Furies- Thus Spoke

by O'Brian Gunn

“I’ve got plenty here for everyone if you’d like to come out and join me.” He gestures at the stretch of grass on the other side of the pavement. “We can all sit out here and have a nice little chat.” He puts a spoonful of ice cream inside his mouth. Swallows. “How does that sound?”

  “Don’t think I won’t run you over.”

  Damon blinks. “Take them out.”

  “Oh, God.”

  The air buzzes with a ballad of bullets. Punctured tires hiss as they deflate.

  “Get out of the van.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You must have me confused with a man who repeats himself. Anita, you first.”

  Anita grinds her teeth. Then she notices the glimmering red line cutting through the air. She looks back and notices the red dot trained on her daughter’s forehead. She gets out of the car. Damon gestures to his left. Anita walks over to his left.

  “You next Miguel.” Damon points to his right.

  Miguel gets out of the car.

  Annabelle is next, followed by Charles. Each of them stands at least five feet away from the other, red dots pinpointed at their heads.

  Damon licks dribbling ice cream from his hand. “Thornebriar can’t let its favorite family leave for vacation without a proper send off.” He smacks his lips. “We’ve got a new experiment that’s just perfect for you.” He points at the carton. “Are you guys sure you don’t want some?” He looks in the bag. “I’ve got Chunky Monkey, strawberry swirl, aaannnnd, ah, this new blue mystery flavor, if you’re feeling adventurous.”

  No one accepts his offer.

  Damon lifts his brow. “Fine, I’ll give them to the assault team when we wrap up here.” He scrapes the bottom of the carton. “I should probably tell you what we’ve got planned.” He puts the top back on and licks the spoon, setting the empty carton and bag at his feet. “We’re trying to see if we can duplicate the powers of an A-O in currently-non-powered humans as well as other A-Os. So far, our results have been varied.” His eyes go distant. “Don’t know how I managed to finish that half pint with those grisly images still in my head.” He grins. “But anyway, we’d like to see if we can replicate your powers.”

  “We make people happy. I don’t see how that could be of any value to you and your organization.” Charles shuffles his stance.

  Damon starts to put his hands in his pockets, notices the sticky film of ice cream clinging to them, puts them behind his back instead. “Think of happiness as a drug that you’ll do anything to have. You’ll steal another person’s happiness to make it your own, you’ll lie and say you’re sad so that loved ones spend time and maybe even money trying to make you happy. Some drug addicts won’t hesitate to kill if anyone comes between them and their next fix.” He bends down and reaches into the plastic bag. “People think drugs like cocaine and meth are the real hardcore narcotics.” He pulls out a slim gas mask. “But...when you get right down to it, drugs are all about emotion, wanting to feel something, even if that something is all-consuming nothing.” He adjusts the straps on the mask. “Emotion is the real drug we need to declare war on. Wipe that out and you solve all your problems.” He slips the mask on. “Release.”

  A muffled pfft streams through the air, a trail of ivory smoke marking its arched path. A gas canister lands, clatters, and rolls at Damon’s feet, spewing a sweet-smelling chemical. A fit of coughing laces the air.

  Annabelle grabs Miguel grabs Charles grabs Anita grabs Damon. The cloud of gas glares golden. Damon smiles behind his mask. He looks down at Anita and her family as they fall to their knees and succumb to the gas’s soporific effect.

  “Not going to work. If I were any happier, I’d positively burst.”

  Anita’s head seems to float to the ground. Damon’s retreating image cants to the side before fading along with the rest of her vision to nothing.

  EPISODE TEN: On the Verge of Greatness

  Part 1

  Booming bass barrages the inside of the van.

  Noir bobs his head in the passenger seat, flat palms stirring the air in time to the synchronized beats pumping through the speakers. He bites down on his lower lip and draws his eyebrows closer together as his body moves to the music.

  The volume is suddenly yanked down to something a bit more tolerable.

  “The fuck you doin’, man?” He drops his hands and looks over at Leo in the driver’s seat.

  “Can’t concentrate with the music so loud.” Leo massages his head as he switches lanes.

