by Aaron Grunn
and the whole world came crashing up to his speed. John doubled over.
"You all right?" Tom asked, reaching for John and pulling him up.
"I'm fine, I just need to..." John stopped and sucked in as much air as he could. He didn't like feeling weak after being untouchable these last few minutes. "Mom isn't upstairs."
"There's a door to the basement," Tom said. His voice was slow and methodical. He didn't appear to be affected by the firefight in any way.
"Where?" John asked. He had to find his mother.
"Follow me."
"Are there any others here?" John asked, his eyes glancing around. He realized that he couldn't really see that well in the dark anymore. Were his powers dissipating?
"No, everything is cleared."
Tom pulled a shotgun off one of the dead men. "You got rocks?"
John grabbed two rocks from his pocket and gripped them in his hands. His energy wasn't returning. What could he do with these rocks?
Tom pushed the door open slightly. The first stair was visible, but the rest was dark. Water dripped from a pipe and made the sound of hitting something hard. "Can you see down there?" Tom asked.
John squinted his eyes trying to make out the shapes in there.
"Well?"
A flash of movement shocked John into jumping back. "I think there's someone there," John said, his voice cracking. He could smell something sharp, like sulfur, and it scared it.
Tom gave him an angry look. "You can't see?"
"No. I don't know. I feel weak. I can't do anything."
Tom glanced back down the stairs when the sound of a tool crashing on the floor broke the monotony of the dripping water.
"Don't give up on me now, John. I need you. Grab your balls and think about your mother," Tom hissed.
John gritted his teeth and tried to summon up energy. He thought of his mother and told himself that the screams he'd heard were hers. His body refused to listen and only groaned harder. How could Tom expect him just to pick himself up when he'd already done so much? "I'll try," John looked over at one of the men lying on the floor and grabbed his handgun.
Tom seemed exasperated and pointed at the one light still on in the first floor living room. John walked over and switched it off. Everything went dark. Only a few lines of off-black showed in the cracks between the curtains and the windows.
"Get ready," Tom said and took a step into the basement.
A part of John's body shrieked. Something was wrong. John wasn't certain if it was his body being tired and sending mixed signals, or if there was something down there that shouldn't be trifled with. John wanted to tell Tom to stop, but his uncle was already three steps down. John's heart started to thump fast again and suddenly he could see the basement as clear as day. His energy was returning, or so he thought, but when he moved his leg, it felt like a wooden prosthetic, and he could barely take the first step.
Another flash of movement.
John couldn't recognize what it was. Again he thought of telling Tom to stop, but the words wouldn't come out of his mouth.
They got to the bottom of the stairs, and John could see nothing in the room. It was large, and there was only one other door in the corner, leading to a walled off section in the basement.
John took a step towards it, and stepped in front of Tom. He knew his uncle couldn't see anything. His uncle didn't try to stop him. John felt his stomach rumbling, his body screaming at him to go back upstairs, and to remember that his mother didn't want him to come after her.
One more glance around the room, and he knew that there was nothing here. He would have to open the door. He took a few more steps and stared at the doorknob within his reach.
Don't be scared.
The scream of a woman loosened his bowels and in the last second, he managed to hold in his feces.
Open the door, mom's in there.
His body rebelled, kicked and yelled. It wasn't the scream that scared him, it was something else he couldn't hear, but could feel, a cackling or silent grin at the scream that was coming from the other side of the door.
He kicked the door as hard as he could. It was a flimsy door made from plywood. It flew open, then slammed shut. John stared at this occurrence and kicked it open with less force. Now the door creaked and hung crooked and half open.
There was his mother tied to a chair. Her head was resting on her chest.
"Mom?"
The laugh, the cackle, sounded off in John's head. Something was wrong. He could not see the entire room, and he pushed the door all the way and stepped inside the room. The left side had a desk with various tools on it. Nobody was there. John turned his head so he could see his mother, and could hear the breathing of someone on the other side of the door.
He took one more glance at his mother and felt anger bubble up.
