Uh, Harry? Hold on a minute. We -- we may not need that tape…
Oh brother.
"Mr. Malevolent."
There was an icy tone to the voice, a tone that spoke of
mausoleums, shadows darker than
starless nights. A voice that rung like cold steel on marble.
Bob envied that voice, or would have, if it were not being used
upon him.
"I'm very disappointed in you, Mr. Malevolent." Dean
Incectus stated as calmly if he were
casually discussing the proper methods to fillet a puppy in front
of a small child. Bob felt
the hairs on the back of his head stand on end.
"Dean, I know I've been falling behind on my studies lately,
but I assure you that.."
"Your studies, Mr. Malevolent, are the very least of your
concerns."
Bob was caught short. He had prepared himself for any number of academic
arguments, but
this was unexpected.
Incectus leafed through the folder on his desk slowly. Letting the
sound of paper sliding
against paper linger in the parts of the office that weren't
filled with dread.
"I've been reviewing your... accomplishments… as of late. I
suppose that there are those
that would be quite proud of these sorts of actions. Rescued a
lost boy; saved the planet
from an invasion, by one of you professors, mind you; hmm… twice?
And you still haven't
managed to find a use for that robot, have you?" He closed
the file and leaned back into his
chair.
"Mr. Malevolent, it would appear that you may not be chaos
advocate material. Perhaps I
could interest you in a set of spandex?"
Bob saw red.
In a blur Bob arm had flashed across the desk and pulled the Dean
to within microns of his
own face. His eyes burned with pure hatred and anger at the mere
suggestion that he might
be in the same ranks as a "hero".
Insectivus remained unfazed by his student's reaction. "You
see, Mr. Malevolent, this is
exactly what I was talking about. There are other members of your
class that would have
tried to kill me, not simply haul me up in some sort of dramatic
flourish."
"Kill you?" Bob said, equally calmly. "No, I know
full well that you've got this place wired
23
with dampeners and sensors. You know full well that I am unarmed,
per your own request.
If I were to kill you I would simply have to do it the old
fashioned way and snap your neck
like the ancient twig it is."
Bob relaxed his grip and began to smile. "But really, what
fun would killing you be?
Particularly when there would be easy witnesses. No Dean, I have
no intention of harming
you here."
"Is that a threat Mr. Malevolent?"
"Why yes, yes it is. And don't worry about your recording
devices. The jamming circuit I
have in my backpack is providing them with enough to worry about
right now."
Insectivus smiled, much as he had continued to do during the
entire meeting. "Mr.
Malevolent, there may be hope for you still. However, I am still
going to have to place you
under academic probation."
Bob shoved the Dean backwards into his chair and reached for his
backpack.
He hefted it, reached inside and turned off the jammer. "I
understand." Bob left without
another word.
"Ah dear Bob, why can't you be like some of our other
students?"
"I said, give me your money." The head thug said as he
pressed the point of his knife closer
to his victims throat. She was shaking and sobbing nearly
uncontrollably, her eyes closed
wishing she could be anywhere else.
"I've got a better idea," a strange voice said from down
the alley. "How about you give her
all of yours?"
The thug snapped his head around to stare at the idiot that
suggested it. All he saw was a
guy standing in a trench coat with a hat. The thug looked up to
his companion, "Kill that
motherf.." The thug cut short his command as his associate
disappeared down the alleyway
in a pink blur. He heard the scaffolding ring as the ball of pink
slammed into it hard. The
pink material began to quickly constrict. There was a sickening
pop as the material
wrenched both shoulders out of it's prey. They were followed by
his screams of agony.
The head thug looked to his other companion who was now several
shades whiter than he
had ever been. "What are you waiting for, fool! Get that
fu.." there was a burst of grey as
the small figure landed both feet against the second thug's chest
and drove him hard into the
wall. The thug's chest sounded like a drum as the hit resounded
through him. He dropped to
his knees. The gray figure quickly drove his staff against the
second thug's head in a series
of harsh cracks. A trickle of blood flowed from the fallen thug's
thugs eye as he slumped
over against the crates.