  “Concentrate on what, drivin’ in a straight line? That was my jam, dude.” He slumps in his seat. “Can’t go disruptin’ me when I’m jammin’.”

  “I like Chase and Status as much as the next person, but not when my head is pounding as loud as the music.”

  Noir slides him a look. “You know Chase and Status?”

  Leo returns his look. “Yeah.” He looks back to the road. “‘Eastern Jam’ is one of my jams, too.”

  Noir grins. “Fuckin’ love that song. I actually got a bit o’ choreography mapped out. Impresses the ladies and some of the fellas when I hit the clubs. Who else you like?”

  Shrug. “All kinds of groups. One of my favorites at the moment is Electric.”

  Parted mouth. “The Electric Company?”

  Nod.

  “Duuuude! I love their sound. I really like the rhymes in ‘Life Is a Struggle.’ Could listen to it all day.”

  “Do I take this exit or the next one?”

  Noir scrambles for the directions. “Uhhh, next one, 241.”

  “The message in ‘Levitation’ just spoke to me. I must have listened to that song twenty times a day when left my job at the lab.”

  In the backseat, Bisset glances out of the window and watches as her reflection subtly shifts into Seraph. “There’s something you should know.”

  “What?”

  “Mmm, wha?” Perry lifts his head beside her, bleary eyes fluttering open.

  “Nothing, just talking with myself.”

  Perry’s mouth cracks open, then shuts along with his eyes.

  Seraph seems to glow in the window. “Someone is watching us, someone with telepathic abilities.” She glances somewhere in the van. “I can feel their presence right now.”

  Bisset looks toward the front of the rickety van, watching as Noir and Leo share a laugh. She looks over at Detective West snoring softly. She starts to look behind her at Giorgio, but can feel his eyes boring into her. She drops her head and thinks aloud instead of speaking aloud.

  “Are they doing more than watching?”

  “I’ve felt them attempt to brush our surface thoughts a few times.”

  “Only an attempt? Why?” Bisset frowns.

  “Most likely because merely gra—”

  A sudden force bludgeons the doors of her mind.

  _____ tries to pry into the woman’s mind. They touch upon the surface and are immediately caught up in a cataclysmic crash of images. A man covered in light. A woman covered in blood. Smiling. Crying. Joy. Anguish. A couple hugging one another. A couple stabbing one another. A baby. A corpse. A blooming bud. A withering forest. The smell of incense and rose oil. The smell of desiccation and death. _____ is horrified by the purity and delighted by the filth.

  _____ grits their teeth and feels a string of drool edging down their chin. The telepath laughs and cries, feels as if they are dying by living. They open their eyes and see roses and skulls, feathers and blood, eyeless decapitated heads wrapped in a child’s first laugh.

  _____ yanks their mind away before it is obliterated.

  Bisset darts her eyes around the van as the psychic force fades away.

  “Did you feel that?”

  “They were trying to force themselves into our mind.”

  Bisset looks over her shoulder as Giorgio rips his eyes from her and looks out of the heavily-tinted window. He stares intently at the dark-injected images scrolling past the glass.

  Consciousness crests in a collection of sounds, smells, and sen
sations.

  The sound of the TV.

  The smell of warm blueberry pie.

  The sensation of having been knocked the hell out by chemical gas.

  Charles lifts his head...too quickly, closes his eyes and waits while the world whirls. He tries again, movements slow this time, and sees he’s back home in his easy chair.

  On the television, Buffy is pummeling a bleach-blond vampire in a black trench coat. Anita is looking at him from the couch with Annabelle’s still unconscious head cradled under her arm.

  There is no sign of Miguel.

  A teenage girl sits on the loveseat with her legs drawn up beneath her, digging into a thick piece of blueberry pie.

  “Whrz—” He wipes at the drool on his chin and works his thick, fuzzy tongue in his dry mouth. “Whrs—Where’s Miguel?” He rubs at his eyes. He starts to get up.

