Cartoon Heroes: Book One of the Dark Skies Series

by Anthony Harwood

Cartoon

  Heroes

  Book One in the Dark Skies Series

  Anthony Harwood

 

  Copyright 2010 Anthony Harwood

  All rights reserved.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-9567479-3-8

 

  By The Same Author:

  Hippy

  Dark Skies Series: Amazing Things (Book 2)

 

  For Dad.

  Here we go….

  The explosion rocked not only the foundations, but shook up the lives of hundreds of people around the city. In a world where the most isolated township was also the largest, normalcy had been shaken to the very core, even torn asunder, thrown to the winds. But in a world where there was strangeness, it was about to be introduced to the true meaning of weird.

 

  CHAPTER ONE

  Five minutes before the explosion, a plain white van had entered the car park. Stopping and starting behind the other couple of cars making their way inside before heading slowly to the third floor of the seven storey structure. It was Sunday, ten past six when it pulled into a bay not far from the elevators and stairs. The doors to both were closed.

  One man in a dark jumpsuit hopped from the passenger side door, the left in this case, and pulled open the side slider. Inside was dark, even the dim lights from the building did little to light the interior. The man vanished inside. The driver, his window wound down, tapped anxiously on the outside of the door to an unsteady and erratic beat.

  * * *

  Two minutes before the explosion, a plain, pale faced young man dressed in formal shirt, tie and trousers, made his way across the busy street below the car park and entered the building by way of a glass door that led to the stairwell. Inside, he took the first few steps slowly. Judging each one for their merit of existence. Why were they there instead of a giant black hole that would swallow him whole? Why couldn’t he plummet into a void of nothingness? Typical angst ridden thoughts. Hesitating, he reached into his shirt breast pocket and pulled forth a name badge that read Russell, above that, in big black letters, the name of one of the largest department store chains in the country, irrelevant to him; although he enjoyed working there. It was the presence of his badge he was concerned about. Reassured, he replaced the badge and began to take the stairs two at a time, before slowing on the landing of the second floor. He reached into his trouser pocket and took out his keys as he stepped into the main building.

  His eyes darted around at the lines of cars in front of him, at the grey wall that partitioned the centre off from the rest of the car park. This was the second floor. The exit floor. Behind the grey partition were two ramps leading down to the pay offices which in turn led onto the street. A third ramp came up from a secondary entrance, less used, less known about.

  He clicked his tongue and spun back into the stairwell. This was not his floor.

  His thumb played absent mindedly with a small black button on his key ring. It was located on a rectangular object, the fulcrum of the chain itself. A red light blinked on and off, indicating the object was working. A simple piece of electronics, useless now the motion detector, used as a security precaution at his parent’s office, had run out of batteries, now sitting dormant, but ever vigilant in the centre of the ceiling.

  The keys rattled as he made his way up to the next landing, his thumb still active as he opened the door.

  The next and last time he pushed the black button, he was able to catch a glimpse of the white van, the intricately detailed electronics within and the orange boot of his own car jutting out just behind the larger vehicle. He was then thrown backward against and through the wall of the stairwell, over the street he had just crossed and through the window of a vacant office on the other side. He was, however, only aware of what was happening around him up until the blast of orange light he thought came from his car hit him square in the face.

  * * *

  Several seconds before the explosion, the man within the van’s dark interior exited the vehicle once more, the driver following suit.

  “Right?”

  The passenger mumbled a reply before running back down the sloping roadway they had just driven up. Another car would be parked, waiting for them. They had time, as long as nothing went wrong. Nothing would, though. A foolproof plan. It would work perfectly.

  They didn’t, however, count on the motion detector sitting battery-dead in the centre of a ceiling at least twenty kilometres away, nor its counterpart that was merely metres away, nor the effect of the signal frequency the all but redundant key ring gave off when it was activated.

  They did feel the blast wave as their van exploded barely a floor above them, orange flame consuming that whole floor and rapidly spilling both up and down the building’s interior and exterior.

  * * *

  At the time of the explosion, several dozen people around the building screamed and bolted for cover while others turned in awe of the belching car park that billowed plumes of orange fire and smoke. The blast wave erupted from the windowless sides of the structure, reaching far across the sky, barely metres from the ground, and sweeping past but barely affecting the buildings around it.

  Shards and whole portions of cars were swept along with it. In one case, some observers claimed later, it appeared someone had been ejected through a wall, though some put it down to imagination or claims it was simply a piece of vehicle being expelled by the force of the explosion. As yet, there are no known fatalities or injuries.

  The flames then travelled upward and down the side of the building, crawling, even dripping over the concrete walls, consuming the structure in a heatless fire that, as soon as it began, was starting to evaporate into thin air.

  “An extraordinary sight one rarely sees effectively displayed in a science fiction movie these days,” one bystander was quoted as saying.

