The Masked Family

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  Crystal's job, apparently, was to pull the wagon and point to shells. She did it with the same level of enthusiasm she might have shown if she were scrubbing a toilet. Her long, black hair didn't even bother to flutter in the breeze from the gulf.

  One thing was clear. Mom and the kids weren't collecting shells for fun. Profit, maybe, but not fun.

  Cary hated to see them that way, unhappy as they were...but at least they were alive and looked healthy. Considering he hadn't known for sure until that morning if they were alive or dead, that in itself was a huge victory.

  He just hoped that they were as healthy on the inside as on the outside. He hoped that Crystal and Drill, especially Drill, hadn't ruined them yet.

  Then again, sometimes he thought those kids could handle anything. How else could they have lived through what they had, with two such lousy influences in their lives, and still turn out so well?

  Now, Crystal had her good days--her good months,

  even--when she was clean and clear-headed and decent. It had been during one of those times when Cary had fallen for her.

  Unfortunately, ninety percent of her times weren't so good. She was a trampoline-style addict, constantly bouncing on and off drugs. The more smack or crack or meth she had, the meaner and crazier she got...and the more she wanted Drill.

  That was when things got truly ugly all around. Not only was Drill a full-time drug user and alcoholic, but he was a full-blown criminal, too. According to Crystal, he'd even killed some people.

  What had really bothered Cary the most, though, were the stories Glo and Late told him about their visits to Daddy's place. Drill had wild parties that kept the kids up all night. He did things with women right in front of them.

  He screamed at the kids and slapped them around. He and his friends told them x-rated jokes and stories.

  And some of those friends told Glo how pretty she was and what they were going to do to her.

  When Cary had realized how bad things were with Drill, he'd ended the kids' visits. That was when Crystal had turned against him once and for all...and Drill had kicked the crap out of him.

  And threatened to kill him. Torture him first, then kill him.

  So that was the kind of father those poor kids had. That was why Cary had raced after them, and why it was so hard for him to hold back from whisking them away right at that moment.

  But he had to hold back.

  El Yucatango had pounded that thought into his head, and Cary knew he'd been right. They had to wait for the right moment, and they had to be prepared. Charging in willy nilly would be a mistake...though charging in was what The Hurry did best.

  For now, it was better to watch and plan. Every detail he saw could help him succeed in rescuing Glo and Late.

  He studied the ramshackle cottage where they were staying, about a quarter of a mile up the beach. He studied the shacks and cottages around it, noting which ones looked empty and which ones had occupants. He memorized the layout of the roads and paths and dunes.

  He studied Crystal's expressions and movements to determine how stoned she was.

  Every detail could be critical, especially when it came to double-crossing El Yucatango.

  The washed-up wrestling super-hero hadn't come along this morning. For one thing, his hair horn and costume would have been too conspicuous for the stakeout. For another thing, he was busy making preparations for the big match against El Demonio del Diamante...in other words, Cary in disguise.

  But Cary wasn't planning on wrestling him. He didn't want anything to do with digging up El Demonio's corpse, and he knew it wouldn't be smart to hang around town after snatching the kids.

  So Cary's mind was set on double-crossing his super-pal. Somehow, while saving Glo and Late and escaping Drill and Crystal, he would cut loose El Yucatango.

  It wasn't in keeping with the super-hero code, but it had to be done. The kids were Nuclear Family, and El Yucatango wasn't.

  More than that, Cary had to make up for not saving them sooner...and he had to make up for not saving someone else he loved a long time ago.

  As he watched the kids fill the buckets in the wagon with shells, he had a familiar feeling. It was the same feeling he'd had when he was a kid himself, and Blacksheep had shut off all the lights and taken Paisley and Baron and Celeste into the basement.

  Cary felt like he was alone in the darkness again, at the top of the stairs, and it was up to him to save the day. Not save the day from a make-believe menace, but a real and terrible danger.

