Paws

by Stefan Petrucha

  Me? My body may be broken, but with my heart and soul nestled safely in the burgundy mud puddle that is me, I yell to him: “Hey, Bernardo? ’Nardo, buddy?”

  “What? WHAT?”

  “Told you.”

  CHAPTER 2

  ALL THIS TIME, my healing factor’s been doing its thing—sealing this rupture, regrowing that missing bit of internal organ, putting the gluteus back in my maximus. Can’t walk yet, but with the good ol’ sternocleidomastoid muscles in my neck mended (yeah, I know what they’re called, what about it?), I tip my head back for an upside-down view of this creature that calls itself Goom.

  Hoo-wee, he’s a biggun’!

  I mean that. Five floors if he’s a story. His mottled skin’s thick and stony. He’s got a squat wrestler’s body topped with a fat pumpkinorange head and the prettiest little green eyes you ever did see. The innocent puppy I knew as Kip is no more. In his place…

  “Goom lives!”

  With his gaping maw stating the obvious right above me, I’m in the perfect spot to notice that he’s got no upper teeth at all. He’d be a dentist’s dream if it weren’t for his two lower molars, which are big enough to mash up a bus like roughage. I’m ready to give him an eight outta ten for the monster look until I spot those lame-ass wings he’s got flapping under his rocky armpits. They look like a box-store Dracula cape, size quintuple X, dyed orange to match his skin.

  Should I say something about the tacky wings? I never know what to do in these situations.

  My bodyguard pal, bleeding-cheek Bernardo, finally makes all the appropriate neural connections. See dog? Dog gone. Monster here. Run, run, run! Bernie’s out of my field of vision, but I hear him doing more than a few vrt-vrts—at least one of which, I suspect, is him soiling his high-tech shorts.

  Me? All of a sudden I’m in shadow, like a building’s falling on me (and yes, I know exactly what that looks like). But that’s no building—it’s the arm of my goombah Goom, casting major shade as he reaches over me. I turn my newly working neck in time to see him grab Bernado in his four-fingered King Kong hand.

  Bernado plays his part, screaming like Fay Wray: “Aieeeee!”

  “Goom hungers!”

  Hard not to like a monster who lets you know where he’s at. Not that I couldn’t guess his masticatory intentions from the way he’s smacking his lips and bringing B up toward his open mouth. Goom wants to get himself some more of that sweet cheek.

  B’s a good man in a pinch, perhaps even a delicious man, so I want to help him out. Not with force, since I can’t move, but with something even more powerful: information.

  “Bernardo? Hey, Bernardo?”

  As he tries to squirm free, he calls back. “What?”

  I wave my working fingers. “Hi.”

  Still flailing, he looks at me. “Are you crazy?”

  “Bernardo? Bernardo?”

  “WHAT?”

  “Yes.”

  The four fingers tighten. The arm draws him closer. “Goom will devour you!”

  I try to do a stage whisper, but I’m not very good at it. “I think that means he wants to eat you.”

  “For the love of…let me die in peace!”

  I’d make a joke about how he’s going to die in pieces, but Goom would need incisors and canines for that. It’s more likely he’ll be mashed and shredded.

  “Sure, if you want, but…Bernardo?”

  “What? What?”

  My lip muscles back up to par, I smile. “Is that a cannon on your forearm, or are you just glad to see me?”

  He looks pissed at first, but then a profound awareness dawns in his eyes. “Oh. Yeah.”

  Quick as a puppy-lick, he fires that smoothbore 37mm cannon. Guess what? Turns out Bernardo is wearing some Vibranium-free Iron Man knockoff and real-world physics are in play. The little-missile-that-could shushes one way and his armored arm snaps back the other, the recoil absorbed a bit by the suit. The limb isn’t quite torn off, but B’s not going to be signing autographs any time soon.

  “Argh!”

  I love a good argh. Don’t you?

  The missile leaves a trail so puffy-white it could be the clouds on the cover of a children’s book.

  Or a chemtrail.

  When the missile hits the meaty part of the monster’s chest, Goom goes boom! Monster-bits splatter across the wide avenue. The hand and arm holding Bernardo swing fast and low like a sweet chariot—their connection to Goom’s torso just isn’t what it used to be. Before the four big knuckles scrape pavement, B’s out of their grasp.

