“Well, call 9-1-1.”
Troy barely heard.
“Just get here. I need you to bust down the door or rip off the window bars.”
Gibbie didn’t say anything. Flashes of trying to lift the weights—and failing—passed through his head.
“Gibbie, are you there?” Troy asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
Troy kept looking around. There was a garden gnome with a broken nose standing by a dead tree on the lawn.
“I know this place.”
Gibbie rubbed between his eyes. He paced.
“Troy, I can’t help you.”
“Gibbie! Just get your scrawny ass over here.”
“I’m hanging up,” he said. “You better get home before Mom and Dad…”
“Coach Lenwick lives here,” Troy cut him off, speaking more to himself than Gibbie.
The jock had been here for several team barbecues, back before he quit football to focus on wrestling—and to put some distance between him and Jesse. It was strange how, even now, it was so easy to forget that the coach was Chad’s dad. During those barbecues, Chad had been nowhere to be seen.
“Gibbie, are you there?” Troy panted. Troy tried once more tugging at the bars covering the front window.
“Coach Lenwick,” Gibbie whispered. He always remembered who the coach’s son was. “Chad.”
Gibbie dropped the phone and ran down the front steps two at a time.
In moments he was on his bike, its rusty chain squeaking with every turn of the tires. Chad’s face rose in his mind, and he pedaled harder. Troy’s panicked voice echoed in his ears. Gibbie pedaled harder still. At first it was slow-going, Gibbie’s panting filling the night. But as he approached a hill, wind began rushing through his hair. The houses to either side became a blur. His breath caught on a faintly acrid odor.
Staring down at the pedals he watched bits of smoke rise up from the gears.
He crested the hill and zoomed past a stop sign. He caught up to a car ahead of him. Now he was alongside it. The driver—old Bill from the post office—looked at Gibbie and gave a nod of the head. Whatever überstrength he’d lost in his arms, his legs had gone supersonic.
A sharp rattle made Gibbie gaze down just as screws popped loose from his bike frame and its gears went flying apart from the stress of such a high speed. His bike careened into the ditch, with him alongside it. When old Bill jerked his head back towards Gibbie, all he saw were rows of houses, leaving the old fellow thinking he’d imagined the youngster pedaling as fast as a car.
Gibbie pulled himself out of the dirt and stared down the street.
“Chad,” he whispered, and began to run.
It started as a light jog. Normally the little geek would be panting after a few steps, reaching for his asthma puffer, but, much like riding the bike, he instead found his pace increasing. He looked down at his legs in amazement and then, staring back up along the street of tidy houses, he ran faster. The clunking of his rubber soles against the pavement grew into a steady swish, swish, his shoes barely touching the ground as he propelled himself forward. He flew several feet with every stride. Wind whipped his hair. Street lamps grew blurry.
Smoke rose from the treads of his shoes, just as it had from his bike, and his nose was filled with the smell of burning rubber and asphalt. Faster and faster he ran—not quite a speeding bullet, but quicker than any other creature alive.
Gibbie stuck his foot out to make himself stop at Chad’s street, and wound up tripping. He toppled to the sidewalk, rolling over and over, ripping his shirt, and landing on his stomach. He lay there, winded.
“Goddamn it,” he cursed with his first breath. Yesterday he’d been a knob. Today he was a knob with super strength.
Then he remembered Chad.
Little Gibbie was up and running seconds later, careful to slow his pace as he caught sight of Troy in front of No. 15. Gibbie skidded to a halt, only now realizing that his brother might ask him how he knew
where to go so readily.
Google Maps, he told himself. Just say Google Maps. It wasn’t stalking until there was a restraining order.
But Troy didn’t ask. His voice was unflinching as he pointed at the front door.
“Break it down.”
Gibbie opened his mouth to protest, to explain that despite his Flash-like arrival, his strength had been useless earlier. But before a word could come out, he was awash with a desire to please, and obey.
He ran at the door with all he had.
The door splintered like the thinnest plywood as Gibbie’s body came hurtling through. Hinges went flying and the doorknob embedded itself into the wall.
Troy nodded in approval. “Nice,” he said, and ran upstairs.
