The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus Page B

shouting. A series of single word cries, projected through his hands, as if he were launching ammunition from his face.
    But this was no abstract show of force, this was an attack on someone who hadn’t found cover in time.
    Sprawled on the street beneath the boy was someone who wasn’t moving, and the boy made sure of that with repeated volleys launched right over the body, a relentless flow as the body twitched on the asphalt each time the kid spoke, as if a cattle prod shot electricity from his mouth.
    Then the body stopped twitching and the boy relented.
    When the boy stood up we saw his face in the streetlight, so long and solemn and awful to behold.
    Except the kid wasn’t a boy. It was my Esther. Her hair was wild and she wore an outfit I didn’t recognize, some long coat that was too big on her.
    From our hiding place in the grass we watched her.
    “Be careful of that one,” whispered Murphy into my neck.
    I tightened at the warning.
That one
. That one was my one and only.
    Esther looked down at the person at her feet, seemed to whisper something. Then she ran to catch up with her friends, dwarfed by her coat. On the street that body still didn’t move.
    Murphy climbed off me, sat back in the grass.
    “That one is trouble,” Murphy said. “I’d like to see a sample of
her
blood, wouldn’t you?”
    In my mouth I felt that I had eaten a piece of terrible meat.
    “What did you give me?” I asked.
    “A gift.” Murphy handed me a tissue.
    I didn’t thank him. I wanted to be sick.
    Murphy crawled up to me, held my face tight.
    I felt that I should go after Esther, if slowly, carefully, but I was afraid to move.
    “Now say thank you,” Murphy said. “Or have you forgotten your manners?”
    His hand gripped my face so hard, I could barely form the words, but I did it, I thanked him, and he released me.
    Murphy relaxed, sat back.
    “Well, you’re welcome,” he said. “It was really my pleasure. But now I’m curious about something.”
    The man on the street groaned, rolled over. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to disappoint Murphy that the man was not dead.
    “I’m curious,” he said. “I’ve done something for you. Now how do you propose paying me back?”

12
    The next day I struck out for the hut alone, Claire too ill to join me. I offered to drive right up to the trailhead for her, perhaps all the way down past Boltwood, if we could get the gate open and sneak our car through. For Claire I would even drive down to the northern foot of the stream where it ponds and there’s a small turnout. From there I could strap her to a sled and drag her up the embankment. It’d be bumpy but we could line the sled with pillows. She would hardly have to walk. I’d carry her that last leg, if she wanted. We could bring extra blankets, a thermos of soup. It would be good to go to the hut today. Good for us. It might help.
    I wasn’t sure I believed this, but I needed to sound hopeful for Claire.
    It didn’t matter, because she declined the invitation. She didn’t even decline, just failed to answer, staring with dread focus at her own little finger, as if she could will me from the room by exercising that top knuckle back and forth, back and forth.
    Without Claire I took the cautious route, down Sedgling to 38 for one exit’s worth of highway, only to return to town from the north, dropping into the valley from the old Balden Road, which is so steep that no matter how slow you take it, riding your brake the whole way, you fairly skid along the sand to the bottom, where the Montrier electrical tower sits planted inside a guarded park.
    Even here I doubled back along the dark wall of the Monastery, in case I was being followed, because Murphy seemed too easily to find me. Even though I’d driven this time, driven not just the long way but the entirely incorrect way, a route that made no navigational sense, I could not risk running into him today. I would follow Thompson’s rules to the