by Brian Cody
Despite his ears ringing and his eyes spinning, the onlooker spread his legs and rose to his knees before placing pressure on his left hand and then his right—his breathing stopped as he felt the strain of his bodyweight erupt along his right shoulder. He growled as he reared forward and slammed his teeth shut to hold in his cries. His eyes closed as he squeezed his fists, but then opened as he heard swerving tires. With a stumbling placement of his legs, he stood and turned as the Mustang reached the far end of the lot, stopped, and K-turned to accelerate at him. The onlooker lifted his arms but that same pain bled through his right shoulder and drove him to bow. “S***!” he coughed. He raised his head as the Mustang accelerated further. Evade and counterattack, he suggested, short the engine…or just leave…or… “Ah, f*** it”, he muttered as he spread his arms and tightened his fists. With a strident hiss and a luminous flash, scores upon scores of electric bolts erupted from his hands and speared into the underlying ground, while a grin once more formed along the hooded onlooker’s face.
***
“Are any of them Igneous students?” a police officer inquired as he strode along the side of the overflow lot and watched as four of the six men were loaded into ambulances.
“No, sir”, an accompanying officer replied.
“Okay, is there a fire somewhere?” the first officer inquired as he looked back to a fire truck at the end of the lot.
“No, sir, not to my knowledge”, the accompanying officer replied.
“Okay, then why the fire truck?” the first officer inquired as he stopped at the driver’s door of his cruiser near the lot’s entrance.
“Well, sir; it’s hard to explain”, the second officer replied.
“Hard to explain?” the first officer repeated.
“Yes, sir; come with me, sir.” The second officer started into the tree line between the lot and the adjacent apartment buildings. The first officer followed with head tilted as he stepped past icy copse, light patches of snow, and discarded trash along the leafless oaks. “Fallen tree branches fifty feet to your left”, the second officer began as he pointed to the severed limbs and then to their trunks. A line of trees was distinguished by their identically cut, jagged heights as they sat in a straight arrangement. “And then”, the officer began as he exited the woods and walked beside a rectangular, four-story structure, “we have that”, he finished as he pointed to the far left of the third floor, to where in place of a window protruded the back-end of a Ford Mustang, with wheels raised and its tires shredded. The vehicle’s engine was detectable by a light purr, and, as the first officer listened, he too perceived the wails of its two occupants.
“How in the_?”
“We don’t know, sir…right now our best explanation is…” the second officer turned to the first, and let his jaw drop, “we have no plausible explanations, sir; but-but they’re still alive, and, luckily, that apartment’s unoccupied.”
“All right…bring the fire truck over here, and”—the first officer stepped back and turned to the second with his arms crossed—“not a word to the media about this; I want a perimeter around this building, and I want the building evacuated. If anyone tries to run around the back, tase them and say something about interfering with a crime scene or the Patriot Act or some s***.”
“Uh, yes, sir, but what_?”
“Just follow those orders. I’m calling the FBI.” The first officer rubbed his forehead and stomped towards the lot. He then looked skyward, locating a radiant, white streak jolting across the atmosphere and then hearing the clap of thunder in that cloudless night.
***
Chapter Four: Saturday, 16 January
“Driving…into…Lynchburg…in…fifteen…be…at dorm…by three”, David muttered as he typed on his phone and drove along a four-lane road. He sighed as he sent that message, and he dropped his phone onto the passenger seat as he angled his Escape around a curve. He glanced left and right, eying the snow lining the steep hills on both the median and the bare trees above them, and he wrapped both hands on the wheel and eyed his speedometer, watching it remain at sixty miles per hour, and loosening his foot whenever he’d feel acceleration from either a downhill drop or his own distracted mind. He looked up as he rounded another corner and slowed to five miles under the limit as he passed a State Trooper. He glanced over the vehicle within the median and then faced forward until he rounded a corner. He then glanced back to his rearview mirror before looking ahead.
Five minutes crept by as he continued south, with the accompanying vehicles remaining sparse and his own energy dwindling. The swerve of a vehicle performing a U-turn blasted in his ears, causing him to look and to tense as he fought the impetus to turn his Escape onto one of the gravel back-roads. For the next few moments, he gasped and shook, once more diverting his gaze to the rearview mirror and watching as that vehicle turned onto another road after thirty seconds. David then faced forward before removing his left hand and wiping the sweat from his brow. He placed his hand back onto the wheel, swallowed, and continued, passing through thickening and then thinning forest, sighing, and grinning as he looked to his right.
Past the line of trees along the highway, David found a gleaming metropolis of steel, concrete, and glass. About one mile westward sat an arrangement of skyscrapers—some twenty or thirty interspersed colossi amongst scores of shorter buildings averaging ten stories and scattered across a three-mile radius. David turned away as he passed a sign marked with the words ‘Welcome to Lynchburg’, and he motioned his vehicle into the right lane. “The good ol’ ‘Burg”, he muttered as he turned onto another road labeled as ‘460 West’ and followed its succeeding markers before locking onto one which read ‘Igneous University, Next Right’. As he drove, the skyscraping concentration remained in the backdrop.
