by Peter Clines
“Do you have any idea how this happened to you? Why you came back with your mind intact?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
Freedom set his hands on the table. They looked massive across from hers. “Do you know what your mother’s name was?”
“Eva.”
“Do you know what year—”
“Wait,” said Madelyn. Her eyes got huge. “What do you mean, was?”
Freedom’s chair creaked again. The knot by his heart caught fire. He glanced over at St. George, then studied the tabletop for a moment. His voice dropped a few decibels, but it still rumbled in his huge chest. “I regret to inform you, ma’am,” he said, “but your mother died with you in the Guardian attack.”
The knot of fingers unraveled and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “I was there. We tried—I tried to stop them, to save both of you and my soldiers. I … I’m very sorry for your loss.”
A lone tear raced across her cheek. Her chest heaved. With her eyes closed, she almost looked alive. After a few moments she wiped her face with her arm and opened her chalk eyes to look at him. “Does Dad know?”
Freedom paused again, then nodded. “He did. I’m afraid he died last summer, while we were evacuating Project Krypton.”
Madelyn shrank a little more in her chair.
“Your father loved you both very much,” said Freedom. “In all the years I knew him, I don’t think we had more than a dozen conversations where you didn’t come up. Losing the two of you was a huge blow to him.”
She sobbed for a few minutes, but there were no more tears. Freedom’s chair creaked again as he turned to look back at St. George and Stealth. The cloaked woman nodded once.
“I knew with all the stuff going on …” Madelyn stopped to blow her nose. “I knew they were probably gone, once I realized how long it had been. I just … I hoped.” She sniffed again and wiped her dry face with the back of her hand.
Freedom let her sit for another minute. “May I ask you a few more questions?”
“Sure,” she said. She sniffed hard and her voice got strong again. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just need to be sure.”
“I get it,” said Madelyn. “Ask away.”
“What was your sister’s name?”
“I don’t have a sister. Or a brother.”
“Do you remember the names of any of the other soldiers who picked you up at the airport?”
“I don’t, sorry. I just remember Sergeant Washington because I thought of the president, and then she said her name was Britney.”
He nodded. “So how’d you end up here? Why not Phoenix or Las Vegas or someplace closer to where you … closer to Krypton?”
“You can say where I died. I’ve gotten used to the idea.”
“Okay. So why here, ma’am?”
“And please stop calling me ma’am. You make it seem like I’m some ninety-year-old dowager or something.”
“I can make do with Madelyn,” he said. “So why here?”
“I saw fireworks.”
“What?”
She sighed. “Could I get my bag back?”
Stealth nodded to St. George. The hero stepped outside and a moment later he carried in the dusty duffel bag. It was unzipped and some clothes hung out of it. Madelyn pulled a battered book from one of the side pouches. She flipped through the pages, then handed the open book to Captain Freedom.
July 1st 4th, 2011
Dear Diary,
There were fireworks out to the west! West and south.
They must’ve been huge for me to see them from out here.
“That was almost nine months ago,” he said. “It took you nine months to get here?”
“Sort of,” she said. She tapped her head with her fingertips. “I have trouble remembering things since this happened to me. If I don’t write stuff down, it’s like it didn’t happen. There may have been a couple days I was backtracking and didn’t know it.”
“Nine months, though?”
“Maybe a lot of days.” She looked him in the eye. “I know it’s been almost three years since this happened. I can see it written out in my journal. But it feels like it was a couple of weeks ago.”
St. George spoke up. “Is that what all the watches are for?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I kept forgetting days, so I thought the watch was broken, so I got another one. Then I thought maybe they were both broken. But three saying the same thing have to be telling you the right date and time.” She closed the journal and pulled it into her lap. “Are you sure there’s no chance Mom or Dad survived? I mean, maybe they’re like me or something.”
Freedom set one hand on top of the other. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“You’re sure?”
“In your father’s case … no. I’m sorry to say there’s no way he could’ve come back.” The huge officer paused for a moment. “Your mother’s body was never found. We’d assumed she reanimated and walked away, or she’d been … damaged to such an extent that her body was destroyed.”
Madelyn stared at him for a long minute. She didn’t blink. It occurred to Freedom that she didn’t need to. Then she lowered her eyes and sighed.
He gave her another moment. “Why did you try to hide your … condition from us?”
She looked down at the straps. “Not counting the chair, you guys have been great, but not everyone’s so chivalrous to a seventeen-year-old girl on her own.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Some of them thought me being dead made it okay to do things to me.”
The captain’s face hardened. “Did anyone … Were you assaulted in any way?”
Madelyn shook her head, then shrugged. “Not like that, no. I got groped a couple times, but that’s it. Some people stole my stuff. I lost my shoes once. Most of them got freaked out by me being dead and still, y’know, smart. I could get away without too much trouble.”
“And the pistol? Where’d you get it?”
“I found it in a car, under the seat. It was empty, but there was a box of ammunition in the glove compartment.”