24
The head thug pulled his victim up against himself, using her as a
shield. He held his knife
to her throat, "Back off! I'll cut her, dammit!".
The gray figure said nothing, but slowly held out his staff
horizontal to the ground. The
thug couldn't see the gray guy's eyes, but could feel them burning
into his. "That's it. Now
drop it or she bleeds!"
The Gray figure dropped the staff, but kept his arm out straight.
"That's it, motherfu.."
Twin spikes of pain laced through his face and neck as he felt his
muscles seize. He heard
his knife clatter to the ground. He thought his head was on fire.
He wanted to scream, but
his voice wouldn't let the sound escape. He remembered seeing his
victim being swept out
of his arms as he fell, and then, with unblinking eyes he remembered
seeing a boot headed
toward his skull.
There had been a series of high profile robberies in Portland. The
police were baffled, The
Detective was intrigued.
The unconscious body was the first clue, but not the one that The
Detective needed. The
most important clue was the one that was the most overlooked. One
of the security guards
had signed with his right hand, but had included an odd flourish
with his "R"s. Normally
this was not something that would indicate anything unless you
happened to notice that at
the four prior incidents where he had managed to find individuals
and get writing samples
from them, he had noticed that there was the same odd flourish.
He followed her, playing on a hunch. Something still didn't make
sense though, none of the
people were the same. The first person was a heavy-set man in his
late fifties, the second
was a woman of 21 who was under 100 lbs., the third was a man who
had lost his leg and
now he was following a tall middle aged woman. If this was the
same person, he or she
wouldn't be just a Master of disguise, they would be the very
epitome of disguise.
As she entered the main square, The Detective called out. The
woman turned and looked at
him with unfocused eyes. Something was wrong, very, very wrong. He
reached for the
empty holster and quickly swore at the Seattle police department.
Instead he pulled his bolo
and launched it at the woman.
The bolo quickly wrapped around her chest. She stood, frozen in
place for a second before
unleashing an unearthly scream. The other people in the square
turned in shock as a thin fog
enveloped the woman. The fog spread out, growing into a larger
form, before solidifying
into a rakish horror best left for nightmares.
The woman shook herself as if coming out of a deep sleep, she
looked up above her to see
the terror that had been her master and screamed again, this time
a more earthy shriek.
There was a panic as the other occupants of the square realized
that it would be far safer to
watch the events from a distance, say, New York.
25
The creature shot out a ropy arm that shattered the planter The
Detective had been standing
in front of. A few stray shards of concrete skittered against his
shoe. The Detective longed
for the early days when thugs were more normal and the only thing
supernatural about them
was their propensity for painfully obvious nicknames. Now adays it
seemed like every
villain he would come across would be either be a screaming
sociopath, or capable of
flipping battleships at him like playing cards.
"Halt Felon"
The voice was mechanical, alien in nature. The Detective
determined that it more than
likely did not come from the creature that was turning Portland
Square into more of a circle.
The Detective leaned around the corner to behold a man, floating
with what appeared to be
a large glowing codpiece. The man appeared to stand.. err.. float
with authority, but also
appeared to be either embarrassed or annoyed.
The creature did not appear to suffer from either of those
conditions and with another hair
curling shriek, it whipped an arm toward the levitating figure.
The Detective took full
advantage of the distraction by racing out toward the still
trembling woman locked in his
bolo. He caught her square in the stomach and felt her double over
his shoulder. He heard a
sound that told him she had the wind knocked out of her. He kept
running.
In a way it was a shame, he missed a good show.
The Codpiece easily deflected the blow with an energy shield. Then
the dance began with
the Detective's first footfall.
