Furies- Thus Spoke

by O'Brian Gunn

  His mother finishes her drink. Her companion takes her flute, mumbles something, and breezes back inside. She stands alone in the wind, wrapping her arms around herself as her delight slowly curdles and wilts. She picks up her phone from the table next to her, glancing over her shoulder, and dials.

  Giorgio silently glides closer.

  The dead make no noise.

  “Hi, did I...did I wake you?”

  She listens.

  “No, everything’s fine, I was just calling to see how you were doing.”

  She listens. She nods.

  “No, I—I haven’t cried. Not one tear. Giorgio was my son, your brother, and I can’t even force myself to feel grief for his passing.” A beat passes. “Did I love him, Gwen? Did I love my own son? I gave birth to him, protected him, fed him...but did I forget to love him?”

  She listens.

  “I know, I know. It’s like he wasn’t even here, like I’ve been dreaming for almost three decades.” She looks over her shoulder. “He brought this family nothing but grief, embarrassment, and shame.” Her brow crinkles. “And he was still my son. Wasn’t he?”

  The gentleman returns with her drink.

  “I’ve got to go, love.” She tucks a curl of brown hair behind her ear. “Yes, we’re still on for the spa tomorrow. Pick you up at two. Bye.”

  “You never called me ‘love.’” His lips barely move and his expression is blank. “I hope you die next.” He pushes away from the wall and stalks off. “Unerring bitch.”

  His mother looks at his retreating back, but doesn’t seem to recognize her own son.

  “West.”

  “Detective West?” The voice on the other end is strangled with panic. Another voice booms violently in the background.

  “Yes?” West frowns and puts a hand to his opposite ear. “I can barely hear you, you’re gonna have to speak up.”

  “This is Walter Hornst. I really hate to bother you like this, but I need your help.”

  Confusion. “Walter Hornst?” Recognition. “Oh, Walter Hor—What’s the matter?”

  “He—” C R A S H ! “He’s doing it again.”

  “Matthew?”

  “Yes. He’s throwing shit around and threatening to kill me. It’s never been this bad.” He sniffs. “All I did was ask him how his day was. That’s all I did. I swear.”

  Something shatters in the background. West can hear another voice. An accent.

  “Holy f—OhmyGod, someone just—Matthew. MATTHEW, NO!”

  The line goes dead.

  “Walter? WALTER!” West shoves the phone in his pocket and snatches up his jacket. A minute later, he is in his car.

  Nine minutes later, he is pulling into The Lakes in Mercurmont.

  Ten and a half minutes later, he explodes into unit F-2, his gun drawn.

  Darkness.

  He surveys the room...and finds Matthew’s corpse on the floor in a pool of moonlight with two knives pinning his wrists to the ground and a red ruin where his heart once was.

  “Shit.” The curse seems to slice through the air.

  Like claws.

  “Walter?” He searches the apartment and finds nothing. Before he leaves, he takes a final look at the corpse. He kneels down and notices a small red mark on the man’s neck. A needle’s kiss.

  He returns to his car to call-in the scene..

  “Detective West?”

  He whirls around. It’s Walter.

  “T-thank you for coming.”

  “Walter. Did you...” Eyes trail up the apartment building. “Did you do that?”

  Walter shakes his head. “No. No! I didn’t. I know it looks like I did, but I...There was this crazy Hispanic guy who barged in and—and started pummeling Matthew.” His eyelids flutter rapidly. “Just started beating him.” He looks at West. “He was so fast and...and then he...he had all of these knives and he asked Matthew what he was before he...” He glances down, then up, swallowing, trembling. “Matthew…He wasn’t human.”

  Perry pulls out his phone. “I know, your boyfriend was an abusive bastard.” He presses 2 and then the green phone icon.

  “No, that’s not what I mean. He was an abusive bastard, yes, but he wasn’t human.”

  “Dominion City Precinct, Bishop.”

  “He was an Alpha-Omega.”

