Frightened Boy by Scott Kelly (easy books to read in english txt) 📕

armored vehicle pulled onto it, and then the rest of the long train, and I squeezed the wheel with both hands until my knuckles were pale.

I focused on the vehicle in front of me and pulled into line. The skyline of Banlo Bay was visible through the hazy gray morning. The two worlds were about to collide.


19. Snakes

The first police car to spot the rolling brigade slammed on its brakes to avoid confrontation. It followed from a distance until one of the jeeps broke away from the train and turned around, racing toward it.

The first shots popped out over the horizon as the patrol car was riddled with bullets; the Strangers squealed into a U-turn and pulled back up into formation.

I looked to my right at a family sedan. Two kids had their little faces pressed up against the window, wide eyed at Whisper’s long leg and heeled foot pressed up against the dash of the jeep. The wind whipped her cloak further back to reveal the chrome revolver in her hand.

Whisper extended the gun toward the skyline.

“Pow,” she said, mimicking the recoil that the gun would deliver.

“You’re not scared?” I yelled over the rush of the wind.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Whisper said. “We aren’t even real, remember?”

A long line of blue and red lights met us at the entrance to downtown Banlo Bay.

Not acting like the police I thought I knew, though. Instead, I heard gunfire, saw muzzle flashes. Heard whistling disturbances in the air, and—they were shooting at us! I ducked low in my seat, until I couldn't see the road, only the tail end of the vehicle in front of me.

Escher led the trucks into a line perpendicular to the direction of the road. I pulled up behind one of them, not quite in formation. “Get up there,” Whisper hissed.

I made a sloppy U-turn and pulled skittishly into a small gap, moving forward in halting steps. Whisper leapt from the vehicle before we came to a stop.

“Get down,” I told Erika. “Hide somewhere.”

She ducked into the floor of the jeep, pressing herself between the two seats. I crouched down as I opened my door, pressed my back against the little truck. Could hear Erika's voice out the open rear door.

I watched Strangers exchange gunfire with the police. Looked like some bizarre children’s game; peeking over vehicles to see if the other side was watching; firing until they ran out of bullets, at which point the other side would peek their heads out and begin firing—like a sequenced dance.

“Move!” Whisper interrupted with a shout from the opposite end of the vehicle we were using as shelter. She gripped my arm and led us to a thicker line of vehicles to hide behind.

As I ran, bullet holes peppered the area where I’d been standing. “Erika!” I called out. Her hand rise meekly, signaling she was okay.

“They’re trying to keep the fight out of the city!” Whisper yelled as she pulled me further away from her. “They want to engage us out here.” She leaned out from the side of a truck and fired three shots into the body of the nearest car.

“It looks like it’s working!” I shouted back to her. “What do we do?”

She didn’t respond; her flawless face clenched into a snarl with each shot from her gun.

I searched up and down the line of jeeps for Escher. He crouched behind the wheel of the largest truck, on his stomach firing an assault rifle in small bursts up and down the line. He aimed with his precision, picking the next target seemingly at the same moment he shot at the first. If you couldn’t see the bodies falling, you might think he was simply firing and aiming like a bored child might with a water gun.

I opened the door to the jeep and slid down onto the ground, careful not to let my head rise up over the seats to become a target.

Lux sat with his back up against the same vehicle, his arms folded across his chest. His headphones were on, and he didn’t seem to have any weapons.

I crawled across the line toward him. “What’re you doing?” I shouted over the noise.

He didn’t respond. His face looked calm; he closed his eyes and tilted his head downwards. I assumed his music was playing.

“Move!” Escher shouted. His voice seemed thunderously loud, and it was clear over the arrhythmic mess of the battle. Lux responded immediately to this command, making me wonder if he was ignoring me.

Suddenly, Strangers were starting toward their vehicles. Whisper leapt forward, grabbed the collar of my shirt and dragged me into a run toward ours. Erika rose meekly from the floor and brushed her hair back behind her ears.

The jeeps began to peel out toward the line of policemen with Escher leading the cavalry charge in the colossal armored vehicle. I waited for an opening and blasted into the line about halfway through, my heart pounding in my throat and the constant static of terror tunneling my vision and blinding my mind.

I watched as Escher plowed between two police cars, slamming them out of the way with the heavier vehicle and barely slowing down in the process. The line of Strangers began to pour through the gap, firing shots down at the police as we did so.

“Everyone duck down,” Whisper commanded as we tore through the gap Escher had created. As I slunk down until my head was below the dash, I saw the police cruisers seemed to have been shredded with bullets, almost all suffering from flat tires. As we sped through, the body of a Stranger fell from his vehicle in a spurt of blood, rolling on the cement, victim of a policeman's bullet.