He followed the fading trail of emotion, ending in Coach Lenwick’s washroom. On the linoleum floor was a facsimile of Nuffim High’s male cheerleader and token fag, except…
“We have to call an ambulance,” Gibbie said.
“No,” Troy said. He got on his knees and cradled Chad’s head. “Look.”
He felt the whiff of jealousy from Gibbie, and Troy knew in an instant that his thin little brother would’ve given anything to be holding the muscular teen. Troy gently pushed the awareness away.
One thing at a time.
Chad’s eyelids twitched, open but unseeing. His pupils looked like a cat’s. His ears were pointed, like a character out of Lord of the Rings. His teeth were sharp points. He had fangs and claws.
“It’s not a costume,” Troy said.
“He’s different, like me!” Gibbie exclaimed.
The excitement that radiated from him tugged at Troy. It was so full of desperate yearning. Now we can be together, it practically cried.
“Different,” Troy echoed. Like us.
Pills were scattered all over the floor, and empty pill bottles. Impossible to know exactly what he’d taken or how much. Troy slapped Chad’s cheek a few times, and his classmate gurgled and twisted pathetically in his lap.
“I could hold him,” Gibbie offered, “if it would help.”
“I’ve got him,” Troy replied.
He wasn’t sure why he was denying Gibbie his wish. Gibbie’s crush was faintly creepy under the circumstances, but perhaps it was more than that. Gibbie was super strong. He could’ve crushed Troy’s skull. And yet by denying Gibbie his desire, Troy remained the one in control. He shook that idea aside. Holding hot cheerleaders was Troy’s specialty, he reasoned.
“What are you…?”
Troy ignored him and was already grabbing the blond from under the armpits and balancing him over the toilet.
“Sorry about this, buddy,” he said. Grabbing a toothbrush from the countertop, he shoved it to the back of Chad’s throat.
At first nothing happened.
Feel it, goddamn it. Troy pushed with his thoughts, his own throat involuntarily constricting, ready to hurl.
The blond’s neck and stomach clenched and he writhed to life, clutching the porcelain throne and throwing up unceremoniously. He heaved several more times, filling the toilet with undigested pills.
When the retching stopped, Chad moaned, but the glassy look seemed to be gone from his yellow eyes. Troy lowered him to the bathmat. Several heartbeats passed. One crisis was down, but the question remained: now what?
“We can’t just leave him here,” Gibbie said.
“I know,” Troy replied.
Thirty seconds later, amidst the smell of bile, Gibbie finally got his wish to hold Chad.
“Pick him up,” Troy said.
The elder Allstar brother watched in amazement as Gibbie cradled Chad in his spindly arms, as if the muscular cheerleader was as light as a spritz of cologne.
In another half-hour they stood outside the Allstar residence. Gibbie had held Chad close, sprinting the entire time. The little nerd was only slightly winded from the effort. Troy had biked as fast as he could, curious to see what his little brother had in him. He was impressed, and a little disturbed, at h
ow well Gibbie had kept pace. In fact, Troy got the feeling that he was slowing his little brother down.
Troy opened the back door as quietly as he could.
“Damn it, Fred, where are they?” their mom yelled.
“I’m sure they’re fine. The police said they sent Troy home.”
“How can you be so bloody calm? Our children are missing!” she insisted.
Gibbie looked ready to call out, but Troy held his finger to his lips, and then pointed upstairs. They got to the second floor as quietly as they could, and Troy held his bedroom door open.
Gibbie hesitated. “Maybe we should put him in my room.”
“Do you really want him waking up surrounded by Star Trek mobiles?”
Troy felt the verbal slap as if he were Gibbie himself, just as he’d felt Chad’s desperation earlier in the evening.
“Come on,” Troy said gently, pulling the blankets back from his bed (they’d been neatly tucked with military precision), and Gibbie set Chad’s unconscious form on the mattress.
“He looks so peaceful,” Gibbie said.
“He’s not,” Troy replied before he could catch himself. Occasionally Chad would twitch, and he hoped Gibbie would assume that’s what Troy was referring to. But he knew that whatever the blond boy was dreaming, he felt hunted.
