Abominations

by Unknown Author

  Floating on the screen, lighting the faces of Bruce and Betty, read the following words:

  PROVERBS 6:16

  THERE ARE SIX THINGS WHICH THE LORD HATETH; YEA, SEVEN WHICH ARE AN ABOMINATION UNTO HIM:

  HAUGHTY EYES, A LYING TONGUE,

  AND HANDS THAT SHED INNOCENT BLOOD;

  A HEART THAT DEVISETH WICKED PURPOSES,

  FEET THAT ARE SWIFT IN RUNNING TO MISCHIEF,

  A TALSE WITNESS THAT UTTERETH LIES,

  AND HE THAT SOWETH DISCORD AMONG BRETHREN.

  “I knew it,” she said. “I knew I’d seen that before.” The Hulk grinned. “We should all join a convent from time to time.”

  “It’s a hard habit to break.” She raised an eyebrow as the verse printed out. “You better call Morgan.”

  The Hulk looked at the clock and shook his head, “Later.”

  She looked up. “You think you should wait?”

  “His kid’s funeral,” Brace sighed. “I’ll give him a couple hours. Meantime,” he picked up the printout, “let’s have a look.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Right.’ ^

  They reconvened in the kitchen, Betty sitting on the counter next to where the Hulk stood, shoulder to shoulder '‘He’s acting out, as Leonard would say,” said Bruce, referring to his gamma-enhanced psychiatrist friend Doc Samson.

  “Yeah, ' she said, “but it’s not that simple. He’s acting out and getting everybody else involved. He’s not just an Abomination, he’s the king of Abominations and the punisher of them all.”

  “The haughty eyes of Nadia and her audience,” said Bruce. “That’s really scary. Every one of those people, he injured just to make a point. The hands that shed innocent biood, just like he told me. Betty, I could kiss you.”

  “Oh, you owe me bigger than that,'’ she said. “The

  abominations

  heart that deviseth wickedness, that’s Wulf Christopher.” “But you forgot lying,” said Bruce. ‘The order is eyes, lying tongue, then hands, then heart.’aBl ... “So he skipped lying,’ she said. “So he doesn’t mind breaking the order.”

  117

  “Why make it easy?” Bruce mused, tilting his head. “Funny thing is lying is here twice—the lying tongue and then the false witness that uttereth lies.”

  “Right,” said Betty. “If I had to guess I’d say that’s why you have the odd ‘six or seven’ confusion at the beginning. Lying is two-in-one. Maybe a private lie, versus a witness, a public lie.”

  “Hm. Then what?” Bruce mused. “Feet that are swift in running to mischief. Just like you guessed, feet.” “Feet.” They stared at one another, waiting for lightening to strike.

  “Not a thing,” said Bruce.

  “Search me,” Betty shrugged.

  “Great,” Bruce chewed his lip. “And there’s no guarantee it’ll be just one person. People get hurt around his targets. Think. Feet that are swift in running to mischief.” “Someone Emil has a reason to hate.’®

  “Connected to him personally, in some way. Like the cops, and Christopher by extension.”

  “Who else? What next?”

  My eyes on the stars...

  Bruce turned around and looked past Betty. The kitchen in the condo had a bar over the counter, and above the bar was a space in the wall so one could serve guests in the living room. And in the living room, he could see the television. “My eyes on the stars,” muttered Bruce. “Feet... running ... to mischief..■_ _

  Betty looked at him. “Hey, partner. Whatcha got?” My eyes on. the stars...

  “Up a... Hill..The Hulk bounded into the living room and hit the mute button, busting the remote in the process. “Like a politician, running, like a crooked— ”

  “What?’*

  “Something I read about Christopher, God, I forgot his connections with—”

  Senator Hill was still talking to Mario, and they were running another clip, and there it was, and Hulk turned the volume up high. “Look!” gjjSMy eyes on the stars, my feet on the ground!” And the flag was waving and people were cheering. Emil, you’re a bad, bad poet.

  “The senator,” said Betty.

  “Terence Hill made his Fortune, before becoming a senator, as a secret partner with Wulf Christopher. Rick wanted to talk about that on his show but they wouldn’t let him. Is this show live?”

