"You were on the bus with me," he said. "You were on the bus, right?" He had an image of her, a faint memory. He mainly knew her from the pictures Brandon had found on Facebook. Brandon was the one who had twigged on to the whole thing, the fact that they had these abilities, the kids from the bus. He was the one who started tracking them all down, finding them. He was the one who had crazy conspiracy theories about the whole thing. Kevin wished Brandon were here instead of him.
"Who. The fuck. Are you?" she asked again.
Something about her eyes. Green eyes, so striking. They flew into Kevin's mind and he felt them there, scrabbling and clawing at him, but they just slipped away.
"I can feel you," he said. "That's your thing, huh? Getting inside people's heads?" He glanced at Ryan. "Controlling them? I can feel you in there, trying to take over, but it isn't working. That's kind of my...thing? I guess? My power. Things don't hold on to me. If I think hard, I won't even be here, I'll be back home. I don't know how it works."
"The fuck are you talking about? WHO ARE YOU?"
"My name is Kevin? You remember?" He tried to remember her name from the yearbook. Becky something? Becca? "You're Becca, right? You were on the bus with me that night."
"SHUT UP about that!"
A spotlight activated.
Light flooded the bridge, blinding Kevin. There were men there, on the bridge, who had been unseen until now. Kevin shielded his eyes with his hand, but he couldn't make anything out.
A shot rang out, and Becca's head detonated right in front of him. She fell to the pavement, her face nothing but a splatter of tissue and blood.
"Stop!" Kevin cried. "Why are you doing this?"
Another shot was fired, this time at Kevin; he felt it slip off the side of his forehead.
"Why?" Kevin shouted again.
Shots rang out faster and faster. Kevin felt the bullets like someone thumping him with their finger, they hit him and slid away to riddle the bridge around him. More and more were fired, faster and faster, and Kevin saw some of them now: armed men in black body armor, advancing around the spotlights.
Kevin closed his eyes, and focused on home.
*****
Kevin's eyes were closed, and water was all around him, but somehow he knew it was there. The something that had been outside the bus. The something that had pursued them through the darkness above. It was there, in the water.
His terror overwhelmed him. I WANT TO GO HOME!
*****
Kevin opened his eyes. The light coming through the window told him he was in his bedroom. He reached over and flicked the switch to the lamp on his nightstand.
He had never been so happy to have his "thing", to be able to close his eyes and wish he were home, and open them to find himself there, safe and sound.
He let out a whispered breath of relief.
Kevin pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed his best friend's number.
"Brandon," he said. "You're never gonna believe this!" He stood, pacing the room as he spoke, "You know that girl Becca? The one whose picture you showed me? I found her! She was at this club." He sat down on the edge of the bed. "Yes! She could get into people's heads man! She could control them! But listen to me, something happened."
He went on to describe the scene at the bridge: Becca's murder, the armed men.
As he finished, something occurred to him. "Ah crap, my bike! I left my-"
The lamp went off.
It was pitch black. Kevin looked at the window, wondering what had happened to the streetlight outside. A cold dread seized the pit of his stomach.
"I left my bike there. Oh God. Brandon?"
Floodlights activated in the yard.
Automatic fire ripped through the windows, shredding Kevin's bedroom.
Kevin dropped the phone and ran, ran into the hall where he could hear his mother's screams. He burst into his parent's bedroom, where light flooded through the remains of the wall. Bryan Lloyd's body was torn apart, lying in pieces on top of Glenda, their blood soaking the decimated bed.
A bloodcurdling scream erupted from Kevin's throat. He looked back up at the light, determined to kill the men that had done this.
Twin rocket grenades whistled past him with an ear piercing shriek, and the walls of his house exploded into splinters around him.
*****
The something was all around him now. The water had gone. The screams of the kids on the school bus had stopped.
Kevin opened his eyes.
*****
Kevin looked the scientist in the eye. "That's all," he said. "I don't remember anything else."
The scientist nodded. "Well that's hardly anything at all, is it?"
There was a crash from behind Kevin. He jumped up and spun around to see the blue-haired girl standing over a smashed lab table, yellow energy crackling off her fists. She advanced on the scientist, but Kevin stood, putting himself between them.
"Mia, stop!" he said. "This guy may be able to tell us -"
She put one hand against him and the energy around it pulsed against him with a massive jolt. Kevin flinched, but didn't move.
"That doesn't work on me, and you know it," Kevin said.
Mia looked at him with frantic eyes. "They're coming for us! You know that! They won't stop! If this guy has answers, we have to get them! Now! I can get him to talk. You know I can."
"Not that way." Kevin said. "You could have killed him before. If you go at him again you could really do it this time."
"Ahhh!" She pounded him with her fists, sending energy coruscating around him. "I wasn't going to kill him! I was never going to kill him!" She pounded him harder and harder, the waves of energy knocking the stools over and pushing the tables away, but leaving Kevin unharmed.
