DISCLAIMER: See Previous Entries
(Pre-Note: It was a long week, but don't worry, I still have all my extremities. I won't bore/mortify you all with my daily troubles, but I'm proud to say I retired from light-heavyweight kickboxing with a knockout. As in the other guy. I'm serious. Well, now that that's all done with I can focus back on my other combat sports and the amazing woman I limp home to after every match. Well, realistically she comes home from work to find her apartment clean and me passed out over my keyboard, but you get the point. This is why my female characters don't wear aprons and housedresses.I've also been busying myself with trying to salvage the old chapters, both grammar wise and possibly some re-writes regarding simple description and writing style. Don't worry, I'm not going to add new characters to the past events or change any plot points, the most that will change is the series of events in and flavor of the first chapter. The older chapters will somewhat match the new ones. Some mild language and mentions of old family problems, but nothing major this chapter..)
"Duck!"
She weaved. Weaved right past a high jab and threaded an uppercut right under it. There was a clatter of synthetic leather tearing into the real deal, followed by a scratchy thud as the jabber hit the canvas. I vaulted right over the ropes I'd been leaning against and landed a few feet from the casualty. I quickly pulled the raw-hide headgear off the gangly welterweight and clicked two fingers in front of each eye as he just grunted at the sprinkler heads hanging over the sparring ring. An extremely thick, Jersey groan.
"…wha' waz it?"
Checking his vitals before propping his tank-topped ribcage against his sunburned knees, I half-heartedly asked what he meant as I went over the usual knockout routine.
"…what wuz' it? A school bus or a Greyhound?"
I sighed through the side of my mouth, resting my hands on my knees as I knelt next to him and slowly looked over where he lay to his other side.
"…I told you to duck…"
Crouched down on the other side of the second string welterweight, was the part-time newcomer who'd just knocked him out. Sporting two lime green sparring gloves crossed over her racer-top and a blue-leather framed face. Glazed over with fresh sweat and possible tears streaking down to her lips as she tried to bite them in half, Kirby looked down at the sprawled Bostonian with true if not overacted worry. Her volunteer opponent shook himself off and assured her.
"S'alright, Dawlin'. Helluva' cut there!"
I was quickly shoved back from the downed fighter as Kirby just plain out pounced him with a hug that would have been painful if she hadn't been wearing those huge sparring gloves. By the time she finished apologizing and stopped blocking his airways like a Cubana anaconda, I was impatiently waiting for her on the bench between the locker rooms. As some one tried to play a college fight song on that rusty speed bag in the nearest corner, I just rubbed my eyes while the gym just kept on banging and moving around me like I was an island in a white water river.
I watched the fledgling knockout artist look to her side and see that I was gone. As she flicked her ponytail like a braided whip looking around for me, a hoarse voice coughed next to me.
"You tell her to duck. She knocks him out."
I glanced over to see that sun-wrinkled and chocolate skinned old trainer that had been getting in his share of commentary since first Kirby danced in here and asked him if I he'd seen me around. Then when she started shadowing me and following a beginner's gym routine under my loose supervision, he stepped into a whole new puddle of material.
"Mitch. Don't even start."
He ignored me, scratching his salt-colored goatee and looking over at the sparring ring with feigned admiration. This guy should have been a philosopher with all the junk he pulls out every day. He wheezed, his voice sore from years of yelling and time keeping.
"…you tell her how to walk and talk, and now she's running and cursing left and right."
I let my outstretched thumb and forefinger cover my eyes as his routine caught steam. I let myself slump forward off the bench as he leaned back against the wall comfortably in an ancient warm-up suit bearing the logo the gym had back in the 20s.
"Why, that reminds me of way back when…"
I snapped with a tight jaw.
"Get lost, Old Man."
A neighing laugh, he slapped my shoulder in appreciation as he got up to look at the front desk. He finished.
"Whatever you say, Mr. Astaire."
As his slumped frame shuffled proudly to the front desk, I called after him with my narrowed eyes peeking out from behind the two fingertips.
"Go take your medication!"
He called back without turning, letting it echo off the line of heavy bags as he passed.
"Back 'atcha, Phantom."
I let my brow fall back into my palm as he happily greeted some newcomers carrying camera cases. I just sat there for a while, listening to the singing bags and the almost musical yells and grunts that had been the soundtrack of my days since I wandered in here. Soon enough some one plopped down next to me with a light thump and loudly spat out their mouthpiece.
"Blegh…this thing is starting to go bad or something."
I didn't look up. She leaned closer, resting the rounded profile of her headgear on my shoulder.
"Ya' know…if you could just get in the ring with me once a week…"
I flicked a bang away from my covered eyes.
"Maybe if you just did what I told you to, you wouldn't keep going through partners."
I leaned back and gave her a scanning glance. She was sitting cross-legged next to me with her gloves hanging around her neck and her wrapped hands on her knees. I just had on the short sleeved shirt I'd pulled on that morning and some ragged jeans. I work out at home nowadays, considering what I have to train for. Kirby's the one who's dying to come here all the time. I don't even hit the bags anymore. Every time I even wrap my hands a crowd forms. And of course everyone wants to see me get in the ring with this black-belt turned gymnast turned musician turned boxer. Notice I left out a few curse words. It's this new invention called 'self-control'.
All that talent wasted on a sidekick.
She pulled her gear off, revealing a black and orange bandana wrapped over her scalp with her ponytail slipping out the back like a tail. She watched my eyebrows jump and quickly made herself look like a starving kitten.
"C'mon…just a couple rounds!"
"No."
Sad-kitten eyes Mach 2.