  Betty stared. “Usually. Oh, no, Rick and Mario!” The Hulk grabbed the phone, clicked it on, and punched eleven digits. After a moment somebody answered. “Rick Jones, please, it’s an emergency.”

  “I’m sony,” came the female voice on the other end. “But he’s already left.”

  The Hulk stared at the television. “But the show’s on the air.”

  “Yeah!” came the chirping answer. “We all get off early today because we filmed it on delay. The senator had to make a flight.”

  Bruce felt his chest tighten. “Delay by how long?” “One hour. Can I get you anyone else?”

  Swhat airport?”

  “What?”

  The Hulk yelled. “What airport Kennedy, LaGuardia, or Newark?”

  “Did you say emergency?”

  “Yes. Please ”

  There was a pause and a smack of gum. “Limo went to Kennedy. Plane takes off at seven.”

  The Hulk clicked off the phone.

  There was a sound, an electronic chhp from the study.

  The Hulk walked into the study with the handset, already dialing another sleven-digit number.

  A familiar, female voice answered. “Jo Carlin.” “Jo?” Bruce looked at his computer screen. He had e-mail. Anonymous e-mail. “Jo, I’m headed for the airport. Senator Hill is gonna have trouble.’a He clicked on the message beacon and the message opened up. He stared:

  TOO LATE.

  K^yJo?” Bruce called. “Jo, are you there?”

  The line was dead. Bruce clicked the phone off and dropped it. Within seconds he was out the door and in the air.

  3 am not resigned, Sean Morgan thought, to the shutting away of loving hearts in the cold, cold ground.

  The fair-haired colonel stood still next to Margaret. Morgan, his coat flapping in the chill wind. The priest was reading from his Bible, speaking softly. A large black box that held his only son was being lowered into a hole. Morgan heard nothing, and stared ahead into the distance.

  Give me this, God. Give me this. Take this away from him and give it to me. Replace us. Please. It was a crazy thought, a stupid prayer, answered by only the wind and the soft murmuring of the priest. The Edna St. Vincent Millay poem continued in the back of his head: So it is, so ii shall be, so it has been, time out of mind.

  Morgan glanced at Margaret. She seemed to sense it and looked back with what could only be received as an icy stare. They had not been this close in years. Margaret's hair had begun to go a bit gray at the temples, he noticed, but she was still lovely, her red hair pulled back and set off by the black hat and veil. She whispered, and as she did her face softened into a sullen frown, glad you could make it, Sean.’ ’

  He could not tell if that sounded bitter or not. He tried not to care. “Thank you.” He could think of nothing else to say.

  ‘ ‘I want this to be over,’ ’ she said flatly, and then he saw tears well up, and she sniffed. He blinked severa’1 times.

  “Me, too.” Morgan felt awkward, his limbs heavy and stupid, as he reached out his hand and took hers. He was shaking. For a brief second it felt as if she was going to swat him away but then her hand clasped his in return. “Me, too.”

  ■“I want it to be over and gone,” she whispered. “Over and not even real.”

  “I know,1’ he said. “I didn’t, uti,” the words were coming on their own, meaningless, “I didn’t see him at Christinas, I was—” Why did he say that? Why was he starting her side of an old argument?

  “Please. Sean,” she sniffed. “Not now.” And she could have said, You didn’t see him a lot of Christmases. You didn’t see him a lot, period.

  His voi
ce cracked and he whispered, “I’m sorry, Margaret,” and now she was in his arms, crying into his chest, and it was the first time he had held her in ten years, easily. “I’m so sorry.” He looked... so much like'you. So much like both of us. So much is gone, Margaret.

  And she was crying into his coat and he was holding her, smelling her hair, that smell he hadn’t smelled in years, and he was holding back tears for some reason, some awful, evil reason. The world was gone around them, and they floated in cold space, alone, terribly alone. Even in one another’s arms, alone.

  There was a strange sifting sound, dirt falling off the edges of the grave and onto the metal coffin. And over the end of the priest’s speech, a humming sound, alien to the cold cemetery.

  But not alien to Morgan. The Green Beret looked up from Margaret’s shoulder and saw a hovercraft topping the hill, moving slowly over the graveyard. Oh, no, say it isn’t so...

