by Peter David
Paul blinked, trying to take in what Josh had just told him. He had come up with a plan. And the plan he had come up with was brilliant. Josh had said it three times: Brilliant.
His confusion melted away like morning frost in the hot sun. He squared his shoulders and grinned, ready for whatever came next.
CHAPTER 14
SPECIAL DELIVERY
Sheriff Tom Harrelson pulled up at curbside next to Stan Kirby’s house in an unmarked car. He killed the engine and slumped down so as to attract minimal attention. He had a clear view of the street in front of him and, using his rearview mirror, could keep tabs on everything behind him.
His officers had been keeping him apprised of everything that was going on via radio, and he was having trouble believing what he was hearing. Bad enough that these kids had given them the slip at the train station. Then they’d taken care of dispatching a vicious dog that the police had not been able to track down. Now this Josh kid had yet again managed to outthink one of his men by escaping through a closed library. This after being caught briefly by a cab driver from whom they’d gotten away, and who’d panicked at the sight of a supposed weapon: a paint gun the kid had obviously secured from those idiots sprinting around in the woods. By the time the police officer had gotten back to his squad car and driven around the block, the kid and his pals had vanished once more.
This was beyond ridiculous. This was getting embarrassing.
At the same time, Harrelson had to feel a degree of grudging admiration for the kid. The boy seemed to have an endless supply of guts and ingenuity. When Josh was old enough, Harrelson was thinking, he’d try to recruit him for the sheriff’s office. Heck, maybe he should just sign him up now. Better to be with the kid than against him.
And now the sheriff had just been informed that the two youngsters’ parents had come to town. They had shown up at the sheriff’s office, apparently hoping to discover that the kids had been rounded up, and were none too pleased to discover that they were still running loose. The sheriff couldn’t blame them. They’d departed the sheriff’s office, clearly annoyed. The deputy had tried to make them stay put, but they hadn’t done anything wrong; he couldn’t exactly arrest them simply for being concerned parents. Harrelson had every reason to suppose that they had Kirby’s address in hand and were on their way over. The one saving grace in all this was that the girl’s dad was apparently a police officer, so at least Harrelson would be dealing with one experienced hand instead of two panicky parents.
The one person who hadn’t been brought up to speed on this whole thing was Stan Kirby himself. Harrelson was hoping to have the entire matter resolved without disturbing him. Kirby was an unpredictable cuss. Even after all these years, Harrelson was still a bit intimidated by him. This man had been single-handedly responsible for some of the fondest memories that Harrelson had of his childhood. That kind of respect, even awe, tended to stay with you no matter how old you got.
Harrelson heard the sound of a car approaching from behind and glanced in his rearview. It was a pizza delivery van. Apparently Kirby was ordering in.
He watched as the pizza van made a right turn and pulled into Stan Kirby’s driveway. It glided right up to the garage and then stopped. The pizza kid stepped out of the driver’s side, walked around to the passenger side, and pulled out a pizza wrapped in a large insulated bag.
Giving the routine pizza delivery no more thought, Harrelson went back to watching the street. These kids were smart and might take advantage of Harrelson being distracted by a delivery to try to sneak past him. Well, that just wasn’t going to happen, no sir. Not on Harrelson’s watch.
The pizza delivery guy was named Dennis. At that moment Dennis was completely bewildered as an annoyed voice from the other side of the door said, “What pizza? I didn’t order a pizza!”
Dennis checked the order slip that was dangling from the box. The address was right. “You Mr. Kirby?” he called.
“What’s it to you?”
“That’s the name on the order, and this is the right address.”
“Look, kiddo, whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying. And if you think I’m opening this door so you can stick your foot in and stop me from closing it until I pay you for a pizza I never ordered, or listen to you telling me about whoever your personal God is or whatever your angle is, you can just forget it! You hear me?”
Dennis knew when it was time to give up. “Fine, mister. Fine. Whatever. I’m leaving, okay?”
