A Guardian of Innocents

by Jeff Orton

  Excerpt 2

  I envy those who have no regrets. For me, regret is a ghost that stalks like an obsessed lover, shadowing my every step through this great city, unwilling to be shaken, refusing to be lost. But regret haunts me on a level that restless spirits can never achieve. The story of my life is not an easy tale to tell. But nothing worth doing is ever easy, or so we’re told.

  I am Aaron Collins, son of a special agent in the F.B.I., brother to a beautifully gifted sister, and friend to a troubled young man who swears vengeance against an enemy we both share.

  I want to get this all down, with all my thoughts in order, before my friend and I venture out in pursuit of our nemesis. Jeshua is anxious for the fight and doesn’t understand the patience that my family and I have been forced to develop when dealing with this adversary. We understand the dark nature of his corrupted mind more than anyone else on this earth possibly could. We know that failure to strike at the most precise, opportune time can have catastrophic consequences for everyone involved.

  I don’t believe Jeshua realizes just how dangerous Louis Godwin is. But in order for anyone to understand, I’ll have to start from the beginning…

  * * *

  Freshmen are always prime targets for high school bullies. Their meek countenances seemingly give off the scent of blood, attracting predators from across the campus. This is especially true when the victim is gawky, quiet and has been placed in a brand new school where not one face is familiar.

  Since my father was in the F.B.I., we tended to move to a different city every couple of years. During the latter half of my childhood, into my teenage years, he investigated local government corruption. It felt as though we had just finished unpacking in our new house in Denver, when the feds uprooted us again and dropped us in Dallas, where three city councilmen were facing charges of bribery and tax evasion, among other transgressions.

  This put me in Nimitz High School in Irving, Texas, a Dallas suburb, in the middle of the school year, just after Christmas break. And I hadn’t been inside the school twenty minutes when a pack of sharks caught not only the smell of a freshman, but a freshman new kid.

  They descended on me, following close behind as I walked through the crowded halls, trying to find Room 216A, where my schedule said my algebra class was. I could feel their approach, their intent. Having been the new kid in too many different schools, I’ve learned how to handle bullies. The scurry-and-hide method never works; they always find you eventually.

  It’s for moments like these I carry my backpack on only one shoulder. Just as I felt the pack being pulled from my left side, I turned around and nailed the bastard square in the teeth just as he was starting to form a smile. This split the skin over my knuckles and warm blood began to trickle over my clenched fist.

  Two letter-jacketed football guys stood dumbfounded as their broad-shouldered friend went crashing onto the hallway floor. I knew I looked like a social reject with my acne and scrawny physique, but I was blessed with one genetic advantage. I was quite tall for my age. Even as a fourteen-year-old freshman, I stood at 5’11’’, so I was well-matched with the two guys that were still standing. Not so with the thick-necked Cro-Magnon throwback I’d just laid out on the floor.

  “Son of a bitch!!” he roared as he scrambled back to his feet.

  I threw another punch which landed just behind his ear as he was about halfway up, but with the element of surprise lost, the blow didn’t seem to faze him. I was tackled. With my own back to the floor, I was now getting pummeled. He did his best to get around my flailing arms as I did what I could to defend myself, hoping his two friends would remain too bewildered or too cowardly to join in.

  But it was only a few seconds before a small pack of teachers broke up the melee. An odd thought popped into my head then, as my body was being pulled in conflicting directions by the school faculty. It seemed utterly remarkable how similar public high school was to prison.

  * * *

  The ride home with my mother was silent, save for the mostly incoherent mumblings of my two-year-old sister in the centered car-seat behind us. This was just another one of many times I had been sent home early from school because of a fight.

  About a block away from our new house, my mother sighed and said, “You’re going to end up getting expelled one of these days.”

  “No, I’m not,” I replied, “No one’s going to mess with me now at this school.”

  “So you think because you fought some boy, that now everyone’s just going to bow down to—“

  “They don’t have to run and hide from me, Mom. They just need to know I’m not gonna let anyone push me around. That’s it! That’s all they need to know. That guy was huge. Probably one of their top football players. I’m half his weight and I knocked him to the ground.”

  “That makes you proud, doesn’t it?” she asked, growing more exasperated.

  “Well, you’ve always told me to be honest and if you want an honest answer, then the answer’s, ‘Hell, yes!’”

  “I don’t believe you—“

  “Eh-yess, ehhh-yess!” my sister, Tessa, chanted behind us.

  My mother tried not to laugh, but didn’t quite make it. I turned around and gave my kid sister an appreciative smile and a big thumbs-up with my bandaged hand. Mimicry is the ultimate flattery after all.

  “Great, I’ve got another one on my hands,” Mom said.

  * * *

  As it turned out, I almost did have to fight again the next day, just for a different reason.