  Margaret looked up. “Sean?”

  He let go of her and stepped back, and for a brief moment wanted to say something, anything that could possibly explain. But he saw her eyes, that cold stare again, that stare he remembered now and that burned into him like a hot brand. Sean Morgan looked away, at the hovercraft that now hung a few yards off the interment site, and hung his head in shame.

  ‘‘I have to—’

  ‘Go,” she mouthed. She wasn’t crying anymore. Morgan bit his lip and turned and began to walk towards the hovercraft, certain that he had just seen something gone for years come to life, and die forever.

  “Talk to me,” Morgan said, once the hovercraft was in the air. He felt the cool veneer of professionalism slide over him like a garment.

  An agent named Russel Banks sat across from Morgan. “Terribly sorry for the timing, sir.”

  “Just tell me what the problem is,” Morgan held up a hand. They wouldn’t do this to him if it wasn’t neces sary. He hoped.

  “We have a situation at JFK, Colonel.”

  ^jWhat?”

  “Jo Carlin radioed Gamma Team that the Hulk suddenly went crazy. He said he’s headed for the airport, and he’s going to attack a plane carrying a United States senator.”

  “What?” The hovercraft had already made it to the docking bay of the helicarrier.

  “You can listen to the traffic if you—’

  “Right.” Morgan grabbed the headset off of one of the other agents. He fastened the mike and spoke as he rode the lift. “This is Morgan, what the hell is going on out there?” He turned to Banks, who was following, but barely able to keep up: “Where’s Carlin?”

  “Like I said, she and Gamma Team headed for the airport.”

  What seemed to be a thousand voices were speaking at once in Morgan’s ear.

  “... got rignt past me, Jo, Jesus, he’s fast...”

  “... police and media choppers, please disperse ...” “... nearly knocked that reporter out of the sky, I’m surprised that...”

  '‘t .. get those choppers out of here before they hit one another?”

  Police? Media?

  “I can’t leave you people alone for a second,” Morgan liissed. The two men burst into Morgan’s office and switched on a television screen on the wall across from his desk. Sure enough, there was a news report. All hell was breaking loose.

  On the screen he could see reporters and police cars swarming the field. A cheery woman was announcing how exciting it was that the Hulk had announced his intention to down a plane.

  “How’d the media get this?” Morgan turned and looked at Tom Hampton, who ran in the room. He waited a half-second for a response, then signed the question.

  “Something went wrong,” Tom signed back. “Someone below was monitoring Jo’s call, and it was tapped by the media.’’

  . ■ “What are you saying, they heard what Jo heard?” Tom kept signing but switched on his voice modulator as he brought up a second screen and pulled up the GammaTrac. ‘ ‘They heard what Jo heard, and heard her call out Gamma Team.” The screen zoomed down to the airfield, and there was the blob of green labelled hulk, moving towards a white unit that seemed to be taxiiing.

  The phone rang on Morgan’s desk and Banks snapped it up.''-“Betty Banner on line one.”

  Intercom,” snapped Morgan. “Mrs. Banner, we—” “Mr. Morgan this is a mistake. Bruce is trying to save him! The Abomination is out to—”

  Morgan looked at the GammaTrac and at Tom. “Is Blonsky anywhere near the field?’ ’

  Tom shook his head.

  “Wonderful,” Morgan spoke into the mike: “Jo, this is Morgan, talk to me!”

  The mike crackled and Jo came in. He could hear the hum of the hovercraft she was riding. Shots were being fired behind her. ‘‘Colonel! God, it’s a mess out here.” “What’s happening?”

  Jo, the woman on the television, and Tom Hampton’s voice modulator all answered at once: “He’s going for the plane.”

  When the Hulk sprang from his condo towards John F. Kennedy Airport he was still trying to figure out how he was going to guess which plane would be Senator FLJ’s. Beyond that, who cut my phone line? There was someone in SAFE who didn’t belong there. There was someone pulling a few too many strings.

  The gamma giant rocketed through the air and landed on a freeway, and leapt into the air again. Cold wind whipped through his green hair and stung his eyes. He could cover at least a mile with each leap, more if he really put his legs into it. The Hulk used to drive the army crazy leaping all over the Arizona desert, and more recently did the same thing to his SAFE tails. Before everyone found out where he lived.