"Please? Just one round, and I'll stop telling people your first name!"
I stood up, dusting some spilled talc off the shoulder of my shirt and turning toward the vending machine set into the wall next to the bench. Without a word, I squared into a loose stance and fired a quick jab into the plexi-mold front. A few seconds later a bottle of water dropped down into my waiting hand. As I cracked the cap with one hand and raised it to my mouth, I explained.
"How about two rounds, you stop throwing around that pizza boy story."
A questioning, but extremely guilty blink. I turned around to face the gym and all moving within it, yelling out without ceremony.
"YO! Anybody know who Mittens has for a biological grandfather?"
A guy and his girlfriend doing focus mitts yelled back from across the gym.
"Pizza guy!"
"Kept' the hat on!"
Two Hispanics dancing around in a ring stopped in mid-punch and yelled at the same time.
"And she blames the daughter because she's evil."
And finally, a trainer who was standing on his boy's back as he did push-ups.
"And her mom is psychic. And takes care of the old hag out of guilt. Did I tell you to stop, Pug?"
He stomped one foot down on the guy's back, squeezing out another repetition as I turned back to where Kirby sat frozen on the bench. I jerked a thumb out at the zoo exhibit of the American boxer.
"…you told that little tale to…well, it was in the newsletter last month."
She grinned nervously, showing her healthy gums in an attempt to distract everyone and run away.
"Uh…it's a…?"
An airborne towel suddenly floated down over her head, and the tattoo-covered guy who threw it commented as he walked into the lockers.
"No. Mitsy, it's just weird."
Pulling the cloth out of her eyes but keeping it draped over her head, she just looked around at the vast sweat-smelling chamber that hadn't really shifted gears since the conversation started. Finishing off the water bottle and sky-hooking it in the direction of the trash, I shrugged one shoulder. The other was still sore two days after that 'uneventful' rainy day.
"Consider this an intervention. We were gonna' jump out of your closet tonight with charts and an addiction counselor, but Sharky is having problems with closets and personal symbolism."
The guy who'd thrown the towel poked his grease-spiked head out of the locker and calmly stated.
"'Fent. That was just one time, and it started out as a frat prank."
I rolled my eyes and waved him off to go change his monthly pair of briefs as Kirby hopped to her feet, swinging her head so the towel floated back down on the bench. Without a word she trudged off into the women's locker hall, inciting a studio audience laugh track from three preteens loitering around the double-end bags. Each was struggling to bounce a ten pound medicine ball higher than the other two could. As one's hand slipped and he instantly clutched his foot in pre-pubescent agony, I threw the towel into a bin and paced toward the fire exit closest to the front street.
When a siren tore by outside and a few guys went to the window to see what was going on, I broke into a quick jog and swung the door open with my good shoulder before turning a corner into the alley and taking a shortcut behind an overturned dumpster. While I ran out from behind it, my suddenly unruly, rebellious hair finished bleaching itself silver. My bangs finished creeping down my forehead like white ivy before softly banging against my brow as I lunged off one foot and launched myself out of the sprint into the open sky over the alley and cutting the corner of the gym to catch up with the streamlined black and white tearing off down the avenue.
Already thinking of how to explain it to Kirby if I came back half-alive.
Twenty Three Minutes Later
Most cops hate one thing more than criminals. Hostages.
I'm not joking around here. One just gets a phone call and a couple meals before you ship them off into another division. The other, requires six full course meals, monitored but pre-paid phones slid through the mail slot, pillows and blankets, and if things really stretch out bathroom kits and newspapers to check their stocks.
And people wonder why the guy never gets the car and private plane out of the country. Odds are, the Feds can't afford the gas money after twelve hours of playing dinner host to a bank and loan full of very frustrated househusbands and gum-popping cashiers.
This particular bank and loan was serving fifteen adults when the guy opened the briefcase on a form counter and pulled out a completely chromed fire arm. Six hours later, the fifteen customers, ten staff members and the four teenagers who'd been loitering in the bathroom were dying of boredom. Took about an hour for it to sink in that the twitchy little criminal in the second hand suit could barely keep his hands from shaking. His first big heist, how cute.
The police perimeter had so much time to set up that the crowd was held back an entire block. And spread out around the marble store front, in layers of two, was the specialized tactical maneuvering unit, looking rather impressive in their body armor but probably sweating themselves to death. I tried a set on at my uncle's once. Every square inch of your body is protected by a molded layer of 'liquid vest' injected Verflex with shock-smothering and glare-absorbing black urethane shell.
…the end result, a Storm-Trooper shaming little number that made a stealth rifle look like a man-purse. And it's very, very itchy. None of the weaponry engineers can explain it. Every little speck of paint on these things are custom-mixed, and the face-shields are handmade by an obsessive compulsive Siamese guy in the back room, but those things make knitted wool feel like whatever pantyhose are made out of.
Not that I'd know how comfortable they are. Or that I don't have the thighs for them.
So, they got the Super-SWAT troopers playing circle games around the sidewalk, three sharpshooters on the rooftops, and the gunman is just sitting on a desk in plain view rocking back and forth while his captives hold a poker tournament with a deck some one found in a drawer. The second sniper, tucked behind a plaza roof-edge with his Giant Gulp sitting next to his radio, just commented that the guy with the hair-plugs has bluffed his way through three games. And he pulled a trey of spades out of his sleeve two hands ago.
And the guy orchestrating it all, or being force to at least, is trying not to yell a curse loud enough for the network microphones two blocks over to hear.
