by Logan Jacobs
The truth was that all the kids I’d known in high school had formed new friend groups in college now, or in their workplaces, and although I remained on friendly terms with many of them, I was no longer close with any of them. I didn’t have any real friends anymore, unless you counted my employer, which I sure didn’t. He would have been insulted if I were presumptuous enough to do that.
Except Anna.
She was more than just a friend, of course, but she might also be my only friend. Even though we’d barely talked in person, mostly just online. At least I had met her in person so I knew she was real and looked like her pictures.
“Oh, well, maybe you should try to hang out with him this weekend,” my mom suggested.
“Yeah, maybe,” I agreed although I had no intention of contacting him.
“You know, one thing that worries me about you not going to college is that you won’t have that wonderful opportunity that other kids do to meet so many smart, interesting people your own age,” my mom said.
“I’ll meet a lot of people in my career,” I said. “I mean, superheroes are kind of celebrities. Not that that’s why I want to do it, but it’s true.”
“Yeah, he’ll have no problem meeting lots of girls,” my dad said with a smirk.
“Allen, that’s not what I meant,” my mom said with a shake of her head. “I just want him to have a chance to make lots of friends. I’m not talking about a fanbase or social media followers, I mean actual friends to hang out with, who value him as a person, not just a hero.”
“I’ll make friends with other heroes,” I said.
“Are you friends with the Shadow Knight, would you say?” she asked me. “Is he a nice guy?”
Negative on both counts, I thought. Not that I didn’t respect the hell out of him. I did.
“Well, not really friends exactly, I mean he’s my boss, so it’s different,” I replied as I put the last bite of steak in my mouth. It was delicious. Tender and juicy. I didn’t care what kinds of gourmet chefs the Shadow Knight could afford to hire, their creations would never top my dad’s steak and my mom’s mashed potatoes.
“That makes sense,” my dad said. “There are boundaries you have to maintain under certain circumstances. But I bet once you graduate and become an independent superhero, then the two of you will be buddies. Then you can grab a drink with the Shadow Knight.”
“That’s a nice thought,” I laughed. It would’ve been a nice thought anyway if the Shadow Knight were the type of guy that you’d want to grab a beer with, but he really wasn’t. Even if he condescendingly agreed to something like that ten years from now, he wouldn’t shoot the shit with me. There wouldn’t be any manly bonding. He’d probably just use it as a feedback session to criticize everything about my performance as a superhero that had disappointed him since I graduated from my apprenticeship.
“I know it seems unlikely now, but it happens,” my dad said. “I met up with a college professor of mine once five years after I graduated, and the dynamic was totally different.”
“Mhm,” I said politely.
“I’m going to go get the apple pie,” my mom said and got up to go to the kitchen.
I seized the opportunity to text Anna back,
Free as a bird. Your place or mine?
“It is a girl, isn’t it?” my dad asked. “I can tell by your face. Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell your mom.”
“Maybe.” I grinned at him.
“Just don’t let her get kidnapped by a supervillain,” my dad chuckled. “That seems to happen a lot, doesn’t it? Or, if you want to get out of the relationship, I guess that’s an easy way.”
“Wow, nice,” I said sarcastically.
“Wasn’t giving you advice,” he said. “Just saying. And, don’t settle too soon. Shop around. Now that is advice.”
“What number girlfriend was mom?” I asked curiously.
“Eleven,” he replied. That was good news, I supposed. If he’d said a really low number, then his advice would have suggested that he wanted me to learn from his mistake. But eleven was high enough that he probably just meant I should be patient like him.
“What’s eleven?” my mom asked as she came back into the dining room with the pie.
“You are,” my dad said. “Out of ten.”
“You just want an extra big slice of pie,” she said.
“Well, that too,” he agreed as we both inhaled the mouthwatering scent and admired the delicately flaky crust over the partly melted cinnamon sprinkled apple goo.
