Less Than Human (3 page)

John Warrick separated from the man, separated from himself and became Joey Estevez as he was drawn down… into the dying boy's nightmare… as… Joey watched the rats crawl from the gutted dog. He knew they had seen him.

It was impossible they could have found him so soon, yet somehow, they had. More of them spilled from the fire-gutted house on the corner. Just a few at first. But in seconds, the place was swarming with them and they watched him from the stoop, making no effort to hide, jostling each other like a crowd of anxious spectators at a parade.

Joey would have laughed if he wasn't so scared.

Agitation swept through their midst as though they were… expecting him, and Joey felt he should know why they had come, why they were after him. The answer taunted, an elusive secret that danced beyond his grasp, tantalizing him with its nearness, whispering words he couldn't quite hear.

Joey felt the weight of their eyes as he moved past. His legs pistoned, a sharp turn, and the rats disappeared from sight.

He listened for sounds of pursuit.

All he heard was the rain drumming its fingers across the rooftops.

And the jackhammer of his heart.

Few people were on the streets at this late hour of the night. A man with an empty shirtsleeve pinned to his shoulder leaned against a street lamp and drank from a bottle in a brown paper bag. He began dancing, a demented Gene Kelly who stopped now and then to gesture, to whisper vague threats to companions who existed only in his mind. A hooker limped by on her way home, oblivious of the rain, cradling five-inch spike heels in one hand, a glowing cigarette in the other.

"You better lay off that shit, Luke," she called out to the dancer. "It'll make you crazy."

A cab cruised down the puddle-filled street, drowning the man's laughter beneath the hiss of tires.

No one saw Joey, who was dressed in black, from his leather jacket down to the Air Jordans that hugged his feet. The dark clothes made him one more shadow on a street of shadows, and if you were a thief and hustler, that's the way it had to be.

Especially if you were only fifteen.

He'd been out, taking care of business. Now he was on his way home.

Home—

What a joke that was. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to have a real honest-to-god home, the kind that came with parents who made you eat all the vegetables on your plate, who made you do your homework, who beat your ass when you stayed out too late.

Who said they loved you.

A vacant smile replaced the sneer. That dream had become ancient history when a doctor up at County had walked out into a waiting room and told him his mama had OD'ed. Joey remembered a dirty white jacket and empty blue eyes that looked right through him. The guy said it like he was talking about the fucking weather. Hey kid, it's going to rain today; hey kid, don't forget your umbrella; and by the way, kid, your mama used to be a junkie but now your mama's dead.

Before she made love to the needle for the final time, she had laid a curse on him. She made him swear he would find his dad and get him off the booze.

Last month he'd managed to keep his promise, even though it had been by accident. Still it had been something of a tearful reunion—the old bastard had caught him on the nose with a wine bottle while Joey had been going through his pockets in an alley over on Collins.

Joey had been about to carve his initials on some unwashed skin when something in the old man's voice had stopped him. The foulmouthed swearing had a familiar ring.

They were together now, him and the old man, doing their best to get by. Joey did whatever he had to in order for them to eat: shoplifting, purse snatching, making pickups for the bookies.

When times were really tough, he sold his body to men with a taste for young boys, his defiant smile a bandage far too small to cover the hurt when he endured their cold sweaty hands, when they threw their money at his feet, when they roared away in cars that smelled of new leather and spent passion… to their big fine homes… where the rats never came in the night.

The city fought sleep, tossing and turning fitfully, a shadow troubled by fevered neon dreams. Sounds leaked from the apartments he passed: an argument between a man and a woman, a snatch of Latino melody, a child laughing, an old woman praying, someone crying. Always someone crying.

Night music his mama had called it, a lullaby made by souls in torment.

When he used to ask her what she meant, she would always brush the hair from over his eyes and hold him close without answering. Without conscious thought, he brushed the hair from his eyes.