“Good!”
Shaking his head and not wanting to think what the boss at the pizza parlor was going to say, Dennis stalked back to his van, the pizza box slung under his arm. He tossed it carelessly onto the passenger seat and then noticed something unusual: The back doors of the van were hanging open. He went around back and looked in. There was nothing inside. No reason that there should have been: Dennis used the back section of the van only when he was transporting a large number of pizzas for a big party or catering job, something like that.
“Weird,” he muttered. He grabbed the doors and slammed them shut. He checked to make sure they were secure and then climbed into the driver’s side. Dennis stared at the pizza, grunted in annoyance, flipped open the lid, took out a slice, and ate it. If he was going to be yelled at—which he probably was, even though it wasn’t remotely his fault—he might as well have a full stomach.
Stan Kirby watched through the peephole in his front door, making sure that the guy from the pizza place was going back to his van and driving off.
“Probably some kind of prank,” he muttered. Certainly that had to be it. Some idiot kid had thought it would be funny to fake order a pizza and have it delivered. Well, he didn’t have time to give it any thought. He had a deadline to meet.
He turned and stopped dead in his tracks.
There were three people standing in the hallway behind him. One of them he recognized immediately: It was that guy from the office. Pat? Paul? Something like that. Harmless enough, although Kirby couldn’t say he was ecstatic that the guy was sneaking in through the back door. But there were two kids with him, a boy and a girl. The girl was looking at him with open curiosity, and the boy…well, he looked stunned, as if someone had just hit him across the face with a two-by-four.
“What are you doing here? What do you want?” demanded Kirby.
“Mr. Kirby,” said the office guy, gesturing toward the boy, “this young man needs to talk to you.”
The boy took a step forward even though his legs were wobbling. Then his eyes rolled up into the top of his head and he fainted dead away.
CHAPTER 15
MASCOT MEETS HIS MAKER
When Josh and the others had clambered out of the back of the van as quietly as they could, Josh had found himself almost paralyzed with alarm. He spotted the car seated at curbside and the man in the passenger seat, and although the car had no markings on it and he couldn’t see the man clearly, he had been certain it was the police on stakeout. Fortunately the guy was looking away from them. Josh’s brain sent desperate signals to his feet. The notion of getting so close to his goal and then being stopped short of it nearly overwhelmed him. Then Kelsey helped out by giving him a good hard shove. It made him stumble slightly but he recovered fast. Paul was already moving quickly, waving for them to follow. Since Paul had been there any number of times, he was the best one to show them how to get into the house.
Arriving at the back door, Paul tentatively turned the doorknob. The door was unlocked.
They entered the kitchen. The top edges of the sink were stained, and there were dishes piled up. A slow, steady drip was coming from the faucet. The cabinets desperately needed a coat of paint. The oven in the corner looked positively ancient, and the linoleum was yellowing.
Josh was confused. He had been expecting something way more high-tech, similar to what Captain Major had in the Secret Sanctum. This was more run-down than his kitchen back home.
Kelsey was wrinkling her nose. Josh couldn’t blame
her.
Paul gestured for them to follow. They moved through the kitchen into a hallway. Josh glanced off to his left and suddenly stopped.
There was a room with the door open.
It was an art studio.
There was a drawing board, the surface of which was covered with black stains. Pages of artwork, ten-by-fifteen bristol board, were piled all over the place.
This was where the magic happened. This was where Captain Major came to life.
Josh forgot to breathe, he was so stunned at what he was seeing.
“What are you doing here? What do you want?” came an angry voice. Josh’s head whipped around.
Stan Kirby wasn’t remotely like what he had imagined. He had figured Stan Kirby would be six feet tall, square jawed, with a head of thick blond hair and keen, glittering eyes that took in everything around him. He would speak with a deep, booming voice that quaked like thunder. He would look like a superhero.
Instead Stan Kirby was an old man.
