Pete looked down at all the blood. There was so much of it. The whole bottom of his shirt. Like they had dipped it in red paint.
It glued his underwear to his skin and dripped down his legs. For the first time since accepting the Dark Father’s mark, his peppy wasn’t sticking out like a bouncing lance.
Made it hard to pee sometimes, but now he didn’t have to.
He took a deep breath, let it out in an explosive sigh. The wound over his right hip spit out more blood.
It didn’t even hurt. He’d been in pain for so much of his life. When he stepped into the energy around the town to become something better, he had turned off his ability to feel pain.
He still didn’t want to look at it, though.
Probably a bullet. He’d heard a shot, but there was so much noise and confusion … did he hear the one that hit him? Or was it the sound of a bullet that hit someone else?
The impact knocked him to the ground. Amber had run him right over. He knew it was her by the weight, and how the heel of her boot had dug into the space between his shoulder blade and armpit.
No pain from that, either, but every time he raised his arm over his head, the joint popped like a snapping rubber band.
Pete stared at the blood and shook his head. Everything had that surreal quality, like he was trying to wake up after sleepwalking through a dream, and now he was trying to figure out which parts were real.
He suspected all of it, but some of the memories were too horrifying to even consider.
His knife held to the neck of that pretty girl in the church. That couldn’t have been him. His mom had always said he was a good boy.
But the Dark Father had reached out with his zombie hand, placed it on Pete’s shoulder. He felt love and acceptance through the bond they shared.
A bond he had accepted willingly.
He wanted to see his mom again. Miss Janine was nice, but she didn’t understand. The aliens had freed him from the agony of his previous life.
Pete had pretended it was power from his own heart. The Dark Father knew better. So did Reverend Bog and Gum. They knew it was aliens and not God. Or the will of a little kid who didn’t know better.
Pete dropped his head.
He knew better, too. He always had. He traded one lie for another, and now he was bleeding to death in Miss Janine’s basement.
He’d tried to think of it as a base. Like a super hero’s secret lair. A lot of those guys in the comics had a place where they could be the real them. Not the secret identity they showed their friends and family.
His secret identity would have been poor little sick Peter Winslow, deformed and dying while his parents prayed over his hospital bed.
His real identity was more like Zippity Zoom, the hard charging, sex machine, superhero, man’s man. That Pete was impervious to pain. He flew into danger and came out victorious …
There was an awful lot of blood, though.
He locked his knees and leaned against the wall.
The Dark Father had stormed out. His burning gaze had swept the room, and Pete had lowered his eyes. It wasn’t his fault, but he still couldn’t face the Dark Father’s disappointment.
And now, listening to the children moan and beg for help, he realized he didn’t really like the Dark Father. Or the reverend. And he hated Gum.
A kid born with the right genetics. Tall and straight and strong and handsome. He thought about his knife to the girl’s throat again. The satisfaction he had watching the horror cross Gum’s face.
Pete sniffed back his tears. That wasn’t how a hero was supposed to behave.
He was as big a monster as the Dark Father.
Miss Janine jogged past with a small kid in her arms. His scalp hung over in his face, but there was no blood. Burned edges and blackened skin. He must have been hit by one of those blue fireballs.
He mostly remembered the frenzy of his thoughts. Not the motivation. That came from the Dark Father. The jumble in his head. He had fallen into a lake full of every memory he had ever had.
Like the foam pit they had at the mall. Fun to land in, but a struggle to get out of.
Now that the Dark Father was gone and the orange haze of his rage and hatred no longer clouded the air, Pete could see more clearly.
Chase snapped another cot open. Led a child to its side. Lay her down with his hand under her head. He patted her shoulder and whispered into her ear. Pete wished he could hear him.
Ol’ Double Z never had these problems. He beat the bad guys, saved the girl, then he had the girl. Wounds never slowed him down. He was a superhero.
Pete took a deep breath. More blood seeped from his side. Was it slower because it was closing or because he was running out of blood?
Tears streamed from his eyes. Instead of the hyperactive flood of images and sounds provided by the Dark Father as they stormed down the hill, he had thoughts of his own creation.
As quickly as one formed, he banished it away so he wouldn’t have to face what he had let himself become. Another one formed in its place.
He pressed his fist into his forehead and said the magic words that would transform him. “Zippity Zoom.”
Nothing happened.
“Jesus Christ, kid.”
Pete looked up with a surprised gasp. Had to direct his gaze lower. Gum squatted in front of him, the concern on his face so genuine, Pete lost control. He flung himself forward.
Gum caught him in his big arms, and Pete’s blood mixed with the blood of all the children Gum had carried into their secret lair — Miss Janine’s basement.
The knife fell from his hands as he took a handful of Gum’s shirt. His fingers cramped with the release. He’d been holding it for what felt like weeks.
He buried his face into Gum’s shoulder. Wept words over and over. “I’m sorry.”
Gum squeezed him in response. “I know, kid. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t you.”
