The Smiley-Face Witches
George Traikovich
CHAPTER 1
“Tell me about Chimera.”
Colonel Runyon’s cowboy mustache curled to accommodate his reflexive sneer. He’d traded his uniform for a business suit, making the transition from soldier to consultant. Blue Beret Security paid better, but old habits died hard, and some didn’t die at all. “Sir…I can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of such a project.”
General Knight took off his jacket and poured the Scotch, the ice clinking against the sides of the glasses in celebration. The name plate on the mahogany desk with the Central Park view read ‘Vice-President of Operations,’ but anyone who knew anything knew who was really in charge.
“You weren’t assigned to the Army’s now-defunct Cryptozoological Command until four years ago?”
Runyon’s gaze shifted to the pictures on the wall behind his desk. The gallery of heavyweights posed with Knight reflected connections maintained even into civilian life. If he was asking a question, he already knew the answer, but Runyon played along. “No, sir.”
Knight handed Runyon his glass before sinking into his high-backed leather chair. He tapped his I-Pad and the lights dimmed, images flickering across the wall-mounted plasma screen on command. “Project Chimera was designed to manipulate DNA, providing enhanced biological adaptations for front-line soldiers via exposure to an experimental chemical agent designated Enzyme Seven.”
He waited for Runyon to jump in but the Colonel’s blue-eyed glint didn’t change.
“The private contractor awarded the project introduced the chemical agent to three designated control sites,” Knight said.
Runyon looked down his aquiline nose at his boss like he was going to say something but didn’t.
Knight fanned a series of photos across his desk. “Harley Blake serial number 31063423 code name Tusk…Donovan Forbes serial number 31063422 code name Howl…Ramone Perez serial number 31063421 code name Mask.”
Runyon didn’t bother glancing at the before and after photos.
“Do you recognize these…subjects?”
“Never saw ‘em before,” Runyon said.
Knight’s brow furrowed, the deep lines in his tanned face mirroring the waves in his salt and pepper hair. “These aren’t the test subjects that mutated during the experiment trial protocols?”
Knight knew more than he should, but that didn’t mean Runyon was going to make it easy on him. He paused before answering. “Cryptos.”
Knight took another swig. “Pardon?”
“Cryptos,” Runyon said. “Short for Cryptozoological Soldier Initiative…Or so I’ve heard.”
“Right,” Knight said, “Cryptos. And these aren’t the Cryptos that mutated during the trial protocols?”
Runyon couldn’t deny the monstrous changes documented in the photos, so he didn’t. “Mutated. That’s your word.”
“Alright,” Knight said. “What’s your word?”
Runyon took a healthy gulp of Scotch before answering. “You a sports fan, sir?”
“Sure…”
“Ever hear of some athlete getting busted for popping steroids?” Runyon asked.
“About once a week…”
“Think they call ‘em performance enhancing drugs,” Runyon said.
“PEDS…”
“PEDS,” Runyon agreed. “They’re supposed to help build muscle and endurance, but the drugs come with side effects.”
Knight looked back at the photos. “Horns and tails, webbed fingers and armor plating? I don’t remember any ball players coming down with these kind of side effects.”
He’d told him almost nothing about the project but revealing even that much made Runyon uncomfortable. “This what you wanted to talk about, sir?”
Knight pulled a thick packet bearing the company’s seal out of his desk drawer.
Runyon reached for the folio, brushing a stack of papers off the General’s desk in the process. He picked the pages up, his attention captured by the crude crayon drawing on top. “Didn’t know you had children, sir.”
“Yeah, gotta boy,” Knight said.
“How old?”
“Twenty-six,” Knight said.
Runyon studied the drawing for a second. “Did he wear a helmet to school?”
Knight laughed. “That’s what I like about you Runyon…You’re old school, you say what you think.”
Runyon winced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean any…”
“He’s not retarded,” Knight said, “but he is one of those C-Punks. Did that masterpiece while flyin’ on EZ8. I keep it by the phone and take a long, hard look at it whenever he calls to borrow money.”
Runyon broke the packet’s seal, eager to get the conversation back on track.
“Chimera’s been revived via private sector financing…”
“Revived?” Runyon said. “Since when?”
“They never stopped,” Knight said. “They just changed directions.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll find out,” Knight said.
Runyon’s face screwed into a scowl. “How long they been a client?”
“Since the trouble on Transylvania Island.”
“Trouble?” Runyon repeated. “Try fiasco.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?” Knight asked.
“You’re not the one that tracked the Cryptos through the amusement park after they broke out,” Runyon said. “But that was four years ago. Why am I just hearing about this now?”
“You’ve been in Afghanistan,” Knight reminded him. “And Mitch Wayne was running the show until last week.”
Runyon knew Wayne. “You said was.”
“That’s right, I did,” Knight agreed.
Runyon leaned forward. “What happened?”
“We’re still picking up the pieces,” Knight confessed, “but we lost some damn good men, and Wayne was one of ‘em.”
“Locals?”
“Don’t know,” Knight said.
Now Runyon knew why he was really there.
“I need someone to step in and take charge,” Knight said. “Given you’re history, I’d say you’re the man for the job.”
