Runaways:
Southern Comforts
Chapter 4
Bad Medicine
by Ri-kun
There was a temple built under the church. Some part of me actually felt like I should've seen that one coming! With everything else we'd discovered, a hidden temple really wasn't so odd anymore. Which, I suppose, should have been a omen as to how strange our lives had gotten in the last twenty-four hours or so.
I wondered at first if this wasn't just a bad dream. Finding the temple didn't make me feel that way; seeing all of our parents inside it, however, did.
Gabriel's stepfather was down there, along with his mother and a bunch of cultists. You can always identify cultists by their robes, and the weird chanting they do. That was what I always believed, anyway, and it was proving true at the moment! My parents had come in full ninja gear, with a couple of flunkie ninjas standing on each side as a guard. Even after everything had happened, a part of me still felt it was cool that I had ninjas for parents! Nicole's mother and father had come by themselves, and were the most normal-looking of the whole group. They were also the ones who seemed the least happy to be there!
Well, them and the Wongs, who had several familiar robots armed to the teeth with weapons to watch their backs. I almost mistook one of Miguel's family members for one of them, the way they were dressed up. All the Wrights had on outfits that resembled knock-off space suits from Batttlestar Galactica!
Our parents were arguing with one another. Reverand Merryweather was standing off to the side, praying in front of a really big statue of some idol god with fire on his head. The way things were arranged reminded me a little bit of the Temple of Doom movie. The cultists that weren't standing with Mrs. Merryweather were kneeling behind the Reverand, mumbling under their breath while he held out an old jar before the statue.
I was getting a bad feeling about what was happening.
"I thought," the Wongs were saying, rather loudly. "That we'd agreed not to let our children know about the Pride until they came of age! How exactly is letting your son wander down to your security base an accident, Mr. Whittaker?"
"We're not sure how he found the switch," my mother was saying. She sounded pretty mad at the moment, and I suddenly had the urge to go back upstairs and wait for her. A part of me wanted to laugh at myself, but no one really knew better than me what mom could be like when she got angry! It wasn't pretty.
"From the way things looked in the hall," my dad went on. "It looks as if he could have stumbled on it by accident."
"Well, our daughter would have never come into the garage," Mrs. Wong threw at them. "Not without provocation. I think we all know where the blame for that lies."
"Blaming each other solves nothing!" Mrs. Merryweather cut in. "What we need to do is figure out how to resolve the situation. Perhaps the best thing to do after all is tell our children the truth?"
"Are you sure that's wise?" the principle, Nicole's dad, asked.
"We've taken great steps to ensure our daughter has a normal life. Revealing the truth to her now could be devistating!"
Mrs. Merryweather looked at Nicole's mother gravely. "If you have a better suggestion, Diane, I would love to hear it."
"Would all of you please be quiet!"
Reverand Merryweather had turned around, and was glaring at each of them with a furious expression. "I am only trying to appease one of the foulest beings in all of Creation! Lord Dormamu is not known for his patience, and opening a vortex to his home dimension is tricky, even with the powers I possess."
"Yes, dear!" his wife muttered. I actually think she was rolling her eyes underneath the cloak covering her head. "Please, go right ahead. We'll wait in the antechamber until you and the rest of the deacons are finished."
"Those are deacons?!" I wondered, aloud.
"Shhh!" Nicole hissed at me. "Quiet! If they hear us..."
"None of that's gonna matter if the Reverand does what I think he's about to do!" Miguel gulped, looking pale. "I'm pretty sure he just said Dormamu!"
"What?" I wondered. "Is that important?"
"What's he doing?" Gabriel asked in a very soft voice.
I looked back down, and saw the air near the statue ripple and spin. A dark red light was coming from the center of the space that appeared to be warping in front of our very eyes, and the stench of sulfur suddenly filled the room. Reverand Merryweather had opened the jar, and a silvery wisp began to emerge from it. The wisp took the form of a young girl, one that seemed vaguely familiar to me.
"That's Amy Howizer!" I heard Nicole gasped. "I sit next to her in third period English!"
"Someone told me she ran away from home last week," Gabriel whispered, somewhere near my ear. "No one's seen or heard from her in days!"
"Looks like we found where she'd gone to!" Miguel sounded like he was going to be sick. "I don't think I wanna watch what happens next."
