But as Tyrone stood over my battered body, I realized all those theories were wrong. The silver wave erupting into my Sight was like nothing I had ever Seen before. It was no simple vision, no stream of data to be interpreted. It was something entirely different…and it made my skin crawl. It wrapped itself around me. Groped me. Probed me. I didn’t know it’s nature, I didn’t understand where it came from, but deep in my gut I knew it was alive. As alive as I was. As alive as any of us are. The silvery thing rested on me like a thousand tiny blades waiting to cut, and my skin went numb. I strained my Sight for answers and tried to peer beyond the blanket’s icy burn. I found nothing but one solitary desire: This thing wanted inside me.
My Sight screamed a warning. It spoke to me in a language beyond words. Everything would end if I let it in. Everything. I stared into it. I stared right past the blades. They were simply the fringes of whatever it was. And it was massive. And it was dark. And it was painful.
Tyrone stood above me smiling. He pressed more of his weight onto my chest.
“Dieter, Dieter, Dieter,” he cooed. “What on earth were you thinking, man?”
My lungs were empty. I was in no position to respond.
“You fucked up my arm pretty good,” he said. The fact his henchman broke it while he tried to jump me from behind seemed to be lost on Tyrone at the moment. I looked at the goofy smile on his face—perhaps it had something to do with him losing his fucking mind.
“We have something in common, Dieter. You and me both want to get the fuck out of this shithole of a town, don’t we?”
“It’s you and I, asshole,” I thought to myself.
“Too bad my way out just got shattered,” Tyrone said, looked down at his arm. His wrist was flopping around like a rubber chicken as he spoke.
I grimaced at the sight. Those movements must have seriously hurt, but instead of being overwhelming by pain, Tyrone just started laughing harder. Tears moistened his eyes, but he just kept on laughing.
He took a long cleansing breath.
I would have killed for that breath.
“Oh well, sucks for me and sucks for you. An eye for an eye and a dream for a dream.” Tyrone raised the rock high into the air. Palming the boulder, he looked down at me serenely. “You’re a thinking man, right, Dieter?”
He couldn’t be serious…I stared at him in shock.
“Oh come on, man. All’s I’m asking for is a fair trade. Your brain for my arm.”
My heart skidded. Tyrone was serious. He was going to kill me.
In utter desperation, I tried to squirm away.
My body wouldn’t cooperate. I had absorbed too much damage. I couldn’t move.
Tyrone didn’t dally. He had already made up his mind.
It was all happening ridiculously fast. Where was the long melodramatic speech? Where was my chance for a pithy retort? He held the rock above his head. I watched helplessly as his whole body tensed. He was going all out. He was going to drive it right through my skull.
“Batter up!” he screamed, starting his pitch.
As the rock started its descent a magnificent wave of power streamed into my Sight—a flash of pure kinetic energy aimed directly at my face. I couldn’t believe it. The icy blanket wrapping around my body tensed. It felt like I had been dowsed with ice water. If I had air, I would have screamed, if I had anything in my bladder I would have pissed. I was going to die. I was going to die in the dirt behind Ted Binion High School. Before my first college bender. Before the good job. Before I got to tell my father to fuck off. Before I even got laid…I was to be a low virgin sacrificed to the gods of reciprocity.
Thoughts and emotions all rang out at once.
Regret, sorrow, fear, and despair all competed for attention.
Desperation won. Nature took over.
Something inside me tore loose. A thing I wasn’t even aware was there. Something bound and restrained. Something cruel. It had waited seventeen years, six months, and fifteen days for this moment. The thing told me it knew what to do. It told me to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
I was too scared to argue. I let it out of its cage.
When I was young, I found a kitten in the crawl space under our house. I snuck it food at night. When my dad wasn’t around, I brought it inside to play. One day, as she was chasing a ball of fuzz around the top of the cabinets, my little cat went for a lunge and slipped right off. I tried to catch her, but I wasn’t fast enough. I cringed, expecting her to break a bone. Instead, the darnedest thing happened. The clumsy ball of fur swung her tail out like a whip and kicked out her feet. The motions killed the spin and righted her for impact. She made a four-point touchdown and lumbered off for more adventure. It had been a pre-programmed reflex. When my cat had needed it, some sort of evolutionary override had just taken charge…
Mine wasn’t so cute.