Runyon sifted through the photos inside the packet. “What’s this?”
“Some background information on the key players involved last time around,” Knight said. “Just to get you back up to speed.”
Runyon recognized the faces in the photos but this was the first time he had names to go with them. “Drew Wheeler, Newton Shaw, Clementine Carver, Grady McNamara, Esteban Lima. These pictures are out of date. They’ll be teenagers by now.”
“I’ll make a note of it and update the files,” Knight said.
“And you want me to kill ‘em?”
Runyon’s bare-knuckled approach brought a smile to Knight’s face. “No. But they were at the amusement park when everything blew-up.”
“That’s because they’re the ones that blew it up,” Runyon said.
***
Drew’s raggedy armor slowed his movement, but he limped across the deck and jumped into the coaster’s last car before it started the next circuit.
The Moonclipper breached the mist beyond the coaster’s highest point, a shiny sliver bleeding helium from multiple wounds inflicted to its durable skin.
Harley clasped his taloned hands together and brought them down on the airship like a sledgehammer. His monstrous strength evened the odds but even he couldn’t hang on to the inflatable’s slick surface much longer.
Drew leapfrogged from car to car, scrambling toward the front of the train as it climbed the coaster’s steep initial slope.
Harley’s tail tightened around the crescent moon, distorting the stylized face sculpted into the rubber shell until unrecognizable, but still the airship swam through the churning black clouds.
Thunder shook the ancient coaster’s wooden frame but Drew struggled to his feet as the train reached the crest. The cars balanced for a moment, teetering on the edge of the precipice.
He hoisted the prod, took aim, and launched…
Hit! The sharpened tip buried itself deep inside the airship’s rubber shell.
Lightning arced out from the thunderhead, cutting across the sky like a blowtorch and connecting with the shaft.
The jolt charged the airship’s skin and blasted Harley clear, but he didn’t fall. Instead, the raging wind lifted him higher and higher until he reached his zenith and time ticked to a stop.
For a moment it seemed that somehow, some way, the wind would keep him aloft--But the moment didn’t last. Gravity pulled Harley through the swirling clouds to crash against the broken pavement below.
The stinging rain blurred his vision but Drew couldn’t turn away. He listened to the wind whistle through the coaster’s resonant architecture, not sure what to do next. “Not wind, music.”
The notes came at him from every direction, a million-member choir of metallic voices bleeding together into a discordant melody.
He waited for her and she appeared, a gauzy blur pulled into focus by his unrelenting gaze. The pale girl played hide and seek between the coaster’s elevated platforms, giving him time to remember.
The birthmark dividing her face should have startled him, but he’d seen her before. He’d considered her a symptom of the concussion he’d suffered when the barge broke up on the rocks on the way to the island, a ghost conjured by his injured brain to ease him back to consciousness. But she was more than a dream, she was a messenger.
She opened her mouth to speak but he couldn’t hear her over the hollow voices rising to a crescendo. She called him in closer and whispered in his ear…
***
Drew woke in the ER, though waking implied sleeping. Instead, he lay in bed each night on the cusp of somnolence. But the dream came anyway, a rerun of an episode whose ending he knew all too well.
If only they’d arrived sooner, if only they’d fought harder, if only--But they hadn’t, and Harley paid for it.
But Drew learned to counter-program against the broadcast. Staying awake cut the signal, giving him time to do things he couldn’t do during the day, like counting the tiles in his ceiling. There were… there were…how many were there again?
Drew yawned, his eyelids sagging under their own weight. He followed his mom’s shifting gaze to the stainless steel exam table. “But it ain’t no emergency.”
She disagreed. “Not sleeping is normal for colicky babies and old men…not for fifteen year old boys.”
Drew watched the snow drift by through the window blinds. Mercy General’s ten crumbling stories faced the city’s frozen riverfront, weathered ledges guarded from pigeons by impotent gargoyles. Those that could afford alternatives avoided it, but his mom drove him there rather than waiting until his regular doctor could squeeze him in.
“Get on up.”
“Ain’t no emergency,” he repeated.
He got up to leave, but she planted her hand in his chest. He’d inherited her strong chin, along with her stubbornness, but insomnia had worn away his resolve. Rather than argue, he jumped on top of the exam table.
She felt his head for fever—again. The varsity jacket and sweatshirt beneath should have kept him comfortable, but his body shivered and his brown skin glistened with sweat.
Her frown lines deepened, framing her mouth like italics. She dialed her cell and explained to her boss that she’d be late for work that morning.
Drew’s heavy brow furrowed. “Ain’t nothing wrong with…”
She shushed him with a wave of her hand. She’d pulled her tight curls into a ponytail same as everyday, but he could count the gray hairs scattered among the black beneath the hospital’s harsh fluorescent lights. She’d been beautiful once, but that was before his dad split. Now she looked like his mom.
The nurse stuck her head into the examination room smiling apologetically. She was a little old for braces but Drew tried not to stare. “There’s a teensy-weensy problem with your insurance card...”
The Doctor entered as his mom exited. She took a drag from her cigarette before pulling the curtain shut and sealing them off from the rest of the noisy ER.
