by Alan Janney
No sign of Tank.
In the past I might have been afraid to enter such a room. Too many guys, too much muscle, too many possible weapons, too much could go wrong. But that was when Chase was in control of his body. That was when Chase’s fears and rationalities ruled the day. Now? Now the Outlaw was in full possession. The Outlaw did not fear a den of lazy, clumsy crooks.
I walked brazenly into the room, picked up an unopened bottle of liquor and threw it through the television. The bottle and television both disintegrated, shattered glass flying, and the room reacted like a bomb had gone off. I picked up the first man to reach his feet and I hurled him into the other room. Hurled him. He traveled over fifteen feet in the air, crunched the far plaster wall, and landed like a sack of dirty laundry.
After that, nobody moved.
“Evening, gentlemen,” I said to my captive audience. I recognized a couple of them from previous interactions.
“The Outlaw.”
“El Diablo.”
“That’s me,” I confirmed. “You boys enjoy the big fight last night?”
“Not us, man,” a little due spoke up. “No way, Outlaw. Didn’t go near it.”
“That’s not what I heard. And how are you, Beans?” I asked. “Remember when I carried you to the hospital?” I’d had multiple run-ins with this particular character. He was all mouth, no heart. He nodded. “Good times, Beans!”
“Why don’t you go away,” he said with every scrap of nerve he possessed. “We ain’t bothering nobody.”
“Ah, poor grammar and a double negative. How I love the ruffians.”
“We didn’t start nothing, man,” he said. “We don’t go south anymore. Getting loco down there, Mr. Outlaw.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“There’s a crazy man, yo. You heard of him? He controls everything with his new drugs,” Beans said and he tried to marshall support from his silent, sullen companions. “Nobody don’t mess with him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Don’t nobody don’t know, man. Rumors about rumors, right? But people talk. He’s crazy.”
“Speaking of crazy,” I said. “Where my old pal Tank?”
Stoney silence. No response.
“You know,” I encouraged them. “Big guy? Ugly? Wears gloves all the time? You call him T.”
Nothing. Angry stares.
“Oh well. Tell him I said hello. I’ll just take Guns and be on my way,” I said, and I pointed at the man in the green hoodie near the television. I’d spotted him immediately.
“The hell you want with me?” Guns asked. He gave the impression of being high. Or drunk. Or aggressively stupid.
“I’ll tell you when we get there,” I said as cheerfully as I could in my deep snarl.
Just then, the house shook, as if from a small earthquake. Dust drifted from the ceiling. Wooden boards everywhere groaned, and a tyrannosaurus rex came down the stairs. Or at least that’s how it sounded, based on the deep booming footsteps.
“Who is making the noise?” asked a voice so low it could have been vibrating out of a subwoofer.
Someone whimpered. Actual whimpering.
Tank, if possible, had gotten bigger, but he looked terrible. In the past he’d dressed immaculately and taken great care of his appearance. Now his hair was a mess, he had bags under his eyes, and his clothes were rags. He squinted against the light. Sometimes I forgot that he wasn’t a super villain; he was a teenager with homework and football practice and parents.
“Beans made the noise,” I answered, rolling my eyes. “You know him. He’s a chatterbox.”
“You,” he said, his baleful eyes alighting on me.
“Not me,” I said, hauling Guns to his feet. “Beans. Now go back to sleep.”
“New outfit,” he said, and he shook his head like an invisible fly was bothering him. “Looks stupid.”
“You don’t like the vest? I like it. Makes my arms look great. By the way Tank, have you been having headaches? Stomach aches? Trouble with stress? Things like that?” I asked on a whim. “Feel like you could die any minute?”
He didn’t answer. He came after me in a rush, like a furious freight train. I jumped away, hauling Guns after me, but I couldn’t move him fast enough. Tank plowed into us, his gloved hands going for my throat. We crashed through the rear wall, sprawling and rolling out into the backyard. Tank and I were both temporarily disoriented by the sudden darkness. Guns was knocked out cold. My head was killing me.