Pete could hold his emotions back no longer. They flooded from him in a torrent. A crushing weight pushing him into the rocks at the bottom of the waterfall.
He didn’t hate Gum. He was jealous. Gum was the young man Pete should have grown into. Even better looking than Double Z and with a pretty girlfriend. Everything.
But still trapped in Hollow Hills.
Were his parents dead, too? Did the girl survive? He and Gum were both slaves to a creature that didn’t love them, but Pete had damaged Gum at the Dark Father’s command.
He remembered his peppy rising in response to his cruelty. He’d felt such deep satisfaction and joy. Only he now realized it hadn’t been his. It had been forced on him by his link with the Dark Father.
And here was Gum, holding him in his arms and telling him it was going to be okay. He was more than the young man Pete should have been. The one he wanted to be. Gum was a person Pete would never be good enough to be.
His breath came in hitching gasps. He pulled back and wiped the stringy snot from his face.
Gum released him and put a hand on either side of Pete’s face. His eyes danced with the sparkling light of the aliens. Gold flecks and blues streaks. Like the other children. Pete wondered if his eyes were the same.
Gum smiled. “I know it wasn’t you, buddy. I know.”
Pete’s eyes filled with more tears. “I’m sorry.”
“I know. He made me hate you. All of you. I get it.”
Pete nodded, afraid to say anything else or he’d start bawling again. Such a baby.
“Let’s get you patched up. You look like shit.”
Pete surprised himself with a giggle that turned into snorting laughter. This was a true feeling. Unlike the emotions forced on him through their shared link. The other children were probably experiencing the same thing.
A mass awakening.
He wiped his eyes in his palms, and when he lowered his hands, he saw movement at the secret door at the end of the range. His stomach twisted, and he threw himself back into the wall. Couldn't face the Dark Father again so soon.
But it wasn’t his return. It was black gingerbread girl pulling a man with a mirror face behind her. They were both followed by Constance Vaughn.
She’d been at the fair last year. Right at his Scout booth. She was nice. Told better Dad Jokes than his dad.
Nobody noticed, and Gum stared at his distress for several seconds before turning to follow his gaze.
Gum stood then threw himself back against the wall to stand next to Pete. “What the fuck?”
Terrified screams echoed as other kids noticed. Pete was sure it was because they also thought the Dark Father was back.
The mirror man stepped past the gingerbread girl with his hands held up. Connie followed suit. Pete was soothed by their stance — the universal sign to calm down, be cool.
It worked on the rest of them, too.
Even when the gingerbread girl leaned out to look past Connie and the mirror man, there were only a few whines and squeals. Probably the little kids. Or the girls.
The gingerbread girl’s eyes widened when she spied Bog Stanton sitting cross-legged next to one of the cots on the floor, his magic bottle in his lap. His head hung forward like he was exhausted. Or asleep. Maybe drunk.
She pushed off of Connie’s big shoulders then sprinted across the range.
It was still. As if time itself stopped to witness.
The only noise was of her feet slapping the concrete. It reverberated off the walls like there was more than one of her.
The skin over her hips split open, revealing muscles underneath. Her ribs, already visible, spread as she stretched to increase her speed.
Light reflected from her right hand. She clutched a knife in her fist. It flashed with each stride.
Still, nobody moved to stop her.
Ten steps away, she dropped to her knees. Slid like a dancer the last several feet with her hands outstretched. The knife gleamed.
Twin trails of blackened flesh peeled from her lower legs. Her bones scraped like the sound of sandpaper on stone.
She collided square with his back.
Bog jerked forward with the impact. His air hissed out in a surprised grunt.
She was tiny compared to him. Pete waited for the reverend to shrug her off and stand up as if nothing weird was going on, but the gingerbread girl put her left forearm across the reverend’s forehead.
The thrust her hip into his lower back. Pulled his head into her chest.
Bog cried out, but his voice cut short when she slashed the knife across his throat.
The sound came back into the room all at once. Shouts and screams. Like a bubble had burst.
Blood washed out of the reverend’s neck in spray that covered the cot in front of him. Splashed the floor on the other side, glittered in the flickering light. Pete had to imagine the sound it made. He couldn’t hear it over the horrified terror of the rest of the children.
He was sure it sounded like a gushing hydrant.
After seeing the amount of blood that covered the big man as he collapsed to the side, Pete was embarrassed by his own bleeding wounds — nothing compared to the widening pool that spread around the reverend.
There was a final sputter of blood as Bog Stanton died, then the gingerbread girl dropped her knife. Stood on unsteady legs. Gobs of torn flesh fell from her shins.
Pete realized Bog had reached out for the Dark Father. In his panic, he had tried riding into the connection they shared. But the Dark Father wasn’t there.
He looked up at Gum. “He’s gone.”
Gum pointed at the reverend's slumped body. “After that? Yeah, man.”
“No, I mean the Dark Father. He’ not there anymore.”
Pete wished the kids would shut up already. Crying never helped anybody.