The Channeler

by William Kline

  The Channeler

  William H. Kline IV

  For the Months,

  and the Years.

  The Channeler Copyright © 2015 by William H Kline IV. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Chris Daemon

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  William H. Kline IV

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: Dec 2018

  Amazon Kindle Direct Publilshing

  ISBN-978 1790702 879

  Chapter One

  People several generations ago talk about remembering where they were and what they were doing during the Kennedy assassination. People of the next-younger generation say the same thing about the attacks of September 11th. But people of this generation, every single one of them, can remember without a doubt what they were doing when the power commonly called ‘magic’ returned to the world. Despite, or maybe because of, all the chaos and calamity that took place afterword, that one moment remains locked in the memory of all humanity.

  For Tommy Nelson, the day was notable because he didn’t have to go to school for a whole week.

  None of the aftermath really affected Tommy at all. When people experienced a new kind of power, saw strange, new things, and went insane from it all, Tommy didn’t care. No one that Tommy knew lashed out in a torrent of power and burned their family alive or destroyed an entire building. When the inevitable government crackdown happened and squads of trained men came to Tommy’s school looking for “mages”, it just meant that Tommy got out of class for the afternoon while they ran the tests. Sure, several of Tommy’s classmates were escorted out of the building, never to be seen again, but what did that matter? All it meant to Tommy was a shorter line at lunch, and he wasn’t very good friends with any of them, anyway. Not really.

  Today was not such a lucky day for Tommy, he reflected, as he sat in class and let the teacher’s words wash over him. The subject was math, and the teacher, Mr. Miller, was droning on about the many uses of some theorem that he’d introduced to the class last week, and Tommy suppressed a brief but intense urge to stand up in the middle of class and shout at Mr. Miller that, yes, they’d gotten it already, and could they please move on?

  For Tommy, that was the worst part of school: the repetition. It sometimes seemed like the goal was not to teach him things, which he loved, but to make him surrender an arbitrary amount of his time for no good purpose, which was something that he simply could not stand.

  With a heavy sigh, Tommy looked longingly at his backpack sitting on the floor. There were two comic books and a science fiction novel in there, any of which he’d much rather be reading. But he’d been caught reading in class several times before, and had gotten in a lot of trouble for it. The first few times, the teacher gave Tommy detention and made him stay after school. At first, Tommy was anxious about that, but he came to realize that detention was just a good excuse to sit and read for an hour, so it stopped bothering him. However, that made Mr. Miller even angrier, and he’d put Tommy into in-school suspension. In-school suspension was even better than detention – in suspension, Tommy didn’t have to go to class at all, and instead got to sit in a quiet room and read for an entire day, with no teachers, parents, friends, or anyone else to bother him. Mr. Miller had also called Tommy’s parents, though, and they didn’t see his suspension for the godsend that it was. His dad was particularly angry with him, and told him that if he got suspended for even one more day, his dad would take all his books and throw them in the fireplace. That got Tommy’s attention really quickly; he knew that his father would make good on his promise, because once when Tommy had accidentally broken his dad’s favorite coffee mug, his dad made Tommy bring him one of his favorite toys, and then he broke it in front of him. Dad said it was to teach him a lesson and to show him what it was like to have something that he cared about be broken by someone else for no reason, but Tommy secretly thought it was to get back at him. Tommy loved his dad, but he didn’t really like his dad.

  The bell rang and startled Tommy out of his reverie. He looked around, blinking for a moment as his fellow students gathered up their notebooks and papers and started to file out of the room. He’d been daydreaming again, of course – yet another problem that Mr. Miller was always harping on him about – but at least this time it was the bell that caught him out and not Mr. Miller calling on him to answer a question that he hadn’t been paying attention to.

  Tommy slid his math textbook and his notebook (the only notes he’d taken were some three-dimensional cube drawings that he liked to do and a comic strip that he called ‘The Doodles’) into his backpack, being careful not to crush the comic books inside. He stood, slinging the backpack over his shoulder, and walked past Mr. Miller, who was carefully erasing the chalkboard and paying no mind to a grateful Tommy, who was in no mood to listen to another one of the teacher’s lectures about “being successful” and “making something of himself”.

  One of the school bullies, a football jock named Mikey (but whom everyone called “Poochie” for some strange reason that Tommy didn’t understand) threw a shoulder into Tommy and caused him to stumble as he walked out into the hallway, but Tommy ignored both him and the ensuing laughter and walked away, hoping today wouldn’t be one of those days where the bullies decided to follow him. He wasn’t in the mood for dealing with the stupidity of bullies today, either. In fact, all he really wanted to do was get home, plunk down on his bed, and read for awhile. Fortunately, one of the super geeks walked by going the other direction, and the bullies turned their attention on the hapless boy, allowing Tommy to escape.

