by Jerry Hart
Les pushed his glasses back, set the bag of quarters down on the pinball machine next to Hero Saga and stood there, watching. The redhead was pretty good. He was already battling Norrack in the final stage. That was an impressive feat. Les wondered how long it had taken this guy to master the game. It had taken Les a month. Norrack was a beast of a videogame villain, the hardest Les had ever encountered. On the game screen, he was a measly seven inches while the hero Aslain, with his long black hair and square jaw, was four. Had Norrack been in the real world, standing next to Les and this redhead, he would have towered over them both.
“You’re really good at this,” said Les.
The redhead turned to him. He didn’t stop playing the game, though—he was playing without watching. That impressed and scared Les.
“Norrack’s about to kill you,” said Les.
Suddenly the redhead moved the joystick quickly to the left and pressed a button. The onscreen avatar Aslain swung his little sword, which served as the final blow to poor monstrous Norrack.
“How long did it take you to master this game?” Les asked.
“This is my first time playing,” said the redhead, still looking at him.
Les didn’t believe that for a second, though his stomach started to turn with jealousy. This was the hardest game in the whole arcade and Les was a self-proclaimed gaming genius. It required an incredible amount of skill. There was no way some kid could just come in and master it on his first try. Les looked this new guy up and down. He was tall and appeared to be at least seventeen, shoulder-length red hair, pale skin with freckles, and rather sickly-looking, like he was just getting over a bug. Les had a whole year on him, age-wise. That extra time meant more experience, in life and in videogames. Or so Les believed.
“You’re telling me,” Les said, “you beat this whole game on your first try?”
“Yep,” the redhead said simply.
“Nobody’s that good.”
“It helps if you have a killer instinct.”
Les didn’t know what to say to that. He just stared at the stranger for a moment. He looked harmless. I’m sure I could probably take him in a fight, Les thought to himself. “Do you have a killer instinct?”
The stranger didn’t answer. He had a curious look on his face, as if he was thinking hard about the question. Then, he said, “No.”
“That’s good. Killing isn’t cool, man.”
“My dad used to say it was okay to kill. Some people deserve it.”
“Is your dad the devil or something?” Les asked with a snort.
The stranger didn’t answer. He just smiled and turned back to the game.
“Don’t tell me you’re playing again,” Les protested. “I was hoping to play.”
The stranger stepped away from the game. “Do you have a killer instinct?” he asked.
“I thought it wasn’t required to play.”
“I’m not talking about the game,” the stranger said. He was looking past him, though, toward the entrance of the arcade. Les turned around and saw three guys walking toward them. One of them was African American and well built, and his name was Curtis Merriman. The other two guys were David Hernandez and Marco Garcia. They were all wearing videogame-related shirts—geeks, but still intimidating.
“Hey, Les,” said Curtis.
Les smiled back but didn’t say anything. He was not racist by any stretch of the imagination, but he had this annoying reputation for being one. He was fairly certain where it all started: a joke gone awry.
“Hey, Curtis. How are things?” Les asked nervously.
“Good,” said Curtis. He noticed the redhead. “Uh-oh, it looks like someone’s hoggin’ your game.”
“Oh, no, I’m letting him play. It’s not a big deal.”
“What’s your name?” Curtis asked the redhead, offering his hand to shake.
The stranger took Curtis’s hand and said, “Michael.”
“Old Les here is really defensive about his game. Won’t let anybody play it when he’s in the house. Ain’t that right, Les?”
Curtis patted Les on his considerable belly.
“It depends on the person,” Les said.
Curtis’s left eye twitched. Les noticed this and became more nervous. “I mean, if the person sucks at it, then yeah, I have a problem. But this guy just beat it on his first try.”
“Is that right?” Curtis asked Michael.
“Have you ever known Les to lie?” Michael asked.
“No, but I’ve known him to do other things.”
Les knew this moment would come. There was no way he would ever live that joke down. Ever.
