Triumph Over Tragedy: an anthology for the victims of Hurricane Sandy

by R. T. Kaelin

  “Jim, I need you to understand the gravity of the secret with which Mike has entrusted you,” Mr. Pittenger started, and it went on like that for nearly fifteen minutes, with me mostly nodding a lot and looking at my reflection in the wood polish.

  When he got done with the warnings, though, and we stood up, he was grinning and bouncing up and down on his feet, and I realized all of a sudden that Mr. Pittenger was happy. He’d never been the perkiest guy, and he’d been a wreck after Mike died, dark circles under his eyes, shaky hands, and his mouth always half open like he was about to say something, but he hardly ever did. But despite the serious talk, Mr. Pittenger was practically giddy. I guess having your dead kid come back did that for you.

  Mrs. Pittenger had made poppy seed chicken over egg noodles—my favorite—and she smiled when we walked through the door. Mike was sketching superhero figures on a notepad and he winked at me. Mrs. Pittenger set three places, with Mike pushing back away from the table and leaning against the wall while the rest of us dug in. I wanted to ask him if he could still eat food, and what it was he was eating, exactly, to stay around, and where he was getting it, but I didn’t.

  With his big speech all out of him, Mr. Pittenger was pretty quiet the whole meal, really diving into his food, but he kept looking at Mike and beaming and reaching over to pat Mike’s shoulder or rub his head. Mrs. Pittenger made a lot of small talk, asking me about school and how my folks were doing, and she was intense and manic about it, and halfway into my second helping I realized that she was hardly ever looking at Mike. And I realized she was scared of him. There was more to it than that. There was love and guilt and sadness and worry. But mostly she was scared.

  * *** *

  “I’ve got my costume almost ready,” Mike said in a hushed voice downstairs in his room.

  The room was mostly like I remembered. Superhero posters on the walls. The hand-painted statue of Nordkapp Man. Mike’s computer.

  But there was a new stack of books by his bed. Dracula. ’Salem’s Lot. By Blood We Live. Queen of the Damned. The Strain. Even Twilight. And behind the curtains, the windows were taped over with thick, black electrician’s tape.

  “What’s your superhero name?” I asked him. I stared at the books, decided to try making a joke out of it. “Deadboy? Ectoplasmic Kid? Kid Twilight?”

  He laughed. “Dude,” he said, “I might as well draw a circle on my chest and label it ‘Insert Stake Here.’ Nah, I’m safest if people don’t have any idea where I got my superpowers from.”

  His superpowers. Like being a vampire was just another secret origin. I scratched my head. I guess it was. “So?” I asked. “What’s it going to be?”

  He opened up his closet and there was a costume of Sergeant Argent in all his silver and pinkish-purple glory.

  * *** *

  A few days later, I told my folks I was going to the new Vincent Dupre movie again at the Rave, but instead I snuck out and met Mike at Godzilla Burgers near Ridgmar Mall. Godzilla Burgers was more of a hangout for the Western Hills kids and Mike and I go—well, Mike went—to Paschal, so we figured nobody would recognize him. All the same, he had a stocking cap pulled down low and sunglasses and I’m not sure I’d have recognized him myself if I hadn’t known.

  “I saw you in the Startle-Gram,” I said, scattering jalapenos and A1 on my burger.

  The Fort Dire Star-Telegram is the city’s paper. There’d been a series of home invasions in Benbrook, a gang of teenagers hopped up on Monstrous Z, a new street drug that made people stronger, faster, and much, much uglier. It also burned out their nervous systems and made them puke black bile. Last week, one of the gang had been stopped by the FDPD. They’d shot him three or four times and he’d picked up their squad car and thrown it down an embankment off Vickery Boulevard before running away. Mike had caught seven of the gang members and saved a mother with a couple little kids. He’d made top story on the Star-Telegram’s website that morning: “New hero Sergeant Argent saves family of three.”

  Mike beamed. “Yeah,” he said spinning a cup of Coke around on the table. “It was pretty intense.”

