I have been preoccupied with some real novels I plan on publishing though! Sorry for the delay here. I was also tangled up with the worst English teacher known to mankind, so that's that. Hopefully this fills in enough of the story for y'all. Until next time which hopefully won't be in another 7 months. Ha.
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Recap/Summary of Chapter 4
Birtz wakes up late, having fallen asleep while waiting for his dad, Herman, to get back from work. He gets news about a shooting at his workplace and rushes upstairs to see if Herman ever returned from work. He finds him passed out and wakes him up. Herman declares that he hears voices and chases Birtz out of his room, getting angry and yelling at him. Birtz leaves, going downstairs and looking at a picture of his old life before moving to Michigan, which he has been forced to hide from his dad. He starts crying, asking why things like this have to happen to people.
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In school, Lincoln starts to experience more of the physical changes caused by the spider-bite. During his morning classes, a kid named Nathianel Morrison, attempts to throw a paper airplane at Lincoln's head, but an impulse makes him catch it before it comes close to his head. Later, during that same class, Nathaniel tries to pass love notes to someone he fancies in class. Through the note-passing train, Lincoln gets his hands on it, who tries to pass it onto the next student. The note gets stuck to his hand and he unwillingly gets it swiped away from the teacher, who then exposes the letter's purpose. Nathaniel is embarrassed, but also enraged; mostly furious towards Lincoln Loud for publicly humiliating him in front of his crush and the entire class. Unknowingly to him, Lincoln had zero control over his doings, at the time, at least.
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Lincoln and his friends sit together at lunch along with Birtz, finally starting to feel like real friends again.
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Later that day during lunch, Nathaniel snitches Lincoln to Arnold, and suggests they give him another beatdown, this time in front of the school. Arnold, enraged, stalks Lincoln and follows him to the cafeteria. There, they attempt to beat him down in front of the whole cafeteria, but Lincoln inadvertently beats them all up using defense reflexes. At one point, only Arnold's left standing, but he easily brings him to the floor, humiliating him in front of the entire cafeteria.
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After a brief questioning, they're all suspended for the rest of the week. While leaving, Lincoln discovers that Richie was the one he saved in the alleyway. Richie reveals he had moved away for a few years and grew distant from everyone at his return. They decide to exchange numbers. When Lincoln goes outside, he finds Arnold near the exit and decides to approach. After a minute, Arnold breaks the silence, essentially revealing that finally losing gave him the kick in the ass he needed to see he was really becoming a mirror version of the man he hated the most; the man who was fueling him to act this way all these years. With the added fact that Lincoln gave him a second chance by not revealing that he had assaulted him in the alleyway, which could have landed him in juvie and subsequently made him a dead ringer for his brother Adrian, the two leave on mutual paths of respect.
Without further ado, let's get into it!
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Chapter 5: Aha Moment
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1
Standing over the coffee table, Herman Robern closes his hand around a stoppered bottle of cologne, his eyes burning with tears. He's coming, is the only thing he thinks, coming up out of the den to whoop my ass. Screaming madly and clutching the cologne's flacon, his finger jerking the pump in rapid succession and triggering clouds of musk-laced scent into the air, he spins around in circles. "Come on! I'm waiting! I got my defense system right here!"
Its voice comes back, crossing his mind in a swelling wave. Herman, so strange, so quizzical, so . . . odd. Evil, yet innocent, trying to hide what you can become with what you've built. I love it; and it looks I've arrived in good time!
He freezes for a brief moment in which he swallows ropily. First a fussy, careful look crosses his face, then a trace of light along with the nostalgic look of a memory. The voices. Herman has always heard voices. But not in this manner; so personal, so tempting, so . . . foreign yet familiar at the same time.
Talk to me babyyy, the voice cries in a bad falsetto, I'm here to give you a makeover. Can you see me?
Something strange about that speaks to him. They're odd sayings, yes, seeming nonsensical, but somehow full of so many ominous undertones. It is about as clear as the murkiness of an old mug of coffee. On any given day, he would've shied away from it. But now, he feels the need to listen, as if being pressured by an unseen devilish pact. Herman knows better than to ignore it.
His eyes frolic to one corner of the room, where he can see a vintage oak dresser and nightstand which is home to a lamp th at looks like it belongs in the 60s. Both are shoved up against the wall, hiding parts of its wallpaper with their pressboard backs, hiding its vines and other green, foresty undertones. He sweeps his eyes to the left, now looking at the side of the bed he always hops out of in the morning, and he can see something.
Someone.
He rests the perfume bottle on the coffee table, the cologne's waves petering out (his hands have been trembling) and surfing up against the flacon's sides in small spumes. He looks at the person standing in the right hand corner of his room. His vision is a bit blurry for an unspecified reason, but his legs seem to bring him closer on their own choosing. His head draws back a little, as if fighting back. "You?"
Yes you, the voice says, us. The person, it looks up, its eyes two, blinding, amber stars. It really is just me, myself and I. He reaches the foot of the bed, curving a hand around a smoothed-down ridge. He freezes. The blur in his eyes has dispersed.
Terror.
That someone; a monster, smiling at him with edged teeth. Its skin is a mucusy green, glistening beneath the sunlight streaming in through the window and stuck in its glow. Some kind of fluid races down its forehead in bloated drops. Wiry strands of hair hang limply out of its skullcap, slicked back as if it had been marinating itself in that same strange fluid. Its exaggerated hook nose curves in, nearly touching its raw lips, evening out in a knife of gristle. How could something so disturbing be alive? How could something so . . . simulated be real? He stares directly into its amber pitted eyes, flecked with black veins, glowing like the lens of a bleary searchlight.
Something about those eyes snapped him; filling him with their gold light, making him feel . . . its power, its fury, its insanity. That monster . . . "I—i-it's me?" Herman stammers.
It scoffs. Of course I'm you, you buffoon. Don't think you can hide from who you truly are, it pauses, me! You are me. We're one. You can't live without a shadow, can you? You can try to hide your shadow beneath other's, but that'll only take you so far until I come back. Its smile falters a little, and it looks to the side. Remember what you did, Herman? What we did together?!
