Tennyo shrugged, “We’ll find out soon enough, I guess. Come
on, I need to get back to sleep.”
Chapter 1: Death and Rebirth.
Sunday 17, September.
‘…Bill felt the splinters dig into his fleshy palm as the
gargantuan tentacle crushed it against the ancient plank. A glance up into the thing’s
cyclopean eye foretold the immanence of his untimely demise…’
Michael read and re-read the paragraph over and over, each
time his splitting headache forced him to look away from the final sentence.
Sighing, he pushed himself up from his desk and dragged himself into the
kitchen. It was late, very late. The streetlights outside provided the only
illumination for the suburban wasteland, cast Sydney’s sprawling new western estates
in a sickly yellow tone. A quick check of the clock confirmed his suspicions: 03:42.
His hands shook slightly as he made another cup of coffee. Headaches
be damned, he told himself, this story has to be told. “Before it
literally burns a hole in my skull.” He added under his breath. Looking around
his home, one could be forgiven for assuming that the man who owned it was a
penniless slob. Paint chipped and flaked away in places, clothes strewn about,
dirty dishes piled in the sink, grungy old mats covering the worn floorboards
of the aging home which had once belonged to his mother, and his grandparents
before them. Built in the days before the suburbs, like a living carpet of
cultural desolation, had taken over the farms and fields and given way for city
life to take over.
Michael sipped his black coffee and tried to take his mind
back to the story. The pain in his head flared up once more, confounding his
efforts. It was as if his mind itself were rebelling against the topic, the
very point he was trying to make. Inevitability. Bill’s defeat was inevitable.
To a mind great enough, say some unfathomable being from the netherworlds such
as the Thing of his story, every man and woman’s destiny was clear. Their
choices were set in stone, destiny would steer them on the proper course, the
only course their lives could take. The Thing knew what Bill was going to do
before he did it, therefore Bill’s death was inevitable.
“But why on earth can’t I WRITE IT!” Michael shouted,
flinging his coffee mug into a nearby unoffending wall. The noise caused the
neighbor’s dog to start barking again. His vision blurred for a moment and
Michael suddenly found himself kneeling on the grimy linoleum. A startled
cockroach scuttled back to the safety of a crack in the wall. He breathed
deeply, massaging his temples to try to fight back the ache in his head.
Looking down at himself, he wondered at the red spatters
that slowly ran down his grey shirt. Immediately, his hands clasped the bridge
of his nose, meeting a warm, wet, sensation that he was all too familiar with.
Racing to the bathroom, the world seemed to blur and whirl about him, forcing
him to take slow, gingerly, steps. He looked at his face in the mirror. About
five-eleven, pale skinned as only a man who spends all his time indoors can be,
unshaven (it had been a day or two since his last shower) with unkempt dark
brown hair he kept fairly short to avoid maintenance. Dark circles encompassed
his bloodshot eyes from surviving the last three days without sleep.
He leant over the sink to allow the blood to pour freely
from his nose while pinching the bridge to cut off the blood flow (as his
doctor had told him to do many times). After a minute, the dribble stopped and
Michael felt it would be alright to stand straight again. Muttering to himself,
he pulled his shirt over his head… and froze. His ribs stood out from his
skinny body in stark relief. His collar bone was plainly visible, as well as
the outline of his abdomen. Two small spokes of skin testified to the presence
of his hips.
Quickly, he stepped up onto his scales. “98 POUNDS!” He
exclaimed. He was missing almost eleven. Though always a lightweight, due to
his condition, Michael thought that he had managed to eat well and stay in
relatively good shape. His occasional binge writing (usually indulged near
deadlines) had never affected him like this before.
His shout sent him into a coughing fit for almost two
minutes. He bent back over the sink just in time to lose his dinner into it.
The faintly green mixture of stomach acids and vegetables was interlaced with
swirls of red.
It took Michael about fifteen minutes to clean himself up
enough to change clothes, grab his wallet and keys and make for his car. He
breathed deeply behind the wheel, but started the ignition immediately so that
he couldn’t convince himself not to drive to the hospital. Despite the pounding
headache, he managed to pull into the parking lot near the emergency room a
half-hour later. It took all the willpower he could muster to drag himself to
the front desk. The duty nurse grabbed him before he could fall.
“Sir? SIR? Can you hear me?”
She did sound a little distant, but Michael chalked that up
to the ringing in his ears. “Yes. I’m sorry. My name is Michael Waite,” he said
each sentence slowly so that he knew that he was saying it right, “I need a
doctor.”
At that point, he feinted.
#
Michael woke in a dark green room, draped across a couch.
The overhead florescent light seemed to burn his exposed face and hands. A tall
blonde-haired man in the ubiquitous doctor’s white lab coat scribbled some
notes on a yellow pad. “Ah! You’re awake. I’m sorry we couldn’t find you a bed,
Mr. Waite, but we have been rather busy tonight.”
“Do I know you?” Michael asked, shaking his head to clear
away the cobwebs.
The Doctor laughed, “No, I apologize, the nurse who brought
you in took your details from your wallet, though I would have recognized you
anywhere.”
Michael silently cursed himself and whatever vanity had
caused him to print a real picture on the inside fold of that damn book.
‘Incongruity’ had been the title and it had been hailed as one of the most
imaginative horror tales of the new millennium. It had also placed the name of
Michael Waite next to Stephen King as a household name, but if only he hadn’t
put in that photograph, then he’d never be placed in situations like this. All
of a sudden, he could sympathize with the Thing of his current work, he could
see with stark clarity the future actions of the man in front of him.
The Doctor coughed to cover his embarrassment (strike one,
Michael ticked off in his head), “I’m Doctor Abernathe, but please call me Phil.”
Phillip Abernathe? Michael chuckled ironically to
himself, If I named a character that, I’d be laughed out of my career.
“Pleased to meet you.” Michael said aloud, shaking Phil’s offered hand.