When someone has super speed, a fight tends to take an entirely
new form, one that is more
fitting a zero-gravity dance. When one of the figures is several
times the size of the other, it
just requires more blows. The Codpiece swung his leg hard at the
side of the creature
landing a stunning blow to the creature's head, he folded at the
hip bringing both fists hard
to the opposite side before the creature's skull had time to react
to the first blow. This
stabilized his forward momentum, which he then centered by bringing
his knee up against
the creatures nose, shattering the bone beneath it. The Codpiece
caught his foot against the
creature's nostril and used the toehold to reorient himself toward
the creatures chest. He
landed the first blow down near the sternum then brought around
both feet toward the
creature's solar plexus.
The Detective made his second footfall. The Codpiece focused his
yellow force toward the
middle of the creature's chest. He watched the flesh ripple from
the impact and his
heightened reflexes showed him the slow motion of the ribs being
compressed. The force
drove the creature backwards lifting him off of his feet.
All The Detective saw was the creature slam into one of the
remaining buildings and then
collapse into a very large pile before he had taken his third
step.
The Detective took only a few more before stopping himself to
stare at the results of the
battle. The Codpiece drifted down to survey the situation.
26
"I will go restrain the creature" The Codpiece said.
"Ok go get 'em." The man stated as the yellow… unit…
detached itself and drifted toward
the unconscious creature.
The Detective's jaw hung wide open.
"Is she ok?" The man asked.
"Who?" The Detective said, completely forgetting about
the bound, wheezing woman he
was carrying on his shoulder. "Oh, uh, yes I think." He
gently lifted her off of his shoulder
and began removing his bolo. She was dazed, and breathing heavily,
but appeared to be
fine.
"That.. " The Detective stammered, ".. that was
amazing."
"Yeah, whatever." The man said in an exceedingly annoyed
manner as he looked toward the
floating device. "actually, that thing's got me really ticked
off."
"What? How? That device is fantastic."
The man simply folded his arms and looked at The Detective with a
raised eyebrow.
"Fantastic, huh? Let me tell you something. Ten years ago I
set out to become Portland's
Superhero. I carefully set up a lab and spent millions on research
and development for how
to reach my goals. I spent every day and night working on how to
attain powers to help me
to protect and bring justice to this city. No detail was too
small, I calculated everything
including allowing for weaknesses so that if I were ever corrupted
by my own power, I
could be stopped. Finally, everything was ready. I went home the
night before I was to
receive the final sequences that would grant me the powers I
needed. I was exhausted to the
point where I could barely see, but I knew that I couldn't sleep
because of what I'd soon be
able to accomplish."
"That's when I saw it happen, a streak of light in the early
morning sky that crashed hard
into a field. Because of my training, I instinctively raced over
to make sure that no one was
hurt. Lying in the wreckage was a stupid freaking alien who begged
that I take on the role
of 'The Yellow Codpiece; Gardian of Truth, Justice and
Liberty'"
The man stood fuming for a few seconds.
"TEN YEARS, TEN FREAKING YEARS I'd been working on the
project and this moron
shows up and hands it to me. Do you have any idea just how
insanely annoying that can
be?"
"Couldn't you have just said , 'No Thanks'?"
The man laughed, "Oh yeah, right, I'm going to tell some
dying interplanetary emissary
27
bearing omnipotent underwear, 'Sorry Buddy, Got my own deal in the
works. Give what's
left of you a lift into town?' No-siree. Not me, Not 'Wayne the
Recovering Boy-Scout'.
Nope, like a freaking idiot, I agreed. Worse thing is that that
stupid Dynamic Diaper has
some sort of pre-cognitive power which gets me to places where
trouble is about to happen.
We would have been here sooner except for the fact that there were
two robberies and a
stolen car to take care of first."
He continued to fume until the Alien Undergarment returned.
"We are needed elsewhere." The alien voice stated
flatly.
Wayne sighed and refitted the alien codpiece to his costume.