Herman slinks forward, his back hunched in a semicircle. His mouth falls in horror and his eyebrows lower. "What did I do?"
It's everywhere, it laughs, check your phone, radio, anything!
A lump of fear materializes in Herman's throat and he takes it down in a dry swallow. He looks to the side and sees his Samsung Galaxy, with no logical reason, laying on his bed. He scoops it up reluctantly, his thumb succeeding in no more than missing the home button. Trembling as if the window is open (he can almost imagine a stale draft coming in through the window, licking through the curtains and making them do a funny dance, breaking his skin out in goosebumps), he powers the phone on.
His lungs cramp with a sudden weight that is painless yet frightening; that's when he sees the alert, active shooting at corporate building Herman Industries, suspect at large, 1 killed.
"Me?!" Herman cries. "I would never!"
Oh but you did, it taunts, you very much did! You killed that man. It may have been me who brought my hand down, but remember . . . it was you who killed him. You! It heaves in laughter. You're the one who killed him! MURDERER! A GOOD ONE AT THAT!
It shoots a reaching hand forward, a hand which crawls with maroon sores. Herman's eyes bulge. His mouth creaks open. He goes hell for leather, his legs turning to jelly after two steps. He only succeeds in making it around the bed before he collapses in agony. Smoldering liquid seethes beneath his flesh, making him gasp and mewl. His hands fly to his hair in claws and they tug on patches of his thick brown hair in desperation, desperation to make the pain go away, desperation to lose whatever the monster is. Tears spring to his eyes and worm out as he squeezes them shut.
Herman utters a rusty scream which makes his vision strain. "WHO ARE YOU?!"
It starts approaching. The stronger version of you, it says, what your weakness could never bring you to be.
And it happens, Herman Robern finds himself knocked senseless, now replacing his intelligence with a new one, a billow of smoke building up in his head to lock him up. He rises to his feet, not as Herman Robern anymore, but as the monster. The . . . goblin.
2
The goblin grimaces, shuffling down the steps, disgusted at Herman's pathetic nature. If he's going to get anywhere, he ought to take control over him more often. His steps kind of have a dull sound to them, as if a hollow space sits beneath the stairs. He pauses for a moment, his nose wrinkling. A few ideas sprint through the foreground of his mind. That's good, he agrees. A very, very good idea. Keep the wolf in sheep's clothing . . . stow it away! He finishes his trip down the stairs. His eyes are consistently being drawn to the clock over the fireplace, which he can see over the oaken banister.
In that instance, all of Herman's memories streak through his mind as if a chased vehicle, and a grin creases his face.
Past the flight of stairs which leads to the upstairs balcony over the kitchen, the living room sits. A green-cushioned sofa is situated against a wall, steps away from a stone mantel, its hearth a bleak darkness of years of neglect, absence of flames; no wood, no ashes, nothing. Herman doesn't seem to be very active, doesn't he? Well he is very negligent, with his mind that seems more restricted than that of a ragworm, unconsciously muzzy as all hell. His life seems to be nothing more than a never-ending string of demands and desires (GIVE ME THIS, GIVE ME THAT!) from his works of science, or his own son; Birtz is his name, he believes.
That kid better stay out of Herman's business if he knows what is good for him. And what's good for him is a place to sleep, not fashioned in the likes of a coffin, or one of those lockers at the coroner's office. His nose is a meaty one indeed, and it likely isn't uncommon for it to be stuck into places it shouldn't be in.
He sits down on the couch and ponders. How could he fix Herman? The memories of what has happened cycle through his mind again — The years and years spent killing himself over his research, a month's worth of sleepless nights, and the way the army general, Mr. Welson, thumbed his nose at it all. Now this person seems interesting. His mad desire to toughen Herman starts to intensify. He does not like to think of it as an urge at the back of his head; because if it were to be at that specific point, it would be nothing more than an instinctive ensemble of bad thoughts. That is not true at all. These urges control him — he willingly lives by them. One is better off imagining it as a big dial at the top of his head with the needle threatening to edge into the red zone. That characterizes who he is.
He starts to think about Welson more and more, curiosity driving him. And once he formulates a solid idea of what has happened, he hatches an idea, knowing exactly what to do.
3
General Welson should have known it was strange for someone to knock on his door at that time, that time where the moon was just beginning to melt into a puddle of white light amidst the darkened sky, the time when you could hear the nightly rhythm of chirping or yips or hoots. He should have had more than enough sense than to approach the door. Especially when he went up, called out for who was there, and out came a badly falsettoed cry: Country Lane Flowers!
He had just gotten done with a splash of Bourbon over a sphere ice-cube and may have been a little warmed up. That was okay. It was not unlike himself to feel a bit mellow when the early fire of alcohol started to flare inside his stomach. He kind of liked it that way. It made him ready for bed, though he wasn't really accustomed to getting enough sleep. Suddenly his hand tightened around that cup of firewater and he considered throwing it. His moment was ruined. Interrupted by this bonehead who thought he could just come up to his quarters at this hour and drag him to the door. His countertop was so shiny he had studied the reflection of his face in it, expecting to see something wrong, but saw nothing different instead.
And so he had come to the door, pressed an eye to the peephole, and wrinkled his nose. He could see no-one. He briefly thought back to what the person had said: Country Lane Flowers! He looked back into the peephole and saw no such thing, not a pot, vase or even a basket. This intelligence succeeded in doing no more than making him more irate. It had to be a prank too; what kind of idiot would do such thing! Especially to the army general.
He hawked and nearly spat onto the floor. "Listen here, I'm not here to play games with a prankster. Now you better get away from my property before I start taking these shenanigans seriously," his nostrils flared with a sullen huff, "You hear me now? Knock once if you got the message."
He waited and nothing came.
