Nocturnal: A Novel

entryway and gently set her on the ground. He wouldn’t have long. Rex looked in her little purse and found the keys.

He couldn’t hide here forever. He had to face Alex, Alex who had stomped on his arm, broken it. Alex, who had punched Rex in the face so many times, kicked him in the stomach …

Rex shook his head. He wouldn’t be afraid anymore, he wouldn’t. He was the king.

He looked around again to see if anyone saw him. The street was silent. There was no movement. Rex walked to the house. He tried to breathe. Alex was inside. Rex’s hand caressed the front door’s white-painted wood.

He had killed two women — Alex Panos wasn’t a woman. Alex was big and strong. Rex couldn’t run now, couldn’t stop himself from going in. One way or another, Alex’s endless torment ended now. Rex’s breath came in deep, ragged spurts.

Kill Alex. Kill Alex. Kill Alex.

Rex’s hand slid down to the brass doorknob. Cool to the touch. He tried a key: didn’t fit. He tried another, staying as quiet as he could. The third one slid in. He turned the key, then turned the handle.

Rex stepped inside. There was a room to the right. Coming from inside that room, the blue/white flashes of a TV playing in the darkness.

From that room, a voice: “Did you get me my Chocodiles? You better have my Chocodiles, girl.”

Rex walked into the room. Alex Panos — big, strong Alex Panos — sat in a chair facing a huge TV screen.

Alex stood up quickly. He looked across the room, somewhere to Rex’s right, then looked back at Rex. Alex’s hands curled into fists.

“You little faggot,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

The voice froze Rex’s feet in place. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think of anything but the fists smashing against his nose, the knees breaking his lips, the boot snapping his arm.

The flickering light from the TV played off of Alex’s blond hair. “The news said you killed your mom,” he said. A statement with an underlying meaning: you killed your mom, are you here to kill me?

Yes. That’s exactly what Rex was there to do.

His feet came unglued. He took one step forward.

“Don’t,” Alex said. “Get out of here, or I will fuck you up. Did you tell anyone where I am?”

Rex took another step.

Alex looked to Rex’s right again. There was something there Alex wanted, but Rex wouldn’t take his eyes off the prey even for a second.

“You better run away, motherfucker,” Alex said. “Go now, or I’m going to hurt you real bad this time.”

The voice of anger, the voice of hate, but there was something new in there: fear.

Rex breathed in deep through his nose. He didn’t just hear Alex’s fear, he smelled it.

Alex suddenly ran to his left, crossing in front of the TV. Rex shot forward before he even knew what he was doing. He slammed into Alex, driving the bigger boy back into the TV. Plastic cracked, something sparked, and they both hit the ground hard. Alex cried out, a squeal of pain very unlike his manly words of threat.

Rex started to stand, then felt a fist slam into his mouth. So hard. He fell back and landed on his ass. A boot crunched into his stomach, crushing the air out of his lungs, making Rex’s body curl up into a ball. All the fear came rushing back. The terror of beatings past consumed him, because he knew this one would be worse than all the others — he shouldn’t have come here.

A big fist hit him in the back of the head, bouncing his face off the wood floor.

“You ruined April’s TV, you asshole!”

A steel-toed boot hammered his ribs. Rex started to scream, to cry out, but he clenched his teeth together — it didn’t hurt as bad as he remembered it.

Rex opened his eyes. Right in front of him, a foot, a shin, a knee. He reached out, grabbed Alex’s heel and yanked.

Alex went down fast, the back of his head cracking off the floor. His eyes scrunched tight and his mouth opened in a silent gasp of confused pain. He rolled to his side, hands holding the back of his head.

Blood dripped from his fingers.

Rex had done that. He had made Alex bleed.

Rex stood on shaky legs. He felt blood trickling from his own nose, his own mouth. He stepped forward and raised his foot.

Alex looked up just as Rex’s heel smashed down. The bigger boy let out a noise, part fear, part rage, part agony. He rolled away, blood pouring from his now-ruined nose. He looked confused, shocked.

Rex smiled a bloody smile, the smile of a fighter. His hands curled into fists.

“It’s your turn, bully,” he said. “It’s your turn to hurt.”

Alex scrambled away on hands and knees. Rex started to follow, but stopped when he heard a loud noise from above. Several noises. Something landing on the roof?

Both boys looked up to the ceiling, eyes searching for the source of the sound as if their eyes could penetrate wood and plaster.

“Shit,” Alex said. “The fuck is this?”

Rex’s chest started to thrum — ba-da-bum-bummmm … ba-da-bum-bummmm, the same feeling he’d experienced when he met Marco.

His family had arrived.

How perfect.

Rex looked back at Alex, but Alex had moved. He was standing to the right of the door, next to a small table. He held a gun. Too late Rex realized that’s what Alex had been glancing at while they had talked. The gun had been on the table the whole time, just an arm’s reach away, but Rex hadn’t looked.

No, no fair, I beat him I beat him I had my revenge no fair—

“Fuck you, faggot,” Alex said, then pulled the trigger.

Something slammed into Rex’s belly. His legs gave out. As he fell, he heard a combination of sounds — splintering wood, another gunshot, and then the screams of Alex Panos.

The Basement

Bryan Clauser stood in the shadows of trees that were themselves drenched in the shadows of tall buildings. He flexed his hands, fists making his leather gloves creak. He stared at the back of the gray house.

He stared at the cellar door.

The basement. Whatever bad thing was happening, it was in the basement. He had to know.

The cellar door waited for him, a demon mouth ready to open and bite, to chew and shred and tear and crunch. Dream-memories blurred his reality, merged and shifted with what he saw until he wasn’t sure what was actually there.

Come closer, the house seemed to say. Come, little fool, save me the trouble of reaching out to pull you in …

His Nikes slid across the grass, carrying him to the door. He bent, reached out a hand, touched. It wasn’t wood. Heavy-gauge metal, painted to look like the same wood as the rest of the house. In the door’s upper left corner, a key-pad lock. The thing was bomb-shelter solid — he couldn’t open it.

Was he dreaming? Was this really happening?

Did you think it would be easy? the house said. You’ll have to work harder to find your death …