“Look, I don’t want to be a bother…”
“No.” Michael interrupted.
Phil blinked.
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t do autographs. Please, Doctor, I
need to be examined now. Lets get on with it.”
Phil looked slightly hurt, “I… well…”
Michael sighed, “I’ll tell you what. You examine me. Then
I’ll sign whatever you darn well want me to, OK?”
That seemed to perk him up a little, “Yes, it’s a deal.
Thank-you Mr. Waite, can I call you Michael?”
“No,” Michael answered, “as I said, to the business at hand,
Doctor. Recently, I have been plagued by splitting headaches which I thought
was due to my lack of sleep over the last few days. But tonight, I experienced
a nosebleed followed by a fit of vomiting which contained blood. At the same
time, I also noticed that I have lost a considerable amount of weight. I
brought myself straight to the hospital despite feeling groggy and disoriented.
As you know, I then fell unconscious… how long was I out for?”
It took a moment for Phil to catch up with Michael’s rapid
fire dialogue. “An hour, hour-and-a-half. Any other symptoms, like blood in
urine or stools, persistent dry cough, swelling, lumps?”
Michael did a bit of a double take. He knew enough medicine
to see where this was leading. “No, at least not that I’ve noticed. I have had
a dry cough over the last week, but I thought it was just spring. I have
allergies.”
“Yes, I noticed that in your file.” Phil tapped his computer
screen, obscured from Michael’s vantage point on the sofa, “You also suffer
from Porphyria, correct?”
Michael nodded, “A genetic disorder, I inherited it from my
mother. Among other things.” He felt his lips tighten instinctively.
Phil tried to smile reassuringly, but his face looked
strained, “Well, I can suggest a few tests, and then we’ll know for sure what’s
wrong with you. But, I’m afraid my initial diagnosis is a bit grim.”
“Cancer.” Michael nodded. It was inevitable, he told
himself, they always told me how my mother went…
“I am sorry. I can’t be 100% sure until we do some tests,
but considering the description of your symptoms and your medical history… how
long has it been since you’ve seen the sun?”
“Four months,” Michael mumbled, “When can we get started on
these tests?”
“Right away.” Phil stood, absently picking a thick volume
out of his bookshelf. “But before that… could you please sign my copy of
Incongruity?”
#
Phil absently rubbed the blue dot on his forehead while
Michael’s X-rays cycled across the light board. “You didn’t have to stab me,
you know, it was just a joke.”
Michael could smell the lie like a steaming cow-pat right under
his nose, “I signed it didn’t I? Just tell me what the fuck I’m looking at.”
His patience was wearing thin. Four hours, one nosebleed and two more vomiting
fits later, Phil had assured him that he was on the fast track. Treatment of
cancer was a race against time.
Phil circled several white blotches among the X-rays. “Here,
here, here, here and here. Five tumors, no mistaking it. Definitely malignant.
The one causing the bleeding into your lungs and stomach is the size of your
fist. No hope of stopping it, I’m afraid, but chemotherapy may slow it down for
another month. Without it…” Phil shrugged.
“No.” Michael shook his head. “Chemo didn’t help my mother.
It won’t help me.”
“I’m sorry, Michael.” Phil shook his head.
“Look on the bright side, Phil,” Michael managed to
put all the malice he felt into the one word, “your book just got a lot more
valuable.”
The young Doctor’s jaw worked up and down a moment before he
took the hint and backed out the door, slamming it shut behind him. An offended
silence hung in the air. Michael breathed it in and let it escape. It was
petty, but so was Phil. He massaged his chest around the left breast where the
tumor was supposed to be gnawing at his core. Absently, he noted that the flesh
was slightly puffy and sore.
‘Malignant cancers,” Phil had said in his office more than
an hour ago, “are cells that have gone out of control. Benign tumors are little
more than nature’s mistakes, they have a membrane that separates them from the
other organs, the only danger they present is by squeezing the organs nearby
and taking up room. Malignant tumors grow and infect the cells around them,
destroy tissue and can spread to unrelated places in the body. The ultimate
disease, it just keeps eating until a vital organ fails, then you die.”
He rubbed his sore chest more vigorously. A slight pain
rocketed down his left arm. The pang of guilt over Michael’s insult evaporated,
remembering Phil’s child-like glee as he glorified the disease and almost
gloated over the condemned. Maybe if he hadn’t stabbed him with the pen…
Something clutched Michael’s heart in a vise and began to
crush it. Blood pounded through his ears. A blink, momentary darkness, then he
was staring at the ceiling. Glaring white fluorescence stung his eyes. Agony
exploded down his nerves, fire wiped his mind clean of rational thought. Later,
he was never able to remember if he had screamed.
#
Michael woke to suffocating darkness. Cold burned his back,
his right toe was numb, but the rest of his body was encompassed by… something.
If he didn’t know better, Michael would have said it was a sheet of plastic. At
least it felt like plastic.
His bones creaked in protest as he tried to sit up, but
every movement seemed to be constrained by the plastic sheet. Cold metal stung
his nose. He reached up to his face and pushed the covering away, digging his
nails into the fabric. It split immediately, cold light gushed through the
crack, blinding him.
Michael groaned, the light was unbearably bright. The glare
permeated the space outside, appearing as an endless void of white to his eyes.
Slowly, shapes came into focus. Black blurs became bags. Bags lying on steel
tables, neatly aligned in straight rows. White tiled walls were lit by halogen
lamps on a pure white ceiling. Spotless, powder green, linoleum covered the
floor.
“T-the morgue.” Michael stuttered. He had written this
place, oh how many times? He had never visited one. Now he was a guest of
honor.