Instead, a hand came flying through the door out of nowhere, shrapnel fanning out around him, pointed bits of steel and wood nicking his open skin. Its open hand beelined to his neck and closed down on it with what he imagined to be the death-grip a dying Catholic would have on a cross. The hand yanked him forward, then shoved him back 10 feet or so, giving him leeway to breathe. Its hand closed back into a fist and snaked back through the breach in the door. The voice returned, more hoarse and grating this time around. "Country Lane Flowers! Here to give you dapper flowers for your blazing corpse!"
Suddenly, the door exploded. Particles gusted around the open room. The walls were struck in a shower of splinters and rugged pieces of wood. A tall silhouette lurched through the doorway, arms drawn back, hands strenuously poised in claws.
In an instant, he knew who it was.
And that made him ever more scared.
It was Herman, his body enclosed in hardwearing, emerald armor which cut off at the top, exposing his head. He was smiling with some kind of intent, a smile that was cynical, almost mad. His face was concealed beneath a black medical mask and his eyes shone in yellow stars beneath a thick pair of black goggles. General Welson could still nonetheless see the sheer insanity that Herman had fallen into. The way his skin glistened with sweat and the corners of his cheekbones perked up in small tents of flesh sent flying tremors through his body.
"Everything you wanted . . . it's ALL right here," Herman yelled. There was something awfully grungy about his voice. "Military-style weapons, military-style this, that. You want to see it in action? I made sure it was ready just for you!"
He went up to Welson. His eyes stared up at him, seemingly pried open and sinking into the back of his head. He was paralyzed entirely, confined to nothing but the shape of a pencil; fragile, brittle, numb . . . emotionless. He looked at his fist, knuckles plated with metal, and knew exactly what was to be done. What should've been done all this time.
Seething, the goblin took a handful of Welson's graying hair and whipped it forward. His head catapulted forward and smashed into Herman's knee with a cracking sound that was horrifying but all the more satisfying. Blood gushed and splattered everywhere; all over the legs of the armor, on the floor, Welson's face. Its smell, sharp and coppery, found its way through the mask and the goblin sucked it all in with a hearty breath.
He reached down and grabbed Welson by his throat again, grip unyielding against slimy rivulets of sweat. His pulse was beating into the goblin's palm, his jaw slackening into an O of choking agony. He uttered a fighting gasp, but air could only come out, not in. Sick satisfaction stirred in Herman's stomach. His lips were smiling, not necessarily in a conscious way.
"You attacked my heart," he said. "You destroyed everything I loved, everything I worked my damn hardest for!" He lifted Welson up and throttled him against the wall. "Now, I'm going to take it back!"
The goblin brought his free hand back, his fingers talons of bloodthirsty desire, teeth bared in wolfish fashion. His eyes flew open with sinister expectation. Then his hand came down in a walloping punch, moving with such intense speed that he grunted. Flesh tore and squelched. Bones crunched. Blood arose. Welson's pain was indescribable . . . inexplicably horrible. His eyes hazed and rolled into the back of his head. And at last the clutching hand retreated, crawling with meaty veins, squeezing a heart, still hammering but failing slowly. An eye for an eye.
All the while, the goblin could hardly see anything because he was grinning so intently.
Only seconds later, the goblin would flee on his saw-toothed glider. It flew in through the living room's bay window in a near musical crash, its panes shattering into fragments. Wind, with some kind of cool spring bite, cascaded into the room. Pleated violet curtains of what used to be the bay window flared out in wings. The glider swooped around, hovered in the air, waiting like a loyal dog. Its motors purred. The gathered dust beneath it had gotten blown away.
The goblin tossed one last look over his shoulder, looking at Welson, his eyes staring up at nothing. They were bleak . . . soulless.
This felt right. Justice was served.
And so he left through the shattered bay window, sections of those flying curtains hooking onto his suit and ripping off, lending him the appearance of an emerging sewer monster plastered with toilet paper. The rushing winds pushed up against him. He should have been shivering or recoiling against the cold breeze, but no. He was only warm, warm with his success.
Welson was dead, not able to hurt poor Herman any longer.
4
Lincoln Loud shuts the van door, his eyes favoring his skate shoes (which is something he never did — he could clearly remember buying those shoes not because they were good for skateboarding, but because he thought the design was cool), his breath trapped in his palpitating chest. He rubs his arms, trying to break the guilty gooseflesh running frantically down him. The ass-whoopin' has been finalized, as most say: he would now be forced under the imposition of Dad's leathery vengeance, brandished with his absolute snake of a belt.
He is certain. Sitting next to him is his father, his eyes brought down into rageful slits, his teeth grinding . . .
But no, that is not what it appears to be. His father looks at him, not necessarily with rage, but with an odd mixture of confusion and disappointment. A kind of concern, inciting what feels to be a piercing chill beneath his ribcage. The goosebumps have refused to leave too, a feeling which has not accompanied this, one could say, cold-heartedness yet. Why he would be concerned, Lincoln doesn't know. Right about now, anybody with a palm's worth of sense would be willing to beat Lincoln down six feet under. His head begins to tense, not with a headache, nor with thought. It tenses for no good reason, as if it is under some kind of unseen pressure.
His father's voice matches that typical fatherly reproach where the tone hikes up as he speaks. "Lincoln . . ."
"I know," Lincoln utters. "I don't know why."
"Oh goodness bud, give me more words than that," Lynn says. "Maybe I can understand what's going on if you give me more than a few square feet to build on."
Lincoln winds the seatbelt around his sunken belly and clips the T-shaped end into the buckle. His face has gone pasty, he can see it on the tip of his nose. He has somewhat adjusted to his sensing of what he thinks to be worry, and is better able to manage it. Before, he might've felt like he might drop dead from a heart-attack. Now, he's able to talk without images of him suddenly dying running through the foreground of his mind. His hand touches his chest, feeling into his jacket. It is a great deal better than feeling as if a portion of hell was stuck there.
"I'm just confused," Lincoln says. "I just felt different all of the sudden."