“Your father taught you how to shoot, correct?”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “Dad and Mom hate guns.” Her face fell. “Hated guns. It was pretty easy to figure out, though. There wasn’t a clip or anything, just the … Are you still testing me?”
“Yes,” Freedom said, “and it’s called a magazine, not a clip.” He turned his head back to Stealth again and nodded.
Stealth stepped forward. “We are prepared to accept you are who you claim,” she said. “You are not Legion.”
“Cool,” said Madelyn.
The cloaked woman turned to St. George. “However,” she said, “this poses a question. How is she not Legion?”
“Maybe because she’s conscious,” St. George suggested. “His powers may need the … the space of an empty mind.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t count as a regular ex,” said Freedom. “Some tweak to the virus or something similar. If Legion’s possession ability is very narrow-ranged, she might fall outside its parameters.”
“According to everything we know,” said Stealth, “the virus never mutates.”
Madelyn tapped her fingers on the tabletop. The rhythm was from a song, something popular before the outbreak, but Freedom couldn’t place it. “So,” she said, “what happens now?”
St. George cleared his throat. “If you’re up for it, I think the doctors want to run some tests on you and try to figure out why you are … well, the way you are.”
“What does that mean?”
“To be honest, I couldn’t tell you. I’m not a doctor.”
“Am I … am I under arrest or anything?”
Freedom straightened up from his chair and shot a look at Stealth. “I don’t think so.”
Madelyn stood up, too, and swayed side to side. She was smaller than all of them. “Can I go
out and walk around? It’s been a while since I could just, y’know, walk and not worry about bumping into exes or anything.”
St. George caught the shift in Stealth’s body language. “Maybe we should ease into that,” he said. “Most people probably won’t react well to seeing a dead person inside the walls. Just for now, you shouldn’t go anywhere without an escort.”
“And until we are certain why you are the way you are,” said Stealth, “we should make running tests our main priority.”
Madelyn’s face dropped. “Yeah,” she said, “I could see that.” She looked at St. George. “Where am I going to stay until then?”
“We shall have a room prepared for you here,” said Stealth. “Captain Freedom will set up a liaison for you to take care of whatever needs you may have.”
The dead girl glanced at Freedom and her lips twitched for a moment. “You mean, a guard to watch me.”
“To protect you,” said Freedom.
Madelyn looked ready to say something else when St. George’s earpiece squawked loud enough for them all to hear. He slapped his hand up to block the sound, then yanked the plug out. He held it an inch from his ear. “Calm down, Barry,” he said. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be right there.” He looked at Stealth and Freedom. “You didn’t hear that?”
She shook her head. “What does he need?”
“He says we’ve got to talk in person. It’s urgent.”
St. George found Zzzap in Stage Four, pacing in the air outside the electric chair. Is it true?
“Yeah,” St. George said. “We’ve got an intelligent ex and it’s Dr. Sorensen’s daughter. But we’re not sure how she—”
The other hero shook his head. No, not her. Jarvis was bitten?
The reminder hit St. George in the chest. “Yeah, he was. Sorry. I thought you would’ve heard by now.”
Only rumors on the radio. He glanced at the entertainment center and gave a little nod. His hands did something in front of his chest, a motion lost in the glare of his body. Is he going to make it?
St. George shook his head. “There’s a chance, but probably not. Sorry.”
Zzzap nodded and continued the odd motion with his hands. St. George realized the wraith was tapping his fingers together. He glanced at the television again.
Okay, this is going to sound a little weird but … we need him.
“We need him for what?”
No, not you and me “we.” I mean—yeah, shut up. I’ve got this.
“What?”
His body. When he dies, you can’t destroy his brain. Just strap him to the bed or whatever and let him change.
St. George took in a slow breath. “What the hell are you talking about?”
We just … I need you to trust me on this, okay? Don’t let them put him down.
He looked at Zzzap and tried to inhale the wisp of angry smoke around his nostrils. “How can you even ask something like that?”
Because … The gleaming wraith looked over at the television. Yeah, said Zzzap. I think it’s time we told him.
“Told who what?”
Told you. No, just let me do this my way, okay?
“Okay.”
Zzzap waved a hand at him. Not you, George. Sorry. I’ve wanted to tell you for a while, but we agreed it’d be better to keep it quiet until the opportune moment, so to speak.
St. George felt something twist in his gut. His shoulders slumped. “You’ve been keeping something from me.”
Yeah. I figured you’d notice. Or Stealth.
“She did.”
Zzzap nodded. I really suck at secrets, he admitted. It’s a good thing the world ended or I would’ve blown the whole secret-identity thing inside of a year.
A moment of silence passed.
“So,” said St. George. “Are you talking to … people on the radio again?”
Yeah. No. No, this is me and you.
“You sure?”
What? Yeah, of course.
“Okay. So what’s going on?”
Zzzap stopped tapping his fingers and started pacing in the air again. Okay, he said, you know I don’t really “see” anymore, right? Not when I’m like this, at least. Not the way you do.