My mom cut him an extra big slice, but first she cut me an even bigger one. When I put the first bite in my mouth it was so amazing that I closed my eyes in bliss. What made it even better was that the Shadow Knight didn’t know about it and couldn’t regulate it. Back at his place, he forced me to count my calories, track my macros, and follow his nutritional plan for optimal athletic performance.
“Oh my God this is the best pie I’ve ever eaten,” I said.
“Do you want me to bake another one for you to bring back with you?” my mom offered. “You could share it with your boss, maybe he’d appreciate that.”
“No, that’s okay,” I said quickly. “But hey, maybe you could bake another one for tomorrow? Because this one’s gonna be gone.”
“Doesn’t he feed you?” my mom exclaimed.
“Yeah, but it’s all super healthy food,” I explained.
“Well, you look like you’ve gotten really strong and lean, so I guess it’s working,” my mom said.
“Yeah, he really knows his stuff,” I agreed. “He knows a lot of stuff. He’s an expert in so many fields it’s crazy.”
“Well, he might know a lot, but I know everything, don’t forget,” my dad said.
“You didn’t even remember who the governor of this state is when we were talking about it this morning,” my mom pointed out.
“I know everything important,” my dad amended his claim.
My phone dinged again with another message. I peeked down discreetly at my lap to read,
How about yours? Lemme know when your folks go to sleep ;)
Good thing my dad didn’t know everything. Although, I didn’t think he’d really object if he did know. He had never been as strict as the Shadow Knight. I was glad about that. And I was glad that despite the months I’d spent away, and how much my superhero training had changed me as a person, home still felt exactly like home.
Anna added,
Can’t wait!!
Tonight was going to be a good night.
Chapter Nineteen - The Maniac
I smiled down at the cute pink phone in my hand as I sent out another message. Would a winky face suit this one, or should I save that for the next? The little Silver Squire was already so smitten with this girl that it didn’t matter how many emojis I included. He would do absolutely anything for her, and he seemed to be excited for their upcoming night together. Too bad for him, since I’d already tossed her thoroughly violated body into the local river. I made sure to hold on to her head, though. I’m a little sentimental that way.
Plus, it would make for a wonderful decoration.
I picked up my binoculars as Silver Squire shuffled up to his mother’s doorstep in his too tight jeans and oversized skate shoes. At least looking like a typical teenage tool was better than the fucking ridiculous outfit that the Shadow Knight usually made his sidekicks wear. I had actually never seen Silver Squire in his own clothes before because he so rarely seemed to get a weekend like this off. Usually, the Shadow Knight forced him to work overtime to “make up for his mistakes” from earlier in the week.
It’d probably be a mercy for the poor kid when I finally put him out of his misery.
Then again, the Shadow Knight’s rules might become even stricter for his next apprentice. He might not let the next kid leave the premises of his mansion unsupervised even for family visits. If he became too tyrannical, the kid would probably rebel. And fall into my clutches just like Silver Squire wo
uld tonight. It would be a beautiful vicious cycle.
Not that I’d bother to kill each one of his apprentices. I’d keep him on his toes, leave him guessing. And with some of them, I knew it was really more of a punishment to my archnemesis to leave them alive. Some of them just turned out to be failures and disappointments in a mundane sense, and I’d leave those alive. Others actually turned into villains. There were two that I knew of that had gone that way. That was how incompetent of a foster parent the Shadow Knight was.
He just didn’t understand how few people existed with our level of ambition and commitment. How few people in today’s world still had real standards, for anything they did. The sexual partners that they picked. Their performance in the careers that they pursued. Whether that was managing a bank or flipping burgers or selling car insurance. Whatever bullshit people wasted most of their lives on was usually just to pay the bills, and they didn’t mind being mediocre. They accepted mediocre identities, mediocre lives, and tried to convince themselves that they were happy, and that it was like that for everyone.
