Subject 624

by Scott Ferrell

  “What the hell?” Nathen turned to look at his headrest in my hand. The two metal bars that held it in place were bent at right angles.

  My breathing came in sharp gasps. My whole body felt ready to explode.

  “Conor, what happened to your black eyes?” Carina asked.

  I glanced at her briefly but didn’t answer. Instead, I yanked on the door handle and kicked the door open.

  “Where are you going?” Nathen asked.

  I unfolded out of the backseat and stood to look at the crowd. It didn’t matter that I was outnumbered at least thirty to one. Blood pumped through my body like lava, hot and burning. I took a few steps toward the crowd.

  Nathen struggled to get his own door open. “What are you doing, you idiot?”

  The last thing I heard before the rage-filled blood in my ears drowned out all sounds was Carina calling my name from the car. I started jogging, but after a few steps, I broke into a run towards the large mass of teens. All I could think was I needed to hurt them. Hurt them all. Bad.

  Chapter 16

  12:42 p.m.

  It didn’t dawn on me that I still held Nathen’s headrest until I had flung it at one of the kids standing on the outskirts of the crowd. I guess I should have been relieved it didn’t hit him metal bars first. I threw it hard enough it probably would have lodged into the back of his head. Instead, the softer cushion side thumped him with enough force to jerk his head forward and send the headrest flying off over the crowd somewhere.

  He stumbled forward, dragging a few people to the ground with him. That was opening enough for me to dive into the thick of things. I pushed further into the crowd, kicking the back of knees and shoving people out of the way until I found myself in the circle with the four adults who were being assaulted. They lay on the ground curled up and covering themselves the best they could with their arms.

  I grabbed the nearest offender by the back of his shorts and yanked up with more strength than I probably should have. He let out a high pitched squeal as his feet left the ground and pitched forward, arms and legs flapping. I dropped him face-first to the pavement.

  I moved on to a guy in a dirty old t-shirt that used to be black at one point in its life. He lifted his foot back to swing another kick. I grabbed the hem of his pants leg and jerked back. He flipped forward and also kissed the pavement.

  So far, those in the center of the crowd, the ones doing the kicking hadn’t noticed my presence. A kid with baggy jeans that hung half way down his butt kicked the woman in the side of the head before I could reach him. I grabbed his pointless belt with my right hand and punched the back of his head with my left. He went limp, but I held him up by the belt. Well, I did more than just hold him up. I lifted him off the ground and swung him around, using him like a club to knock the rest of the attackers off their victims.

  I turned to find the crowd had backed away from me but hadn’t retreated completely. They surrounded me as I stood over the unconscious woman, a kid hanging from my fist by his baggy jeans. The other three victims lay groaning on the ground.

  “You okay? Because now would be the time to get up.”

  They didn’t.

  “Yeah, I thought so.” I turned back to the crowd as they inched toward us. “I’ll give you until the count of five to get out of here or things are going to get real messy.”

  Every instinct in me told me to fight. I wanted nothing more than to just jump into the crowd and start swinging and kicking. Inflict as much pain as possible. That was what I needed to do if I wanted to put an end to all of this. It had gone on long enough and it became real personal when my dad didn’t come home last night.

  There was a tiny shred of me that could still grasp the entirety of the situation, though. I was severely outnumbered and if there were any powered teens in the crowd, I could be in serious trouble. Judging by the past few nights, I didn’t think there was a chance I could talk them into dispersing, but it was worth a try.

  “It’s time to run on home now,” I called out.

  The crowd moved in closer.

  “I don’t want to hurt anybody else.”

  I looked in their eyes. I saw nothing but mischief and mayhem dancing around their dilated pupils.

  “Have it your way,” I said. “One!”

  A girl rushed me. I bent at the waist and flipped her over my back.

  “Two!”

  Two guys ran in from the sides. I stepped back, grabbed the one coming in from the right by his arm and propelled him past me. He barreled into the one coming from the left.

  “Three!”

  Somebody punched me from behind. I mule-kicked him in the stomach.

  “Four!”

  As one, they all rushed in at me.

  “Five!”

  Okay, that one wasn’t me. The voice that finished my count came from somewhere in the back of the crowd. It wasn’t a normal voice, though. That one simple word came with so much power that half of the crowd was blown over like they were hit by the shockwave from a bomb. The wave hit me, too, but my wide stance kept me upright.

  I glanced down the street. Nathen stood just outside the mass of bodies rolling on the street.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled. “Get back in the car.”

  “Conor!”

  I turned at the sound of my name and found myself staring down the barrel of a pistol not six feet away. The young face above the pistol sneered, his eyes dead and cold.