I had a horrible suspicion myself, but kept my eyes focused on the scene unfolding in front of me. The vortex had begun to spout flames, and a great rumbling could be heard from deep inside it. The girl named Amy Howizer, who I now realized had a locker just across from mine, looked terrified as her soul was dragged ever closer. I started to get up, to do something to help her, but Nicole put a hand on me.
"Don't," she said, looking like she herself wanted to cry. "Don't! If you try anything, they'll know we're up here. There's nothing... nothing we can do for her now."
The soul of Amy Howizer was pulled up to the vortex. I watched as the rumbling grew deeper, almost hungry. Then, flames surged out from the center of it, seizing her in them. Amy gave a scream that couldn't be heard over the roar of flames, yet went through me nonetheless. I could still hear her long after the fire had died down, after the vortex closed up, and the smell of sulfur left the air. Her cries rang in my ear as the Reverand stood up with the rest of his hand-picked deacon board. As I watched them leave the room towards the antechamber where the rest of our parents had gone, an overwhelming urge to snap his neck in my bare hands filled me.
"Let's follow them," Nicole suggested.
"I don't see any other way of getting down there," Gabriel mused, looking over the banister. "Are you sure it's safe?"
"We'll wait until the rest of them leave to go down," said Nicole firmly, getting to her feet.
Most of the others had already wandered off to where we couldn't see. We all stood there for several minutes, feeling a little scared and all questioning whether it was safe yet to go. I really didn't want to stand still, not after what I'd just witnessed. I tried not to think about the fact that my parents had seen a part of it right along with me, and hadn't batted an eyelash. It didn't shock them one bit, knowing in advance what Gabriel's dad had been about to do. They'd just walked off like it was no big deal!
"They're gone now," Miguel told us, peering over the edge. "I think it's safe for us to follow them."
There was another set of spiral steps leading down, just off to the right of us. I went first again, but everyone was keeping very close. The silence that hung over our heads was ominous, and more than a little sobering. I think, up until that point, we'd all hoped against hope that this really had been a misunderstanding on our parts. I mean, you hear about it all the time, kids our age overhearing a part of some conversation adults are having; either that, or finding a letter that'd been torn in half, and jumping to the wrong conclusion. I didn't realize until then just how much I wanted this to be all my fault.
How much I'd wanted this to be because of something I'd done, or just heard wrong by accident, and that all of it would be okay in the end.
We all found the antechamber fairly easy. There weren't as many rooms in this place, unlike my own parents' fortress of doom, or whatever they called it. The main part of the temple with the Doorbell statue, or whatever Miguel had called it, was maybe half the size of the church sanctuary. I noticed Miguel gave the idol statue a great deal of berth. He genuinely appeared frightened by it!
I might not have liked him much in the past, but one thing was clear: Miguel was no coward! If that thing bothered him this much, there was probably a good reason behind it. I started manuveuring everyone farther away from it, taking the farthest path possible to the antechamber door. He looked really relieved at me once we put some distance between it.
The door was left open slightly, cracked just enough to let light in through. None of us dared stick our heads in, but we could hear the voices of our parents talking loudly. Miguel and I stood on the right side, where I could just make out a table. They were all sitting around it, talking animatedly at once. Gabriel had crouched down near the floor, and stuck his ear against the panel of wood. Nicole was leaning behind him, listening right along. I wished that I'd thought long enough to stand closer to her, but forced myself to keep my head in what was going on.
It wasn't easy, though.
"I hear crime in the city is down this month," the Reverand was saying, snidely. "Taking a break from the drug trade, Whittaker? What will the Externals think of that, I wonder?"
"Crime needed to come down for a while," I heard my dad tell him calmly. "It gives the cops a chance to recharge, and feel like they've actually accomplished something other than racking up donut tabs! Plus, my wife and I have been focusing our attentions on the south coast recently. You know how difficult it is to maintain balance in the drug trade there, what with the cajuns and all!"
"Crime could stand to be down for a bit," Miguel's mother replied, loftily. "I think we'd all like to be able to walk the streets a little a night. It just isn't safe to let my son out after dark anymore. Speaking of which, I knew letting him go to Jeff Palmer's house was a bad idea!"
"Where is the youth minister, anyway?" That was Mr. Wong, O-Ren's father, talking. "I wanted to have a word with him about leaving his basement door wide open! Shouldn't he be here with the rest of the Pride, seeing as how he remains a member?"
"I wouldn't mind seeing less of the time traveller!" O-Ren's mother sounded disgusted. "It's his fault we're facing the situation we're in right now."