  “Look at those titties!” I heard as I entered a bathroom after the last class of the day. All I wanted was to take a piss before the bus ride home, and I walked right in on it. The guy I’d fought the day before was there with the same two friends. They had some fat kid pinned against a tiled wall and had pulled his shirt over his head.

  “Holy shit, there’s probably ‘nuff milk in these things to feed Ethiopia! You could end world hunger, Louie!”

  The fat kid’s face was red with rage and humiliation. Tears leaked from his eyes, though it was obvious he was trying hard not to cry. His mouth was curled into a rabid snarl. Then his eyes met mine and I saw the shame in them.

  “Off of him, asshole,” I growled. The words were already out of my mouth before I had a chance to think about what I was getting myself into.

  Thick-Neck looked back at me and muttered, “Son of a bitch! Look at this shit!”

  He advanced towards me. I forced myself to stand my ground. This seemed a much more difficult task than it did yesterday. The three of them seemed to temporarily forget about their chubby victim and were now focusing on me. Louie’s eyes met mine again, and… What the hell is this?

  I was seeing a translucent image, fuzzy with no real definition to it. Dreamlike. I was looking at myself swinging a machete, cutting off a snake’s head while Louie held the tail. He’s telling me something, I thought to myself.

  “I don’t think I heard you right. Now WHAT was it you called me?” Thick-Neck asked as we stood face to face, his nose almost touching my forehead.

  “Everything alright, gentlemen?” a teacher asked as he walked into the bathroom.

  “Yes, sir,” one of the football guys answered just as Louie finished pulling his shirt back down.

  “That’s good,” the teacher said, “Let’s see it stays that way… Trent, you’re standing awfully close to that boy. You two dating or something?”

  Thick-Neck, now known as Trent, marched out without even looking at the teacher, smoldering with anger.

  * * *

  “My name’s not Louie, its Louis,” my new friend explained to me as we rode the bus home. He pronounced it “Lewis,” instead of the traditional French “loo-EE.”

  “Good to know ya, man. You okay? I mean, you know, after all that.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. It ain’t the first time. Like to kill that sumbitch.”

  “Meh, you just gotta let it roll off of you. Forget about it.”

  “Yea
h,” he replied, letting the conversation drop there. He hung his head, staring down at a fixed point in front of him. It was easy to tell his emotions were still boiling inside him.

  The silence lasted most of the trip home, but then suddenly Louis perked his head up as if he remembered something.

  “Say, man. You see anything weird? When all that shit was going down I mean?”

  I shook my head no. But I was actually being honest. The split-second vision I’d glimpsed had slipped my memory for the moment.

  “Nevermind, it’s nothing. This is my stop,” Louis said as he stood up, “You know that guy, Trent? Something else ain’t he? Real snake.”

  He put on his backpack and gave a little smirk, cocking his head to the side.

  “See ya, Aaron.”

  A funny thought struck me then. I didn’t remember telling him my name.

  Chapter 2

  The rest of the spring semester ran its course. Louis and I hung out after school almost every day. With both of us generally ostracized as social rejects, we made a good fit. We both liked our comic books, sci-fi and horror; except with Louis it didn’t just end with horror movies and books. He had an intense, insatiable fascination with the occult, devouring any literature he could find on the topic.

  As the months progressed, he kept dropping these little passive-aggressive hints he possessed psychic talents similar to mine. Now I have multiple talents—I am a foreseer, clairvoyant, empath and sometimes even a medium. My run-ins with ghosts are rare, but they happen. But I know against the other gifted people of the world, my abilities pale in comparison. Louis seemed to have a modest mind-reading/telepathic ability, but that was about it.

  It was about mid-summer when Louis told me about a new goth store that had just opened up a few miles away.

  With a chuckle, I said, “So let me get this straight. You want to ride our bikes about two or three miles in one-hundred degree weather so we can go buy a bunch of dark and morbid chick-repellent?”

  Louis was playing a video game, and though he never looked away from the screen I could see that lower lip jut itself out into an immediate pout. “If you don’t wanna go that’s fine.”

  “I didn’t say that. But you know you’re going to be dripping sweat by the time you get there. Hell, I will be too.”

  Louis shrugged, “Eh, the place opens up at ten. I figure if we leave about 9:30 it won’t be that bad.”

  “Alright, fine. But the longer we stay, the hotter it’s going to get. So I don’t want to hear any griping or complaining on the ride back. Take some Gatorade.”

  Louis paused the game and looked over at me, “Dude, you are such a fuckin’ old man. I’m gonna start calling you Grandpa.”

  “I’m precocious. There’s a word for it,” I replied.

  “Yeah, well you’re a fifteen-year-old codger and that’s my word for it!”

  I had to laugh at that. “That doesn’t even make sense. That’s four words.”

  “Dude, you annoy the fuck outta me sometimes.” But there was a subtle amount of laughter under his breath.

  “And you don’t even realize I do it intentionally.”