“Troy?”
“Yeah, Gibbie?”
“How’d you know he was in danger?”
If this had been a soap opera, soft dramatic music would have risen up and the camera would have closed in on Troy’s worried face.
“Later,” he said.
Downstairs, Troy was practically suffocated by his parents’ arms gripping him tight. He endured it for as long as he could, along with the weepy cries of “my baby, my baby”—and that was just his father—before he finally pushed them both away.
“I’m fine.”
That’s when their mom noticed Gibbie’s shredded shoes. There were blood prints on the tile floor from where the soles of his feet had rubbed raw. It was surreal in their bright yellow kitchen with sunflower trim.
“Oh my God!” She rushed forward.
“This?” Gibbie said, “It’s just makeup. Me and the guys are making this video for YouTube. It takes place in the distant future, after zombie cannibals take over the earth.”
Their mom sighed.
“Well just clean this up, would you?”
She gave him a hug, and then wrapped Troy in her arms.
“You gave us quite the scare.”
“Yes,” Troy said, feeling her relief, “I know.”
He could also feel the pain in Gibbie’s feet.
“Want a lift?” he asked, turning and kneeling.
Gibbie climbed onto his brother piggyback. In Troy’s washroom upstairs, Gibbie washed his feet in the shower while Troy brushed his teeth.
“So are you going to tell me?” Gibbie asked, wincing as he picked out a piece of gravel embedded in his big toe.
“Tell you what?”
“How’d you know? About Chad, I mean.”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Troy, I busted through a solid wood door, and carried him all the way back here. I’m super strong.” Some of the time, he thought. “And look at Chad.”
Chad’s back was to them, a regular teen from this angle, but turn him over…
“I think something’s happened to us,” Gibbie whispered, “Maybe it’s happened to you too, but different. Did you see him?”
“Well, yeah,” Troy replied.
Gibbie’s face bunched up with excitement. “With X-ray vision?”
“No, it was not X-ray vision.”
Troy stifled his impulse to add the word “dork” to the end of the sentence.
“Déjà vu?” Gibbie pressed.
“Spider sense,” Troy countered.
“Really?” Gibbie leaned forward, slopping water onto the floor as he grabbed his brother’s muscular forearm.
“Where did the spider bite you?” he asked. Muttering to himself, he added, “And how did you even come into contact with a radioactive arachnid?”
Gibbie looked up into Troy’s smirking face.
“You’re making fun of me.”
Troy pressed his hand against his temple as he felt the rise of hurt anger from his little brother. There was a boiling kettle in Troy’s skull, with nowhere for the steam to escape. The pressure just kept building.
“Geezus, Gibbie, could you just stop feeling stuff for five seconds? It’s like a marching band in my brain. I’m really starting to get a headache.”
Gibbie looked at him incredulously.
“I’m not kidding this time,” Troy insisted. “That’s how I knew Chad was in danger. I could…feel it. He was scared, and desperate, and I just”— he waved his hands in the air—“I felt him slipping away. Okay?”
“So what am I thinking now?” Gibbie asked him.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking. I know what you’re feeling.”
“Fascinating,” Gibbie whispered, and Troy knew his little brother believed him, could feel it.
“Clearly something’s happened to us,” Gibbie went on, “but what was the causal event? What do we three have in common? And are there others?”
He rhymed the questions off like he was pondering what to put in a sandwich.
“Yeah,” Troy said, “And how do we make it go away?”
“Make it go away? Are you crazy? We have superpowers! Do you know how many people dream of superpowers?”
“Actually, you have a superpower,” Troy corrected. “Half the time I feel like yelling, the other like crying. I’m like a chick that’s permanently on the rag.”
“You saved Chad,” Gibbie offered.
“No,” Troy corrected, “you did. I banged on his window while he nearly died.”
Gibbie looked ready to counter Troy’s words but their dad poked his head in through the doorway.
“Okay, guys, I know it’s been a long day, but time for lights out.” And then he noticed the person in Troy’s bed. “Who’s that?”
“Oh, uh, well, you see,” Gibbie stammered.