How do I know all this? Invisibility. Intangibility. Flight. Basic deductive skills. The fact these guys are so bored they're planning a bachelor party over the helmet-coms. It's like walking into a dead party, doesn't take long to get the story behind it.
The police chief was juggling all this from underneath a freshly dyed head of black hair that was starting to turn gray all over again from the heat and the stress. He'd made sure there were no cameras around before sitting down on the side-platform of the central deployment cruiser, rubbing his ankles idly. I was sitting cross-legged right next to him, resting my chin on one upheld fist as I kept my breathing limited to whenever the humid wind whistled by. Even if I hadn't been invisible, he probably would just grunt and keep rubbing his sock-lines.
My gaze slowly to the front of the bank. That little twitch was still just sitting there with his unusually shiny gun. Rocking. Back and forth. Back and forth…
If any of those snipers drink their Giant Gulps to fast and get a sugar-seizure, odds are that guy isn't walking out in one piece.
Eventually, I looked down at my transparent lap and concentrated on a particular mental image for a few minutes to combat the boredom. I'd been here since that cruiser carrying the pizza sped by the gym. Where I would have been more entertained arguing about Kirinia's genetic heritage and how she should keep it under her hair-sharpie around company.
Several minutes later, the commander and chief reached up to pat his rapidly fading hair color before turning to the side and raising a grey hedge of an eyebrow at what he saw.
What could easily be a specially-outfitted cop on a lunch break. Jet-black pants and shoes, rather formal jacket pulled over a plain grey shirt. A dark green baseball cap with 'SWAT' plastered on its mesh front with darker green letters and a bright green strip on the front of the jacket reading the dark green label 'LT. PHANTOON'. I slowly looked over, letting him see one eye from under the over-bent hat bill and slowly bobbing my head. He did the same, turning back to the bank front and continuing his ankle rubbing. He coughed, obviously sore from six hours of yelling.
"Who ya' with?"
I grunted back, my mouth still dry from ecto-forming the hat and name-tag.
"Downtown."
He bobbed his head again. I continued, clearing my throat forcefully.
"…heard this guy's packin'. What's with the finish on that thing?"
In cop-talk, this means 'Why is that thing all silver and shiny? Aren't most guns…uh…black and scary-looking?'. He pulled on his curled bangs, spitting out onto the pavement.
"That…is possibly an 'antique' particle stick."
He swiveled his thick neck to see me blankly staring over at him. He smiled, showing a gap between an incisor and his left front tooth.
"…Hehe…yeah, that's what all you kids do."
He let go of his ankle, switching legs as he explained.
"Back in the day, energy-based weapons were the big fad. Laser guns just kinda' went with those hover-cars back in the 20s. Cost-efficient. Futuristic. Shiny. Then every idiot who can afford one starts crashing through buildings and killing each other trying to do the 'Greedo Dodge'. Idiots"
…Han Solo moved his head a single freakin' inch to the left to dodge an energy slug…just so Lucas could be a good Buddhist. And then the teenage public had to go and copy it. Good thing society decided to bring back ground transportation. And not exactly as good a thing the crime community preferred bullets over less-than-lethal energy stuns.
And now Twitchy has an old ray-gun that probably isn't even charged all the way. I sighed, shaking my hat at the whole history of the world before stretching out my legs and hopping onto my feet stiffly. I clicked my tongue.
"Well, I'll tell you what. You try out a different stylist next dye job, and I end this here and now."
If this man hadn't spent six hours on and off his feet in the late-summer heat, with sore ankles, he probably would have cuffed me and slammed me into a back seat for saying something unusual.
Instead, he chuckled down at his aching ankles and nodded a few times. He wheezed.
"Sure, sure…all you downtown rookies all got capes and briefs on underneath the blues, with all your talk."
By the time he looked up to squint at me in the sun, I was gone. About fifty yards away, I steadied myself in the air a foot from the tiled ceiling right over the rocking, twitching bank robber as he practically caressed the 'old' weapon. From my invisible and physically nonexistent perch, I could hear the hostages arguing about Mr. Hair-Plugs getting all the good cards. I glanced out the glass front wall at the practically napping SWAT line-up, and the confused form of the chief stepping off the cruiser and looking around for that Downtown Kid.
I stared down at the rocking twitch for a few seconds before loudly whistling. He instantly jerked his sweat-dripping nose up at where I was hover, just in time to see me appear out of thin air and sent my shoe straight into his forehead.
A loud thud and the sound of a chair toppling, and the man had finally stopped twitching as he slumped over on the paperwork island as his gun clattered onto the floor and rolled a few feet toward the hostages' poker circle. I looked up from his obviously surprised form to see the previously statue-like troopers outside stomping full speed towards the single glass door. I snapped myself out of existence with two folded fingertips before swooping right over their heads through the front wall and making a low dive over to the now abandoned deployment-tank where the chief was now standing motionlessly with his eyes on the line of armored backs and one ankle still in his left hand.
He just stood there like that for a short while. Not sure whether to just curse a local God again or to pound out an Irish jig to celebrate the end of it all. He spun on his remaining heel, dropping the other loudly to the concrete as he realized I'd been standing behind him. He went with his first impulse and cursed as he saw my now bare head of silver hair peering down at his slouched frame. His eyes first locked on my impossibly green eyes, then the tiny orange smirk I was flashing him as I pulled a small golden card out of my jacket with one hand. He stood there without breathing as I reached over and patted the card into his front pocket, commenting off-handedly.
"It's a good salon. Just don't get the owner to do the coloring."