“They think I’m dead.” He observed, still in shock. He
pulled his aching legs out of the bag and looked down at himself. The only item
of clothing he had left was the toe tag that cut into the flesh of his right
foot. His nails, both toe and finger, had darkened to a purple-black and
seemed… longer, sharper than they were before. His skin, never graced with the
healthiest of tans, was now china white and appeared totally devoid of life,
though that might have been the glare of the lamps. His muscles felt wrong. Like
liquid. The sensation was shared by his gut.
A lump rose in his throat a moment before he vomited once
more, except more than bile and blood poured fourth. Dark, shriveled, chunks of
flesh bounced across the tiles. His stomached contracted and heaved, losing
girth with each convulsion as what was left of his innards were expelled from
his mouth. Another great heave literally sucked his genitals into the void in
his abdomen, bones and muscles popped and cracked as his hips split in half
momentarily before reforming into a slightly wider configuration.
When the convulsions stopped, Michael’s knees collapsed,
sending him sprawling into the dark purple mess on the floor, gasping for
breath. Against all reason, he reached out and pulled himself across the cold
floor into a corner, curling into a whimpering ball.
Some time passed before he regained his senses. Small things
came into perspective first, like his legs. They were quite a bit longer than
they had been, making them easy to tuck under his chin. His chest itched. His
skin felt soft and smooth. His hair was plastered to the back of his neck, much
longer than he’d ever worn it in his entire life. His stomach still churned and
bubbled, but the need to retch was greatly diminished. Slowly, he decided to
open his eyes.
The sight that greeted him was disgusting to say the least.
Unfolding from his fetal position, Michael felt the stickiness of the
congealing purple blood that covered his front. In the darkened corner, he
noted that his first observation had been correct, he really was completely
hairless below the neck and white as fine bone china. His stubble had vanished.
Even the gaping hole in his crotch was entirely devoid of hair.
As he took all this in, something in the back of his mind
clicked and all the tension washed out of his limbs. A comforting lightness
washed over his body as an ache developed in his stomach. He felt a grin
stretch across his face as he hopped lightly to his feet, much easier than he
had ever done in his life. The constant pains of his old body were washed away,
all those small imperfections that had nagged him every day of his life melted
into nothingness.
Michael tip-toed through the mess on the floor towards a
small mirror hanging on the opposite wall. His face had changed as well. Thinner,
his cheekbones slightly more prominent, his chin came to an elegant point. His
eyes were sharp and penetrating, set into the dark circles that surrounded
them. His iris glowed a malevolent blood red while his pupils were slit like a
cats. His lips pouted slightly, enough to be called cute if they hadn’t taken
on a deep black coloration of their own, matching her new velvety hair.
“Great, I’m a Goth.” Michael said to his reflection,
watching the strange creature’s lips move at his command. He held a hand up in
front of his face, noticing how thin and delicate it seemed, the long claw-like
black nails adding a dangerous element as he waved to himself. He looked down,
“Herself. That’s definitely a girl down there.” He didn’t have breasts yet, but
the absence between his legs put paid to any arguments to the contrary.
He looked back up at the face in the mirror, and took a deep
breath, “That is me. That is what I look like now. I am a girl. This is not a
dream, it is happening to me now, so what do I do next?”
The mantra seemed to help him… her (she corrected herself)
cope a bit better. Aside from the blood crusting down her front, the hunger
building in her stomach and the trauma of barfing up her own lungs (literally),
she felt good. She marveled at how light she was on her feet, how free from
constraint.
A burble in her abdomen urged her to seek out food quickly.
After a quick rinse in a nearby sink, she spotted a light cotton sheet draped
over one of the other bodies. “Sorry, pal, but I’m sure you won’t be needing
this.” A quick flick of the wrist liberated the sheet and it was wrapped around
her new assets (undeveloped though they were) a few moments later.
The hallway outside the morgue was surprisingly dark. A
cursory glance out of a small, high, window told her it was nighttime once
more. How long have I been out? Michael wondered, A day? Two at the
most. Absently, Michael realized that she didn’t exactly know what happened
to dead people if there were no next of kin to collect them. “There might be a
book in that.” She whispered to herself.
The end of the hallway opened into a small waiting area,
with a few chairs, a coffee table and… “Jackpot!” She grinned. Two vending
machines dominated the west wall, one contained chips and candy bars, the other
soda pop. Her elation lasted a moment before she realized that she didn’t have
any money, let alone change. She scowled as another, more insistent, growl
issued from her stomach. “Wait one second, will you?” She admonished it,
looking around for something she could use.
The hunger grew. She didn’t want to make too much noise, so
she tried scratching the perspex window. Aside from a few small furrows, no
luck. She rocked the machine slightly, hoping that some loose item would fall.
She felt ravenous. She could smell the chocolate on the other side of the
window, wafting through the dispenser tray. Frustrated, she punched the
plastic.
The window shattered. Clear plastic scattered across the
floor, the machine rocked backward on its feet before settling back with a
jolt. Michael blinked. “I didn’t punch it that hard.”
“FREEZE! Don’t move!”
The voice was panicked, fearful. It was a man’s voice,
though unused to issuing commands, it wavered. Michael slowly turned to find a
trembling Uni boy wearing a security guard’s uniform. He pointed a revolver straight
at Michael’s heart. “I’ll use this! Don’t make me…”
She raised her hands slowly, “I’ve already died once today.
Don’t…”
The gun went off. Time seemed to slow for Michael, not just
figuratively, but actually. The bullet rocketed from the barrel and whizzed
past her head, slamming through the metal plated side of the other vending
machine. Soda pop gushed from the wound. The second, third and fourth bullets burst
through Michael’s right hip, abdomen and shoulder, tearing out great chunks of
flesh and bone. She fell back, but caught the side of the vending machine
before toppling to the floor. The fifth and sixth shots flew wild, shattering a
window further down the hallway.
