Chapter 7- Cannibals and Superpowers

Rain was such an inadequate word to describe the amount of water that had fallen from the sky since the night before. Gabriel and Peter lay on their stomachs, eating the last of the food they had salvaged from the plane and watching the huge drops of water land on the ground like missiles all around them. Once in awhile a small drip would form and fall on them, but for the most part the fern fronds were doing a fine job in keeping them dry.

"That's it." Peter lamented tossing the wrapper of the last package of crackers over the edge. "What are we going to do for food?"

Gabriel shook his head. "I tell you what we should have done," his voice took on a low tone that gave Peter the creeps, "if we would have known that it would take this long for someone to find us, one of the first things I would have done would be to have a feast."

Peter's eyes widened as the horror set in at Gabriel's implication. "You would have eaten those people?! That's fucked up, man. Seriously."

Gabriel looked calmly at his companion and replied, "I didn't say I would have enjoyed it. But in a time of crisis you do what you have to so as to stay alive. In the simplest of terms flesh is flesh regardless of the source. It really wouldn't be much different from a steak."

"Fuck man! The difference is a cow is not a person!" Peter protested. "Would you eat me?"

The determination in Gabriel's eyes was enough of an answer but he said, "Absolutely. I wouldn't kill you for your meat, but if you just died I wouldn't hesitate to carve you up. The amount of protein you would provide could sustain me for days." All Peter could do was exhale sharply and vacillate between terror and disgust. "Come on Peter," he smiled, "I would expect you to do the same to me. I promise I wouldn't haunt you for it."

"Dude, I would never do that to you." Peter vowed.

Gabriel shook his head sadly. "Then you would be throwing away your best chance at survival. In fact, choosing to let me rot rather than make good use of my muscle so you could live is almost more offensive to me. What would you do with my body then, bury it?" Peter numbly agreed to which Gabriel replied. "Huge waste of energy. I will haunt you if you do dumb shit like that. Anyway, it is all a moot point since the bodies are probably too far gone now to take the risk. We will just have to search for food. Maybe there is some kind of fruit or small animals we can catch."

Peter rolled onto his back and rubbed his face. "This is all so fucking insane, man. Here we are talking about cannibalism like we are the last two members of the Donner Party and now we are supposed to be hunters? I, for one, am no hunter. I don't even have the first fucking clue on how to go about it."

"Well it isn't like I spent a lot of time trapping squirrels and pigeons in Central Park for dinner either, but we managed to build a shelter when we didn't know we could." Gabriel suggested.

"No," Peter disagreed pointing at Gabriel, "you built the shelter. I just brought the materials and watched you put it all together like a damn hobby kit. How did you do it? How did you know what to do?" Gabriel became silent and picked at the bark on a branch in front of him. Peter could tell that the other man wanted to say something, but his eyes were dark and brooding. "Did you do this kind of shit with your dad on the weekends or something?" He pressed.

Gabriel paused and quickly replied, "I don't have a dad." The words just shot out of his mouth and he instantly regretted it. It made it seem like he was whining about it when really as far as he was concerned it made no difference. He really struggled to maintain some semblance of a normal life after his abrupt departure, but that was mostly for his mother's benefit.

His father was never really interested in him or anything he was involved with other than to tell him he wasn't doing it right or trying hard enough. What would his dad think of him now that he had saved the life of another person and was at least up to this point staying alive against the odds? No doubt he would find something that he could have done differently along the way and be quick to point it out as a class act fuck up. Deep down Gabriel knew he was no hero, and he also knew that one shining example could never erase a lifetime of disappointments.

"Shit man, I'm sorry. I guess I just assumed…" Peter said softly. Coming from anyone else's mouth, Gabriel would have taken it as patronizing or insincere, but Peter did seem genuinely contrite.

"It's cool." He shrugged feigning indifference. "I know this is going to sound strange, but I didn't know anything about construction before yesterday. It's…I just…nevermind." He said shaking his head. "It's too hard to explain."

Peter laughed and stretched his arms as wide as he could without touching Gabriel. "Come on, man! It would seem that we have plenty of time on our hands. Try me, I promise I won't laugh or whatever."