I pulled the burnt-tanned hand back and snapped two fingers back at my snow white bangs as they tried to cover one of my eyes. My 'Ecto-Hair' isn't uneven, technically. My bangs just shift sides depending on if I'm standing upwind or downwind.
"…Lemme' put it this way. I asked for blonde highlights, I walked out like this."
Okay, that was just stretching the gag. But my aunt does in fact have a learning disability when it comes to hair color. She's a true master of layering and crease patterns, even beads and braided Sharpie holders, but don't trust her with even some diluted wash-off bleach.
With a silent crack of a wink and a single round from a cocked thumb and forefinger, I simply faded out as another hot wind tore by. As I leapt up silently and let it carry me over the city's blocky skyline, the Chief cursed again to no one but himself as the now-awakened SWATs pounced the 'Twitch with everything they had. That same rather tame curse. I don't think it would even count in a Catholic confession, it was so common a word. But at that single moment, it was the only thing on his up-sided mind.
Could you really blame the poor guy?
Two Hours Later
I eased the phone slightly off the curve of my ear, carefully repositioning my crossed legs before asking the question again.
"…game night?"
My location managed to give my phone a good enough reception that the soprano voice rang out clearly through the cracked speaker.
"Yeah. Your mom said it's a tradition, and we have to be around for it."
I rolled my eyes, blowing a silver bang off my nose and sighing.
"Game night…is just something the Fentons do when they have company. Makes us look like a family."
Kirby grunted musically.
"Ohh…fun! Hey, where are you?"
With both eyes twisted over at the dated pixel-color screen of the phone, I inquired.
"Whaddaya' mean?"
She called out over the clicking buttons.
"I took the train back ALONE. Either you ditched me, or you're embarrassed and just playing Casper again."
…you just decide to keep a low profile while your cousin drags you through a girly department store once, and all of a sudden you have to mark it on your job application. I stuttered.
"Uhh…bank robbery…hostages…laser guns…1-UP Fly…SWAT team…"
Nothing but the soft clicking of the numerical pad. Slowly, she demanded.
"…you're sitting on that stupid gargoyle playing Frog-Quest, aren't you? Again?"
…NO! I was laying on the thing's back, and toying around with the high score screen on my phone, I'd gotten tired of playing two minutes before she called. I was also suspended fourteen stories in the air, inches away from just rolling off the rain-smoothed crouching dragon to the central intersection honking and accelerating by underneath the protruding statue's neck. I slowly finished tapping the lower-case F before just gritting my teeth.
"…Sooo…game night…did anyone say who was coming?"
If it was Tucker, I could only pray Val's puppet show struck home and he understood who wore the ectoplasmic jacket in this family. Last week when he showed up at a fund raiser, he kept snapping pictures of my sisters with his watch and photo-shopping the pictures during dinner to see what they'd look like after a horribly twisted tanning session and enough invisible paparazzi sightings to turn their hair white. Or black. Their brunnete dye-jobs are starting to fade, if you squint real you can kinda 'picture them as quarter-hispanics. Almost. Am I not just a nervous white guy after all?
The familiar sound of a jellybean being drawn and quartered against Kirby's front teeth.
"Nada. They just keep telling me to wear a shirt."
Oh, that saves me an entire lecture on human decency and affordable tattoo removal.
"Figures. Tell 'em I'm out getting the bike fixed, I'll be out late."
A muffled gulp. God speed, lone jellybean.
"…the bike…is parked next to the barn. Your dad is trying to move it closer to the other cars."
I shot up into a reclining position, my eyes burning into the brick wall the statue was mounted against.
"He touched the bike?"
"Touching the bike. I think he's trying to start it. He found a spare key under the couch."
…and another prime hiding place bites the dust…
I swiped a dark hand through my hair, jerking my head around to look out at the fading daylight over the skyline. I tried to calculate what time it was by the color of the sun. I had a data screen on my phone, and I was looking into the sun to tell time. Fenton blood, I tell you.
"Sonuva'…okaay…walk out there and tell him Kerri hit her head on something. That should keep him away from her until I get back.
A rather un-lady-like snort sounded through my crackling speaker as I stood up and balanced both feet on the rounded neck of the ancient gargoyle.
"…away from her? Doesn't he always flip out when the girls get hurt?"
I braced myself into a loose crouch as I eyed the horizon. I corrected her before snapping the phone shut and killing the call.
"…I meant the bike..."
Tossing the folded phone into the flap of my jacket and turning both toes to one side of the cracking concrete dragon, I took a slow breath before letting myself fall forward off the neck like I was falling onto a couch. I just free-fell for a couple hundred feet, like a guy jumping off a balcony. I then snapped my momentum through a tucked, head-to-knees flip and shot off like a bullet toward the orange horizon with my arms at my sides and my legs together.
I'm not a flashy guy. You know that. But the occasional air stunt helps keep my ego from eating itself out of starvation. And it just looks cool.
About An Hour Later
By the time I managed to get back, it the sun was nowhere to be seen and the entire ranch was lit up to look inviting. The stadium lights hanging over the front drive had been switched on to show where to drive in, and doing so probably derailed the local raccoon community's entire way of life. And parked carelessly behind the entire line-up of Fent-Mobiles, was a ritzy little foreign car with the dealer wax still glistening off the hood in dusty mounds.
I checked it out before I even landed, phasing my head through a window to look around the interior and shake my head at the four neo-plasma screens in the back seat. The keys were still in the ignition, with the rubber key chain shaped like the company logo jingling against the still-running air conditioning.