  He told me about walking the neighborhood streets at night in costume, listening for trouble, hearing an alarm and shouts for help. His hearing was better now, making things easier. He’d sprinted a mile to the house after hearing the first noise, and the actual fight was easier than he thought, taking him less than five minutes. They were scary and fast and strong, but they weren’t as fast and strong as Sergeant Argent. That’s how he said it: “They weren’t as fast and strong as Sergeant Argent.”

  I was proud of him, and happy for him, and I kept watching him spin that Coke without ever taking a sip.

  “Do you—” I started, then cut myself off, afraid to ask. Then I forced myself. I needed to ask. “What do you eat?” I asked.

  He gave me a half smile. “Don’t worry, man,” he said. “It’s not like what you think.” His Coke had left a wet ring on the table and he dragged a fingernail through it. “I’m lucky, I guess. Our little cemetery is right next to the Zenners’ stable, so when I woke up that first time—”

  In his grave, he meant.

  “—the closest thing to me was a bunch of horses. I’ve never had human blood.” He swallowed. “I didn’t even kill the horse.”

  “So you’re using the Zenners’ stables?”

  He shook his head. “I move around a good bit. I don’t want to get noticed, especially close to home, and I want to make sure I don’t take enough to kill any animals. Mostly I stick to cows.” He grinned and poked my cheeseburger. “Probably that one, medium-rare boy.”

  I laughed with him, but set that cheeseburger down pretty fast. I saw him noticing and I tried to get back to the light-hearted moment by patting him on the arm.

  He jerked like I’d stabbed him.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s not you. It’s the arm.”

  “Did you get hurt in the fight?”

  He dropped his arm. “Nah,” he said. “Nothing serious.”

  I waited.

  He shrugged. “I got up early today and went upstairs,” he said. “There was a crack where the blinds weren’t catching the sunlight and it hit me.”

  “Did your arm get all sparkly?” I asked. “Like in Twilight?”

  His face turned sour and he cradled the arm. “No. It didn’t get all sparkly.”

  I imagined it blackening and smoldering in the sun. Then I tried to un-imagine it, but I couldn’t pull it off.

  * *** *

  Mike kept busy that next week. He caught some drug dealers, a pedophile, a D-list supervillain called the Skunk, and a guy who’d just killed a police officer in a shootout.

  I went by his house again late the night of the shootout, just snuck out after my parents were in bed. Mike and his folks were up. Their schedule had adjusted to Mike asleep all day and awake at night.

  He’d told them about Sergeant Argent. He’d pretty much had to. And it surprised me at first that it was his mom encouraging him to keep it up, to keep being a hero, while Mr. Pittenger’s face turned dark every time it came up. But I realized Mr. Pittenger was afraid of Mike dying again. Mrs. Pittenger was just afraid. Mike being out of the house made it easier.

  In the game room, Mr. Pittenger sat by Mike, reaching over and patting his back every few minutes like he had to reassure himself Mike was still there. Mrs. Pittenger sat in the corner working on her second glass of white zin.

  “Catching those drug dealers was awesome,” Mike told us. “Their lab was sealed up like a fortress, but I turned to mist and slipped under the door, and they were just sitting around. Their guns were hanging on the wall. They didn’t even get a chance to stand up before I ripped the gun rack down, opened the door, and started tossing them outside where the police could grab them. It was wicked.”

  “How about that shooting?” I asked. “You got there right after the police officer died, right?”

  It was like the whole room got
colder. “Yeah,” said Mike, his voice bleak. “It was awful. He’d been shot in the throat, right over his vest, and there was blood everywhere, and I tried to calm him down, but we both knew he wasn’t going to make it.” His eyes were unfocused. “I ran after the shooter and just tackled him and threw him down to the ground and took his gun. I broke his arm and a couple ribs doing it, but I don’t care.” He shook his head. “There was so much blood,” he said.

  We all watched him and I think all of us realized at the same time that it wasn’t so much the officer dying that was upsetting Mike. It was all about the blood. The human blood.

