Marshall Conrad: A Superhero Tale

by Sean Cummings

  I decided to fly low, just above the treetops and follow the contour of the topography until I reached the city limits. I forced myself into a dive and dropped like a stone until I was just a few feet above the spruce trees.

  The air was warmer down here, and the heavy rain became a light mist coating my body as I glided eastward. Soon I was back in Greenfield, so I increased my altitude, hoping to avoid the deluge of amateur photographers and news media scattered throughout the city.

  It was a bizarre spectacle.

  People stood on top of their homes, chatting amiably with next-door neighbors who searched the horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of me. I spotted a convoy of at least two dozen motor homes heading toward the Greenfield fairgrounds honking their horns like a wedding party on its way to the reception. Pedestrians waved and cheered as the convoy snaked its way forward past vendors who peddled everything from t-shirts to cotton candy.

  When I approached the fairground, my jaw dropped.

  Recreational vehicles of every description filled the entire ten-acre parking lot. Loud speakers pumped out country and western music, as thin blue streams of smoke from hundreds of barbecues floated into the evening sky. Men, women and children danced with perfect strangers dressed in superhero costumes of every description, while others sat quietly on top of their motor homes looking at the sky.

  They spotted me, of course.

  Almost immediately, the sound of hundreds of honking horns blasted through the air as people pointed and waved. Dozens and dozens of flashes sparkled below me as people snapped pictures or recorded me with video cameras. Young women lifted their shirts and exposed their breasts to the heavens as throngs of young men cheered them on.

  And that was before I noticed the spectacle on Scotchman’s Hill.

  At first glance, I couldn’t tell if it was a recreational spot or a high tech fortress.

  Hundreds of antennae masts jutted out of the tops of media vans and trucks parked beside one another with almost military precision. Countless satellite dishes of every size pointed in all directions from atop cube vans emblazoned with the logos of major networks or smaller local news stations. Men and women dressed in jeans and t-shirts aimed expensive TV cameras or manipulated boom microphones at well-dressed reporters who stood in front of bright white lights aimed at the tops of their bodies. Behind them was a virtual tent city as tourists ate, drank and partied together.

  Then, the unexpected happened.

  A pain of unimaginable proportions seized my body and thundered into my brain like an atom bomb on steroids. I doubled over in midair, plummeting to earth as a single image burned into my mind.

  A massive gray fist mashed into Ruby Thiessen’s face.

  I crashed through dozens of spruce branches that whipped my body, scratching and scraping my hands and face. The sound of broken branches cracking beneath my weight filled my ears, and I hit the ground like a wet sandbag. I rolled over on my side, clutching my midsection as a wave of nausea splashed through my stomach. I had to move, I had to get up. Something was about to kill Ruby and there was no time to waste.

  I got to my knees and tried to block out fear and revulsion. I hoisted myself up, gripping a broken tree branch that dangled above my head. Sticky pine sap oozed between my fingers and I screamed as a searing pain shot from the base of my left leg straight up the side of my body.

  I’d broken my ankle.

  “Son of a bitch!” I took a hesitant step forward to check the damage. I could feel my ankle start to balloon inside my boot with sharp throbbing pulses of red-hot pain.

  There was no time to do self-aid. Something was in the backroom of The Curiosity Nook. Something with an enormous gray fist that was going to connect with Ruby’s face in what would surely be a lethal blow.

  I hobbled to a clearing in the woods and leaped into the air, screaming as the force of my jump compressed the crushed bones in my ankle. I blasted into the sky like a rifle shot, a loud crack slicing through the air and echoing through the woods below. I leaned my body westward, clenching my fists in front of my face, willing my body faster, reaching out, lunging towards Stella’s store.

  I couldn’t be late.

  I had to get there on time.

  I needed Ruby like I needed air to breathe. She possessed the courage I lacked.

  Within a minute, I spotted the large hole in the roof of The Curiosity Nook caused by Ruby’s fall only days ago. I leaned earthward, and landed clumsily on the roof, wincing at the pain in my ankle. I poked my head inside and my jaw dropped in horror.