Michael looked up. Black blood poured from her wounds,
staining the sheet, but she was still standing. She saw red, a growl escaped
from the back of her throat. The kid was still panicking, plucking the shells
from his revolver one by one rather than emptying it all at once onto the
floor. Michael could smell his blood, hear it pumping through his heart at a
hundred miles an hour. Several colors fought in his aura for dominance, hot red
fear winning out over cool blue, alongside veins of purple running throughout.
Michael felt his body move by itself. In a blink, the gun
was battered out of the guard’s hand, spent cartridges scattered across the
floor. His scream for help was cut off as Michael’s teeth lengthened into fangs
and sank deeply into the guard’s throat. Sweet blood pumped down her throat as she
sucked on the wound, plunging her tongue deep into the guard’s chest cavity to
ravage the blood rich organs within.
She watched his aura flow from his body and into hers along
with his blood. The taste of him, his blood, his hormones: testosterone,
adrenaline; sent a thrill through her body. She felt hot and flushed. Something
screamed at her from the back of her mind but her body wouldn’t stop until the
last drop left her victim. The guard simply crumpled into a pile of clothes and
blue-green dust when she let go.
When reality returned to Michael, she screamed. Blood flowed
from her eyes when she cried, rather than salty water. She ran howling from the
scene, unable to bare the sight of the damning pile of ash before her.
#
Dawn found Michael on the rooftop of an apartment building,
now completely naked. The sheet had fallen from her in an alleyway more than an
hour ago. Despite her horror, the telltale itch on her skin reminded her to
look for shade. The itch gave way to a burn as the sun rose above the horizon.
A sharp blow to the lock forced the door of the air
conditioning shed to give way, allowing Michael access to the shade inside. She
slammed the entranceway shut behind her and wedged it closed with a small table
before falling onto the floor in despair. The weeping started again. It was
hours later that it stopped.
The strange lightness and calm had given way to heat. She
could feel, and sometimes see, things shifting under her skin. Tendrils
squirmed just below the membrane; her nails grew, becoming more and more like
claws. Strangely, her teeth had regained their original length and shape, though
her incisors seemed to be slightly longer and sharper than they had been. Her
hair continued to grow, at times she could almost feel it. She also found that
she was shrinking, her bones cracked and re-formed every now and again,
particularly her spine. The heat spread out from her crotch, causing a tingle
of pleasure throughout her body, particularly in the chest area. Try as she
might, Michael couldn’t help groaning in ecstasy as her new body bloomed.
When it was over, pleasure gave way to rage. She looked down
at herself in disgust. All the marks of her fight… no, the slaughter of the
guard were gone without a trace. The bullet holes had simply closed themselves,
without even a single scar. Small, yet firm and shapely mounds graced her
chest, the thing between her legs still pulsed with disgusting waves of
pleasure, it seemed to Michael that it was smug, satisfied with its creation.
Wailing, Michael began to scratch and tear at her body, but
each new wound sealed as quickly as it was opened. There were slight twinges,
but nothing even close to the pain she felt she needed to wash the blood off
her hands. In desperation, she searched the tiny room, finding to her delight a
rusty old pocket knife. Clearing the workbench, she held her left hand flat on
the gritty wooden surface and lifted the blade over her head.
Her finger was severed at the knuckle. Rather than a burst
of blood and pain, there was a sting and a pop as the finger fell free. No
blood, no fuss. Michael gasped in shock as a forest of small black tendrils
erupted from the stump, tangling together, growing, merging and reforming into
a new, perfect, finger. The old finger simply disintegrated into black ash as a
fresh claw erupted from the tip of her new finger with obstinate finality.
Michael snorted to herself in disgust. “OK, I can take a
hint,” She said to the empty air, “what the fuck do you want from me? I never
wanted to kill anyone. I work hard, I pay taxes, I’ve done everything you’ve
ever asked me to do. So God, why the fuck did I have to be the one to have to
deal with this?”
#
Michael just curled up into a corner and tried to ‘sleep it
off’, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t even tired. Her sleeplessness led to
melancholy, brooding thoughts. She couldn’t punish herself enough for the death
of the guard. Besides, as soon as she was caught, the cops would take care of
that for her. All she had to do was wait. “I must have left a trail wide as an
elephant,” she reassured herself, “they’ll come and take me to jail, or kill
me. It’s what I deserve. They’ll find the sheet, that should lead them up
here.”
She looked at her hand, “Gunshots won’t work, knives won’t
work. Maybe fire. Or gas. Acid or something. There’s got to be a way, I’ve got
to end it before I kill someone again.”
She breathed deeply once, calming her nerves, trying to
think, “Hang on, I don’t want to die. If I did, I could just drag myself out
into the sunlight, maybe that’d do it. But I don’t want to die. I’ve been
holding on for too long, I promised her I wouldn’t. But I can’t kill again, I
don’t want to kill again. I’m so confused.”
Michael was crying again. “STOP IT!” She growled at herself,
“Crying never solved anything. You’re not going to die, by your own hand or
anyone else’s. It’s time to stop crying and start thinking. Right, you killed
the security guard, but he fired on you without provocation. Even if you did
look a bit scary, that’s no excuse. It’s unfortunate that he’s dead, but it was
self defense, maybe you can make it up somehow later. Right now, you’re naked,
have turned into a girl but gained vampiric mutant powers. No money, no
resources, no clothes and you’re covered in blood. Face it, you need help. But
who in their right mind will want to help you?”
She mulled that one over for a bit. “Nobody. I’ll have to
help myself. First I need clothes, then money. If I get hungry again, I’ll find
a stray cat or something. No human, never again. But all that can wait for the
sun to go down.”
Michael shook herself to sweep away the memories of the
security guard, and settled in to wait out the sun. No cops came. No
maintenance crew, no super heroes. Finally, the sun crept below the horizon and
Michael was able to leave the shelter. She moved quickly and quietly down the
fire escape. A light was on in the top story apartment, along with the stereo,
so she bypassed it to the next floor which seemed to be dark. She had to break
the window to unlatch the lock, and entered quickly before anyone would notice.
