The Night Guard
A man and his fellow neighbors defend their home
Every night the windows in my neighborhood light up, and six of them will open, mine included. Our ritual will begin when all the familiar costumes pop into view. I’m usually the earliest, followed by Deathray and his night-vision goggles. He’s always strapped with a laser gun and a yellow sweater barely concealing his bulletproof vest. I’ve never seen a different sweater on him.
A few minutes after, out comes Night Hawk, looking silvery. She often wears a nightgown cloaking several knife holsters on her legs. Her nails are long and sharp and she likes to tease the salient beak of her mask while we talk. She would do a little dance when her window opens, and Deathray would greet her heavily by grunting, “Deathray!” and then motion shooting his gun twice.
Destroyer and Toxic show up at nearly the same time. They both live on my side of the street and next to each other. Destroyer is a tremendous woman, standing over six feet tall, most of it muscle. Her favorite ensemble comprises a thick fur coat, two cooking pans bent by hands to encase her breasts, and a pair of camouflage jeans. She is fast for her weight, a storm on legs, that one, turning battle tides all on her own. The evil Stickmen we fought often trembled at the sight of her lurching mass. She would poke her head out the window and wave at us before yelling for Toxic to open his. “Toxic, come out!” is how she goes.
You can smell it when Toxic is around. He didn’t get that name for no reason. His breath could deter even the bravest enemies. People say his saliva could melt skin, though no one has ever come close enough to demystify that rumor. The last wave of Stickmen had worn gas masks just to take him on. Still, they went down the same when Destroyer ripped the masks off their faces.
Tonight is a bit different from most nights. The word is another wave of Stickmen has begun their march towards our neighborhood. But they are stronger this time. More armed, more determined, and more in numbers. I can still feel their black iron sticks on my ribs; the pain was cold and tenacious — the kind that latches on to your memory. It was pure agony at first, but after a while, I started to like it. Started front-lining battles just to taste more. We have won many encounters, but I took joy in even some of our worst defeats. The Night Guard thinks I’m as devoted a warrior as the rest, and I accept that sentiment.
The news doesn’t seem to faze any of us. On the contrary, I feel everyone is excited about what’s to come. Night Hawk fans her dress and twirls while humming a gleeful tune.
“Looks like we’re going dancing tonight, boys.” She stops and bows. Deathray cheers, stabbing the air with his gun. He does that quite a lot, sometimes to the things only he can hear, so I can never be sure what exactly he’s cheering for.
I crane my neck further out the window, twiddling my metal fingers. “I hear they bring the big guns. From upstate. Some Marine type shit man. Like a hundred of them.”
Toxic turns to me. His eyes start to twitch. That’s when you know he’s about to speak. His brows go up and down whenever he talks, so he seems perpetually surprised by every goddamn thing he says.
“A hundred, you say? Well, I can spit a hundred times, maybe more, or pant at them. They don’t like that at all.” With that, he laughs, breath spewing greenly in the cold air.
“Can you really kill people with that?”
“Or I can just crush their heads like I did last time. You remember that, Cyborg?” The voice belongs to Destroyer. She’s banging on her door now. A few neighbors poke their heads out to investigate the ruckus, but quickly pull back.
“Yeah, I remember. You did great, Dee.”
Destroyer giggles with pride and picks at her thumbs. She’s about to say something else when a window opens. Between Night Hawk and Deathray lives Nightmare, our general and visionary. He’s risen late today as the nurses gave him extra rest aids. He takes them on the regular to help with the shadowy things he sees. Only the Night Guard knows that those things speak to him. They were behind the master plans for many of our victories.
The old man acknowledges us by spreading his arms with his eyes closed, head slightly bowed. His long white hair flows freely down his back like a horse’s mane. Fresh stitches crawl on his face and neck like wet centipedes. His eyes are foggy and indifferent, gray like the color of his jumpsuit.
“Cyborg is right. Stronger are the enemies we face, and they plan to wrest us from our home. This fight may be our last.”
Silence sits heavily in the narrow concrete. I’m tracing the metal grooves of my left arm while Night Hawk plays her invisible violin and Deathray aims his gun at unseen enemies. The others contemplate with their heads down. The last time Nightmare was so grim we had to deal with a legion half the size of what’s coming. They seem more bent on taking us out now. The problem is I love this neighborhood and so does the Night Guard. We have spent years defending our posts, so it was always bound to a complicated end.
The ground quivers to a familiar tremble of boots on cement. A loud buzz releases the metal locks on our doors and we swing them open. Their flashlights pierce the dark of our street, and bright red dots riddle our bodies, daring us to march.
“Hands up. On your knees and prepare for transfer!” One of them yells. I assume that’s their leader. He is standing in front of a sea of black suits and metal shields. New soldiers, same old tricks. I’ve seen this formation plenty of times, I can predict what they will do next. I scan the crowd for the iron sticks and am pleased to see them each holding one. Soon, when we merge, they will batter me with rage and I shall absorb every painful fiber of it. My skin tingles and I start to shake. I give my left arm a twist and yank it off my shoulder. Come to think of it, I never really had any other weapon.
In a flash, something cuts through the piercing lights and lands in the throat of the man who just spoke. When I turn to Night Hawk, she’s already thrown two more knives. As if that’s not enough, she screams and charges at the still surprised troops who are down three. She manages to leap on top of one and buries another knife in his neck before a handful starts beating her down with their sticks. They bludgeon her head and cleave her ribs and limbs with the butts of their shields until she’s given her last twitch and blood gushes out seemingly from her every pore.
Destroyer roars, beating the cooking pans on her chests, charging at them. Toxic follows, but halts at the snapping sound of silencers. Pop! pop! That hasn’t stopped her. She careens through another wave of bullets and lands a single punch before toppling to the ground.
The rest is a blur. Flurries of gunshots found their way to my comrades. Deathray manages to yell out his name one more time before his sweater is torn by lead and his face smashed in by shields. At that moment I realize his bulletproof vest doesn’t actually work.
I look at the pile of bloody corpses who used to be my friends and shake my head. My left arm seems to tremble by itself. The only strategy I have now is to get close enough for them to use the sticks instead of guns. I charge, arm swinging the other, and manage to break it in half against an enemy’s face. The iron sticks fall down on me. Hot and cold. Bitter. Possessive. The pain sends me into a sweet craze like a constant overdose. They batter my face, my ribs, my legs. Their anger tastes like dessert. This is God’s work.
All I can see in my mind is the next battle. They’ll move me to another neighborhood, but not before stitching me up, first. I’ll join another Night Guard, or something of sort. Change my name, my story. Something that fits. I never liked “Cyborg,” anyway.