  A movement from off to my left flashed. Carina stepped in front of me. The sound of a shot rang out. Carina jerked back into me. I grabbed her, lowering her to the ground.

  “No, no, no,” I said. I tried to find where the bullet had hit her but saw no blood.

  “Heads up, Conor,” Nathen called out from behind me.

  I looked up at the boy pointing the gun at me. There was the sound of a clap, only magnified by, I don’t know, a billion times. I actually saw the shockwave pass over my head and blow the boy off his feet, along with most of the crowd who had just stood back up.

  I dropped my gaze back down to Carina to find her smiling up at me.

  “That hit a little harder than I expected,” she said.

  I stared at the hole in her shirt, just above her chest, left of center. Inside, her skin was clean. No blood.

  “Help me up?” She held a hand up to me.

  I grabbed it, then let go, shocked. Her hand felt rough, harder than before. It was like grabbing a handful of rocks.

  “What the—” I started.

  “Conor,” Nathen called out.

  I spun to find a kid coming at me with a tire iron. I caught it in mid-swing and yanked it from his hands. I planted my other hand in his face and tried to push him down, but he clung to my arm. I might be crazy, but I could have sworn I heard him hiss at me.

  He glared at me through my fingers. His pupils dilated and undilated, the black circles focusing and unfocusing. I felt his spittle on the palm of my hand. He clutched at my arm, digging angry welts into my skin with his fingernails.

  A red hue invaded my vision. I felt my fingers closing, squeezing into the boy’s flesh.

  “Conor, we have to get out of here.”

  A rough hand wrapped around my wrist. I snatched it with my free hand and twisted it to the side.

  “Conor!”

  The red fled from my field of vision and I found myself staring into Carina’s green eyes. I glanced at my hand and found her wrist in it, twisted at an odd angle. I let go and she pulled her arm into her.

  “Carina…” I started.

  “I’m ok. But, we have to get out of here.” She nodded her head and I turned to follow her gaze.

  The crowd that had been blown over had recovered and grown substantially. They slinked in closer, bent over and clawing at the ground. Previously, when I had looked into attackers eyes, I had seen only a blank stare or mayhem staring back at me. Now, every eye I looked into held nothing but pure hate. Something was changing in these teens and it made
my heart thump hard in my chest.

  “Maybe you’re right. Get to the car. Now!” I added when she hesitated.

  She turned and bolted for Nathen’s car. He followed suit.

  I spun, flinging the boy I still held by the shorts into the nearest group, bowling them over. In the same motion, I bolted for the car myself.

  Nathen, the closest to the car, got there first. My added strength and speed got me there the same time as Carina. We piled into the Corolla, slamming the doors just as the mob reached us. Nathen yanked the gear shift into reverse and slammed on the gas pedal. The car sputtered, nearly dying before it jerked backward.

  The crowd crawled all around the car, banging on the windows. One particularly industrious crazy jumped on the hood lost his balance and fell. His face smashed into the windshield, causing Carina to scream in surprise.

  “Get off my car, you freaks!” Nathen yelled through the windows as the car picked up speed

  A brick flew through the back, driver’s side window, barely missing my head. Glass sprayed over me. A girl jumped through the new opening. She hung half in, half out. Her long fingernails clutched at me.

  I turned and laid down in the backseat. I hesitated, winced, and planted the sole of a shoe in the girl’s hissing face. She disappeared out of the window.

  The car hit a curb and plowed through a few parking meters before Nathen pulled it back onto the street.

  “Watch where you’re going,” Carina yelled.

  “Yeah, because that’s easy!” he snapped back. He twisted and turned, alternating between using his rearview mirrors and looking out the back window.

  I sat up and my eyes widened in surprise at the view out the windshield. “Whoa,” I breathed. “Where did they all come from?”

  There had to be at least three of four dozen kids running after us. I silently hoped that we had drawn all their attentions long enough for those poor people to get away.

  Although we had put some distance between us in the crowd, they crawled over themselves to get to us, pushing and jostling each other. They were starting to close the gap. An old, busted Corolla could only go so fast in reverse. Apparently, a bunch of freaked out crazy teens could go faster.

  “We need to get turned around,” I said.

  “I know!” Nathen stared at side mirror. “Hang on!”

  “What are you—” Carina cut her question off as we entered an intersection.

  Nathen jerked the wheel to the side while applying the brakes. I wouldn’t say it was a movie stuntman type of maneuver, but it was pretty impressive none the less. The little car skidded to a stop after it spun sideways. It even managed another little squeal of the tire. Nathen jerked the gearshift into drive. The transmission clunked violently into gear and he slammed his foot on the gas pedal again. The car sputtered before taking off down the cross street, which was luckily clear of people and cars.

