by Jerry Hart
“Daniel?” Owen was ecstatic. “Where are we?”
“A place where all energy goes when it loses its physical form. It’s not so bad, actually.” Alyssa sounded like she truly meant it.
“Why can’t I see anything?” Owen asked, a little worried.
“Because you’re not supposed to be here yet,” Daniel responded. “You still have a physical form, unlike us. You’re here temporarily. Your body is recovering; the supplement-thingy took a lot of your energy since it wasn’t meant to be used by anyone other than Armenus.”
“And before you go back,” Alyssa said, “there’s something you should know about us. And about yourself. Though you won’t remember it after you return, you’ll still know.”
* * *
Chris pulled a chair up to the bed, opened the first book, and began reading aloud. He vowed long ago to get Owen into this series, about the young wizard, but Owen had been stubborn. Not today, though. Today, he would listen while Chris read, and there wasn’t a damn thing Owen could do about it.
He read and read, and in two days, he’d finished the first book and was on to the second. He noticed Owen getting skinnier by the day, but kept reading. He knew he should’ve taken his friend to the hospital, but deep down he knew the doctors couldn’t do anything for Owen. He just had to wait it out. Daniel and Alyssa told Chris so.
So he kept reading.
* * *
Owen was starting to smell really bad now, like decay. His cheekbones were very pronounced, his eyes sunken. But he was breathing. And that was good. Chris was on the fourth book now. It had been two weeks since Nikki called him on his cell to tell him that Owen was at her house. Of course, it took Chris a while to realize where he was. At the time he’d gotten the call, he was sitting in an unfamiliar house, surrounded by unfamiliar people, save Doug Hudson. He hadn’t seen Doug in a while, but was happy to see him now, even if he did remind Chris of his dead friend. But then he thought of how Doug must feel knowing his brother was gone.
Chris had been pretty terrified by the fact he didn’t know where he was and how he got there, and was even more confused by the many missed calls he had on his phone. A lot of them were from Owen.
Cullen Matthews, Owen’s childhood friend, drove Chris to Nikki’s place and found Owen sitting unconscious in a rocking chair on her porch. Nikki had told Chris most of what had happened while he was under “the call of the orb,” or so she called it. Stuff about giants and invaders from another world. Chris believed every word, of course. He’d known Nikki for too long to think she would ever exaggerate or flat-out lie about something like that.
Chris opened the fifth book (the longest) and began reading. It was lucky for him that the Matthews had the series in their book collection—Cullen had told him (unconvincingly) that the books belonged to Vanessa. If they hadn’t, Chris would have gone all the way back to the condo to get his.
Just then, Cullen walked in. Chris stopped reading and looked up at him.
“Are you sure about this?” Cullen asked.
Chris nodded, looking down at the book as if eager to get back to it. Cullen had been criticizing Chris’s decision not to take Owen to the hospital for days.
“If you want, we can leave,” Chris said defensively.
“Owen is my oldest friend, and he’s dying.”
“He’s not dying,” Chris said, looking up again. “He’d be dead by now if that were the case. He’s recovering.”
Cullen sat down at the end of the bed and stared at Chris. “I know you and Doug and Curtis have all had ‘visions’ of your friends telling you to do things or whatever, and I’ll admit that there’s something to that, but I can’t just sit here and watch Owen go through this. I can’t.”
Chris closed the book, marking his spot with his finger. “He means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”
“Of course. He was my best friend. He is my best friend.”
“He’s mine, too.”
Cullen took a deep breath. “When he disappeared all those years ago, it nearly killed me.”
Chris said nothing to this. If it hadn’t been for him, Owen would’ve been returned to Cullen long ago.
Cullen looked at Owen now. “How much longer, do you think?”
“I don’t think it’ll be much longer.” Chris smiled. “A little birdie told me so.”
* * *
Chris read the last word on the last page of the seventh book, then closed it and patted the hardcover. When he looked up, he saw Owen staring back at him.