He was maybe a head taller than Josh himself. And he was stooped, like someone who had been hunched over a drawing board his entire life. His hair was a buzz cut, black on the sides but gray on top. He was peering over a pair of thick glasses and was wearing faded blue jeans and a red-and-black plaid shirt. His Adam’s apple bobbed visibly in his throat.
This couldn’t be Stan Kirby.
“Mr. Kirby,” said Paul, destroying that sole remaining hope, “this young man needs to talk to you.”
Josh tried to become Mascot. He tried to send his mind to that place where Mascot’s inner narrative kicked in. He could be quicker, smarter, better than anyone, and he could come up with some sort of scenario that would explain this…this crushing disappointment.
But Mascot wouldn’t come to him.
Trapped in the real world, he was overcome with exhaustion and his brain shut down. Everything went black. He was vaguely aware that something hard had hit him, and then he realized it was the floor, and that was the last thing he remembered.
They think they have Mascot trapped…helpless. But they are wrong, so very wrong.
Mascot struggles mightily as they try to shove the truth serum down his throat.
Josh spit out the water and almost choked as he did so. “Whoa, whoa!” came Stan Kirby’s voice, and the world began to refocus itself.
He realized he was lying on a couch in Kirby’s living room. The couch was kind of beat-up, and there was mustiness in the air. Stan Kirby was crouched next to him, with Paul and Kelsey standing nearby, looking concerned.
Kirby remained gruff, but he no longer seemed hostile. “Gave us a little bit of a scare there, sport,” he said. “Here. Try to keep this down.”
Josh sat up and, taking the glass, drank the water. It was cold going down his throat, and tasted slightly rusty.
“Sorry,” he managed to say.
“So,” said Kirby, standing. “From what Paul tells me, you’ve had quite an adventure getting up here…all because you think…what? That you’re going to die when Mascot dies?”
“Yes! Yes, exactly. I need you not to do it.”
Kirby snorted and adjusted his glasses. “You got some imagination, sport. You ought to be writing comic books.”
“I have. I do. I write them. I draw them. Do you…” He hesitated. Despite the fact that Kirby was not remotely what he had expected, nevertheless this man was still a god in the world of comics. “Do you have any advice?”
“Yeah. Stop. Before it’s too late.”
Josh gaped at him. He was speechless. Kelsey stepped in. “Why would you tell him to do that? I mean, it’s what you do, and you’re great at it….”
“Great?” Kirby guffawed at that. “You think what I do is great? Great, kid, is what hangs in the Louvre or the Museum of Modern Art. Great is material that speaks to you from the very bottom of your soul. What I do? It’s junk. Commercial, disposable garbage aimed at…well, at kids like you.”
Josh was shaking his head, feeling stunned. “That’s…that’s not true.”
“Yeah, it is, kid.” Kirby actually sounded regretful for a moment. “Look, you want me to blow sunshine up your skirt?”
“I’m not wearing a skirt….”
“You want me to tell you what you want to hear? I can’t do that. I’m too old, I’m too tired, and I got no reason to pretend that what I do means anything. I mean…I don’t get you,” and he sat on the couch a few feet away from Josh. “When I was your age, I had so many things I wanted to do in my life. So many dreams. I dreamed about my art hanging in great museums. I dreamed about doing stuff that mattered. I never dreamed of…of this comic book tripe. Where are your dreams that matter?”
“You gave me the only dreams that matter.”
“Aw, geez,” moaned Kirby, slumping back and covering his face with his hands. “Who says stuff like that?”
“People who read your comics, I guess,” Paul suggested.
Josh was reeling, looking as if someone had repeatedly punched him in the face. Kelsey said, “Mr. Kirby, with all due respect, I don’t think even you believe all the things you’re saying. Josh says you’ve been doing comics for years and years and years. I just don’t think that someone could put that much of his life into creating something that he can’t stand.”
Kirby was silent for a long moment, and it seemed that something in his face softened. “Look…I admit it was…well, kind of fun, at first. Harmless entertainment. But as time went on…” He shook his head.