  Goom is down and out for the count, but do I get so much as a thanks? Nah. Bernie just pirouettes wildly in midair and grabs at his arm, screaming about how he thinks it’s broken. Does he even ask how I’m feeling?

  No, it’s all, “Yie! Yie! Yie!”

  Speaking of which, my arm’s starting to feel pretty good.

  When the spinning stops and he does talk, it’s not about me at all. “Cripes. How am I going to explain this? The boss’s kid loved that dog.”

  Having regained some upper-body wriggling capacity, I prop myself up on an elbow and raise an eyebrow his way. But he can’t see that, because I’m wearing a mask.

  You knew that, right? Do I really have to mention I’m wearing a mask? Black-and-red body suit? Doesn’t this thing have a cover, at least?

  “The kid, right. The kid. As if that’s the problem here. Why not admit it, tough guy—you loved that hairy mutt, too, at least before it tried to eat you. But doesn’t it growing into a giant monster mean there’s only more to love? Face it—deep down, you’re hurting because you had to put Old Yeller down.”

  The wobbly B hovers about ten feet up. He’s quiet, probably unsure if he should say anything, or if our relationship has finally grown beyond words. But before he can even think to ask if I’m crazy again, he realizes I was right, in more ways than one.

  There is more of Goom to love. Lots, lots more.

  Goom’s remains should’ve stayed a seething heap of oozing Lovecraftian putrescence. Instead, there’s a whole lot of shaking going on. With a crinkly sucking noise, new tissue forms, body parts fill in like plot holes, and everything old is new again.

  “Goom lives!”

  Son of a bitch. It’s got a healing factor like mine—only much, much faster. I’m shocked. I’m outraged. Mostly, I’m embarrassed. I look down at my pathetic body, still struggling to get a few internal organs going, and I tsk.

  “Why can’t you heal as fast as Goom? Why?”

  But Bernardo’s in trouble again, because, you know…“Goom hungers!”

  In a panic, jets sputtering, B turns to me, the guy whose quick thinking saved his sorry ass the first time. “Now what do I do?” he asks.

  I shrug, thinking, Hey, I can shrug again!

  But then I say, “How the @&^# do I know? Swipe through your apps, find something that fires, and aim for the damn thing’s gobbleshaft.”

  “The what?”

  Gobbleshaft definitions aside, it’s not as easy as it sounds. B’s right arm is out of commission, and he’s clearly not ambidextrous. His left hand fumbles about like that lady at the automatic checkout this morning who couldn’t figure out where to put her pennies.

  In the coin slot, you idiot! THE COIN SLOT!

  You should’ve blown her up.

  Instead of the machine.

  Anyway, I cleverly suggest a daring shift in tactics. “Those wussy wings of his can’t possibly work. Fly out of range!”

  Nodding, he turns up the juice. The jets waver, like maybe there’s a piece of Goom caught in the intake manifold. He doesn’t zoom off, but he starts rising as the monster’s paw reaches for him again. It looks close, but Goom’s four fingers clamp on air.

  “Fly away, little guard! Fly free!”

  B’s relieved. I can tell from his smug smile. I am, too, but only for about a second, because apparently those wings aren’t just there to attract mates. Goom can fly. Pretty fast, too. He closes the distance in
a flash and grabs Bernardo’s legs. Rather than repeat his earlier mistake by telling us all again how alive and hungry he is, Goom pops Bernardo into his mouth.

  Right there, in midair.

  It’s kinda like watching one of those nature films where the seagull thinks it’s getting away from the shark, but the shark just jumps up and…

  I’m about to offer B more advice, but there’s this…gnashing sound. Quality battle armor would give off a macho krunk as it collapses. This crap doesn’t even squeal.

  Wish I could say the same for Bernardo. “Yaghhhh!”

  With a vrt-vrt here and a vrt-vrt there…he’s gone.

  By the way, if this had been a comic, his final exclamation would’ve appeared in what we call a BURST.

  At least the big guy doesn’t say, “Goom chews!”

  Circle of life. Am I right? That’s another reason I make it a policy not to bond with pets, or minor characters, or most things. You never know when they’ll die. I mean, I barely knew Bernardo, and here I am, feeling all sniffly about…

  Oooh! Look! A Patek Philippe wristwatch, and no one’s using it!

