Charles smiled but refused a reply as he focused on the orb of water he made rise up from the pool. Then he dropped his arms. The orb of water fell back into the pool with a loud splash. Clark looked at Charles who looked exhausted.
“Are you okay?” Clark asked him.
“Yeah, felt like lifting a few hundred pounds though,” Charles said.
“I’m next,” said Sarah. She turned to the set of tables and cleared every thought from her mind. Sarah placed the index and middle finger of her right hand up to her temple and concentrated. The tables began moving abruptly. They shook for a moment until Sarah concentrated a little harder. Then the tables began to stack on top of one another. Sarah stopped focusing after stacking four tables.
“You’re great,” Clark smiled to her.
Chloe then took a turn by focusing just as hard. She looked at the same tables and mentally moved them back into their original places.
“Yes!” Donny said as he hugged her.
Donny and John then looked to the tennis court and spotted a cart of a hundred tennis balls. Donny rubbed his palms together and John swept his hair back. They looked at one another and then back at the cart of tennis balls. They concentrated and the cart began to move. They concentrated a little harder and the cart tipped overs. The tennis balls from the cart jumped into the air and swooped at them. As the balls shot at the six of them, John and Donny stretched their arms out.
Afraid the balls might hit him, Donny closed his eyes. With his arms still outstretched, he opened his eyes and discovered the balls were suspended in the air. The tennis balls had stopped just a few inches away from them in mid-air. John laughed with his arms still lifted.
“Look!” John said, “It’s unreal!”
The others jeered as John and Donny let their arms down. The balls immediately fell onto the ground.
“Think of the possibilities,” Chloe said.
“This is the power of God,” Donny said. “Charles is right. This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen… or done!”
“Now it’s my turn,” Clark said. Clark turned back toward the pool and they followed him.
“You can’t lift the water!” Charles said, “I already did that!”
“I’m not about to lift the water!” Clark told him.
“Then what ya ‘bout to do?” Charles asked.
“What I’m about to do is gonna be pretty damn cool if it works. And if it doesn’t work I’m gonna look like a complete ass.”
Clark cleared his mind and took a deep breath. They others looked at him with deep anticipation. He turned around and saw Sarah. She nodded. “She believes in me,” Clark thought, “so I can do it.” He put one foot out in front of the other and stepped onto the pool. He lifted his other foot and placed it on top of the pool as well. He looked down and discovered himself standing on the base of the water.
“You can walk on water!” Charles laughed with surprise. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”
Clark turned around and winked at them. He slowly took another step and then another. He walked on top of the water to the center of the pool. Then he turned around and walked back. With each step, he felt an exhilarating surge; a force of immense power within him.
“I can’t believe it,” Clark said as he stepped off of the pool and back onto the ground.
“What do we do with this?” Donny asked.
“We do whatever we want,” Charles said. “Anything your heart desires. I think I may use it to pick up chicks.”
“They’ll think you’re a freak,” Donny said.
“Hey, isn’t that what they already think about you?” Charles laughed.
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Chloe snapped.
“Cool it, sweetheart. I was just kidding,” Charles joked while raising his hands.
“Leave him alone, Charles,” Clark said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Donny assured them. “And I think what we’ve got are the powers of telekinesis.”
“Sounds familiar,” John said. “Like out of a sci-fi story.”
“Psychokinetic,” Chloe chimed in. “The ability to control the movement of any object with one’s mind.”
“Are these any exceptions?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know,” Chloe said. “We’d have to just try everything and find out.”
They spent the remainder of the day at Charles’s place. The six of them continued to be marveled at their amazing feats. Even something as mundane as eating lunch became a time to utilize their unique powers. Charles used his abilities to mentally control his silverware as he ate. He then made the food jump directly into his mouth. The others tried the same trick to varying success. Donny attempted it and a piece of steak went flying directly at his face and hit him in the left eye. They all laughed about it afterwards.
At the end of the day, Charles offered to drive them all home. Chloe and Donny opted to walk home and discover what they could do while walking through the city. Eventually, Clark and Sarah got into the car with Charles and John. Charles dropped Sarah off first and Clark thought he noticed her father peering at them from a window on the third floor apartment.
“I think her dad was looking at us,” Clark said from the backseat. “Probably wondering why Sarah was gone all day.”
“Sounds to me like he’s an overprotective schmuck,” Charles said. “He’ll get over it.”
Charles drove off and headed toward the direction that Clark lived.
“Did either of you ever contact Big Dan or Andrew?” Clark asked.
“No,” John said. “I tried calling Andrew a few times. No answer.”
“I just remembered,” Charles told them. “Today was Big Dan’s eighteenth birthday. What a birthday surprise he got.”
“I hope they’re doing okay,” John said.
“Don’t worry,” said Charles. “We’ll see them tomorrow during school hours.”
Clark arrived home at sunset and his parents asked what he was doing out all day. He truthfully told them he was at Charles’s place and they asked no further questions. They knew Charles was a rich kid with enough gadgets to keep anyone occupied. His mother prepared a roast that evening and Clark cleaned his plate at a record pace.