  An enormous creature made entirely of sticky wet muck held Ruby against the wall with a giant hand wrapped around her body. Its right hand formed a massive fist and it was just about to deliver a devastating blow to Ruby’s already mashed face.

  “Ruby!” I shouted.

  The creature glanced over its shoulder and spotted me through the hole in the ceiling. Its thick fat lips curled up into a grin of baneful and simmering evil, and then its right hand connected with Ruby’s face, splattering blood and muck against the cinderblock wall.

  “Nooooo!” I screamed as my eyes detonated into blinding white light, staggering the creature. It let go of Ruby. Her limp body fell to the floor like a bag of cement as the creature shielded its face from my raging glare.

  My reaction was immediate.

  I threw myself at the creature, seething with hatred.

  Blood lust coursed through my veins as my fists slammed into the creature’s legs, flipping it into the air so it landed flat on its back. I ripped a metal pipe out of the wall, sending a torrent of frigid water splashing to the floor and then I rushed at the creature that was already getting back up.

  I swung the pipe at its face like a baseball bat, connecting with a loud slapping sound that sent a spray of muck in all directions. The creature sailed through the air, crashing through a metal shelf and landing against the back door. I didn’t give it time to move.

  I flew across the room, clawing and tearing at the creature’s midsection. I pulled out large clumps of mud and gore as the creature shrieked in agony. I dug deeper, harder, my hands were claws that ripped through bone and slime, its evil stench filling my nostrils and fueling my rage.

  It kicked and flailed about, struggling to save itself. I mashed its face with my good foot and pummeled the creature’s chest with both hands, smashing through its ribs as it writhed in agony. Finally, I raised both hands above my head and drove them straight through the creature’s chest and pulled with all my strength, tearing out its football sized heart.

  It twitched for a few seconds and then died.

  I dropped to my knees, panting heavily as its gore dripped off my hands and onto the floor. I hadn’t killed the creature so much as butchered it with my bare hands, my utter rage fueled by a horrifying lust for vengeance.

  Something had gone terribly wrong.

  I looked around the backroom for Stella, but she was nowhere to be seen. Then I heard a weak moan from across the room.

  “Ruby!” I cried.

  I hobbled over and gently cradled her broken body in my arms. Her battered face was almost unrecognizable but from the look of the back room, she’d fought a heroic battle. Small impact craters the size of dinner plates were scattered about the cement floor. The doorway leading to the hall looked like it was blasted away with high explosives. There was a giant hole in the wall above the sink and the dinette table had been smashed into hundreds of pieces.

  And there was no sign of Stella.

  Ruby reached for my face with her tiny gloved hand and coughed heavily. Blood sprayed out of her mouth and against my leather jacket. Her eyes opened slowly from somewhere behind the puffed mash that was once her face.

  “G-Golem dead?” her voice gurgled, almost in a whisper.

  “Y-Yes,” I whispered.

  “S-Stop Stella...” She trailed off. “Stop...”

  Her body went limp. Her right arm flopped to the floor and something rolled out of her ha
nd.

  It was a shard of Sentient Quartz.

  Chapter 44

  Ruby was gone.

  I carried her body to Stella’s office and laid her on the desk. There was no time for mourning, because something had gone wrong while she and Stella had prepared the spell.

  Stop Stella. Those were her last words.

  I stuffed the shard of sentient quartz in my pocket and leaped into the air through the hole in the ceiling. There was no way of knowing what Ruby’s cryptic warning meant. Had Stella suddenly taken leave of her senses? Maybe she’d played both sides of the fence, finally choosing Grim Geoffrey at the eleventh hour.

  I tried to remind myself that it was Stella who had to be dragged into using the Big Black Book kicking and screaming, because dark magic was forbidden. It was only after we’d exhausted every reasonable strategy to increase our chances against Grim Geoffrey that she’d reluctantly agreed.

  Then I remembered.