I looked up to see my left hand blocking the path of Tyrone’s rock—and the rock was slowing. A brilliant wave of force extending from the crude projectile erupted into fireworks on my palm. A tiny galaxy of sparks was forming. The specs of light swirled about my hand. Spun faster and faster. Swirled tighter and tighter. And with an abrupt pulse, the whole lot of them flooded straight into my arm.
Imagine being a high-voltage power line. Imagine the electricity coursing through you. It was like that. I could feel the power pushing inside me. I could feel it drawn like a magnet straight to my core.
Tyrone grunted. He’d slammed that rock down with all the force 6’5’’of well-trained muscle could muster, but now it was resting on my palm as light as a feather. Off balance, he stumbled forward and fell to his knees.
With a wave of my hand, fifteen pounds of stone rolled harmlessly to my side.
But the energy in my arm wasn’t stopping. It was still crawling toward my chest. I gasped as the world went white. The energy was inside me. It bounced off the walls. It was touching me. Touching me from the inside. A queasy sense of violation overtook me—that awful feeling as you plummet downward on a roller coaster. Only one thought ran through my head. I wanted everything to stop. No more pain. No more fear. No more danger. I didn’t want to see more lights. I didn’t want to fight. I just wanted to be left alone.
Of course, my child, a gravelly voice replied.
My right arm shot up. The white world was replaced by a dark one. The power was flowing out, but it felt different—volatile, dangerous, like the strike of a match in a room full of gas. A split second later and my ears both popped. The world went red. My hearing was reduced to high-pitched ringing. My throat burned. The icy blanket covering my skin vanished, and a searing heat replaced it. The smell of smoke choked my one remaining lung. And I could feel a wetness raining down on my face. A fire sprinkler? How could that be? I opened my eyes. My vision was blurry…strained. I could have sworn I had been outside the corner of the building where Dr. Leeche’s chemistry lab was, but I must have been mistaken. I was inside the lab now.
A dream! I must have fallen asleep in class. There was homework due next Monday, and I had to ask Dr. Leeche a question about some of the acid-base problems. Problem was, I couldn’t seem to find his desk. It was hard to see through the flames, and there wasn’t a roof, either. The sky swirled above me, and something wet kept pattering onto face.
I wiped a red smear from off my eyes. Where was this stuff coming from? I turned my head toward the source. I closed and opened them again. I searched my groggy memory. There was a word for that sight…Maw. Yea, that was the word. Maw. The exposed gullet of another living creature. An SAT review word. I’d wondered why they wanted you to memorize it. But now it all made sense. It was a good term to know in situations where someone’s head explodes leaving chunks of brainstem, larynx, and esophagus exposed for the entire world to see.
One of the two holes blew a few bubbles before the torso shuddered and collapsed on top of me.
Panic stricken, I pushed the heavy mass to the side. Then I sat still and stared at the sky. My bod
y wouldn’t move, and every breath was a struggle. Little black spots danced across my vision. My reality separated from time.
Seconds passed, maybe minutes.
“Jackson,” a voice said. “Jackson, find the kill switch.”
I heard the crunch of footsteps.
“Oh my God.” The same voice. Closer now. “Son? Can you hear me, son?”
I looked above my head, and there he was. A cop from the look of him—but without the usual stoic demeanor. He looked about ready to gag.
I blinked back at him.
Surprise etched on his face, his hand went to his radio.
“We’ve got a live one!” he screamed. “Ambulance. Now!” Breathing heavy, he looked back down at me. “It’s all right, son. We’re gonna get you out of here…just…just hold on,” he managed.
He looked like a nice enough guy. I blinked again, and he forced a smile. Checking my pulse with his right hand, he glanced over to the left. His face went white as ghost.
“Sweet Mary and Joseph,” he muttered.
Someone else came over. Heavy boots. Yellowish jacket. This one placed a bag over my face. I think it helped me breath, but my senses were failing. Things were getting too quiet. My vision dimmed.