"Right-o. Well, I'm off. Oh,
nice works on figuring out that the people behind those attacks
were being controlled by a
mind-wraith. I would have never figured it out if the Boxers from
Beyond hadn't told me on
the way over. I've-got-to-think-of-something-to-yell-before-I-fly
AWAAAAY!!!" And with
that the Codpiece disappeared into the sky. The mind-wraith was
nowhere to be seen.
Perfect. Just perfect. So unless The Detective wanted to solve
nothing more complicated
than missing pet cases or divorce settlements, Portland was now
out too.
The Detective was beginning to identify with Wayne.
Carnival music filled Becky Sue's dreams.
She was walking the fairway once again, waving to friends she'd
not seen in years. She
smiled at the kids shooting B-B guns trying to pop balloons and
shook her head at Roy.
Even with her skill she could barely ever hit a balloon because of
the screwy things he'd
done to the guns. Still Roy was more honest than most of the
Carnies that followed the
Rodeo and was always there whenever anyone needed a hand.
The air was filled with the sweet smells of fresh hay, cotton
candy and bar-be-que. She
turned and headed down to where the smokey pits were.
"That's why I like hanging out in your dreams. The food's a
lot better." JB said between
mouthfuls of slow cooked beef.
"JB?" Becky Sue said in disbelief as she spun around to
face the figure seated on a wooden
fence.
"That and there aren't as many Neptunian Pengui--" JB
never finished his sentence as Becky
Sue tackled him off of the fencepost. They landed together in soft
hay, suddenly alone in
the crowded carnival.
Becky Sue frowned. "How do I know you're fer real", she
asked?
28
"There's wasabi on this sandwich." JB stated
matter-of-factly.
"Oh JB!" Becky Sue said not quite believing that he was
still alive. And with her eyes
starting to well up, she decked JB.
Hard.
"Why in Tarnation didn't y'all let me know you were still
livin' you no good worthless son
of a polecat!" She screamed at JB. "I've been worried
darn near to death thinkin' you were a
goner you stinking pile of cow-chips. You're lower than an
earthworm in China!"
"Ow! Ow! Ow! HEY!!" JB protested before finally managing
to catch Becky Sue's hands.
"Look, I couldn't at first and then I figured it would be
better if I didn't make everyone
aware of the fact. In case you hadn't noticed Myron wasn't too up
on sticking around."
Becky Sue stopped struggling. "Myron? He ain't dead
neither?"
"No, he's not. He's quite alive, just like you, Karl and
Roger are, but not really up on being a
team player. If he knew that I could read his mind he'd have
figured out some way to block
me."
"You.. you can read minds?" Becky Sue said, growing
confused.
"Not everyone, look, remember how everyone was in my head
before?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, now I'm in everyone else's head. I know that Myron
doesn't want to be part of the
Furlong anymore and burned a trail out of town as fast as he
could. Fortunately, for me at
least, the tricks I learned to keep some of you out of my head
seem to work both ways."
Becky Sue started struggling again. "You mean to tell me
you've been ignorin' me?"
JB held fast. "Yes. Look I told you about your snoring
problem."
"And when I'm not snorin'?"
"You're the first thing on my mind."
"I am?"
"Yep. You're an early riser. OW!" JB didn't bother
blocking the last hit, he knew he had
earned it.
"So now what?" Becky Sue said as she sat next to JB.
29
"I'm not sure. The good news is: I'm not dead. That means
that like you guys, I'm probably
stuck in some sort of weird limbo. I also get the feeling that I'm
going to need all four of
you in order to get back to where I belong."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"I don't know, but I need you to not tell the others about
this yet. I'll approach them myself,
oh, and I need you to be careful not to think too hard about
Myron."
"You mean like dragin' the weasel through a cactus patch a
coupl'a hun'erd times?"
