Nocturnal: A Novel

“There’s more,” John said. “The crime spike wasn’t just for homicides. Missing persons cases tripled in the same time frame. And serial killings were up 500 percent. Records indicate the Bay Area may have had seven serial killers in action at the same time. That shit never got released to the press, because Mayor Moscone sat on it like an ugly fat girl riding a willing drunk.”

“See, when you talk like that, it makes all this death and despair so much more fun.”

“I’m doing my best to make it more palatable.”

The jokes were automatic for Pookie, but he felt none of the humor. “You said the murder rate didn’t spike when Erickson first went in?”

“It didn’t. Things were normal for several months, then slowly ramped up to the levels I told you about.”

Pookie thought of a stuffed little girl holding a fork and a knife. Erickson probably hadn’t killed her on a whim. Would people like that girl run wild if Erickson was out? More important, were there more creatures out there like the four-eyed bear-thing?

Chief Zou’s words rang through his head. She’d asked for his trust. She’d told him there was more going on than he could know. If only she’d just come out and explain this. But even then, would Pookie have gone along with it? Zou had known he and Bryan might push too far, possibly get Erickson committed again, leave the city open to mass murder. But they hadn’t put him away — instead, they’d put him in the ICU.

“One more thing,” John said. “I have a hypothesis about Erickson and why the killings didn’t go up right away.”

Pookie made a mental note to write that down — two friends using the word hypothesis in the same day? Maybe he was moving up in the world. “Hit me, BMB.”

“Do you know what a keystone predator is?”

“Is it a Pennsylvania pedophile?”

“No, but that was clever,” John said. “It’s a predator that keeps a population in check. Like hawks that hunt lemmings, or sea stars that feed on sea urchins that would eat the kelp roots and therefore kill the kelp, throwing the whole ecosystem into crisis and—”

“Get to the point, Bro.”

“Sorry,” John said. “A keystone predator keeps a prey population in check. Remove that predator, you get a population explosion of the prey species. Let’s say Marie’s Children were responsible for that murder spike. Maybe Erickson is their keystone predator. Take him out, the killers go crazy. Put him back in the ecosystem, he kills them or sends them back into hiding, maybe both. Think about the things you said you saw in Erickson’s basement.”

The bear-thing, the blue bug, the shark-mouthed man. Had those once been lurking around the city, killing people? “You think that seventy-year-old Jebediah Erickson is the keystone predator of goddamn monsters?”

“Yeah,” John said. “We fucked up, Pooks. If Erickson doesn’t get out of that hospital, things could get real bad.”

Could get bad? Like they weren’t bad enough already.

“John, thanks. It’s a shitty picture, but now we know.”

“Computers are my business and business is good.”

“Not just that,” Pookie said. “You really stepped up last night. If you hadn’t come out, Erickson would have come in after us. It could have been Bryan in the hospital, or in the morgue. I’m proud of you, man.”

John was silent for a few minutes. “Thanks,” he said finally. “You got no idea what that means to me coming from you.”

Pookie heard the apartment’s front door open and slam shut. Emma came treading into the kitchen. Ears up, she stared at him with a face that said it’s just you and me, kid.

“Burns, I gotta go. Do me a favor and call the Terminator. He won’t answer, so just data-dump all that goodness in his voice mail. If you reach him, though, you call me.”

“Will do.”

Pookie hung up. He walked to the kitchen and grabbed the half-empty box of dog treats. He was about to drop another handful, but instead just up-ended the box. Emma started eating them like they might suddenly grow legs and run away.

Pookie headed out of the apartment to find his partner.

The Hidey Hole

Rex paced.

There wasn’t much space to do even that; it only took ten steps to cross the room. A damp cold put a moisture sheen on the stone walls, making them reflect the candles that lit the room. The place looked like it had started out as a crack in the rock, then had been chipped away at to make room for a bed, a bookshelf, a table and a chair.

A skull sat on the floor in a corner. A human skull. Maybe someone had put that there to see if it scared him. It didn’t. There were gouges in the skull’s face bones, like someone had scraped at them with their teeth.

Moldy books sat on the shelves. To pass the time, he’d tried to read one called On the Road, but he’d only made it five pages before the spine split and page six crumbled when he tried to turn it.

He didn’t want to read, anyway.

There were no clocks, yet somehow he knew the sun had already set. He could feel it. His whole life he had felt tired and sluggish during the day, had trouble sleeping at night. He’d always felt exhausted at school, felt slow, like the world was slipping by him in a way he couldn’t understand.

Well, now he knew why. The day was made for sleeping. Night was the time to hunt. There was a word for creatures that lived at night and slept during the day — nocturnal.

Rex paced. Sly would be back soon, and he would take Rex home.

Alex

The metallic sound rattled through the white room. Aggie and the Chinaman ran to the wall, put their backs to it, pressed their collars to the flanges as the chains started to rattle and draw tight.

The boy with no tongue was lying flat on his back.

“Get up, boy! Get to the wall or that chain’s gonna yank you!”

The boy’s eyes opened. He looked at Aggie with an empty stare. Aggie had seen that look on the streets many times — the look of someone who’s given up.

The chain snapped taut, yanking the boy by his neck. That got his attention. His eyes scrunched tight with pain as hands flew to the collar. He slid along on his back, spitting up fresh blood. The chain pulled the boy up the wall until his collar clanged against the flange. He coughed and stared out, wide-eyed and confused.

The white gate opened.

Seven white-robed masked men came in: Wolfman, Darth Vader, Tiger-Face, Frankenstein, Dracula, Jason Voorhees and was that the green Power Ranger? Seven of them — and this time, two dragging sticks.

Aggie’s breath lodged in his lungs, stayed there like a rock that kept him from inhaling or exhaling.

Who had the masked men come for this time?

Wolfman, Tiger-Face and Frankenstein headed straight for the Chinaman, who screamed in terror. The other four moved to the big boy — he screeched a mewling, sad sound that tried and failed to form words.

Aggie’s body sagged in relief. A guilty feeling of knowing joy at someone else’s demise once again overwhelmed him, filled him with bottomless self-hate, but there was nothing he could do to help either of them.