Beautiful City of the Dead (12 page)

I sat in the kitchen for an hour, watching the numbers flick away on the oven clock. Slowly, a watery dawn light filled the room. Tannis didn't call again. At six thirty I got ready for school. My dad was still sleeping when I went out to get the bus.

S
CHOOL WAS ACTUALLY A
good thing that day. At least at first. I mean it was normal. Boring, yeah. A waste of time, yeah. But it was something I could count on.

Butt didn't come in. I figured he'd been out all night.

And Relly never showed, so I was back to the way it used to be. All alone, kind of floating silently around the edges of the crowds. Some kids told me how much they liked our show. Mostly, though, I was back to being a stranger and a loner again.

Of course, going to bio was the worst. Relly wasn't there. And Knacke was back.

He did a lesson about lava and magma that day. On the desk was a miniature volcano. After the lights were all out, he tossed something in the hole and soon a weird reddish light was rising up. Then glowing orange ooze poured out the top, across the desk, and down to the floor in bright gooey trails.

I just sat there in a daze and Knacke left me alone.

Until the bell rang and the others all rushed out.

I was at the end of the line. Knacke stationed himself at the door. As the last kid went out, Knacke cut off my escape.

"We need to talk, Zee."

I didn't argue. No point in fighting him now. Without Relly with me, I had no strength to resist.

"You're aware that Relly is not in school today?"

No point in answering.

"You understand that he's with us now."

"He's fire," I said. "You already got fire. Scratch said you wanted me, not him. You need a watergod, not fire."

"That's correct. And that is why we're having this little talk now, Zee. Scratch made you an offer, which you foolishly ignored. And so we've had to add a little inducement. It's really very simple, Zee." He kept saying my name, stretching it out, savoring the sound. That made my helpless feeling ten times worse.

"It's simple. You join us and make our tetrad complete again. Four and no more, forever more." He smiled his disgusting smile. "You join us and Relly will go free."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you'll never see your friend again. And nor will anyone else. Simple, really. Very simple."

"Join you?"

I remembered a math teacher saying once, "There are
no stupid questions." Maybe he was right, but I sure felt stupid then. Join Knacke and the others? Did they have a band? This almost made me laugh. Maybe they played weddings. Or did corny old country stuff. "Lost Highway," "Your Cheatin' Heart," that kind of stuff. Maybe they needed a bass player.

"Yes, join us. Four and no more, and we'll be restored."

"I'm just a kid."

"We understand that, Zee. But you're also a god. You know that. We know that. And we need you." He sucked in air, like a smoker fighting to catch his breath.

"There was a fourth once, who made our tetrad complete. Surely Relly must have told you about this. We had all we needed. We were supposed to be four forever more. But she's gone now, and that's why we need you, Zee."

"Stop saying that, all right?" It was like my name gave him power over me. "Just stop saying it!"

"Fine, fine. If you need some time, I understand. But you'll have to deal with this soon enough."

Then he stabbed both of his hands into the puddle of glowing liquid. And he held them out, as if offering me a handful of molten gold.

"Join us, and you'll know power a hundred times greater than with your little kiddy friends. We're mature, seasoned by time, you might say. We have so much more
to offer. Do you want to die? Or do you want to live forever, Zee?"

"But Relly said that—"

"Relly is a strutting fool. He has barely an inkling of how things truly are. He doesn't have the strength or the wisdom or the courage to be immortal. All he cares about is his idiotic rock band. Sooner or later his tetrad would fall to pieces. And then where would you be? But we will be together forever. Franken and Scratch and Knacke and Zee."

"Shut up!" I yelled, and pushed past him to the door.

"We'll talk later," he said. "You know how to reach me."

I
GOT OFF THE BUS
at Slime Street. Tannis opened the door without me even knocking. She must've been watching from the kitchen window.

"Knacke said he wants to trade," I told her. "He wants me to join him and the other two." I slumped down at the table, head in both hands. "He said Relly can go free if I just join them. That's all. Join up with three ugly, poxy, smelly old men. He said if I don't, no one will ever see Relly again."