He pushed the painful thoughts aside. Time to get a move on. The night had managed to find him far from home. He hated the night, because the rats came then and they might try to get into the apartment. His dad was there alone. He picked up the pace, his footsteps throwing lonely echoes down the alley—pat pat pat—increasing to a run as he weaved around an overturned garbage can.

At first he didn't see the rats. He plowed into them before he realized what they were, and they lazily abandoned the contents of the can, only to return like a swarm of blowflies disturbed on a summer day. Fear kicked Joey in the gut, driving the breath from his body. He did his best to make himself part of the wall when the biggest rat he'd ever seen crawled out holding a gobbet of something bloody.

The thing was a monster, a twisted crippled mass of scar tissue with fur the color of pissed-on snow. Joey watched it drag its bloated body up onto a fire escape and hobble along as it tried to flee with its prize. But the smaller rats were quicker. They were waiting at the other end.

Drawn by the smell of blood, they crept across the swaying span. The sheer weight of them caused the rusted metal to groan in protest. Their hunger drove them, made them edge nearer the bared fangs, their eyes wet with equal portions of need and fear as they sidled up to death.

They hesitated, working up their courage. And then, like a single-minded organism that knew a part must die so the whole might live, they lunged forward.

The white monster killed five.

It caught them by the throat and flung their wriggling bodies from the fire escape like a child digging through a drawer in search of a missing sock. One bounced off the wall by Joey and he recoiled from the wetness that splattered his face.

Anger overcame fear.

"You want something to eat? I got something right here. How about a little metal pizza, you fuckers!" He scooped up a garbage-can lid and flung it in a flat, vicious arc.

A squeal of agony died beneath the clang of metal and the white rat's hindquarters were almost severed in two. It should have died right there, but instead it began a frenzied dance, around and around, its body held together by a piece of skin no bigger than a string, leaking wet black stains onto the pavement.

What happened next was inevitable. Joey had seen it many times before—the writhing bodies descended, a magician's scarf fluttering in the night.

"Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!" Disgust was in his voice as he broke into an impromptu impression of a carnival barker. "We're only doing one show tonight, so you'd better get your tickets quick." He scanned the imaginary crowd, getting into the part. "How much, you ask? It's a steal. One thin dime—yes, sir, that's right, ten cents gets you in." He ripped an invisible ticket, his eyes never leaving the rats.

"Watch close now. It's showtime!"

He swept an arm outward and the scarf of flesh parted on cue. Not a trace of the injured rat remained. The other five were gone, too.

"Rat magic, ladies and gentlemen. Now you see it."

He tipped an imaginary derby and bowed to the imaginary applause.

"And now you don't."

Joey smiled but the fear returned to his eyes when he felt their eyes bore into him. En masse they rose to their back legs, noses sniffing the air expectantly. His fingers strayed once again to his face, searching until they found a small blemish, a scar that marred his features.

"What the hell do you want from me?" His words were smothered by the night. And they came at him like rain pouring from a downspout, their claws scrabbling for purchase on the cobblestones as they gathered speed.

"Oh man, something definitely weird is going down here," he said, "very weird." He turned and fled from the alley, his footsteps pounding a tattoo down the street. His side stitched with pain as he raced on, doubling him over.

His building came into sight and he risked a quick look around before ducking in. A sign was nailed to the door. Only one word, it summed up the building: The word was Condemned.

The landing was pitch black, but that didn't stop Joey. He knew every creak, every loose board in the place. Taking the steps three at a time, he raced to the second floor. A rustling came in the dark. For a timeless moment he knew the stairs were covered with rats. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of rats.

—that they were creeping downward—

-that they were only inches away—

The thought that one might touch his face caused his heart to squirt sideways. He floated in the blackness, frozen by terror when he recalled how quickly the rats had scrambled down the fire escape.

"This is crazy, muy loco," he muttered, yanking out a book of matches. When he tried to strike one, his hands began to shake. What if it was true? What if they really were waiting?

On the third try the match flared, burning his nose with the stink of sulfur. He lit the entire book and heaved it up the stairwell.

