“We just have a couple of questions to ask him regarding a situation that happened at the party he attended last night. May we come in?”
“Yes, of course,” Patrick’s dad said as he stepped aside, letting the two detectives in.
This is it, Patrick thought right before the detectives appeared around the section of wall that he had used to hide behind earlier.
The one in front was a taller, older man, a little pudgy. He was clearly the senior one of the two, as his stubble had patches of gray hair and he had crow’s feet around his eyes, while his partner looked very young. His partner had red hair and a clean-shaven face, and while he was a few inches shorter, he was clearly more muscular.
The older detective smiled when he saw Patrick, his mother and sister standing there. “How are you doing, ma’am?” he asked with a slight nod to Patrick’s mom. Patrick recognized him as the one who had been doing all the talking earlier.
“I’m doing fine. Can you tell us what’s going on?” she asked, clearly worried.
“Are you Patrick Henry?” the detective asked, his eyes meeting Patrick’s.
Patrick felt as if he was going to throw up, but he did his best to look innocent. He was sure this wasn’t the detective’s first rodeo. He had to do everything in his power to seem naive. “Yes, sir, that’s me.”
“I’m Detective Winston. This is my partner, Detective Francis. Why don’t we have a seat? We have a few questions we want to ask you,” he said, gesturing toward the couch and chairs that sat around the room.
“Is he in trouble, detectives?” Patrick’s mom asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Of course not, ma’am. We just have a few questions to ask.” Winston looked down at Ren. “And what’s your name, young lady?” he asked with a smile.
Ren hid behind Patrick’s leg. “Ren,” she said, as quiet as a mouse.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ren,” Winston said. He looked up at Patrick’s mom. “Mrs. Henry, do you mind taking Ren into the other room? She doesn’t need to be around for this.”
Patrick turned to look at his mom. She looked at him with reassuring eyes, and grabbed Ren’s hand. “Of course. I’ll be in my room if you need anything.”
“Thank you, ma’am. We appreciate it,” Detective Francis said, speaking for the first time.
Patrick’s mom gave him one last glance before she left the room with Ren.
“Let’s all sit,” Detective Winston said.
Patrick’s dad sat in a chair on the other side of the room, the two detectives sat on a couch in the middle, and Patrick sat in the chair opposite his father, next to the couch.
No going back now.
Planting the Seeds
“We’re going to record this conversation, if that’s alright with you,” Detective Francis said as he set a digital audio recorder on the coffee table.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Patrick responded.
“Were you at a party last night thrown by Joshua Underwood?” Detective Winston asked.
“Yes, I was,” Patrick said, a lump forming in his throat. He didn’t know if he could do this.
“Were you there the entire night, until the end?” Winston asked, his voice friendly and warm. Patrick could tell he was being very careful to ask questions that were as vague as possible in an attempt to get Patrick to incriminate himself.
“No, I wasn’t. I left the party early,” Patrick lied.
He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He began to think about the clearing where the party had taken place, and all the blood and death that was there. All of his friends, acquaintances, enemies, all dead. He thought about the clothes he’d worn that were now sitting in a dumpster, how they were covered in blood. His stomach turned, and he fought to stay strong. He couldn’t show any signs of weakness or knowledge to the detectives. He had to display complete ignorance.
“You left early?” Winston said, curious. He smiled and turned to Francis. “A high school senior leaving a party full of booze, drugs, girls, way out in the woods where nobody could find them? That doesn’t seem typical, now, does it?”
Francis shook his head. “None of the teenagers I know would do something like that.”
“You hang out around teenagers often?” Patrick asked as if he was accusing the detective of something. The words had just slipped out of his mouth, and he regretted them as soon as he’d said them.
Detective Francis’ face turned cold. “We’ll stick to asking the questions, Patrick.”
“Why’d you leave the party early?” Winston asked, his eyes zeroing in on Patrick. He was ready for him to slip up somehow.
Patrick’s eyes met his father’s. His dad was leaning forward in his chair. He nodded for Patrick to answer the question.
Patrick turned his gaze back to Winston. “I wasn’t feeling very well. The smoke from the fire was getting all up in my lungs. I was coughing all night. Just wasn’t having a very good time.”
Detective Winston stared at Patrick in silence for a moment, but Patrick wouldn’t break. Now he had spite to fuel him. He didn’t like the tones the detectives were taking, and he wasn’t going to give them anything to work with if he could help it.
“Do you know about what time you left?” Winston asked, relaxing back into his seat a bit.
“No. I didn’t have my phone on me.”
“Why not?”
“It got stolen.”
“Stolen?” Patrick’s dad asked.
“Yeah, stolen,” Patrick said. “I filed a police report yesterday, in case you don’t believe me,” he said, happy to tell them something that he could prove. “Anyways, it wasn’t that far into the party. I got there at the beginning and only stuck around for an hour or two.”
Detective Winston nodded, reluctantly satisfied with Patrick’s answer. “And have you seen anybody from the party since then?”
Patrick opened his mouth, but stopped the words from coming out just in time. He almost told them about seeing Lace at the store earlier, but as far as his family knew, he’d been in bed all morning. “No. I just woke up right before you got here.”