“Tank, you big dummy,” I shouted. “How will you explain that to your mortgage insurance?”
He tried to stand but stumbled on the rubble. I grabbed a long section of a broken 2x4 and hit him in the head, using the busted wood like a baseball bat. The board shattered and Tank fell over again, but he appeared to barely feel it. Oh well.
I hefted Guns up on my shoulder like a big sack of potatoes and ran for the bike. Getting on wasn’t easy. I held his inert body between my arms and knees like I would a child, and I opened the throttle. Gravel flew and we leapt out of the alley.
“Man, I hate that house!” I shouted, steering onto the adjacent street.
Tank materialized out of nowhere like a nightmare, landing heavily on the sidewalk. He roared unintelligibly and sprinted after us. I should have been able to speed away from him, but I couldn’t. He was miraculously keeping abreast of my bike, his thick legs pumping steadily, his mouth pulled into a vicious grimace. My speedometer read 35 mph. Isn’t that faster than humans can run?? I tried increasing our speed but Guns slipped out of my grip, forcing me to decelerate and readjust my cargo. Tank veered off the sidewalk and swung an olympic-sized fist at me. I jerked the handles, barely evading him, and we lost even more speed. His next swing would destroy us.
I glanced up, just in time to see the Los Angeles Sniper rise up like a ghost on the house ahead of us. The Sniper! The Shooter! It had to be. He stood tall, poised, slender, rock solid, feet planted on either side of the roof’s incline, death incarnate silhouetted by the moon. The figure raised a rifle to his shoulder in slow motion.
Time slowed down to heartbeats. I’m dead…the Shooter…Infected…Maybe he’ll hit the vest…Lee’s kevlar plates better work…Katie…Katie…
The Shooter fired, an angry flare bursting from the weapon’s maw. I flinched instinctively. No noise. Silencer! Did he miss??
Tank’s head snapped back! One second he was towering over us, the next he was on the ground, holding his face. He groaned and roared and shook his skull from side to side. He was alive?? A wax bullet!
This is madness! I gunned the engine, popped a wheelie that almost tossed Guns, and streaked away from Tank and the Shooter.
“That was a bad idea….and kind of awesome!”
“…hello?” Lee’s slurred voice came over the headset in my helmet.
“Wake up, Lee,” I barked into the receiver.
“Outlaw?” he asked.
“I just deposited a fugitive into the back of your car. He’s on the police’s wanted list,” I shouted. I was close to fainting. The pain! “He’s tied up. Take him to the police station immediately. Collect the reward. Don’t mention me. It’s a Thank You for the vest.”
I clicked off and almost crashed. The pain was blinding. I could barely see, barely process, barely move. Tonight had been too much. Too much excitement, too much stress, danger, exertion. Every joint ached. Skull about to crack.
I braked to a clumsy halt. Where am I? Lots of lights. I know this place. Safety. Through a fog of delirium I tore off the helmet and pulled on my long-sleeved shirt. I left my bike illegally parked in a handicap spot and staggered up the steps to the Holy Angels Church. I remember this. I remember my mother’s funeral here. I remember spending the night here once. The soft music was playing over the speakers instead of the organ pipes. The smell of incense permeated everything and wafted up from the pew cushion when I collapsed in the back. There were no other midnight pilgrims, just me, no more sounds. Most of the
light came from candles burning near the alter. Quiet. Peace. Safe. Heaven.
Sleep.
I didn’t hear Carter enter the church.
Chapter Ten
Wednesday, January 18. 2018
My phone was beeping. Unread text messages from Puckdaddy.
>>Shooter requested permission 2 waste u last night
>>Carter said No
>>u 1 lucky dude
>>u dead?
>>hey dummy. u there?
>>u have a few more hours to respond b4 i erase all data on your phone
I stared bleary-eyed until the words made sense. I’d just woken up at five in the morning on a pew in a church under a blanket most likely provided by our football team’s offensive coordinator, Todd Keith. He worked as a Deacon at this church.
I’m not dead, I typed. Why would you erase all the data on my phone?