  Rubbing the Starbeam Ring on his pinky, he wished for his powers...and he wished for a sign. He looked around as best he could under the huge sombrero, reaching out for anything even the least bit extraordinary on which he could fix his hopes.

  He saw sand and water and seagulls and the pink and gold flare of the sunrise. He saw a brown dog with mangled paws wobble past. Sheets on cottage clotheslines rippled in the soft morning breeze.

  Then, at last, he got his sign.

  As Late stayed close to Crystal and the wagon, Glo faded back by herself. She bent down and picked up a handful of shells, then stood for a moment and stared out at the gulf. Her fine brown hair fluttered in the breeze as she gazed into the distance, lost in thought.

  Then, she suddenly turned, as if she'd heard a loud noise, and stared right at Cary.

  He held his breath but did not look away. As she kept staring, he had a strong feeling that their eyes met over the distance.

  And then she grinned. She cocked her head to one side and grinned.

  As if she knew it was Cary under the beard and sombrero.

  She didn't wave or shout or come toward him, but he had a feeling that she recognized him. She stood for a moment and stared and grinned before trotting along after her mother. Instead of trudging like before, she had a definite spring in her step.

  It was enough of a sign for Cary. Up until then, he'd had his doubts about whether he would succeed.

  Now, he was feeling so confident, he was even starting to think he might get his powers back.

  *****

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Spangler, Pennsylvania, 2006

  "Did you ever wonder why none of us has had kids yet?" said Baron as he walked Pretzel around the parking lot of the Coal Seam Café in Spangler. "I mean, you'll be the first, Paisley."

  "Don't remind me," said Paisley.

  Pretzel sniffed the weeds along the parking lot's rim, hunting for the right spot to piss on. Baron, Paisley, and Celeste walked after him, watching and waiting because they'd finished eating in the restaurant and had nothing better to do until the dog did his business.

  "Here we are, all of us in our forties, and none of us has had a kid yet." Baron's white Oxford shirt was wrinkled and untucked, his necktie haphazardly loosened. He'd given up on the impossible task of trying to look neat while managing the dog.

  "Cary's thirty-nine," said Celeste.

  "Close enough." Baron tugged Pretzel's leash, pulling him away from another animal's feces in the grass. "So why are we such freaks? Most people have had at least one kid by now."

  "Who're you callin' a freak?" said Paisley. "You're the one shootin' blanks, Baron."

  "Not me," said Baron. "It's just all my relationships keep turning to shit. Every woman I've dated, I've hated."

  "Because you hate yourself," said Paisley. "You wouldn't want to sleep with any woman who'd sleep with a dick like you."

  Baron gave her a nasty look, then laughed.

  "I can't meet the right person, either." Celeste sighed. She combed a hand through her blonde hair, pushing it back off her forehead. "Not that that's the be-all and end-all for me."

  "At least Baron's got a kid substitute," said Paisley. "Hell, lots of people would rather have a dog than a kid."

  "When did you get him, anyway?" said Celeste.

  Baron steered Pretzel away from another pile of feces. "Last week. Right after the whole f-bomb incident at the TV station. It was an impulse adoption."r />
  "You could've called, you know," said Celeste. "If you needed someone to talk to."

  "What I want to know is why you picked the cripple," said Paisley. "Was he all they had left at the shelter?"

  "I felt sorry for him." Baron watched Pretzel as he squatted in the weeds. "He was a stray. When they found him, some kids were whaling rocks at him."

  "That's terrible," said Celeste.

  "He'd had a shitty life, and they were going to put him down the next day."

  "Dead dog walking, huh?" said Paisley.

  Baron smiled. "I thought I knew how he felt." Reaching into his pants pocket, he fished out a bone-shaped dog biscuit. As soon as Pretzel finished pooping, the dog spun around with his ears perked up, and Baron tossed him the biscuit.

  Pretzel caught the biscuit in one snap and gobbled it up in a feeding frenzy.

  "So what happened to your fear of dogs?" said Paisley.