  I finally get my digits on the damn thing when a pained, wailing din intrudes on my opportunistic thievery. It sounds like a whole elementary school full of terrified, screaming children—because, yep, right across the wide avenue, there’s a brown brick elementary school, full of kids. The brats are all gathered at the windows, pitifully wailing as Goom stomps toward them.

  No “Goom swallows!” or “Goom wipes his lips!” Just: “Goom hungers!”

  The reading material on Planet X must really suck.

  The kids howl. Their brave teachers yank them back from the windows. One pulls down the shade, as if that’ll do something.

  That’s it. I don’t care if he was a puppy once, now he’s being piggish. I heave myself up, shake off a few steaming hot dogs, and snap out the twin katana I keep strapped to my back.

  Unfortunately, I hadn’t noticed that one of the swords healed right into my shoulder blade. Eep. Completely throws my iaido when I yank it out. Hurts pretty bad, too. Sorry, agony, no time for you now. Feet pumping, arms back and ready to strike, I head for the nearest bumpy orange ankle.

  Goom raises his hand and arches his back, looking like he’s about to take out the wall with a single blow. If I were a lot taller, I could hamstring him from here. Instead, I slash at his ankle, slicing out enough of a chunk to make him fall backwards.

  Man, he goes down loud. The ground shakes. Asphalt cracks. Traffic’s blocked both ways. Two cabs, a minivan, and an Acura all go crunch. A hydrant snaps, shooting water thirty feet into the air. In other words…

  See? That’s a burst.

  Goom’s on his back, disoriented, looking like a papa who’d been playing with the baby on the living room floor and now can’t quite figure where his little darling crawled off to. But then his great big pumpkin head (as opposed to Great Pumpkin head, which would be a Charlie Brown reference) turns my way.

  By the time he narrows his twin greenies at my sweet self, the ankle’s healed. Damn.

  “Goom will destroy you!”

  I give him a Bronx cheer. “Deadpool will duck!”

  His hand comes for me. Despite my incredible reflexes, he’s too fast for Plan A—which, as I said, involved ducking. I switch to Plan B and slice off a monster fingertip.

  “Goom hurts!”

  “Don’t they have exclamations of pain on Planet X? Is it all just clipped self-reflexive narrative? ‘Goom hurt?’ ‘Goom regret?’ ‘Goom enter shame spiral?’”

  Before he can pull his hand away, I relieve him of another digit.

  “Yeow!”

  “Thank you!”

  Turns out you don’t really need all your fingers to swat something. Rather than take a minute of Goom-time to suck on his wounds, he backhands me. I go flying. It’s not up, up, and away so much as across the street and into the stone base of the elementary school. Granite, mortar, and what looks like a time capsule from 1954 tumble around me. Bruised but not broken, I hop back out and angrily let loose with a stream of classic battle lines:

  “Yippee-ki-yay, m***********! Go ahead, punk, make my day! I’m all out of bubblegum! Say hello to my little friend! You talkin’ to me? I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me! I am the one who knocks! For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee!”

  Goom sits up, the top of his head even with the third floor of the building behind him. His fingers already restored to their original, fabulous condition, he tries to grab me again, but I’m ready this time. I hop atop his index finger and rush along his arm.

  So Goom can grow back pieces. La-di-da. Let’s see if he can grow back his whole head.

  Beneath the rocky folds of his cheeks, his neck is nearly invisible, almost like the narrator from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But I can see it. Reaching the tip of his shoulder, I take to the air, katana out.

  Goom is going down!

  As I sail toward my goal, the world becomes a blur. I don’t usually get much appreciation, and I try not to expect it, but this time I hear it, growing louder and louder: the wild roar of the crowd. All of a sudden, the whole middle-school audience is on their feet, cheering. And they’re cheering for me, little Wade, the kid they all made fun of, because now he’s going to win the big game! I’ve got the ball, seconds to go, and I’m soaring toward the net. It’s going in, I tell you, it’s going in! I see Sophie McPherson, the girl I love, shaking with excitement, squealing my name over and over, “Wade! Wade!”

  “Look at me, Sophie! Look at me!”