His tongue scrabbles around in his mouth, searching a spot to settle. He pastes a hand to his head. It nearly slips off; his forehead has been exuding sweat, running across its length in an oily sheen. And now he feels different, a new kind of sense of emotion. Something slithers beneath his skin, something indescribably weird and strange. Something stirs, makes him shudder, and his skin stiffens. Gooseflesh, sharp and rigid, pepper him in caviar-sized speckles.
"I'm worried Lincoln," he says. His tone is palpable; almost as if a reaching hand. "This is not like you."
The drive home is unbearably slow. Lincoln tries to keep his eyes pointed out of the window, watching pedestrians walking along the lengths of Royal Wood's busy sidewalks. There are no students of his age or even close, not until school lets out. But in this he only finds comfort, as this fact has only smothered the fear of being recognized by someone at school; despite him being in a car barreling through smooth spring air at fifty-five kilometers an hour, despite him being a social outlier (to be fair, his white hat of hair is pretty distinct).
A group of young men and women, college-aged perhaps or maybe a bit older, have crowded around a bus stop. A poster is fixed onto a post at the curb, a man grinning with his thumb erect, bald plate glistening, the background a bright and amiable riot of color. Beneath it, printed in thick, bolded letters: UNSURE OF WHO YOU ARE? JOIN THE ROYAL WOODS COMMUNITY HOUSE TODAY! Social groups, recreation, volunteer work, and sheltering.
Lincoln keeps himself in deep thought for the rest of the car-ride, despite his face being seemingly flamed from the tension, guilty gooseflesh running down him. He tries to stow these feelings away, confused by what it is, still eager to learn. In a way, he feels as if he is part of a mystery, and he has the perfect chance to bind the scattered pieces into one big picture. But these strange things happening to him . . . it almost makes him sick to his stomach. A return of normalcy doesn't seem so bad itself; but he begins to consider giving these newfound abilities a chance before doing anything to get them out.
At home, he enters the house, his heart pounding incredibly hard. His father guides him back to the couch, the very same spot in which he sat that morning, where had taken the poor (in other words, not criticizing at all) tongue-lashing from his parents. But a voice, faint and slipping through from the back of his mind, reminds him: you ought to prepare yourself more this time. He swallows, thick saliva gliding down the walls of his throat. His heart, still pounding, beats warmly against the inside of his temples. A headache.
It may have been because he sensed a swinging mixture of emotions from his parents, but why Lincoln would feel so many strange things at once then; he hadn't known. The soft jelly of his eyes are glazed with something painful; burning and searing. The goosebumps are even stronger now, feeling as if they might be due to some tiny creature trying to escape, the feeble attempts at escape of a buried bug. His mother comes and sits next to him, same spot as this morning, and he feels weightless. His stomach hikes up to his throat, his legs turn to putty . . . his penis feels non-existent. This is the feeling you might get on a roller coaster. He thinks: They call it zero-gravity. Positive G's.
Lincoln shifts in the chair, feeling overwhelmed. A snarl of his white hair feathers into his face and he rakes it away. This weightless feeling, like a dagger in his guts, makes him feel nauseous. Any more and he might throw up. He can feel his stomach bubbling up with acid, sloshing as a wet mop might. Jesus Christ, he thinks, not again.
By the end of his talk with his parents, he is surprised; this one is still relatively light-hearted, concerning more the motive behind his actions over the actions themselves. You need to learn to keep this under control, his mother said. Her eyes were tightened, two glowing slits. A glow of dreadful accusation. This can't happen again. Me and your father need to be sure of it. And we've spoken about it. It was then that she had looked at his father, nodding with some kind of reluctance, before turning back to him. We've decided you owe us. For the bathroom, with your own money. We want you to get a job and figure this out; on your own.
Questions are welcomed though.
Questions.
Lincoln scoffs about that . . . questions. He has too many questions, too many to think about. Why is this happening to him? Where in the ever-living-fuck have all these strange notions materialized from? A spider; could this have come from a goddamn spider? He remembers now; the keyboard on his laptop, stripped of its keys. Found their spot on his finger and decided to make it home. And more questions now; his fingers, why are they so sticky? His ridiculously swelled reflexes? In all honesty, what is there to say? His movements out there on the cafeteria floors were more jacked up than those of a man full of happy dust.
He climbs the stairs without hurry. Questions are welcomed, he thinks. Maybe it's about time I get searching, then.
Now his pace quickens, elbows pumping furiously as if the pistons of an engine. He enters his room, closing the door behind him, but this time moving with great precision. He has already broken a lot of things today. The shaft of his door doesn't need to be added to the list. He pulls out the fold-out chair, props it up, and sits down. Then he opens up his laptop and remembers his keyboard is damned.
"Right," he says. He eyes the jumble of typewriter keys to the left of the wooden highboy. "Shoulda seen that."
For a moment, he stalls, his tongue squelching thickly in his mouth. Then he produces his phone out of his pocket, ready — completely eager — to continue searching.
That choking stress which tirelessly dogged him earlier is gone. He searches, heart no longer a beating drum in his chest, stomach no longer a bubbling pot of oil with a threaded piece of ice dangling over the top. He searches, completely alive, ready to see what would come next, the answer he would get. His fingers work on the phone's digital keyboard: Genetics Laboratory of Detroit Spider. A quick buffer on the screen, then everything comes up. He finds what he needs to know.
These new 'senses' he has, are just exactly in alignment with that of the enhanced spider. Greater tenacity, a sense of impending danger, an ability to detect its enemies intentions — which Lincoln imagines to be this feeling of emotion he's been sensing — increased durability and strength, and most importantly . . . it's big and fat and ugly. Just like Lincoln.
He laughs and does one last courtesy search, hoping to rule out any questions: How similar is the DNA of a human to the DNA of an insect? Could this justify the transfer of DNA? Maybe. Or maybe not. He does remember one scientist, going by the name of Mr Bautista, preaching about how sixty percent of the DNA in a fruit flies matches with that of a human, but that is irrelevant. Fruit flies don't equate to spiders; no-way-Jose.
