Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow
called. "Tell me, godfuckit!"
Billy looked down from him perch with his sad, hollow eyes -- had hebeen forgetting to eat again? -- and shook his head.
They took to the tunnels. Even with the flashlight, Marci couldn't matchhim for speed. He could feel the tunnels through the soles of his boots,he could smell them, he could pick them apart by the quality of theirechoes. He moved fast, dragging Marci along with his good hand while shecranked the flashlight as hard as she could. He heard her panting,triangulated their location from the way that the shallow noisesreflected off the walls.
When they found Davey at last, it was in the golem's cave, on the otherside of the mountain. He was hunkered down in a corner, while the golemsmoved around him slowly, avoiding him like he was a boulder or astalagmite that had sprung up in the night. Their stony heads turned toregard Marci and Adam as they came upon them, their luminous eyeslighting on them for a moment and then moving on. It was an eloquentstatement for them: *This is the business of the mountain and hissons. We will not intervene.*
There were more golems than Alan could remember seeing at once, six,maybe seven. The golems made more of their kind from the clay they foundat the riverbank whenever they cared to or needed to, and allowed theirnumber to dwindle when the need or want had passed by the simpleexpedient of deconstructing one of their own back to the clay it hadcome from.
The golems' cave was lined with small bones and skulls, rank and rowclimbing the walls, twined with dried grasses in ascendinggeometries. These were the furry animals that the golems patientlytrapped and killed, skinned, dressed, and smoked, laying them in small,fur-wrapped bundles in the family's cave when they were done. It waspart of their unspoken bargain with the mountain, and the tiny bones hadonce borne the flesh of nearly every significant meal Alan had evereaten.
Davey crouched among the bones at the very back of the cave, his back tothem, shoulders hunched.
The golems stood stock still as Marci and he crept up on Davey. Sointent was he on his work that he didn't notice them, even as theyloomed over his shoulder, staring down on the thing he held in hishands.
It was Alan's thumb, and growing out of it -- Allen. Tiny, the size of apipe-cleaner man, and just as skinny, but perfectly formed, squirmingand insensate, face contorted in a tiny expression of horror.
Not so perfectly formed, Alan saw, once he was over the initialshock. One of the pipe-cleaner-Allen's arms was missing, protrudingthere from Davey's mouth, and he crunched it with lip-smackingrelish. Alan gawped at it, taking it in, watching his miniaturedoppelganger, hardly bigger than the thumb it sprouted from, thrash likea worm on a hook.
Davey finished the arm, slurping it back like a noodle. Then he dangledthe tiny Allen from the thumb, shaking it, before taking hold of thelegs, one between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, and he gently,almost lovingly pulled them apart. The Allen screamed, a sound as tinyand tortured as a cricket song, and then the left leg wrenched free ofits socket. Alan felt his own leg twist in sympathy, and then there wasa killing rage in him. He looked around the cave for the thing thatwould let him murder his brother for once and for all, but it wasn't tobe found.
Davey's murder was still to come.
Instead, he leapt on Davey's back, arm around his neck, hand grippinghis choking fist, pulling the headlock tighter and tighter. Marci wasscreaming something, but she was lost in the crash of the blood-surfthat roared in his ears. Davey pitched over backward, trying to buck himoff, but he wouldn't be thrown, and he flipped Davey over by the neck,so that he landed it a thrash of skinny arms and legs. The Allen fell tothe floor, weeping and dragging itself one-armed and one-legged awayfrom the melee.
Then Davey was on him, squeezing his injured hand, other thumb in hiseye, screeching like a rusted hinge. Alan tried to see through the tearsthat sprang up, tried to reach Davey with his good hand, but the ragewas leaking out of him now. He rolled desperately, but Davey's weight onhis chest was like a cannonball, impossibly heavy.
Suddenly Davey was lifted off of him. Alan struggled up into a sittingposition, clutching his injured hand. Davey dangled by his armpits inthe implacable hands of one of the golems, face contorted intounrecognizability. Alan stood and confronted him, just out of range ofhis kicking feet and his gnashing teeth, and Darrel spat in his face, asearing gob that landed in his eye.