Gabriel sighed. He had never told anyone because it all sounded so crazy. "I just seem to be able to figure things out lately." He said hesitantly. "I don't know how I know these things, sometimes it just seems so obvious. It is like watching pieces of a puzzle fall into place all on their own, but it is weird because I know I have no reason to have that knowledge. Does any of this make sense?" He asked in an almost pleading voice.

Peter lay looking up at the green foliage that made the roof of the hut and wondered how he would answer that question. He didn't want to destroy the trust he had somehow managed to foster with the reclusive Gabriel, but he really didn't follow. "Can you give me an example?" He asked thoughtfully.

"Ok." Gabriel sighed as he thought. "It seems to happen more often with mechanical type things, but sometimes if I think about it other systems make sense too. I guess the best example I can give you is my part time job. Before he left, my dad had his own watch repair shop. He would never let me in there because he said I would fuck everything up, so I never learned how to fix watches. About two years ago, I found some tools and old watches he left on his bench and I sat down and studied them. I swear I had no intention of doing anything with it, but it was just like a light went off in my head and all of a sudden I completely understood how the parts fit together to make the mechanism run. And that is how I got this." He pointed to his broken watch. "He freaked when he found out I was in his shop, but he let me keep it because I had fixed it. Peter, I swear to you I had no fucking clue what I was doing, but it was as though the information was somehow in my head."

Peter turned his head to toward Gabriel and was taken in by his large, panicked eyes. There was no doubt in Peter's mind he was telling the truth, but he couldn't comprehend how it could be possible. How do you just sit down and figure out something as complex as a watch in a matter of minutes? "Maybe you are just a genius, Gabriel." Peter said soothingly. "Or is it possible that you had watched your father fix watches and forgotten it? Maybe it is just in your DNA. I am sure there has to be an explanation, but really does it matter? I am sure that the not knowing how you know is scary, but the important thing is that it works in your favor."

Gabriel was put at ease by Peter's nonjudgmental tone. He fully expected him to laugh or at the very least question his sanity, but he seemed to be the kind of guy that believed almost anything was possible. "Do you really think it could be DNA?" He pondered. "I mean, it has been said that most of your DNA material is just residual junk that used to be important, but what if it somehow recombined to give you new traits?" Gabriel was well aware that he was letting his geekiness show, but Peter seemed to be fairly intelligent and he almost longed for a good intellectual debate or conversation.

Peter gave a far away smile while he imagined the possibility. "I don't know,' he shrugged, "it seems possible because your DNA is what makes you what you are and we know it can change, but I don't know that it could mutate enough to give you superhuman abilities. If that were so, you would see people throwing cars or flying or some crazy shit like that. But as for you, I just think it is because you are some kind of brainiac. But hey, that's pretty cool too."

Gabriel knew Peter was trying to compliment him, but he couldn't have disagreed more. Being smart was nice; but wouldn't it be better- more special- to have a superpower? After all, a lot of people were smart, but how many could do truly extraordinary things? "If you could have a superpower," he asked with a smile, "what would you want?"

Peter laughed. Suddenly he imagined Gabriel surrounded by comic books and sci-fi posters. He just knew he was the type to watch X-Files in the dark. "Wow, what would I want?" He mused. He knew immediately he would want the ability to heal others, but he wasn't going to tell Gabriel that. "Um…invisibility would be cool." He answered.

"I would want as many as I could get." Gabriel chuckled. "Why settle for just one?"

"That's cheating!" Peter charged. "You can't have them all you greedy bastard!"

Gabriel grabbed his side and grimaced, but couldn't stop laughing. "You are just pissed I thought of it first." He said between breaths. "Shit!" He exclaimed sitting up. "I'll tell you what is not magical- I have to piss now and it is still raining. I will get soaked going down there."

"Go over the side then." Peter suggested. Gabriel turned to give him a horrified look which prompted Peter to cry, "Are you fucking serious? You were just telling me about eating dead bodies and it bothers you to have an audience? You are seriously fucked up in the head, did you know that?"

"So I have been told." Gabriel grumbled. Peter was left wondering exactly what that meant as he watched his companion climb out of sight to the mud below.