Tannis groaned and her face went gray. "I knew it. I knew it," she murmured. She clutched at the countertop.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It's all my fault."

If I hadn't joined Scorpio Bone, then none of this would've happened. If I'd just stayed all by myself, then Relly would be safe now. "I really am sorry. I shouldn't ever have talked to him."

I don't know what I expected her to say. But she didn't disagree. She didn't come right out and blame me. She
didn't need to. I was doing that just fine all by myself.

"We've got to get him back," she said as she sat down beside me and took my hands in hers. No mention of the police. What good would they do? Again I had the dizzy feeling that I was living in two worlds. Yeah, police and courts and jails existed here. Tannis could pick up the phone and report her son missing. But I wasn't sure Relly was even in the same world as all that now.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked. If somebody I could trust just told me, it would be so much easier. My dad? yeah, right. He'd be a ton of help. Other teachers? As far as I knew they all were in on this, one huge secret kid-destroying club.

"I've feared this day since he was born," Tannis said. "I knew it was coming. I knew they'd come to steal him away." She clutched at my hands. Her voice trembled. "They'll do anything to get what they want."

"You know Knacke?"

"For what seems like my entire life," she whispered. "He's been out there, waiting."

"So you were the one before me?"

She shook her head.

"I asked Relly if Knacke's fourth element was a girl. And he said she was."

Tannis sighed, then asked, "How much has Relly told you?"

"I have no idea. How much is there to tell?"

She let go of my hands and stood. "Wait here," she said. She came back from the living room a minute later carrying a picture frame.

"This is me. Do you understand?" The photo showed Tannis, maybe sixteen years old, standing at an iron railing. Behind her was a huge rushing river. And just to the side was the edge. "Niagara Falls. In the spring of 1973. My sister took this picture. Then she gave me the camera and we switched places. But that picture is gone. Long gone. I'd give anything to have that picture again. She did modeling, lots of ads and calendar work. But no picture ever captured her like the one I took that day at Niagara Falls."

"It was her? Relly's aunt? She was the one?"

"Yes. She was the one. Knacke claimed her not long after that picture was taken. Only a month or two. That's why I wish I had it again. It showed Lissa before. Lissa free. Lissa like she was supposed to be. Not tangled up with Knacke's fire."

"She was his watergod?"

"For years."

"And Relly knows all this?" I asked.

"Most of it. I told him what he needed to know. Since he was a little boy, he knew who he was, where he came from, where he's going."

"So what happened to your sister?"

No answer.

"Is she still alive?"

The word "No" came quiet as a breath.

"Did Knacke ... I mean, was your sister ... How did she die?"

Tannis sighed again, and I thought she was going to tell me the whole story. But she went back to Relly. "We've got to get him back."

"How?"

"Give them what they want. It's our only chance. You care about Relly. I know that, Zee. Give Knacke what he wants and you'll save your best friend's life."

I wanted to say,
What about my life?
But I just sat there, looking at the pictures. Lissa had been part of Knacke's four and now she was dead. Everyone, Knacke and Tannis and maybe even Relly, wanted me to join the four.
What about my life?
The question kept asking itself in my head. The room was silent for a long time.

S
CHOOL ASSEMBLIES WERE
usually OK. I mean, yeah, they're totally stupid. But we get to skip a class or two. Drug awareness, sex and safety, anger management: they're all the same. We all just veg out and watch the minutes crawl past. I swear the year before they even brought in this guy who was a world-famous whistler. They thought we'd be thrilled to hear his versions of TV commercial themes mixed in with birdcalls.

So I marched with all the other zombie kids into the aud, expecting nothing.

There was Frankengoon himself, up onstage. And around him were these big shiny posters. One said, "Don't Cloud Your Mind with Negative Thoughts." Another proclaimed, "Be Your Best Self Every Day."

Frankengoon fiddled with the mike. Of course, he made it feed back, wild screeches coming from the speakers. When he got the PA under control and all the
classes were settled down, he started in.

"There's a lot of bad thinking going on these days. And it's about time we turn that around."

