by Nat Kozinn
Tom spent the next few days in the swamps, wondering when the Houston Metro Police were going to track him down. After five days, Tom realized that there was too much ground for the police to cover. They were not going to find him.
Tom pondered his options. He did not want to spend his life hiding in the swamps. He had not meant to hurt those other players. It was not his fault he was born a Different. He just wished it would all go away. He was a confused and scared fifteen-year-old boy who needed his parents.
Tom decided to make his was back to Houston, back home. He knew his father would be able to fix this. Maybe they could hire a lawyer or get Tom out of the country. There had to be something. The Calhouns were one of the richest families in Houston, there had to be some solution.
Tom waited on the outskirts of the Metro Area until nightfall. He quickly made his way through the edge of the city and into his neighborhood. He approached his house cautiously. He realized his fear was warranted when he spotted three Houston Metro police officers waiting out in front of his massive house. He also saw a light on in his father's study.
Tom made his way around the inattentive officers and climbed up to a second story window into his house. Tom went down the hall to his father's study and did something his mother had told him not to do ever since he was a boy. He knocked on the door.
"Damn it, Lilly, not now!" Oren yelled in response.
Tom sheepishly opened the door anyway.
"Dad," Tom said with tears in his eyes.
"Oh, it's you. I was wondering when you would show up. You have made a real mess here, Tommy. Do you have any idea what you have done to me? To this family? Because of you, I could lose everything I have ever worked for. Are you happy, Tom? Are you glad you won your little football game?"
"Dad, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I didn't mean to hurt anybody."
"Don't you call me ‘Dad.’ You are no son of mine. I wouldn't father an abomination. You must belong to some vagrant your whore mother slept with on one of her benders!"
"Please stop. It was an accident. Tell me what I should do. Help me, please," Tom pleaded.
"I'll tell you what you should do! You should march downstairs and turn yourself in to the police. Let them deal with you however they deal with freaks. Better yet, go hang yourself. That way I won't have to spend my life answering questions about my monster of a son!" Oren yelled.
Tom looked at his father through tear-filled eyes, watching for something, some sign of love, some sign of compassion, but all he saw was hate. Oren was a father who hated his own son. Tom felt a lifetime of resentment boil up inside of him.
"I'm a monster? What about you! What about a father who ignores his own son? What about a man who loves money more than his own family? All I ever wanted was for you to notice me, but you couldn't be bothered."
Tom stormed over to his father and picked him up out of his chair. Tom held the man up in the air by his arms, squeezing his dad by the shoulders. It looked like Tom was the father and Oren the child.
"Tom, I..." Oren tried to say, his lips trembling with fear.
"What could I have done make you proud? Answer me! Answer me!" Tom yelled while shaking his father.
Oren tried to say something, but it just sounded like a groan. Tom dropped his father to the ground and watched the man struggle to breathe. Oren's neck was broken, snapped by Tom’s shaking.
That moment, Lilly Calhoun worked up the courage to go see if her husband was all right. When she walked into the study, she saw a monster standing over her dying husband. It only took a moment to realize the monster was her own son. Her little Tommy.
"Mom, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, it was an accident," Tom said to his mother, tears streaming down his face.
"Tommy, my God! What have you done? You're a monster! You're a spawn of the Devil! Get away from my husband!" Lilly Calhoun screamed with all the hate she could muster.
Tom could not stand the hate. He could not stand the thought that he had a mother who despised him. If that was the case, Tom decided he would rather not have a mother. All it took was one good shake.
#
The Beast wakes up on a pile of bones, howling. Thinking of his past is upsetting. It makes him question the Lord's plan. The creature calms himself. He must have faith. The doubt is weakness; hunger causes the weakness. He needs to feed.
The Forgotten who live here are especially vile. Tranq is rampant. The drug infects The Beast's nose, making it hard to smell anything else. It does not matter, though. The Beast has claimed this area. These people belong to him, and they cannot forget that. Feeding on them is safe, at least. The Beast could eat a thousand people out here, and the police would not care.
The Beast heads out of his abandoned apartment-turned-nest and climbs up the remains of the building’s stairs. Once on the roof, The Beast takes a deep breath and listens. He is hoping to hear some prey walking alone. Instead, The Beast hears the sounds of an argument in the distance, one of hundreds of fights he hears most nights, but when he takes a deep breath he howls with excitement. He can smell a fellow Chosen Son. Out here in the slums, what are the chances?
The Beast hurries over to a roof overlooking the argument. There he finds a young Chosen Son. He smells young anyway. He looks like an old geezer. The boy must be a Morpher or something. The Chosen Son is yelling at a man, telling him to leave a human girl alone. What does the fool think he is doing? Why is he letting himself get surrounded?
That Chosen Son is some kind of moron to risk his life to help a Forgotten Daughter. What he’s doing is illegal, even The Beast knows that. The Forgotten are so terrified of the Chosen Sons they cannot even accept the Chosen’s help.
The argument with the thugs soon turns into a fight, and The Beast gets to see the Chosen Son in action. He is more than a Morpher and seems stronger and faster than a normal man, but not by much. He reminds The Beast of himself when he was just a teenager.