  The smoke lingered above the city before dissipating into the atmosphere, leaving little trace that anything had occurred at all, excepting the emergency vehicles, the gathering crowds and the lingering thought in some onlookers’ heads that someone may be lying injured somewhere.

  * * *

  An hour after the explosion, in the back of a darkened room, the only light was shining through the broken window, once covered in black paint, now open to the weather and city beyond. Around him, wooden crates and cardboard boxes were amassed. Some stacked, others fallen, or threatening to topple after his impact with them. Effectively, he was hidden from the world in general by towering and foreboding square objects of which he had no idea how they got there, nor where 'There' was. He pushed himself up on his elbow, letting it dig into the packaging materials that had exploded from one of the said crates that he had landed on, smashing into useless shards and planks. He winced as he looked at his other arm.

  A nail from a crate had found its way into his right forearm. But he merely winced. It was a deep wound. Should have been quite painful. But he found himself shudder more at the appearance of the wound than the pain. It was probably just numb for being slept on.

  His body shuddered, a shiver passing down his spine as if, as the old wife’s tale went, someone had walked over his grave. He had once thought, as he recalled even now, how he found it rather distasteful in any future society that someone would have the gall to actually attempt such an activity. That was if the theory pertained to someone in the future walking over your grave. In the other theory that it was the site of your grave that was being walked over, one
got to thinking, where that site actually was and was it already part of a cemetery or a planned expansion of one. The thought of the growing sizes of cemeteries around the world was disheartening to say the least. One day they would break into the expensive land development sites for the main reason that the development of cemeteries didn’t entail building an extra level on top. There was no vertical expansion, only horizontal. The whole idea of growing cemeteries led to problems in urban planning, in land management, unless of course the idea of mass morgues instead of ground planting burials was initiated. One day people would be laid to rest in large buildings with many body sized compartments allotted for each member of the community not wishing to be cremated or put to sea, if such an option was viable, let alone legal or environmentally friendly. It would be like a giant body bank, except there would be very few, if any, withdrawals. And they would be freeze dried to aid in autopsies or exhuming the body for investigative reasons. That way there would be no decomposition, thus no natural gag reaction to the putrefying smell of fetid flesh.

  As to why people gag on the smell of rotten things, the strength of such smells being a major influence, and yet enjoying the excessive, yet sickly sweet smell of a room full of flowers, air fresheners and the like, being just as strong, is rather amazing.

  Russell tried to clear his mind and his vision as unconsciousness tried to drag him back toward a sleep of indifference.

  A doctor, was his first clear thought, I need a doctor.

  He scuffled his way through the debris, managing to get awkwardly to his feet that felt almost as if they weren’t really there. Now he could see. The light spilling in from outside washed the room with a fading yellow glow. The sun seemed to be setting.

  It was an empty room, apart from all the boxes and crates and a desk or three, dust covered and drawless. The floor was of wooden boards, some cracked, and others covered in dead wiring, broken bits of crate, furniture or glass.

  He pushed his way with his uninjured arm into the open part of the room, standing in the light, feeling its fading warmth caress his dust covered and muscle weary body. He closed his eyes for a moment, a reaction from the drawing of sleep, the comfort of the light, the light-headedness he was feeling and found himself falling. Falling, but never hitting the ground. Drifting into the darkness of unconsciousness.

 

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was funny how time didn’t register in unconsciousness, where as in dreams, there was always that passage. Yet, in unconsciousness, there was nothing, no subconscious images making stories for your sleeping mind to toy with, to torment you with. Perhaps this was what sleep should be like, no nightmares. But no pleasures either. No dreams of happy times, no memories relived. No fantastical stories of magical rides, or even flying. But in this unconsciousness, even without the dreams, Russell still felt he was flying. He recalled the feeling as he began to regain his senses – Sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. He could see the shadows that had reclaimed the room, the sun having set. He could hear the distant cars, few and far between, but still passing below the window. He could taste the dryness in his mouth; the almost sick taste as if he had thrown up recently, though he hadn’t. He could smell the dust, the must that infested the office and could feel the dull throb in his arm from the nail. The rubbing of his clothes on his skin. The gentle breeze that seemed to encircle him in a cocoon of air. He lounged in the sensation as the current circled his body, above him, below him, all around him, a gentle breeze, cool on his skin, a nice contrast to the warm summer air outside.

  And then he blinked.

  Above him. Below him. All around him. Air.

  Blinking again, he looked down at the floor below him. At least half a metre below him. He didn’t blink again, not for a while. Not until he hit the floor moments later did the shock hit him. Not only the fact he was lying on nothing but air, but the whole explosion, the orange flames, everything. His mind was consumed by wild thoughts of everything that had occurred and of nothing important. Nothing coherent anyway.

  Distracted, he was jarred to sensibility as his backside made contact with the wooden boards below.