“You must be a regular videogame ninja, huh?” David asked. Les had forgotten about the other two guys with Curtis.
“I’ve never played a videogame before today,” Michael replied.
Curtis and his friends laughed. They were responding the way Les would have if he hadn’t been overtaken by a jealous rage first. Anger was almost always Les’s first response. Curtis and his pals suddenly became antsy, and Les was determined to leave and let the stranger deal with them. Most of all, he was willing to leave his precious Hero Saga unplayed this week. He couldn’t explain his obsession with the game—he loved it more than someone should love an inanimate object.
But, more than anything, he wanted to get the hell out of there. The atmosphere had changed drastically.
He grabbed his bag of quarters off the pinball machine. “Well, guys, I think I should get goin’. Busy day tomorrow.”
“But you didn’t play your game,” Curtis said.
“It won’t kill me; I play it so much. Plus, I live right down the street, so I can play it anytime.”
Curtis nodded with a smile. Les wasn’t sure if the smile was sincere or sarcastic. Curtis wasn’t a bad guy; Les knew that. But Les had made a mistake in his presence that had tarnished their brief friendship severely. If anything, Curtis was being surprisingly civil about the whole situation. Nevertheless, Les was uncomfortable being around him. Why did this stranger—this Michael—have to ruin his schedule? If he hadn’t been there, Les could have been playing Hero Saga when Curtis came in. He would’ve been too wrapped up in the game to notice, and if Curtis had come over, Les could’ve used the game as an excuse not to talk.
But as the situation was, he was exposed to the elements, so to speak. His only escape was to leave. With his quarters in hand, he made his way past Curtis and his friends. That’s when the unexpected happened.
Michael said, “Les, is this the guy you said is darker than the night sky?”
Les stopped dead in his place. He had never said anything remotely like that. What was this guy’s problem? He turned around, sure he was going to meet Curtis’s fist, but he was pleasantly surprised. Instead, Curtis wasn’t even looking at him. He was looking at Michael.
“Les really say that?” Curtis asked.
Michael said nothing. Les detected a subtle grin on his face, though. This guy seemed to like causing trouble.
Les preferred to keep his own nose clean. “Curtis, I never said that. I just met him.”
Curtis nodded, keeping his eyes on Michael. “I believe you, Les.” He stepped closer to Michael. “You guys just met, right?”
Michael nodded.
“So, you expect me to believe in the short time you two have known each other, I just happened to come up in your conversation?” Michael didn’t answer. Curtis backed away. “Les, you might want to pick your friends better.”
Curtis and David began to leave. Marco, on the other hand, stayed behind. Curtis noticed and said, “You comin’, Marco?”
“I’m gonna stick around a minute.”
Curtis and David stood there for a moment, apparently contemplating whether or not to get Marco to go with them. He and Michael stared each other down. Neither of them blinked. Les wasn’t sure what to do next. He felt a fight coming on (Marco had a reputation for being a bully), and even though Marco was beefier than Michael, Les ha
d an odd feeling the latter was more than he appeared to be.
“Seriously, Marco, we don’t have time for this crap,” Curtis said heatedly. “He’s not worth it.”
“I think he is,” said Marco.
“If you get your butt whooped, don’t come crying to me.”
Marco looked at Curtis and laughed. “I think I can handle this.”
“So, what’s up with you and that chick Alyssa?” Curtis asked David distractedly as they turned to leave. He slapped Les’s belly with the back of his hand as he walked past. A friendly pat, perhaps? Les could tell Curtis was furious with Marco, though.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in a while. We’re friends and all, but I’m still waiting for the day when she finally invites me to her place. I haven’t seen it yet.”
Les followed them out of the arcade. This wasn’t the first time he had heard of Alyssa, though he’d never met her. He knew David and this Alyssa girl were best friends so he found the fact that David didn’t know where she lived curious. Either way, it didn’t involve Les, so he wasn’t going to dwell on it. He glanced back at Marco and Michael. They were talking. About what, Les wasn’t sure. And he didn’t want to stick around to find out.