The Shadow Knight and I were both of a different breed, and I respected him for that. I could have just as easily ended up on his side, if fate had dealt a slightly different hand.
But the system favored supervillains over superheroes, so that was what I had chosen to become.
It was more fun that way.
Either variety of super was a god among mortals. The world was our playground. Starting with genetic advantage, and augmenting with technology, our abilities had no limits. No one could stop us from playing our twisted games with each other. And what’s more, no one really wanted to. What they wanted to do was watch and get a vicarious taste for the exhilarating extremes of the human experience that they themselves would never touch.
Yes. Humans wanted gods walking amongst them. They wanted to witness the struggle of chaos and order.
That’s why the supers enjoyed virtual impunity for whatever havoc they wreaked on ordinary, vulnerable citizens. Not just the heroes, who always got the benefit of the doubt that they had done the absolute best they could and that the casualties would have been much higher without their intervention. No one wanted to persecute heroes and lose their protection. But also, in a less obvious way, the villains. On paper, we were fully prosecutable of course. We were eligible for life sentences, the death penalty, and whatever else the justice system could throw at us. But no super had been executed for decades, and prison wasn’t really permanent when you had laser beam powers, invisibility, super strength, mind control powers, or what have you-- or friends or henchmen who did.
Prison was just a short breather between schemes.
Supers who elected to be villains actually had a lot more freedom than those who elected to be heroes. Obviously, we were fully expected to kill normal people. The more people we offed, the more creative or brutal the method, the more our notoriety and status increased. And although there was sort of an implicit agreement that we weren’t supposed to kill heroes just like they weren’t supposed to kill us… most supervillains defined themselves by their lack of moral codes, so violations of that agreement were to be expected. And heroes very rarely retaliated by accidentally-on-purpose killing villains that had killed one of their own. They were just “too good” to “stoop to our level.” Their immortal legacies, not to mention their paychecks, depended on their squeaky clean images. Their hands were tied. My hands were not.
It wasn’t that I cared about being a villain per se. What I cared about was being a god. And being a villain instead of a hero gave me more scope to develop my talents and test my capabilities.
For now, I started my car back up and drove aimlessly around Grayville. Just learning the contours of the city. The angles of every intersection, the width of every alley, the location of every pothole, the height of every curb. I knew the streets of Grayville well already, of course, but I wanted to be able to win a high-speed chase blindfolded.
“Don’t be all judgemental like that, Anna,” I whispered to the head that rested on the passenger seat. “I’m not getting a sexual thrill out of texting your boyfriend, more like a thrill of the hunt. Know what I mean?”
Her empty eyes were judging me from the passenger seat.
“Of course you do,” I snickered.
Her mouth hung open, and a bit of blood dripped out into the seat.
“What’s my plan?” I gasped. “Oh, you naughty girl. I hate to spoil the surprise. Okay, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you. After all, we’ve shared so many wonderful things in just the brief time we’ve known each other.”
Anna’s dead tongue shifted slightly in her gaping mouth.
“To break in now would be too early,” I began, gesturing to the brightly lit sky. “I want his parents to enjoy their time with him. I want them to fall asleep, safe and sound, happy to have their baby boy back. I want the Silver Squire to relax, relieved to be free from the tyranny of his teacher… free to be a normal, healthy boy for once. Free to enjoy the company of a pretty girl.”
I ribbed Anna playfully with my elbow, and her head wobbled on the seat.
“Don’t be coy! We both know what you were after.” I smirked and rested my hands casually against the wheel again, “He’ll be sitting on his bed, waiting for you with his dick in his hand… Too crude?”
Anna’s dead eyes stared blankly at me, and I clicked my tongue.
“He’ll call out to you at the window, wondering if you were trying to surprise him. Or maybe it’s just the wind? The longer the silence stretches… the more he’ll wonder if he’s just hallucinating, seeing threats everywhere thanks to his teacher’s paranoia. Should he scream for help? Would that make him seem crazy, or would he just scare you away? Maybe he’ll text you, worried, as the fear sinks into his skin. Is he a coward, Anna?”