Though it was dark, Michael found she could see perfectly
well in the dim light, thanks to her new eyes, she guessed. She found herself
in the master bedroom, the sheets of the king-sized double bed stank of booze
and sweat. Clothes, male and female, were strewn about the room. Grinning
again, Michael opened the cupboard and rifled through the clean clothes,
searching for something he could wear. She discarded the bras, all were too
large for her anyway, but found a lacy pair of panties that were only one size
too big, and slipped those on. A set of Capri’s that were baggy and reached
down to mid calf covered most of her legs at least. A pink shirt that fit her
like a tent, one shoulder poking out of the neck, at least made her decent.
“Hello.”
Michael jumped. An eleven year old kid stood in the doorway.
His clothes, a dirty Power Rangers T-shirt with holes across the hemline and
ancient jeans without the knees, didn’t fit him well, the top of his undies
plainly visible where the pants sagged around his hips.
“Uh…” Michael grimaced. “How long have you been there, kid?”
“Don’t worry, miss, I didn’t look much.” He smiled.
Michael felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment. “Much?”
He continued before she could say anything else, “Are you a
Goth? That pink t-shirt doesn’t look that good on you.”
“Uh…” Was all Michael could manage.
“You could borrow a black shirt of mine. It might still be a
bit small, but you’re thin, so it should be alright.”
Michael blinked. “Uh, kid, you do know I’m robbing the
place.”
The kid scratched the back of his neck, “It’s no sweat, just
my foster parent’s stuff you’ve got there. I’ve run away a couple’ times
myself, so I know how it is. Who took your clothes? Oh, no, forget I asked, it
don’t matter. C’mon, their jewelry’s in the box under the bed, you can pawn
that to get you started. I’ll get that shirt, you can wait here.”
All Michael could do was stare at the empty space in the
doorway and blink after what was THE strangest conversation of her entire life.
A second later it occurred to Michael that the kid was probably phoning the
police, so she sprinted after him.
She found him in his room, searching through a pile of
‘clean’ clothing. “Here it is, try that on for size.” He threw the plain black
T-shirt to the girl and turned his back. Michael felt guilty, so she decided to
try it on. Surprisingly, it fit perfectly.
“Just how small am I?” Michael asked herself.
“Not too big, I’ll say. Bit on the scrawny side, but, hey,
my dad always told me to look out for girls. Oh, and I think I have a message
for you.”
Michael blinked again as the kid rummaged through his
backpack on the floor, pulling out a black and white business card. The logo on
the top left spelt ARC, underneath it read Arkham Research Consortium. The card
belonged to Dr. Donna Bell, senior case worker, and listed two phone numbers
and an e-mail address. Both numbers included area codes for the United States. On
the back was scrawled in hasty handwriting: There’s no shame in calling for
help. Nothing that has happened was accidental. Be careful, Mrs. P.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Gary.”
“Who gave you this, Gary?”
Gary scratched the back of his head again, “It was a bit
weird. This old-ish woman in a floral print dress came up to me in the park
about three or four days ago. She gave me fifty bucks and told me that I’d meet
a good looking Goth chick in a few days, or somthin’ like that. Made me promise
to give you that. Never gave me her name, but I thought what the heck, it was a
free fifty. Then there you are in Bob and Sally’s room, clear as day. You
really freaked me out, you know.”
“I freaked you out?”
Just then, we both jumped as the front door burst open. “HEY
GARY, you worthless piece of crap, didn’t I tell you to take the garbage out
today?”
“Shit,” Gary whispered before raising his voice, “I’ll get
right to it Dad.”
Gary turned back to me, dropping into a whisper again, “Back
from the pub early. Whatever happens, stay here. Alright? I’ll be fine.”
Gary closed the door behind him. A moment later, the
stepfather’s voice rang out again, “Where the fuck were you?”
“I just got back. I haven’t had time to do it yet…”
“Don’t you lie to me you little bastard.”
The meaty sound of flesh striking flesh set her blood racing
again. She fought the red haze that was slowly trying to cloud her vision. The
second grunt of pain caused something inside Michael to snap.
Calmly, Michael stepped out into the corridor. Bob stood
over Gary’s crumpled body, giving the lump another swift kick, receiving a
screech of pain in response.
“Let that be a lesion to yer.” Bob slurred, taking a sip from
the bottle of Foster’s Red in his left hand. He looked up at Michael drunkenly.
His aura was a sickly green clashed with angry red. Michael felt the hair on
the back of her neck rise in anger and hatred. She took a single step towards
the giant of a man.
“Who the fuck are you? One of Sally’s friends? Get back
onter the street with yer, this shithead’s too young.” The bastard chuckled at
his ‘joke’.
Michael smiled, “I’m not here for him…”
She hoped that she was managing to sway her slender hips
seductively as she sashayed over to the reeking drunkard. Slowly she ran a hand
down his chest, toward his crotch, pressing her body against his. His breath
stank, but he was breathing heavier. Purple lust overcame his aura, he reached
for her…
And screamed falsetto as Michael sunk his claws deeply into
Bob’s crotch.
Bob went wild, slapping her face. Red welts swelled across
her cheek and faded almost immediately, not even managing to wipe the toothy
grin off her face. Finally letting go of Bob’s manhood, Michael switched
targets, choking off his air supply by grasping his throat, forcing the big man
to his knees, bringing the two eye to eye.
“That was three shots on a helpless little kid, you fucking
coward.” Michael growled. She felt the hunger well up from her stomach, tiny
tendrils wormed their way out of her skin to lap up the blood that dribbled
from under the tips of her claws. She couldn’t resist, she bent forward and
kissed him full on the lips, her tongue snaked down his throat. Tentacles
sprouted from her arms, back and chest, penetrating the bastard’s skin with the
fanged maws at their tips, burrowing deeper.