  Tommy didn’t bother to visit his locker – he didn’t intend to do any of the homework he’d been assigned during the day, anyway, and all the books he really wanted were already in his backpack – and instead slipped out of the school ahead of the rush. Forgoing the sidewalk, Tommy vaulted over the guard rail and half-ran, half-slid down the steep embankment and into the woods on the other side. There was a path of sorts back here – several of them, actually – that Tommy called the Druggie Trails, because all the druggie kids came out here to smoke. The druggies might tease him a little, but in general they left him alone, and that was preferable to running into Poochie or one of his equally Neanderthal cronies outside of the protection of the school. Tommy liked going home through the woods, anyway. It was quiet and peaceful, and gave him some time alone with his thoughts. Plus, the winding paths always kind of reminded him of some secret trail through hidden lands, where he could pass undetected by the people of the town.

  The trail wound itself out by the old railroad tracks, and instead of crossing them and following the street home, which was the more direct route, Tommy decided to walk along the tracks for awhile. They ran kind of toward his home, and he was much less likely to run into other people back here. Tommy’s mother had always yelled at him for playing near railroad tracks (it seemed like the town was infested with them), but these tracks were old and rusted. Tommy knew that it was safe – no train had been on these tracks for some time, and none was likely to in the near future. Heck, a construction crew had even torn up this very same set of tracks much farther along, down where they crossed the canal. “How could a train even come down the tracks when they aren’t complete any longer?
” he had asked his mother, but she didn’t even seem to hear him, and had ranted on and on about how many thousands of children were killed every year by trains.

  As he made his way down the railroad tracks, sometimes balancing and walking up on the tracks, other times stepping from wooden tie to tie (but never, ever stepping down on the stones below), Tommy started to daydream again. He imagined himself being revealed as the last living heir to some foreign ruler, and how wonderful it would be to be suddenly vested with near infinite wealth and power. It was a common daydream for Tommy, and he was right in the middle of the part where Poochie got down on his knees and begged him for forgiveness right there in the middle of the school cafeteria when he realized that he’d gone way too far down the tracks and missed his turn.

  Tommy hastily looked around. He’d never been to this part of the tracks before. He must have gone a mile or more past the street that would take him to his house, and he wasn’t really sure how he’d gotten that far. Worse, it was getting late, and the sun had gone down behind the trees that surrounded the tracks, leaving Tommy in deep, dark shadow. He felt a sudden surge of panic and an urge to flee, to run into the woods, to be anywhere but right there on those rusted railroad tracks. The urge was so intense that Tommy missed his step onto the next railroad tie and stepped down onto the rough rocks between the ties. The rocks shifted unexpectedly, and Tommy twisted his ankle and fell to the ground with a shout of pain.

  He rolled onto his back and lay there for a few moments, clutching at his throbbing ankle and hissing in agony. He just realized that he’d scratched both his arms, as well, and a few drops of blood ran down his arm and dripped off his elbow onto his backpack.

  “Damnit, damnit, damnit,” Tommy shouted. His mom would have a long lecture for him about using profanity if she’d ever heard, but no one was close enough to hear, and in any case Tommy was past caring. His ankle was throbbing, he was covered in black, soot-like dirt from the rocks that surrounded the rails, and the blood from his arm had stained both his backpack and one of his favorite shirts. A girl had once told him he looked nice in that shirt, so he wore it every chance he got, even though it was faded and slightly stained. Now, it was ruined for good.

  “Damn it!” Tommy yelled one more time, as he used the rails to help himself stand up and gingerly put some weight on the ankle. He gasped at the pain, but the ankle held his weight, so it probably wasn’t broken. “Just twisted, then,” he muttered to himself, looking around. He was in a real stew, now. It was fairly dark out and rapidly getting darker, and he’d have to be very careful to avoid turning his ankle again. Tommy realized he was in for a long, painful walk home.

  He turned for home and had just taken his first few ginger steps and was beginning to think about what his mother would say to him for getting home so late when he saw a man standing by the edge of the forest. The man had long, oily hair and needed a shave. He was overweight, and his belly bulged at his black t-shirt and pushed out over his stained jeans. The t-shirt the man wore was badly stained, and bore a picture of an anthropomorphic pig dressed like a policeman and riding, most absurdly, on a moose. “Canadian Bacon”, the legend below the picture said, and Tommy thought that it was a pretty stupid shirt to wear – it wasn’t funny, and in fact barely made sense at all. The man’s skin was bad and he had an almost greasy look to him. Tommy took an involuntary step backwards, away from the man, and almost fell down again as his ankle sang with pain. The smile that he flashed at Tommy was almost a leer, and Tommy would have run if he’d been able to.

  “Hurt yourself, did you?” the man said, licking his lips.

  “I’m ok, I just want to go home,” Tommy replied.

  “You are bleeding. Do you live close by?”

  “Not far, I’ll be fine. I just need to get home, my mom is expecting me.”

  The man took a step toward Tommy and ran his tongue over his lips again. “No one lives out this far,” he said. “No one but me. Here, let me help you.” The man took another step and reached out toward Tommy, who shook his head and took another step backwards.

  “No thanks, Mister. I’m fine, really,” Tommy replied, but the man kept advancing on him, stopping only when Tommy bent down and picked up a rock, cocking his arm to throw. “Leave me alone! You stay back!” he screeched, his voice cracking.

  The man stopped, then, and stood regarding Tommy with a puzzled look on his face before replying, “That’s not very nice! What are you going to do, throw that rock at me?”

