One name caught my attention. It was Hen. For several minutes, my finger hovered over the Request button. I would feel like an idiot if she didn’t accept it, but she already had hundreds of friends. What would one more be to her? Taking a deep breath, I sent the request and waited. I knew she kept her phone with her, and when the notification came through that we were friends, my heart started to race.
It could have been fifteen minutes or five hours, but the second we were connected online, I started looking through her profile. She was every bit the girl that I thought she would be. She was a cheerleader with no other activities beyond social ones, and I knew that our friendship wasn’t going to happen. She had photos of herself and Buzz everywhere, and the few that he wasn’t in were just pictures of herself with other girls.
I was just about to call it a night when the door opened and my grandparents walked in. With barely five words to me, my grandpa went into their small bedroom and I heard him collapse onto the bed and start snoring. Some things never changed. My mother told me that he always liked to drink, though he was never violent about it.
“Honey!” said my grandmother in shock. “What are you still doing up? I thought you would be in bed at this late hour.”
“Grandma,” I muttered, looking at my phone. “It’s only ten. It’s not that late for me.”
“Well, good,” she said as she sat down. “How was your first day of school? Did you make any friends?”
I sighed. “A few, but nothing I really want to talk about. I was getting tired, just about to head to bed.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “Well, I guess a boy needs his sleep. Promise me, though, that we will talk some this weekend, okay? You really shouldn’t be alone all the time. I don’t want you to feel like you don’t fit in here.”
“Grandma,” I said carefully, “I don’t fit in here. I never wanted to live in the city, but you don’t need to worry about me. I won’t cause any trouble. I just want to get through this year and get to college.”
“Good,” she said quickly. “I mean, I wish that you would make friends and fit in and all that, but I’m happy to hear that you’re still planning on going to college. That’s what your mother would have wanted for you. She always told me what a smart boy you were.”
“I didn’t realize you two talked very much.”
“We didn’t.” She paused. “Not as much as we should have, and now I’m paying the price for that. But we can’t change what’s already happened, right? Tomorrow will be a better day.”
“Sure, Grandma,” I said before going to my room. “Goodnight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Benji?” she called from the couch. “I hope that you find your place here. Your mother would have wanted that.”
“Me too, Grandma. Thanks for everything. I’m going to turn in.”
“I love you, honey,” she said.
“Sure,” I muttered. I hadn’t been able to tell anyone I loved them, not since the two people I loved more than anything had died. “You too. Talk to you tomorrow.”
I shut the door but didn’t bother turning off the light just yet. Back home, I would stay up until two or three gaming with friends. My teachers at my old school knew that the work they gave me wasn’t a challenge. Most would let me sleep through class and take tests for the week right away. I couldn’t help myself as I went back to Hen’s Facebook page. As I saw the new link that had been added, my heart started to race.
She was throwing a party, one that was open to everyone on her page. It would be a great way for me to meet people. I thought about Buzz and frowned. With him hanging around, there was no way I would have the chance to hang out with Hen ever again. No doubt that he would be drinking, and the school wouldn’t be able to stop him from beating me to a pulp. I’d have to think long and hard before deciding whether the risk was worth it.
I fell asleep, but it was restless and fitful, as I had come to expect. The dream was different but the message was the same. It was my fault that they were dead. I saw the message on my phone as she tried desperately to get ahold of me. She just wanted to talk. They were turning around and coming back to check on me unless I responded to her text. I held the phone in my hand and did nothing. That nothingness was what haunted me.
She came to me in the night, her body disfigured and charred in spots. She looked the same as when I’d gone to the police station to identify her body and that of my father. Chunks of her hair and scalp were missing, replaced by dried black blood. Her lips were torn, exposing the white, chipped teeth that before then, my mother had worked so hard to keep perfect.
“A smile is worth all the money in the world,” she would tell me. “Ask any girl what she likes most in a boy, and she’ll tell you it’s a good smile.”
Her smile now haunted me as her dead eyes considered my soul.
“Why?” she asked, as she so often did in my dreams.
“Why, what?” I whispered.
I knew the game well, but I could never change the board as the scene unfolded in front of me. She would ask, I would answer. I would ask, she would answer. The ending was always the same, the blood and the screaming layered with guilt over what I had done.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone, Benji? Why did you want me to die? I tried to love you,” she said as a thin trickle of blood ran down her blackened lips. “Why did you kill me?”
I shook my head vigorously. “No. I never wanted this, Mom. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know this would happen! I was angry but I never wanted you dead.”
“You’re lying,” she said, void of emotions. “You always liked to lie to me, and now it’s too late to take any of it back. You killed us.”
“Mom,” I said through the sobs and the tears. “Please, I’m so sorry.”
Suddenly, I was pulled away from the dream and jerked back to reality. I scrambled to get my bearings as I bolted up in bed. The room was still light. I’d fallen asleep while looking at my phone. It wasn’t my grandmother sitting there, though. It was my grandpa. He let go of me and sighed.