Right off the lot, half tank of gas, and ready for a quick getaway. Either that or the owner is just a rich idiot. Either one could describe the guests my parents usually dragged out here, at least it doesn't look like an overnighter. I kind of like the hall of empty guest rooms collecting dust. So much hide and seek potential.
By the time I coaxed myself onto the porch and built up the tolerance to walk in through the front door like a family member. I'd even ecto-formed a little stack of cards, which I shuffled through as I dug through my jeans for the key to the deadbolt.
"Open door…explain lateness…greet guest…excuse self…night of restless insomnia and pointless pondering…"
I tossed the cards over my shoulder, letting them disappear before they hit the porch as I gave up on finding the key and simply swung my foot into the lower portion of the door frame. There was a violent click as the locks popped and the hopelessly old fashioned door just creaked back on its tastefully rusty hinges.
Security lights, heat-seeking lasers, an albino attack dog, and you can just kick the door open. Welcome to the Fenton Ranch.
Not caring that was still dressed in my street clothes from the gym that morning, I proceeded to stomp into the heavily occupied living area belting out my speech as I eyed the scene.
"Was helping out with the wedding. Had to stay late. Didn't kill anyone, no one's pregnant, I'll be upstairs."
Usually I'd say this while walking past them to the stairwell. But I could see right off the bat that this had to be one hell of a client.
My family, spread out around the coffee table in a circle of couches and chairs, actually looked….normal? No jumpsuits or bubble-wrap. My mother wasn't wearing that stupid helmet deal with the cell phone built into the earpiece. She was loafing around on a foot-rest with her legs folded under her and a fitted sweater on that matched her supposed hair color. She was tapping a silver token around a game-board, smiling but I noticed the way her eye kept twitching on the side she usually held her phone on.
My sisters were still doing the red and green deal, helps us tell them apart, but it looked like they raided Kirby's closet.
And since they're literally a foot shorter, the matching belly-shirts just fell down to the belts of their wash-worn cut-offs. Both pairs had belonged to me, before Kirby stole and shrunk them to fit that freaky little waist of hers. And now my pixie-sized sisters were continuing the chain so they could look like hip teenagers. The effect was dulled by the fact they were sitting next to each other in identical postures, nodding at the same time and answering questions as a single unit.
And, my father. An un-tucked polo shirt showed off his recently diminished waistline, and he was slapping the leg of his khakis at who ever had just cracked a joke. I hadn't seen him in a while, and just noticed he'd dyed out his grey hairs. Except he'd forgotten exactly which shade Fenton hair grows in, a quick glance up at my bangs noted that he was a shade lighter than me in the dim light of a few covered lamps and the gas fire cracking in the fireplace.
…holy crap, we had a fireplace!
It took a few seconds, but soon enough the clan looked up from the sectioned game board and bobbed their smiling heads as they continued their conversation.
"…Alan…could you…check my voicemail? NOW?"
"Evenin', Son. HA! The guy actually said that?"
"Hi Alan."
"Hi Alan."
"Alan! How ya' been?"
"…Arf."
I sidledup to the base of the stairs, nodding five times and mumbling.
"Sure. Hey Dad. Hi girls. Doin' fine, Mr. Masters. Frost, get off the couch!"
With a light wave and a feigned smile, I mounted the stairs and broke into a trot as I struggled to not make a remark about how my mother arranged her Econopoly money in little interest rate piles next to her drink.
A minute later, I closed Kirby's door behind me and stood in front of it for a few silent seconds. Her dark head popped up from behind her dressing screen, revealing a mangled piece of road-meat with black fur where her hair used to be. She quickly popped her head back down, probably into the collar of a shirt as she yelped.
"'Bout time you got back. Your neighbor's horse got loose. Went out to get the mail, three hours later he gets tired and stops chasing me"
...I just stood there. Not saying a word or even looking at her. She went on as her featureless shadow on the front of the screen stepped into a pair of jeans.
"…I managed to lose him in a freakin' wheat field…Did I, like, seriously piss off a Horse-God? They just hate me…"
The echoing click of her jeans snapping closed. She leapt out from behind the screen like it was a stage curtain and gracefully threw a dust-covered and slightly trampled set of clothes out in the direction of where her couch/gigantic pile of laundry sat. She busied herself tucking her half-dead hair down the back of her shirt, humming the melody of a familiar song. I didn't even breathe differently as a stretchy tanktop drifted down and landed on my shoulder like I was a piece of furniture.
I just stared straight ahead at the currently laundry-curtained window for a few more seconds before her face popped up in front of my dull eyes, trying to revive me with a 200 watt grin. I didn't focus my eyes on her as she pulled a pair of silver sunglasses down from her forehead to the tip of her nose. My reflection on one of the eyepieces just confirmed I hadn't even blinked since I'd walked in.
"…Yoo-hoo…Mr. Statue of Masculinity? You trying to see that Magic-Eye thing on my wall again?"
…I never had the heart to tell her that her 'optical illusion' portrait was just a poster board covered in stickers that Kerri made during her 'artist phase'. I honestly think she just got that paintbrush stuck to the hair behind her ear with paste and decided to go along with it.
She rapped on my forehead with a compact golden fist a few times. She tried to bite her lip in half to hold back one of her window-crashing giggles.
Finally, my mouth moved. Barely an inch, but enough to make a sound.
"…Kirby…"
She continued knocking on my forehead cheerfully.
"Yeah?"
I licked the side of my lower lip slowly and carefully.
"Remember…the one guy? Packers fan? Snappy dresser? Killed my grandfather? Looks great in a ponytail?"