Kevin waited for her rage to abate. When she finally subsided, and stalked away to the other side of the room, he turned to the scientist again.
"I know one other thing," Kevin said. "Because of you, and whoever you work for, everything I own is gone."
*****
Kevin stood in the wreckage, tears streaming down his face. The men advanced.
*****
"My parents are dead."
*****
They surrounded him now, rifles raised, shouting at him to raise his hands. Kevin covered his face with his hands.
*****
"Because of you, I can never...go...home...again."
*****
At the last moment, Kevin heard a familiar whooshing sound, and looked up. The men were too startled to react.
Brandon fell out of the sky like a comet, seizing Kevin, and carrying him into the sky.
The guns roared, too late.
*****
Brandon stepped forward, putting a hand on Kevin's shoulder. Kevin sat on the stool again, tears welling forth uncontrollably.
Brandon turned to the scientist.
"Okay, Doctor Evil," he said. "You want to know what we remember about the bus crash? I remember something no one else does."
"I remember the spaceship."
CHAPTER TWO
BRANDON
"The most badass thing ever."
"Honey, have you seen my tie?" asked Brandon's father.
"Which one?"
"You know...the one I like..."
Brandon sat on the floor in front of the couch, the Xbox controller in his hand. On the sixty inch LCD TV mounted to the wall in front of him, Batman stood frozen in mid-combat while Brandon watched his parents scurry this way and that getting ready.
"It's in the closet where it always is," his mother said.
"Well I can't see it."
She dashed to the bedroom, putting in her earrings as she went.
"Oh," Brandon heard him say, moments later, "thanks."
Brandon unfroze the game, and took a few more steps across a Gotham rooftop before they re-entered and he had to freeze it again.
"Hold on," she said and stopped him so she could adjust his tie. "There
, that's it."
"What would I do without you?" he asked.
"I shudder to imagine," she said with a chuckle.
Brandon rolled his eyes.
"Brandon!" his father called.
"I'm right here, dad," he said.
"Oh." His father was surprised. Then he noticed the Xbox controller and cable. "Son, why is that attached to the living room TV? You have one in your room for that."
"It looks cooler on this one," Brandon said.
His father shook his head, but didn't argue the point. "You can keep it in here tonight, but I want it back in your room tomorrow."
"Okay."
Brandon had no intention of moving it back to his room, but he knew it wouldn't be an issue. They were never around long enough to notice where it was or when it had moved from where. Brandon had had it attached to the LCD since shortly after he had been the only one home when it was installed.
"We're going to a party," he said. "We'll be back in a few hours."
"No problem."
Of course, Brandon knew 'a few hours' meant not to wait up for them. They wouldn't be back until nearly dawn.
"If you want, you can have a friend over," his mother said.
"Okay."
He had already called Kevin to invite him over.
"See you later, Son," his dad said.
"Bye, Dad."
He heard the door click shut behind him, and unfroze the game again.
*****
"He kind of looks like Brent Spiner," Brandon said, indicating the man in the lab coat.
"Who's Brent Spiner?" Heather, the girl with the shoulder-length brown hair, asked.
Brandon's jaw dropped. "Who's -? Who's Brent Spiner? Oh my God..."
She raised an eyebrow. They had gathered at the center of the lab, in a kind of mini-conference, when Brandon made his comparison.
"You know, DATA?" This was met with a blank look. "From 'Trek TNG? I mean, he doesn't look like Data, Data had the yellow, y'know," one finger drew circles around his face, "but he looks like the actor who played Data."
"Brent Spiner," she supplied.
"Yes!" Brandon said happily.
The boy next to Heather, his body covered in an ever-growing pelt of matted black hair, reacted strangely to Brandon's tone, and growled at him.
"It's okay, Simon," Heather reassured him. Simon stopped, but looked at Brandon with wary eyes.
"Yeah, it's all good Caesar," Brandon quipped, "you Tarzan, me Charlton Heston, 'kay?"
"Brandon," Kevin said wearily, "we don't have time for this. Who he looks like," and with the word 'he' he pointed to the man in the lab coat sitting on the floor, "doesn't matter. Finish your story."
"Okay," Brandon said, "so...."
*****
Brandon's heart pounded as panic began to set in, but he couldn't stop. He knew that. If he stopped, he'd be dead in an instant. He pushed himself harder, racing forward faster and still faster.
I should've never listened, he thought to himself, I should never have even talked to that Brent Spiner looking son of a bitch!
Faster.
*****
Just before the bus gunned forward the first time, Brandon saw it.
Hovering in the air in the sky behind the bus was an object, a mass of strange lights, with large globes in the center surrounded by satellites of smaller lights that whirled around it.
Brandon stood and pressed his face against the glass of the rear door window, trying to get a better view.
The object swirled through the air like a dancing bee, buzzing closer to the bus, circling it.
The bus swerved away from it, and the students started to scream.
*****
Brandon was sitting on his floor, holding the latest issue of Invincible Iron Man, when his father knocked.