She didn’t respond.
“I would hope not. The famous Shadow Knight of Grayville doesn’t take kindly to cowardice, especially not in his apprentices.”
I reached over to pick up Anna’s head by her bloodied brunette locks of hair. Then I leaned back in my seat and let her hang in front of my face so I could admire the beauty of her death.
“That’s when I toss you right in through the window!” I stroked her face in a lover’s caress, “Will he catch you? I would hope he can do at least that, with all of his superhero training. Ah, but the sight of you, Anna...”
I sighed dramatically. “Will you shock him? Sicken him? It doesn’t matter, as long as you show him what it means to shack up with the Shadow Knight. And as he’s crippled with regret and loss, I’ll have my hands around his throat.”
My hand slid down her cheek to touch the grotesque skin of Anna’s severed neck.
“I wonder if he’ll even struggle. Maybe he’ll just give up, his final thoughts of the Shadow Knight and how badly he failed. His dutiful teacher is always two steps ahead, isn’t he? Surely he saw this coming? Surely he’s right around the corner, about to burst through the window and rescue him? Your boyfriend’s last, agonizing thought will be that, just maybe, this was intentional. This is his punishment. This is how the Shadow Knight terminates his apprentices, because he simply wasn’t good enough.” I let my hand drop back to the wheel, but my eyes never left Anna.
“Maybe he’ll scream! You screamed so beautifully when I had my way with you, Anna. Though I do hope he isn’t as loud as you. I would hate to have to kill his parents. No, I want them to continue living with the burden of their son’s violent death. That is soooo much better. Don’t you think?”
Anna’s dead eyes gave me no real answer.
“Awwww,” I pouted. “But think of how they’ll wake up the next morning, smiling and letting their hardworking son get a few extra hours of sleep. They’ll talk about how proud they are of him, and of the man he’s becoming. But as the hours creep by, they’ll start getting worried. They’ll call him for food. They’ll knock on his door. And then they’ll finally discover the worst shock of their live
s: their son, murdered in his own bed, right under their noses.”
I sighed contently at the thought of it, but Anna’s jaw seemed to relax and hang a bit lower so that her dark blue tongue hung out.
“They’ll resent and blame the Shadow Knight. They’ll blame themselves. They will never be able to forget this night.”
I carelessly tossed the head back into the passenger seat. The sun was setting. It was almost time to put my plan into action.
“And the Shadow Knight…” I laughed. “He’ll know immediately it was me. We think in the same ways, you know. He’ll know exactly what this is. I doubt he’ll even feel any grief, only shame and rage as the scoreboard ticks one more point in my favor.”
I made a motion in the air to mark a tally off on my years’ old, invisible scoreboard.
“Looks like it’s just about time, Anna.” I looked at her from the corner of my eye and made a mockery of a kissy face, “Let’s go pay loverboy a visit, shall we?”
Once it was just before midnight, the time “Anna” had said she’d be coming over, I drove back around to Silver Squire’s house, and then got out of my car with the young woman’s head cradled carefully in my arms. I hoped he was waiting anxiously to be reunited with his girlfriend. As tired as he might be from the Shadow Knight’s training, the promise of sex was enough to keep any young boy wide awake.
I saw that the blinds were closed in Silver Squire’s bedroom, so I slung Anna’s head over my shoulder by her long braids, climbed up the drainpipe, peered through the blinds, and realized that I had underestimated the Silver Squire’s training.
Through the sliver of curtain, I could see the young man’s hands tense and flexed in his lap. He could tell something was wrong, just not enough to take action. He was alert and awake, and not even in the way of a boy awaiting a secret rendezvous with a lover. He was alert in the way he must have been trained to be. He was wary and rendered uneasy, but still functional rather than squirming with terror.