  Mrs. Pittenger made this coughing sob and her glass shattered in her hand. She cut herself pretty bad along the base of her thumb and we sat there staring at it, the cut and the wine spilled all over the floor and her hand bleeding.

  Mike sprinted for the kitchen, I thought to get her some ice or a towel, but then the basement door slammed as he headed down to his room. Mr. Pittenger just sat there staring and it ended up being me who went into the kitchen and got Mrs. Pittenger towels and ice and tweezers and a bandage.

  Mike hadn’t come out or made a sound by the time I left.

  * *** *

  The second time Mike died was saving my life. That’s what I tell myself.

  He IM’d me the next day and asked me to go with him on patrol. “Like a ridealong,” he wrote.

  It scared me and I’d have to sneak out again, but it also seemed pretty awesome, so I said okay.

  Mrs. Pittenger piled us into her car and the drive was surreal, Mike with his Sergeant Argent costume in a backpack on his lap, me with a little cooler filled with ice waters and potato chips, her with this big bandage wrapped extra tight around her hand, glancing at me sometimes in the rear-view mirror, all disconcerted that she couldn’t see Mike sitting right next to me because of the no reflection thing.

  I figured we might go up to the Jacksboro Highway or somewhere else with a bad rep, but instead she drove us downtown and dropped us off near some night clubs. She gave a wave and sped off fast.

  “Let’s grab some alley and I’ll suit up,” Mike said.

  “What are we looking for?” I asked, taking point at the end of an alley.

  I made sure nobody was coming and risked a peek back at Mike. He was ghostly pale, his arm scarred where the sunlight had hit.

  “I got a tip Darkwitch was coming back here tonight,” he said. As he pulled the cowl over his head, I saw marks on his throat where the other vampire had gotten him. I shuddered and looked away.

  “How do you get tips exactly?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  I looked back at him.

  He shrugged. “If I talk to people on the street, I can kind of make them tell me more than they want to.”

  I whistled. “No shit? Super hypnosis.”

  He smiled, uncomfortable about it. “Yeah.”

  “So what’s she doing?”

  “Nobody knows. Whatever she was trying to get last time she didn’t get, so she’s trying again. She had some of her people casing the night clubs near here.” He pulled on his second boot.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Wait.”

  We waited a while, talking about school, about TV shows. Nothing about his folks. Nothing about him being a vampire.

  Then he asked me, “Was it sunny today?”

  “I didn’t notice,” I said.

  He sighed. “I used to spend days down in the basement playing on the computer. Sometimes a whole weekend would go by without me setting foot outside. But now, man, I’ve got to tell you, I really miss the sun.” He touched his arm. “Mostly.”

  “Mike?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What happened last night, man?”

  He scratched inside his collar. Neon light from a honkytonk across the street glittered on the silver in his costume. “It’s getting harder,” he said.

  I distracted myself by pulling an ice-cold bottled water out of my cooler and taking a swig. My mouth still felt dry. “What is?”

  A crowd of people walked past and he hugged the wall. It was like he could disappear in the shadows if he wanted to. Nobody noticed us. He sighed. “We were talking about the blood and then Mom cut herself and it was just—” He broke off.

  When I realized he wasn’t going to finish, I let my mind think of ways to complete the sentence for him. “—confusing,” maybe. Or “—awkward.” Or maybe “—delicious.”

  I wondered how long a vampire could go on not drinking human blood.

  Mike’s face was haunted.

  I reached out and patted him on the shoulder and then all the lights on the street went out.

  “Oh, crap,” he said. “Here we go.”

  There was a huge BANG out in the street, the kind of noise that thumps you in the chest. Glass was breaking everywhere and Mike stepped in front of me in the moonlight, his arms stretched out, and then this giant black thing jumped into the alley and then another one and then more and then Mike was tossing these things left and right, so strong, but then he got knocked backward into me and I fell down and banged my head and then I don’t remember anything for a while.

  I found out more in the news later. Darkwitch attacked downtown Fort Dire with an army of shadow creatures, trying to get at some kind of Aztec disk being used as a prop at an opera at Bass Hall, but that seriously had magical powers. She went all out, creating total chaos, keeping the cops busy, pretty much overwhelming poor Mike.

