He had at least one advantage though, that being the powerful flashlight he’d brought. Even better he was still able to hold it in his right hand, despite the loss of dexterity in the paw that now lived on top of it. Flashlight in right and knife in left, he used his old stealth to silently move down the stairs. Silent not because he had any illusions of surprise at this point, but so that he could hear anything else moving.
What he saw in the basement couldn’t have been more horrific if it had been designed that way. Dirty meat hooks hanging from the ceiling. Saws along the walls with bits of dried blood and hair on them. Dirt floors and wooden tables with nicks taken out of them from ax blades and machetes. A thick smell of sweat and mold and coppery blood. He’d hoped to never see anything like this, and yet had always suspected he would end up somewhere exactly like this. It was terrible to look at, and he wanted to leave right away.
Except it wasn’t nearly as frightening as it should have been. He’d expected he’d be shaking with fear, yet the beam from his flashlight held steady. He breath came not in rasps of terror but steady, alert yet controlled. He wondered at himself, was he so jaded?
Am I incapable of being afraid now? Of being horrified, he wondered. Except that I was damn near shaking in my boots when Mr. Buttons walked out of that wardrobe just an hour ago…
No, it wasn’t him. It was the place. When you really looked at it, there was an unkempt feeling to it. Trash in the corners, dirty clothes lying about. Not an evil mastermind at work here, just a dirty room. Not a place of terror, but a place of shame.
It was the opposite of the laboratory that haunted his dreams. All the pain and suffering was over by the time the children got here. The things that were done in this basement only hurt the one doing them.
Still, there was the body on the table. A baby black girl no older than four. It was easy enough to sling her naked and mangled corpse over his shoulder and head back the way he had come, closing the doors behind him to hide Nanny’s secret from the light of day. Involuntarily his mouth watered at the smell of the corpse, reminding him of many other meals he’d had in the woods.
God help me, he thought.
Spencer left the body at the edge of the bone pile as the last rays of the sun faded to black and the giant moon began to glow in place, knowing they watched hungrily from the woods. He walked back around the giant hedge and stood just on the other side, waiting for the sound of them.
He didn’t have to wait long. If you didn’t know already what Rejected Things sounded like as they moved, you’d never be able to guess what it was just by listening. Slithering and hopping and crawling and dragging all mixed together into one mass, the very antithesis of music. He steeled his nerves and his stomach and turned the corner, walking towards the mass in a way he hoped looked not threatening but definitely not afraid. Weakness was death with them, a lesson Spencer had learned well at this exact spot long ago.
It was an unprecedented event to the whole of them, a form coming back from the house while they were feeding. A few fled, a few became hostile. Most milled somewhere in-between, afraid to lose their food and not knowing how to react. Spencer was sickened by the look of them, these sad monsters and freaks and remnants of children. Ruined beyond all redemption. What had become numb in him while living amongst them was once again raw to the sight of their freakish forms.
He carried the flashlight in his right hand, currently turned off. The knife in a sheath on his left, un-drawn. If one of them charged he planned to blind then stab it. Bloodshed wasn’t what he wanted here, but the loss of a few wouldn’t matter. And more meat would only ensure a more captive audience. He stopped before them and held up his left hand in a gesture he’d always made in his mind when he thought about this moment.
“Listen to me,” he said. Surprised to the point of shock at the sound of his own voice. A voice which he hadn’t heard in over a year. One which wavered with unsteadiness from disuse and didn’t sound like he remembered it.
“Listen to me,” he said again. “Remember me. The boy who lived amongst you. The one who fought and fed with you. I was one of you, one of The Rejected. I am one of you…”
The admission caught him by surprise. He’d hadn’t meant to say it. Hadn’t even thought it consciously before. But he couldn’t deny it. He realized now the truth of it, of what he had become. What they were on the outside, he was on the inside. He paused for a moment, shook to the core by the truth of it. Here, before them, he finally felt at home.
“You thought they killed me,” he continued in a stronger voice now. “But I escaped. You thought I was dead by the hand of Smiling Jack or Mr. Buttons. But Mr. Buttons is dead by MY hand. And I wear his claws!”
With this he passed the flashlight into his left hand and held the paw above him, shining the light upon it. A shuddering gasp rose up from the mob, rising even to a wail from some.
He lowered his hand after a few seconds and brought the light up under his face, as if to tell a ghost story.
“I earned my freedom with the kind of courage that comes from knowing you’ve got nothing left to lose. Tonight when you see a light in the sky it will be your only chance to take the town. Fight as one and there will be nothing left that can beat you. Hide now and you’ll cower in the dirt forever.”
With that he turned off the light and backed away, not willing to turn his back on them until he got past the tall hedge and began to make his way south east. He thought of a night a long time ago when he had tried to warn another group of children then ended up walking away alone. There was every possibility that these ones also would not listen to him, and instead would believe whatever was easiest. But it didn’t matter, they would make a good distraction rampaging around the town, but not a vital one. The real showstopper was sloshing around in the plastic gas can strapped to his backpack.
Tonight, he thought. Spencer Williams is coming home to Nowhere Blvd. And I’m bringing all hell with me.
Spencer’s emotions while he cut across the town were complex. A smoldering rage burned inside him, one that had been there a long time without his being fully aware of it. Walking away from his speech he felt like he could tear the whole place apart with his bare hands. He had to remind himself that getting caught by the Hollow Men out here would still probably mean death. He had to force himself to be afraid, to remember to listen for them.
In a larger way though he was already afraid, not for himself but for Suzie. Even though he was taking the risk of cutting through the town instead of taking the safer path through the forest, he was wasting precious time. Time that could cost her a terrible death.
Apart from both these feelings was a nostalgia so powerful it almost hurt. Walking through the same streets he had spent so many nights wandering and scavenging alone. As he walked by the bungalows of the Perfects he wondered if Jack had made a new Perfect Girl Julie yet. He thought that it would be very easy for him to sneak in, to look at her while she slept. Just to see what she looked like…
He walked on by, shaking with the thought of it. He hadn’t felt things this directly in a long time. He felt human for a change, not despite of but because of his spoken confession to The Rejected Things. Here in the dark of night he was finally awake to what he was, and it made him aware in a new way to all the world around him.
Just in time, he thought as he beheld the towers of the amusement park. To destroy it.