He does find what he needs to find this time, however. But that doesn't matter; because there's a flash of light, then the nostalgic look of a memory . . . the big screen, which he had been reading when he was bitten by that spider. Pain shoots through his hand, hot and sizzling, but he ignores it. Is enhanced memories part of the abilities? He does not know and frankly he does not care; the only thing he can care about right now, is figuring out where this damned set of powers came from once and for all, settling it for good.
The memory swims up into vision, and Lincoln realizes that Herman Industries had used the very same genetic code to alter the spider that they had used to alter the human body. And now, he feels stress alleviate in a whisper. He feels thousands of unanswered questions floating off, fading off for good; assumingly never to come back again.
"So, it is true, this is from the spider. The spider at the GLOD," Lincoln says. He utters a line of wavering laughter (a kind that, if done in public, would turn everyone's head), creasing his face in a wide grin; a grin induced by a huge wave of exaltation, turning him over just as it had done this morning when he was with Lynn. "It's true, it's true, it's true!"
He jumps down on his bed, still laughing, body loose in an X. He jostles himself around, burritos himself in his duvet, then finally bellies it out and lets it sit on top of him in a blue mat. The relief is a bit much, and he feels himself going off into some kind of—
Lincoln sits up in bed. Surprisingly, he had slept. It is dark outside; the bleak darkness out which his circle window is staring into has made the revelation to him. He looks ahead dumbly, regarding nothing but a blank wall, nothing but the foot of his bed frame. His legs are still splayed in a V, stinking as all hell beneath the hint of English Leather he had sprayed all over himself that morning, his sleep-inspired erection making a considerable tent in the covers. Speaking of penis, it feels as if it is on fire. A fat piss would do.
And suddenly he is climbing out of the circular window at the back end of his room, smiling broadly, eyes wide with intense excitement. He realizes it has been raining; somehow he did not notice, perhaps out of the blindness of his sleep, or maybe because he is just an idiot. Either of these assumptions would do. Rain courses down his face, dappling his white hair. He lets go and falls into a strip of grass by the driveway, landing with a dull thud of earth.
He starts running, panting as if a dog, feeling, for the first time in so long, in control; in power. His speed never fails to increase. Just when Lincoln thinks he has reached his limit, he goes faster. Faster, faster, faster, faster, faster! What is he running at now? Doing sixty— seventy miles an hour? Wind drives into his face, sending forward rain like a flock of flying needles. His hair would have danced crazily if it weren't for the fact that it had now been plastered to his skull cap in a soft gleam. He keeps running however, and before he knows it, he is at Royal Woods High, breath coming out of his mouth in sharp bounces of misty air.
He slides his curved hands down his pants, somewhat tired. But this feeling doesn't last; it should have coated his mouth in the taste of blood, sharp and metallic, with spit thicker than mucus, but that did not happen. He sucks a single breath into his lungs and feels whole again. He turns back, thinking of where he is. The back of the school, he thinks.
In an environment so ominous, Lincoln could have never thought he would be so chock-full of eagerness and excitement. Fog lurks through the open air in translucent-gray ribbons, the pavement shiny and sparkling. Falling rain hisses in the April cool, small pellets of rain flying up with each drop. A dumpster sits to his left, emitting a smell that is dank and kind of shitty, but he does not draw back. Instead, he looks at his hand, curiosity brimming.
He thinks, only briefly: Would this work?
And it does; he puts one hand to the partially-slatted wall of bricks, and it sticks. Then he puts the other hand down on it as well, a bit higher this time, and it sticks as well. (Oh man oh man where is the machete it has got to be somewhere here in this jungle where is it where is it) He pushes his foot against the wall now, bringing himself upward, creasing his sodden socks. The hand he has placed on the wall comes off with a peeling sound, and he sticks it back on the wall again, this time higher.
He climbs the wall, grin widening. There is no breath in him to speak, at least any that he can muster to do so. Breath is only rushing in and out, fevered in the exhilaration of discovering everything that he could do, everything these powers had given him. He keeps gaining altitude, looking back, seeing the trees lessen in size, seeing the neighborhoods ahead, seeing the pepper of stars through the sky. The moon hangs in the night like a spreading pool of white.
Sucking in a great gulp of breath, Lincoln pushes himself off the wall (maybe what, thirty or forty feet in the air) and jumps, soaring through the sky. Though that is only short-lived; instead of flying like Superman, he glides for a few seconds before falling to the ground in a spill. Branches heavy with leaves spring into his face. He makes contact with watered dirt. Mud cakes his clothes. But he only laughs it off, not caring.
He gets up, walking forward. A railway is here, rolling out through a cleared-out strip of the forest. Gravel paves the undersides of the rusted tracks, wooden planks conjoining them as if a ladder. Weeds struggle through tiny wedges and spaces here and there, some growing as tall as a shoe, some blossoming in yellow dandelions or cotton-like spheres of seed. Lincoln thinks: This is the Amtrak. Runs through Royal Woods and heads somewhere to another state.
A concrete wall (heavily graffitied), about fifteen feet high, backs the train tracks, cutting out the slope of a hill on which more trees stand. The tracks feed into two parallel tunnels, one side emerging out of its thick darkness, the other diving into that darkness.
Just one more burst of energy. Lincoln Loud runs forward — his legs electric, his chest heaving, his feet smashing into thick mud — and leaps over the concrete wall, landing on the grassy hill above. At last, he has found his breath. And he decides to scream for joy, his sleep-soured breath driving forward in a heavy train of mist.
5
Birtz Robern had always wanted to be a mechanical engineer, and the only one who knew that was Lincoln Loud.
He worked endlessly, sweat lining his forehead in a soft glimmer. A bead sluiced down his temple. He knuckled it away. His desk lamp shafted out gold light; his newest work glinting off light in blinks. Cables fell over its exposed top in corkscrews, snarls of copper wires poking out of their ends. There had been a faint rise of smoke into the air; but Birtz got it off quickly. He knew what he was doing here, knew a lot more here than he did when doing whatever kind of bullshit science Dad had wanted him to do, knew a lot more here than he did with anything else for that matter.
