by Charlie Wood
Letting go of the pipe, Orion dropped to the floor and picked up his bow. He was suddenly exhausted; with his body hunched over and his lungs wheezing for air, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small pistol that was made out of shining, red chrome. Pointing the barrel of the pistol in front of him, he pulled its trigger, and waited.
Within seconds, the faint hum of electricity was heard, and then a red-and-white, swirling portal of energy burst into existence, forming directly in front of Orion. It had a mirror-like surface, floated above the ground, and was nearly as tall as a man, snapping and flashing like a livewire.
Orion stepped toward the portal, but then stopped—a CRACK! sounded from his back. The old man reached to his spine, straightening his body in pain.
“My chiropractor is gonna love this one,” he groaned.
With gritted teeth, the old man limped into the portal and disappeared. When he was gone, it closed behind him with a SNAP!
CHAPTER FOUR
As Tobin arrived home from the soccer match, he found his mother’s boyfriend, Bill, washing dishes at the sink.
“Hey, Bill. What’re you doing here so early?”
“Oh, hey, Tobin. I left work at two to surprise your mom.” Bill was an exceptionally kind man in his early fifties who owned a construction business and looked like he just stepped off of a paper towel package. “How was school?”
“Not bad.” The boy headed to a cupboard above the fridge and grabbed a bag of potato chips. “Same as always, I guess.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Tobin’s mother walked downstairs and gave her son a kiss on his cheek.
“Hey, honey. Did you get that test back from Mr. Hastings today? I’m dying to see how you did.”
“No, not yet,” Tobin replied. “I guess he’s gonna give them back Monday or something.”
“Oh.” Tobin’s mother helped Bill with the dishes. “Don’t eat too many of those chips, honey; I packed you some of Grandma’s noodle soup for you to take to work. And don’t forget we might not be here when you get home.”
“Yeah, I know.” Tobin walked toward the stairs, but then turned around. “Actually, it might not matter, anyway, ‘cuz I’m probably gonna go to a friend’s house after work, and then spend the night at Chad’s. If that’s okay with you.”
Tobin’s mother thought it over. “I guess so. Is that really where you’re going? And how many other people are going to be at this friend’s house?”
“Oh, I don’t know, just the usuals: Jennifer, Chad, whoever. Plus a couple hundred other people maybe, who knows.”
“What?”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”
Tobin’s mother looked to Bill. He smiled and shrugged.
“All right,” she sighed. “But be careful. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Tobin walked to his mom and wrapped her in a hug. “Thanks, Mom. Anyone ever tell you you’re the greatest?”
“Yeah, that’s great, Tobin, but I’m serious about that: be careful. Now go get dressed for work before you’re late, remember what they said last time.”
With a grin, Tobin headed up the stairs, excited and eager for the night to begin. In the kitchen, he heard the phone ring and his mother answer it.
“Hello? Oh, hi, Mr. Hastings.”
Tobin stopped, halfway up the stairs, his eyes wide.
“Yes, he just got home a couple of minutes ago. No, he didn’t tell me what he got on his Algebra test.”
Tobin grimaced. He didn’t have to turn around to know that his mom was glaring at him. It felt like an eternity before she spoke again.
“You’re kidding me,” she sighed. “And this all happened today?”
Another sigh. Two sighs in less than a minute. Not good.
“All right, well, thank you for letting me know, Mr. Hastings. No, I’m just sorry to waste your time like this. I will. Bye.”
She hung up the phone. Tobin walked downstairs and looked to her, but she didn’t turn around. She simply stood at the sink, washing dishes.
“If you still think you’re going out tonight,” she said, “you’re crazy.”
Tobin stepped toward her. “What? Why?”
“You know why, Tobin. Don’t play stupid.”
“I’m not, Mom! Seriously! I didn’t even do anything, it was just a stupid joke.”
“Oh, it was just a joke. You got kicked out of the cafeteria for two weeks and got another detention, but it was just a joke. Okay.”
“Mom, I was just being funny. It’s not like I hurt anybody or anything. The ladies in the office were even laughing about it and everything.”
“Oh, and I guess since they were laughing about it, then I should probably just laugh it off, too, right? Well, that’s not gonna happen, Tobin. Not anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re grounded.”
Tobin laughed. “Shut up.”
“I’m serious, Tobin; I can’t allow you to keep doing this stuff. You’re seventeen years old, you shouldn’t be getting thrown out of the cafeteria and getting detentions! It’s ridiculous.” She put a dish in the drying rack. “So, until I know you’re behaving yourself, you’ll be in your room every night, unless you’re at work or eating dinner.”
Tobin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay. This is so stupid. I didn’t even do anything.”
“No, you never do, Tobin. I know.”
After stomping up the stairs, Tobin grabbed his work uniform from his room, and then stomped back down again.
“This is so friggin’ ridiculous. I seriously cannot wait to get out of this place next year.”
