The Boy Who Would Rule the World

by Brian Toal

  The breath Beth had been holding within her lungs rushed out with an audible gasp. "No. I want to eat lunch first. I haven't eaten since last night." She turned away from the open doorway and pushed past the two men. Then she stood at the counter, with her back to them as she pretended to inspect the casserole. "I’ll look at it after lunch."

  There was silence behind her and she desperately wanted to spin around to see if they were advancing on her to physically drag her away. But then Charlie spoke from across the room. "Okay...but it’s a great surprise and you’ll like it."

  "After lunch Charlie. Then I’ll take a look."

  She heard the door close and the two of them walk back into the living room."

  Beth sagged against the counter, aimlessly watching the casserole spin on the turntable inside of the microwave. What could she do? Something was wrong with Charlie - and his strange companion. Had they been changed like Chris? If so, were they a danger to her? Charlie was her husband and she his wife. That had to count for something. Surly he would not deliberately hurt her. She reached into the drawer in front of her and mindlessly pulled out three sets of cutlery. And what was this surprise? Was it really a gift - a true surprise? Or was it something else? Beth placed the cutlery on the table and then partially closed the door between the kitchen and living room, noting the two men again sitting at the far end of the room. She removed her apron that hung on a hook on the rear of the door - her excuse for closing the door and tied it around her waist. If the surprise in the garage was a genuine gift, then Charlie's behaviour was probably only symptomatic of the grief he must be feeling at the loss of his co-workers. However, if it was something else and she had a horrible idea of what it might be...

  "Just taking some trash outside." She called out loudly from beside the back door. She swung open the screen door, resting her other hand on the doorknob to the garage access. The screen door reached the end of its swing and then the hydraulic cylinder at the top of the door pulled it closed it with a crash, the slam covering the slight noise Beth made as she opened the other door. She stood in the short hallway, the door to the garage at the far end was closed, a litter of boots and overcoats hung from metal pegs between her and the doorway beyond.

  Carefully she navigated the few short steps, stopping twice to determine if she could hear any movement from the two men in the house behind her. Finally, her hand was on the doorknob leading to the single-car garage beyond. Slowly she turned the knob and then pulled the door open.

  The air rushed out of her lungs in a single gasp. There, sitting in the middle of the oil- stained floor was the large golden object she had last seen in Northern Ontario, the still bodies of her son and nephew crumpled beside it. She stood frozen, her eyes wide, her mind whirling with the consequences of its presence, when she heard Charlie speak from behind her. "So, you couldn't wait after all."

  Beth whirled around to look into her husband's dead eyes - his hands already reaching for her.

  SEVEN - TWO

  Sharon and Bob McCarter sat in Sharon's second hotel room of the day in the City of Greensboro, North Carolina. A city a little less than an hour's flight east of Nashville, and where Bob's company had a trucking terminal. She had phoned Bob’s company as soon as she and Chris had arrived in Nashville. Bob had returned her call, shortly after four in the afternoon, incredulous that she and Chris were in Tennessee. The two of them had caught a commuter flight two hours later and joined Bob in another, almost identical, hotel room at 8:00 that same evening. Chris sat silently in front of the T.V. while Sharon finished explaining the past few days’ events.

  "...and I still haven't got in touch with Beth. There is no answer at her house and I’ve no idea where she and Charlie might have gone."

  "What luck Charlie decided not to get on that train." Bob said, sipping a Coke he had purchased from the machine down the hall. His mind had not yet accepted all that Sharon had told him, although he believed she was telling him what, she thought, was the truth. He had been forced to leave the upbringing of their son to Sharon and he usually did not interfere with her decisions when it came to his welfare. Sharon had thought it necessary to leave Detroit. Fine. He would accept that. Now that they were both with him, he would do his best to assist his wife and son. But at the present moment he preferred to concentrate on topics he could understand. Concrete topics - such as surviving train accidents.

  "Yes, apparently he decided, at the last moment, to stay behind. I wonder if he had a premonition there was going to be a problem?"