  She’d warned that the Big Black Book was far from perfect because many of the spells were unproven. I remembered the night I talked to the rocks. Stella took every possible precaution to protect against something from the netherworld entering her store, and we weren’t even using pure magic. It was also possible that Grim Geoffrey had simply waited until the right moment to throw a wrench into our plans because Greenfield residents had been distracted by the furor after I’d rescued Marilyn Aldrich. Maybe he’d dispatched this Golem to distract Ruby long enough for Stella to become enchanted.

  It didn’t matter.

  Ruby Thiessen was dead, and now I had the daunting task of facing Grim Geoffrey at the apex of the solstice without the benefit of any protective measures.

  Within minutes, I was hovering over Delaney Park. I had hoped I would spot the man in white coveralls busily preparing the gazebo for Grim Geoffrey’s arrival but the park looked empty.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” I muttered. “Something’s not right.”

  I decided to investigate on foot, so I landed behind a fountain about a hundred yards from the gazebo, and listened.

  Aside from the occasional car driving up Shelby Avenue with the stereo blasting, the only sounds came from water splashing in the fountain and ducks chattering away in the pond to my left. I took a cautious step forward, expecting the host to jump out from the bushes. A twig snapped. I froze, realizing I might have given away my position. I held my breath and waited for what seemed like an eternity. Still nothing.

  I was just about to leap in the air and search the park from high above when I heard a muffled crunching sound, as if someone was dragging a heavy object across a gravel surface. Then I heard a female voice, and it was singing.

  “You’d better not pout, you’d better not cry

  You’d better not shout I’m telling you why

  Geoffrey’s near, he’ll soon be here in town...”

  “Stella,” I whispered, as I raced in the direction of the singing voice. I dove behind a large oak tree and slowly poked my head around the side of its massive trunk. My heart stopped.

  She was dragging the body of the man from my vision. The man with the stringy blond hair who’d kissed Marilyn Aldrich’s forehead. The man in white—Grim Geoffrey’s host.

  Only he wasn’t dressed in white, he wore plain old street clothes.

  Stella, on the other hand, was clad in a garish white nightgown that clung tightly to her overweight body, leaving little for the imagination.

  “Oh my God,” I gasped, in quiet horror. “She’s somehow become Grim Geoffrey’s host.”

  I ducked my head back behind the tree. I needed time to think.

  Soon a large pulsating mass would appear in the middle of the gazebo. A mass that would act as a portal, allowing Grim Geoffrey to enter the near world followed by an army of spectral followers that would feed on the souls of Greenfield residents. They would gorge themselves on terror emanating from mass hysteria as friends and neighbors hacked one another to pieces. An image of the haunting purple sky and towering pillars of smoke flashed into my mind. I could almost taste death in the air.

  I took another quick peek at the gazebo. The man’s body was outstretched in a cruciform shape but he wasn’t moving. Had Stella killed him? I couldn’t be sure.

  She knelt over his body and brandishing a small knife, she thrust it into the side of his neck, then pulled it out and held it overhead. A stream of black blood slowly flowed from the wound in his carotid artery forming a large pool about ten feet away.

  Then it dawned on me.

  Grim Geoffrey needed a human sacrifice to create a portal to the near world. Human sacrifice meant that he needed a sorceress like Stella. She would cast a terrible dark spell, transforming the pool of blood into the large pulsating mass.

  I glanced at the man. He wasn’t moving. Blood wasn’t pumping from the man’s neck with every beat of his heart, it was just a slow steady stream.

  He was already dead.

  I stood up, grating my teeth as the pain from my ankle throbbed up my leg. If I could get Stella away from the gazebo, she wouldn’t have a chance to cast the spell that would create the portal. If I could keep her at bay beyond the apex of the solstice at 9:24 PM, Grim Geoffrey would lose his chance to enter our realm and Greenfield would survive the night.

  I stepped out from behind the oak tree and prepared to fly at Stella.