The Beast watches as even the minor gifts God gave this Chosen Son make him more dangerous than three men. He is winning the fight and seems poised for victory when he makes a mistake. He turns his back on one of the thugs he shoved to the ground. The man sneaks up behind the boy and hits him in the back of the head with a chunk of B-Crete. The young fool is knocked down, and the man starts kicking and pounding him.
The Beast will not allow this. He will not watch a weak, worthless human kill one of God's Chosen Sons, even a foolish one. The Beast jumps down from the roof and bounds over to the attacker. He tears out the thug's throat with one swipe of his claw and crushes the skulls of the other two injured thugs under his feet. He will not feed on them. They do not deserve salvation.
The Beast turns his attention to the injured Chosen Son.
"In out, in out, in out," he says in time with his breathing
"You okay? You're a fool, you know that?" The Beast says.
"In out, in out, in out," the Chosen Son keeps repeating.
He looks at the boy's tattoo, which says “Gavin Stillman: Gamma,” and some words he does not understand.
"Gavin? Are you all right? Snap out of it!" The Beast yells.
The Beast gives Gavin a little shake, but Gavin just keeps repeating the one phrase. He cannot tell what is wrong with the Chosen Son. His eyes are open and he is breathing, but he is in some kind of daze. The Beast knows he cannot help Gavin. He needs to let the Forgotten Sons save him.
The Beast lifts Gavin gently, cradling him in his arms, and carefully makes his way to the closest Slug station. He jumps up onto the empty platform and waits for the next train. When the Slug comes, he steps into an empty train car, plops Gavin down in one of the seats, and heads off the train.
The Beast leaps up onto a roof across from the train platform. He drops to his knees, closes his eyes, and prays.
“Lord, please, watch over Gavin. Make sure he gets some help. I can’t stand to think that I mighta watched another brother die. Can you tell me if he’s going to be all right? Can you tell me i
f I saved him?”
The Beast waits on his knees for more than a minute, hoping for an answer. It doesn’t come.
9
It shall be unlawful for any Different individual, regardless of intention, abilities, or classification, to take any action against any criminal or crime he or she witnesses or is the victim of unless that Different is protecting himself or herself from an imminent deadly threat.
Article 3 Section 1 of the Different Acts of 1996
"In out, in out, in out," I say out loud.
"Please say something else, buddy," I hear someone say.
I turn to look at the voice. It's Ben, the train conductor who gave me a ride out of Section 26.
"Ben, you should bend your knees and lift with your legs when you take your garbage to the Hoover," I tell him.
"Whatever you say, mister, whatever you say. I'm just glad you finally said something else," Ben says. I can tell he doesn't remember what he told me the last time we saw each other.
"When you gave me a ride to the Barracks you told me that you hurt your back carrying the garbage down to the Hoover. You should be careful. Back injuries only get worse as you age," I say, clueing him in.
"I don't think I'm the one you should be worried about. You look like hell," Ben says. He looks concerned.
He should be. I feel alarms going off all over my body telling me about all sorts of injuries. One of my ribs is broken, and it's causing more damage to my lung with each breath. My right wrist is shattered, and I've got a few busted fingers in my left hand. I feel a crack in my skull too. I reach back to touch the wound, but there's a wad of cloth covering it.
"I bandaged up your head. You were bleeding pretty good," Ben says, anticipating my question.
"Where am I?" I ask.
"You're on the Slug... I guess you already knew that. We're at the yards, end of the line. I found you when I was doing my final check of the train. Do you remember what happened to you? Is there anyone I should call? A son or daughter? Grandson?" Ben asks.
Grandson? What is he talking about…? My face! I've still got all my facial muscles relaxed. He thinks I'm an old man. That's why he doesn't seem to recognize me.
"Do you remember what happened to you?" Ben asks again.
"I was jumped. Some punks attacked me and must have hit me on the head. I don't know how I got here," I answer him. I'm only lying the tiniest bit. I really don't know how I got here.
One of those thugs I fought must have hit me with something hard, right in the back of the head. That would explain the crack and the damage to my brain. It would also explain why I can't remember what happened. I must have had to focus on healing, walking to the Slug, and breathing, not forming new memories. I guess I won the fight, otherwise, I think I'd be in much worse shape, or maybe even dead.
"Sounds like you're lucky to be alive. You’ve got to be careful out here. It's dangerous for old folks this late at night, even ones who look like Jack LaLanne," Ben says.
I don't know who that is, but if I tell him that he might figure out I'm not really an old man.
"What time is it?" I ask. I suddenly realized this is a Friday. I've got work.
"Six in the morning. My shift just ended. You got somewhere to be?"
"Yeah, but I don't think I'm going to make it."
"No, probably not. Takes about an hour and a half just to get anywhere near the Metro Center from way out here. Might take you more than three hours to get to the lab. You should head to platform 3. That Slug is leaving in eight minutes. Are you good to travel?" Ben asks.
"I think I'll be okay," I answer.
"Okay. Well then, good luck. And work on that right cross."
"What?" I ask.
''Work on your punches, in case you get jumped by any more punks. Maybe you can whoop those whippersnappers next time," Ben says as he steps off the train.