After five minutes of driving through Lynchburg’s northeastern and then eastern edges, he passed onto another local road and then continued straight. To his left, a circular carving and the red initials of “I” and “U” appeared gored into a mountaintop and were surrounded by a countless assortment of white stones that illuminated the burnt sienna and blazed in the midmorning sun.
David inhaled as his vehicle halted at a stoplight, and he exhaled as he crossed over an imaginary line marking the beginning of campus. He passed a football stadium to his right, then outlined with rafters and roped with cautionary tape while construction equipment sat idle. He moved across from a line of three-story buildings, about half of a mile to the east, that was embedded in the same mountainside where the monogram sat. He drove for another minute, rounding a corner and sighting the college campus’s center and the walking pairs and groups of new students moving atop the sidewalks and alongside of the two-story bookstore in the center of the lot to his left. Next, to his right, came another rising hill, atop of which were just under a dozen, two-story, sienna-brick dormitories, and a bleached-white chapel large enough to fit one hundred with a spire at the front of its gabled roof. David looked past the chapel as he stopped in front of a crosswalk and signaled a group of students to his right, and he made out the shape of a two-story house with a duller white shade than the chapel.
David then continued, slowing as a vehicle in front of him made a right turn down a one-way avenue which moved on a downhill slope and which passed the two-story dining hall. He drove on a perpendicular slope, past by nexus of campus, with a building on his left, at first glance, which appeared diminutive, but which David had learned contained enough space for a department and a half. He glanced to his right as the road before him curved westerly around a four-story building of lighter red brick, with, at its front, a white stairway and a Jeffersonian portico outlined by thirty-foot pillars and containing four doorways. David then watched the road in front of him straighten and level off, while he stopped beside a stop sign in front of an elevated, pale-sterling, ten-story dome. While continuing, he eyed the dome’s reflectance and watched slabs of crooked ice dissever along its slope. Along the dome’s front entranc
e was an illuminated sign, and, flashing in bold, red words was, ‘Welcome Back, Igneous Students’.
He turned right a second time as the road sloped upward, and he ascended another hill that was neither as steep nor as prominent as the one near the center of campus. That location, making up a one-way road around a circular formation of dormitories, was cordoned off by trees between it and the domed arena. David looked to his left as he followed the numbering system of the off-white and navy-blue-topped, one-story buildings; number eight, number nine, and then number ten, his home, for that year and the preceding. He then looked to the row of angled parking spots lining the right side of the street and sitting in front of another grouping of three-story dorms, and, with a smirk and a hurried turn of his wheel before he would’ve come to a stop sign, he parked in a vacancy across from his dorm and deactivated his vehicle. Then, he bowed on the steering wheel and breathed over the next minute, his hands raising and then opening as he held them above his lap.
He closed his eyes for a cacophonous moment, with the memories of corpses, charred vehicles, and flying debris flashing in his mind before vanishing as he opened them. “It never happened”, he muttered. “You weren’t on the bridge”, he whispered. “You were a couple minutes ahead”, he said as he looked up. “That’ll work.” He grabbed his phone.
He scanned through his contacts and dialed a number before placing his phone to his left ear. “Hey”, he spoke after a three-second piece of the third movement of Vivaldi’s Spring, his voice rising to a softer and higher intonation. “I just got in; when will you be free?” he asked, his smirk rising as he unbuckled his seatbelt.
After twenty minutes, David returned his phone to his right pocket, gathered two duffle bags and one shoe box from the back of his Escape, and carried them across the road before stepping onto the sidewalk and ambling down a lane leading to the navy blue double-doors with the number ten above them. He lowered his items as he came to the door, reached into the left pocket of his blue jeans, and pulled out a set of keys, with his hand clasping over a dull-bronze key which he inserted into the keyhole, turned, and then pulled. With an echoing knock, the door was pulled ajar, and, with a kick of his right, David held it open while sliding his bags onto the linoleum floor. He then entered to let the door close. He stopped as he scanned the hall, searching for open doors, blasting music, or the conversations of other residents, perhaps new students, or, perhaps other members of the hall’s leadership. No signs of life were present at first glance, and, as he picked up his bags and continued down the hall, passing each pair of rooms on his left and right, sounds of occupancy evaded him.
He stopped as he came to the center of the hall and stood in front of a wooden door numbered ‘111’. He stepped to insert the same key, but stopped as he heard a muddled voice beyond the doorway. He listened, his fists squeezing along the handles of his bags; however, he perceived a second voice, one that was closer to the door, and one with the intonation of a continuing, nasal squeal bearing little emotion. David grinned as his anxiety dissipated, caught the doorknob, and pushed the door inward. Before him sat a room lit both by the ambient sunlight through the blue curtains across from the door and from the glow of two open and active laptops. The room was about ten feet square with three beds: a bunk bed running along the right wall and a loft across from it that sat on the left wall; there, too, were three desks, all three under and in front of the loft, and two of which were occupied.