Marci took his arm and dragged him back toward the cave mouth. He foughther, looking for the little Allen, not seeing him. Was that him, there,in the shadows? No, that was one of the little bone tableaux, a fieldmouse's dried bones splayed in an anatomically correct mystichieroglyph.
Marci hauled him away, out into the bright snow and the bright sun. Histhumb was bleeding anew, dripping fat drops the color of a red crayoninto the sun, blood so hot it seemed to sizzle and sink into the snow.
#
"You need to tell an adult, Alan," she said, wrapping his new littlethumb in gauze she'd taken from her pocket.
"My father knows. My mother knows." He sat with his head between hisknees, not daring to look at her, in his nook in the winter cave.
She just looked at him, squinting.
"They count," he said. "They understand it."
She shook her head.
"They understand it better than any adult you know would. This will getbetter on its own, Marci. Look." He wiggled his thumb at her. It was nowthe size of the tip of his pinky, and had a well-formed nail andcuticle.
"That's not all that has to get better," she said. "You can't just letthis fester. Your brother. That *thing* in the cave..." She shook herhead. "Someone needs to know about this. You're not safe."
"Promise me you won't tell anyone, Marci. This is important. No oneexcept you knows, and that's how it has to be. If you tell --"
"What?" She got up and pulled her coat on. "What, Alan? If I tell andtry to help you, what will you do to me?"
"I don't know," he mumbled into his chest.
"Well, you do whatever you have to do," she said, and stomped out of thecave.
#
Davey escaped at dawn. Kurt had gone outside to repark his old Buick,the trunk bungeed shut over his haul of LCD flat panels, emptylaser-toner cartridges, and open gift baskets of pricey Japanesecosmetics. Alan and Davey just glared at each other, but then Daveyclosed his eyes and began to snore softly, and even though Alan pacedand pinched the bridge of his nose and stretched out his injured arm, hecouldn't help it when he sat down and closed his eyes and nodded off.
Alan woke with a start, staring at the empty loops of duct tape andtwine hanging from his captain's chair, dried strings of skin likedesiccated banana peel fibers hanging from them. He swore to himselfquietly, and shouted Shit! at the low basement ceiling. He couldn't havebeen asleep for more than a few seconds, and the half-window that Daveyhad escaped through gaped open at him like a sneer.
He tottered to his feet and went out to find Kurt, bare feet jammed intosneakers, bare chest and bandages covered up with a jacket. He foundKurt cutting through the park, dragging his heels in the bloody dawnlight.
Kurt looked at his expression, then said, "What happened?" He had hisfists at his sides, he looked tensed to run. Alan felt that he waswaiting for an order.
"He got away."
"How?"
Alan shook his head. "Can you help me get dressed? I don't think I canget a shirt on by myself."
They went to the Greek's, waiting out front on the curb for the old manto show up and unchain the chairs and drag them out around the table. Heserved them tall coffees and omelets sleepily, and they ate in silence,too tired to talk.
"Let me take you to the doctor?" Kurt asked, nodding at the bandage thatbulged under his shirt.
"No," Alan said. "I'm a fast healer."
Kurt rubbed at his calf and winced. "He broke the skin," he said.
"You got all your shots?"
"Hell yeah. Too much crap in the dumpsters. I once found a styro coolerof smashed blood vials in a Red Cross trash."
"You'll be okay, then," Alan
said. He shifted in his seat and winced. Hegrunted a little ouch. Kurt narrowed his eyes and shook his head at him.
"This is pretty fucked up right here," Kurt said, looking down into hiscoffee.
"It's only a little less weird for me, if that's any comfort."
"It's not," Kurt said.
"Well, that's why I don't usually tell others. You're only the secondperson to believe it."
"Maybe I could meet up with the first and form a support group?"
Alan pushed his omelet away. "You can't. She's dead."