I take a moment to gather myself, then stand up and walk out onto the platform. It occurs to me that either Ben is a terrible person who is willing to leave a badly injured elderly man to fend for himself, or he somehow knows I’m not what I appear to be. Come to think of it, how did he know I was headed to a laboratory? I scan around the platform for any sign of him, but he's already disappeared. I guess it will remain a mystery.
I follow the signs to platform 3. Sure enough, there's a Slug waiting with its doors open. I step inside and plop myself down.
I need to keep healing. To fix the crack in my skull, I rush as much blood as I can to my head and metabolize any loose calcium in my system. Even with that, it will take more than a few hours to heal, and I’m going to lose a lot of blood in the meantime. I’m in no shape to make it to work, even if I can make it on time. I’ll have to call in sick.
It takes me over three hours to make it back to the Barracks stop. It was hard for me to recall the Slug system map to find my way home. I'm not even completely sure how long it took because my temporal sense is still off. Everything is a little bit off. I need to heal my brain, and it’s going to take a while. Nerve cells take the longest to regenerate.
The stairs up to my apartment seem to go on forever. My body screams at me with each step. It tells me to lie down and curl into a ball, but I can't yet. Finally, I make it to my apartment, throw open the door, and stumble inside. Nick sits at the counter eating some cereal, probably my cereal. I blow past him without a word and head towards my room.
"Whoa, what the hell is going on here?" Nick yells.
I ignore him and slam the door behind me. I lock it and collapse on the bed. I haven't needed to lie down so badly in years. I might not need to sleep, but getting off my feet feels fantastic. All of my muscles are fatigued.
Nick banging on the door interrupts my peace.
"Hey, what are you doing? Get out, or I'm calling the cops. Who are you?" Nick yells at ten times the volume of a normal scream. It makes my ears ring, but I don't have the wherewithal to flood my Tympanic cavity.
Who am I? What is he talking about? Oh no. I go into the bathroom and see my old man face disguise in the mirror. I never fixed it. I try to tighten the muscles, but my injured brain makes it difficult to concentrate.
"Nick, what's your problem, dude? It's just me. I'm not feeling well," I yell in answer.
He bangs on the door again. Just hearing my voice isn't going to cut it. He could fake my voice if he wanted to, which must make him paranoid about it.
"All right, all right, just a second," I tell him.
I clear my head and focus on making my skin taught. After fifteen seconds, I manage to make myself look like myself. Well, kind of. I still look like crap. I guess that's okay if I'm pretending to be sick.
"What do you want?" I ask as I open the door.
"Gavin, it is you! Sorry, I could have sworn I saw some old dude rush into your room. I must be seeing things." Nick says and tries to look past me into my room.
"Nope, no old dudes here, just me. Now, like I said, I'm not feeling that well." I say and push the door closed in his face.
"I thought you told me you don't get sick," he says through the closed door.
He's right. I should come up with something else to tell the Doctors. Not getting sick is one of the reasons I have my job. I call Dr. Cole on think.Net while I think up the name of an aunt to kill. Poor Aunt May, she went too soon. Let's just hope they don't bother checking my personnel records.
#
It's been five days since my run-in with those punks, and I still can't get my wrist to heal right. I think I messed something up when I regenerated one of the tendons. There's a hitch when I try to move it, and it's getting in the way of my filing.
I go on think.Net and access the Medical Librarian. I know I'm not supposed to go on think.Net at work, but if they catch me, I'll just tell them I messed up my wrist in the shower or something. The Doctors aren't going to need me for hours anyway, and I can't do much of anything with my hand like this.
I bring up the medical diagrams of the wrist. I have what it's suppo
sed to look like memorized, but maybe they have some different images. My wrist looks just like the picture in my head, and it still doesn't work.
I look through all the databases and sure enough, there's an image I haven’t seen before. It shows a different angle and a better view of where the tendon is supposed to attach between my wrists and thumb. I was off by less than a tenth of an inch, but it was enough. I should do a check of my whole anatomy when I get the chance. It will be useful if I'm planning on getting into more trouble.
Why do I keep thinking of getting in more trouble? When I think back to that night, it should make me cringe. Those thugs almost killed me. I still haven't recovered from my injuries. But I don't cringe, and my injuries aren’t what I think of when I remember that night. What first comes to mind is the look of terror on that poor girl's face. I changed that to a look of relief. If it hadn't been for me, who knows what would have happened. I saved her. That girl could have been Becky.
I'm sure that girl is Becky to someone, or she will be one day. There are women like her all over the Metro Area who have to live in fear. And not just women, children and men too. Why should good people have to live in fear? The police can't or won't help them, but maybe I can. I know it's illegal for me to act like some sort of vigilante, but I have a hard time seeing how that matters. Illegal and wrong are not the same thing. Sometimes they might even be the opposite of each other.
I'm snapped out of my pondering by a call on think.Net. It's Gary.
>>>Hey, Gavin. How's it going?
<<
>>>Yeah, I think so. I've never been hungover before. It really sucks. Now I have to wonder why normal people drink if they end up feeling this way. I thought I would die that first morning.
<<