When we pulled far enough up the highway to put the cruisers out of sight, I finally exhaled. My hands were cemented to the steering wheel, cramped and unresponsive. “Good plan,” I murmured.

“Did you think we hadn’t thought this out?” Whisper asked.

“No, I just…”

I glanced up at the rearview mirror and caught Erika's eyes. She looked terrified.

“I just need some faith,” I said to her and to no one.

I followed the line down the exit ramp and into the heart of Banlo Bay. Police waited at nearly every turn, exchanging fire with the Strangers as we sped past. On each of these occasions I could only duck low, stay as close to the jeep ahead of me as possible.

The streets were mostly clear as we rolled between the colossal skyscrapers; the familiar alarms already sounding, a computerized voice speaking over it in slow, calm tones, instructing office workers to remain in their buildings. Something like a bad techno song.

“This is it,” Whisper said.

Tasumec Tower, endless grey-glass ziggurat. How long ago was it I worked there? Felt like ages. Couldn't have been.

Our army fanned out down the streets, stopping in areas of cover behind the gargantuan buildings. Strangers leapt from them, forming tight groups of four and hiding behind massive the architecture of the area—cement columns, stone gardens, sheltered vestibules. Whisper pointed forward and I continued down the road, closer to the tower. Strangers now camped at every corner, guns ready.

The police crept down streets and at the edges of the Stranger defenses, firefights erupted as they were pushed back to find cover of their own. The Secret Society had the area around Tasumec Tower pinned down.

I drove as fast as I could—thirty-five—toward my old job, borderline seizures wracking my body every time Whisper fired her revolver at a cop that was entrenched behind a piece of cover. I turned the last corner around a skyscraper and came face to face with the hulking black, glass tower that was Tasumec.

But there was a problem: Dozens of police stood outside the front entrance to the tower, rifles resting on the tops of immense, bullet-proof riot shields.

Little Brother.

“Back up! Back up!” Whisper shouted.

I slammed the jeep into reverse while it was still spinning forward, causing a grinding crunch in the innards of the vehicle that threw everyone forward. I felt Erika slam into my seat, which made me slam my foot down harder on the gas and sent us flying backwards into the side of the building behind us.

We slammed heavily into the cement; the steering wheel of the jeep caught me in the chest as I flew forward.

“Out!” hissed Whisper, rubbing the side of her head.

We clambered out, cursing as we found new bruises and sprains from the crash. I clenched and unclenched my fists until I could feel my fingers again.

Whisper cursed under her breath.

“We have to proceed.”

She pulled the trench coat tigher and grabbed her hat from the back of the jeep, sculpting the tip into a crooked point and then pulling it over her hair.

Two cats—black as an oil slick—climbed from a nearby gutter and circled her, purring softly and hugging her legs like expensive fur boots. As she took her first step toward the battalion, they followed her obediently at either side.

Erika looked hopeful for a moment.

“Cover your ears,” I said. “Trust me.”

I clamped my hands down over my head.

Whisper moved closer to the group, perhaps forty feet away. There was a sudden shift, and soon all rifles were pointed at the Stranger in the flowing cloak.

She raised her hands in the air in surrender, coming to a halt. Then she began to form words—too quietly for me to hear, thankfully.

Immediately, guns began to droop down and aim began to waiver as Whisper’s lecture began to drag the soldiers into a deep depression, gnawing at their will to live.

“Earplugs!” came a shout wracked with sobs. “Earplugs! That’s the one!”

Shit, I thought as the force lowered their weapons momentarily to insert yellow foam pads into their ears. Immediately, two of them split from the group and began to flank Whisper, apparently intent on taking the second-in-command of the Secret Society of Strangers as a hostage.

What do I do?

I was helpless. I tried to summon my will; I looked into the back of the jeep, hoping for a gun, for a grenade, for anything. Whisper stood with her hands raised, she took one step back then another, looking at the jeep then at her attackers.

The sound of twisting metal and sinking ships echoed up the street alongside the vacant rows of buildings, forcing glass from five, four, three blocks away to pop out the windows and shower down over an approaching jeep with a sole occupant. The glass rain followed him as he sped down the next block. As he approached, the sound of hell grew louder. My vision tunneled; Erika moaned and fell to her knees, hands clutching her skull.

Once Lux was on the same block as us, the sound was so deafening I was blinded. The sensation was maddening. I squeezed my skull but it seemed to have no effect; as