  Bob shook his head. "Who knows? Good old Charlie, I knew he was a tough bugger, but he’s got a ton of luck too.”

  "I guess.” Sharon replied, and then lowered her voice, glancing over at Chris sitting in front of the T.V. "But Chris thinks Charlie may somehow be involved with this mind-thing too. Chris said more than once, while we were in the taxi in Detroit, the voice he was hearing reminded him of his Uncle. He was real concerned about that."

  Bob glanced over at his son and Chris, feeling his father's eyes upon him, turned his head to meet his gaze. "Chris why don't you come over here for a minute."

  "Okay." He stood up and joined his parents sitting around the small hotel table.

  "Your Mom has been telling me about you and the excitement at the hospital."

  Chris nodded his head, his hands resting on the table in front of him. "I didn't mean to do it. It just happened."

  "Yeah, we’re not blaming you for anything. But Chris...you got to forgive me, but this is the first I have heard about this and I must admit I don’t quite understand it.”

  Chris nodded.

  "What...what is it, that brings these things on."

  "Nothing, I make them happen myself. All except for this morning. That was something else. It was the machine from the camp."

  "That gold box you and Todd found?"

  "Yeah."

  "How do you know...I mean, why do you think your Uncle Charlie or this machine have anything to do with your problems?”

  Chris shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know for sure. But Dr. Murance said no doctor could have done this to me - and anyway, when could they have done it? I would have known if I had been kidnapped. But, this summer I was unconscious for the first time in my life. And it was right after we found that thing. So I think somehow it did this stuff to me."

  "Your mother was telling me about what the doctor discovered."

  "Yeah..." Chris nodded thoughtfully. "Anyway, at the hospital this morning, something messed with my head, real good. It was like, I could hardly see. All these pictures were flooding through my brain and I felt like I was furiously angry and I wanted to hurt everybody that I saw. Something was making me do things and I couldn't make it stop."

  "Didn't that scare you?" Bob asked.

  "Yes! A lot! That’s why I had to get away from there. But it’s okay here, I can do things myself and nothing happens that I don't want to have happen."

  Behind them the T.V. program switched to a commercial, the volume increasing as a woman told the world how tasty, healthful and non-fattening a new brand of crackers were and Chris continued. "I’m not afraid of what I can do Dad, it’s part of me, like the memory thing. All I got to do is figure out how to use it better and stop that thing in Detroit from being able to mess me up."

  Bob asked. "What do you mean - mess you up?"

  Chris sighed, "Well...the way I make things happen is by picturing what I want to happen. I see pictures all the time, of things I could make happen, but I let them go. Kind of push them away. If I want to change something I got to concentrate on the picture and then move the parts around in my mind that I want to change. The thing in Detroit kept stopping me at pictures I didn't want to change - but they did."

  Bob sat silently for a moment trying to grasp what Chris was describing. Finally, he spoke. "Do something for me then, show me what you can do."

  "Bob! I'm not sure that..." Sharon began.

  "What do you want me to do?" Chris interr
upted.

  Bob shrugged, "look, Chris...you know I have been a science fiction fan for years - and if you really can do this stuff, I'd like to see a demonstration." He reached forward and moved his Coke can into the centre of the table. "Do something for me. See if you can move that Coke can, so I can see what this is all about."

  "Chris will you be alright?" Sharon asked, concern marring her features.

  Chris nodded looking down at the can in front of him. A second passed, then another and still the Coke can remained stationary at the centre of the table.

  Looking back up to meet his fathers eyes, he spoke. "I can move it. But I thought I’d tell you what it was like in Detroit. When I picture the Coke can, there are all sorts of images that come into my mind. I got to shove away the things I don't want and grab the picture I do. It happens real fast too. Like a moment ago, I saw pictures of the Coke can flying into the ceiling, smashing into the wall, ramming into your face, squashing itself flat against the table, and lots of other things. If we were in Detroit I might have done any of those things or maybe worse."

  Chris lowered his head once again and the Coke can skittered across the table into his father's hands.