  She flashed a maniacal grin and cackled wildly, then swept her arm in front of her body, aiming her hands at me.

  “Finnusia electronum!” she roared, in an unearthly voice.

  There was a millisecond of blinding white light. Then an explosion as a lightning bolt hit the ground in front of me, sending me careening through the air and crashing into the fountain behind me.

  “Finnusia elctronum!” she screamed, and another blast of lightning landed at my feet. I flew head first into the duck pond, landing with a huge splash. The force of the blast left me feeling dazed as I struggled to get up. Chunks of earth clogged my nostrils, making it difficult to breathe as I splashed through the cold green water. The weight of my soaked leather outfit threatened to pull me back under. I flailed away like a drowning man, willing myself to the edge of the pond.

  She was powerful.

  I looked up at the Gazebo as Stella walked to the steps and stretched out her arms to an invisible audience. An icy wind descended from the sky, whipping her gray hair into long tendrils that flowed behind her head, blowing her nightgown off her body.

  Then she opened her mouth.

  In a voice that shook the earth, Stella projected a dark incantation that summoned a furious breeze, blowing branches off trees and overturning park benches, sending them tumbling against the wrought iron fence surrounding the park.

  “Thou art immune to their hate, bring forth thy malice. Thou shalt feed on thine enemy. Thy words and thoughts are no bane to thine deeds.”

  I looked in horror as the black pool of blood swirled up from the floor of the gazebo forming into a crimson organic mass. The petals of its orifice opened and closed, making a sticky slapping sound as Stella stretched her arm deep inside.

  “That’s enough!” I bellowed. My voice shook the ground with a force equally as powerful as the spell Stella had just cast. My eyes exploded with crimson rage and I thrust myself forward at the gazebo in a dizzying streak of light, smashing into Stella’s fat body and forcing us both straight through the orifice.

  Together, in a spinning jumble of tangled limbs, we fell into the darkness.

  Chapter 45

  I opened my eyes.

  My head struck something when I landed—was it Stella?

  A trickle of blood ran from my forehead and down the bridge of my nose, dripping into the blackness. I couldn’t see the blood. In fact, I couldn’t see anything at all. A shroud of darkness surrounded me as I reached out, hoping to latch onto something, anything that would help me get back on my feet.

  But there was nothing.

  “Hello?” I called out. My voice
echoed strangely, as if I’d shouted through a hollow paper tube. No reply. I crawled forward, feeling every inch in front of me, but I found nothing. Nerve endings on the tips of my fingers should have registered even the most remote sensation, but nothing happened. It was like reaching through air, but the air was solid somehow.

  And my eyes didn’t glow.

  Everything about the place oozed menace, but my eyes gave off no light. Were they glowing? Perhaps the blackness was so dense that no light could penetrate it.

  Panic rose in my stomach and shot up my throat. I could feel my heart pounding in my temples as fear gripped my mind in a deathly vice.

  “This is his realm,” I whispered. “But where is he?”

  Silence.

  “You might be dead,” a voice whispered back

  Terrified, I spun around, flailing my arms at the voice. I kicked out my legs, desperately trying to injure something, anything.

  “Show yourself!” I screamed.

  Silence.

  “But I am already here,” the voice replied. “Your eyes have chosen not to see. Were your senses conditioned to this place, you would indeed see a great many things.”

  A cold hand touched the back of my neck and I yelped, then scurried away from where my senses told me someone should be standing.

  “Do you want to see me?” the voice asked. This time its tone registered in my brain. “Are you safe?”

  “Where am I?”

  “You know where you are, Vanguard,” the voice giggled, sounding like a young child. “Are you safe?”

  “I don’t know!” I bellowed, filled with rage.

  “I agree,” it said, as something that bore a close resemblance to steel-toed boot connected with my cheek, and laid me flat on my back. A stinging pain radiated from the side of my face and down through my neck. I blinked, then focused every ounce of my concentration into producing enough light to penetrate the darkness. Within seconds, a dim gray surface the size of my hand appeared before me.