  Land. Smash. Another leap. Hopefully, he would spot Emil on the field before he had to find the plane. Seven

  o ’clock. It should be almost seven now. He berated himself with each leap that he might be going off half-cocked, that the field might not be the answer. Emil might decide to crush the limo, instead, or attack the senator at the airport. But something told him the drama of a downed plane would be just too attractive. Too attractive not to check, at least. (Too late.)

  After a few more leaps he saw the sprawling airport, and past the buildings, the field itself, barriered by tall fences and topped by barbed wire. As he leapt into the air again he looked around for Emil. Where are you?

  Only then did he notice the vans. At least twenty of them: cable, radio, broadcast television station vans, all corralled around the fence like a wagon train waiting for an attack.

  Waiting for an attack..

  Police lights caught his eye and he saw the squad cars swarming onto the field, headed for the east-most runway. What the hell are they doing?

  There were three planes taxiing, all runways lined up. Two of the taxiing planes he dismissed; those were jumbo jets. The third was private.

  Bingo.

  Something leaden and heavy struck the Hulk in the back. He was being shot at. His trajectory was finished; he dropped to the ground and prepared to leap.again. The small plane was just beginning to take off.

  “Hulk!” A hovercraft zipped from behind. “Turn around and go back!” On the hovercraft, a female agent held a megaphone and the agents behind her held several large guns.

  Bruce tried to yell. “Jo! Look for Emil! He’s got to be here!” He leapt into the air and barely held his direction as several large-calibre bullets slammed him in the side. He growled in pain but kept himself aimed in the direction of the jet, which now had lifted about thirty feet off the ground and was still climbing. ‘Radio them!” he yelled to Gamma Team. ‘Warn them!iT“

  They couldn' t hear him, because they were shooting at him. The Hulk twisted and flipped, heading downward, when he nearly collided with a media chopper.

  The Hulk looked up and saw the plane in the air, heading out, and two more hovercrafts zipped around him and opened fire. Bruce took to the air, flying past Jo’s hovercraft. He aimed straight for the cockpit of the jet

  Within seconds he was alongside it, flying fast, and the pilot looked out and saw him and was shouting some thi
ng into his headset. Bruce pointed at the ground. He pointed at the ground again. “Put downl” he shouted, pointing. “Down!”

  The pilot looked at the Hulk and was still yelling into h headset when Bruce felt himself propelled violently backwards, as the plane exploded in one great, fiery blast.

  Not far away, exposed for all the world to see if they bothered to look, under a tiny tree by the fence on the other side of the field from the circus of vans and helicopters and hovercraft, the Abomination put away the detonator and listened to the radio. And as he listened to the reports (“Oh my God he blew up the plane...”), he laughed. The feet were through running, the false witness had begun. Two down in one fell swoop.

  He couldn’t stop laughing.

  After a moment the Hulk hit the ground, digging a fifteen-foot trench. When he crawled out he heard the laughter, not a hundred yards off.

  j"i et’s talk power.

  L Power is a steam train seen for the first time when all you’ve ever witnessed is a horse and carriage. Power is a lever when all you’ve ever used is your knees. Power is an arrow flying through the air at someone who has, up to that point, thought you had to stand before a creature to strike it down.

  Power is anger, real anger, when up to then you haven’t really had the angry man’s full attention.

  Power was the Hulk, a green rage flying through the air at the beast.

  And the Abomination was thrilled, absolutely thrilled, to have finally gotten the Hulk’s attention. The Hulk could tell, because the demon was laughing at him.

  All right, Emil. You’ve pretty much ruined it for me now. The Hulk saw the Abomination smiling at him that long, alligator mouth curling like a Greek mask as F.mil put something away in his coat and got up, almost casually. Emil moved casually and fluidly, shaking his finned, red-eyed, demon head. He held his hat and his coat was flapping. He was beginning to laugh, and as the Hulk rocketed towards Emil, Emil almost imperceptibly began to speed up. He stepped into the satellite parking area, moving between a pair of matching Lincolns.

  All those people back there. A plane equipped with one senator and a host of staffers, down, and the whole world thinks I did it. You must really be proud of yourself.