  "Pretzel isn't a dog." Baron tossed out another biscuit. "Not all people look alike, you know."

  "I sponsor kids in Africa." Celeste kicked a pebble into the weeds. "It's one of those feed the starving children things. They send me drawings."

  "But do you want a kid of your own?" Baron let Pretzel prowl a little further around the parking lot perimeter.

  Celeste shrugged. "What about you?"

  "Yeah." Baron grinned and nodded. "I want four, just like the old Nuclear Family."

  "You can have mine," said Paisley.

  "There's my first," said Baron.

  "Second, if you count Pretzel," said Celeste.

  "Seriously." Paisley patted her swollen stomach. "This baby right here is yours. I sure as hell don't want it."

  "You'll feel differently after it's born," said Baron.

  "Maybe I'd feel different if somebody hadn't locked me in a cellar for the last eight and a half months to force me to have it." Paisley punched Baron's shoulder hard enough to make him gasp. "Tag, you're it! The baby's yours!"

  "That's just way too incesty," said Celeste.

  "I'm not kidding, fuck-man," said Paisley. "I'd get busy on that nursery, if I were you."

  "Thanks, but I'm not taking your baby." Baron started steering Pretzel toward Paisley's Toyota, which was parked beside the restaurant.

  "I don't remember asking your permission," said Paisley. "I'm naming him Baron Junior. Or Baroness."

  Suddenly, Celeste interrupted. "It's because of what happened when we were kids."

  "What?" Baron and Paisley both said it at the same time.

  "We're afraid the same thing might happen to our kids," said Celeste. "That's why we haven't had any."

  "Till Baron Junior," said Paisley.

  Baron frowned. "The fire."

  Celeste nodded. "I wonder what things might've been like for us if Grogan had never come along."

  "Sometimes I wish he were still alive," said Baron, "just so I could find him and kick the shit out of him."

  "He'd still find a way to come out smelling like a rose," said Celeste. "How he got away with what he did, I'll never know."

  "Like the night he was going to kill us in the basement," said Baron.

  "Exactly," said Celeste. "I still believe to this day he would've gone through with it if they hadn't stopped him."

  "I have a theory." Baron opened the rear door on the driver's side of the Toyota. "I think Grogan had an accomplice."

  "An accomplice?" said Paisley.

  "One of us." Baron waved Pretzel up onto the back seat. "How else could Grogan always stay a step ahead of us?"

  "No way." Celeste shook her head. "One of us would never betray the others to him."

  "So who was it?" said Paisley. "Who was Grogan's accomplice?"

  "I have my suspicions," said Baron. "All I know right now is that if I were that person, I'd have a hard time living with myself after what happened."

  "Sometimes, I can't believe we lived through it at all," said Celeste.

  "Not all of us did," said Paisley.

  "Those were bad times," said Baron as he ducked down into the car.

  "At least we survived," said Paisley.

  "And the person we owe our lives to is missing." Celeste opened the car door and got in behind the wheel. "The one person we should've been there for is gone."

  *****

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 1977

  What would The Hurry do in a situation like this?

  That was what Cary asked himself as he stood in the darkness at the top of the stairs, listening to Paisley and Celeste screaming in the basement.

  He wouldn't stand around doing nothing, that's for sure.

  Cary had waited long enough already, hoping that the situation would resolve itself. If the lights were coming back on and Mom and Dad were coming to the rescue, it wouldn't be anytime soon.

  So it was all up to him. His brother and sisters' lives were riding on what he did next, and he had to do it immediately.

  The screams were getting worse all the time.

  When you need your powers most, they will come to you. That was what E.Q. had told him.

  Cary couldn't imagine a time when he would need those powers more. He rubbed the Starbeam Ring on his right index finger and wished as hard as he could that his body would be infused with super-speed abilities and his mind with super-fast thinking.

  Then, heart racing like the heart of The Hurry, he gazed into the darkness of the living room below.