One way or another, it was all over. I had gotten my wish. Finally, some peace.
I closed my eyes and started to weep.
Chapter 2
FLOWERS AND LYSOL
I woke in a strange bed. My body was stiff. My limbs felt heavy.
How long had I been out? Where the hell was I?
I was struggling through the odd sensations, when a rush of air surged into my chest. I panicked and strained against it, but my effort was met with a sharp protest from my angry ribs. A second puff came. Then a third. There was a tube sticking down my throat. I could feel it with my tongue. So it was providing me air…I relented, letting the puffs of cold dry air inflate my chest again and again. Still, breathing is so basic. It was odd to have some machine do it for me. I must have been drugged, because thinking was hard. I wasn’t outside my high school anymore, but since I was breathing through a tube, I was probably still alive. I opened my sticky eyes and glanced around. The lights were so bright. I could hardly see, but it looked like a hospital. I wasn’t so sure how happy I was about that. Hadn’t I done something really bad?
I strained to remember.
"Okay, Dieter,” I thought, “You picked a fight with Tyrone. You broke his nose, and then Phil Collins tripped and broke his arm. You ran. A rock hit you. The Splotches caught you. They broke some bones, and then Tyrone came with that big rock. He wanted to kill you. He was going to crush your head. You knew you were going to die, there was a blinding whiteness, and when you opened your eyes, Tyrone’s head was gone, the chemistry lab’s roof was missing, and there was fire everywhere. The cops found you. Then you passed out.”
I felt confident about those details. The problem was I also recalled stopping a giant face-smashing rock with my bare hand. That part had me a bit confused. That sort of thing shouldn’t have been possible. The forces just didn’t add up. But Tyrone’s head had been blown off…
The machine took a few more Vader breaths.
Holy shit. Had I just killed someone?
I tried to swallow, but the tube wouldn’t allow it. Closing my eyes, I waited for the inevitable rush of regret. Willfully or not, I had taken a life, and a human life no less. I sat perfectly still as the machine pumped in-and-out.
I felt nothing.
I’d read about this stuff. People suppressing their emotions until the whole kit and caboodle rushed forth at once, overwhelming them. That was what this was. I waited for the impending avalanche-o-guilt—and waited—and waited. I looked around the room and waited some more.
“Stars above,” I thought. ”I must be really messed up.”
It didn’t make sense. I had just killed a man and didn’t feel a thing. Why the heck not? I certainly didn’t like the idea of taking life. I understood the wrongness of the act. Life is rare. I knew it should be respected, never wasted. But I felt no emotions. I frowned. There was no guilt at all. No shame. Just a vague sense of unease. Sure, I would have preferred that he not die, and I certainly felt no pleasure that he was dead, but then again, Tyrone Nelson was a dick.
I squirmed under the covers. Wasn’t I a “sensitive guy”? I cried when Bambi’s mom died, didn’t I? I tried to avoid eating too much meat. Seeing people in pain made me angry. Heck, wasn’t that the reason why I ended up in this situation in the first place? But here I was, lying in a hospital bed after blowing the head off of Ted Binion High School’s first-and-only major league prospect, and my mind kept drifting back to whether or not I was going to get arrested.
Did I even have the right to worry? I was a killer, wasn’t I?
A pair of rubber soles squeaked into my room.
I froze. My introspective review session was over.
The feet stopped near my left side. I listened to the beeps as buttons were pressed.
Curious, I shifted my weight to get a better view.
Whoever it was jumped in fright.
“Omigosh!” she yelped. “You’re awake? Oh, thank goodness. No one thought you would make it…But Dr. Montgomery was so certain.” I felt the woman’s hand on my shoulder. “It was amazing to watch. She’s like a magician. I’ll go get her right away.”
The nurse scurried out my room and down the hall.
“Oh, thank goodness”? Perhaps she had a thing for homicidal freaks that liked popping their victims’ heads off.
Within moments, a whole team of medical folk thundered in. They began the poking, and the prodding, and the ritualistic shining of lights. And they all seemed so pleased.
“A miracle,” one muttered.
