Captain Kevin Campbell was a fourteen-year veteran of Detroit's Third Precinct. He had been on the site of nearly every major crime in the city's history from gang shootings, crash-and-stash robberies to false bomb threats in the schools. These alleged ghost sightings of the girl in this costume in his city were irking him on several levels. Was she real? Who was she? Where did she come from? The bank manager pulled the videos cameras and played them back. Edmunds and his gang invaded the bank in a choreographed ritual waving their weapons and shooting out every camera they saw, and less than a minute after their arrival, the anamorphous form dropped from the ceiling and attacked the two accomplices. It seemed the more vicious the crime the more ruthless this girl was. She could not be taped. Some force about her person distorted light around her so she could not be identified or filmed. After dropping Jamison and the cousin, she had whirled round and grabbed up Robert, pulling him up with her into the ceiling to be dropped a minute later from a long height.
"I got a call from the hospital." Lieutenant Adam Normandy came up behind his superior. "Edmunds and his gang are in critical. They'll live, but they can't leave intensive care for a month."
"What kind of entity is this girl?" Campbell replayed and analyzed the security footage on the bank security system. "Everything tells me she doesn't exist, but she keeps turning up more often than Bigfoot."
"I saw her." Bank manager Brenda Doherty shook her hair out of her azure blue eyes and sat backward on the edge of the counter. "She looked like a young teenage girl like a lot of the girls I see shopping at the mall, but she's fast… very fast. I saw her doing things no normal person should be able to do, and I didn't hallucinate it either. She seems just as real as she seems to be."
"There is no such thing as a bulletproof person." Campbell hit the replay button and replayed the bullet ricocheting off the blonde one. "Maybe she wears a bulletproof flak-jacket or the costume itself is bullet resistant…"
"Those shots didn't even knock her over." Doherty folded her arms across her chest. "I'll tell you something else. People love this girl. Who or what she is… the city is rallying behind her."
"I'm sending this tape to the FBI Forensics lab…" Campbell popped the tape and handed it to Normandy. "Maybe they can get something out of it to explain what she is. Real or not, some how, some way, we'll figure out what she really is."
It was Monday night for the Hennessy family of Oakdale Drive and Paul had ordered out to the Country House Restaurant for their family dinner take-out, a night of video rentals watching movies the family enjoyed. He enjoyed these nights because it meant he had his loved ones close. Cate had to work a few hours and was on her way home. Rory was before the TV in his usual spot: watching a simulated ghost town through the television as he controlled an animated weapon blowing up zombies and animated corpses. Kerry was her usual self… sarcastically withdrawn and curled up with a book, but this time it wasn't one of the classics or a selection from the school reading list. She was reading The Science of Superheroes, a tome of how science worked in the real world and how it matched the exaggerated science of the comic book universe. Cate acknowledged the title of her book and rolled her eyes to her husband. Kerry's obsession with her sister was getting worse. She pointed it out and directed Paul to silently acknowledge it. Paul just voiced his detractions and shrugged his shoulders unsure what to do about it.
"When do we eat?" Rory blasted another animated zombie.
"When your sister gets home." Paul popped a Brussels sprout into his mouth while preparing plates for his family.
"I don't know…" Rory prepared for another snide comment. "Those meetings at the Avengers mansion sometimes run long." He smirked picturing the whole thing. Batman brooding in the corner, Superman and the Hulk arm-wrestling, Captain America banging the gavel for order, Thor and Hercules saying things about gods and demons, Hawkeye propositioning the Wasp and Bridget talking clothes and shopping with Wonder Woman and Storm of the X-Men. "They could get attacked by the Legion of Doom or something."
"You're not funny…" Cate walked over and unplugged his game. There was a noise from upstairs and Kerry lifted her head to the noise. There was a sound of water being turned off that wasn't heard while Rory's game was playing. Paul stopped spooning mashed potatoes as he glanced up and saw Bridget coming down the back stairway.
"Is dinner ready yet?" Clad in a loose t-shirt and sweat pants, she was brushing out her long damp hair. She looked as if she had just come out of the shower.
"Where did you come from?!" Kerry looked up at her with alarm.
"The stork brought me???" Bridget didn't understand the question.
"Bridget…" Cate took this one. "We've been waiting for you for over an hour. When did you get home?"
"I came in through the back door when you and dad were fighting over the Brussels sprouts…" Bridget's voice twisted annoyingly as she survived the interrogation and gestured to her route. "I said I wanted to take a shower and you said yeah-yeah…" She told and replayed the conversation she had overheard while entering the house from the second floor window. "Didn't you hear me?"
"Oh…." Cate found herself on the spot. She had said yeah-yeah to someone behind her, but she had thought it was a response to Kerry being okay to the choice of vegetables. In her mind, maybe Bridget had come in through the back door at that time and she just hadn't noticed. "I'm sorry honey, I guess I didn't see you."
"Oh-my-god!!!" Kerry refused to believe this manipulation worked! "I can't believe this! She came in through the upstairs window!"
"Whatever…" Bridget refused to acknowledge this debate.
