Ascendant- Nation of Nowhere

by Richard Denoncourt

  The lock clicked, and the door swung open. They had a key, those jerks. They must have broken in one night to make a copy.

  “Hey, hey,” Warren said, strutting past the round tables and corner armchairs in the front, Elkin at his heels like a diseased puppy. “There’s my girl.”

  “Warren, get out,” Arielle said. “Make me tell you again, and it’s harassment against a woman. You wanna be outcast?”

  He let out a burst of laughter. “Yeah, right. Me? Besides, you ain’t a woman. You’re just a stupid girl.”

  “And you’re just a scumbag.”

  Her lips were trembling. This wasn’t like the other times they gave her trouble. Had Michael’s sudden presence in Gulch changed them somehow? Made them more malicious? Like they had something more to prove?

  Warren tipped his head forward and chuckled, a grin plastered across his bony face. His hair, still damp from the rain, spilled around the sides of his head like rattails.

  “Play nice now,” he said.

  Arielle edged toward the back door.

  “Yeah, we’re just customers,” Elkin said in his nasally voice. “How are you going to make any money treatin’ your patrons with that kind of attitude?”

  Arielle tried to stay calm. She couldn’t let them see how afraid she was, so she tried using a focusing technique Blake taught her that required being entirely conscious of the space her body took up in the world. If she could concentrate on that space, her mind would automatically loosen and relax.

  It wasn’t working.

  “We’ve come for some food,” Warren said, approaching her instead of taking a seat like a normal customer. Elkin lurched behind him, breathing hard. She could smell the liquor on his breath. They were both stone drunk. “Heat something up for us. Some of your famous bacon should do it.”

  “Come back tomorrow morning. I mean it.”

  “No,” Warren screamed, his face tightening like a hand making a fist. Arielle’s heart fluttered, fear tightening her chest.

  The song continued on the jukebox, Ella Fitzgerald crooning softly, “And here in the gloom of my lonely room…we’re dancing like we used to do…”

  “Okay,” Arielle said. “I’ll heat something on the burner. T-t-two sandwiches. And then promise me you’ll leave.”

  Warren stood halfway between the front and back doors, close enough he could catch her no matter where she tried to escape.

  “I promise, sweet tits,” he said.

  Arielle turned toward the back door. Warren cleared his throat, a watery sound that made her wince in disgust.

  “You bring that burner out here and light it. I want to watch you work.”

  “And you work good, girl,” Elkin said.

  The stools creaked beneath their weight. They were planning to be here for a while. Arielle considered using telepathy to call out to Dominic, but that was a bad idea. Dominic would tear these men apart, then he’d be forced to leave town again. Or worse.

  Trying to keep calm, she went through the motions of bringing out the cast-iron skillet and two plates. After preparing the bread and bacon, she began to cook.

  “I gotta take a leak,” Warren said, getting up. “Elkin, you keep your eye on her. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “Got it, boss,” Elkin said, sipping moonshine from a metal flask that had appeared in his hand.

  Warren eyed Arielle as he strutted through the back door into the storage area. He might have been planning on pissing into her juice bottles. It was just the sort of thing he would find amusing. Arielle would have to smell each bottle tomorrow just to make sure.

  When Elkin got up from the stool, bloodshot eyes narrowing, she knew something bad was about to happen.

  “Hey, little girl,” he said, creeping around the counter toward her. Arielle tensed, but didn’t turn away. She gripped the handle of the skillet, which was burning hot by now.

  Elkin placed his damp, bony hands around her waist, pressing up against her backside. “No need to be so cold to me, Arielle.”

  Feeling his hardness against the cleft of her buttocks, Arielle closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. Teeth clenched, she lifted the heated skillet, using a towel to protect her hands, and swung it over her left shoulder.

  It caught Elkin against the cheek with a sizzling sound.

  Roaring, he scuttled back as she spun around to face him.

  “You’re a little boy,” Arielle said, bringing to mind the image of Elkin as a shivering, drooling child. She had to draw it up quickly, not from memory but from her imagination, before she could project it onto him.