John punched his hand through the door and grabbed someone's neck. Something heavy fell to the floor and with his other hand, John reached around the door for the man's coat. He pulled the man to face him.
It was the man from the parking lot. His hair was no longer slicked back, but he had a face that mixed fear and apathy.
"Is there anyone else?" John asked.
The man tittered.
John grabbed the man's balls, something that was done to him in gym class once. "Answer me," John growled.
The man groaned and heaved forward. "Okay, okay."
John released the man's balls. "Talk."
Apathy returned to the man's face. "You're good. I would say better than your old man," he said and giggled.
There was something about the way he talked that pushed John in a way he didn't like. "Is there anyone else here?"
"Oh, man you're good. But we're going to get you," the man said, pointing his finger at John.
John slammed the man against the wall.
The man winced. "You're going to kill me, of course. But we need you. And you won't stop us all. Now... Now we're going to get you and make sure that you help us."
John kneed the man in his stomach.
The man convulsed and took a moment to catch his breath. "You're like your old man. Cruel to the end. You can't help it," the man said and huffed through his mouth. His breath, a mixture of old food and garlic, spewed forth.
John didn't understand why the man was so certain, and why he kept grinning, like it was he holding John, and not the other way around.
"Why are you coming after me? Why don't you stop?"
"Oh, John. We'll never stop," the man said in a mocking tone. "What we want is your essence."
"Why?"
"Let me tell you a story about three ants. You want to hear?"
John didn't answer; he felt nervous.
"Winter was fast approaching, and these ants were each pushing up a large piece of bread to the top of their respective ant hill." The man made an effort to pantomime ants pushing with his fingers, his voice low. "But the bread was too large and kept sliding down. Finally one ant said: 'this isn't fair. The bread is too large, and the hill is too steep. Why is life unfair? I won't deal with it. So he stopped. The other two ants kept at it until the second ant said: 'this is impossible. I'll never get it up. He sat and ate half the bread, then pushed it up with ease. The third one never gave up and finally, just before winter, he pushed the bread up the anthill."
The man smiled and pantomimed clapping his hands. "Winter came and the first ant died immediately. Then half way through winter the second one died. When winter was over the third ant left his anthill and found a piece of bread and started to push it back up the hill."
John didn't know what to make of the story. Were they supposed to mean something? He was about to throw the man against the floor when his mother made a sound that was half groan and half cry.
"What did you do to her?"
"Everything," the man said with a smile. "And oh man did she hold out..."
The flash and bang near John's head caused him to release the man and step down. The man collapsed on the
floor.
Tom was standing next to John with his gun out.
"He was wasting time," his uncle said. "Let's get your mother and get out of here."
Tom took a step towards his mother when John saw the movement. It was quick, maybe quicker than him, and it brushed Tom aside. Tom went flying into the table of tools. The thing seemed to consider John then turned towards his mother.
It lunged. John may have been tired, but seeing, knowing that his mother was in danger pushed a shot of adrenaline into his heart. He roared and leaped at the creature moving towards his mother.
He tackled it and could feel the fur and fangs come at him. John took the rock in his hand and put it through the thing's face. It twitched for a second, then went back to snapping at John's neck. John held its face back with one hand and fended off its claws with his other.
John knew that the surge of energy he was living off wasn't going to last more than a few seconds. He slammed his head into the creature's jaw. When its head whipped back, John grabbed its neck with his other hand and twisted. The beast went limp and collapsed on the floor.
John rolled to his back. His muscles, even his bones, were out of energy.
The lights came on. John could see the white ceiling. Tom's face pierced his visual field.
"You all right, John?"
"Get mom."
Tom walked to his mother.
"What was it?" John asked, still trying to catch his breath.
"What was what?" Tom said, his voice strained as he strained with the ropes.
"The thing that I was just fighting, what was it?"
"Uh... the guy next to you?"
John rolled over to his side and saw the man next to him in a trench coat. His neck was bloody, his throat pointing up like an upside