“As time went on, what?” prodded Kelsey.
“The comics changed. The audience changed. It wasn’t innocent, wide-eyed kids who just loved the heroes being heroic. Kids were off playing video games or hanging out on the internet or whatnot, and the books were aimed at cynical grown-ups. Grown-ups who wanted to see grownup ideas in stories that should have remained just kid stuff. You know when it really hit home for me? I was in one of those comic book shops. I was driving by and I figured, what the heck, and I stopped and went in. The guy behind the counter didn’t recognize me, which was fine. And a father wandered in with his kid, who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. He asked what comic would be appropriate for his son. You know what? The guy behind the counter didn’t have any. Everything was filled with blood and violence. There’s no place for my kind of comic books anymore.”
“But that’s not true,” Josh protested. “I love your comics! I love Mascot! How can you be killing him?”
“That’s the point, sport. I’m not killing him. The readers are. That shows just how far downhill it’s all gone. They can’t stand the thought of something pure and innocent and heroic; they need to tear it down. Now, I’m willing to believe that maybe you’re the exception. But there’s just not enough of you around. In fact, you may be the only one. And fess up: Would you be as worried about Mascot dying if you didn’t believe that what happens to him will also happen to you? Look, sport, the fact of the matter is, sales on Captain Major have been tanking for years.” Kirby stood up and paced the living room. “He’s too ‘old school.’ Mike Galton, he told me to do something to spice up sales, so I came up with Mascot. Kid sidekicks always used to work. Not anymore. Now people hate them. Kid readers used to identify with them; now it’s all grown-up readers, who talk about how stupid it is that an adult would endanger a child by dragging him into dangerous situations. So with sales still dropping, Mike came up with the idea of having a contest to decide whether Mascot lives or dies. I okayed it because by that point, frankly, I didn’t care anymore. I feel like I got nothing more to offer.”
Mascot almost wants to break down and cry.
After a long and agonizing search, here is Captain Major himself. But everything that he’s gone through, the fact that the people have turned against him…it has brought him lower than Mascot has ever seen him.
“You’re wrong,” Mascot tells him.
The Captain just shakes his head wearily. “I wish I were.”
“I know you are. Th
ere are still people out there who believe in you. I know, because I’m one of them. What would this world be like if we didn’t have heroes to try to imitate? In fact…you know what? That’s what makes people heroes. Heroes aren’t the ones who keep fighting when everyone is telling them they should. Heroes are the ones who keep fighting even when everyone is telling them they shouldn’t. The things you say and do and stand for…they mean a lot to a lot of people and to a lot of kids like me.”
“There aren’t a lot of kids like you,” says Captain Major. “Believe me, sport, I wish there were.”
“How will there ever be if you abandon us? The only way things can change is if guys like you and guys like me change them.”
“You talk a good game, sport. But in the end, sometimes you just have to know when to quit.”
“I know when to quit. It’s when I’m dead,” Mascot says defiantly. “And not one minute before. You taught me that. You and all the adventures that I’ve had, thanks to you.”
Stan Kirby gave Josh a sidelong glance and then said to Kelsey, “Okay, is he…doing the thing you said where he’s pretending to be Mascot now, or is this really him talking?”
Kelsey shrugged. “Hard for me to know sometimes.”
“Look, sport,”—and Kirby patted him on the shoulder—“you’ve been good for some laughs, I’ll give you that. But what’s done is done. Which reminds me.” He kept talking before Josh could jump in with another speech. “You. Paul. You going back to the office?”
“Yessir.”
“Then you can save me a trip to the shipping place. I got the whole issue done. Can you take it back for me? We’re running late enough as it is.”
“Sure, Mr. Kirby.”
Josh slumped on the couch like a stringless marionette while Kirby went into the studio to get the pages. Kelsey reached over and put her hand atop Josh’s. It felt cold to her. “You did your best,” she whispered.