  Over the next few seconds, he seemed to shrink before her—he, the boy, the image of him as young, weak, and small. “You’re seven years old, and you’re afraid because you’ve been beaten. You hate the beatings so much that you cry about it. You cry, you cry, you cry…”

  And now she was crying, because the emotions she’d had to summon were enough to encompass them both. She could feel his fear—it was pungent, like a bad smell—and it made her feel sorry for him.

  He bent and wilted like paper burning up in a fire until his ass was on the floor, propping himself up on one arm, his other hand covering the burning welt on his ugly, stupid face.

  “Hunnnhhh…” he moaned.

  “You cry,” Arielle said, wiping her eyes, “like the coward you are.”

  Elkin’s face scrunched up miserably as a dark stain spread over the crotch of his pants.

  “No,” he said. “Oh, God.”

  The door burst open and Warren barreled through, a hulking figure in the dim light. Arielle lifted the pan over her shoulder. She was ready.

  “What the hell did you do?”

  “You’re scared,” Arielle intoned, lifting her arms over her face for protection. “You’re scared. You’re terrified.”

  “Your ment powers won’t work on me, you little blonde bitch,” Warren roared, pulling his arm back to swing at her.

  Chig-chig. The unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked.

  Warren froze.

  A short, dark figure stood behind him, having just emerged from the back. The single barrel of a pump-action shotgun crept up behind Warren’s shoulder to kiss his right earlobe with its metal lips.

  “You touch her, and I’ll blow your redneck brains against the wall, son.”

  Warren’s scowl was deep enough to pinch his eyebrows into a vee. He lifted his arms, but otherwise stayed in place.

  “It’s not what you think, Doc. She burned my friend here.”

  “Your friend,” Midas Ford said, “is a witless, wife-beating scumbag who deserves to be taken out back and shot. Much like yourself, I’ll bet.”

  The café was silent except for Elkin’s whiny blubbering. The jukebox had long since quieted.

  “You talk a big game, Doctor,” Warren said. “But in the end, it’s just talk. Ain’t worth a damn. You know who I work for.”

  “The devil,” Midas said. “Now, take your little friend here and get the hell out of the Cold War Café, and stay out for good. Your kind is no longer welcome here.”

  Warren turned until he was facing the doctor. He was almost a foot taller than the old man. The disparity in height appeared to give him some confidence, despite the shotgun aimed at his jaw.

  Smirking, he said, “You’re going to pay for this, Doc. You’ll see.”

  “I’m paying for my sins already,” Midas said, scowling like an imp. A hundred deep lines were etched into his brown face. His glasses did nothing to hide the rage in his eyes. “The question is—will I make you pay for yours?”

  Warren sneered. “We’ll see.”

  The two men rotated positions until Midas was shielding Arielle from further harm. Warren kicked Elkin in the shin, hissing for him to get up. Elkin wiped his eyes and nose before pushing himself off the floor, eyeing the shotgun warily.

  “Now, you git,” Midas said. “And don’t let me see you in here again.”

  Warren lick
ed his lips. “Too bad you’re the only doctor in this town, Ford, cause you’ll need one when I get done with you.”

  Arielle watched them head for the door as Midas tracked them with the shotgun. Warren glanced at Arielle once through the glass, pursing his lips into a grotesque kiss. She and Midas kept silent, waiting for the door to close and the sound of footsteps to fade away.

  Midas rested the shotgun on the counter, then pivoted to inspect Arielle.

  “Come here, honey.”

  Arielle rushed into his arms. She wept into the collar of his shirt, comfortable in his old-man smell.

  “They’re going to take the café,” she said.

  “You need to protect yourself first. Those boys have it in for you.”

  “I don’t care about that. But Meacham—he’ll take my café. And no one’s going to stop him.”

  Midas held her at arm’s length, giving her a sad smile.

  “Not if I can help it. Let me drive you home, sweetie.”