  Did I mention that sometimes I hallucinate at inappropriate moments? Never know when to bring that up. It’s like trying to figure out how many dates in to mention having kids, or leprosy. Glad it’s out there now. You’ll get used to it, mostly. What causes it? It could be that as my accelerated healing repairs any head trauma, it interferes with my continuity of consciousness. Or maybe the experiment that gave me my power, coupled with the cancer, exacerbated some underlying psychological issues.

  Could be something in the moment acting as an emotional trigger.

  Yeah, remember how Dad used to beat you?

  What? You think fighting a giant monster about to eat some children brings up a junior-high basketball game? Right. Whatever.

  I’d like to say I can always recognize a delusion because eventually it fades, but—big picture—everything fades, doesn’t it? Anyway, one minute, it’s all cheering—and the next, my personal tweenage wasteland fades. No winning basket, no Sophie.

  Instead, out to have the last clap, Goom slams me between his palms. He grinds his bumpy hands. I struggle, grunt, and shimmy, but it does squat to get me free. Then he throws me down very, very, very, very, very, very hard.

  I go through the reinforced roof of a parked Humvee. I go through the upholstered seat. You’d think the chassis below that would stop me, but nope, I go through that, too—all the way down to the asphalt, where I lie in a brand-new, Deadpool-shaped pothole.

  Like Bugs Bunny, only with blood.

  Everything that took all that time healing? Broken again. Some new stuff, too. I think I have a working arm, but before I can use it, Goom lifts the Humvee off of me.

  Clearly the finger-slicing is still fresh in his monster brain. Instead of grabbing me again, he tosses the car aside and jumps, planning to stomp on whatever’s left of me with those gunboat feet of his. Gunboat not being a figure of speech.

  Hey, I’ve survived all sorts of stuff: gunshots, arrows through my head, ingrown toenails. But even I’m not sure I can come back from being totally flattened. And like I said, it always hurts.

  As I lie in the increasingly smelly shade of Goom’s titanic tootsies, I contemplate not so much my mortality as what I’ll be missing on TV.

  Is the new season of S.H.I.E.L.D. on yet?

  S.H.I.E.L.D.?

  Oh, man. I feel like Dorothy when she finds out she had the power to go home all
along (and frankly, I’d have kicked Glinda for holding back). I don’t have to miss a thing, because I’ve had exactly what I need this whole time. With my one working arm, I withdraw the secret weapon tucked inside my stylishly small belt. I’d like to say it looks totally cool, but really it’s just a fancy aerosol dispenser can.

  Aiming up as Goom comes down, I give him a spritz. My current employers, the folks who gave me the can, call it a nano-catalyst. You know how most living things—aside from, like, amoebas—are made up of connected cells? The nano-catalyst I just sprayed breaks up those connections.

  Is it fast-working? Just watch. Or…read.

  As his rocky massiveness falls toward me, the Thing from Planet X melts into little gory Goom-gibs. It looks like he’s splashing into a huge, growing water hole of himself.

  Instead of getting squashed, I’m soaked in a gloopy pink rain.

  I didn’t even kill him, exactly, because he’s not dead. No, I don’t mean as long as we remember him. Since he can regenerate, each and every cell is still alive—even though collectively he’s been reduced to a big pink puddle that sloshes and slurps along, each single bit less like Goom, the Thing from Planet X, and more like a Period, the Thing at the End of this Sentence.

  CHAPTER 3

  IT AIN’T the first time a piece of the Big Apple has gotten itself chewed. The sirens of the first responders are already piercing the racket of yowling school kids, screaming pedestrians, honking cars, and chunks of still-falling concrete. Bet I’d have a real migraine right now if my ears weren’t all clogged with the gunk previously known as Goom.

  I try like the dickens to whack the gunk out, but it’s in there deep. I’m still at it when an airy rush whines above the cacophony. Beating out the cop cars, ambulances, and fire trucks for “me first!” bragging rights, four hover-fliers set down around me.

  What’s a hover-flier? Well, it’s like if a flying aircraft carrier laid an egg containing a rapid-response team of four or five field agents. For comparison, a flying aircraft carrier—A.K.A. a Helicarrier—has a crew of around 5,000, and you just know everyone isn’t getting a window seat.