“My name is Doctor Jagger,” she announced in a raspy quaver.
Heavy make-up softened frown lines too deep for someone that young, but her angry perm negated the benefits. Her eyes clicked open and shut behind giant lenses stuck in dated frames. “You’re fifteen?”
Seeing her puffing away on a heater should have been cause for concern, but this was Mercy General. “Yes, ma’am…”
She flashed a penlight into his bloodshot eyes. “Where do you go to school?”
He waved the smoke from his face. “Madison.”
“East, West, or …”
“Central,” he said.
“What’s the letter for?” she said, “What’s your sport?”
He coughed, hoping she’d take the hint. She didn’t, more accustomed to feeding her cats than treating patients if the smell of her lab coat was any indication.
“Football.”
“Football,” she said. “How’d ya do this year?”
“0-10. We were the worst team in the league.”
She buried her head in his chart. “That’s great…You ever had trouble sleeping before?”
“No.”
“When did all this start?”
He scratched at his ‘fro where it met the scruff of his neck. “Just a few days ago.”
“Is that a rash?”
A rash would have been a blessing. This was an itch that felt like ants crawling across his skin wearing cleats. “No, ma’am. Went to the barbershop the other day. Some of the hairs got caught up in my jacket.”
She pulled a pen out of her pocket and scribbled something on his chart.
“So…whatcha think?” he asked.
“I see a lot of this during flu season,” she said.
“I got the flu?”
“Flu-like symptoms,” she said.
He smiled, knowing her generic diagnosis meant she didn’t know what was wrong with him.
She took out her prescription pad, filling the empty spaces with her illegible scrawl. “You just need to rest.”
His eyebrows met at the bridge of his nose, black swatches framing the shrinking black pupils dangling beneath them. “What’s that?”
She held the gleaming hypodermic needle next to her ear like a javelin. “Something to help you get to sleep.”
He pulled back.
“Don’t’ tell me a big boy like you is afraid of needles,” she said.
“No,” he said.
“Then what?”
“Afraid the shot might work,” he mumbled.
***
Moving from eighth grade to ninth grade meant changing habits. There were little things Drew had to get used to all over again, like where to sit during lunch. At Brice, he sat at the same table everyday. But Brice was one of three middle schools feeding students to Madison Central. Now he was an underclassman. Now he sat at any table that was open.
“What up,” he said, and put his tray down.
Newton didn’t bother to look up, mumbling something that passed for ‘hello’ beneath his breath.
The transition to ninth grade was tough for them all, but toughest for Newton. Big, thick glasses and ironic t-shirts weren’t cool at Brice, and were even less so at Central.
Not that Drew had it much easier. He was quick on his feet and willing to trade insults with anybody. This earned him his rep at Brice, but made him a pest at Central. Upperclassmen ignored him. Mostly.
Drew took the bun off his burger a
nd piled a handful of fries on top of the patty before mashing it all together. He glanced over at Newton’s untouched tray. “Yo, what’s wrong?”
“This place is weird,” Newton lisped.
“What do ya mean?” Drew asked between bites. “Ya just now figuring that out?”
Central wasn’t weird, it was different. But he knew that wasn’t what Newton meant. They were weird. They were at Bixby Elementary when something happened. Either they’d broken into the school…or they’d blown up the water tower…or they’d killed a kid. Nobody was sure, but that didn’t stop the other kids from whispering.
“Getting any sleep?”
“Naw, not yet,” Drew said. He told Newton about the insomnia but kept the part about the dream to himself. No reason to be the weird kid amongst the rest of the weird kids.
He checked to make sure no one was looking before showing him the pills Doctor Jagger prescribed. “Supposed to take one of these but I ain’t supposed to work no heavy machinery after.”
His line got a laugh out of Newton, which wasn’t as easy as it used to be. He’d grown his hair out over the summer, but it curled at right angles, leaving him with something like a blonde poodle pelt draped across his skull. This bothered him more than it should have, but everything bothered him more than it should have.
Drew took a drink of milk to slide the oblong capsule down his throat. “Any luck with the chocolate?”
Newton strummed his fingers across the remaining bars. How he’d come to loathe their generic white wrappers. “These are the last of ‘em.”
That meant he’d sold his quota, and he’d be going to D.C. for the class trip with the rest of them.
“Who cares?” Newton said. “High school is like the least important time we’ll ever spend.”
Spider plopped down next to Newton. He’d grown during the summer and switched from his older brother’s hand-me-downs to his oldest brother’s hand-me-downs. Seeing him in button-down shirts and khaki pants was something they still weren’t used to.
“Divorce?” Drew said.
Spider ran his fingers through his close-cropped black hair, brown eyes squinting in confusion. “Huh?”
“From the tarantula that fell in love with your head,” Newton said.
“…and stayed for the honeymoon,” Drew added.
“Yeah, yeah,” Spider said. “Haircut.”
Grady clanged his tray down harder than he intended, probably because he couldn’t see.
“New shades?” Spider said.
“Gotta protect my baby-blues,” Grady said. He pulled up his baggy pants and slumped into his chair.