“How long have you been awake?” he asked Owen.
“A while,” he said quietly. His voice was hoarse from misuse. Chris’s wasn’t that much better with all the reading he’d done over the weeks. “I heard you.” He pointed to the book in Chris’s lap. “I heard all of it. Those were good.”
Chris grinned. “Told ya. Do you need anything? Water? You hungry?”
Owen shook his head so faintly Chris barely noticed. They sat in silence for a moment.
“I talked to Alyssa and Daniel,” Owen finally said. “They told me a lot of things, but … for some reason, I can’t remember any of it.”
Chris nodded and smiled. Something weird was going on indeed, but whatever it was, it was good. “That must be frustrating.”
Owen stared at nothing for a long time, then said, “Yeah, a little, but I remember in my heart what they told me. In truth, that’s all that matters.”
There was a long silence, and then he said, “Why did you do it?”
Chris’s smile faded. He knew what Owen was talking about. “I was lonely and stupid. I didn’t want to give you back.”
Owen said nothing, only listened.
“I wish I could say a voice told me that keeping you would save the world someday,” Chris continued, his voice choked, “but that wouldn’t be true. I was just stupid. I’m sorry, Owen.”
“After you found out, you kept me away from people in the city for a while. We stayed in the alleys or in your car under the bridge. You hid me until everyone forgot about me.”
“Yes.” Chris was in silent tears now, but he did his best to keep eye contact with Owen. He owed him that much. “I was scared for a while about you. You’ve been lying in this bed for weeks without food or anything, but you didn’t die.”
“Daniel and Alyssa kept me alive,” Owen said with a smile.
“Does that mean you’ll never die? That we will never die, because they’re watching over us?”
Owen shook his head. “We’ll die someday … but not now.”
“What about Michael?” Chris asked, remembering what Doug had said when Owen explained to him about the brothers on their way to Cullen’s house. “Why was he so affected by the removal of the … supplement?”
Owen thought for a moment, then said, “Les.”
“Les?”
“Les Huntington, Curtis’s friend. Back when they activated the orb for the first time at the garage, Michael told Jason that Les did something to him. I didn’t know what it meant—I still don’t, really—but I think whatever he did had something to do with what happened to Michael after the supplement was removed.”
“I guess there was more to Les than anybody realized,” Chris said with a smile.
“I think you’re right,” Owen added.
* * *
Everyone piled into the guest room a few minutes later. Chris had told them Owen was awake. There stood Doug, Curtis, Cullen, Vanessa, baby Sidney, and someone else Owen and Chris only faintly recognized.
It was Officer Patrick Fisher, and he looked nervous among them. Chris had met him a long time ago when he and Alyssa had gone on a date.
“It’s nice to see you’re awake, Mr. Walters,” Patrick said. “I think congratulations are in order; you saved the world, after all.”
“I think we all did,” Owen said, this time louder and clear enough for everyone to hear. “Including you.”
Patrick grinned and nodded. “It’s true; I was amazing.”
/> Everyone laughed. Baby Sidney gave a giggle.
“The blue giant has disappeared,” Patrick said. “A few weeks ago, something appeared in the sky and just lifted the thing up and out of sight. I guess it was the aliens.” Owen smiled knowingly. “Also, we went to the farmhouse,” Patrick continued, looking at Curtis and Doug, “and found the bodies of those two boys you told me about. Even though they’re dead, we know from their fingerprints that they were the ones who murdered Marco Garcia, Alyssa Turner, David Hernandez and several others. The only question is, who killed them?”
The room grew quiet. Almost everyone knew it had been Owen who had taken the brothers out in brutal fashion, but did Officer Fisher know as well?
“I’ll take care of everything,” Patrick said, as if reading everyone’s minds. “But you and I will need to talk soon, Mr. Walters.”
Owen nodded.
“Who were they?” Doug asked.
“No one knows. We can’t find any records of them anywhere.” Patrick frowned. “I guess they weren’t from around here.”