As the last of Bob’s aura faded, he too fell to dust.
Michael spat on the remains as her tentacles retracted. Gary wheezed on the
floor, trying to laugh, “Take that, bitch.”
#
“We need to get you to a hospital.” Michael whispered
urgently as she tried to prop up her companion. Gary was looking the worse for
wear, with a black eye and two great bruises across his stomach. They sat in a
back alley far away from Gary’s old apartment, the green of Hyde park visible
far down the road. Banners lined the long, deserted, thoroughfare, depicting a
strange stone idol as the centerpiece of the museum’s latest exhibition of
indigenous art.
Gary pressed an ice compact to the fresh bruises (bought
from a petrol station with his step parent’s newly pawned jewelry), “Nah, I’ve
taken a lot worse from Bob over the last year. Never would take me to the
hospital, even for the cuts on my back.”
Curious, Michael lifted the back of his shirt. The young
boy’s back was a criss-cross of white scar tissue. “I wish I had your powers
though. Does it hurt when someone hits you?”
Michael shook his head, “Not any more, not really. I cut my
finger off this morning and all I felt was a twinge.”
“SHIT! Which finger?”
Michael showed him.
“Wicked.”
“Hey, do you watch the news?” Michael asked.
“Nah, I don’t got no time for that stuff. School, y’know.
Why?”
Michael sighed, “Something happened at the hospital today. I
was involved, I was just wondering if you’d heard anything.”
“Nah, just that Michael Waite had a heart attack yesterday.
Big blow to the writing community and all that. Hey what’s your name?”
“M-,” Michael stopped for a second before changing his mind,
“Sara.”
“Sara? That’s a little strange isn’t it?” Gary looked
puzzled.
Sara shrugged, “It was my mother’s name. Our family comes
from the States.”
“Where’s your mom, then?”
“Dead. Cancer.” Sara said simply. She’d gotten over it a
long time ago.
Gary nodded, “My parents were mutants. They got into the
whole hero gig, like the Grey Wizard and the Outback Avenger. Then they crossed
Deathlist over in Germany.”
Sara winced. Deathlist was known as one of the most deadly
super villains of the age, his world record body count of heroes in his path
remained unmatched, but had forced him to lie low for several years. He was now
one of the most wanted villains in the world, with a bounty of no less than two
billion dollars on his head, dead or alive.
“They didn’t come home, neither did their team. The
government put me up for adoption, and I’ve been bouncing from home to home
ever since.”
“What were their codenames?”
“Ergo and Magna. Dad could skip through time for a limited
duration, sorta like a warper. Villains couldn’t pin him down and several of
him could punch a guy out at once. Mom could manipulate the earth’s magnetic
field and electricity. Fry computers, levitate metal objects, that sort of
thing. There wasn’t enough left of them to bring home, so they set up a little marker
on the War Memorial in Canberra, next to the grave of the unknown soldier. The
bank foreclosed on our house and sold all of our belongings, the rest was put
into a trust account I can’t access until I’m 18. Blah, blah, blah, well that’s
my sob story.” He shrugged, an almost wistful expression crossed his face, “But
the laugh’s on them, Sara. Both my parents were mutants, and so was my grandpa.
That means, if being a mutant is genetic like most people think, I’ve got about
an 80% chance of being a mutant too. Then I’ll be able to do something real,
I’ll save the Earth, I’ll track down Deathlist once and for all. They’ll all
regret forgetting about me then, won’t they?”
Sara just sat there, too stunned to answer.
“I wish I was like you, Sara.” Gary sighed. “You’ve got the
power, you have the strength to do something with it. Bob must have beat me up
every second day for the last year. I swore that I’d stand up to him every
single day. But he was just too strong. He was like Deathlist, only smaller. Someone,
anyone, needs to do something about those sorts of people everywhere. Someone
has to sort them out. The cops won’t do it, the social workers are a joke.
Super heroes are too busy with the big fish to worry about people like Bob. I
wanted to kill Bob in his sleep a thousand times, but I could never do it. I’m
too weak.”
Sara sighed. “Maybe I’m the one that’s weak.”
Gary looked up at her with a weary, disbelieving stare.
“My real name is Michael Waite. Yesterday I had a heart
attack and died.”
#
“No shit?” Gary whispered hoarsely.
Sara shook her head. They were walking again, toward a
chemist. Gary really needed some disinfectant for his bruises, one of them had
ruptured.
“Look, if half of what you’ve just told me is true, then
you’re going through some pretty fucked up shit right now. But look, keep your
head. Bob was an asshole with a capital ‘A’. His wife? Sally? She’s out tonight
turning tricks for him. If she doesn’t, he’d beat the snot out of her like he
did to me. Straight up, the world won’t miss him.” Gary paused. “As for the
guard, he shot you first. I don’t know about you, but if it’s a choice between
me or my friends and the other guy, it’s the other guy plain and simple. Cop or
not, that’s the way of the world.”
Sara let that one go. It was a child’s view of the world,
too neat and too simple. There was some merit in what he said, but there were
higher sets of laws to follow. Laws not written on paper.
The door beeped as they made their way through. Sara grabbed
a small bottle of disinfectant and a bottle of water from the fridge while Gary
went and sat down again on one of the waiting chairs. The only other customer
was a tall guy in a brown leather bomber jacket and jeans, who seemed engrossed
in what type of condoms he should buy. A thirty-something man in a lab coat
manned the counter and seemed engrossed in something on Sara’s shirt. His
orange aura was encompassed by purple, which strengthened as she walked
forward. His gaze dropped as she approached, apparently he had a hard time
looking at her face.
Sara dropped the two items on the counter as hard as she
could. The noise startled him out of his reverie. “OH! I-I’m sorry, miss, Um…”
“Just those two things thanks.” She cut him off reaching
into her pockets. Out of the corner of her eye, Sara caught a glimpse of a girl
peeking over the barricade that separated the prescription drugs from the rest
of the store. Her aura was bright purple as well.
