Nocturnal by Scott Sigler

The boy stopped, looked through the gate’s bars into Meacham Place’s still shadows. Bryan knew what the boy would see. On the right, scraggly, ten-foot-tall trees growing up out of the narrow sidewalk, trunks only a foot from a brick wall, their leaves casting down lightless pools of deep black. On the left, the laundromat’s crumbling masonry, broken windows and layers of grafitti. And in the middle, lying on the cracked pavement, a bearded man in a white tank top.
    Bryan waited. There were enough cars passing by that if the boy ran, Bryan would have to let him go. If the boy went into the alley, Bryan and the others would move.
    Take the bait
.
    The boy looked down and to his left, again examining Bryan’s blind, again deciding the unmoving, blanket-covered homeless person wasn’t worth worrying about.
    The man in the alley called out a second time, so softly that no one but the boy would hear. “Help me … please. I’m hurt.”
    Take the bait
 …
    The boy gripped the gate’s black bars. He quietly climbed over, careful to avoid the pointy spear-tops, and dropped down on the other side.
    Bryan moved without a sound, turning his head slightly to look down Post Street — empty enough to act. He quietly stood, but remained hunched over. Bryan was careful to keep the big blanket looped around his face, like a hood, so that no one could see what was underneath. The rancid fabric cut off his peripheral vision, but that didn’t matter: it was almost over.
    A crawl of fear washed over him. The monster was always out there, somewhere. Bryan looked up, scanned the buildings above, looking for movement, for an outline.
    Nothing.
    He had to draw the symbol, and soon, or the monster would come for him.
    “Mister,” he heard the boy say. “You okay?”
    Was the boy going to try and help? Or was he just looking for an easy victim?
    It didn’t matter.
    Bryan bent slightly, then jumped. He sailed over the gate and came down silently on the other side.
    One womb. One family
.
    The man in the white tank top lay on the ground, his beer-gut spilling out from under the shirt and over his dirty jeans. He wore a green John Deere ball cap. He reached up a chubby hand toward the boy who stood a few feet away.
    “Help … me.
Please
.” Marco was a good actor. Really good.
    The boy moved closer. “You got any money, asshole?”
    The heat of the hunt bubbled Bryan’s soul. He took a step toward the prey. When he did, his foot ground a small rock against the asphalt, making a slight
skritt
sound that caused the curly-haired boy to turn.
    Bryan smelled fear. The boy realized he’d made a mistake — he was cut off, trapped between two men. His hands clenched into fists, his eyes narrowed and his head dipped down a little, as if he might lash out at any second. Like most trapped animals, the boy growled a warning.
    “Fuck off,” he said to Bryan. “Don’t fuck with me, you piece-of-shit bum.”
    Behind the boy, Marco silently rose to his feet.
    Bryan finally stood tall and let the filthy blankets drop to the ground.
    The boy’s face changed. The haughty look slowly slipped away, his angry, icy stare melting into puzzlement.
    He took a step back, right into Marco’s belly.
    The boy turned, found himself face-to-face with Marco. It was hard to see anything under that beard, but Bryan knew Marco was smiling.
    Marco reached behind his back. When his hand came out again, it held a rust-spotted hatchet. The alley’s feeble light flickered off the sharpened edge.
    “Don’t,” the boy said. He didn’t sound that tough anymore.
    Bryan heard the flap of fabric, of things falling from above. The others landed on either side of the boy. One remained tucked under a dark blanket, his face hidden save for the glint of a yellow eye.
    The other let the blanket slide free.
    Bryan saw a nightmare. A man with purple skin, with big black eyes. It stared at the boy for a moment, then smiled wide a mouth full of big, white, triangular