  The fork in the girl’s hand clatters on the plate and she suddenly has a gun pointed at Charles. She doesn’t take her eyes from the TV screen. “This is one of my favorite episodes, Mr. Johnson. Sit down.”

  Charles lowers himself drunkenly into his seat. “Tina Rhodes? Aren’t you a babysitter?”

  “Why do you think I’m here?” She slowly lowers the gun next to a bedazzled cellphone.

  “Anita, where’s Miguel?”

  Helpless shrug. “He wasn’t here when I came to.”

  The man looks at Tina...and sees two of her. Seconds pass before the images waver together into one. “Where’s my son?”

  She bites down on pie, eyes glued to the screen. “He’s in the garden.”

  Blood drains from Charles’s face and he nearly passes out again. “He—he’s where?”

  She reaches for the glass of milk on the table and takes a gulp. “In. The. Gar. Den.”

  Anita’s eyes widen and she stops stroking her daughter’s hair. “Young woman, I don’t find that amusing at all.”

  She presses the bottom of her fork down on piece of crust. “Wasn’t supposed to be. Miguel’s in the garden.”

  “Stop saying that.” Charles wrings his hands into fists.

  Tina finally seems to notice him. “You asked.”

  “Damon wouldn’t take Miguel to the garden. He wants us alive.” His breath accelerates in and out of his nostrils. He shakes his head. “Where is he? In the bathroom?”

  “Dammit, I already told you, he’s in—”

  Charles launches himself up from his seat, ignoring the volley of vertigo. “Stop saying that!”

  The plate clatters and shatters to the floor as Tina rises from the loveseat with the gun aimed at his head. “Mr. Johnson, you need to sit down right now. I’m one of the few people here who actually likes you, but I will put a bullet in you.”

  “Do you know what these people, your people, do to a person taken to the garden?”

  “Sit down, Mr. Johnson.”

  “I swear to God if one hair is out of place on my son’s head...”

  Anita starts to stand. The gun swivels to her. “Down!”

  Anita lowers herself. “Charles, if you would just—”

  “She just told us our son was taken to the garden! We’re being held prisoner by a fourteen-year-old girl with braces and you want me to—”

  “I’m counting to four.”

  “Charles, just—”

  “Take me to my son.”

  “One.”

  “Charles—”

  “Get that damn gun outta my face and bring me my son!”

  “Two.”

  “Mom...whuz goin’ on?” Annabelle groggily lifts her head.

  “You’re going to have to shoot me if—”

  “Annabelle, baby, don’t move. Tina point the gun at me. Just—Just point the gun—”

  “Three.”

  “Tina?” Annabelle scrunches her face.

  “Four.”

  The front door opens.

  The characters on the TV screen fall silent along with everyone in the living room.

  The sound of sneakers scuffing across the floor.

  Charles starts to run for the front door, but stops when Tina steps in front of him.

  “You’re testing my patience, Mr. Johnson.” She flicks the barrel of the gun down. He sits.

  The sneakers stop.

  A few seconds pass before Miguel steps into the room with his hands in his pockets, looking healthy and hale. He stands there for a second...then he starts to cry.

  “Go to your father.” Tina lowers the gun.

  Miguel fairly falls into his father’s embrace, sobbing and clutching at him with his arms. Charles puts his hand on the back of his son’s head, eyes closed and tears streaming. “Oh, thank God, Miguel.” He presses his son against him for a full minute before holding him by the shoulders. He slides his hands down his son’s thin arms. “Did they—” He stops when he reaches Miguel’s bandaged wrists. He looks down and the world zooms back as if distancing him from what he is seeing.

  His son has no hands.

  His son has no hands.

  His son has no hands.

  Horror grabs his gut, grips his lungs, and forces his mouth open. “Miguel, what—where are—why—” He looks into his son’s eyes, at the stream of tears rolling down his wracked expression.

  “They said that our ability is in our hands.” The words are whispered through quivering lips.

  Madness massacres reason. Charles throws himself at Tina. He ignores the pain cracking up his knuckles as he cracks the young girl across the cheek. Incoherent words writhe past his lips along with spittle. He hammers down on her chest with clenched fists, blood misting the air.