Slowly, her fist slowed to a stop against my tensed forehead. She continued grinning, but tilted her head down so her eyes were visible over her shades. She bounced her chin slightly, nodding while she locked her burning green eyes on my glassy blue ones. I explained.
"…he's sitting on the couch downstairs. And I think Kerri just sold Park Place to him for an empty Tic-Tac case."
The next second reminded me of a cheap scare in a sub-par horror flick. A pair of green eyes rushing at you, and some one digging their claws into your cheekbones while a girl screams.
"I AM NOT going down there to scare him off with my…!"
My hand shot up into the inch of space between our faces to clamp itself over her mouth. She continued screaming into my palm as I sighed.
"…I wasn't going to ask you to…"
…wait…that would have worked…and she had the foresight to call it before I even thought of it…? As she finished sitting curses into my hand, I explained as I brushed the discarded shirt off my shoulder.
"Okay, time for Plan B..."
She apparently forgot I had my hand over her mouth. She began waving her arms at her sides as if explaining something as I reached into my back pocket and felt for a coin. Eventually I just shook my head, snapping my fingers and holding a bright green replica of a quarter to make sure I got both sides right. A questioning 'Urmph?' from my mute sidekick. I flicked the coin a couple feet in the air after stating.
"Heads, I just fly down there and start blasting…"
…that, was all I could come up with. Adrenaline can supposedly make you lift up a car with one arm, everyone knows that from health class. But it also can impair judgment more than some forms of alcohol. You ever see an athlete win a gold medal by a long-shot, and proceed to say the stupidest thing you can ever say on international television? Sadly, I have a history of this. Two minutes after I won my third title belt down West, I actually got down on one knee and proposed to one of Walt's oldest daughter who had come along to watch from the stands.
…right, in front of her husband of two weeks. That was one of my more humorous concussions. In fact, the two brought it up at the funeral to try to cheer me up. Some jokes just never die.
Back in the immediate and fateful present, I watched the coin spiral through its own momentum for a second before it fell back down toward my waiting hand. Then disappeared as a tanned claw of a hand shot out and snatched it out of the air before I could call it. I swung my snapped-open eyes back to the front Kirb' wiped off her mouth with one hand and dropped the coin down the collar of her partially buttoned orange shirt with the other. She just growled at me as I shook her saliva off my palm with a snapped wrist, then phasing it out and back again to get the leftovers off.
"…Let's just saay it was tails..."
At the time, I just thought she was a crazy freak who abused the fact I was too…Alan-ish to just retrieve the coin. I could have just made another one, now that I think about it. Idiot!
In a remarkably sleezy, poorly thought out way…she might have saved my life. Again. From the exact same guy in the very same house.
Wonderful. Superman had feminist-icon Wonder Woman to back him up. I get the girl with...eh…feminine decency issues. Just great. My life is officially a graphic novel struggling to attract male readers.
I probably have ten minutes to live. And I'm cracking jokes.
…is that how Danny died?
One Hour Later
Remember how I commented that 'Vlad Junior' bore a striking resemblance to his 'father'? I just guessed that from the eight dozen magazine covers I dug up. I take that back. Up close, his disguise is even worse than the ones I've come up with behind opera houses and in phone booths.
He did a great job of it. Probably a true shape-shifter. But from my visually nitpicking point of view, I've seen better.
Take Vlad Masters. Corporate and Scientific giant of the late twentieth century and early twenty first. Dye his hair black, make the skin look younger and slightly duller, and for kicks why not a stupid little pair of extremely high-tech reading glasses propped on the tip of his nose. I could go on for hours about the face. The ear-high cheekbones, the pointed chin that treats itself like a square jaw, that ponytail I want to hang him with, but I won't. Like I'd want to.
I had time to ponder his appearance because I'd been sitting on an armrest for forty minutes faking interest with the rest of my family as he literally leafed through his photo album with our flat-screen remote control. Get this, he carries five thousand digital photographs in the hard drive of his cell phone. And he plugged it into our TV so we could see them all.
Six hundred eighty seven pictures later. Every single one of them featured 'Vlad the Second' either standing in front of something or next to something. At first I tried to guess which country or landmark it took place in before he could stop chewing on that same pretzel rod to explain it. That got old after three hundred, so now I was just trying not either pass out, or just get impatient and casually mention we're supposed to fight to the death or something.
Oh. And Kirby was there, too. After we got through most of Southern Europe she dropped something behind the couch and went down after it. By the time he rattled on about why he was giving the Sphinx a thumbs-up, I was starting to wonder if she was ever coming back.
That was pretty much the evening thus far. All the Fentons spread out around the living room and nodding as the guest kept flipping through pictures and brushing pretzel crumbs off his jet-black turtleneck approximately every forty seven seconds.
And then, he hit the 'next' button and all of a sudden I was the only person left on the couch. Whatever had popped up on the door-sized flat-screen over the now dead fireplace, made my sisters and parents jump to their feet in practiced unison. And almost as instantly they crowded around under the screen, squinting at it as if it'd been dropped off by a van full of terrorists.
Back on the now vacant couch, I slowly tilted to the left and then slumped over onto my side like a tipped statue. As the boredom started to release its grip on my spinal cord and I noticed that leather taste in the side of my mouth, that well-oiled vice remarked towards the line of empty chairs.
"…Well! That saves me a blurb on business and friendship."
And our long-winded guest rose out of his armchair and approached the semi-circle of backs in front of the fireplace as he tossed aside the now salt-free and slightly sharpened pretzel rod he'd been chewing on for close to two hours.
Either he didn't see me passed out on the couch, or he didn't care, because the thing bounced off the table then landed right in my freakin' eye.