* * *
Marco and Michael continued staring at each other after everyone left. The arcade was empty save for one cashier behind the front counter. He was leaning back in his chair, dozing. Michael eyed the clerk, his head turned in that direction.
“We gonna do this or what?” asked Marco.
Michael held up a hand to hush the boy. Marco wondered what he was doing. He looked like he was checking for any stray customers.
“We’re alone, bud,” Marco said. “Besides the guy behind the counter. Unless you want to go outside.”
Michael slowly turned to face him. “I’m going to give you a choice. You can either apologize to me, or you can choose to let me kill you right here, right now.”
Marco tilted his head to the side in confusion. “Apologize for what?”
“For wasting my time.”
“That’s not much of a choice,” Marco said to the redhead.
“It’s the only one you get. Choose carefully.”
Marco chuckled. “How about I choose to beat you down?”
“That wasn’t one of the choices.”
“Well, then, I guess I choose to let you try and kill me.”
Michael stood there for another moment, and then suddenly walked over to the cashier.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting rid of any witnesses,” said Michael as he slowly wheeled the cashier into a backroom behind the counter. Marco was leaning against a pinball machine, feeling uneasy, when the redhead returned.
Michael stood across from him now, his hands at his sides, palms up. “I’ll let you throw the first punch.”
Marco studied the kid for a second. Michael was fairly tall, but really skinny and pale. Marco outweighed him by fifty pounds, at least. He approached the lanky redhead and looked slightly upward at him.
Then he launched a fist at the kid’s face.
The punch never landed. Michael had caught it in his own hand and was now crushing Marco’s fingers. Marco could actually hear them breaking. With his other hand, Michael grabbed his opponent’s throat.
And then Marco was flying through the air. He landed facedown on another pinball machine, breaking the glass. Before he could even think about what had just happened to him, he felt rough hands grab his shirt and yank him off the machine. Suddenly he was flying through the air again, this time crashing face-first into a fighting game. He landed on the floor in front of the game.
“No more,” he heard himself say through a mouth filled with blood as he tried to crawl away from Michael.
“You made your choice,” the redhead said behind him.
“You said you’d let me throw the first punch,” Marco said next, not knowing why it even mattered.
He was suddenly in the air again, but this time Michael merely held him up. Marco realized subconsciously his feet weren’t touching the ground, and he had to look down at Michael.
“I did say that, didn’t I.” Michael grinned. “I said I’d let you throw the first punch. And you did.”
Marco spit blood in Michael’s face. “You really going to kill me?” he asked sarcastically, though he really was scared.
Michael used one hand to wipe away some of the spit from his eyes, and Marco was startled to see he was still being held up. How strong was this guy?
“Yes,” said the redhead. “I’m definitely going to kill you. I gave you a choice, and you chose.”
“You’re crazy!”
Suddenly, Marco was thrown straight to the floor. The breath was knocked from his lungs and at first he couldn’t move. He just lay there for a moment, faintly aware of a voice yelling from behind the counter—the cashier, trying to get out of the storage room where Michael locked him.
Looking around, Marco saw the entrance to the arcade only a few feet away. He had to get outside.
He started crawling, not knowing where Michael had gone. At that moment, he didn’t really care. He just wanted to get away from the redhead. Something was wrong with that kid—he wasn’t human. He couldn’t be human. He was some kind of demon or alien. Marco had never believed in either until this moment.
As he continued to crawl, he thought of his best friend, Curtis, who had tried warning him about fighting a stranger. Marco should have listened. He was always getting into trouble, and Curtis had always been there to bail him out. Though there was no way Curtis could have known this would happen, Marco still regretted not leaving with his friends when he’d had the chance.
And now he was going to die in this arcade, at the hands of a lanky redhead.