  * * *

  As expected, we walked into the store pretty sweaty late the next morning. But of course, I wasn’t as bad off as my friend. Louis’ t-shirt was sporting some football-sized sweat stains beneath his armpits and some crescent-shaped ones beneath his man-boobs. He had the red face of a kid who’d fallen asleep at the beach.

  I decided to look around a bit, but Louis headed straight for the cashier’s counter. There was no shortage of black shirts with various rock band logos lining the clothing racks. Further into the store was housed a small cache of books on the occult, Wiccan, paganism, demonology, etc; most looked new but some appeared weathered and worn. Then of course was the gothic jewelry. I stumbled upon a set of black leather wrist-straps lined with studded spikes, and I thought, Hmmmmm… But I quickly moved on, shaking my head at myself, knowing that type of thing simply wasn’t me.

  Louis was perusing the glass case at the cashiers table when the clerk finally came out, a tall lanky guy with more facial piercings than I’d ever seen in my damn life.

  “How’s it going, boss? Looking for anything in particular?”

  “Actually, yes. Two things,” Louis replied, his eyes now moving on to some necklaces hanging on small hooks on the wall behind the clerk.

  “Okay cool, man. Whatcha need?”

  “There’s a particular book I’ve been told you have, Advanced Casting by Lefrens Bonclave—“

  The clerk’s eyebrows shot up, “Oh damn! Somebody knows their shit!”

  Unperturbed, Louis continued, “And I was also wanting to take a look at some of your cheaper jewelry. You’ve got some in like… a fishbowl, or something.”

  “Uhhh, yeah. Sure, man.” The clerk appeared uneasy as he reached down to the floor behind the counter. He pulled up a hefty fishbowl of gothic necklaces, rings and medallions.

  As I walked up to the counter, I got a better look at Louis’ expression. He was smiling, which in and of itself was a bit unusual. But there was something damn unnerving about that smile, a certain glint in his eyes.

  “Yes, that’s it!” Louis said as he drummed his hands a few times on the counter.

  “I haven’t had a chance to set a price on any of these yet. But we can haggle if you want.”

  Louis paid him no mind and began rummaging through the fishbowl. The faraway look in his eyes became more pronounced. It was clear to me he wasn’t searching the bowl by sight, but rather feeling for what he wanted.

  Louis’ arm stopped and his eyes bulged. His lips drew tight into his face as he inhaled a breath of air through flared nostrils. He slowly pulled out a bronze necklace, heavily tarnished. As the bottom of the chain emerged from the junk jewelry, an amulet appeared, a four-pointed star, also bronze, with a small onyx gem in the center.

  Louis leveled his gaze at the clerk. “I’ll take this and the book.”

  * * *

  For the rest of the summer I saw Louis only sparingly. But the few times I did, he seemed just… off. I saw him in the halls on the first day of school, decked out all in black. Everything on him from his neckline to his boots was solid obsidian. He looked as though he might have lost a few pounds, but it was hard to tell.

  He gave me a perfunctory nod of recognition as he approached.

  “Wassup, man?” I responded. “You been doing okay?”

  Louis shrugged, “Can’t complain.”

  A familiar voice heckled from over my shoulder a few yards away, “Oh my god, Louie! You’ve turned goth-fag. Nice! Glad to see you’re coming out of the closet.”

  The rage that sprang forth from within him was palpable. It overtook me and pulled me down like the undertow of a sinking ship. It hit me with such force, I staggered back a few steps.

  But Louis took a step forward towards the sound of the taunting voice. “Only fag I know of in this school is you, Trent. Everybody here knows you suck more cock than a porn star.”

  My only thought was, Ohhhh shit…

  “The fuck you say to me!” Trent roared as he marched over.

  “You heard me,” Louis replied, teeth bared in a snarl, “Are you a pitcher or a catcher? I’d bet damn good money you’d prefer catching.”

  All the students in the hall froze, awaiting the inevitable. From the corner of my eye, I saw Trent bearing down on Louis. But my friend held his ground. I couldn’t feel any fear mixed in with that intense, controlled rage but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  Trent made as if to throw a punch, but Louis didn’t flinch. He just stood there with feet planted and knees locked, hands at his sides. His countenance revealed only the slightest of facial tremors, impossible to tell if sparked by fear or adrenaline.

  The side of Louis’ mouth pulled up in that patented smirk I’d grown so accustomed to. “C’mon, queerboy. You got somethin’ for me?”

  Trent raised his fist again�
�but then his arm fell slack.

  He whispered, “Duh fuck?” as he blinked his eyes a few times and shook his head.

  “Do yourself a favor and move along,” Louis growled.

  My mouth hung open. Trent, dismayed and confused, turned and walked away. He rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose like he had a sinus headache.

  As I looked back over at my friend, all I could manage was… “Dude!”

  With a proud smile, Louis gave me a light slap on the arm with the back of his hand. “I’ll tell you later.”

  More to come, someday…