  “Hello? Anyon—”

  The detective gazes at Walter, thumbs the red phone icon.

  “He had these claws. At first I thought they were kind of...you know, kinky. He would drag them down my back whenever we—” His mouth becomes a hard line. “Then it all got a bit too rough. Then he got changed. He got rough. And I got scared.”

  Perry stands in the streetlight staring at him for a second. He finally speaks. “Do you have anyone to call?”

  Walter thinks a moment before shaking his head. “No one I can really depend on.”

  Perry looks away and sighs. “Get in the car.”

  Bisset rifles through her mail as she walks back to her apartment.

  Bill.

  An invitation to reclaim her happiness at the Johnson Family Boundless Joy Clinic.

  Junk mail.

  A postcard from a friend vacationing in Sao Paulo.

  A crying neighbor coming down the stairs and blocking her path.

  “Michelle, hi.” She notices her expression. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, it’s Sophie. We couldn’t find her this morning. I looked all over the apartment in her favorite hiding spots. She’s such a little dog, you know?” The woman inhales deeply through her mouth. “I had to go to work and...and Ben had the day off. He said that he was going to keep looking for her. Anyway, I was walking under our balcony...and...and...” Her eyes overflow with tears. “And there she was in the street.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “Her neck was—and her little paws...and her eyes were just—Oh, God, Bisset.” She fills the other woman’s arms.

  Bisset holds her awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Michelle, I know how much you loved Sophie.”

  “She’s been my little baby ever since I found out I can’t have children.” She takes her head from Bisset’s shoulders. “Next week would have been her birthday, you know?” She heaves a deep sigh. “I just can’t figure out how she got out onto the balcony. Or how she…” She flicks fingers.

  Bisset nods.

  Michelle blinks tears from her eyes. “But, you know, it’s a little odd. When we found out, Ben was so supportive.” Her eyebrows bounce and she shrugs. “It’s been just like it was when we first got married. He’s attentive, he listens, comforts me.” She sniffs. “He even ripped up the divorce papers. I just hate it that it took something like this for me to realize that I still love him.” She looks at Bisset. “God works in some pretty strange ways, you know? I couldn’t imagine going through this without him.”

  Bisset smiles slightly. “He does, he does.” She rubs her shoulder.

  Michelle waves a hand at her. “I shouldn’t be bothering you with all of this. I’m sure a pretty young woman like you has better things to do than listen to some old broad mope about her pet.”

  “Oh, no, no, it’s fine. What are neighbors for?”

  The older woman grins at her as she wipes away a lingering tear. “You’re a sweet one, Bisset.”

  “I’m glad to hear that you and Ben are working out your differences.”

  “A good thing, too. One more minute of his asshole routine and it would have been him that went over that balcony, you know?” She reveals a small smile and a brief laugh around the lingering tears.

  Bisset watches her walk away for a moment before heading into her apartment.

  The last ray of the sunlight sloughs down over the horizon.

  The Dragoness manifests across from her.

  Bisset’s eyes roll to the ragged chew toy on the floor.

  The Dragoness gives a wicked smile, one at odds with Bisset’s uncertain expression.

  Noir waggles the syringe in his face.

  He lays stretched out on the c
ouch with one hand behind his head. He sets the syringe on the table and takes up the carton of cigarettes, tapping one out. He reaches for the lighter and flicks it before touching eager flame to the tip of the cylinder.

  He inhales.

  He exhales.

  Smoke syrups thick through the air along with the hoarse opening verse of Deftones’ “Change” playing on the stereo.

  He eyes the syringe and moves the cig to one side of his mouth as smoke dribbles from his lips, fluttering on the air like the wings of a nicotine butterfly.

  He takes up the lighter.

  Flick

  Flame.

  Flick

  Flame.

  Flick

  Life.

  Flick

  Life.

  Flick

  Blood.

  Noir tosses the lighter on the table and picks up the syringe. Gently. He runs the cold needle down his bare chest, taps it against his sternum. He touches the tip of the needle to his index finger, presses and stops.

