Council of Peacocks Read Online Free PDF Page B

leather
chewed into flesh. As expected, he could not get his hand through.
The leather held tight.
    He twisted to look over his shoulder. He was
alone. The only entrance was directly in front of him. Like
something from a horror-movie version of an insane asylum, there
was a small window slot in the door. It was covered by a metal
slab. On the other side would be a latch to uncover the window,
allowing someone to look in on him without actually entering the
room. He looked around for signs of a video camera. He saw no
evidence of one.
    ‘Stay calm,’ he thought. ‘Dad trained me for
this. Keep pulling my hand through the manacle. If I’m lucky, I’ll
draw blood. Use it to lubricate the restraint and make it easier
for me to escape.’
    Through the walls, he heard a scream.
    The sound was so shrill he could not tell if
it was male or female. Either way, a scream like that was never a
good thing. Someone was being hurt in ways he chose not to imagine.
Moments later he heard another scream. He realized immediately it
was Jan.
    ‘At least I know she’s not dead. If these
people are after Dad, they’ll keep me alive. At least for now. No
guarantee for the others. I have to move quickly.’
    He focused on his right hand, pulling it
repeatedly down. Pain shot through his arm as leather bit into
flesh. Maybe it was the pain or the streams of blood at his feet,
but suddenly memories from the night of the bush party came back to
him. He smelled charred flesh and feathers as the creatures’ wings
burned. He flinched as he recalled kicking in one of their skulls.
In his memory, he moved impossibly fast: like Batman or Jet Li. His
father had taught him things, but nothing like this, not when he
was so young.
    Then another image flashed before him.
    ***
    He sat on his back porch with Tommy
Delonki. It was a hot day in late August, the threat of going back
to school imminent. They drank red Kool-Aid from plastic Jurassic Park cups. Inside the house, his mother sang along with
the radio as she made the crust for an apple pie. Two skateboards
lay nearby on the lawn. Nothing he saw or heard could explain the
absolute terror the memory brought to him.
    ***
    “Something happened.”
    As soon as he said the words he wished he’d
only thought them. His voice echoed off the concrete walls,
emphasizing how enclosed he was. It felt like a coffin. What if
they did not come for him? What if they just left him hanging there
until he starved to death? Claustrophobia set in.
    “Stop it,” he said. Sweat fell from his hair.
The room was hot and humid, just like that day in August. “Think of
something else.”
    ‘I can’t stop them. One day they’ll come to
take me away and I know I can’t stop them.’
    Josh raised his head.
    Goosebumps ran down his chest. The room
suddenly seemed very cold.
    ***
    “ I can’t stop them,” Tommy said.
“ One day they’ll come to take me away and I know I can’t
stop them.”
    “ You don’t know that.” Josh picked up a
chip of concrete that had crumbled off the back porch and threw it
across the lawn. “Things don’t work that way.”
    “ You don’t know them.” Tommy grabbed his
Kool-Aid and held the glass against his cheek. “You’ve never seen
them.”
    “ Yes I did.” He put his hand on his
friend’s shoulder. “I saw what they did to you last night. It’s
wrong and it’s weird but they’re not coming back. Monsters always
go away when someone else sees them. It’s a rule.”
    “ Maybe.” Tommy set the cup down then
looked away. “I still know I’m going to die.”
    ***
    ‘And he did,’ Josh thought. ‘In the hospital
a few days after those things in the woods beat him up. Those
things with wings. And I’d seen them before. How could I forget
something like this?’
    The two voices screamed again.
    One of them cut off suddenly.
    ‘Like a tape had been stopped. Or a throat
had been cut. I could really use a miracle right about now. I know
two in one day is pushing it,