  A small fist slams into his temple.

  Sensation scatters, vision becomes pixelated and vague.

  Tina grabs a finger, yanks back.

  C R A C K !

  “AUUGHH!”

  She kicks him in the face, knocks him on his back, and grabs his foot with one hand on the heel and the other by the toes of his shoe. She wrenches.

  S N A P !

  “AAHH!”

  She relaxes as he contorts with pain. He rocks back and forth, keeping the pain back behind clenched teeth. Then Charles is suddenly lunging at her neck. He bites down.

  The high-pitched scream from the fourteen-year-old girl shatters the air. Blood erupts from the small hole bitten in her tender flesh. Charles yanks his head away, spitting out the gobbet of flesh. Blood soaks into his polo shirt.

  Anita opens her mouth, but her words are blasted away along with the back of Charles’s head when Tina puts a bullet through it.

  “Heavenly Father, I’m coming before you again asking for guidance and wisdom. I’ve recommitted myself to leading your children back to your heavenly gates, but I feel as though you’re telling me that I also need to recommit myself to being a soul brimming with radiant love that’s free of judgment, that I need to be a light that warms and shines the way home. I ask for forgiveness for the words I spoke to Detective West and Suzie earlier today. I know that I can’t change either of them, only you can do that, but it’s my deepest prayer that they see the light and free themselves from the pull of iniquity.

  “If it’s still your desire that I work with the others to save the Johnsons, please show me the way to them. I open my mind, my body, my soul, my everything to your guiding hand, dear God. I ask that you please show me the way.

  Silence.

  “Yes, I feel Seraph’s light. Praise God. I’m on my way.”

  “Ascension!”

  “Try it now.”

  Leo twists the key in the ignition and pumps the gas, groaning when nothing happens. He gets out of the van, shoes sifting through the dirt coating the abandoned road. He points at Noir as he walks by. “Next rescue mission we stick to the map. Don’t care how awesome your sense of direction is.”

  The other man rolls his eyes.

  “Thing’s on a half tank of gas. I don’t understand why it’s not working.” Leo puts his hands on his waist and watches Perry as he studi
es the cords, tubes, wires, plastic, metal, and oil-streaked surfaces of the engine.

  “Just because it has gas doesn’t means it’s gonna go, Mr. Biochem.” Perry fiddles with connections under the hood.

  “What do we do now?” Noir sits on scraggly patch of grass with his arms flopped over his bent knees. He touches flame to the cigarette between his lips. He looks out in the distance, squinting his eyes a bit as he does his best to keep from shivering.

  Perry shakes his head. “Got four super beings here and not one of you can fix the engine...or fly to get help.” He runs the back of his wrist across his forehead. “Anyone get a phone signal yet?”

  Heads shake in the negative.

  “I could use my speed, run to get help.” Noir expels smoke. He blinks and narrows his eyes at something.

  “Last building I saw that didn’t look condemned was more than a mile back. You can’t blaze that far, can you?” Perry hunkers down closer to the engine.

  “I don’t call it blazing, call it streaking.” He taps ash.

  “What?”

  “I said, I call it streaking when I run super fast, not blazing.”

  A grin cracks. “Yeah, I’ve known a few people who run really fast when they streak, too. Usually they’re running away from me.”

  Noir mutters something under his breath and resumes staring out at the horizon.

  Bisset steps out of the van with a bottle of water in one hand and a ratty rag in the other. “Broken down in a dead zone with no cars or road in sight.” Scoff. “Someone out there really doesn’t like us.” She looks out at the open field.

  Perry wipes his hands on the offered rag. “Thanks.” He tilts his head at the van, lowers his voice. “Giorgio okay in there?”

  “He mostly stared out of the window the entire time. I try to talk to him, but he doesn’t say more than a few words.”

  “Maybe he should drag his cadaver-ass out here and see if he can bring life back to this old heap.”

  A raised voice from inside the van. “I’m dead, detective, not deaf.”

  “Does anyone see that?”

  Eyes dart to Noir. Eyes dart to where Noir’s eyes stare.