  “Okay.”

  He put his arm around her, and they made their way out of the café.

  Chapter 12

  Over the following weeks, Michael followed the routine Blake established for him, doing menial labor where he was needed—mostly chopping wood and delivering supplies like drinking water—and meeting in Blake’s office to work with him and Dominic on relaxation techniques. The people of Gulch mostly avoided him, and his interactions with the other boys in the house on Silo Street were timid at best. He still couldn’t figure out why Ian hated him so much.

  Peter and Eli were fans of Michael’s cooking, and he made sure to spoil them at breakfast in hopes that if his personality couldn’t win them over, his steak and eggs would. It wasn’t easy. He sensed the boys had little respect for him, probably because he was so eager to please.

  They each had their own social lives. Eli and Ian sometimes took a few girls from town to go swimming in the pond beneath the power plant. Michael never tried to join, but he hoped for an invitation at some point. Peter often met up with Arielle to go for a ride on his motorcycle. More often than not, Peter and Arielle would fight. For some reason, Michael enjoyed hearing about it when Eli and Ian would gossip in the living room. Apparently, Peter had trouble keeping his hands off some of the other girls in town. But why would Arielle stay with such an idiot?

  Michael couldn’t shrug off his mounting frustration. It bothered him that he wasn’t learning what he wanted during his sessions with Blake and Dominic; bothered him every time he saw Peter kiss Arielle in public; bothered him that Warren and Elkin felt it necessary to scowl at him whenever they saw him around town. He was ready to break out in some way. He just didn’t know how.

  The answer came to him finally. He would start practicing telepathy himself, secretly and slowly at first. The power growing inside him was within reach—he could taste it.

  His first target was a farmer he often saw at the Cold War Café. The man, Fred Wurthers, always came in alone in the afternoons to drink coffee and get away from his nagging wife, Sandra, whom everyone in town loathed because of her bossiness. And every day, like clockwork, he’d leave the café at the same time to head back home. Michael didn’t want to hurt the man—he just wanted to practice on someone who didn’t pose a threat to him.

  He followed Fred across town toward his house, making sure to act like he was running some minor errand. Even brought a load of firewood with him to add to the disguise. During the walk, he tried envisioning the string in the man’s head like he had at the restaurant during the interrogation. The strings were easy to see, but difficult to manipulate. He tried several commands.

  Pick up that bottle, he sent into Fred’s mind as the man passed a broken bottle on the side of the road.

  Nothing.

  Stand still, he directed in hopes the man would stop walking. This command made Michael dizzy. Still, he pressed on.

  Throw your cigarette away, he ordered Fred without opening his mouth, using only his mental voice. The string in Fred’s mind disappeared. Michael’s vision swayed.

  He held back in hopes the dizziness would subside. The weight of the wood in his arms became overwhelming. Initially, he thought it was just his muscles giving out after a long haul, but then he felt his knees go weak. The wood dropped with a series of heavy clatters.

  Spots of blood appeared on one of the logs. Had it come from his eyes? Fear struck him as he envisioned townsfolk dropping dead all around him, the result of his foolish experiment.

  He reached up to touch his face. The blood had come from his nose. Fear struck him again, doubly strong, as he remembered Blake’s warning about damaging the tissue of his brain.

  His legs gave out. Fred Wurthers ran toward him, shouting for help. Michael wanted to tell him to get Louis Blake, but he couldn’t move as a hammer made purely of pain swung inside his skull, knocking him out completely.

  “Wake up, kid.”

  The voice was deep and raspy, yet comforting. Michael awoke to the blinding rays of sunlight streaming through a window. This was not his room in the attic. He was in an actual bedroom, on a soft mattress and even softer sheets. A man sat beside the bed, watching him.

  Michael tried to sit up, but Midas Ford motioned him to stay down. The doctor was dressed in a faded green shirt tucked into brown slacks held up by suspenders. He seemed to be in his seventies or eighties. His skin was papery and brown, and his face was covered in age spots like flecks of chocolate someone had sprayed on him. With the sunlight reflecting off his glasses, Michael caught only glimpses of his serious brown eyes.