He fitted a small plastic container onto the butt of the alarm clock. It clicked into place. Made to hold liquid. A hole had been drilled into the top. Birtz grabbed a notched disc and screwed it on. There was a hint of struggle as Birtz tightened the cap to its last band of resistance, his wrists flaring with cords which seemed to be trying to break out of the skin. The muscles on his forearm thickened, and he was done.
Few wires were left to connect. There had been a green switchboard somewhere in there, topped with a maze of silver and gold, cables fixed to its edges as well. He finished up everything and set the alarm on the clock. Then it would be all set, and he would invite Lincoln over to check out his new 'creation.' The spitting alarm clock, he would call it. Or maybe he would give Lincoln the honor of naming this monstrosity.
Sweat stood on his brow in an oily sheen. He knuckled it away. Rain began to fall, sweeping restlessly against the panes of his bedroom window. He looked in its direction, stood up, nudged his chair in, and walked over. Beads sluiced down in crystal tracks. Thunder whipcracked in a sound that might have been muffled inside, but was likely deafening outside. He felt an odd heaviness in one of his legs. A wave of imbalance swam through him. He teetered, tried to regain his balance, but fell onto his bed, his head an anchor of white heat.
Birtz's head struck the pillow in a soft thud. The box-spring mewled. He kept his eyes open forcibly, trying to make sense of what was happening; stab a clear line of coherence through his muddled thoughts. Tired. He was tired. Likely tired from pouring every one last bit of his intelligence into that alarm clock, the one Lincoln had suggested to him during their trip to the GLOD. Much as he thought of Lincoln as this delicate little flower who couldn't hold his own, he had been surprised he stood up for himself in such a fashion.
Starlight coursed through the window and ran along his green comforter, lightening it. Lincoln had stood up for himself, right? He was thinking about that? Man, he must have been really tired. Lincoln did stand up for himself, though. He had not only just done that, but also beat the living daylights out of all of them. All three of the big tough guys; Arnold Sawyer, Xavier Ferguson, and Nathaniel Morrison. He adjusted himself in bed, his hair ruffling against his pillow case. But how? Did Lincoln have some kind of unseen strength, like he had been training in secret?
There was no chance. Lincoln was as thin as a rail, as he had been when he first met him. Sometimes, his shirt even highlighted his jutting ribs; two skin-sheathed knobs, the base of two skeletal ladders. As far as he could tell, Lincoln was the type of person to pull a muscle trying to open a well-sealed bottle of Dasani. But no, something was different; very different this time around.
His eyes fluttered shut, but thunder shafted to the ground — moving in what he best called "electric branches" — in another resounding noise, and he forced his eyes open again. Birtz groaned and narrowed down on his thoughts, thinking of how Lincoln could have done such a thing. But answers were something of dreams . . . and dreaming had not sounded so bad right about then.
Then his phone vibrated, white light blotting a good section of his ceiling, a mechanical shiver racing through the wooden top of his desk.
He scooped his phone in his hands and read the notification: Linc has added you to a chat.
A smile creased his face, his mouth moving to utter "what's this?" but succeeding in uttering no more than a rusty series of whistling aspirations. His throat was dry and could do with some liquid; but he figured Dad would not be so happy to see him up this late, and had more sense than to follow through with it. No calls, hopefully. Only texting in this chat, which one of — if not his only — best friends decided that the best time to start it was at the brink of midnight.
He entered his texting application. The texts were lined up in small little chat bubbles, blue and purple to different users. The top of the screen made sure to denote that Lincoln was not the sole member of this chat, and that there were a few unsaved numbers in the bunch.
Lincoln: hey birtz, how about you get in touch with the gang?
Birtz felt his lips arch into a puckish smile, and he began to type:
absolutely not.
A bell tolled, and a message materialized onto the screen.
Lincoln: better stop lying to yourself burpy boy
Birtz stifled a laugh, to make sure his father would not hear, otherwise that laughter would likely turn to tears.
k.
A text popped up. This one was from an unknown number:
Why tf are you guys awake? Let me sleep
Then without pause, another text:
actually i'm a fan of this, keep it going boyzz
Lincoln: okay, you cant tell who these people are so let me sort things out
Lincoln: the grouchy one is zach
Lincoln: the guy who's a fan of this is rusty
Birtz: ic. what about the rest?
Lincoln: just gotta wait for them to wake up
Birtz: how long you figure?
Rusty: i say like 5 seconds
A couple of seconds later, the bell tolled again.
What's going on? Yall planning to talk the hind leg off a donkey at this hour?
The use of a barnyard idiom seemed all too familiar; what was the farmboy's name? Liam?
Lincoln: that's prty obviously liam
Liam: It sure is!
Rusty: bingooo, i was on point
Lincoln: huh
Rusty: liam answered in like 5 seconds like i said
Zach: Shut the fuck up Rusty, no one cares
Rusty: whats your deal fire-top
Zach: You won't grant me sleep, carrot-top
Lincoln: can you guys stop?
[can you guys stop]
Rusty, replying to Lincoln: def not
[can you guys stop]
Zach, replying to Lincoln: Yes please, I'm gonna pass out
Birtz stifled mad laughter and typed.
Birtz: i'm enjoying the show. please nooo!
Rusty: dont worry birtz nobody will miss him
Rusty: just kidding i love you zach
[just kidding i love you zach]
Zach, replying to Rusty: Ayoo
Zach: Okay bye
Lincoln: see you tomorrow
Birtz: who else are we missing?
Lincoln: well Zach just died, but we're only missing Stella
A text from a new unknown number, which was presumably the latter in question:
Oh how wrong you are, I've been spectating...
Lincoln: damn
Stella: Don't worry though I'm having to stop myself from laughing so hard
Birtz: same.
Lincoln: you guys got some plans?