  He didn’t bother calling out in pain. No one would hear. It was only a childish response adults carried on. Even if it didn’t really hurt, there was always that need to say “Ouch” or “Ow” if someone was around. Sympathy gets you attention. None to be gained from this crowd, Russell figured before jumping to his feet, still surprised his wound was only mildly throbbing.

  Right now, though, all he could really think about was bed. He was tired, heavy, even nauseous. But first, he would see a doctor.

  All he’d have to do is drive up the road to the hospital, then back to the other side of the city to his apartment.

  His car! The last he had seen of it was the boot before the explosion. The explosion! What had happened! Was the building still standing? His car?

  Though he had no real hope for his car, he heaved his heavy, now throbbing body to the window and once again felt the breeze from outside. He checked to make sure his feet were firmly planted on the wooden floorboards before looking out at the building opposite. Even in the limited starlight and the faint glow from the street lamps and the other city lights, he could tell it was reasonably unharmed on the exterior. A few added police lines, security guards, bits of shrapnel made it stand out a little more, and then there were the torches. On the floor directly opposite, he could see a series of torches playing off the remains of vehicles and walls. When referring to remains, in this sense, one referred mainly to the husks and scraps left over from the blast. It was only a few metres away, the walls were only slightly higher than waist high around the side of each level, he could see pretty clearly the devastation inside and that there were at least five people with torches moving around. Two of the spotlights danced together, playing a game of chasey over what looked to be the remnants of a white van.

  Straining his ears, Russell tried to hear what they were saying.

  * * *

  “They say it started here.”

  “Figures,” the detective let his own torch examine what remained of a white Mazda van. It had been ripped open from the inside out, like some giant monster trying to escape figured that spontaneous combustion was the most viable option. In such a case, as Detective Warwick Jones was thinking, he believed the monster should only have tried the lock. Then it would have saved himself and the whole downtown police squad the major headache of Catastrophe Control.

  Thankfully it hadn’t been bad. The three security guards in the building had been unharmed, complaining of fume affection, dizziness and the like. There had been seven other people in the building at various points; two had been unaware of any of the events, having been making out in one of the four stairwells on the top floor. The other five, an elderly couple on the first, a teenage girl on the fourth and two men on the second had all been offered counselling. Only the teenager accepted.

  “Figures,” Jones repeated to the notion of the young girl being the only taker. He believed, as many others did, that crisis counselling might be beneficial in such cases as plane crashes, near death experiences. But for the more trivial occasions, when there was maybe only a slight chance you may trip over your own feet due to mild anxiety, Jones thought it to be a waste of time, money and, well, made people too emotionally dependant on other people’s support. He was from the old school – survival of the fittest.

  It was plain to see on this level, though, that the winner of that competition was the Volvo parked two cars away from the van. Anyone inside probably would have noticed the tremor, maybe even the flash of light through their tinted windows, but that would have been all. Good car, Jones thought. His wife’s car was a Volvo. Sturdy, safe. Heck, she’d survived at least six head on collisions already, each time the light post, the tree, the cyclist and the other cars had come off far worse.

  The lieutenant nodded humbly to the detective’s statement. As to why it figures as such,
that wasn’t for him to question.

  There was a loud clatter from one end of the floor followed by a “Sorry!” as one of the policemen went to work on some old car, or cars as the case may be.

  “Sir!”

  “Hmm?” Jones looked up at the caller. Another officer, he assumed in the darkness. The young git’s flashlight was shining in his face. He raised his hand against the glaring beam.

  “I think I found something.”

  The detective turned and moved to where the torch was seemingly suspended in mid air, squinting through the glare, trying to make out the man’s face. All the way, the light remained. Jones grabbed the young officer’s hand and twisted both it and the light out of his face. There was a cry in the darkness before the light clattered to the floor, “Next time it won’t be your torch you’ll be losing, son. Now what are you on about?”

  Jones was far from respected by the team. He was rude, rough and down right dirty, in almost every sense of the word.

  The officer scrambled for his still lit torch, whimpering under the harsh onslaught of Jones’ torch, which the detective had aimed at the young lad’s face, effectively blinding him.

  Two wrongs and all that was not part of Jones’ philosophy to life. Eye for an Eye was one of his, though.

  Once the officer, Parks by his name badge, had retrieved his torch, he hurried to a large black door. It had once been a creamy colour but had been seared by the exploding cars.

  “So?”

  The officer pulled the door open, holding it open for his colleagues to look inside.

  Beyond, in an otherwise unscarred stairwell, a large gaping hole was located just opposite the door. Bricks, strips of paint all hung down and around the edges of the exploded orifice.

  “So? Couldn’t a piece of one of these cars done that?”

  “Umm, sir, the door opens inward. Or outward if you’re in the stairwell.”

  “And?”

  The Lieutenant who had been with him all along dawned on the idea, “Sir. If a car had caused this, for it to have made this hole and yet left the door intact, one would assume it had opened the door first.”