I didn’t get it. Why were these folks treating me like Dorothy after she wacked the Wicked Witch?
A set of fingers peeled back eyelids and placed soothing drops into my eyes. Whatever was in them helped. After blinking a few times, everything came into focus. I could see a doctor looking down at me with a warm smile. Mid-thirties, I guessed. Her hair was bright red, her skin, pale, and I can’t explain why, but something about her shouted, ‘I heart granola.’ She belonged in one of those commercials for asthma medicines. The one with two women skipping through a park as the voiceover says, “With my uncontrollable gasping under control, I’m free as a bird!” But there was a bit of an edge to her. More power than flower. The doc looked like she was running without much sleep, but her eyes were sharp and her fingers nimble.
“Hi, Dieter,” she said pleasantly. “My name is Dr. Montgomery. Welcome back to the land of the living.” She dragged her clogs over to the cart by my bed and messed with some vials. “Isn’t it high time we got that tube out of your mouth?” she asked.
“Yuugg.” I replied.
She smiled, and I felt warm inside.
“Alrighty, Dieter, I want you to take a deep breath and then exhale. As you exhale, out goes the tube.”
I did as she said and took in a deep breath and exhaled as she pulled.
The first breath was like sandpaper. I started coughing uncontrollably. Dr. Montgomery anticipated that. She placed a fat tube in front of my face. With a flip of a switch, it spread a fog of wet air over my face. Two-dozen coughs and wheezes later, I was finally able to croak a thank you.
“Now, now,” Dr. Montgomery said, wagging her finger back and forth. “No more talking tonight. Let’s let your throat rest up first.”
I nodded, but I was still puzzled. She wasn’t treating me as the Ted Kaczynski of schoolyard brawls. Could it be that they didn’t know what happened? I mimed confusion, hoping that she would take the hint.
“Don’t worry about going to the bathroom, dear,” she replied. “There’s a diaper for that.”
Egads. I needed to work on my miming skills. I frowned and shook my head.
“Are you confused where you are, dear?” she asked.
Heck yes. I nodd
ed.
“Your father—your father doesn’t seem to be around,” she said trying to hide a frown. No surprise there. He was employed as a card dealer at one of the casinos. That meant he worked long, weird hours. That, or he was passed out in a gutter. (To be fair, when my dad wasn’t intoxicated he was a halfway decent guy. The problem was he was never not intoxicated.) Dr. Montgomery eyed me with a knowing look. Deadbeat parents were par for the course in these parts. “Well, Dieter, you’re almost eighteen. If he’s not going to show up, I guess I should bring you up to speed.”
I nodded eagerly.
Dr. Montgomery motioned for the nurses to leave. Once they had, she grabbed a stool and sat down. She let out the sigh of someone who had been on her feet for a very long time. There was a scratch along the length of her jaw. One of her patients must have gotten fresh with her.
“Dieter, I don’t know how much you can recall, so I’ll start from the beginning. The police tell us that a brawl broke out at Ted Binion High. Around the same time, someone was working in the school’s chemistry lab. The police believe the individual became distracted or scared by the fighting. They think he-or-she forgot to turn off the gas line when they left.” She looked past me out the window. “Some of Mr. Nelson’s friends told the police that you and a Mr. Nelson had run to escape the violence, and that the two of you went to hide behind the school.”
My eyebrows rose. How on earth had the story gotten so wacked out?
“Now Dieter, this is where things get a bit strange: The fire department believes that in the panic over the riots, someone set off the school’s fire alarm. As you may know, when fire alarms are activated, all the magnetic fire doors release. The firemen believe the doors nearest the lab were defective. They think a spark from the doors’ release mechanism ignited the gas building up in the chemistry lab.” She shook her head. “Pretty ironic when you think about it, huh?”
I frowned. That story was totally implausible. Those doors operate by turning off a magnet when the system is triggered. Why would cutting a circuit cause a spark? Besides, a room couldn’t fill up with that amount of gas in a few minutes. I ran the calculation in my head. Even if someone had left a valve open full blast, it would have taken over an hour for enough gas to build up to blow up the lab.
Zero Sight Page 3