His mother laughed. “I doubt that, Tobin. Who’s gonna clean your clothes? Who will cook you dinner?”
Tobin reached for the doorknob. “I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. Dad obviously did.”
A silence. Bill turned to Tobin’s mother, but she only looked to the dishes in the sink.
“Tobin,” she said, with her voice quiet, her hands in the soapy water. “Go to work.”
Spinning around, Tobin walked outside and slammed the door. But, before he got into his car, he looked back to the kitchen window. Inside, he could see his mom standing at the sink, with Bill’s arm around her. She was still looking down at the water.
At 9:25 that night, Tobin was kneeling on the floor of an empty grocery store aisle, half-heartedly straightening a series of canned string beans on a shelf. After much internal debate, and much arguing with himself, he had decided it would be best for him to just go home, skip the party, and apologize to his mom, especially after what he said to her before he left. It seemed to be his specialty: saying incredibly stupid things in an argument, usually the most hurtful things he could think of, and then immediately regretting it afterwards.
“Tobin!” he heard someone call. He looked up and saw his manager, Jeff, standing at the top of the aisle. “Go get your last carriage pick-up, then you can leave.”
Tobin stood and wiped the dust from his khakis.
“Thank god,” he muttered.
Outside, Tobin saw three lonely carriages at the end of the parking lot, so he walked to them, gathered them together, and brought them back to the entrance. As he pushed them along, the sparse sounds and sights of the night seemed to envelop him: the rusty carriage wheels squeaking; the wisps of fog floating ghost-like above the pavement; the broken streetlight buzzing and flickering above him. The boy suddenly felt very unsettled. That feeling only grew when he realized he was not alone.
“What the hell?” he wondered aloud. He looked ahead and saw somebody standing in the glass-walled entrance of the grocery store: it was a tall, thin black man, with grey hair and glasses. The old man was standing with his arms behind
his back, and wearing a red coat that reached his knees.
With an uneasy feeling in his gut, Tobin pushed the carriages into the store and lined them up with the others. As he watched the old man, the old man stared right back, with a slight smile across his face.
“Hello,” Tobin offered, as he turned around.
But the old man said nothing.
“Can I help you?” Tobin asked.
But, again, nothing.
“Look,” Tobin said, pointing to the door with his thumb, “we’re about to close, so if you want something you should probably just—”
“Hello, Tobin,” the old man said.
Tobin squinted. “Uh, hi. Do I know you?”
The old man smiled. “No. But I was a very close friend of your father’s.”
Tobin’s brow furrowed. He looked the man over. “Oh yeah?”
“Yes. My name is Orion, Tobin, and what I have to tell you is very, very important. I know that you don’t know who I am, and that you must be very suspicious, but you must try and listen to me. Okay? It’s very important.”
Tobin thought it over.
“Sure,” he said with a dismissive laugh. “What have you got?”
A silence.
“You are in great danger, Tobin.”
Tobin snickered. He stepped toward the door.
“Yeah, okay, thanks, pal. Thanks for that. I’ll make sure to write that one down. Look, you should probably just get out of here, okay?”
The boy pushed a button above the door and it opened. But Orion stayed put.
“I know what I’m saying sounds strange, Tobin, but a group of people are looking for you tonight. You must be very careful, please, whatever you do. This is incredibly serious.”
Tobin’s heart jumped. He looked into the store, hoping to see his manager, but saw nobody nearby.
“Uh, look,” the boy said, “if you don’t leave, I’m gonna havta tell my manager, and then he’s probably gonna call the cops, and that won’t be good, so why don’t you just go home or something, okay? C’mon, let’s go.”
Tobin motioned toward the open door.
“Dammit,” the old man snapped. He began to search for something in his coat pockets, his fingers trembling, his breath coming in quick gasps. “I don’t have much time—dammit, where is...? Here, here, look.” He handed Tobin a photograph. “This is a picture of your father and me.”
Tobin looked down at the photograph. It showed two men in their early thirties: one of them was a young Orion, wearing the same red coat, while the other was a dark-haired man. The dark-haired man was wearing a midnight blue outfit with a black cape on his back, and also black gloves. On his chest there was a white “S” in the shape of a lightning bolt.
Tobin was stunned. The man looked like his father.
“Okay,” the boy asked, “what the hell is this? Who are you?”
Orion suddenly screamed out. Tobin jumped back, startled, as the old man doubled over, clutching his stomach.
“I’m sorry, Tobin, I wish I could stay, but I can’t, I—arrrgghh!” He groaned and gritted his teeth, his voice a hoarse, pained whisper. “Listen…if you get into any trouble tonight, if anyone comes looking for you—run. It doesn’t matter what your body tells you, or what you think you should do: run. Run until you are far away, and even then do not stop.”
Tobin’s thoughts flew a mile a minute.
“What are you talking about?” he asked. “What is this?”
The old man screamed out again, falling against the wall. As he staggered toward the exit, he held his side.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll do my best to speak to you again soon, Tobin. I’m sorry.”