"We always knew it was a possibility." I froze, then. That was my mother's voice! "All of us understood the contengency in case one or more of our children stumbled upon the truth. You are all making this out to be much worse than it really is."
"She's right." That was Gabriel's stepfather again. "We merely need to impliment Stage One of the Abel Contengency..."
"Assuming it works, of course!" Miguel's mother again. "Didn't you tell us once, Diane, that the mental supression of memories stood a chance of causing aneurisms and seizures in the subject, not to mention the constant possibility that the memories in question could resurface because of outside stimulus?"
"It does," Nicole's mother admitted. "My husband could use his telepathy to erase any surface memories of the last twenty-four hours or so, but there is always a chance of side effects."
"Reducing my son to a vegetable is not what I would call a 'side effect'!" Mrs. Wright shouted. "I thought you assured us the process could be done safely."
"We think it can," she insisted, continuing. "But it will take time! The process must be done slowly, so as to not cause damage. In the meanwhile, the children must be kept silent, so as to not reveal what they've learned thus far."
"The process need not be permanent," Nicole's father added. "All of our kids were about to reach eighteen. We only need to keep them unaware of the truth for three more years, at most. I'd be willing to perform the process on our daugher first, if it would help resolve any ill feelings. The techno-virus that keeps her mutant X gene supressed allows me greater access to her mind, anyway."
"Having fun, are we?"
The voice behind me sent chills down my spine. I automatically knew who it was, but was praying by this point to be wrong.
Big surprise! I wasn't.
Jeff smiled as each one of us. There was a calm, relaxed feeling about him, the same kind he almost always carried. It was like we'd just bumped into one another on the street, or at the mall. His eyes even crinkled a little as he watched us. Without a word, Jeff strode past us and entered the antechamber. We were all too shocked to move out of the way in time; the door remained open after he entered, giving all our positions away.
"Sorry I'm so late!" Jeff told everybody giddily. "I had a bad mess to clean up in my basement. Somebody left something behind they hadn't meant to. Oh, and I see you found my bag of tricks that was stolen. Lots of nasty odds and ends in there!"
The bag of tricks in question was resting on the table where our parents were sitting. They, however, were looking past Jeff at all of us, still lurking in the doorway. My eyes were reserved for my own parents, who's faces remained concealed by red ninja masks. Neither of them made a move; I couldn't even tell what they were feeling. Their eyes had grown cold.
I felt numb inside.
Nicole, on the other hand, was furious! "Techno-virus?" she breathed, rage building all around her. "You told me I was born a flatscan! That I didn't have any powers; that it was all just a fluke! You gave me a virus?! You took away my mutant powers on purpose!?"
"Honey..." her mother said softly, looking shocked.
"I hate you!" she screamed. Nicole's eyes had tears in them, but she quickly wiped them away. "I hate all of you! How could you do this to us?!"
"Young lady!" Reverand Merryweather stood, glaring at her. "I believe you are out of line!"
Nicole laughed at him. It wasn't a normal sound, either! "Fuck you!" she spat.
Stepping forward, Nicole brushed past Jeff and snatched the bag of tricks up off the table. I saw his face contort as we both realized what she was doing. Jeff moved to stop her, but I had my bo staff at the ready. The metal landed cleanly across his noggin with a loud clang, sending him crumbling to the floor in a heap.
"Thanks!" she breathed, smiling at me. I suddenly felt twenty feet tall.
"Now, run for it!"
Oh, yeah.
"By the way, mom!" I heard Miguel call out behind me. "Nice outfits!"
I'm not sure why they didn't try to chase after us. Maybe it was just shock, or they figured we wouldn't be able to get far. In either case, I was halfway out the panel that'd let us into the temple before any of us heard them coming up from behind. Nicole had gotten in front of me, so I made sure Miguel and Gabriel went first. Once it was shut, we all made a break for the surface, and freedom!
Freedom, however, was blocked by a team of cult members and ninja thugs.
Which, I guess, explained why nobody was worried about us getting out of here!
"Well," Miguel sighed, looking at me. "Anybody got a different idea?"
There was the sound of glass breaking, and something that might have been wood shattered in the far back behind the armada in front of us. I heard howling, and several cult members dove to their feet as a blur of fur and claws came slashing through towards us. Whatever it was caught them off guard; even the ninjas didn't have time to react! I might have found the whole scenario funny, if it weren't for the fact that whatever-it-was was headed our way!