  “You gave us quite a scare last night, young’un.”

  Michael rubbed his eyes and blinked. Last night? He couldn’t believe so much time had passed. There was a sour taste in his mouth, and his head hurt. Midas Ford handed him a water bottle.

  “You’re dehydrated. Drink that slowly. Just sips at first.”

  “Did I have an episode?”

  “Drink.”

  Michael uncapped the bottle, then took long, eager swallows. His thirst was unbelievable, like he’d just crawled out of a desert.

  “Take sips, I said. You’ll puke otherwise.”

  “You’re a doctor, right?” Michael said, panting slightly. “I’ve heard of you. Midas Ford.”

  “You heard right.” Midas pushed off the chair with a grunt. “Come on. Let’s eat some breakfast.”

  “Breakfast? What time is it?”

  A minute later, Michael was sitting at a crude folding table in the kitchen, rubbing his nose to see if it was intact. At least the bleeding had gone away.

  The house was tiny compared to the ones on Silo Street. The inside would have been dreary and sad were it not for the sunlight pouring in through all the windows. Bookshelves covered every wall. Lined the narrow hallway. There were even books stacked on the kitchen counters.

  “What happened yesterday?” Michael asked as the doctor busied himself with the stove. He was frying a pan full of eggs and bacon by the smell of it.

  “You did something you shouldn’t have done.”

  “How do you know what—”

  “Heard you talking in your sleep.”

  Midas emptied the pan over two square, wooden plates, then brought them to the table. Michael’s mouth salivated. He tore into the food, barely noticing Midas’s scowl. There were biscuits, too, which he used to sop up the runny egg yolk and bacon grease.

  “So hungry,” Michael said around a mouthful of food. “Sorry.”

  “Just take it easy. Perfectly good bacon, and I don’t want it reappearing any time soon. Coffee?”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  When Michael was done scarfing everything down, he drained a glass of lukewarm milk and took a moment to breathe before speaking. Then he gave Midas his full attention.

  “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I just wanted to see…”

  “Of course you did,” Midas said, mixing sugar into his coffee. “I’ve told Louis before… Give a kid a gun an
d a box of bullets, and it’s only a matter of time before he tries loading one into the chamber.”

  “I won’t do it again.”

  “No, you won’t, and you know why?” Midas sipped his coffee, bushy eyebrows sliding up his forehead. When Michael didn’t react, the old doctor continued. “You almost died yesterday. I had to decrease the swelling in your skull using a type of medicine that’s hard to get in these parts. You try something like that again, without the proper training, and you’ll be lucky to die.”

  “Why would I be lucky?”

  Midas set down the mug. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather die than be a vegetable.”

  Michael froze. His stomach tightened as his breakfast threatened to make a second appearance. He swallowed it down.

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” Midas gathered the plates and got up. “Come on, kid. Let me show you something.”

  They went out through the back door, entering a beautiful field. The sight of it left Michael stunned. It was a long stretch of earth that rolled toward a mountainous wall in the distance, a field that was more like an explosion of color, sliced through by a sparkling strip of water, almost too perfect to be natural.

  “Amazing the kind of work people will do when they feel truly grateful to be alive.”

  “Who made all this?”

  “The town. This is why I wanted you to see it. I wanted you to feel what I feel when I come out here. The people of this town are good, decent folk. A little rough around the edges, some of them. But basically good. Many can’t pay me for my services, so they come out here and do some landscaping when the weather’s nice. I don’t even ask them to.”

  Michael nodded. “I understand.”

  “There isn’t a whole lot of tyranny in Gulch, despite what Blake and Dominic might have to say about John Meacham. He does what he can to make this the sort of place one can raise a family and not have to live in fear of slavers and raiders.

  “So, you can understand that when someone like you comes here uninvited—a city boy with the whole world chasing after him—people just aren’t gonna accept it right off the bat.”