Holding out his hands in confusion, Tobin watched as Orion ran out of the store and down the building. Then, with his lip curled, the boy looked around, half-expecting to see a hidden camera.
“Okay,” he said. “What the hell was that?”
The boy ran out of the store and after Orion.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey, get back here!” The old man was running away and almost at the end of the building. “You can’t just leave! What are you talking about? Hey! Hey!”
But suddenly, when Orion turned the corner of the store, a blinding red flash and a violent snap of lightning erupted in the night.
“Whoa!” Tobin exclaimed. He staggered back, raising an arm to shield his eyes. When he regained his bearings, he found that the world was covered in a red haze, and his ears were ringing like mad. Cautiously stepping forward, he placed his hand on the corner of the building and peered around it, looking to the back of the grocery store.
But nothing was there.
The old man was gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
Still trying to make sense of his strange encounter, Tobin parked his car, walked into his house, and hung his keys on a hook on the wall. Hearing the TV on in the living room, he looked in and found Bill on the couch, watching the Red Sox game.
“Oh, hey, Bill. How was dinner, did you guys have fun?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, we did. It was good.”
“Cool. Where’s my mom?”
“She’s, uh, upstairs. She went to bed when we got back, called it an early night. I told her I’d stay here until you got home.”
“Oh.”
Slightly confused, Tobin headed upstairs. He walked down the hallway toward his room, but then stopped at his mother’s room. Inside, he saw that she was asleep, and next to her on the nightstand, there were several bunches of balled-up tissues.
Tobin stepped back into the hallway. Reaching into his pocket, he took out the photograph that the old man had given him and studied it.
After a quick change of clothes, Tobin climbed up the ladder to his attic and turned on the light. As he maneuvered past the exercise equipment and Christmas decorations, he made his way to a series of boxes against the wall. Sorting through them, he found the one he was looking for; it was labeled: MOM’S STUFF.
Tobin opened the box. It was filled with photographs, picture albums, and other mementos. One of the photos caught Tobin’s eye: it was of him and his mother, taken at a recent family barbeque. He was laughing and pulling away from her as she wrapped her arms around him and tried to give him a goofy kiss on the cheek.
Tobin chuckled, putting the photo down. Then, at the bottom of the box, he found a picture album. As he opened its cover, he felt a slight wave of nerves in his stomach. He rarely looked at these pictures, and his mother looked at them even less.
They were pictures of his mother and father’s life together: their wedding day, their honeymoon, bringing home a new baby.
Tobin turned through the pages. He stopped on a picture of himself at a baseball game with his father. They were eating popcorn and wearing matching caps, bought only moments earlier. Tobin guessed at his age in the picture. It must have been right before that night.
Tobin turned the page. He stopped on another photo.
This photo showed his father, in his mid-twenties, standing next to another man, also in his mid-twenties. The other man was tall, thin, and wearing glasses. Tobin compared the photo with the one from his pocket, and the two men did look similar.
A buzzing came from Tobin’s phone—it was a text message, from Jennifer:
EVERYONE’S HERE. ARE YOU COMING OR WHAT?
Tobin closed the box, watched his head on the low ceiling, and walked toward a window.
“I really shouldn’t, and it is absolutely the wrong decision, but yes, I am.”
He opened the window and crawled onto a short roof above the porch of his house.
“Because I am an idiot.”
After closing the window, Tobin hopped off the roof, walked down the street, and turned the corner towar
d Stacey Redmond’s house.
CHAPTER SIX
The party had been a great one. It was at a house only a mile-and-a-half from Tobin’s—right along the beach—and the early autumn air had been just warm enough for the teens to grill some burgers, chat outside, and pretend it was still summer for one more night.
Now, though, the party was almost over, and Tobin was walking along the shore with one of his best friends. She was someone he had known ever since the seventh grade, when they had both helped each other sneak out of an insufferably boring health class.
“You are so lame,” Jennifer told him.
“What?” Tobin asked. “Why?”
“Disappearing old men at the supermarket? Red flashes of lightning or whatever the heck you said? Tobin, you’ve been trying to scare me with stories like this since we were in middle school. This is—my god, it’s like we are still twelve.”
“I know,” he laughed, “but this time it actually happened, Jen, I swear! I don’t know what else to tell you, but this is absolutely, completely true.”
“Yeah, okay, just like the time in ninth grade when you were sick in bed and you saw your neighbor murdering his wife? Just like that?”
Tobin smiled. “That…was also true. Both of these stories are true.”
“Yeah, either that or plots from Hitchcock movies. Either one.”
Tobin laughed again. “Okay, look, the other one was a lie, but this one is true, I’m telling you. I can even show you the picture and everything.”
Jennifer laughed it off. “Whatever.”
A silence passed.
“This was fun, though, wasn’t it?” she asked. “Tonight?”
“Yeah, it was. I just wish I could’ve gotten here earlier.”
