Free Deviant by Adrian McKinty Page B

fine.”
    â€œWhere are you, exactly? Your dad and I will pick you up.”
    â€œNo, don’t do that.”
    â€œIt’s snowing. How will you even skate in the snow?”
    â€œDon’t fuss. I’ll be fine.”
    â€œWhere are you? Tell me exactly where you are.”
    Danny sighed. It actually would be cool if his mother came for him. He was already freezing and it was uphill the whole way back.
    The Greyhound bus pulled out, growling like a wounded dinosaur.
    â€œI’m close to the bus station,” Danny said. “The Greyhound bus station. If you take Colorado Avenue all the way in, I’ll see you.”
    â€œWe’ll look it up on Google Maps. Wait for us.”
    He hung up and waited. Between the snow clouds, stars hung low in the pollution-free Colorado sky except in that patch of night occupied by the void of Pikes Peak.
    It was quiet. The streets were empty. The stores were all closed. He felt lonely. He hadn’t seen Jeffrey all day. Wasn’t seeing anyone, ‘cept for a random kid on a bike.
    He picked up his board and hugged it.
    The board was his transport but also his shield.
    â€œSunflower,” he said to himself.
    He shivered.
    â€œThe shorts were probably a mistake,” he muttered to the streetlamps and the crescent moon.
    He yawned.
    The boy watching him yawned too.
    It had been hard trailing Danny all the way from Cobalt and halfway around the Springs. Boring, too. Just for aminute there he’d thought that Danny was going to jump on the Greyhound and take it wherever it was going. (Wouldn’t be the first kid who attempted to run away from home after freshman day at CJHCS.) But he hadn’t. He just called someone on his phone instead.
    The boy leaned against the alley wall and rubbed his mittens and stamped his feet until an SUV pulled up and Danny got inside.
    â€œThat’s that, then,” the boy said, and got out his own mobile phone. He speed-dialed a number. “I can’t follow him anymore,” the boy said. “He’s in a car. Going back to Cobalt, I suppose. But I wouldn’t worry about him. He doesn’t seem that interesting.”
    He hung up the phone, tightened the scarf about his neck, turned on his bike lights, and began the long ride home.

Are they real? Sometimes he thinks they’re not, that he made them up to serve his ends; other times he talks to them.
    Like now.
    â€œOut here, in the woods, I can feel you.”
    â€œWe can feel you, too.”
    â€œWhere are you from?”
    â€œWe’re old.”
    â€œHow old?”
    â€œWe’ve been here forever. We watched the human race grow up. We walk with you. We’re behind you, in your shadow, at your back where the sun is sprawled with the red gore of the horizon.”
    â€œIt’s late. Let me do this quickly. I have to be getting back.”
    â€œNo, tarry awhile; watch with us. Look west. Watch as the sun drowns in the penumbra of the earth’s curve … There. Do you hear the quiet? It’s nearly our time. It’s nearly our time and the creatures know and they are sure afraid.”
    He trembles and turns on his flashlight.
    The hikers are gone. The hunters are gone. The rangers are gone. Just a pair of flashlight beams and a scared reflection in the ice.
    His hands are shaking. On his sleeve there’s dried white spit.
    â€œGet on with it,” the Master says.
    A deep breath and then he’s squeezing and the cat is clawing, hissing, drowning in the air.
    The cat’s eyes becoming his eyes.
    And in a minute it’s finished. He starts to tremble all over. “And this is still only the beginning,” he hears himself say.

Wind in the canyons. Wind in the sierra. Vultures rising on the thermals. Danny knew it was a dream. He’d had it before. The air was dry and carried a hint of salt. He wanted to wake up. But he couldn’t. The sky was incandescent blue.
    He was tired.