Free Prodigal Blues by Gary A. Braunbeck

computer through a USB port was a smaller device that I at first thought was a cell phone because of its extended (though short) antenna, except that it had an LCD screen bigger than any I'd ever seen on a cell; this screen also displayed a white dot which blinked in perfect synchronization with the one on the grid.   It took me a moment to figure out what this device was—until now I'd only heard about universal locators, or read about them in tech-geek magazines left lying around the common areas I cleaned in the Science building.   I wondered where they'd gotten all this equipment.   I wondered how they'd learned to use it.   I wondered what it was they were tracking with the locator.
    The boy in the wheelchair coughed, made a hawking noise, then swallowed loudly and resumed his song, this time singing it in a whisper.
    "The crooner in the corner," said False-Face, "is Thomas.   Until Denise, he was the youngest of us."
    Denise.  
    Jesus.  
    This was the first time since the restaurant I'd really thought about her and not myself.   I turned back toward False-Face.   "In the restaurant, Denise said that she wasn't traveling with the man who took her."
    "That is true."
    "Who took her?   Do you know?"
    "Yes."
    "Where is he?"
    His eyes narrowed, then he gave his head a quick shake.   "It does not matter anymore."
    "Has Denise… had she been with the four of you since she disappeared?"
    He sighed.   "What do you think?"
    "She didn't"—False-Face winced again—"talk like the rest of you."
    "Of course she did not."
    "She used contractions when she spoke."
    I'm real sorry, mister.
    I now understood why she'd said that:   she knew False-Face and the others had targeted me for… whatever it was they had in mind.   God, she must've felt terrible about it.   I wished I could see her to tell her that it was okay, that she didn't have to feel bad—poor little thing had more than enough to deal with without feeling guilty over me.
    "She used contractions," said False-Face, "because Grendel did not have her long enough to… teach her otherwise."
    "Grendel?"
    "Our master," said Rebecca.
    "Our watcher," said Arnold.
    "Our keeper," said Thomas from under Elmer Fudd's face, then went back to humming.
    "Our Eternal Lord of life, of death, of reward, of punishment," said False-Face.
    "Grendel," said Rebecca.   Or it might have been Arnold.   Even Thomas.   For the next few minutes, as they spoke rapidly in turn, their tones and inflections became so similar in my ears they might as well have been one voice; I suppose, in a way, they were.
    "…'So the company of men led a careless life…"
    "…all was well with them…"
    "…until One began to encompass evil, an enemy from Hell…"
    "…Grendel they called this cruel spirit…"
    "…the fell and fen his fastness was…"
    "…the march his haunt…"
    "…this unhappy being had long lived in the land of monsters…"
    "…since the Creator cast them out as kindred of Cain…"
    "…for that killing of Abel the eternal Lord took vengeance.   There was no joy of that feud…"
    "…far from mankind God drove him out for his deed of shame…"
    "…from Cain came down all kinds misbegotten—ogres and elves and evil shades—as also the Giants…"
    "… who joined in long wars with God…"
    "…He gave them their reward…"
    "…and so with the coming of night came Grendel, also…'"
    I couldn't even begin to grasp—let alone understand—this:   how in the hell would a bunch of children know Beowulf well enough to recite it from memory?
    Then False-Face said:   "Our Eternal Lord Grendel did not allow the abbreviation of speech…"
    And the litany started again, spoken by them in the rapid, well-practiced cadence of children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or the alphabet or basic multiplication tables:
    "…contractions are for the lazy…"
    "…the simple-minded…"
    "…the disrespectful…"
    "…and the ignorant…"
    "…and there is no place in the House of Heorot for