Nowhere Blvd: A Horror Novel by Ryan Notch Page A

pretense at stealth.  It was still dark enough to hide practically in plain site.  He only hoped that nobody was hidden and waiting for him nearby.  This very darkness cost him precious moments finding the new corpse.  Finally discovering it on the other end of the pile, he tried not to think about what he was doing as he grabbed it.  Thought he could avoid looking directly at the body, but was wrong. 
    A boy, probably.  About the same age as Spencer.  He had dreaded the thought of mutilating the body to complete the plan, of smashing the face to a pulp with a rock.  But to his further horror he saw he didn’t need to.  The face was gone, as were some of the other soft tissues.  In the moonlight it looked very much as if they had been torn off, or even chewed off.  Was this done in Smiling Jack’s lab?  It didn’t look like the clean cut of a scalpel. 
    Something half eats these kids even before the Rejected Things get their taste, he thought with a shiver.  For some reason it made him think of the fairy tale of the gingerbread house, but there was not time to dwell on it.  He picked the body up as best he could under the arms, ready to drag it away.
    Got to hurry, got to get out of here before...
    But it was already too late. 
    They had already come from the forest, were already moving towards the bone pile.  They could see him, he knew they could.  Even in the dark it would be impossible for them not to by now.  At least twenty of them, shambling towards him in some form or another.  They didn’t have him surrounded yet, he could still run for it, but he couldn’t take the body with him.  He felt like he was trapped even if he wasn’t.  He had to convince them to let him take the body this one time.
    As they closed in and he began to speak, some small part of his mind tried to tell him that he was just jumping off a cliff to escape from a tiger.  But his reason was gone, panic had a hold of him. 
    “Wait a minute,” he said to none of them and all of them as they formed a circle.  “Just wait, I need just this one.  If you let me have just this one I promise I won’t take anymore.  Really I promise.”
    Most advanced slowly, but all advanced.  Boldest of all was the one he had seen earlier, the older kid with the bad leg.  He frowned down upon Spencer with a bully’s glare.  All in a flash Spencer realized why he looked familiar.  It was Marcus, the oldest kid from Spencer’s original group.  He wanted to say something but was speechless with the surprise of recognition.  He felt a moments twinge of relief, and was entirely unprepared for the backhand strike that caught him across the face and sent him sprawling. 
    On instinct he rolled to his feet while still moving, seeing from the corner of his eye the brief surge of the crowd towards him.  He tried to look everywhere at once while at the same time maneuvering out of reach of the large Marcus-creature that still advanced on him.  Spencer pulled the fork from his waistband, brandishing it as a knife.  The bully paused at this, but did not stop.  Only advancing more cautiously on Spencer. 
    Spencer made a stab at the bully, but it was ill timed and barely scratched at him.  The bully used his longer reach to counter with a blow to Spencer’s face.  One which he partially blocked with his left hand, getting knocked back but careful not to fall.  Sensing his back was almost to the wall of creatures behind him, he quickly followed it up by dodging to the right. 
    The bully spun to follow him and stumbled on his bad leg, not quite falling.  Spencer didn’t need to think about it, it was only instinct to spring upon this obvious weakness.  He moved around to his right again, sidestepping crablike.  Marcus couldn’t keep up and Spencer was behind him in a flash, kicking at the back of the knee on the good leg just as the bully was twisting it to follow Spencer.  The other leg couldn’t hold his weight and he went