“Bad dreams?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I get those too. Terrible ones from ‘Nam. Had a few good men die over there. They shook me up for the longest time, you know. Had me wondering if I could have saved those poor bastards every night. Damn near enough to drive a man insane.”
“How did you stop them?” I asked as the cold sweat started to dry on my shirt.
He shook his head. “I don’t know that I ever did. Maybe my mind just slipped too far and I can’t remember them now, but I do know this much. I wasn’t the one to blame for those men’s deaths. I never was. You understand what I’m trying to tell you, Son?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Good, because I’ve got the start of one hell of a hangover. It’s just about dawn. Want a cup of coffee?”
“Yeah,” I said, hungry for the first time in a while. “That actually sounds really good.”
“Nothing in this world a good cup of joe can’t fix. I’ll see you in a few. Get yourself cleaned up. No need to tell your grandma about this. It would just cause a stir.”
I grinned. “Thanks, Grandpa.”
Chapter 4
Friday afternoon came and went without event, just as the rest of the week had. Hen had made no effort to help me after our first encounter and I wasn’t about to make the next move. At lunch, I sat outside by myself and tried to think about the years coming after high school, when things like lacrosse and Buzz would take a backseat to brains.
Some days were better than others, but one thing was becoming apparent. I needed to find some work if I was going to make it through the school year. My grandmother and I had our first argument the night before when she caught me looking for jobs online. It was the first time she and I really got into it. I just couldn’t understand what the big deal was. Back in Oregon, working was nothing to teens. It’s what you did to stay out of trouble.
“Your mother wanted you to focu
s on school, not on working. I won’t hear of it!”
“Grandma,” I groaned. “I’m seventeen years old, and besides, I had a job back home in Oregon!”
“Oregon isn’t New York. This place will chew you up and spit you out with nothing left! No,” she said as she slammed down a jar of spaghetti sauce. “I won’t hear of you working. Your job right now is school. Just tell me what you need and I’ll get it for you. I took you into my home, not because of obligation but because we want you here. If it was about the money, we’d have taken what we needed, but we didn’t need it then and we don’t need it now.”
I stood up and took the jar off the counter, unscrewing the lid and smiling at her. “Okay, Grandma. I won’t get a job, but you aren’t going to buy me things either. I’ll find a way. There has to be a happy middle ground that we can come to. It’s not all fast food and convenience stores for working teens anymore, you know.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, God. Are you selling drugs? The head doctor said you might lash out after the accident. I just never thought it would happen! I knew it! I should have sent you to a private school! It’s those damn New York kids. They’ve got no moral compass, I tell you!”
I couldn’t stifle a laugh. “Grandma! I’m not selling drugs! There are other ways for me to make money though. I can tutor, walk dogs, and help other students with their electronics. The list goes on and on, okay?”
It didn’t seem like a good idea to tell her that ‘helping with electronics’ loosely translated into unlocking products that were probably stolen and resold at a lower rate. If I wasn’t the one doing the stealing, though, I saw no harm in it. A boy had to make a buck. I had no intention of walking dogs. I just wasn’t an animal person, but tutoring was a valid option. Given the number of jocks at my school, there had to be ones failing who needed help.
She let out a sigh of relief. “Whew. Well, I guess I’m okay with something like that then. But the second your grades start to slip, it’s over.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that. I’m pretty sure I could teach the classes better than half the faculty,” I told her honestly. “The curriculum here is so far behind my old school I could probably not show up for the entire year and still have the highest GPA there.”
“Just be careful. I know the parents of some of those kids who go to school with you, and not everyone there is going to be happy about your trying to earn money, okay?”
“Gram,” I muttered. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they care if I was earning money?”
“Because money, to those bastards, is worth more than their children. You might get poked fun at for earning money instead of just having it handed to you,” she said vehemently. “I picked that school because it was close, the same one your mother went to. I had no idea how much it had changed until you were already enrolled.”
“The school is fine,” I lied. “Don’t worry, Grandma. Money isn’t everything, and I know that. I just want a little extra cash is all.”
“Then go get them, tiger,” she said with a grin. “But not before you eat something. You’re such a good-looking kid but all skin and bones.”
Now, school was out and I had a potential source of money, but it wasn’t one that my grandmother would have approved of. After skimming through the paper, I saw a constant theme. People wanted to test their new drugs on humans. New York really was nothing like Oregon, but a couple of them seemed harmless enough, so I applied and was told to come back today.
The first one was easy. It was sampling a new hand lotion but it only paid ten dollars. I did it and quickly jogged across town, hoping the next one would pay more and smell less like a middle-aged woman in the process. The smell seemed to linger and follow me into the next testing facility.
When the woman at the desk called my name, I almost jumped out of my seat. There wasn’t anyone else around but me, the others already having gone through the process and come back out. This facility was considerably larger and nicer than the last. Whoever was footing the bill obviously had a decent amount of money invested in their new product.