Something grabbed his foot and pulled him slowly away from the doors. Marco spun on to his back and kicked out. His foot connected with Michael’s face, but the kid barely noticed. Marco felt like he’d kicked a wall instead; his ankle felt broken.
“Stop fighting me,” said Michael soothingly. “Just accept you’re about to die.”
Marco kicked out again with his other leg, this time connecting with Michael’s knee. Michael ignored that as well.
“You should consider yourself lucky,” the kid said to Marco. “At least you won’t be around when my brother and I take over the world. There’s no telling what my brother Jason would do to you.”
With that, Michael placed a foot on Marco’s chest and pressed down. Marco heard and felt a few ribs crack and was instantly stunned. He stopped struggling. Michael reached down and grabbed a handful of hair and pulled his opponent’s head a few inches off the ground.
“Let’s see if I can do this without a knife,” said the redhead.
“Do what?” asked Marco.
And then he found out.
* * *
As he crossed the intersection to get to his street, Les thought again of the redhead. There had been some weird gleam in his eye he didn’t like. And why had the guy tried causing problems between Les and Curtis? It didn’t make sense. It was almost as if Michael was testing Curtis to see how he’d react to that statement. Les was shocked to find Curtis refusing to take the bait.
But now there was animosity between Curtis and Michael.
Had Michael wanted that in the first place? If not, was he now prepared to have a total stranger hate him?
Les was standing at his front door before he realized it. His house was near the end of the long street, so the walk had to have taken a few minutes. Yet, those minutes had gone by in what felt like seconds. He couldn’t stop thinking about Michael, and he very much wanted to stop. He got a very bad vibe from the redheaded stranger, and hoped to never see him again. Would Michael frequent that arcade from now on?
“Please let me never run into that kid again,” Les whispered aloud as he looked for his house key. Would his prayers be answered? He truly hoped so. The last thing he needed was to get into more tro
uble. His grandmother despised trouble, and made him swear he’d stay out of it when he’d moved in with her.
Les’s parents had also been strict about rules, which is why he decided to move out of their house. As old school as Granny was, she was also less observant, which meant he was able to get away with a lot more stuff. Nothing that would send him to prison, but he still had his fun.
If only he didn’t have to have all his fun alone. He wasn’t very popular with other people his age, though, much to Les’s surprise, Curtis had offered a kind hand once before. It was a shame Les had screwed it up with his “joke.” Every time he thought of that night, his heart raced with embarrassment. He wished he could go back in time and undo that night altogether. He’d even looked up spells in one of his books in hopes of finding something that would help him.
No such luck, though there had been some spells on making him more popular and buff. None of them had panned out, however. None of his magic really did. He never managed to get rich and powerful, and his magic crystals only collected dust in his desk drawer.
Yet Les knew he was special in some way. When he was younger, he’d managed to make things happen without aid of spell books and magic crystals. Once, when he was ten, he accidentally set a cat on fire just by looking at it. And then, when he was thirteen, he made a bunch of rocks move on their own. The rocks danced around in circles and even stacked themselves into a pile right in front of him.
Oh, yes, Les was special. He could get things done. Or, at least, he’d been able to when he was younger. None of his abilities manifested in any way now. When he turned seventeen, he resorted to books and amulets to help. He even joined clubs he’d found online, where he met others who had the “gift.” Most of them were just crazies, but others had actually shown signs of being able to manipulate the world around them. Les had even dated a girl from the club for a short time.
Alas, it was not meant to be—she dumped him two months later. He still thought of her every now and then. He even called her one night, when he was feeling extremely lonely, but she’d yelled at him and said if he ever called her again, she’d make his “toys” come to life and kill him in his sleep.
Norrack and Aslain were not toys! They were life-sized replicas he had in his room, and he had paid a pretty penny for them. Though that argument had been brutal, Amanda had ignited a wonderful idea in Les. What if Norrack and Aslain could come to life? That would be amazing!