  "Holy, shit!" Bob grinned as he caught the can. He laughed and reached over to ruffle Chris' hair. "Well, Chris my man, I have wanted to see something like that all of my life and now I have." He laughed again, "Robert Heinlein or Arthur C. Clarke - eat your heart out."

  Chris smiled at his father's happy reaction to his demonstration, although Sharon who had seen exactly what Chris was capable of doing, did not.

  Her face was drawn and serious. She knew it was likely that her life with her son was drawing to an end, unless she could somehow influence the inevitable future. Sooner or later he would be taken away from her to be placed in a 'safe' environment where he could be studied and tested. She was certain that in the free land of the United States of America, children like her son did not just wander about moving Coke cans for their father's enjoyment or trashing the odd office or school classroom when they got upset.

  SEVEN - THREE

  "Bob, what should we do?" Sharon stood by her husband on the balcony of their hotel room, the humidity of the day cooling as the sun disappeared behind the bulk of another hotel across the street.

  "Damned if I know, Sharon." Bob slid his arm around his wife's thin waist, as behind them Chris groaned and moved slightly in his sleep. "If you don't figure you can trust the doctors, I don't know what to suggest."

  "It’s not that I don't trust them. But I’m worried they will send Chris someplace far away, someplace...someplace where we won't get to see him."

  "Well Sharon, I don't know, but if what you and Chris tell me is true, we got to get some help or at least advice from somebody. And fairly soon, before Chris does something else."

  Sharon turned to look back into the darkened room as Chris twisted and mumbled in his sleep, his briefs a white slash against his dark skin. "I’ve been thinking about that...Chris is generally a good kid and he usually has good intentions." Sharon took a deep breath and began the speech she had rehearsed on the short plane ride to Greensboro. "So far the doctors, Dr. Murance anyway, have been mostly concerned in diagnosing his condition. Although I, too, would like to know what caused it, the most important thing is getting Chris to acknowledge what he has and helping him make good use of it. Bob, you know my views on God and miracles and whatever. This ability of Chris' could be good. I’m sure this skill or power or miracle of his - whatever you want to call it - could be put to a positive, beneficial use. Helping people or something. Maybe we shouldn't be that quick to exorcise it or get rid of it. Maybe we should just let it be for a while and work with Chris. Help him figure it out on his own."

  She held up her hand as her husband tried to interject. "Bob, I’m worried, if we turn him over to the doctors in these institutions that Dr. Murance hinted at, we would lose him. The choices would be taken away from us and... and we would lose our only child."

  "But Sharon, can he restrain it? It was you who yanked him out of the hospital, slapped a blindfold around his head and flew him here. I mean, it sounds like things were pretty much out of control back there."

  "Chris said this afternoon, while we were still in Nashville, that he was fine as long as he wasn't near whatever it is back in Detroit. And I believe him. He trashed poor Dr. Murance's office and his own classroom, but he just as gently plopped that Coke can into your hands a while ago. I think we have to trust he knows best - right now anyway."

  Bob leaned back against the iron railing of the balcony, holding both of Sharon's hands in his own. "What do you want to do?"

  "I’d like us to stay together for a week. Just the three of us. Travelling in your truck, like we did when Chris was little. If, in a week, Chris doesn't have any more trouble. We can decide what to do then."

  "What happens if he does have problems?"

  "Then we call Dr. Murance and take Chris to the nearest hospital."

  Bob stood silent, Sharon’s hands still within his. "Okay...I'll buy that. Besides we never did get a vacation together this summer. We’ll just call it a late summer vacation."

  Sharon pulled her husband towards her, his arms opening to hold her against his chest, where he held her tight - until she became aware of his silent laughter.

  Sharon leaned her head back to look up into his grinning face, her worries draining away as she felt herself smiling at his obvious mirth. "What are you laughing at?"

  "Tomorrow. I've got twenty skids of dog food on the trailer, and the fork-lift driver at the food warehouse I deliver to always makes me wait till after lunch to unload. Maybe I’ll have Chris move the whole load onto his dock during his coffee break. I can just see the old bugger's face now... Coming back from his break, the dock full of dog food and his fork-lift keys still in his pocket."