Winston chuckled softly, as if Patrick had just told a joke. “You sure are a late sleeper, aren’t you?”
“Well, I was up late last night, so—”
“I thought you left the party early?” Detective Francis asked, eagerly interrupting Patrick, visibly excited that Patrick had possibly incriminated himself.
Shit shit shit. “Yeah, I did leave the party early, but it started a little late. Besides, I didn’t go right to bed when I got home. I watched some TV in my room first,” Patrick said, thinking fast.
Francis sank back in his chair, disappointed that Patrick had a satisfactory answer.
Winston turned to Francis. “Any other questions?”
Francis pulled a notepad out of his pocket and flipped to a page. “Nope, that’s all I’ve got here.”
Detective Winston stood, and with him, so did everybody else in the room. “That’s all the questions we have for you right now, Patrick.”
“Could you tell us what this is all about?” Patrick’s dad asked.
The detectives turned to him, and Winston shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t share any information right now, other than the fact that there was an incident at Joshua Underwood’s party last night that’s currently under investigation. When we learn more, we’ll be sure to let you know. However,” he said, turning to Patrick, “if you can think of anything else that may be of any use, give me a call.” He pulled a card from his jacket pocket and gave it to Patrick.
Patrick took it. On the front, it said Detective Harold Winston. The card had all of his contact information on it. “I’ll call you first thing.”
Winston nodded. “We may have more questions, so stay where I can reach you, alright?”
Patrick nodded. “Of course.”
“Alright, well, we’ll get out of your hair now.” Winston said, and he and Francis walked toward the
door.
Patrick’s dad shook their hands and opened the door for them. When they were gone, he closed the door and turned to Patrick. “What in the world happened last night?”
Patrick shrugged, watching the detectives through the little window next to the door as they walked toward their car. “I have absolutely no idea.”
Investigation
Patrick shut his bedroom door behind him. He grabbed a pen and notebook from his backpack by the door and crossed the room to the desk by his bed. He had so much going on inside his brain, he had to get everything down on paper so he could figure out where to go from here.
What are the possibilities here? How could something like this have happened?
One, it could be someone else with abilities (this is most likely, as crazy as it sounds). Who could have these powers? Lace is the only one I know to have survived so far, and she didn’t seem very shaken. Although the detectives didn’t tell me what happened, so she probably has no clue. Still, she’s the only one I know so far who survived. I need to get my hands on a list of names of those who are confirmed dead, missing, and survived. I gotta find out who could possibly have the same abilities as me. Then what, though? Do I make them pay somehow? What does that even mean? I can’t kill them, can I? They obviously have no problem with that. I don’t know if there’s a prison that could hold them, though. Besides, if they’ve had powers longer than I have, they’d know way more about them than I do. Maybe I can get them to tell me everything they know. Maybe they can help me figure out what’s happening. We could help each other.
But they also killed almost all of my friends. Can I really work with someone who’s done something like that? Who’s capable of that?
Theory Two: EVERYBODY there developed these powers, and their bodies couldn’t handle it, and they popped. Either my body CAN handle it, or it’s taking longer for me to pop. Which means it could happen at any time. I didn’t see any bodies lying around, so this one could be a real possibility.
Patrick sat back in his chair, trying to come up with other theories. He couldn’t think of any other ones that were as plausible as the two he had written down. He flipped the pen around in his hands, thinking, If I’m really going to do this, the first thing I need to do is find out what I’m capable of. My abilities will help me in this search, but first I have to find out their extent.
THE NEXT MORNING, PATRICK ran as fast as he could. His strides were so huge it felt almost as if he were flying. He zoomed across the Michigan countryside, running around cars and buildings when they popped up, but leaving them out of sight just a few moments later.
After about ten minutes of running, he came to a stop in some thick woods. He had no idea where he was, or even if he was still in Michigan. He took a deep breath, drinking in the smell of the tall pines. Even though it was almost June, deep in the woods it was still damp and cool. He almost wished he’d worn a long-sleeved shirt, but he told himself he wouldn’t be still long enough to get cold.
He scanned the tree line, taking in the sight of the towering pines. There were a few other trees sprinkled around, maybe oaks or hackberries—he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that the pines that stood tall before him were very, very heavy. He picked out the tallest one of the bunch and walked over. It stood almost a hundred feet tall, and was probably very old.
Patrick had other things on his mind, however. There were plenty of trees around. He needed to find out the extent of his abilities, and he wasn’t going to be able to do that by hugging trees. He was doing this for one reason: so he could find out who had killed everybody at the party.
“Sorry, buddy, but I gotta do it,” he said with a smile as he patted the tree.
He wrapped his arms as far as he could around the tree. I guess I am a tree hugger, he thought with a chuckle. He squeezed the trunk, sending cracks up and down it, as if it were made of glass. It moaned and shook as he pulled up slowly. Roots sprang up from the ground and shot dirt up into the air, hitting Patrick in the face. It was like the tree was fighting back against him, but it was going to take a little more than flinging of dirt to stop him.