Ninjas and cultists scattered in all directions. Pews and prayer benches got displaced as a massive and incredibly foul-smelling thing roared up to meet us. Thinking at random, I snatched up a collection plate from the altar and threw it in the air. Unfortunately, in my panic, I didn't take the time to aim. The thing, however, changed directions at once and went running after it. It caught the tin in mid-air, and trodded back to us with what might have been a contented grin on it's rotting face. One eyeball was dangling down from the socket, and there were patches of muscle tissue left exposed to the air. The smell of it made me want to throw up!
And I began to get a sickening thought as to where this thing had come from as it lay the collection plate down at Gabriel's feet.
Gabriel immediately jumped back, looking horrified. The rest of us couldn't really blame him much, though we didn't want it coming near us anymore than he did. Nicole was brave enough to step forward, but stopped the moment the creature growled low.
"What is it?" Miguel wondered, coming up behind her.
"A mastiff." Nicole saw the confused look on Miguel's face, and elaborated quickly. "A really, really big dog famous for it's loyalty to whoever it considers it's master. I think it's dead!"
"I guess we know what that spell Gabriel read does, then!" he grinned, lowering his hand to pet it. The undead mastiff snapped angrily the moment Miguel's fingers came close enough.
"They're also known for their viciousness to anyone who isn't their master," Nicole finished, looking at him.
"Couldn't have told me that earlier?"
"I wasn't dumb enough to stick my fingers in front of it," she replied, curtly.
I laughed, thinking that she sounded like O-Ren a bit in that moment, then remembered. "O-Ren! She left before we did! Do you think they have her somewhere?"
"We'll have to worry about that later," Nicole told me. "Wherever she is, she's safe for the time being! Let's just get out of here before these guys come to!"
Gabriel, meanwhile, had edged closer to the dog, who was watching him with a big grin all over it's rotten doggy face. It didn't so much as bark the closer he got. When Gabriel petted him, it just stood there and drooled contentedly.
"I think someone's found a new pet," Miguel noted. Gabriel looked up at us questioningly, as if to ask if he could keep it.
"Just so long as he's toilet trained," Nicole told him, smiling. "Now, let's move it!"
We didn't make it to the door. Our parents came bursting out of the basement, literally, with the Reverand in the lead. His hands were glowing a sick color of green, indicating he was ready to use magick on us. The state of the door they came from told me he meant business, too!
"Young lady," Nicole's father said, coming up around him. "We need to have a serious talk about your language!"
"Now apologize to the Reverand," her mother added, sternly. "And we'll all go home and have ourselves a nice little talk."
"Get out of the way!" Gabriel cried.
I saw him open the book in his hands, and immediately took cover. Nicole came down with me, leaving Miguel to fend for himself. Gabriel held up the book in his hands, wide open about halfway through, and cried out something in what I assumed was Latin. The effect was instanteous, and scared the bejeezus out of me!
A swarm of white ghosts, not all that different from the one of Amy Howizer we'd seen sacrificed just moments earlier, came flying out from the pages. Each one resembled a skeleton, half rotten and wailing. There were dozens of them, and they each decended on our parents like ravaged animals, wrapping themselves around them and creating chaos. Gabriel observed his handiwork with a kind of twisted satisfaction for a moment, then caught me looking at him in shocked horror.
"Come on!" he screamed, pointing towards the broken door. "We need to leave now!"
"What are those things?" Miguel demanded, running after us. "Extras from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark?'"
"Tortured spirits," Gabriel explained. "They won't last for long, though."
"We need a way out of here," Nicole said, coming to a stop at the edge of the parking lot. "Anybody got any ideas?"
"My car!" I remembered, looking around. "We could take my car... if it weren't still back at the spot where the cops pulled me over!"
As if on cue, my Spyder came roaring up alongside of us. The passenger door swung open, revealing a rather smug looking O-Ren at the wheel. "Anybody need a lift?" she offered, thumbing the back seat.
"You hotwired my car?!" I asked, disbelievingly. "I cannot believe you just hotwired my car!"
"I had to go back and get it!" O-Ren barked, getting all defensive. "And you had the keys with you! There wasn't any other way to get it running!"
"But..." I stammered, not getting in. "You hotwired MY car!"
"Just get in!" Miguel hollered, opening the backseat door.