They had the cheerleaders lined up in front of the stage. And every time Frankengoon paused, they jumped up to pump up the crowd. It worked about as well as CPR on roadkill. We all sat there bored, annoyed, squirming as our assistant principal yelled about School Spirit and Positive Thinking.

I was about ready to scream. Relly was gone, maybe even dead. They'd grabbed him and whisked him away to some secret hiding place. And here I was listening to Frankengoon talk like a TV preacher. He was a monster, a vicious, horrible old man. And he was telling us to "Look on the bright side," and "Keep your eyes open for ways to help out."

Though there were hundreds of kids packed into the aud, it felt like he was looking straight at me. "We're going to put a stop to all this stinking thinking!" he declared. "It's time to rev up your positive energy and get motorvated."

I closed my eyes and tried to shut out his voice. I thought about rain, about fire and wind and deep black earth. Right then, at that very moment, Relly might be getting killed by Knacke's secret science. Maybe they had his head floating in a jar of green goo. And what was I doing? Sitting in school, listening to Frankengoon's fake optimist crot.

Way off, I felt water moving. Underground, there's
supposed to be rivers. Huge streams that never see the light of day. I plunged my mind downward, into those dark, hidden places. I tried to escape the aud, the school, the so-called real world, and go down into the regions of underground water.

Frankengoon was complaining now about "bad influences." Did this mean our music? Maybe. He told us we should all "turn away from darkness to the light." I thought he was talking then right to me. Cheerleaders: good. Scorpio Bone: bad. School spirit: good. Ghost Metal: very bad.

I kept my mind pushing downward. I felt the water, the black lakes deep inside the earth.

Every lie he told, every bogus line about "being positive," made the feeling in me stronger. I couldn't shut him up. I couldn't escape or do a thing to save Relly. So I turned inside myself, following the black, writhing currents.

Behind me I heard muttering. Then somebody stood up. Kids were turning around in their seats. For a second I thought it was Relly, bursting down the door and surging in full flame toward the stage.

I opened my eyes and looked. No flames, no light, no Relly.

Still, kids were moving around, talking and trying to get their teachers' attention.

My fists were tight as padlocks. My stomach was turning and coiling. My brain was still in the underground places. Water, water, endless black water.

Then Frankengoon finally saw what was happening.

There was a stream running right down the aud's main aisle. A shiny snake of water was heading for the stage.

Teachers started getting up, trying to make their kids move away from the flood.

Now it came from the sides too, water pouring in from every doorway. Some kids were jumping up on their seats. Others were stamping their feet in the widening puddles. I heard a steady pouring noise and knew then that every sink in the school was running over. Every toilet was overflowing and even the showers down in the gym wing were running full blast.

Soon enough it was like a wet riot. Kids were splashing every which way. Teachers were yelling. The stream reached the front of the aud and Frankengoon started screaming into the mike. "Order! Order!" His voice boomed like a judge. "Exit in an orderly fashion!"

I got up and followed my row. It was amazing to see the little river running down the aisle. Black water with a mind of its own. I turned to look back just as I reached the exit. As the current ran around my feet, I felt strength running into me. As the crowd pushed past, I was steady as a rock in a rushing river. I looked toward the stage. Frankengoon was silent now, gripping the
podium like it was a life raft from a sinking ship.

He saw me. He stared. He was so filled with hate he was almost glowing.

I turned and let the flood of bodies swirl me out of the aud. The fire department was already there. Guys in huge floppy boots were rushing around with hoses. The exit lights were all flashing. And the stream poured on, from every lav and shower and drinking fountain in the school.

I
FOUND BUTT IN
the parking lot. "Let's go," I said. He got in his van and opened the passenger door. I climbed in. "It's all happening. You understand? They took Relly as a hostage. They want me. We've got to fight back, rescue him."

Butt nodded. "So where are we going?"

"You understand what's going on, right?" I'd never actually talked with Butt about who and what we were. "Knacke's grabbed Relly for a hostage. They want me to join their tetrad." He nodded again. I guess Relly had explained it all to him. Or maybe Butt wasn't as dimwitted as he acted.