The entire atmosphere of the room changed as he planted his feet behind my parents and explained.
"…this is why I stopped by. I understand you fine folks have a taste for the unusual. Thought you might have some insight on it."
While he looked up at the screen like everyone else was, I was slowly creeping up behind him clutching my salt-burned eye with one hand and brandishing the sharpened pretzel like an ice pick with the other. Right as I was about to drive it into the back of his neck, I glanced up to see what everyone was looking at.
…and suddenly remembered something.
…I was a ghost in a family of ghost-hunters, and the guy who nearly plucked out me eye moments ago was Lord Plasmius!
Mark that up. Adrenaline and boredom. Both set me back a few hundred years mentality wise.
Up on the screen, was a photograph. Go figure. I could tell from the angle and focus that it was one of those shots you can only get with a zoom the size of a small child and a photographer hooked on illegal depressants to pull of. It was just a routine professional photograph of a line of statues on the ledge of an old building downtown.
And there was what looked like a violent purple web of blurred lines and shapes burned into the background between two faceless statues. If you turned your head to the side slightly and squinted, the little splotch almost looked humanoid in the way the purple lines formed legs and arms.
A weird little purple thing in some one's picture. See why all the Fentons woke up when he clicked this thing up?
I quickly swung my eyes back down at the man standing right in front of me with his back turned and his arms crossed confidently. As the shock of the situation began to wear down, I took note of his height as he bounced on his heels while my family tried to make something of his purple ink blot person. Standing next to my father, who just days ago bragged about being six foot two barefoot, I could see this was a relatively tall guy. He wasn't the quarterback my father was, but his slim frame came up to about six foot. I can't comment on muscle mass, I couldn't tell with the sweater he was wearing.
I quickly snapped my eyes up like everyone else as he turned to my father and practically purred.
"I have a little background in the paranormal myself! Why, when I found this I quickly determined it was the real…"
All of a sudden my mother's voice cut in, flagging me to look back down to see the smooth-faced CEO with his mouth open in mid-syllable. He obviously wasn't used to being interrupted.
"It's a fake."
I watched with a tensed eyebrow as the four forcibly normal specialists turned on their heels to formally address him. My father crossed his naturally thick arms as the twins readied themselves for simultaneous nodding.
"…it's great that you thought of us, Mr. Masters…but this is just a…well-doctored fake."
He wanted to say 'half-assed'.
He nodded his newly darkened temple at the now abandoned screen with its inhuman apparition.
"…it just looks like some one drew in some purple lines and said it was a ghost."
For a few seconds, our visitor just stood there with his usual assured grin. Then he forcibly widened his smile and glanced up at his picture.
"…a…fake…?"
He didn't notice when I moved out from behind him. Probably didn't care enough to notice, the girls probably assured him the younger Fentons were even less useful than the originals. As he slowly scanned the line of apologetic but dead serious faces, I made my way behind everyone to stand under by the fireplace and lock my eyes on the tangle of purple lines in the center of the picture. I was barely paying attention as one of my sisters caught their cue and recited.
"Fraudulent paranormal images are very common! Last year, statistics showed…"
As my brow tightened up at the shapeless purple scribble, a low growl cut her off.
"Like I DIDN'T know that, you little…!"
…and…silence. The unexpected, awkward silence usually accompanied by blank stares and some one sidling towards the silent alarm button hidden in the four-person family portrait on the wall. Quickly, the same voice countered in a completely different tone.
"…darling, independent young woman!"
As my father slowly stepped between his dinner guest and his currently wide-eyed daughters, I just kept my eyes on the narrowly pixeled image on the wall. The sound of thick-soled shoes shuffling toward where I stood, and that overly casual voice again.
"I think my phone just rang! I think Ill just step outside, and…"
Still looking back at the now close-knit group of slightly appalled family celebrities, he reached up with one spidery arm, and grabbed for where his phone lay in the docking port on the backside of the screen.
…only to bruise his stretched digits as I covered his phone with the hand I wasn't holding that pretzel with. His slightly cold fingers bounced off my calloused ones as he cleared his throat suddenly and rasped.
"…Excuse me, but I have to…!"
Without even looking away from the screen's center, I just cracked my mouth open and cut him off with a light mumble.
"…it's real…"
My staring went in silence for a few more seconds before I felt an extremely tight grip on my right shoulder pulling towards my left. I slowly glanced down to see his vein popping hand gripping my cotton-stretching upper arm as he tried to twist me around to face him. With the grip and strength that belonged on a man easily twice his size.
…and I wasn't moving.
I heard a muffled grunt from his direction before the patter of footsteps in front of me. Soon he managed to just move in front of me and lean up to make sure all I could see were his eyes. I kept my own half-open and as blank as possible as his pupils tightened. That nice-guy voice once again, but edged with something else. Curiosity? Rage? Same thing.
"…what?"
I just grumbled in a forced monotone.
"…blends in with the pixels…you can't fake that in this lighting tone."
I then looked up again, right over his forehead at the picture again. I raised my tone and stated into the area of his nose.
"The color looks fake. But ecto-energy shifts spectrums when you process the color of the light through a computer. Green comes out purple, and secondary matter just phases out entirely."
I pointed out the un-feigned areas of the color pattern on the screen, with the tip of the sharpened pretzel rod I'd been tapping against my thigh out of habit. The height issue made itself obvious once again, I was the only one tall enough to even get my hand past the bottom of the screen.
For a few seconds, all I heard was his breathing. He might look younger than my parents, but he had a wheeze worse than Kirby's grandmother.
Does emotion make it harder to keep the act going?