#
Davey haunted the schoolyard. Alan had always treated the school and itsgrounds as a safe haven, a place where he could get away from theinexplicable, a place where he
Billy looked down from him perch with his sad, hollow eyes -- had hebeen forgetting to eat again? -- and shook his head.
They took to the tunnels. Even with the flashlight, Marci couldn't matchhim for speed. He could feel the tunnels through the soles of his boots,he could smell them, he could pick them apart by the quality of theirechoes. He moved fast, dragging Marci along with his good hand while shecranked the flashlight as hard as she could. He heard her panting,triangulated their location from the way that the shallow noisesreflected off the walls.
When they found Davey at last, it was in the golem's cave, on the otherside of the mountain. He was hunkered down in a corner, while the golemsmoved around him slowly, avoiding him like he was a boulder or astalagmite that had sprung up in the night. Their stony heads turned toregard Marci and Adam as they came upon them, their luminous eyeslighting on them for a moment and then moving on. It was an eloquentstatement for them: *This is the business of the mountain and hissons. We will not intervene.*
There were more golems than Alan could remember seeing at once, six,maybe seven. The golems made more of their kind from the clay they foundat the riverbank whenever they cared to or needed to, and allowed theirnumber to dwindle when the need or want had passed by the simpleexpedient of deconstructing one of their own back to the clay it hadcome from.
The golems' cave was lined with small bones and skulls, rank and rowclimbing the walls, twined with dried grasses in ascendinggeometries. These were the furry animals that the golems patientlytrapped and killed, skinned, dressed, and smoked, laying them in small,fur-wrapped bundles in the family's cave when they were done. It waspart of their unspoken bargain with the mountain, and the tiny bones hadonce borne the flesh of nearly every significant meal Alan had evereaten.
Davey crouched among the bones at the very back of the cave, his back tothem, shoulders hunched.
The golems stood stock still as Marci and he crept up on Davey. Sointent was he on his work that he didn't notice them, even as theyloomed over his shoulder, staring down on the thing he held in hishands.
It was Alan's thumb, and growing out of it -- Allen. Tiny, the size of apipe-cleaner man, and just as skinny, but perfectly formed, squirmingand insensate, face contorted in a tiny expression of horror.
Not so perfectly formed, Alan saw, once he was over the initialshock. One of the pipe-cleaner-Allen's arms was missing, protrudingthere from Davey's mouth, and he crunched it with lip-smackingrelish. Alan gawped at it, taking it in, watching his miniaturedoppelganger, hardly bigger than the thumb it sprouted from, thrash likea worm on a hook.
Davey finished the arm, slurping it back like a noodle. Then he dangledthe tiny Allen from the thumb, shaking it, before taking hold of thelegs, one between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, and he gently,almost lovingly pulled them apart. The Allen screamed, a sound as tinyand tortured as a cricket song, and then the left leg wrenched free ofits socket. Alan felt his own leg twist in sympathy, and then there wasa killing rage in him. He looked around the cave for the thing thatwould let him murder his brother for once and for all, but it wasn't tobe found.
Davey's murder was still to come.
Instead, he leapt on Davey's back, arm around his neck, hand grippinghis choking fist, pulling the headlock tighter and tighter. Marci wasscreaming something, but she was lost in the crash of the blood-surfthat roared in his ears. Davey pitched over backward, trying to buck himoff, but he wouldn't be thrown, and he flipped Davey over by the neck,so that he landed it a thrash of skinny arms and legs. The Allen fell tothe floor, weeping and dragging itself one-armed and one-legged awayfrom the melee.
Then Davey was on him, squeezing his injured hand, other thumb in hiseye, screeching like a rusted hinge. Alan tried to see through the tearsthat sprang up, tried to reach Davey with his good hand, but the ragewas leaking out of him now. He rolled desperately, but Davey's weight onhis chest was like a cannonball, impossibly heavy.
Suddenly Davey was lifted off of him. Alan struggled up into a sittingposition, clutching his injured hand. Davey dangled by his armpits inthe implacable hands of one of the golems, face contorted intounrecognizability. Alan stood and confronted him, just out of range ofhis kicking feet and his gnashing teeth, and Darrel spat in his face, asearing gob that landed in his eye.