Owen shuddered at the phrase that was oh so similar to what Jason had told him earlier. If they weren’t from around here, where were they from?
* * *
Owen was looking better now that he was eating again. Doug and Curtis were sitting on the couch in the living room, Doug playing a videogame (Kingdom Souls 2, his brother’s favorite) and Curtis drawing in his notebook. He’d been doing that for weeks now. The whole notebook looked like a comic-book version of the events that played out with the giants, leeches, zombies, and the brothers Jason and Michael. There were even versions of Owen, Chris, Doug and the others.
Owen was eating in the dining room with Chris. Doug and Curtis refused to leave Owen’s side until he was back to his old self, which he was managing pretty quickly now that he was awake. The Matthewses didn’t mind much because they had babysitters for Sidney while they were away at work and school.
Life was returning to normal. Officer Fisher stopped by every now and then to ask questions about the brothers. Once, Owen asked Patrick whether his fingerprints on the axe, knife and hammer would be a problem. Patrick only said, “Don’t worry about it.”
“There’s something I want to show you when you’re up to it,” Chris said as they ate their breakfast at the table.
Owen nodded and looked over at D, who was standing in a corner in the living room. No one knew how to recharge the poor robot. Even though Owen himself had controlled D with the help of the supplement, if the robot hadn’t been there Owen might be dead now. He owed D his life.
The next day, Owen claimed he was ready for whatever Chris wanted to show him. They drove Doug’s car, which they had retrieved from Les’s neighborhood weeks ago, to a small two-story building in downtown San Sebastian, on Cooper Street. The destruction caused by Blue was nearly cleaned up completely a few blocks away.
Owen and Chris entered the building, which was surprisingly unlocked, and looked around. It had a pretty spacious lobby and wasn’t yet furnished, except for a desk on the right.
“What is this place?” Owen asked.
“It’s going to be a homeless shelter,” Chris said. “It was Alyssa’s. She invested a lot of money into it.”
Owen walked around carefully on legs that looked likely to collapse. Chris wanted to help him around, but Owen insisted on walking himself.
“How long have you known about this place?” Owen asked. Chris noticed something in his voice when he asked this question. It sounded like irritation.
“Time’s a little fuzzy with me now”—Chris pointed to his head—“but she told me right before she and Daniel went to David’s party that night.”
“She told you and not me?”
Chris understood now why Owen sounded the way he did. “I caught her looking over some papers. She was going to surprise us when it was ready, but…”
Silence filled the lobby. An appropriate silence. Owen understood.
“Did she go in this alone,” Owen said, “or did she have a partner?”
“She had a partner,” a voice said behind them. They whirled around to see a young African-American woman standing at the entrance. She was dressed in a white dress shirt and a tan skirt. She looked very businesslike.
She stepped forward and shook Chris’s hand. “I’m Jcole Brighton.”
Owen walked up to her and shook her hand as well. Jcole had beautiful brown eyes, and her shiny black hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
“You must be Owen and Chris,” she said with a smile. “Alyssa told me all about you.”
“I wish we could say the same,” Chris said in as friendly a way as possible. “How did you know Alyssa?”
“College. Alyssa was a very kind spirit, always helping people. And her love for animals was noteworthy.” Owen and Chris smiled at that. “I’m very sorry to hear what happened.”
Owen and Chris said nothing, only nodded.
“It may please you to know,” Jcole continued, “that the Turner/Brighton House is still scheduled to open soon. And I plan to put up a portrait of her for everyone to see, so they’ll know who made this place possible.”
Chris was tearing up now, and quickly wiped his eyes before anyone could see. Owen didn’t bother hiding his tears.
“Something tells me that after the events a few weeks ago,” Jcole said, “it wouldn’t hurt to offer a helping hand to those who need it.”
* * *
Next, Chris took Owen to a graveyard just outside of the city. He told Owen about the funerals for Daniel and Alyssa that had taken place during Owen’s coma.