"Yes, exactly like that. I don't know if he might hear any
really strong thoughts you might
project. That's why I've got to talk to each of you alone. If all
three of you started in I don't
know if he might pick that up and then he'll start blocking and
we'll lose what advantage I
have. Think nasty thoughts about anyone else you like, just not
about him directly. I can tell
you that he's not having a fun time either, and whatever karma he
might have had is pure
crap right now."
"If karma is luck, I hope he's got a whole mess'a bad."
"To put it mildly, hell yes. Oops, I gotta go." JB gave
her a small kiss, "I'll be back as soon
as I can" He winked and smiled as he said, "you owe me a
sandwich." And with that he was
gone again.
"JB? JB! YOU GIT BACK HERE! JB!!"
Becky Sue was once again on the fairway holding something soft and
fuzzy. It was a stuffed
bear from the shooting gallery.
What otherworldly horror have
the suburban satanists released?
What will Bob do to get
off of academic probation?
Will this episode still get a PG-13
rating even with the violence?
Tune in next time for:
Undead
Decor
or
Tomb
by Tomb
30
31
Chapter 48
Tomb by Tomb
Bill looked on with horrible disbelief. The smell of sulfur
flavored with burning flesh and
hair dissolved along with the inky, flame-licked smoke. At the
center of the pentagram, the
demon stretched his leather wings first, followed by clawed hands.
Glowing eyes carefully
examined the room it had entered. The corners of its mouth drew
upwards spreading a grim
mockery of a smile, and then it spoke, "Well, it's not bad,
but there's lots and lots of work to
do. First we've simply got to do something about these colors.
Beige is just so out."
"Is that supposed to happen?" Lou asked. "I thought
that there'd be more curses of
unfathomable discourse or at least some evil cackling."
"And this couch! Tacky, tacky, tacky."
Bill raised an unsure finger. "Uhm, excuse me... but some of
us were wondering..."
The demon looked surprised then quickly extended his hand and
smiled with possibly too
many teeth. "Dear, where are my manners. I'm Fred. And you
would be?"
Bill looked at the claw suspiciously, then carefully accepted it
and shook the creatures hand.
"Zelbaug, Bill Zelbaug. This here's Lou Siefer. Fred, is that
short for anything particularly
evil?"
"No." Fred replied matter of factly, "So, what's
the deal with the cute little fez things?"
Bill removed the item in question and examined it. It was red,
festooned with a leather
tassel and featured a black pitchfork on the front. "This?
Oh, we're Shriners."
"Shriners?" the demon said with more than a hint of disbelief?
"You mean like riding
around in little cars and helping kids?"
"Well, more like kicking kids," Lou corrected, "but
you're right about the little cars. We got
a great deal on a bunch of those."
"Plus chicks dig 'em." Another voice offered helpfully.
"All that is well and good, BAD I mean bad" Bill spoke
up, trying to regain control of the
situation, and not wanting to give this demon too much
information. "But what about you?"
"Moi?" Fred replied, "Oh well, here's my card, and
here's some examples of my work." Fred
split the temporal realm and withdrew an artist's portfolio. His
talons expertly unzipped the
case and he began laying out a series of photographs and cloth
samples.
32
Bill read the card, "Interiors by Fred. Designer of the
Damned"
"Damned Finest!" Fred said with a chipper tone. "In
fact, I hate to brag, but I'm responsible
for most of the netherworld's more memorable aspects. Here's a
picture of Nezertoth's
Palace. He wanted just white hot stone, but I got him to really
spruce things up with a
walkway of living flesh bordered by some nice obsidian spikes. In
fact, I even got a job for
'The Big Guy'. Let me tell you, that guy has absolutely horrid
taste. It's just ice, ice, ice.
Well, that and tortured souls of the infernal, but mostly it's ice.
Now, I know I like it brisk
myself, but near absolute zero every single day is just dull,
dull, dull!"
"Number eighty-nine? Eighty Nine?" The nurse called out
as she loosened some earwax
with the duller end of the pencil she held.