He pulled up on the tree more and more, going slowly so he’d be able to know the exact moment when it became difficult. He waited for resistance, but none came. He stood there amazed as he pulled the tree out of the ground. He pulled it up as far as he could until his own height stopped him. He wasn’t tall enough to pull it out any farther. He held the tree up as far as his body would let him.
With a smile, he decided that wasn’t enough. He squeezed as hard as he could and crushed the tree in his arms. The trunk split in half, sending splinters and dirt flying everywhere. Patrick ran out of the way as the tree fell to the ground, crashing into the tops of other trees, bringing some of the smaller ones down with it.
He watched as pieces of the tree rained down from the sky. After catching on a few more trees, the pine slammed to the ground. The sound echoed through the woods, and the ground beneath Patrick shook like an earthquake. He could feel the reverberations in his bones. They danced up his legs into his spine, and up into his head. He found it exhilarating. The powerful vibrations that danced through the ground, that he felt in the bones, were all because of him.
A smile slipped across his face. All the things going on in his life—the massacre at the party, lying to the police and his family, it being up to him to find out who had killed everybody—he couldn’t help but let that all slip away. He was having so much fun with his powers that in the moment, nothing else mattered. It was just him in the woods where nobody could find him. He wasn’t in danger of anybody finding out, he didn’t have to worry about Detective Winston or Detective Francis coming by and asking him any questions—it was just him and his powers.
He looked down at his hands and noticed that a blue light illuminated them. He brought them up closer to his eyes, and the light got brighter and more intense. Frowning, he turned and ran out of the woods, searching for a reflective surface to confirm his suspicions.
He found a small town close by that had a small diner next to a flashing red light. He ran inside, zipping past all the workers and patrons who stood frozen in time. He ran into the empty bathroom in the back and stopped. Time resumed as he stood still in the bathroom, looking at his reflection, his suspicions confirmed.
Both his eyes were glowing bright blue. He couldn’t see his pupils; it was as if both his eyes were glowing blue orbs of light. He smiled as he looked himself up and down and found his joy hard to contain.
He could’ve stood there in the bathroom of that diner staring at his reflection all day, but instead he turned and ran back out of the diner toward the woods. He had a busy day ahead of him, testing out his new abilities.
Nature
Patrick whooped and shouted in pure exhilaration as he came to a stop. He’d run the border of the woods five times, each time doing so a little faster. He couldn’t believe how great it felt. It was a million times better than any amount of booze or adrenaline-pumping activity could make him feel. Everything was beginning to look a little bit simpler, feel a little less scary. It wasn’t hard for him to imagine going skydiving, rock climbing with no safety gear, climbing Mount Everest—all of which he could imagine himself doing in an afternoon without breaking a sweat or getting freaked out. But he couldn’t fathom those things giving him the same feeling that running around the border of the woods a sixth time would.
So he did just that. He ran a seventh time, too. Finally, after his eighth trip, he decided to take a break. He didn’t want the feeling to get old, although he had his doubts that it ever would.
He stopped next to the pine tree he’d brought down earlier and climbed up onto its trunk. He sat atop it, his arms behind him to support him. His breathing was cool and calm. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat. He was surprised when he found himself to be a bit tired, then guessed that despite his abilities, he still needed sleep.
He closed his eyes, still sitting up. He wasn’t trying to
sleep; he just wanted to rest his eyes for a bit. While his eyes were shut, he listened closely to the sounds around him. He imagined a bubble around him, and everything in that bubble he could hear. The wind whistled through the needles of the pine trees above him. He listened more closely and could hear something digging underground. Probably a mole or something digging its tunnel, he thought.
He pictured the sound bubble and expanded it. It spread through the woods, picking up the sounds of the various wildlife. Baby birds chirping in their nests, momma birds chewing up worms to feed to them. A squirrel running up a tree trunk with an acorn in its mouth.
A snarling sound piqued his interest. He zeroed in on it and listen as two cats hissed and growled at each other. They didn’t sound like regular house cats to Patrick. No, these sounded like two very large cats who belonged in the wild fighting.
He opened his eyes and turned his head in the direction the sound was coming from. It was behind him to his right. All he could see were trees. If he were a normal person, he’d have no idea there was anything going on.
He leapt off the tree trunk and began jogging toward the cats’ location. He didn’t want to sprint as he wasn’t sure how far away the cats were. He didn’t want to overshoot them or scare them away. Besides, he wanted to work on his hearing. He’d already done plenty of running exercises.
The sound of the snarling grew closer and closer until finally, Patrick found the cats. He stood behind a tree and watched as two cougars circled each other, each waiting for the other to strike first. The cougar closest to him was the larger of the two. It spun in place while the smaller one circled.
For a second, Patrick wondered if he should step in and intervene. His heart pumped with adrenaline and fear as he watched the cats try to figure out a way to kill each other. He watched, mesmerized, then decided to do nothing and just watch. He didn’t want to interfere with nature. This was going to happen whether or not he was there to watch, and he decided it should stay that way. That didn’t mean he had to look away, of course.
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