  Peacemaker and El Sol showed up again, but she was ready for them this time. She made a swarm of shadow hornets fly right at Peacemaker, stinging her face to blind her, and of course Peacemaker’s six-guns weren’t any good against them. El Sol was blasting her creatures left and right, but then Darkwitch flew out of Bass Hall on her broom, the Aztec disk in one hand and her wand in the other, and blasted him in the chest with her wand. His light just flickered out and he dropped out of the sky, hitting the pavement hard not far from us.

  It might have ended up no worse than that if it hadn’t been for bad luck.

  Darkwitch flew off to the south, leaving her shadow things behind to keep distracting the good guys. And the creatures were more distraction than anything. They would chase crowds for a few feet, but then would let them get away. People were roughed up a bit, and Peacemaker and El Sol were hurting, but it was nothing really dangerous. Darkwitch threatened and distracted and confused; she didn’t try to murder people.

  Except maybe, accidentally, for me.

  I woke up in a panic, Mike standing nearby, the silver in his Sergeant Argent costume shining. Probably a dozen of the shadow things surrounded him, making horrible chittering, screaming noises, and the problem is that Mike just wouldn’t run. They wanted to chase him away, but he was protecting me and wouldn’t budge, so they just kept on about it.

  I pulled myself up and cupped my head where I’d hit it on the pavement and even with all the lights still out I could tell my hand was soaked with blood.

  Mike looked over his shoulder at me then, startled, and he kind of hissed and his fangs glittered in the moonlight. He took a step toward me, then stopped and said “No, no.” He spun around and punched one of the shadow things so hard it shattered into a hundred pieces.

  Some of the shadow creatures started coming toward me and I ran to the end of the alley, but had nowhere else to go.

  Mike grabbed one of the shadow things and tore it apart, rending it with a jerk of his hands. But then he was flooded with the things, like a hundred insubstantial arms reaching out at him, grabbing his ankles, his arms, his throat. He looked back at me again, and is eyes were glowing bright red. An army of shadow creatures was trying to yank him apart and he was having trouble pulling his eyes away from the blood on my hands.

  It smelled like wine and piss back at the end of the alley and I figured I was about to die.

  Then Mike saved me.

  He crouched down, pulling some of the things down to the gro
und with him, then leaped up in a huge, loping arc, out of the alley, back to the street. There, he reached down and picked a body up off of the asphalt and pushed his way back into the alley, knocking the horde of shadow creatures to the side. The things were milling around, some surrounding me, some surrounding Mike, ducking in, punching and pinching. One of them clipped me in the shoulder and I yelped, shrinking down to the ground and covering myself up as much as I could.

  Mike stepped toward me, the body still in his arms, and I recognized the embroidery of El Sol’s uniform. The shadow things concentrated on Mike now, and he set El Sol down and started fighting again, not wasting a lot of motion, just pushing them back or batting down claws that stretched out for him. “Toss me your cooler,” he said, voice hoarse.

  I was panicked and confused, but I pulled it off my shoulder and slid it across the alley to him.

  “Hey, Jim,” Mike said. “No worries. It’s all good.”

  I felt a rush of alarm, not so much a premonition of what he was about to do as recognition of the mixed sadness and relief in his voice. He raised his hand and, inhumanly fast, flashed through the Vulcan salute, the raps against his left arm, the okay symbol, and the thumbs up. Our geek tribute to each other. Then he popped open my second bottle of ice water and poured it in El Sol’s face.

  El Sol started waking up and glowing at the same time, getting brighter and brighter, and by the time he sat up and then stumbled to his feet, it looked like noon in that alley.

  The shadow creatures withered, the light flattening them like paper until they faded away.

  What happened to Mike was more dramatic. He gave me a little wave and then the light coming off El Sol made him burst into flames. His whole body shuddered and smoked and then in just a few seconds, he was gone, leaving nothing behind but a smell like burnt wood and the Sergeant Argent costume, singed nearly black.