One of the multitude seated in the clinic's waiting room struggled
to push himself away
from the wall he had been leaning against, then slowly hobbled
behind the nurse. As he
departed it was more obvious why he had problems walking. None of
the wounded thugs
that filled the room even so much as smiled at the brightly
colored object still vibrating,
since at least half of them were jealous that he'd gotten off with
such an easy injury.
Fast Phil, the previously freelance auto parts salvager, looked at
his ticket number and
groaned. He'd been sitting there for an hour and it looked like
he'd be there at least another
two. "Is it just me or have things gotten way out of
hand?" he asked no one in particular.
Julio "The Mark", his hands wrapped up in some sort of
soft gauzy pink fabric that had so
far proved far more durable than any of the fire department's
arsenal of cutters, simply
replied, "No, it's not you."
"I mean, yeah, I know that there's some sort of spandex
wearin' goofball that's decided to set
up camp here..."
"Oh, that would be the Graybrown.." Julio looked
confused, "or Gay Pound, or.." He
paused, "aw heck, whoever it is that dude Puppyboy used to
hang with."
"So like what happened to that dude anyway?" Fast Phil
asked.
"Dunno. Haven't seen him around for a while. Sure have seen
his buddy though."
"Tell me about it. The guy's a raving psycho."
"It's as if a guy can't make a living anymore, you
know?"
A new arrival entered through the sliding doors. He hopped to the
front desk where he
attempted to provide his name and pertinent information to the
nurse at the counter.
Unfortunately the teal wrap he was currently engulfed made his
speech completely
indecipherable. The nurse simply pulled a number from the ticket
dispenser and slapped it
33
to the newcomer's forehead.
The newcomer finally made a sound that was understandable to the
rest of the room. "ow."
He hopped over to the main waiting area mumbling curses with each
landing.
"ow, shffp, ow shffp"
He tried to find a place to sit down, or even lean against,
failed, and simply fell over onto
the floor.
"You know what really bugs me, man?" Phil told his
erstwhile companion. "I turned down
the opportunity to be a henchman because I didn't want to deal
with the whole death and
dismemberment part."
Julio smirked, "Should have gone wit' it."
"Tell me about it. At least they get a dental plan."
Becky Sue paused before she opened the door. The same guy was
sitting there, or more
accurately sleeping there. The pointed felt horns on his helmet
drooped from the morning
rain and he draped himself with his now dingy cape to fend off the
cold winter air. He'd
been there every day for nearly two weeks now and was a kindly
enough cowboy. Always
giving a nice smile and a wave, not like the other bums on the
road. She slid her hand into
her pocket and pulled out a bill, carefully tucking it into the
bum's pocket.
Just because a cowboy's too proud t'ask for help ain't no reason
not t' offer some anyway.
She reached the top of the stairs just in time to be nearly flattened
by the burst of sound
emanating from the Audiotron 3000.
Chris was pounding on the panel with one of the instruction
binders trying desperately to
shut off the contraption. Becky Sue covered both ears as well as
she could and made a dash
toward the device before the windows gave out. She moved a slider
down several inches
and the screaming car deals offered by Smilin' Jack no longer
menaced the suburbs more
than normal.
The two stood trying to clear the ringing in their ears before
realizing that the steady
thumping vibrations were coming from below them.
"Sorry Annie!" Becky Sue yelled at the floor.
Chris continued to mutter curses, occasionally spiked by slapping
the binder at the huge
speakers.
"Other than sterilizing the pigeons, y'all mind telling me
what the heck you were doin'?"
Becky Sue griped.
34
Chris slid one of the volume controls up a notch. The speakers
steadily droned "Message
Box Full. Message Box Full" with a thick Japanese accent,
accompanied by a pleasant
jingly techno beat. The end result was beyond annoying and Becky
Sue grimaced properly.
"It was doing that for five hours before I figured out what
control was the volume for it."
Chris grumbled.
