found Buckner.

  His helmet was off, and he was on his knees, bent over Chris’s body. I watched as he pulled off Chris’s helmet and looked in each of the man’s eyes in turn. He held his hand in front of Chris’s mouth and unzipped his suit, before laying his head against the young man’s heart.

  My voice was the kind of loud that defiled graves and broke souls. “Is he—?”

  “Sven!” Compared to my voice, Buckner’s bellow was like an air-horn. “Call for a medical! We can’t move him!” He placed his hand on the smooth skin of the baby-faced man’s forehead.

  “Is he . . . alive?” A surge of hope carried my stomach up.

  “Maybe, but not for long. Massive hypothermia . . . he’s in a coma and slipping fast.”

  My legs suddenly crumbled underneath me. “I’m sorry.” The words were so empty, so incapable of expressing what I needed to say.

&n
bsp; When Buckner spoke again, his voice was quiet, but I heard him as clear as day. “Now you understand, kiddo. Every single one of us puts our lives on the line every day. This was an easy one—a single glitch. You’ve got to take your training seriously.”

  I nodded gravely. “Okay. I will.”

  Sven’s face appeared next to mine. If I could feel anything, I would have been surprised by his quiet manner, but my heart was quickly turning numb.

  “Medical will be here in two minutes. Team twelve had an accident with a bubbler, massive casualties—they were tied up for a little while.”

  Buckner shook his head. “Tell them not to come.”

  I held my breath, afraid of what he would say next, although I knew. I could feel it, sense it in the way the cold pulse of the room suddenly slowed just a little bit more.

  Sven nodded and left the room, as Buckner pulled Chris’s eyelids down.

  The whisper was too quiet for me to hear, but I saw his lips form the word “goodbye.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Buckner cleared his throat a few times on the way back.

  Trucks are never quiet—at least, not while they’re running—but there was something to the familiar hum, a sacredness that I didn’t want to break. I swayed with the cab as it bounced in the wind and jostled with the bumps. I felt the engine’s pulse, the change of the gears, the spool of the turbo.

  This, at least, felt real.

  After a while, he stopped trying to talk to me and let me ride in peace. I think part of him was as grateful for the silence as I was. We were carried along, physically in the same space but still in our separate worlds, our separate bubbles, our minds focused on separate memories. Maybe one day I would share, in some horrifically cliché and cathartic outburst of emotions and word-vomit, but I doubted it. It just wasn’t the way either one of us did things.

  I just couldn’t stop seeing Chris’s face. Pale, frozen with horror—and then somehow peaceful after Buckner closed his eyes.

  Does the moment you die in have an effect on your afterlife?

  If you die in fear, the life and electricity being sucked out of you by some shadow-creature—does that leave something in your mind you carry with you on your last journey?

  Did I believe in an afterlife?

  Where was my dad now? Was he dead? Had he been taken by a glitch?

  I shuddered. Suddenly, it was cold in the truck. Not glitch cold, but cold.

  After a journey that was impossibly long—and yet, not long enough—we arrived at the compound. There was something to the gate-guard—not the expression on his face, for that mask of steel never changed or wavered—but something to his bearing, to his aura, that told me he knew.

  I glanced around at the trucks that were pulling in, the drivers seated high and proud, and the teams of men circling the grounds. Each one was dressed the same, black from head to toe, the identical bodies moving in the same lithe motions. In my limited time on the compound, I hadn’t seen almost any activity at all, and now it was a mob. I realized why there were all here. They had come to greet us, but not as victors.

  They had come to mourn.

  The gate guard waved us through. We pulled into Buckner’s space. He glanced at me and I nodded—yes, I’m ready—and then we exited together in synchronized motions, him out his side, me out mine, heavy treads down the running board and finally onto the pavement beneath.

  They say that touching the earth makes you feel grounded. Instead, I just felt off somehow, as if my feet belonged, not planted on something solid, but dangling in the footwell or driving into a pedal. I didn’t know what that said about me.

  I dogged Buckner’s steps, hoping they would bring me to my room. I just needed to collapse. All of it was catching up with me—my fear, my anger, my pain—and I was having trouble holding my ground.

  Finally, we did come to my door. I almost passed through before I felt the hand on my shoulder.

  “They’ll be a ceremony as soon as the sun sets. We’ve got about three hours until then, so do what you have to do to get ready.” He started to turn, as if to leave, but then he stopped himself and stared back at me.

  I caught my gasp in time, but just barely. How could I not be surprised by the utter hugeness of his eyes, the heavy sadness that seemed to shine out, as if his soul had been burned?

  “And kiddo—they’re expecting you to mess this up. I want you to know that. None of them know how you’ll handle this, but I suggest you take this time to get out your weaknesses here and now. Go in there being as strong as you can be, for Chris and for yourself, because you can believe you’ll be on stage tonight.”