Marci took his arm and dragged him back toward the cave mouth. He foughther, looking for the little Allen, not seeing him. Was that him, there,in the shadows? No, that was one of the little bone tableaux, a fieldmouse's dried bones splayed in an anatomically correct mystichieroglyph.
Marci hauled him away, out into the bright snow and the bright sun. Histhumb was bleeding anew, dripping fat drops the color of a red crayoninto the sun, blood so hot it seemed to sizzle and sink into the snow.
#
"You need to tell an adult, Alan," she said, wrapping his new littlethumb in gauze she'd taken from her pocket.
"My father knows. My mother knows." He sat with his head between hisknees, not daring to look at her, in his nook in the winter cave.
She just looked at him, squinting.
"They count," he said. "They understand it."
She shook her head.
"They understand it better than any adult you know would. This will getbetter on its own, Marci. Look." He wiggled his thumb at her. It was nowthe size of the tip of his pinky, and had a well-formed nail andcuticle.
"That's not all that has to get better," she said. "You can't just letthis fester. Your brother. That *thing* in the cave..." She shook herhead. "Someone needs to know about this. You're not safe."
"Promise me you won't tell anyone, Marci. This is important. No oneexcept you knows, and that's how it has to be. If you tell --"
"What?" She got up and pulled her coat on. "What, Alan? If I tell andtry to help you, what will you do to me?"
"I don't know," he mumbled into his chest.
"Well, you do whatever you have to do," she said, and stomped out of thecave.
#
Davey escaped at dawn. Kurt had gone outside to repark his old Buick,the trunk bungeed shut over his haul of LCD flat panels, emptylaser-toner cartridges, and open gift baskets of pricey Japanesecosmetics. Alan and Davey just glared at each other, but then Daveyclosed his eyes and began to snore softly, and even though Alan pacedand pinched the bridge of his nose and stretched out his injured arm, hecouldn't help it when he sat down and closed his eyes and nodded off.
Alan woke with a start, staring at the empty loops of duct tape andtwine hanging from his captain's chair, dried strings of skin likedesiccated banana peel fibers hanging from them. He swore to himselfquietly, and shouted Shit! at the low basement ceiling. He couldn't havebeen asleep for more than a few seconds, and the half-window that Daveyhad escaped through gaped open at him like a sneer.
He tottered to his feet and went out to find Kurt, bare feet jammed intosneakers, bare chest and bandages covered up with a jacket. He foundKurt cutting through the park, dragging his heels in the bloody dawnlight.
Kurt looked at his expression, then said, "What happened?" He had hisfists at his sides, he looked tensed to run. Alan felt that he waswaiting for an order.
"He got away."
"How?"
Alan shook his head. "Can you help me get dressed? I don't think I canget a shirt on by myself."
They went to the Greek's, waiting out front on the curb for the old manto show up and unchain the chairs and drag them out around the table. Heserved them tall coffees and omelets sleepily, and they ate in silence,too tired to talk.
"Let me take you to the doctor?" Kurt asked, nodding at the bandage thatbulged under his shirt.
"No," Alan said. "I'm a fast healer."
Kurt rubbed at his calf and winced. "He broke the skin," he said.
"You got all your shots?"
"Hell yeah. Too much crap in the dumpsters. I once found a styro coolerof smashed blood vials in a Red Cross trash."
"You'll be okay, then," Alan
"This is pretty fucked up right here," Kurt said, looking down into hiscoffee.
"It's only a little less weird for me, if that's any comfort."
"It's not," Kurt said.
"Well, that's why I don't usually tell others. You're only the secondperson to believe it."
"Maybe I could meet up with the first and form a support group?"
Alan pushed his omelet away. "You can't. She's dead."
#
Davey haunted the schoolyard. Alan had always treated the school and itsgrounds as a safe haven, a place where he could get away from theinexplicable, a place where he