Only shadows flickered on the walls.

Mocking him.

Then he saw a flash of yellowish white and for an instant he thought the huge rat had returned. But it was just a newspaper caught in a draft, flapping down the hallway like a lost and weary ghost searching out a room for the night. His laughter died with the light. The sight of all those rats in the alley had gotten to him.

He bolted the remaining distance.

Softly he eased into the apartment and tried to swallow the soured cotton that clogged his throat. His eyes slitted before they adjusted to a kerosene lamp guttering in the corner. The glow barely disturbed the shadows. That was okay with Joey, because the place wasn't much to look at anyway, just a bare room with a stained mattress on the floor and a couch so old its bones poked through.

His dad was a pile of rags asleep on the mattress, snoring gutturally, and Joey breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was okay. He was home now.

Yet the fear refused to die.

Somewhere, out of sight, came the sound of claws.

He tried to locate the furtive scrabbling. He couldn't.

It seemed to come from everywhere.

"Come on, Papa," he urged, his voice cracking, "we've got to get out of here." As he reached over to shake the figure huddled beneath the filthy blanket, his foot bumped something. It tipped over with a clatter… and the scratching grew louder… grew frantic… as though a signal of some kind had been given.

With animal quickness, Joey's hand darted out and grabbed the object. He turned it over, fascinated by the dull oily sheen that reflected hack. Then, without warning, his head throbbed, clenching his skull in a vise of pain so intense he was rocked back. In an instant the tremor passed. He gave his head a shake before turning back toward his dad, before smiling and hefting the object in his hand.

Flipping it high in the air. Watching as it spun.

End over end.

Once. Twice.

Watching as it came to rest in his hand.

Staring at a wine bottle—an empty wine bottle.

"You said you'd quit," Joey accused, his voice going soft as he caressed the bottle. "When I took you in, you swore on Mama's grave."

Agitation swept across his face, chasing all other emotions before it like leaves before the wind. He bit into his lip and a dot of blood appeared, the head of a black worm crawling out onto his chin. He blinked back tears and fought for calm. His eyes were those of an angel betrayed.

Only this angel carried more than hurt; he carried the fires of hell.

"You promised!" he raged, "No more drinking!"

The words were a spray of blood that caught the old man by surprise, making him stumble backward. The hunched-over figure pawed at the drool that had splattered his face. His eyes were riveted on the bottle in the boy's hand.

Joey raised it as though he meant to lash out, but then the pain stretched him taut as high voltage surging through a power line. He gasped and the bottle slipped from his fingers. It hit the floor with a pop and shattered into hundreds of shards, which glittered in the light, shiny eyes watching him. He doubled over, spewing blood and saliva. His guts were on fire.

He ripped open his shirt, and his skin, crisscrossed with scars, rippled when a spasm shot through him, a spasm that disappeared and then reappeared, causing his face to contort into a skull-like mask.

The scars turned an angry red.

"Papa, what's wrong—"

The vise that held Joey's head closed another notch, the pain adding tinder to the fire of his rage. He fought, but he was helpless, consumed by a blackness filled with hunger sounds. He listened to screams chasing themselves into silence, leaving behind echoes that taunted him, promising remembrance of things better forgotten.

The black fire grew hotter. Hotter.

Devouring him.

Arching backward, Joey raked at the scars that puckered into hungry mouths. His fingernails ripped down his flesh and long white furrows trailed in their wake. Blood seeped into the empty grooves, water beading up on a frosted glass.

Joey felt as if he were here and, yet, someplace not here, as if he were flickering in and out like a TV that couldn't quite pull in the signal.

And now he could hear claws.

Lots and lots of claws.

Scratching.

Growing louder.

The sound was coming from inside the room, and yet he knew it couldn't be. The room was empty.

"It hurts," Joey said, gasping. "Hurts bad. Make it stop. Please…."

The old man reached out, but his hands were unable to complete their journey. They stopped short, two pale moths fluttering against an unseen window. He began to cry.