“What’s up, Piekarsky?” the farthest roommate and the one facing David called while sitting behind his laptop with headphones in his ears.
“Erik!” David greeted as he stepped past him and dropped his belongings by the third desk. “How was your break?”
“Pretty good”, Erik replied as he stood to his 5'7" height, his dark tan frame being slender but tone, and his shoulders being visibly broad within his white sleeveless tee, while his straight, black hair, several inches in length, sat disheveled along his head and hung, in its front, an inch above his dark-brown eyes. “How about yours?” Erik asked as he shook hands with David.
“It was pretty good; I got to see the family, and I worked a little bit, which was a plus”, David replied before turning to the second occupant, the one closest to the door and facing from it while staring at his computer screen with headphones in his ears. That individual’s eyes remained locked on the blue and white display of his Facebook homepage, with the glow of the screen, due to the room’s dimness, bouncing off of his chocolate-brown skin and reflecting displays against his eyeglasses. “What up, Bryen?” David coughed as he nudged his belongings towards the back-left corner and to the bottom bunks.
Bryen looked up, squinting as he pushed his glasses and, with that droning and dull squeal David had heard before, replied with, “whoa.”
“How was your intensive?” David asked as Bryen removed his headphones and looked to his screen.
“Intense”, Bryen grunted as he clicked his mouse.
“Ha!” David proclaimed with a swing of his fist.
“Ah, intensive—intense; I see what you did there”, Erik replied as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his basketball shorts.
“Is anyone else here?” David asked, “The hall seems quiet.”
“Some of the leadership”, Erik replied, “a couple of new guys_”
“And Nate”, Bryen interjected as he stared at his screen.
“Ah; Klinge? What’s he doing back so early?”
“I think he said he had to do work…?” Erik inquired as he glanced to Bryen and shrugged.
“…Sure… He’s been here since Monday or Tuesday or something...” Bryen remarked as he scratched the top of his head, his bony fingers digging through the miniature lining of flat, black hair. After glancing at the insides of his uneven fingernails, Bryen leaned, reapplied his headphones, crossed his arms, and glared at his screen.
“Did you get any of Shawn’s texts?” Erik asked. “He said he was going to be in by later this afternoon; Turrisi might come in tonight as well.”
“Okay, okay; cool”, David replied as he opened the larger of his two duffle bags and grabbed a pile of clothes, with the crackle of a plastic bag filling the air. “Well, I won’t be able to see Clare until after eight or nine. Would you guys want to get dinner when everyone’s back?”
“Like eat out?” Erik asked. “I guess; I don’t have a lot of money, so I can’t do it very often this semester.”
“Understandable”, David replied with a nod. “Yo, B!” he called as he bowed and waved at Bryen; “eat out, maybe CeCe’s for dinner?”
“Sure”, Bryen replied as he glanced from David, glanced to him, and then focused on his screen.
“All right; well, I have a few boxes of food that my parents gave me; if you guys help unload them, maybe I’ll share”, David suggested.
“You don’t have to ask”, Erik replied.
“Cool, cool.” David bowed and waved at Bryen, his hand shaking for several moments before Bryen looked up and ripped off his headphones. “B-money, go with Garcia to my car outside, and I’ll meet you guys out there.”
“Word”, Bryen groaned as he paused his mp3 player, pushed out his sliding chair, and stood. Between 5'8" and 5'9", he was covered in a pair of size thirty-three relaxed-fit, black jeans which David was certain were one of only two pairs of pants he actually wore, and a black, long-sleeved polo shirt that hung from his slender and short torso and covered his belt.
“Cool”, David replied. He then watched Erik slide on a pair of sandals, apply a light brown, hooded jacket, and saunter out of the room. As Erik entered the hallway and turned to his left, Bryen followed, with light squeaks emanating from the bottoms of his black hiking boots as he turned after Erik; his long arms locked by his sides; and the majority of his movement being located in his long legs as he stepped with uneven strides.
David smirked as they moved beyond view and listened to their footsteps diminish until the words “do you have your keys?” echoed wi
th the clangs of the double-doors. David then nodded and reached into his duffle bag, cradling the oblong shape of the balled plastic bag and then hoisting it out. He rubbed his fingers along its surface and squeezed it to hear the churns of water moving through the shirt and pants that he had worn the day before. The dumpster along the sidewalk—dump it after you’ve gotten your stuff. “As long as no one asks”, he muttered. Taps chimed behind him, causing him to rear up and to spin, where he found Bryen standing with keys in hand. “Whoa”, David muttered as Bryen looked back with lips angled into something of a smirk, but which bore a greater semblance to a facial contortion, as if—as David had surmised earlier that year—the muscles on Bryen’s jawline underwent occasional paralysis. It, however, as David had concluded, was his ‘somewhat-confused look’. “You scared me”, David chuckled.
“I forgot my keys”, Bryen explained as he lifted the blue and white lanyard hanging from his keychain in his right.
“Nice”, David replied, while Bryen backed away and glanced to the bag in David’s shaking grasp before exiting.