"Okay, that is it!" Paul raised his voice to put this great family mystery to an end. He started heading toward the front door because he thought he'd heard someone knocking. "I'm putting an end to this right here and now. There is no evidence nor has there every been any evidence of Bridget ever being anything but a normal teenage girl." He opened the front door.
"Hey, Papa H, is Bridget…" Kyle Brady was on the front stoop looking in to the house. It had taken thirty minutes to give his statement to the police about the incident at the bank and then he headed straight here to find his former girlfriend. He looked into the house and noticed the blonde one.
"Bridget, I never knew! I never realized!!" He started heading toward her with his arms open to hug her. "You saved my life!!!" Bridget made a face and backed away from him around the sofa and past her brother.
"What are you talking about?!" Bridget winced from being touched. She raced past her father avoiding Kyle from hugging her.
"You were incredible!!" Kyle was singing the songs of praise upon realizing the girl he worshipped and his old girlfriend were one and the same. "Those bullets bouncing off your chest…" He mimicked and danced his fingers against him imitating what he had seen. "The way you threw those guys around… I love you!!"
Cate and Paul reacted in disbelief upon hearing what he was describing. Paul did a double take, Cate clutched her chest trying to catch her breath and Rory was following Kyle around beaming and listening to his story. Kerry had jumped up laughing and dancing in front of the television. This was it! This was her proof! It was over for Bridget! She was outed!! It was so perfect. It was a long time coming, but this was it! This was her evidence!!! Other witness!!!
"Get away from me!" Bridget fled from Kyle around her mother and into the kitchen.
"Tell us again." Rory came up alongside Kyle. "What did she do again?"
"Yeah…" Kerry picked up her video recorder and aimed it at Kyle. "Slowly and using as many words as possible…"
"She was incredible!" Kyle looked at the family then to Kerry. "She dropped down out of the ceiling like Batman…" He was making sound effects and simulating the whole thing with his hands as he had for the police before they declared him an unworthy witness. "She threw this one guy across the room – Kerpow – She broke this one guy's arm with a karate chop – Whap - She turned round as this one guy pulled a gun on me and in a blink of an eye, she caught the bullet just before it hit me and dragged this guy up through the roof and dropped him with an incredible crash – Crash!" Kyle's face was beaming ear-to-ear and his heart was beating fast falling in love with Bridget all over again. Her eyes widened in fear and her hand to her heart, Bridget looked at him in confused shock as if she was hearing all of this for the first time. Cate was standing by her daughter trying to support her. Paul was still stuck at the front door unaware of what had just happened.
"Don't worry, Bridget." Kyle looked across to her with love in his eyes. "I didn't tell the police your true identity." He was grinning excitedly, unable to restrain himself. "After all, I think that should be just between us when we get married. You will marry me, right?"
Bridget began screaming in disgust as her mother stood between her and Kyle. Paul had heard enough. No one scared his daughter to tears and got away with it.
"Okay!!!" Paul rushed to stop this spectacle from occurring. "Out you go, through the door or out the window!!!" He grabbed both Kyle and Rory and dragged them both to the front landing and pushed them both out the door to the porch. It took a minute for him to realize he was tossing his son out the door with Tommy's kid. Rory looked as confused as his father was and escaped back into the house just as his father slammed the door closed.
"I love you, Bridget!!!" Kyle screamed to the neighborhood from the front yard.
"Bridget…" Laughing and enjoying herself, Kerry was still videotaping Bridget backed to the kitchen sink in shock. "Do you have a rebuttal to that?" She scoffed laughing.
"That girl is not me!!" Bridget declared again. "I don't care how much she looks like me!!" Her hands were trembling in fear. Her voice wavering from the accusation, she was being held up by her other's arms. "I am not that…" She suddenly bent over and expelled her stomach contents into the kitchen sink. Her nerves were fraying. The stress was killing her. Cate loving stroked her daughter's back and cooed to her as she did when Bridget was a baby. Kerry was still taping as Paul and Rory watched the ordeal Bridget was suffering.
"Honey, I'm here…" Cate whispered to her daughter and held Bridget's shaking hands while pulling her hair out of her face. "Kerry, get that camera out of her face!!" Cate screamed and Kerry started lowering her handheld.
"Mom…" Her head hung over the sink, Bridget coughed and spit the bile out of her mouth. "This is going to ruin my life. No one is ever going to believe me. I can't go to school if this gets out…" Her mother handed her some water.
"Honey…" Cate rubbed her daughter's back tenderly. "It won't get out. I promise you…"
Rory thought of a wisecrack he could have said and restrained himself from saying it. Paul felt useless in this his daughter's moment of need. He didn't know what to do to fix this.
"No, you can't…" Bridget sniffed and lifted her head to tears dripping down her face. "If Kyle doesn't do it, Kerry will…" She tore past her mother and up the back stairs crying and bawling. The door to her bedroom slammed shut and Paul Hennessey the family patriarch sighed and rubbed his head trying to think of what to do. Rory mused silently taking his dinner plate from the counter and picking at his vegetables. Cate glared at Kerry for being part of the problem.
"I told you to stop persecuting your sister!" She yelled.