  He takes a drag.

  He gets up and goes to the window to pull the curtain back. The scene of the crime is dark and docile. The needle taps against the window.

  Jolting image of: Theodore Gordon exploding in a red eruption against the bus.

  Quick flash of: The man in the bathroom spewing blood from his mouth.

  Twitching splash of: Matthew’s gleaming claws slitting tender flesh and spilling blood.

  Two songs roll through his ears. One slides through his veins and the other resounds in his skull. He becomes enthralled.

  Noir looks down and finds the needle gnawing into a vein in the crook of his arm. He presses the plunger. The borrowed blood dances, unravels, and vibrates in his veins.

  His head is knocked back and his eyes peel wide.

  Then the blood burns. And burns and burns and burns.

  There is acid in his veins. Hot, biting, freezing, gnashing, poisonous acid.

  His body seizes with near lethal ecstasy. As he tumbles from the couch, he notices the curtains billowing outward, the smoke from his cigarette forming constellations in the air, his vision gravitating to a black void.

  His body hits the floor and does not move. The cigarette rolls from his lips, still smoldering.

  Changed.

  Excerpt from Lamar Koehler Live:

  “Good evening. I hope you’re all doing well tonight. Thank you for joining me on another episode of Lamar Koehler Live. I’m your host, Lamar Koehler.

  “I’m joined tonight by a very brave man whose name many of you may recognize from the tabloids, the press, and television. He’s a man who has received death threats, attempts on his life, public ridicule, and scorn wherever he goes, and yet he’s also a man who is deeply apologetic for what he’s done. Ladies and gentleman, I’m joined tonight by Sean Pierce. Thank you very much for joining me, Sean.”

  “Thank you for having me, Lamar. Not many TV personalities would.”

  “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that I’m not most TV personalities. Now, I was going to inform our viewers of who you are, but you’ve just decided to do that for yourself, instead.”

  “Yes, I thought it would be better if it came from me.”

  “So tell us who you are.”

  “I’m Sean Pierce, I’m thirty-eight...and...I...I’m, uh...I’m responsible for hospitalizing thirty-two people and taking the lives of twenty-three. I’m also an Alpha-Omega.”

  “How did all of this happen, Sean?”

  “Well, I was at my high school reunion when my A-O gene activated. I was feeling fine beforehand, had a few drinks in me and was catching up with my classmates. Uh, the next thing I knew it felt like a star had exploded in my head. At first, I thought Brian Massey, our class clown, had spiked the punch, but it...it didn’t feel right. I started getting dizzy and felt as if every inch of my skin had suddenly gone numb. It was like I was on fire while freezing; strangest sensation in the world. I must have blacked out, because the next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital with my best friend beside me with this odd expression on his face. It was a mix of relief, fear, grief, and—and something else. And, ah, then he told me.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He told me that twenty-three of my classmates were dead and that thirty-two were in the same hospital as me. Then he told me that doctors thought I was the cause, and that...that my wife had been one of the casualties. He told me that I had killed the love of my life.”

  “How were you responsible for all of that?”

  “With the strange circumstances of my case, the hospital’s A-O specialist took a look at me. Every state is now required to have at least three A-O specialists scattered throughout. Ah, they were able to determine that the punch I drank had been spiked and that the drug caused an allergic reaction that caused my A-O gene to activate. They told me I released a violent bio-electric pulse that essentially shut down the bodies of those closest to me and put anyone else in a fifteen-foot radius into a coma.”

  “How did you feel when you heard this?”

  “I thought it was a prank at first, but then I looked in the doctor’s eyes, looked at my friend’s expression, and saw that they weren’t joking...I had killed all of those people.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I felt like someone had yanked out my stomach. I mean, I didn’t feel any different, I still felt like me. The doctor told me that as long as I stayed away from certain medications, there’s a good chance my powers won’t flare up again. After that, a woman came by and introduced herself as Shelly Pirkle...Then she told me that I had killed her sister.”