Before any of us could move, though, a blast came roaring up from behind. It missed Nicole and the others, but hit the back of my car with enough power to flip it over backwards. I watched in a kind of slow-motion trance as O-Ren screamed in fear while the gas tank erupted. The flames exploded outward, but didn't reach the front. The scene sped up, though, and they suddenly were a lot closer to her. My body wouldn't cooperate, though. It wasn't the fact that my car had been trashed; I just couldn't make my feet move!
Miguel whirled around, and his action caused me to follow almost against my will. The Reverand hand one hand extended, still glowing from the spell he'd used to try and attack us. Mr. and Mrs. Wong were behind him, looking horrified.
"You bastard!" Miguel screamed, hoarsely.
"O-Ren!" Mrs. Wong cried.
"Reverand, what have you done?" her father demanded, grabbing him by the collar.
"They were escaping!" he cried out, trying to break free. "I had to stop them!"
"You son of a bitch!" Miguel was stomping back across the parking lot, cursing a mile a minute. As he approached them, his mother came through what was left of the front door. She watched her son with a kind of quiet facination as he drew up on the Reverand with rage in his eyes.
"You nearly killed her!" he screamed, drawing back. "You nearly killed us all!"
"Now, son..." Reverand Merryweather looked like he was going to reason with him, but Miguel was beyond words. There was a kind of sick thud as his fist connected with the good Reverand's chest, and suddenly, Reverand Merryweather was airborne! His body must have flown back a good forty feet or so, well into the cemetary, before it stopped. Nicole and Gabriel were busy helping O-Ren get free of the twisted wreckage that had once been my Spyder. I, however, was dumbstruck.
My legs finally started moving again. I was headed back towards the church, though, to where Miguel was looking at his arm in shock. The closer I got, the easier it was to dissern why! His whole left arm had become a mass of orange rock. The whole thing was swollen to maybe three times its normal size, yet he held it up like it weighted nothing. The Wongs began backing up, no doubt in case he decided to start on them next. Miguel looked up to where his mother stood, watching him with an air of wonder, like she'd never really noticed him before.
"It's... true!" she gasped, moving towards him. "You really are..."
"What's happening?!" Miguel shouted, sounding very near panick. "What's... mom, what the hell am I?"
"You stopped taking your medications, didn't you?" she asked.
I had a feeling his mother already knew the answer. "The pills were tailored to your genetic structure, so you could appear human. We weren't sure yet if the experiment had worked, if you were really a Super Skrull or not..."
"Skrull?!" I didn't know what that was, but Miguel apparently did. And from the look on his face, it wasn't a good thing. "You mean to tell me I'm... a Skrull? An alien?!"
"Not just any Skrull," she whispered, touching his face tenderly. "A Super Skrull! The next of a new generation!"
Miguel backed away from her, like her touch had rendered him cold. "Don't go!" she cried out, reaching for him desperately. "Miguel, I have so much to tell you! There's still a great deal you don't understand yet."
Miguel glanced over at me. His arm was slowly going back to the way it was before. Our eyes met for a second, then he turned to face his mother again. There was about a second where I wasn't sure what he would do. I don't know that I would have blamed him much, then. The truth is, I really can't say I'd have made the same decision he did. Without a word, Miguel turned and ran back towards the burning car, which was now fully ablaze. O-Ren looked okay, though much of her was scratched up. Nicole was checking on her, while Gabriel helped her to stand. His new pet, the undead mastiff dog, was sitting calmly beside his leg, as though waiting for instructions.
"What do we do now?" I asked, feeling hollow.
Everyone looked at me; I wished then that I had an answer to give them, but again, it was Nicole who spoke up. "We run," she told us, letting go of O-Ren. "We have to run away, at least until we can figure out what to do."
"We don't have a way of getting anywhere," O-Ren mumbled, breathing hard. "The car is totaled... Sorry about that, by the way!"
"Let's just run," she said. "They'll be coming after us. We need to find a place to hide, and get some evidence. Something that'll prove our story!"
"Who are we going to tell?" I asked.
"Anyone! Everyone! Anybody that will believe us. But first, we need proof!"
Nicole looked at me, then. Our eyes met, and it occured to me that I didn't really know this girl at all!
"Just run, for now, Dan. We'll figure out the rest as we go."
Little did I know, that night, that we would keep on running for a very long time! To this day, it still feels like we haven't gotten far enough away.