  He could see no movement in that sea of black. Between screams from the basement, he heard no telltale sounds of someone moving in the shadows.

  The fact that Cary couldn't see or hear any movement, and the girls were still screaming like someone was tormenting them, made him think Grogan was still in the basement. It was probably safe to go downstairs.

  And then what?

  Cary took the deepest breath ever and started down the stairs, guiding himself with a sweaty hand skimming over the wall. As he waded into the pitch blackness lapping at the base of the stairs, he thought about what he was going to do next. It made him so nervous that his bowels twisted, and he wanted to go to the bathroom...but he had to keep moving.

  He knew one thing for sure: he couldn't just wait for Grogan to come after him. He had to do what Grogan himself always did best and use the element of surprise.

  He had to trick Blacksheep, and he had to do it fast.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he felt his way around the corner into the kitchen. There was just a little more light out there, the glow from a neighbor's garage light trickling in through the sheer curtains over the windows.

  Cary stood for a moment in the middle of the room and thought as hard as he could. A scene came to him from Nuclear Family Comics #115, "Starmageddon: Day One": to stop the Universoid from destroying Achilles Tactile and the Fairborn, The Hurry staged a distraction. He gathered up a thousand fire sirens from around the world and set them all off at once in the Universoid's secret lair, enabling Spellerina, Moon Girl, and Musclebot to free Achilles and the Fairborn.

  Start with a distraction.

  As quietly as he could, Cary pulled open the big cupboard beside the stove and lifted out pots and pans. He padded over and stacked them on the floor near the basement door.

  While the bad guy's distracted, hit him with everything you've got.

  Next, Cary opened the refrigerator and pulled out cartons of milk and juice and eggs. He put them in a second pile on the floor near the first, adding tomatoes, apples, ground beef, leftover spaghetti, and jars of pickles and mayonnaise.

  Then, the screaming stopped, and so did Cary. He froze in the middle of the kitchen, listening for the creaking of Grogan's weight on the stairs coming up from the basement.

  Cary's heart pounded like the fist of a man buried alive pounding on a coffin lid. For one dark moment, he thought of throwing open the back door and running for his life.

  But he knew he couldn't leave, not when every second might mean the differen
ce between life and death for his brother and sisters. The screams might have stopped because Paisley and Celeste had passed out...or they might have been dying.

  Cary heard no creaking on the basement stairs, but he knew time was running out. That was when he reached for one last thing.

  He opened a drawer under the kitchen counter and drew out the big, broad knife Lydia used to chop onions.

  He felt a little guilty as he put it on the floor by his piles of ammunition. Mom and Dad had told him never to play with knives, and the Nuclear Family never used them in the comics. Cary knew how dangerous they were.

  But he didn't plan to use the knife to hurt anybody. He just needed it to threaten Grogan. He needed Grogan to be as afraid of him as he was afraid of Grogan.

  Just then, as Cary put down the knife, he heard noises from the basement. Someone was moving around down there.

  Maybe Grogan was getting ready to come upstairs.

  It's time it's time it's time.

  Breathing fast, shaking, lightheaded, Cary reached for the basement door's knob.

  He turned it slowly, trying not to make a sound.

  And then he hurled the door wide open.

  There was some kind of flickering light down there--a candle, maybe? It was just enough for Cary to see the stairs, and that no one was coming up them yet.

  Do it do it do it!

  Cary grabbed a stack of pots and pans...then hesitated. Once he threw them, there would be no turning back. No more chances to make a run for it.

  He threw them.

  The pots and pans clattered and banged the whole way down the stairs. They hopped off the wall at the bottom and bounded left into the basement.

  Cary snagged another stack and pitched them after the first. Again, there was banging and bonging and clanging the whole way down, then a bounce against the wall at the bottom and a clattering crash.

  Before Cary could throw down the last few, he heard another crash from below. This one didn't sound as much like a pot or pan crashing to a halt as it sounded like someone chucking a pot or pan hard against a wall or floor.