“I think so, yeah.”
The wraith nodded. I take in a lot of material from across the spectrum and my mind’s sort of figured out how to process it all as visual information. Visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, radio, television, microwaves, gamma rays … I see all of it.
“Right.”
Okay. Well, see, sometimes, all these things I can see come together in certain ways—certain alignments, you could say—and I can see even more.
St. George crossed his arms. “More how?”
Like a lot more. About a year ago I realized I can see stuff no one else can. Not with any equipment or lenses or anything, because no one’s ever been able to look at the world the way I do.
“Barry, what are you getting at?”
The wraith paced in the air for a few more moments. He made a buzzing noise like a sigh. Then he turned to face St. George.
I see dead people.
I’D BEEN IN the chair for about eight hours when Max came in. I didn’t scream this time, even when he walked through the wall and then through the table my stereo system was on.
I didn’t scream the first time he showed up, either. That time he just walked in through the door and started chatting. It took me a couple minutes to recognize him, and then I just assumed he’d survived somehow and nobody’d ever told me. I mean, it’s what superheroes do, right? We absolutely-for-sure-no-way-out-of-it die and then a few months later we’re back with some miraculous tale of survival. And it had been about four months since George put the demon down, soooo … perfect timing.
I think we’d been talking for fifteen minutes that first time when I realized he wasn’t actually there. And then another minute or two before I realized I was talking to a ghost.
And then I screamed.
People told me I blew out a dozen walkies and five headsets. Stealth was pissed. I told her I’d been watching The Orphanage and gotten freaked out by the old woman who got hit by the bus. One great advantage of the energy form—I’m the only person in the Mount who can lie to Stealth and get away with it. No real body means no real body language.
Anyway, Max.
I’ve got to be honest, I met Max two or three times when he was Cairax, but I always thought all this magic and demons stuff was just some gimmick he had. I mean, there was Nautilus out in Hawaii and a guy over in Iraq who could turn into a dragon, so turning into a big purple, scaly thing wasn’t hard to believe. I figured he had some sort of mass hypnosis or psychokinesis power, made up this sorcerer story, and then was just one of those people who refuse to break character, even on their downtime. Like Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire.
Needless to say, being a ghost gave Max’s sorcerer story a lot more weight in my book.
Anyway, hanging out for the past three months had killed all the thrill of talking to a ghost. Today he showed up and he was bored and chatty. It was a common thing for us. People could see and hear me, but I was trapped in the electric chair all day. He could go anywhere, but nobody could see, hear, or feel him.
He glanced at the racks of DVDs. “Do you have anything new?”
George brought over a couple things the other day.
“Well, let’s start the show.”
One problem, I told him. I’ve still got the third season of Smallville in the player. The new stuff’s not loaded yet. And since neither of us can touch anything …
“Damn it.” He reached up and scratched his head. It was always a little disturbing when he did that, since he didn’t have a head or a hand to scratch it with. I figured it was like how I could see radio messages.
You could just go watch somewhere else, I offered.
“Nah,” he said. “It’s weird just sitting there with people. And they never laugh at my jokes.”
Your jokes aren’t that funny,
I said.
“So, no movie.” He twiddled his fingers in the air. “You want to practice the symbols again?”
I know we should, but not really.
“Y’know, I’ve told you before, you don’t have to do the whole buzzing-air thing for me. Your thoughts are pretty easy to pick up when you’re like this.”
Yeah, and that’s not weird at all.
“Says the man who gets radio messages beamed straight into his brain.”
That’s different.
“Not by much,” said Max. “I mean, it’s pretty much what we’re doing now.”
Well, I said, I’m still getting used to it.
“It’s been a couple of months now.”
You have to admit, this isn’t exactly an everyday thing. And I say this as a guy who more or less turns into a small star.
“Which is why I’d think you’d have an easier time adjusting to it than someone like Geor—ahh, speak of the devil.” Max’s eyes moved past me and he started to chuckle.
I turned around. George was standing halfway between the door and the electric chair. It looked like he was wearing a Prince Valiant wig. Then I realized it was his hair. I remembered today was the day of the big haircut.
Wow, I said. They really did a number on you.
“I feel like I should call him Christopher Robin,” said Max.
“Who were you talking to?” asked St. George.
Nobody, I said.
“Not suspicious at all,” snorted Max.
I shrugged and waved my arm at the air. People. On the radio.
George nodded and ran a hand through his hair. “So, how’s it look?”
You know what’s big after the Zombocalypse? I told him. Hats.
“Seriously.”
“It looks like you got mugged by a hairdresser with some mother issues,” said Max.
I glanced at Max and tried not to laugh. Remember when you were a little kid and your mom always made you get that page boy–looking haircut?
George blinked. “How’d you know?”
It’s what every mom did.
“So it looks like that?”
“It’s so much worse than that,” said Max.
Yeah, it’s a little worse, I agreed. It’s like a blind person tried to do a page boy with a pair of hedge clippers.