Nocturnal: A Novel

It had been a very long time since he’d had visitors. He had to get home, show them some hospitality.

Bryan stood at the bottom of the basement stairs. He wasn’t sure if he could move. Every atom in his body screamed at him to stop. His dreams, where he’d killed people, eaten people, those had been bad, perhaps the worst things he’d ever experienced.

But those hadn’t been the only dreams.

The dream of being dragged … dragged into this basement. Hurt, wounded, afraid, bleeding — dragged into this basement by a monster.

A monster that could be down here, waiting.

No, the monster was gone; Bryan had watched it leave.

But when would it return?

The house alarm wasn’t as loud down here. His flashlight beam bounced through the blackness, illuminating a glossy wooden floor, crown molding, even a fireplace. The long space looked like a small ballroom from days gone by.

At the back of the room, he saw a door. Engraved letters gleamed from a brass plaque. They spelled out: RUMPUS ROOM.

Bryan walked toward the door.

Pookie had to hurry, he knew that, but he couldn’t look away — he needed just a few seconds to take it all in. Everything his flashlight lit up seemed to reek of money. Turn-of-the-century money. The place looked like it was taken out of a movie from the days of the lumber barons, the gold barons, the whatever barons. Back then, men had built places like this for their wives and daughters, to impress the city or simply to let everyone know just how rich they were. Pookie was standing in the nineteenth-century equivalent of a red sports car.

A heavy staircase rose up to his right. To his left, something glowed from within a wide, open doorway. Pookie stepped through. Inside of a marble fireplace guarded by two knee-high brass sphinxes, dying coals gave off a faint, flickering light. His flashlight beam played off endless splendor: a sparkling crystal chandelier; polished redwood paneling with hand-carved trim; marble floors with thick grains of granite and thin streaks of gold; gleaming brass fixtures; ornate picture frames showing faces of spooky-looking rich dudes.

Outside, he heard the distinctive roar of an approaching Harley, an oncoming Doppler effect that didn’t transition to the fadeaway because the engine idled, then stopped. Pookie pinched his flashlight under his right arm. He pulled out his phone and dialed with his left hand even as he continued to turn, his right hand pointing the Glock before him.

He stopped when his flashlight illuminated an open door.

Through the door were stairs leading down.

The phone rang only twice before Black Mr. Burns answered: “I’m here, man, but I’m flipping out,” he said. “Where the hell are you?”

“Inside.”

“Want me to come in?”

“Not yet,” Pookie said. “Get on the porch and stay there. Don’t let anyone in, not even cops. I’ll call if I need you.”

Pookie hung up. He had to trust that John could manage his fear and control anything that came up. Pookie took a breath, then started down the stairs.

Footsteps. Heavy ones. Bryan shut off his flashlight. He aimed his Sig Sauer back across the ballroom floor toward the base of the stairs. He saw a flashlight beam sliding down the steps, flicking around, followed by legs, then a portly, black-sweater-clad belly that could only belong to one man.

The flashlight beam whipped across the walls, then landed squarely in Bryan’s eyes.

Bryan blinked, held up a hand to block the light. “Pooks, do you mind?”

The beam dropped to Bryan’s feet.

“Clauser! You are seriously chapping my ass. Come on, man, we have to get out of here, now.”

Bryan turned his back to Pookie, played his own beam across the dull-brass plaque. The letters of RUMPUS ROOM gleamed and danced.

“Through here,” he said.

“Bryan, no. Dude, come on, the game is over and we lost. If we’re caught here, we are so screwed.”

“I’m not leaving until I figure this out, so you might as well help.”

Pookie sighed and walked forward to stand at Bryan’s right shoulder.

“Clauser, you are such an A-W-G-M-K.”

“That a new one?”

“Yeah, I made it up just now. It means you are an Asshole Who’ll Get Me Killed.” Pookie played his beam across the wooden door’s gloss, then let it rest on the intricate brass handle. “Bryan, just tell me one thing. Is this worth going to prison for?”

“It is,” Bryan said.

“And you got the memo about what happens to cops in prison?”

Bryan nodded. “It’s worth that, too.”

“Awesome,” Pookie said. “I was afraid you’d say that. I don’t suppose this door is open?”

“Nope.”

“Double awesome. Well, I guess we can say aloha to Honolulu Homicide.”

Bryan closed his eyes and shook his head. His career was over, he knew that, but he didn’t need to drag Pookie along for the ride. “Pooks, maybe you should just go.”

“A little late for that, Bri-Bri. I’m already fired, and you already said this meant enough to you that you’d go to prison for it. I’ll finish the job.”

Pookie was still all-in. There was no point in arguing, Bryan would have done the same for him.

“I think what we need is on the other side,” Bryan said. “Let’s figure out how to get this door open.”

It wasn’t the first time they’d attacked his house. Every ten years or so, one or two of them got stupid enough to forget what happened to the last one or two, and they came for him. They’d always known right where his house was … all they had to do was come over and kill him.

They had tried the back door, the windows, even the roof. Over the years he’d sealed all of those things up. As well as he could, anyway — some of them were so strong there was little you could do to keep them out. One industrious little monster had even tunneled in, going right through the basement concrete.

He’d killed them all.

The tunneler was still his favorite. The stupid bastard had dug right up into the rumpus room. Savior hadn’t even had to move him — he’d just cut the intruder’s spinal cord so he couldn’t walk, then went to work.

Oh, how that one had screamed.

They screamed, they begged, they threatened. And yet for all their useless words, they never — ever — gave up the information Savior most needed to know.

Such was the way of things.

The pager told him the front door had been breached, so he approached from the roof of the building across the street. He looked down at his front porch. Below the peaked roof, he saw a man standing in front of the house’s front doors — a black man wearing a purple motorcycle jacket, holding a gun that he kept pointed to the ground.

The man turned. Streetlights played off something hanging around his neck, bouncing off his chest.

A flash of gold.

A badge?

Perhaps the intruders had already left. It wasn’t the first time the police had come to his house after a break-in, but he had to be careful. You never knew when the bastards would get clever and try a new tactic.

He pulled off his cloak, wrapping the pistol, the grenade bandolier, the magazines and other gear inside. He