“He’s my friend,” Troy said without hesitation. “Sorry for not introducing you. He had a bit of a panic attack earlier, at the mall, with the whole kablooey thing. He just wanted to lie down. Wasn’t really up for meeting new people. I just figured you’d be level if he crashed here.”
“Sure, of course,” their dad said. “Definitely level.”
“Cool,” Troy said nonchalantly.
“Cool,” his dad echoed in the way older people do in their attempt to bond with the younger folk. “I’ll make sure to put out an extra plate at breakfast.”
“That’d be great,” Troy replied.
“Well, good night!”
Their father clicked off the hallway light and disappeared from view.
Gibbie’s eyes narrowed. “Interesting.”
“What do you mean?” Troy countered.
“He kind of bought that a little too easily, don’t you think?”
“Meaning?”
“Too soon to speculate,” Gibbie said coyly.
“Whatever,” Troy yawned. “That’s it for me for today.”
“Really?” Gibbie asked. “I mean, shouldn’t we run some tests?”
“Sure thing, professor,” Troy said. “Oh wait, I think our CAT scan machine is on the fritz.”
“So now what am I feeling?” Gibbie glared.
“Okay,” Troy said, “simmer down.”
He pulled out his flip pad.
“Run tests on super freaks,” he said as he wrote it down.
He showed the pad to Gibbie. “Satisfied?”
“I guess.”
The little redhead stepped into the hallway, and then turned back.
“I still think Chad should stay in my…”
Troy closed the door in his face.
“I could break this down, you know!” Gibbie shouted.
“It
’s your allowance that’ll pay to fix it,” Troy yelled back. “No comic books for at least a month.”
There was silence, and then the sound of stomping footsteps.
Troy stared at the door for a spell, then slowly turned around.
Chad’s twitching form was before him. Troy jerked away just a little too quickly. He pulled out a camping mat and unrolled his sleeping bag on the floor. He reached over Chad’s head to grab his second pillow. He took a moment to stare at the pretty blond boy, cat eyes hidden behind closed lids, fangs safe within his lips, only his pointed ears left to give him away.
Troy backed away and set the pillow at the head of the sleeping bag. He crouched over it, staring. It looked so…
Safe.
…uninviting.
He looked back at Chad. He’d felt so wild, so free, so…
Hot.
…uninhibited. Everything Troy was not.
He switched the overhead light off, and in the glow of the moon, he did not go to his lonely sleeping mat on the floor. Instead he sat on the bed next to Chad’s resting form. The cheerleader’s nose wrinkled and he let out a sad little moan.
Troy examined his classmate’s body. He gently stroked the smooth forearms and wondered if Chad shaved them. Chad gurgled at the touch, leaning in closer. Troy stroked his hair, his bare back.
“Where did you take me tonight?” Troy whispered.
The wrestler bit his lip, hesitating. He pulled his hand back. He looked once more to his sleeping bag, then to the closed door separating him from the rest of his family. He waited for footsteps, but none came.
He gazed at Chad, and crawled in under the blankets, settling in next to the cheerleader. Just for a second, he assured himself. The wrestler put an arm around the blond’s muscular body. Troy’s heart pounded. With closed eyes and a deep sigh, Troy nuzzled the other boy’s shoulder.
It felt so warm and right, so unlike cuddling with Mandy when they’d still been together, Troy constantly trying to follow the recipe he’d seen in movies. Troy’s throat constricted painfully, and he swallowed hard. With a force of will Troy pulled away, about to get out of bed…until he realized Chad was staring at him.
Chad’s eyes were groggy but open. The wrestler froze. His instinct was to stumble away, to stammer an apology, to explain he just needed a pillow.
But before a word could be said, Chad touched Troy’s cheek. They stayed like that, staring at one another, and Troy’s mouth grew heavy, a magnet drawn to its opposite charge. Slowly Troy leaned forward, and Chad did not pull away. Their lips met, and Troy’s chest swelled with a growing pressure. It filled him, and flowed into Chad and back again. Their kissing grew more fervent, their hands exploring the forbidden territory of each other’s bodies. This was wrong, so very wrong, and yet it felt…
Queeroes Page 4