“Wow,” his mother said. “Really hungry today?”
“Yeah, mom,” Clark said. “Now I’m kinda not feeling to well.”
“You shouldn’t have eaten so fast, honey,” his mother said.
“Go lay down,” his father told him. “You’ve been out gallivanting all day. You could probably use some rest. I know I can.”
Clark took his advice and went up to his room. He lied in bed as thoughts of every sort ran through his mind. He wasn’t sure what to do next. He simply felt anxious by the possibilities of what he could do. It was pressure without pressure. He lied in bed for hours until he realized his phone was ringing. He looked at his phone and saw Sarah’s name listed half a dozen times.
“Hey Sarah!” Clark said after finally answering the phone.
“I’ve called you six times, Clark!”
“Sorry,” he said. “I just sort of zoned out.”
“I don’t blame you,” Sarah said assuredly. “This is all just so strange. You haven’t told your parents, have you?”
“No,” Clark answered. “Have you?”
“No, they’d freak out. I think this is something we should keep secret.”
“Definitely.”
“I just don’t know what to think about all of this,” Sarah confided over the phone. “We’re at a party, we touch some really strange thing, and now we can mentally move objects. How long will this last? Is it forever?”
“I don’t know,” Clark told her. “I feel like I can’t even think straight.”
“Getting to sleep tonight is going to be a bitch,” Sarah laughed in order to cheer him up.
Clark agreed with her entirely. When they were finished speaking, he continued to just lie in bed thinking about the crystal. “Where did it come from? Ho
w did it do this to us?” he thought. It took several more hours but after racking his brain, Clark finally fell asleep from exhaustion.
***
John was back at his own untidy place on Monday morning. He didn’t quite know what to think of his new powers but he decided to use them in the neatest ways. After stepping out of the shower he reached his arm out and mentally commanded a towel to sweep into his hand. When John was ready to get dressed, he placed his pants and shirt on by hand but tried something different for the rest of his clothing.
He focused on a drawer full of clothes. After looking at it for a split second, the drawer slowly opened and a pair of socks flew into the air. John sat on his bed and lifted his feet up. Using his hand to guide them by the powers of telekinesis, the socks swooped in his direction and planted themselves firmly on his large pale feet.
Then John used those same powers to make a hoodie jacket rise from the floor and wrap around him. He placed his shoes on by hand but used his mind to make the shoestrings tie themselves.
“I feel like master of the universe,” John said to himself. “Powers that would make Spider-Man jealous.”
He made his backpack jump into his arms before throwing it over his shoulder. Then John pointed at his bedroom door and with a single twirl of his finger the door flew open with a loud thud. It was enough to wake his father.
“What’s that noise!?” he heard his dad slur from the living room recliner.
“Nothing!” John yelled from his room. “Go back to sleep, old man!”
John entered the living room where his father had indeed fallen back into a deep sleep. The small square television was turned on to the old seventies film “Carrie.” The film was watching John’s father rather than him watching it. John walked past the living room and went into the kitchen. It was a small room with dirty pots and pans strewn about. Cobwebs were in every corner. Worse, the kitchen reeked of a foul stench.
John walked over to the sink. He stared at the faucet and it turned on with a loud creak. Water poured out of it and John turned his focus to the pots and pans within the sink. Slowly they moved about the sink as the water rinsed them. John looked at a small rag which jumped up and began cleaning the pots. By John’s doing, the pots and pans and dishes were washing themselves.
As the dishes were rattling through the sink, John turned to face a small door in the kitchen. He zoned in on the door and it flew open. A broom whisked out and began sweeping the floor. John’s accomplishment put him in a fit of giggles until his father awoke again and heard the clanging of pots and pans.
“What’s that goddamn noise!?” his father yelled.
The yelling broke John’s concentration. The broom fell to the floor and he quickly used his powers to cut the faucet off once the sink was empty.
“I said what’s that noise!?” his father yelled.
John exited the kitchen and went into the living room. His father was standing up with his prosthetic leg on and leaning on a cane. John said nothing as his father hobbled over to him.
“When I ask you a question,” his father growled, “you better answer, you little queer. You hear me, boy?”
His father lifted his hand up and slapped John as hard in the face as he possibly could. His face red with rage, John kept his head down and kept his anger at bay.
“Now get the hell out of my sight,” his father said angrily.
John took a deep breath and walked to the front door. He opened the door and looked at his father before leaving for school.
“I was cleaning the kitchen. I’m sure you’re thankful,” John said as sarcastically as possible.
He left the house and as he walked down the steps, John used his powers to slam the door shut. It slammed so hard that the porch even shook lightly. The walk to the bus stop allowed him to blow off steam and when he noticed Andrew Lockman standing at the corner in the small group of kids, he even nudged a smirk.
“Hey!” John said to Andrew.
Andrew waved.
“Experienced anything strange lately?” John asked him.
Andrew nodded and kissed his rosary.