>>good morning stoopid. thought the virus got u
Not yet, I typed, and I sat up. Mercifully my headache was gone but my neck was intensely sore. I rubbed it and groaned.
“Your neck is sore because you had an aneurism.”
I almost jumped out of my skin. Carter was sitting on the other side of the pew, legs stretched and ankles crossed. He still wore tactical gear, and he was still smoking cigarettes.
“And you had an aneurism because you didn’t take my advice,” he said a little hotly.
“Missed you too,” I croaked.
“Not a joke, hero. You almost died last night. Should have,” he shouted and it echoed throughout the towering sanctuary. “Perhaps I failed to express myself previously. Drop the machismo act. It’ll kill you.”
“How do you know I had an aneurism?”
“You have blood in your cerebrospinal fluid,” he said and he flicked his ash on the floor.
“You shouldn’t smoke in church. And I have blood where?”
“Smoke wherever I want, boy. I checked your subarachnoid. I’ve done it a lot over the years. You didn’t even wake up. Found traces of blood. You had an aneurism. I’m shocked you’re alive.”
“An aneurism? That sounds awful. Shouldn’t I be in worse shape than I am?”
“Your body is trying to both kill you and heal you at an enormously fast rate,” he explained. “After the aneurysm failed to kill you, your brain began repairing itself.”
“How’d you find me?” I asked, gingerly massaging the muscles around my spine.
“One of the Infected. He thought you were dead. Triangulated the wifi signal off your motorcycle. Or so he tells me.” Carter waved his hand in the air to indicate he didn’t understand the technology involved.
“Puckdaddy?”
“Call him what you like. He’s the best alive. And he’s hoping you’ll stay that way. For some reason, he’s rooting for you. I brought you breakfast.”
I located a McDonalds bag under my seat. Five breakfast sandwiches. I could cry.
“How’d you know I’d be hungry?” I asked after finishing the first. “Like, really hungry. I’m starving.”
“I’m Infected too, just like you,” he said simply. “We get hungry, that’s how it works.” After I finished the third, he leaned forward and said, “Listen, hero. You’re right in the middle of this thing. All the symptoms are here. I want you to make it. We need you to pull through. Gotta get yourself under control.”
“You were right,” I said, my mouth full of food. “My body is addicted to excitement. It’s like the Outlaw is in control of my decisions half the time.”
“Not the Outlaw. The virus,” he barked at me. “You get no more chances. Not from me, and probably not from the virus.”
“Got it.”
“You must learn self-control. You must. The virus can kill you several ways.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Many Infected die even though they survived the virus. They live through post-adolescence but die in their twenties. That’s one of the reasons why there are only nine of us.”
“What happens to them?”
“Those of us that survive through the end of adolescence face two common pitfalls. The first is if an Infected decides he’s Superman. Most of us do. We get drunk on power. And then we do something stupid. Like you did last night. For example, an Infected died last year. Let’s call him Ten. Ten believed himself indestructible and so he jumped out of an airplane at fifteen thousand feet with no chute. There wasn’t much left of him after the mountain got through,” he said and he shook his head in disgust.
“Okay. Makes sense. Drunk on power, do something stupid. What’s the other way the Infected die?”
“The second way. Like I said, we’re a private group. We do not tolerate publicity. When one of the Infected threatens our anonymity…”
“You put a bullet in their temple?” I guessed, remembering his prior words.
“Exactly. We stay secret. And we enforce the secrecy. Remember that, mate.” He stood up, took a final drag from his cigarette, and flicked the butt onto the ground at my feet.
“Wait,” I said around a bite of eggs.
“What?” he demanded. He looked obscene and sacrilegious standing in the multi-hued stained glass light of the church, smoke still leaking from his nostrils. His gloved hands were clenched into fists.
“Tell me more about the Infected.”
“There’s nothing else,” he snapped.
“Do you guys hang out? Like on a heli-carrier or something?”
“What is a heli-carrier?” he asked.
“The big flying ship the Avengers have.”
“Get it through your head,” he growled. “There are no such things as heroes.”