Rusty: nah i'm ugly so no dates
Lincoln: okay mr 6 foot tall
Stella: Nope I should be free
Birtz: i'm free if i can get past my dad.
Birtz: i suggest you stop over at my house cuz i have a surprise for you!
Rusty: am i included
Birtz: uhh...
Rusty: darn
Stella: Keep out of their business lol
Rusty: mk
Lincoln: i think we should have an old timey meetup
Rusty: i smell an arcade suggestion
Stella: That would be sweet
Stella: Like veryyy sweet
[i smell an arcade suggestion]
Lincoln, replying to Rusty: my EXACT thoughts
Birtz: arcades will be a first for me
Lincoln: lmaooo no way
Lincoln: your in for a treat
Stella: You're*
Lincoln: frick
Stella: Hahaha I got you
Rusty: i would kick everyone's ass at that one game where you go through the maze
Lincoln: you mean pacman
Rusty: ya my bad
Stella: I would be down any day
Stella: Would just need to slide it by my parents
Lincoln: sounds good but they might not let you
Stella: Why?
Lincoln: because
[Like veryyy sweet]
Lincoln, replying to Stella: i think its too sweet
Lincoln: not sure if theyre still into that health kick from 4 years ago
Lincoln: i mean maybe if it was JUST sweet ... but you said VERRRRYYYY sweet
Stella: Omg you remember that lol
Lincoln: heck yes
Lincoln: and that memory will be following you around for the rest of time
Stella: Should I be creeped out
Lincoln: depends on which way you want to interpret my message
Rusty: hmmm i say
Rusty: yes to the arcade
Lincoln: okay
Rusty: and a strong no to the health kick
Stella: Stoppp lol
Birtz: so i'm just watching here, or what?
Stella: Now you know how I felt
Birtz: well i be damned.
Lincoln: okay so it seeemss like everyone agrees
Lincoln: arcade should be a certainty but we need to ask Zach tomorrow cause he's dead
Rusty: he will respond by morning
Stella: By the way
Stella: We are missing Liam
Lincoln: didn't he join
Rusty: well with the way he joined in i don't think he was gonna stay for very long
Lincoln: what was the way he joined in?
Birtz: i remember. he seemed to scold us for talking a lot at this hour.
Rusty: ahhh he prolly went to bed then
Stella: Unfortunate
Birtz: i think ill go to bed too guys.
Lincoln: noooo
Rusty: ah its been a fun journey, good night comrade
Stella: I think I'll go to bed too
Rusty: ah shit everyone's leaving now
Lincoln: it's okay rusty, we can chill together
Rusty: lets gooo
Stella: You guys go into a private DM
Stella: You're gonna end up blowing up my phone until 2 AM
Lincoln: ok ok
Lincoln: you're wish is my command
Stella: Very appreciated
Stella: Goodnight Lincoln
Lincoln: bye
Birtz: cya tmrw bro. can't wait to show you my surprise
Lincoln: oh really lol. anyway ill see you tmrw dude
Rusty: night
Birtz dropped his phone to the desk. It clattered for less than a second, and when it stopped he pressed a hand to his forehead. He was sweating, oiling up his forehead. The heater downstairs was droning; he could hear it travel through the vents and spill out of the grate in his floor. His brown hair drooped over his forehead, those part of the cowlick at the back of his head up in spears. He slicked his hair back, wondering dully what to do next. He wanted sleep, yes. He also wanted water, yes. He also wanted to brush his teeth, yes. He also wanted to change in his pajamas, yes. But on top of all of that . . . was that same, underlying fear of Dad. He was already a stick in the mud to begin with. But recently, he found Dad's behavior to be a bit peculiar.
The weird look in his eyes could be one thing; or maybe the way he had been hiding them earlier that morning. His daily issue of newspaper had been drawn up to his eyes, even as he walked down the stairs. And his voice . . . what was wrong with it? When he spoke, he sounded scary; crazy, even. His utterances were a smoky fuse to dynamite — as if it might explode, as if there might be an outburst suppressed behind the seemingly calm words he spoke in. And the dinner he ate; what the hell kind of meat was that?
Birtz shook his head. "It is what it is," he said somewhat flatly. He scrabbled into a seated position and clutched his knees to his chest. He sucked his lips in, as if wanting to cry. "Dad doesn't love me. It's really true."
But the tears never came, because Birtz was done crying. Tears should only come in the dawn of tragedy, and he had been living through this perpetual tragedy for years now. If he was still crying, he was weak. And he wasn't weak . . . he didn't want to be. Arnold Sawyer's voice sprinted through the foreground of his mind like a shadow (You need to learn to keep that big ass-kisser of yours shut) but he pushed it away. Unpleasant thoughts turned up at the forefront of his mind all the time, and he was used to pushing them away. Especially the thoughts of Dad not loving him — but as of late, he was quite a professional at accepting those thoughts in particular.
If Dad really loved him, why would he have needed to dumpster dive for the alarm clock's components? Why would he need to live in fear of being caught doing things — things which were especially considered normal in the public eye — in front of Dad? Why would he need to hide his real aspirations? Why would he need to be burdened with the responsibility of inheriting something he hated?
He threw his legs over the drop-off of the mattress, figuring he ought to brush his teeth and get a glass of water should the next morning not be a shitty one. A warm cramp festered in his back, seemingly out of nowhere. He remembered then, that Arnold's hands had tightened around his forearms, wheeling them both around, before losing grip quite purposefully (if you would ask him) and putting Birtz down on the floor, not before the edge of the table found his back and drove into it, squeezing the air out of his lungs and keeping him down on his ass for a considerable amount of time . . .
This thought drove this question even further: How did Lincoln fight them off?
He decided he would find out as soon as possible.
6
Lincoln Loud sits close-legged on the seat of the john. His eyes are brimming with a kind of excitement — an easy to read excitement, at that — which brings out the icy wash of his pupils. At one point, with his back arched with a dangerous candy-cane hunch, his eyes grow huge, revealing the glistening sclera around the pale aqua irises. Puckish laughter explodes — struggles — against the walls of his throat. Hands flying, elbows popping, eyes bulging. His mouth is smothered by his open palm, doing its damndest to keep the laughter from jumping out.