They walked up a grassy hill and found Daniel’s grave there. Alyssa’s funeral had taken place in Houston, where she was from. Daniel’s headstone read: “Daniel Ray Hudson, Beloved Brother and Son”
There were flowers around the headstone. Owen cried all over again. Chris patted him on the back. After a few minutes, Owen stopped crying and looked at the headstone again. He wrestled with the idea of telling Chris what Nikki had told him, about how Alyssa and Daniel were more than just human, then decided not to.
“You know what’s weird?” Chris asked, kneeling down to the headstone. “I showed up here for the funeral, staying in the background—to show respect—and when Daniel’s dad walked by, I heard him say to Doug, ‘Thank God it wasn’t you.’”
Owen gave him a curious look.
“What do you think that was about?” Chris asked. Owen shrugged; that seemed like a strange thing for a father to say. Daniel’s mom left the Hudson household long ago. He’d never talked about it much, and Owen wondered if Mrs. Hudson would have said the same thing as her husband.
“You know, you talked during your coma,” Chris said. Owen looked over to him. “You said stuff about there being other monsters out there, the one that killed Alyssa’s sisters being one of them. You mentioned Bentley, too.”
Owen didn’t doubt it; he must’ve dreamt about Armenus’s test subjects. Chris had a devilish grin now.
“We could go after it, you and me,” he said.
“What about Doug and Curtis?”
“They could come, too.”
Owen started walking back to the car at the foot of the hill. Chris followed.
“What’s wrong with you?” Chris asked.
“Are you talking about re-forming the Unstoppable Titans?” Owen asked. “After everything that’s happened?”
“Maybe. I mean, just for the remaining monster.”
“What did Nikki tell you?” Owen asked. “When you first told her your plans.”
Chris frowned. “She said something about a curse.”
Owen waited for Chris to say more, but he didn’t. Owen could tell he knew more and didn’t want to put voice to it.
“The Quartet’s Curse?” Owen finally said.
Chris’s eyes widened. “She told you?”
“Yes. Why did you go along with it?”
“Because I thought it was a joke. ‘If you all work
together, you will die.’ It didn’t sound real. She told me that just by bonding together, just the four of us, that we would each die before our time.”
Chris stared at Owen for a moment, then walked down the hill to the car, leaving Owen alone. Before he got there, however, he whirled around and yelled, “Are you saying it’s my fault that our friends are dead?”
Chris was furious. Owen didn’t answer; he was too afraid to say anything. They just stared at each other for a while.
“Get in the car,” Chris finally said. “I’ll take you to see your dad.”
* * *
They drove back to Birch, to a large hilly graveyard. It took fifteen minutes for Owen to locate his father’s grave. He managed not to cry, but he stood silent and motionless. It hurt knowing that his father couldn’t be buried with his wife. Owen had to find out where she was and make things right. Was she still alive? Something told him she wasn’t, but for some reason he wasn’t completely sure why he felt that way. He had no proof. Did he?
Owen placed the flowers he had purchased upon the headstone. He then hugged that headstone until Chris came along and ushered him back to the car.
* * *
After dropping Owen off at Cullen’s, Chris asked Doug if he could borrow the car to run one more errand. He drove to a house in Haltom City. At first, he was too nervous to approach the front door. The last time he was here, Becky Simon had come upon the unconscious body of her best friend Stephanie Polansky. Luckily, he was able to convince her that he hadn’t been the one to harm Stephanie.
He had gone to the hospital first only to find Stephanie had been released a week prior.
He knocked on the door and Becky answered a moment later. She studied him up and down for a second, then said, “What are you doing here?”
She was holding a bottle of tea, just like she’d been when Chris first met her. Her brown hair was hanging loosely in curls, her blue eyes piercing into him. Then someone pushed Becky aside to stand at the door. It was Stephanie. She was pale and a lot skinnier than when he had last seen her, but she was smiling. Her beautiful brown hair was pulled back from her face and he could see the girl he had loved since high school, even if she still barely remembered him from that time.