"Come in," he said.
"Hey son," his dad said, opening the door, "we're headed out!"
"Okay, have a good time," Brandon said without looking up.
"You gonna be okay?"
"Yep."
"Your mom gave you money, right?"
"Yeah."
"You have our numbers and everything just in case?"
"Sure do."
His father approached him. For a moment, Brandon side-eyed him, thinking he might be about to try an odd emotional farewell hug or something. He needn't have worried.
"Here, son," his dad said, handing him a credit card. "Just for emergencies, okay." He added in a whisper: "Don't tell your mom."
"I heard that," her voice called from the other room.
"My God, woman has ears like an elephant!" he said bemusedly.
"I heard that, too!"
Brandon took the card and tucked it into his pocket.
His dad ruffled his curly hair. "I can tell this is gonna be a rough week," he yelled back with a wink to Brandon.
Then he turned and left the room without another word to Brandon, shutting the door behind him.
Brandon went back to reading about Iron Man's latest battle with the Melter and the Living Laser. He had plenty to read, more comics surrounded him on the floor, and of course later he would have to bag and board them and place them in the long boxes which dominated their own room across the hall.
*****
Brandon was sitting by the pool with his best friend Kevin, thinking about that night, as he always did, gazing up at the clouds over their heads.
"Don't you feel it?"
"What?" Kevin asked.
Brandon tried to sum it up in to one word: "Different," he finally said.
Kevin was silent.
"Ever since the crash," Brandon said.
"I try not to think about it."
"You always say that," Brandon said impatiently, "I say what I saw, and you just say you wanted to go home, and you didn't see anything. But I'm telling you, I saw something that night."
"A flying saucer, I know."
"It wasn't a saucer," Brandon corrected him. "It was something...something not of this world..."
Kevin laughed. "Did you just say 'not of this world'?"
Brandon nodded. "I did. And it's not just that I saw it. I felt something."
"Something not of this world?" Kevin asked with a chuckle"
"Yes," Brandon said. He stood up. "Something so far outside this world that I can't even describe it."
Kevin rolled his eyes.
Brandon felt something stir inside him. Something he had felt on and off since that night, but never this strongly.
"I was flying, Kev. I think I was flying."
"You were not flying. Sit down."
Brandon looked at him. "Want to bet?"
He crouched down for a moment, and then fixed his eyes on the sky.
There was a feeling then, as if space itself seemed to rush in toward him, gathering at his feet. Then a wave exploded outward, knocking Kevin off his pool chair.
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!
Brandon took off like a missile.
*****
The bus swerved back and forth to avoid the circling object, and Brandon lost his footing. His feet left the floor and he tumbled down the aisle just as the Bus swerved onto the bridge.
Time seemed to stand still.
The bus struck the railing and Brandon was still falling through space, never reaching the floor. He closed his eyes.
Somewhere between the railing and water, he opened them to find that he had not moved. He was hovering there, in the air, between the rows of seats. Screams filled the air.
Brandon gazed forward and saw the light of the object reflected in the water, shining into his eyes.
*****
EXCERPT FROM "IDIOT SYNCRATIC": THE BLOG OF BRANDON HOLT
It's the scariest goddamn thing that's ever happened! But also the coolest!
I've told you all about the bus crash, and the UFO I saw outside. I've always felt like something happened that night. And now I know.
When I launched into the air like that, I wasn'
t really sure if it was really happening or the whole thing was some kind of crazy dream. I could hardly see anything; the wind was blasting my eyes. You really need goggles to fly, can't really do without them. And they don't tell you about the bugs! OMG THE BUGS YOU GUYS! They get in your mouth, they go up your nose, they splatter all over you. It's really gross!
Cool thing though: I found out when I fly, it's like I can blast through anything without getting hurt. It's like there's some kind of field around me that protects me. Don't ask how I found this out, I may or may not have blown a hole through my living room, that's not important right now.
But flying, oh man, flying. You can't imagine how sick it is to zoom through the sky like a rocket. Flying, man.
It's the most badass thing ever.
*****
Brandon's mask fogged as his breath grew heavier. He reached up to make sure it was tight, but dared not adjust it for fear it would come loose, and so removed his hand.
He strained his thoughts, focusing on propelling himself faster than ever before.
Faster. FASTER!
But no matter what, it wasn't fast enough. His heart was yammering in his chest.
What do I do? Oh God, what do I do?
*****
The bus slammed into the water, and Brandon's inertia should have propelled him forward, through the windshield. It didn't.
He was still suspended in the air, marveling at what was happening to him.
I'm flying, he thought. I'm flying!
*****
"Now," Kevin said, "try it now."
Brandon tried to wrap his hands around Kevin's arm, but couldn't. No matter how hard he grappled, he couldn't find purchase. His hands just slipped away.
"Whoooaaa. That is SO COOL."
"I know, right? It happened the other day, when a couple guys are school were messing with me.
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