“Uh… that’ll be eight forty-five, miss.” The counter clerk
interrupted.
“We’ll grab two packets of these as well.” Two packets of
Titan ribbed condoms bounced off the bottle of disinfectant. I looked up as a
muscled arm encased in brown leather closed over my shoulder. The guy was
unshaven yet handsome in a GQ kind of way. His boyish grin widened as he let
his jacket fall open revealing a gold detective’s shield hanging out of the
pocket. Sara noticed that he too had a purple tinge over a blue and green aura.
“I’ve missed you all day, Waite.”
Sara decided to play along, snuggling into his side, “I’ve
missed you too, big boy.”
The clerk’s face dropped. Sara broke out into a grin, she
had an idea, “Oh, don’t be so gloomy, boy.” She reached out across the counter
and pulled his chin close, “Hmmm, I’ve been dying for some two on one action.
How about we sneak into the back room for a minute or two and you give us this
stuff free of charge? Whata ya say?”
The lick Sara gave him with the tip of her tongue in the
hollow underneath his bottom lip sealed the deal. It also caused the girl
behind the barricade to fall over with a muffled squeak. A moment later, Sara
was dragging the bewildered detective into the back room while the clerk led
the way, carrying the bottle of water in her other hand. She absently noticed
that Gary slipped into the room behind them before the door closed.
She whipped the bottle up across the back of the clerk’s
head before he could turn around, sending him sprawling unconscious to the
floor.
“Freeze, dickhead.”
Sara turned slowly around to see Gary pressing his index
finger into the small of the detective’s back. The detective was frozen halfway
between drawing his gun.
“You know the drill. Two fingers, slowly draw the weapon and
drop it to the floor.” Gary sounded as if he’d done this all before.
The detective complied. Chrouching slowly, Gary picked up
the automatic cannon and worked his way around beside Sara. “Thanks for the
gun, dude.”
The detective snarled at the kid. Sara interrupted the
impending tirade, “OK, who are you, what do you want and why on earth would I
ever consider having sex with you?” She tried to put as much disgust as she
could into the words, but her heart wasn’t really in it. As much as she tried
to deny her feelings, he was cute.
“I’m here to bring you in.”
Gary snorted, “Fat chance.”
“Look, I’m Detective Nathan Coleman, Homicide. There are
elements in both the government and private interests that are sparing no
expense to track you down and eliminate you at this very moment. Those
classified as dangerous mutants are to be confined or exterminated if the
danger they represent manifests as an inherent part of their powers.”
“What?” Gary’s eyebrow twitched.
“He’s saying that the government wants me dead because I’ve
eaten people.” Sara translated from bureaucratic to English.
“Oh.”
Nathan nodded, “I’m here to make sure they don’t get you.
Look, I know I’m probably the last person you should trust but... oh, hell, I
don’t think you’re dangerous, Mr. Waite.”
“Call me Sara. Mister doesn’t really fit with this body.”
The purple aura brightened as a grin split Nathan’s face, “I
noticed.”
Sara sighed, “Why is this happening to me? OK, give me a
reason to trust you.”
“I was one of the investigating officers on the morgue.
Black blood, the dust on the floor, we knew this was either a mutant attack or
a hoax. The security cameras in the morgue and along the hallway were off
during the hour of your escape, which we found kind of strange. At first,
Forensics thought your blood was motor oil, like robot’s servos or something,
until closer examination revealed that it was mostly like blood, except it
didn’t contain iron and didn’t have a known blood type. Immediately, the mutant
alarms went off. We tried to track you down, but only got as far as a sheet
covered in blood down a back alley, the dogs couldn’t pick up your trail.”
Sara nodded, “I think I went up. I was a bit distraught.”
Nathan grimaced, “We’d lost you, anyway. We found the mess
you made in the morgue and your toe-tag in the hallway, so we knew that,
against all odds, Michael Waite had risen from the dead. The strangest thing
was the gun we found on the floor, no-one in the building at that time was
licensed to carry a firearm. Additionally, a second man had entered the
building approximately an hour beforehand. We caught him entering the parking
lot on the secret surveillance camera across the road. It was a rented car, so
we tracked it back to its hire company. Guess what? The clerk at the desk that
morning could remember every detail about renting the car, except exactly who
rented it. The paperwork wasn’t signed, but he swore blind that they both sat
there that morning and did it. A trip to a specialist later and we were
convinced that a second mutant, probably a super villain, had altered the minds
of the employees of the rental agency and Mr. Mullins, the security guard at
the morgue, causing him to empty the revolver at you and provoke a reaction. We
guessed that the revolver had been brought along by this villain. You did
react, but whatever you did caused the asshole to leave the area in a big
hurry, we’ve got that on tape as well.”
Nathan paused, waiting for an explanation. Sara didn’t know
what to say, so she shrugged, “What I did scared the shit out of me. If it did
the same to someone else, it’s no surprise.”
“What did you do? The eggheads think you used a
disintegration ray of some sort, all that they found was constituent salts
throughout his uniform.”
“I suck the life out of people. It’s not pretty.” Sara
grimaced. Gary kept his eyes square on Nathan, holding the gun steady, “So,
what brought you here? We didn’t know we were coming here until five minutes
ago. And how’d you know that she was Michael Waite? You said yourself that you
didn’t have a picture.”
Nathan scratched his head, slowly, “Well, that’s where this
story gets weird. A few hours ago, my partner and I were stumped. We had no
leads, no idea where you were, so we hauled ass back to base to report to the
captain. And low and behold, we find the MCO all over our desks.”
“MCO?”
“Mutant Commission Office.” Nathan supplied, “An international
agency funded by America, seconded to the CIA, ASIO, MI6 and others rather than
the state police forces or interpol, but in reality is an autonomous agency.