"You can't possibly believe her!!!" Kerry hissed back. "Every time we get close to busting her something happens and we have to ignore it! I'm tired of ignoring it!! I want her to tell the truth!!!"
"What truth!!" Cate yelled back. "The truth is that you're still hostile you lost that tuition to college and you're terrorizing your sister for it! You are going to coast into college on a scholarship, but Bridget needed that tuition! I don't care if that girl looks like Bridget or Britney Spears! I've got two daughters here and right now, I'm liking my first born much more over the hostile second born!!! You're the one who needs to get a life!" Cate pounded the counter and turned racing after her blonde daughter. Rory shied away eating his dinner, and Paul stood holding his chest and looking at Kerry.
"Why is this so important to you?" He asked her. "If it were Bridget, I'd think you'd want to be supportive of her." He gazed upon her disapprovingly and turned away taking his plate, but he really didn't have an appetite. He dropped it on the table I the dining room and sat alone on the dark reflecting on what just happened. Kerry could only look away to pretend to be interested in her camera. She didn't know what to say. The house was becoming awkwardly quiet except for Cate knocking at the girl's bedroom door.
"Beej, please unlock the door." She lovingly rapped on the door. "Honey, I believe you…" Her daughter was not answering. Beyond her knowledge, the room was empty. Sweatpants draped across the bed, a t-shirt on the table before the open window and curtains flailing in the breeze outside. Somewhere in the neighborhood, Kyle was walking home from the Hennessy house still glowing with his illicit new knowledge. His former girlfriend was the mysterious girl all of Detroit was wondering about. How could he not have seen that? His mind was still trying to wrap around it as he wondered what to do with it. Continuing along his usual route for home, he stepped off the curb for his street and was lurched off his feet. Images whizzed past his eyes and he was rolling and sliding across the roof of a seafood restaurant ten blocks from his house. It was a hard and abrupt landing and he was sure he had bruised his elbow in the fall. He rolled his eyes around trying to focus and looked up to Bridget towering over him. Clad in her red and blue costume, she stood over him and reached down grabbing him by his shirt.
"Come here, you little creep…"
"What?" He was lurched up like a rag doll and tossed over her head. He slammed down again feeling his vertebrae dancing and jostling back into place. She was holding back a lot of hostility. He knew she could do much more if she wanted. He skidded and reached for the ladder to the roof, but her hand grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off his feet again. She pinned his back to the rigging for the neon sign. Kyle wiggled his feet trying to touch the roof.
"You disgusting, ferret-faced, wormy little geek…" She hissed through her teeth. "What gives you the right to barge into my home and scream out you saw me save your freaking useless little life?!"
"Bridget, wait, I…"
"Did I give you permission to talk?!" Bridget snapped. Her face was scowling with sheer hostility. "Do you know how hard it is just to keep them confused and unaware of what I'm doing?! Do you think I want those turnip heads at school from knowing?!! Do you know how vicious teenagers can be? Do you? Do you?!" She pounded him back and forth into the supporting beam. The neon sign even rattled a bit.
"Bridget!!"
"In one night, you have nearly undone all the hard work I've done!" Bridget hissed and hurled Kyle up into the air. Flying up twenty feet, Kyle flailed and flipped over to his back and started descending. Arching her head back, Bridget soared up off the roof, clutched him to her bosom and landed on the roof of the hospital several more blocks away. Kyle dropped and landed on the seat of his pants. Scared for his life, he started crawling away for the nearest door, but Bridget scooped him up again and threw him to the wall once more.
"What are you going to do?!" He screamed at her. She wrapped his head in her hands as if she was going to crush it and stared into his eyes. Her eyes looked him up and over and pressed her body closer. Her facial features were softer, her demeanor more placid. Bridget tilted her head to the side and closed her lips over his. Kyle winced at the presence of her soft face against his and slowly calmed down, his hands carefully embracing her back. His mind was feeling dizzy with her touch. In her presence, he fell under her spell.
"Kyle…" Bridget whispered into his ear. "Your mind is mine now, your thoughts are mine to control. You will forget what you saw and recall only what I tell you… Do you understand?"
"Uh-huh…" He grinned goofily. Bridget grinned at him with a chuckle.
A few seconds later, Kyle was lying in the grass and walnut shells under the large oak of his back yard. Surrounded by the droppings of the family dog, Max the family rottweiler was licking his face and trying to rouse him awake. He had no memory of how he got there or of how he got home. He just swatted at Max licking his face and stepping in the feces of the yard and wiping it on him. Tommy stepped onto the back porch holding a cup of coffee and looking at his son rolling in the filth of the backyard.
"Drunk… just like his brother."
"Bridget, honey, please…" Cate continued trying to pry her daughter from her bedroom. "You haven't had din… Uh, are you okay? You're still in there I hope." She heard the door unlatching and the doorknob turning. Wearing her t-shirt and sweats, Bridget looked up through the door deflated and depressed. Her eyes were full of tears, her spirit was fragile and her heart heavy with emotion. Cate pulled her close and hugged her tightly trying to support her and give her love. Bridget just gasped and blinked her eyes a few times hoping things weren't about to spiral out of control any further.