  I twisted in the backseat to look out of the window. I watched as the crowd rounded the turn, but the little car was fast enough in drive to get away from them on foot.

  “What the hell was that?” Nathen said, leaning into the steering wheel.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never seen anybody act like that.”

  “Awesome,” he replied. He looked at me through the rearview mirror. “But, I was talking about you. And you,” he added with a sideways glance at Carina.

  “Not now.” I leaned closer to the front seats. “We need to find another way to Salt Lake Pharmaceuticals and Lindström.”

  “We can try going around the long way,” Carina suggested. “Avoid downtown as much as possible.”

  My eyes slid down to the hole in her shirt at her left shoulder. Still no blood. I started to wonder if I had imagined her being hit by the bullet. Maybe the kid missed us all together and Carina got that hole some other way in the crowd.

  “Point the way,” Nathen said.

  The car gave a sudden shake and sputtered, losing power before jerking forward again.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “C’mon baby, don’t do this to me.”

  The car vibrated and the engine started sputtering with a vengeance. Probably in retaliation to being driven so hard.

  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Nathen muttered.

  I watched the needle on the dash drop in RPMs. “This isn’t good.”

  “I’ve been so good to you and you’re going to do this to me now?” Nathen asked his car.

  “The school.” Carina pointed up ahead. Our school came into view.

  “No, she’ll keep going. We’re good,” he said. “Aren’t we, baby?” He reached over the steering wheel to rub the dash lovingly.

  In response, the Corolla clanked and died. We had just enough momentum for Nathen to let it coast into the school parking lot. Wisps of smoke sneaked out from the hood once we came to a stop. I glanced around but saw nobody, only a few abandoned cars scattered around.

  “Guess you’re not good,” Carina quipped.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go inside and figure out what we’re going to do next.”

  We hurried to the building and tried one of the doors.

  “Locked,” Nathen announced.

  I looked around and spotted a metal trash can. I jogged out to it and snatched it from the concrete, snapping the bolts that held it down.

  “How did you—” Nathen started.

  “Not now.” I used the can to smash a classroom window adjacent to the doors we had tried. I dropped the trash can and started to climb in, but Carina stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  “Let me,” she said. “You’ll get cut up.”

  As I watched, her skin became ridged and hard like flesh-colored stone. She grabbed the windowsill, her hand crunching the broken glass, and lifted herself up to sit on it. She swung her legs over and disappeared into the room.

  Nathen and I went back to the door. Carina appeared there and hit the bar to open it. We hurried inside, making sure to pull it shut behind us.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Cafeteria,” Nathen said. “I’m starving.”

  Chapter 17

  3:02 p.m.

  We raided the kitchen in silence, looking for whatever we could eat that didn’t take much effort. That included fruit cups, granola bars, and chicken sandwiches that—once heated in the microwave—tasted a lot like chewing on warm, chicken flavored plastic. We gathered our bounty and sat at our normal table in the empty cafeteria.

  Nathen ate with vigor, devouring all the food he had gathered, including the plastic chicken sandwiches. Leave it to him to act like there was nothing out of the ordinary.

  Carina and I poked at the food. I kept looking at her arms and neck, but her skin looked as normal as always.

  I caught her looking at the scratch marks on my arm. They had already begun to heal, leaving behind long pink lines on my skin that would soon vanish. I self-consciously picked at the dried blood trails left behind.

  “You picked up those people and threw them around like they were nothing but dolls,” Carina said abruptly.

  Nathen stopped slurping out of a fruit cup long enough to look at us both before finishing it off without a word.

  “You were shot,” I replied. I glanced at the hole in her shirt.

  She dropped her eyes and she picked at the hole.

  Nathen finished off the fruit cup and tossed the packaging aside. “Definitely some weird stuff goin’ on, for sure.”

  “You have a gift for understatements,” I said.

  He looked at me for several long, uncomfortable moments. “I’m going to guess you developed this…strength last year, in the middle of the baseball season, right?” he said finally.

  “What strength?” I asked.

  “Really?” He rolled his brown eyes.

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “That’s about when I first noticed I was getting stronger. How did you know?”

  “You went from hitting singles
that barely made it out of the infield to hitting long doubles, triples, and home runs. I’m not the only one who noticed, either.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “There was talk of the ‘riods, dude.” He peeled open another fruit cup.

  “Great,” I muttered, feeling my anger rise.