The Nightworld - Jack Blaine [14]
It’s Dad. He’s crouching next to my bed, holding a gun in front of him. When I don’t move, he turns to look at me, and his eyes are scary—so intense and focused. This is not a joke. I scramble out of bed and grab the gun on the nightstand. I’m not going to hide in some closet—I’ll fight right next to Dad.
“No!” Dad hisses at me in the dark, and I feel his hand grip my biceps hard. “Get in the fucking closet. And don’t come out, Nick, no matter what you hear.”
I don’t understand what’s happening. I’m still groggy from sleep and the way my dad’s talking to me—it doesn’t even seem real. If it weren’t for the slightly sour smell of his breath, I’d think it was a dream.
The voices downstairs get more intense, and Dad shoves me toward the closet.
“Dad!” I whisper. I want to say something else, anything, and I can tell he wants to as well, but he just puts a finger to his lips and pushes me backward.
I pull the door closed and try to bury myself behind the coats and junk. It’s still not much cover. Then I hear feet pounding up the stairs, and then Dad’s door being kicked open. They sound like they’re tearing the room apart.
And then they kick in my door. I hear them sort of stumble against each other when they see Dad—it sounds like there are at least three.
“Drop your weapon,” says one.
“Watch yourself. Don’t forget we need him alive, genius,” says another.
“Why do you need me? Do you think I would go with you?” Dad asks. “So I can help you destroy the world? Not a chance.”
“Don’t get smart,” the first voice says. “You know why.”
“The light will come back,” Dad says firmly. “If I can’t bring it back, someone else will.”
Then I hear him shoot. His gun sounds like a bomb going off in the room. One of them screams; Dad must have hit somebody. When they shoot, which they do right away, the phffft of silencers is all I hear. That, and the sound of impact when the bullets hit my father. I can’t breathe. I know if I make a sound, I’m dead.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it! Orders were alive.”
“He was shooting at me!”
“Search the place, see if there’s anything—”
I hear the crackle of a two-way radio. I can’t make out the words, but they sound urgent.
“Over.” One of the guys in my bedroom responds to the radio voice. “You heard him, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“But what about the device? His son—he was supposed to be here tonight.”
“We don’t have time. We’ll get him as soon as he goes to the cops. They’re always so predictable. As far as the device—”
I hear more radio crackling. Something about “central,” and “abort.” Then the guy who must be in charge says, “All right, we’ve got our orders. We’re done here.”
I hear their feet on the stairs again, and then nothing.
I don’t know how long I sit there, huddled on the closet floor, gripping the gun so tight that my knuckles are bloodless. My face is wet. I realize I’m shaking, and I try to take some deep breaths to calm myself. I wipe my tears away with the back of my hand.
I’ve got to think. Think straight.
Dad’s gun made a lot of noise. I know the Robinsons, our neighbors to the north, are on vacation for the week, because they asked me to take in their newspapers while they’re gone. I think the neighbors on the west side, the Johanssons, are gone too, but I’m not sure. If they’re not, there’s no way they missed that shot. I’m going to have to go look out a window and see if there are any lights on at their place. Maybe they could help—maybe they already called the police.
But that means opening this closet door. And going out into my bedroom, where I know without a doubt that my father lies dead on the floor. When I open this door, everything changes, forever.
Some part of me understands that it has already changed. But another part resists while I turn the knob, while I crack the door open just enough to confirm that the men have gone. Let it not be changed. Let the world go back to what it was just a day ago. I want to scream when I see him, crumpled in the shadowy room, lit only by the baseball nightlight he got me the year Mom