“Freaky in a cool kinda way, right?” John asked.
“I don’t know,” Andrew said. “This is the strangest thing that ever happened to me. It was the crystal in that barn, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” John answered. “It couldn’t have been anything else.”
“I was terrified at first,” Andrew said.
“We tried calling both you and Big Dan,” John told him.
“I know,” Andrew said. “I think I was too shocked to talk to any of you.”
“So what do we do with this?” John asked.
“I don’t know,” Andrew said. “But I don’t think I’m terrified of it… for now.”
“It’s amazing,” John said. “The power we could wield.”
“That’s what I consider the terrifying part,” Andrew said. “I don’t think anyone is prepared to levitate things with their mind.”
“All you have to do is concentrate and anything is possible,” John said.
“But should it be?” Andrew asked.
John didn’t stop to think about his question as their school bus stopped at the corner to pick them up only seconds later. John and Andrew hopped aboard and sat next to one another.
“I’ve been thinking what I could do with this,” Andrew said.
“Like what?”
“Not exactly sure,” Andrew told him. “Just a way to benefit myself while keeping this a secret. I spoke to Big Dan yesterday. You know it was his birthday.”
“Yeah,” John said. “Charles told me.”
“Hell of a way to spend your birthday.”
“How’s he doing?” John asked. “Y’know, after all of this?”
“He’s okay,” Andrew said. “I think.”
“You don’t regret this, do you?” John asked him.
“I don’t know. I haven’t changed as a person. I don’t even know what these powers really mean. I’m still the same Andrew Lockman. I guess only time will tell.”
When they arrived at school Andrew continued down the first hallway while John went searching for his other friends.
Clark was in the lounge room sitting in a plush chair. Sarah was on the arm of the chair, her arms around Clark. They were both talking to Charles and going about their morning as if nothing were any different when John walked in.
“Hey John,” Clark waved.
“What’s up, guys?” John asked.
“Yo! Everybody’s cool,” Charles told him.
“I just saw Andrew,” John said.
“Great,” said Clark. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s okay,” John informed them. “He’s doing well.”
“Of course he is!” Charles said. “Like the rest of us, he’s doing brilliant.”
“I was always planning to try out for the football team,” Clark told them. “Now that I’ve got a little edge, there’s no way I won’t make it.”
“You’re gonna be quarterback,” Sarah said as she hugged him and planted a kiss on his lips. “Next year we’ll be voted best couple, guaranteed. Then we’ll go off to college and be the best at whatever it is we decide to do.”
“I can raise a drink to that,” Charles laughed. “And I finally caught up with Big Dan earlier.”
“Andrew told me he was cool” John said.
“He’s cool as a cucumber,” Charles answered. “He’s lovin’ every bit of his new powers. In fact, after school, me and Big Dan are driving back out to the barn.”
“What for?” John asked.
“Answers,” Charles said. “You joining us?”
“Yeah, sure,” John said.
“I’m in,” Clark agreed.
“I can’t,” Sarah told them. “Cheerleading practice is after school today.”
“It’s okay,” Clark told her. “I’ll tell you what you miss.”
“Awesome,” Sarah said. “Ah─ class time, I’ve go
t to go. Bye.” Sarah hopped off of Clark and left the student lounge. Clark stared in her direction until she disappeared from sight. His gaze offered just a fragment of his infatuation.
“You still haven’t told me all the dirty details,” Charles laughed.
“And I’m not about to,” Clark said.
“Sarah’s right,” John said. It’s about time for class to start.”
They each left the lounge. Charles extended both of them a slap on the shoulder and walked away in order to flirt with a few girls on his way to class. Clark and John both walked together to their first period history class.
“So when’s the football tryouts?” John asked him once they made it into the classroom and sat next to one another.
“Tomorrow,” Clark told him.
“Maybe I should try out too,” John laughed.
“Seriously?”
“No way. I don’t even know how to play football. Something about kicking a stitched ball through a goal. That’s all I know,” John laughed again.
“Well find the one thing that you’re good at,” Clark said. “And now you’ll be great at it.”
“I don’t think I’m good at anything,” John sighed. “Except brooding.”
“Nah, man. You’re selling yourself short,” Clark told him. “You’ve just got to find something you’re passionate about.”
“Good evening class,” the history teacher, Mrs. Tessler, grabbed their attention as she walked through the door. “Today’s lecture will be all about our city.”
Mrs. Tessler passed out papers titled, “The Queen City.” She then stood in front of the class and began rambling about the city’s most prominent attributes.
“The cure for Polio was found in Cincinnati. Cincinnati is home of the first professional baseball team and America’s first professional fire department. Oh, and seven U.S. Presidents hailed from our state,” the teacher waxed poetically.
Half way into the class, Clark and John turned to one another as the teacher dimmed the lights and played the class a video. John positioned his hands in the shape of a goal and Clark used telekinesis to make a paper football jump through John’s fingers. They went back and forth making the piece of paper whiz through the air until the teacher turned the lights back on.
Ascension (The Ascension Series) Page 7