  In spite of herself, Sharon laughed along with him. "Bob, that is not exactly the idea of helping the world, that I had in mind."

  Bob squeezed her tight and then bent down to kiss her on the lips. "No, but it would help his old man out, and that has got to count for something."

  SEVEN - FOUR

  "Bob, there’s still no answer at Beth's." Sharon said, as she climbed back in the rig, parked at the fuel pumps of a 76'Truck Stop. "It’s been two day's now and I’m getting worried."

  Bob turned in his seat, the big, eighteen-speed gear shift lever between the two of them. "Do you think she could be at work?"

  "I tried the hospital too. I even talked to the nurses on Todd's wing. They said Beth hasn't been up to see him since three days ago. Which was the last time Beth and I visited him together."

  "Did she have any plans to do something with Charlie. I mean like some sort of celebration, outside of Detroit, or something?"

  "No, not that I know of. Besides, she usually visits Todd every day. I can't see her travelling anyplace with him still in the hospital."

  "Did Aunt Beth go back to see Uncle Charlie?" Chris asked, from the sleeping area in the rear of the cab.

  Sharon turned in her seat. "I suspect so, she hadn't seen him in two weeks and... Well, she was looking forward to seeing him. A lot!

  "Maybe she shouldn't have done that." Chris said simply, his eyes focussed past his mother’s as he gazed out the large windshield.

  "Chris, what do you mean, she shouldn't have done that? You mentioned before you were worried about your Uncle Charlie. Do you really think he is part of this thing?

  The fuel attendant hammered on the side of the cab, signalling he had finished fuelling the double tanks and Bob opened his door to climb down.

  "I don't know..." Chris responded, his eyes only briefly meeting his mother's, "but when I that thing spoke to me in my dreams, it sounded like the way Uncle Charlie talks and I’m sure it was Uncle Charlie that brought it back to Detroit." Chris' eyes followed his father's back as he walked with the fuel attendant towards the cashier's booth, then he added quietly, "I think it has got Uncle C
harlie and maybe some other people too."

  "What do you mean got - like you?"

  "Yes." Chris answered in the same small voice.

  "So, you think something has happened to Uncle Charlie, like what it did to you?"

  "No, not exactly...not exactly the same things it did to me...but something similar, but maybe even worse."

  Sharon twisted around in her seat and placed both of her hands on either side of Chris' head, forcing him to look directly into her eyes. "Chris, have I done the right thing by taking you out of the hospital and suggesting that we go away for a week? Tell me now! We can check you into a hospital right here if you think that you need that sort of support."

  "No!" Chris said assertively, his eyes meeting his mother's gaze for the first time. "Hospitals can't help me at all right now. Dr. Murance told us both, that what has happened inside my head can't be removed. And I’ve read a lot, Mom. I mean a lot! I’ve read dozens of books on the brain and the body and I know what’s happening to me now and how it’s affecting me. All I need is time to learn how to deal with it."

  Chris reached up and removed his mother's hands from his head, slowly lowering her hands cupped within his own. "Mom, when I’ve got it figured out and I know I can control it, then maybe you could take me to a hospital or someplace like that. But by then, I bet I’ll be helping them understand!"

  Sharon nodded, relieved in her decision. "But what about Beth? Do you really think that your Uncle Charlie is a danger? I don't like using the word...possessed. But that is what I mean. Do you think your Uncle is somehow possessed by this thing, this gold machine you found?"

  "Mom, I don't know. But if I saw Uncle Charlie walking towards me right now, I’d run away. That’s how I feel about Uncle Charlie."

  "Okay." Sharon turned away, reaching for the door handle. "You wait here, I am going to talk to your father about this."

  Chris had no problem entertaining himself while his mother and father discussed his Aunt and Uncle. His father returned briefly to move the rig away from the pumps and into the truck parking area. Then with only a couple of words about the asshole who had taken up two parking places beside him, he climbed down from the cab, leaving the engine running for the air conditioning and joined Sharon inside the restaurant.