He talks to Rusty, his conversation with Birtz and the rest of the gang tied off. Texting is fun, he finds, a lot more fun than face-to-face communication; despite his fingers cramping and the annoying, jittery popcorn noise of the digital keyboard (he knows well how to silence it, but for some reason is to lazy too), he still loves it, not exactly sure why . . . perhaps it is the ambiguity of each message's humor, the tone he imagines each message being sent in, or the power to think through your messages before you send them. Perfect for an argument.
When he finally ends off the conversation, Lincoln just sits there, sitting on the toilet with no real emotions or thoughts. Just his face — an unremarkable haze in his eyes, as well — and the pale bathroom light battering on his listless features.
A shower. He needs a shower. A fetid smell rises from his clothes, drilling into his nostrils as if an icepick. The recoil Lincoln suffered at his own scent is comparable to that of a shotgun blast. All of his clothes; down to the socks, pants, Puma boxer briefs, the . . . well, not the shirt — he remembered picking it out not too long ago and spritzing himself with Rusty's gift of English Leather cologne — and you may even say himself in general, having been majorly unwashed; have been collecting everyday muck since Monday. It is Wednesday now, the clock having just ebbed past midnight.
He stands up, not smelling too different from the toilet on which he sat earlier (as soon as he had gotten home, all sodden with his clothes plastered to his skin and into his butt, he made for the bathroom, already lowering the waistline of his jeans, and urinated forever into the still water), and ripped his shirt off his skin, the cotton sounding like suction cups. The pants come off next, his scraggly forearms yanking them low-water. Steps out of the ankles, pulling with it an everted strip of denim. (Don't let me go, daddy-o!) He hitches his thumbs into the waistband of his prismarine boxers next, and they are off as well.
The clothes form a miniature, sopping Kilimanjaro in the middle of the bathroom floor. He kicks them aside in its fused heap, painting a fresh roll of Adam's ale along the tiles, and steps into the bathtub. Its smell is almost musty . . . and airless, as if nobody had showered at all today. A couple of tall shampoo bottles crowd up the inward edges of the tub; on a small ledges, bars of soap were squirted into book-sized holding trays, its suds dried up and giving them the look of undersea coral.
His reaching hand closes on none other than the knob. He wrenches it to the side; left, for hot water. The showerhead quakes a little, a hiss issuing from both its spouts and the drain just below as if a warning. Water rushes upward, spurting out of the showerhead through its spouts in a hundred little jets. A thought ricochets through Lincoln's mind, much as it did when Nathaniel Morrison's paper airplane had been bound for his head (this time the letters appeared out of a thousand little crystals and bubbly suds — LOOK OUT! COLD!).
Then suddenly the ceiling is inches away from his eyes. The water — the cold water — is splashing up just beneath him, beelining for the shower floor and collecting in a small, drain-bound sheet.
"Right," Lincoln says, unknowingly out loud. "I got to wait for it to change temperature."
Now his brow creases. He has hopped up and gripped onto the ceiling. And shit, he can not get down. He tries to think, think, think (oh god the machete where's the machete WHERE IS THE DAMN THING IN THIS FUCKIN JUNGLE) but it does not succeed this time, and the pads of his fingers have seemed to fused to the ceilingpaint. But he thinks harder — in a much less confused, more calmly focused manner — and suddenly he is down, landing on the crowns of his toes. He steadies himself from slipping, grabbing onto the curtains which project their amber motor light. A small scream as the ring-holes shift along the rusted bar.
"God," Lincoln says.
He steps under the shower, which is now lukewarm, and hones his eyes to slits; he does not recoil against the driving water, instead letting it splat on his flash and strike the wall and floor and curtains. The shower heats up, a gout of steam spreading over the ceiling, still operating in its sound which is awfully reminiscent of piss. Lincoln believes this may wake up a few of his siblings, this sound which seems to be distinguishable through the entire house (especially at night), but he does not hold that to high consideration. Instead he begins to think: What should I do with my powers . . . ?
A glob of shampoo now cupped in his hand, he rubs it through his white hair, nearly pulling some strands out because of how stubborn it is from being shower-starved. The suds materialize, encompassing his head in thick beds of what he likes to call 'Santa's Beard,' its fruity smell waftering out. He thinks a second time: What can I do with my powers?
Well the obvious choice would be to . . . become a superhero; all of those Ace Savy comics he read as a younger boy of eleven would have certain influenced him, had this happened years ago. But he is not the young child he once was anymore; he is a man. Well, not exactly. But closing in on it — three years to go. Much has changed since then. The comic-obsession has been dwindled to tatters. Science, for one reason or another, has peaked his interested; caught onto it as if a fishhook. He has grown much taller now. A solid five foot ten on a "good" day. Much taller than his eleven year old self — he must have been what? Four foot five at most? His friend Stella used to be pushing the holy five foot mark then. Now she is likely an inch smaller than Lincoln; Zach, Clyde and Liam are also still shorter than Lincoln (not by much granted), apart from Rusty who stands three inches taller.
The rain of the shower drills into his head, the shampoo drifting away in sudsy streams. Being a superhero is definitely a no-go. But there are opportunities he can use with his strength, right? He would think competitions of some kind, or maybe some kind of spectacle, something for people to ogle and drool over? Maybe he can do that. The only thing he would need to do is research. He smiles around the soap streaming down his face — a smile that is almost cynical — and thinks about an advertisement for amateur wrestling which he saw in the papers not too long ago.
His druthers settle on jumping off a cliff and dying rather than doing something so public and potentially humiliating, but he could fantasize. His costume . . . a black suit with red web patterns on it . . . he would call himself The Tarantula and whoop everybody's ass in that name.
If only he could muster up the courage to do so.
If only.
:
End of Chapter 5
& The Discovery Interludes
:
Thank you for reading!