  For a moment, I wanted to rail at him. Who was he, to move the focus of this moment off of Chris, where it belonged? Who cared if a roomful of men I didn’t know thought me weak or emotional?

  But then I saw the concern. It lay deeply entrenched in each wrinkle. It vibrated out through the slight palsy in his hand, and I remembered his speech to me. He would watch out for me, no matter what. He was sworn to it.

  “All right.” It was the most I could manage through my rapidly-closing throat.

  He gave me a slow nod and left.

  It was only then I realized my dog was gone.

  After I read the unsigned note that merely read, Borrowed Diesel. I passed the better part of the loneliest three hours of my life.

  No, maybe this wasn’t as bad as the moments after I found out my mother had died. But they were pretty bad.

  I felt as if every injustice ever been done against me had been added to some sort of cosmic tab, and here, now, this emotional debt would be paid. It was like an avalanche of grief and anger that, once moving, couldn’t be stopped until it had run its course and smothered me whole.

  But I couldn’t just lie down and get buried. Buckner was counting on me. I had a job to do. So one by one, I took my hurts and released them to the wind.

  Dad, wherever you are—how could you leave me? How could you have so little faith in my abilities, both as daughter and as a . . . a Marker? How could you just abandon the two people who loved you most?

  Mom—couldn’t you see how much I needed you? I watched you fall apart when Dad left. Couldn’t you have at least tried to piece yourself together, even a little bit? You abandoned me as much as Dad abandoned you.

  Gradually, the hurt changed to regret. I apologized to Jeff Malone, for not knowing him better, for not appreciating him more while he walked this earth. To Luke, for not being strong enough to embrace what I knew to be true—that we would have never worked, that he didn’t love me the way he should have. And just maybe, I didn’t love him the way I should have, either.

  My regrets spanned years, decades. Finally, when there was nothing else to say, I sank back against the bed, exhausted and empty and ready for sleep.

  Instead, there was a gentle knock on the door.

  I wished I had the time to splash cold water on eyes that were most certainly red, to comb my straggling, tangled hair and press my rumpled clothes.

  The knock repeated, and I swung my feet over to the floor. When I opened the door, though, the face I saw surprised me. There was Shawn, and in his arms, he was holding Diesel.

  I felt a tiny thrill at the sight of the little bugger, his shiny eyes and the pink tongue that lolled out of the side of his mouth. He wriggled in Shawn’s arms, greeting me, and I felt at least one of my burdens lift off.

  “I’m sorry.” Shawn thrust the Diesel out toward me. “I had to borrow him.”

  “You what?”

  “I just . . . I had a dog, when I was little. And I know this one is your familiar—they’re all familiars, here—but you haven’t trained or linked with it yet, so I thought it might help. . ." He blew out a heavy sigh.

  “Did it work? Whatever you were trying to do?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “No. This dog is stuck on you. He just whined the whole time.”

  I nodded, and my heart melted into a warm puddle. At least one b
eing needed me. At least one thing loved me.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, a motion that straddled the border between assertive and lost. My emotions swirled around into a confusing, muddy mixture. I wanted to shove him away and tell him to disappear. I wanted to reach out for him, to comfort him as I wanted to be comforted.

  So I just stood there and waited.

  “Jeff is going to come for you in ten minutes. Everything is almost ready.” And then, as if he had been reading my mind, “If you want to get cleaned up or anything, now would be the time.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  And then, like a shadow when you flip off the light, he was gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Buckner came for me, I was calm.

  I had straightened my hair and washed my face, but more importantly, the storm of emotions that broke in my room had quieted into a well—still deep, but without the outer turbulence, the obvious pain.

  He had a hammer in his right hand, a golden mallet with a long leather thong on the end that he wove through a loop on his pants. Without speaking, he took me by the hand and led me through a series of halls. We bent around corners and up and down different flights of stairs, until I was not sure I would ever learn my way around this place. The last hall was small and thin, as if it was falling in on itself, and paneled with the dark, lacquered wood of a gun case. I smelled something I had a hard time placing until we had almost reached the hall’s end and an image of a gum package popped into my mind. Cloves.

  We rounded another bend, and a pair of enormous doors came into view. It was clear from the color of the wood they were old, but it was the ornate carvings and the heavy scrollwork that ran across the wood’s surface that gave me the feeling these were more than just old—these were ancient.

  “Here we go, kiddo. Since we were the ones closest to him at time of death, we are the last to arrive.” He swung one of them open. It creaked and groaned as if it were dying itself, revealing a room lit only by a flickering glow around the edges.

  I blinked and followed him in, and my eyes adjusted to the gloom. Soon, I could make out the seated figures, the rows and rows of faces that could have been cut from stone. I trailed Buckner through the center aisle, over velvet carpet, past wood benches and cathedral ceilings—was this an altar? A place of worship?—and still, we did not stop. My skin crawled as we progressed. I had finally figured out where we were going, and I didn’t think I wanted to go there.