“So you don’t have a secret headquarters at the top of a tower? The Infected don’t all live together? Christmas parties? That kind of thing?”
He glared at me a long time and then strode out without another word. I finished breakfast and texted Puckdaddy.
Thanks for the help. Again.
>>yeah yeah sure whatev
Why will you wipe all the data off my phone when I die?
>>ill erase the data so no1 asks questions about the virus. All virus evidence will vanish from phone after u die.
Can you really do that?
>>childs play
Where are you? Are you in the Infected’s secret headquarters?
>>hah. i wish only infected Ive ever met is carter
Why don’t you hang out with the others?
>>carter
What about him?
>>he doesn’t let us
>> and that’s all ill say if ur smart u wont piss him off
I thought Carter said he wasn’t the boss
>>suuuuuuure lol
I’ll try to be more careful. But if I survive the disease, I’m taking you out for a pizza. My treat.
>>hah sounds good
Hey. Do you ever talk with the Shooter?
>>duh. texting with Shooter right now
Good. Tell him thanks for helping me last night
>>tell him thanks???
>>hahahahaha lol
What’s so funny?
>>u stupid but i like u
But tell him to quit shooting innocent people. It’s freaking everyone out.
>>hah. u so stupid. u don’t know the Shooter. Would never listen 2 me. Shooter’s crazy.
Your grammar is terrible. Shouldn’t the world’s foremost computer hacker use better syntax?
>>u make fun of puckdaddy's texting and puckdaddy will empty ur bank account
>>anyway i need 2 use my wpm on other programs
>>right now im texting u, texting Shooter, counter attacking some cracker in moscow, helping an infected in austrailia, and writing code 4 new software. and watching sportscenter. go yankees. busy day, dummy. i rock. don’t mess with puckdaddy!
I smiled and put the phone away. I liked that guy.
Good thing I woke up early. The world hadn’t risen yet to see my Outlaw bike. I peeled the red decals off the motorcycl
e and then drove it home. Or at least I tried. The machine ran out of battery power two blocks away, so I pushed it the remainder. I bet Batman never has to do this.
My girlfriend Hannah Walker was complicated. Her GPA was currently a sparkling 4.2. She’s captain of the Varsity cheerleaders. She’d never done drugs and refused to drink; she seldom attended parties at all. Despite her popularity, she was kind to everyone and never used her influence to rampage over any other girl’s life. She took excellent care of me when I’d been hospitalized in November.
Despite all that, she had serious quirks. Our relationship was primarily a logical and convenient arrangement based on mutual respect. In other words, we used each other; I got to date a pretty cheerleader and she benefited by being attached to the Varsity quarterback. Unfortunately there were very few other benefits, especially now that football season was over and I reverted to social unimportance. She was mildly affectionate but usually distant, because affection wasn’t really necessary in her life. Her parents never showed her any and she didn’t see the need to express it herself. But, on the occasion when she decided to turn it on, it was an invigorating romp of the senses.
Today was one of those days. She informed me before classes that we needed to make a splash on social media. This was a periodic task on her agenda. These days were the closest we came to being a normal couple. She took selfies of us kissing for Instagram. She greeted me with hugs in the halls after each class. We sat at a table alone during lunch and Snapchatted pics to everyone. She racked up the Likes and Favorites and declared the day a success.
But it wasn’t a success to me. The romance was clinical, not organic. Forced, not genuine. After school I sat on our school bleachers, watching Cory and Samantha practice football, and I took my ‘relational temperature,’ as my therapist once told me to do. Introspection. Self-evaluation. If I spent any time at all being real with myself, the truth was obvious: our arrangement was no longer meeting my emotional needs, even though I had very few. In fact, I was really only a prop to my girlfriend. To be fair, she generously offered to be my prop, and she was a shockingly attractive prop. However, I no longer cared about possessing a prop.
I just wanted Katie Lopez, but I couldn’t have her. She had never returned my affection and she was dating someone else. But even so, my relationship with Hannah wasn’t working and it was because I wanted Katie to such a degree that I’d rather be with her or else be with nobody.