“We just have a few questions for you,” the nurse said with a smile. Her identification badge told me her name was Mary.
“Are you over eighteen?” Mary asked.
I swallowed and nodded my head. It was just a little white lie, and the study paid a hundred dollars when I came back the following week. That would get me through for a few weeks, at least. It wasn’t like girls were lining up to date me, so funds weren’t that big of a problem. Still, I needed a little cash for new clothing. With Hen’s party coming up, I didn’t want to be wearing the same thing I’d worn all week.
Even though I still wasn’t sure I was going, I wanted to have the option when it came time to decide. “Yeah. Just turned eighteen last month.”
“Great, do you have any medical problems?”
I shook my head. “No, perfect vision and everything else. Unless you call being a nerd a health defect.”
She smiled. “I don’t think you’re a nerd. Plus, if this works, I can promise that your quality of life will be greatly improved.”
“Can you tell me what the study is about?” I asked, wondering if it was a good idea to have an unknown drug jabbed into my arm.
“Nope,” she said. “Sorry, but it’s a double-blind study. Not even the doctor performing the injection knows what you’re getting. It’s all done this way so—”
“I know what a double-blind study is,” I interjected. My nerves were starting to get the best of me.
Mary glared at me, and right away, I felt bad for interrupting her. I didn’t want to seem rude, but she was talking to me like I was a child. I probably knew about the biological process better than she did. Taking a deep breath, I plastered a smile on my face and leaned onto the counter toward her.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Rough night at work.”
“It’s okay. We all have days like that. If you’re ready to go, I can take you back there now and we can start the IV.”
“Sounds great,” I said.
“Not scared of needles, are you?” she asked with a grin.
“Nope,” I said confidently. “My mom always told me that needles were one of the few things you’d have to deal with your entire life, so you might as well get used to them.”
“She sounds like a very smart woman.”
“She was, thank you. Ready?” I asked her as I lay on the table.
The nurse started the IV, and I was impressed that she found my vein right away. I watched the brown liquid as it went into the IV bag, mixing with the saline and running into my arm. I didn’t feel any different, but after a few minutes, I had to pee. I looked at the clock but the nurse saw this and smiled.
“It’s the saline. Happens to everyone,” she said. “This will only take a few more minutes, but afterward, we will need you to come back in a week to collect your check. I have a journal here for you. Anytime anything happens, we need you to write down any changes you might be feeling.”
“What should I be looking for?”
“Anything unusual.” She shrugged. “I don’t really know the details of the study, but it won’t be anything bad. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“Great, so nothing too bad. Got it,” I said.
“This next stage is nothing to worry about, okay?” she said softly.
Right away, I was on edge. I didn’t like the way she said there was nothing to worry about. That almost always meant that something bad was going to happen. The bag with the brown liquid was almost empty now, but the nurse brought in another machine, one that I wasn’t so quick to recognize. It had thin wires running to circular pads that she pulled off now and began to rub down with an oil. I didn’t like the looks of it and was starting to question why I was doing the study at all. Suddenly, the money didn’t seem all that important.
“This is nothing to worry about. The study calls for a slight electrical pulse to be administered
.”
“A slight pulse? Is that to activate or deactivate something?” I asked her quickly.
The nurse shook her head again, smiling but not knowing much. “Sorry, I just don’t know anything about it. I can tell you that I’ve done this to one other person today, and she assured me that it didn’t hurt at all. So, I guess, just stay put and everything will be fine. You can still back out anytime that you want to.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said as my heart raced. She stuck the pads on both of my hands and one on each side of my forehead. I wasn’t as sure about it as before, but I didn’t want to puss out. Then the nurse would know I was a chicken too.
“Ready?” she asked.
I nodded and listened as the device started up. It seemed to hum before I felt the pulsing. She hadn’t lied. It felt like a strong vibration but nothing more. I wouldn’t have to worry about being hurt. The pulsing continued for a little while longer, maybe twenty minutes, before the nurse came back into the room and turned it off. As she pulled off the first electrode, I felt a shock reverberate through me and she jumped back.
“Ouch!” she hissed. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it must be leftover charge from the pods. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think it scared me more than anything,” she said as she tugged off the final one. This time, she was more careful and nothing happened.
She pulled the IV out of my arm and smiled again. “If you have any questions, there is a number on the back of the packet that I gave you. Someone is there to answer at any time, so don’t hesitate to call.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“And there is a restroom on your way out too,” she said with a wink as she left the room.
I stood and didn’t feel any different, other than the need to go pee. It was a little strange that my hands were tingling. That didn’t happen unless I’d fallen asleep on them, but now it felt like a residual effect from the electrodes that had shot electricity through me. As I slipped into the bathroom, then finally the exit, I thought about the entire process. The tingling had already started to die down, but something else was bothering me. I was good at science, yet I’d seen the nurse get a shock.
The City Superhero (Book 1): Rise Of The Super Strike Page 3