They handle various mutant education and relocation programs, but they’re the
ones who the government holds in reserve in case the mutants decide to take
over the world, or some nonsense. In the meantime, they sharpen their skills by
hunting down dangerous new mutants like yourself. Most are norms with a chip on
their shoulder, others are mutants who hate their own kind for one reason or
another, or just like killing things.”
“So,” Nathan continued, “the case is out of our hands. Deputy
Director Loman, the MCO hardman, says the word and we’re off. Raised voices are
exchanged and then raised fists. I broke his nose. So, I’m suspended for four
months, while my partner gets a desk job. He’s got a wife and kids, so I tell
him to leave it to me. Despite that, I found myself in the Krispy Kreme in
Bondi Junction sipping coffee, trying to figure out where the hell you could be
when, lo and behold, this old lady sits opposite me. She says hi like we’ve
known each other for years. Then she spills the beans, she says ‘Michael Waite
will be visiting this chemist at exactly 1:16 with an eleven year old boy
called Gary. He’ll look a bit different, but don’t worry, it’ll be him. Then
she left a business card on the desk, got up and said, ‘Tell her that her
choices do matter’. So, I came and I was waiting and there you were right on
time. Was that message for you?”
“I think so,” Sara nodded, “put the gun down, we can trust
him, Gary. Who’d believe a crazy story like that except us?”
“What was it about?” Nathan pressed.
“My last story. I was writing it, day before last.” Was
it really that short a time ago? She asked herself. “It was about the
future, destiny and helplessness. If a being can tell the future perfectly,
then it is undefeatable because it knows all moves in advance. Thus, destiny
exists because there are no other choices, and all mortals cling to an illusion
of choice simply to perpetuate their existence. Therefore, what we do doesn’t
matter, because it will happen anyway if we like it or not. But now…” Sara
trailed off.
“I don’t believe it. This Ms. P seems to be a friendly mutant
trying to help me. Either way, she can tell the future, and can change it.
That’s obvious because she gave both of you notes letting you know what to do
in order to help me. That means she has a choice, she could help me, or she
could leave me. Therefore, she’s telling me that we do have free will and I
don’t have to be a killer.”
Nathan and Gary stared at her, speechless. Then, they looked
at each other and shrugged.
“If you say so…” They both said in unison.
#
Nathan’s car was a beat up old Ford Falcon, from before the
turn of the millennium. He’d parked it straight across the road from the
chemist. Sara filled Nathan in on the events of the afternoon while she
disinfected Gary’s wounds.
“Bob? Bob and Sally Thomas? I know those names.” Nathan snarled.
“Bob’s… er, was a small time pusher. Sold dope outside the local high school.
Too small to fry, but god knows vice won’t miss him. How the fuck did he get
custody of a kid?”
Sara glanced out the back window.
“No prior convictions.” Gary winced.
“Shit.” Nathan summed it up.
Sara took another glance out the back window. “Nathan? You
see the car, black sedan, tinted windows, Canberra plates in the left hand
lane, 20 feet back?”
Nathan adjusted the rear vision mirror, “Yeah.”
“That car was parked six cars behind yours at the chemist’s.
It’s been following us for the last fifteen minutes.”
Nathan glanced at the mirror again, “You sure?”
Sara nodded, “There’s a white scratch on the right hand side
near the rear wheel.”
“Now that’s a catch.” Nathan whistled. “You both got your
seatbelts on?”
Gary nodded, “Yeah, why?”
In answer, Nathan planted his foot down and twisted the
wheel, rocketing over the meridian, tires screeching, into the oncoming
traffic. Sara and Gary screamed as the car left the road, leaping into mid air
over the off ramp into the city. As the car straightened out, Sara whipped her
head around in time for the sedan to copy their maneuver. “They’re right behind
us, Nathan.”
Nathan weaved through the traffic, “How the fuck did he
know? How could he have known?”
“You’re bugged,” Sara surmised, “It’s the only possible
explaination.”
The back window shattered, a millisecond later the sound of
gunfire echoed down the freeway. “Who the fuck are these guys? There’s civies
all over the place!” Nathan yelled.
“We’ve got to lose these creeps,” Sara answered as the tire
on the car next to theirs exploded, sending it spinning out of control, “get to
a less populated area.”
“Easier said than done, got any bright ideas?”
Two more bullets pinged off the trunk.
“The Harbour, up ahead,” Sara suggested, “ditch the car, we
can swim for it. If any of us are bugged, the water will take care of it.”
“That’s crazy.” Nathan answered.
“You got a better idea?”
THUNK!
Sara blinked.
Blood spattered her skin. But it wasn’t her own dark ichor.
It was red. Gary stared at his chest in shock, a small hole was torn through
his chest just beneath the collar bone. A second hole punched through the front
window, sending a cobweb of cracks throughout the pane.
“GARY! NO!” Sara screeched, pressing her hands firmly over
the bullet hole to staunch the blood flow. Gary’s eyes rolled up into the back
of his head.
“HOLD ON!” Nathan yelled. Sara looked up in time to see the
hood crash over the side of a bridge and dark blue water rush up to meet them.
The impact and water pressure simply ripped the weakened
front windshield apart, sending small shards of glass through the cabin. Water
filled the space in moments. Sara hardly noticed the impact, but Nathan seemed
to be dazed. Taking the initiative, she used her claws to shred their seatbelts
apart, freeing the captives. With Nathan firmly in one hand, and Gary’s limp
form in the other, she kicked out the back window towards the light of the city,
the current whipped them away.
By the time the group surfaced, the bridge was nowhere to be
seen. Nathan spluttered as the cold air hit his face. “Did it work?”
Sara was too busy dragging Gary to shore to bother looking,
more worried about sharks than gunshots with Gary’s blood in the water. A
second later, Nathan was helping her, “What the hell happened to him?”
“He got shot right before we took a dive. They got him.”