"Well, look, it's durn simple. All y'all have to do is press
this here button, select option 9
from the menu, turn this dail over t'here, enter Alt-Ctrl-X-5,
slide this to position four, Just
like is says here, then select Tools, System, Disks, Mailboxes,
Reports, Mailboxes,
Personal, go to the Preferences tab, select English, click on Ok
twice and hit this little Dog
picture to play. Crimany any dad-burned idiot could'a figured that
one out."
Chris' jaw hung open as a synthesized female voice stated
"Playing-a Message-su" and the
collected news reports began to play back. Becky Sue plopped onto
the futon and began
flipping through a magazine.
About the only buttons that Chris did know how to use were the
ones for rewind, forward,
pause and resume. As the messages played out, there was a slow
trend taking shape.
Reports went from talking about usual topics, then talking about
the drop in crime rate.
Chris smiled as those played out.
When the reports started talking about the hospitals filling up
with "victims of blind
vigilante justice", Becky Sue started flipping the pages in a
far more annoyed fashion.
Chris continued to smile however, folding his hands behind his
head and leaning back as
the angry comments continued from the accused, the families and
the commentators.
He stopped smiling when Becky Sue whacked the back of his head
with her magazine.
"Dammit Chris!" She yelled without a hint of her normal
Texas twang. "You're supposed to
be a good guy! That means stopping the crime and saving the day,
not maiming every
jaywalker you come up against! Crepes on a Pony!" She dropped
back down onto the sofa
and held on to her head. Her leg started bouncing.
"Wow", Chris said still in mild shock from the outburst.
"You really did hang around JB
too long."
Becky Sue stared at Chris with a look of complete disbelief. The
twang returned "You
really are dumber than a lifetime supply of horse apples, ain't
you? Oh, Shut Up, JB! If he
couldn't figure out y'all were here when y'all had me futz the
doo-dads, then 'e's got less
brains than an armadillo two weeks after the wagon-train went
through!"
Chris' eyes went wide.
"Well, I see we don't need to buy any horse apples anytime
soon." JB exerted.
35
"Look, I'm just doing my job.", Chris snapped back,
"Would you rather I let the rapists,
murders and felons just wander around killing and
destroying?"
"I'd much rather people didn't start using you to scare their
kids into behaving. Being a good
guy means stopping the crime, but being in contr.." JB/Becky
Sue stopped and looked
away. "Perfect, just perfect!" she snapped angrily,
turned and sprinted down the stairs
toward the front door.
Chris sat down, suddenly realizing that his brother was alive,
sort of. The announcer spoke
of the "Grayhound Menace that strikes without mercy". He
thought about what he'd done,
and his shoulders slumped. He was about to turn it off when he
heard the report and knew
why Becky Sue had run off.
He picked his hat up off the floor and jogged down the back
stairs.
The back door swung open and Chris came face to face with a
reoccurring nightmare.
"What do you think you are doing?" The heavy set woman
from the Division of
Superheroes stood hands firmly on hips, still holding the
clipboard and looking much like
she had over a year ago, her lilting Caribbean accent only driving
the point of her
annoyance further into Chris' head. "I leave you alone for a
year and you turn into Mister
Executioner?"
"Oh, not you too." Chris moaned.
"Yes you had better believe me too!" The woman shouted,
"and don't go rolling your eyes at
me mister. I know you've t'ink you've gone t'rou some bad times
and need to take it out on
someone, but you better be prepared for t' consequences."
"Like the unrelenting guilt of putting felons out of
commission?"
The woman shot Chris a withering stare. "Rogues fight
according to t'eir own rules." She
poked a hard finger into Chris' chest. Even behind the armor, it
hurt. "Don't say I didn't
warn you." She walked past Chris. He tried to turn to
continue the conversation but the
armor hadn't reliquified yet. She must have hit harder than he
thought. By the time the
though had crossed his mind he was able to turn and see he was
alone in the alley once
again.