  Suddenly, Tommy felt incredible foolish. Filthy, bruised, and bleeding, here he was threatening some random stranger with a rock? Tommy blushed and dropped his arm to his side, abashed. “I… I’m sorry, Mister. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess you just startled me, that’s all.”

  Suddenly, the man’s friendly demeanor evaporated as he got a huge, wicked grin on his face and a cruel look in his eyes. He raised his hands to chest height and looked down at them, muttering some words under his breath. A dark cloud formed there, like a thick fog of oily, black smoke. He looked up at Tommy and threw his hands out at him, as if he were pushing the cloud toward Tommy. The cloud of smoke flew at Tommy’s head faster than he would have thought possible. Tommy had time to shout “Mage!” before the smoke enveloped his head.

  The thick smoke wrapped around Tommy’s face, choking him and cutting off his breathing. He tried to shout but could only hack and gag, his lungs refusing to cooperate. He tore at the cloud with his hands, trying to somehow tear it off, but it was no good – his hands passed through the cloud like it wasn’t there, not even disturbing it in the slightest. Trying to breath only caused his lungs to spasm more, and he tried to cough but couldn’t. Tommy started to see stars before his eyes as he looked down at one of the rail ties, and he realized that he’d fallen down to his knees. Tommy’s chest got tighter and tighter, and he felt himself fall forward, but the cloud stayed wrapped around his head.

  As blackness washed over Tommy, he could hear the greasy man laughing.

  Chapter Two

  Tommy could still remember when they took his friend Stephen away. That wasn't his real name - Stephen was Vietnamese and his parents called him "Bao", but when he started school, he changed his name to something easier for Americans to say (and spell). Stephen wasn't a good friend of Tommy's, but he was a friend, and they got together sometimes to play video games and such. Sometimes, they'd even trade video games for awhile, if they both had something the other wanted to play.

  Tommy sometimes dreamed of Stephen going away. He was dreaming of him, now, only somehow it was himself that the men were taking away... or maybe he was dreaming that he was Stephen, in that confusing way that dreams can be multiple things.

  Tommy dreamed that he was in the line for inspection. They'd been called out of their class (his teacher that year, Mrs. Houck, had been annoyed at the interruption and had been very rude to the men that came) and filed into the gymnasium, where they were divided into several lines to stand against the bleachers, which were folded in for storage. Tommy had never actually seen the bleachers unfolded - they seemed to stay like that all the time - but he'd asked one day what they were and the gym teacher had told him.

  A dozen Army men walked up and down the line, keeping a close on eye the students. At least, Tommy thought they were Army men. They wore camouflage clothes and carried rifles like the Army men did in his video games. Gradually, Tommy approached the front of the line. He was glad to be getting near the front - he was tired of standing, and he was starting to get really bored. He hoped if he could get back to class before most of the other students, he could grab a few minutes to peek at the comic books he had in his bag.

  Finally, it was the student in front of him's turn - Tommy didn't know the boy because he was in a different grade than Tommy, but he'd seen him around the playground. The boy stepped up to a folding table, where a young man sat surrounded by more Army men. Tommy finally got a clear look at the man behind the table. He looked young - much y
ounger than Tommy's parents - but he had a deep sadness in his eyes, and his face looked worn and down. Tommy saw heavy metal clasps on the man's forearms, wrists, neck, and ankles, all attached to thick metal chains that clanked and rasped every time he moved. The man held his hands out toward the boy in front of him, close to the boy but not actually touching. Tommy heard a buzzing sound, like a large bee flying by, and then it was over - the man shook his head without speaking, and the Army guys motioned the boy aside.

  Then it was Tommy's turn. He stepped up to the man. It wasn't sadness in his eyes, Tommy decided. It was hopelessness. It was the look of someone who had no reason to live, and was just going through the motions of life. When the man held his hands out toward Tommy, he heard the buzzing again. Only this time, it was much much louder. It was so loud it sounded like a large bee was inside his ears, and it only got louder - soon it was like a thousand bees had taken up residence inside his skull, and Tommy clutched his hands to his head and shrieked in pain.

  The buzzing vanished as quickly as it started. The man behind the desk smiled sadly at Tommy. The Army men were already moving around the desk toward him, and Tommy panicked. He turned and tried to run, only to bump right into another soldier who had moved up behind him. The soldier had a snarl on his face and a mean look in his eyes, and when Tommy tried to pull away from him, the soldier cocked his fist back and hit Tommy square in the nose.

  Dream-Tommy fell backwards on his butt and started to cry. Blood was gushing from his nose, but when he tried to put his hand to his face to staunch the flow, the soldiers fell on him. They tackled his arms and legs and pinned him to the ground. He tried to argue with them, to tell them he'd be good, to tell them they were making a mistake, but all that came out was a shriek and some blubbering. Tommy saw one of the soldiers pull a set of chains out of a bag. They looked like the ones the young man was wearing, only much smaller, with shorter chains. Quickly and efficiently the soldiers snapped the chains around Tommy's arms, legs, and neck. Only once he was completely bound up did the soldiers get off his arms and legs and let him move.