  “Awful.”

  “You can’t imagine. She looked at me with so much hatred in her eyes, called me names, threw her sister’s picture at me, screamed. She flung herself at me before she was restrained, but I didn’t want them to restrain her. I wanted her to hit me, slap me, spit on me, anything to...to replace the dead feeling I had.”

  “Did anyone press charges?”

  “Most of the families of the deceased did, but the courts said that legally there was nothing they could do. I had murdered people, it was involuntary manslaughter, but it was something beyond my control, there was no precedent.”

  “Did anyone try to make a precedent?”

  “Plenty of people tried, but nothing held up. Alpha-Omegas have been around for a while, but legislators are just now starting to devise laws specifically for us. The problem is, all the proposals restrict our liberties as humans in some way. The laws they are trying to pass basically state that every single Alpha-Omega man, woman, and child with a harmful and uncontrollable ability should be rounded up and kept away from non-powered humans.”

  “And what do you think of that?”

  “I think that there should most definitely be, if not laws, than at least some type of regulations, uh, boundaries or something applied to A-Os like me with fatal powers, there’re going to have to be. There should also be early signs of detection for children to determine if there’s an increased chance of their A-O gene activating and when.”

  “I hear they’re already working on that.”

  “They are, but many of the procedures are expensive, and none of them are harmless. They’re trying to make it so that each and every child born in the U.S., and eventually the world, will be tested to see how strong their A-O gene could be if it were to ever activate.”

  “Our world has changed so much in the last few decades, and I have a feeling it’s going to change a lot more in the years to come. Now, Sean, I don’t want to demean what you’ve done, but I also don’t want to shovel a pile of guilt on you that I already see on your face. How are you making amends with what you’ve done?”

  “...I, uh, I’ve gone to the families of those affected by my genetic outburst and apologized. Some of them have been understanding, but more than most of them have threatened to kill me, and I’m sure those threats would turn into more if they weren’t afraid that what happen
ed at my reunion would happen again. I’ve made several trips to the doctor to ensure myself that my, uh, my ability remains dormant, and I’ve even tried to see if there was any way that they could...get it out of me.

  “There’s so much speculation, ignorance, and...and hype surrounding Alpha-Omegas, and the truth is that all of us are scared. We’re scared BLEEP. And I’m sure some of the people watching this program are scared, too. In the past, we mostly knew where we stood as human beings, as children, as adults, as the middle class, the homeless, whatever. We knew who and what we were, we had agency. But nowadays, there’s even more to consider when it comes to our individual identity, and not all of it is under our control or within the parameters of our desires, our will. We don’t know if we’re going to wake up tomorrow on fire and not burning, if one day while in the shower we notice our body hair is razor sharp. We don’t know. It’s scary, Lamar.”

  “I could wake up tomorrow as an Alpha-Omega.”

  “Exactly. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not reminded that not only did I kill the woman who shares my soul, I killed twenty-two other people, I ended twenty-two relationships, ended twenty-two lives. That’s on me. I didn’t mean to do it, but that doesn’t change a damn thing. I’ve actually even tried to get them to throw me in prison, to put me on death row. My friend told me that that was the coward’s way out. He said that if I died, then I wouldn’t have to feel grief anymore, that if I were in jail, I wouldn’t have to see the lives I had destroyed, the lines I had erased. Being free should be punishment enough, he said.”

  “And do you agree?”

  “I do now…I do now. It’s astounding that he’s stood by me this long, and I’m very, very thankful that he has. It reminds me that there’s still...something in this world. Compassion, kindness, understanding. Whatever it is, it still exists.”

  “I’m very glad you’ve found a degree of solace, Sean. I honestly don’t know what I would say to you if one of my loved ones had been killed during that incident.”

  “I think you do, Lamar, I think you do. It’s okay to want to see me dead. It’s a human reaction, it’s natural. Just because you have millions of viewers doesn’t make you any less human than they are...doesn’t make you any less human than I am.”