The spell was snapped apart as a heavy hand plopped down on the shoulder Vlad didn't have a death grip on. My father boomed out over my shoulder to the raven-haired man confronting me.
"Alan…hasss…an eye for details. Why, back when he was still with the…"
Vlad ripped his hand off my shoulder to wave my father's commentary away, leaning up to catch my gaze and demanding.
"You… believe me, right?"
If I were any shorter, he would have saw my eyebrows jump. By the time I looked back down to him, I managed to pull my monotone act back together and shrugged. I managed to keep myself from spitting as he nodded a few times to assure himself. Grinning. Just grinning.
I felt my entire body twitch out of reflex as he suddenly whipped his neck over to talk to my father as he stood behind me.
"JIM! Great seeing you!"
And then he was finally out of my face, and the phone id been guarding with my hand was gone from its port. I instantly realized phased right through my fingers to get it. I heard his shoes pounding the bare wood floor of the foyer as his yell echoed.
"Stop by anytime! Just not while I'm home!"
I looked over my shoulder right as he slammed the door behind him. As his shoes pounded off the porch toward his car, my mother snapped out of her frozen state to turn to my equally dazed father and yelled.
"…what, was THAT?"
Slowly, the Fentons broke down into confused ending statements and mild cursing.
They all agreed. No more corporate dinner guests.
I was too busy staring up at the now darkened screen to comment that they'd only had about three to begin with.
As things began to settle down and my mother glued her cell phone back into place, I just slowly took my arm down from the screen and slowly shuffled through the circled furniture to the front door. As one of the twins yelled to the other about that guy being a psycho, I pushed myself through the door and looked around the porch and out at the line of cars to see if I was alone.
As the door closed itself, cutting off the noise of the house and leaving me in the muggy night air, I slowly gazed down at the hand I'd just pulled out from behind the TV and quickly tucked into my pocket.
Sitting in my spread palm, wrinkled from the tight fist I'd pushed it into, was a simple white card. The side I was looking at was unprinted and unmarked, except for a fresh line of dark green ink curling around in cursive lettering in a barely legible message.
Help Wanted
Slowly, I flipped it over to the printed side. Official black ink, plainly stating without any graphics or slogans.
Masters Corporation Inc.
Technological Department
Prototype Weaponry Technologies: Storage
Password: BRET FAVRE
For a few minutes, I just flipped it and read each side a few times. I noted the scrawled message was burned into the cardboard. Extremely precise ecto-energy, leaves a slight stain that looks like ink. The door squealed open behind me, I quickly hid the card against my shirt until a familiar sigh cut into the wind passing through the uncovered porch.
"…I got stuck under the couch again…"
Without looking back or saying a word, I held the card over my shoulder. A hand took it and a few seconds later Kirby jumped in front of me and grabbed my shoulders. I was just staring off towards the road leading out towards the city. The same road he probably tore up getting out of here.
"…what…what did he say to you?"
I slowly shook my head, looking down to meet her firy gren orbs with a pair of dull blue blades. I just rasped.
"…nothing. The guy just flipped."
I jerked my head toward the house.
"…that was a picture of me...in ghost form…probably some skyline guy who put his misprints on the web. I just said it's real to keep him from going off on Sherri…"
I looked down at the card she was cradling with both hands.
"…he asked if I believed him. Stuck that in my hand and took off."
I watched her stare blankly at what she held. Not a word. I just stiffly crossed my arms, trying to make this less uncomfortable. Then remembered something, reaching into my back pocket and pulling out a tan-colored wallet as my cousin just shook her head, muttering.
"Extraño…just freakin' extraño…"
It's about to get weirder.
I slipped something out of my wallet and held it up between us. She glanced up and quickly did a double take down at her hands before snatching the card I held and holding it up next to the one I'd just given her.
She now held two identical business cards. Same company. Same location. Same password. Except mine had that hurried message on the back, the other was blank. I explained.
"…Val…found that, under Keith Krenall's bed. Next to that gun, and whatever else the cops didn't find on his body."
Slowly, only moving out of pure shock, she mouthed a word I couldn't decipher. I looked past her, out toward the dark fields surrounding the ranch.
"…he wasn't playing anyone. I made eye contact, trust me."
I glanced down at the two cards.
"He's…crazy. He was completely losing it in there. I have no clue what he was trying to do…I don't think he does, either."
I'm not dealing with a maniacal genius. He's not an overlord with an ace in every pocket.
He's an obviously desperate man, with no clue what's going on. Just trying to keep his act together, fall back on the normal half of his life. The half that isn't being chased by its old sins. Paranoid, and ready to just ask some random guy at a party if he's interested in a job in 'weaponry'. No introductions, no sales pitch like Valerie fell for, just ask the ex-outcast if he'd be interested in a little carnage.
He doesn't know. He doesn't know about me. He doesn't know about Val, Sam, or anything else that's happened since this all ended. Just gave up on all of it, to be normal. And now it's all back. And so is the guy he swore he killed. Thanks to me…
He's losing it.
…which makes him infinitely more dangerous than I thought he was.
Author's Notes
…As you can see, I didn't eliminate Vlad as a threat. I just threw on a bottle of lighter fluid. He has indeed lost control of the game board. More powerful than Alan, and possibly Danny will ever be. A company and empire full of resources. But some wannabe-Halfa with halfa brain just stayed under the radar and knocks V-Man's world right off the table along with his knitting needles and copy of 'So You Want To Be Norman Osborn' by Harry Osborn. In all honesty, is Alan just the luckiest ghost alive or has he actually done something right?
