Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero

by T. Ellery Hodges

  He spent more time than he would’ve liked trying to find the jacket. It had fit perfectly, not hindering his mobility with the staff. He’d practiced training with it and the gloves on just to get used to it. The thickness of the materials between his skin and the bar made it so that he needed to learn to trust the movements without necessarily being able to feel the staff, and he didn’t want to drop the weapon just because he hadn’t been prepared for the increased difficulty. Also, the jacket had to remain snug. If it was loose, it was just an easy way to get ahold of him and would hinder more than it would help.

  Jonathan didn’t know if the beast could be intimidated by his size given how much bigger the Ferox was, but the coat made him appear larger as well. Jonathan backed down from large dogs even though he might outweigh them, but he didn’t know if the same psychology would work on a Ferox. Still, given the choice, he’d rather look like an angry Doberman than a barking Pomeranian.

  Like the jacket, his hair couldn’t be an easy way to grab him. He needed to cut it short, hence the clippers.

  As he looked over the gear, it occurred to him that he hadn’t actually bought anything to carry it in; a duffel bag wasn’t going to work if he needed to move quickly. In the corner of the room he saw his backpack, the one he’d used to carry his books to school. It had been sitting in that corner since the night Sickens the Fever had attacked, months now.

  He reached over and placed it on the bed, dumping out its contents. Most of what poured out was textbooks, but there was also the folder with his half-finished paper. The same marked up draft that Paige had brought him in the hospital.

  It still reminded him of a murder scene. There was no reason to keep it, he knew that. The quarter had ended and he hadn’t turned it in. He wasn’t prone to sentimentality. He should have just put it in the trash bin, but it tugged at him. He remembered thinking in the hospital that the draft had been so unrepairable. The wording was vague; the research did a poor job of supporting his theory. There were a few paragraphs here and there that were solid, but the rest read like he was attempting to trick a teacher’s assistant into giving him a passing grade.

  Now he wondered why he’d even bothered writing it if it was so poorly thought out. He’d have been better off starting over, picking a different topic. He put the textbooks onto his bookcase, he found himself trying to summon regret as he did so, but it felt disingenuous. He couldn’t turn this into a heartfelt Hallmark movie moment for his lost dreams because it simply wasn’t.

  What came to mind was something his mother had told him once, when he was a teenager, just having had his heart broken for the first time. She’d found him in his room staring up at the ceiling, struggling to come to terms with the rejection. The future he’d imagined with the girl whisked away.

  “At first you’ll want the hurt to go away, to find some way to cut the feelings out of yourself. Then, as time passes, you’ll find yourself clinging to that pain. Somehow, your heart believes that to stop feeling hurt is a betrayal. That it calls into question your own faith in your commitment to the passion you had.

  “Life is clever, Jonathan. One day you wake up and realize it doesn’t hurt, yet there was never any betrayal. It’s not that your emotions changed, but that you’re no longer the person who felt those things in the first place. That person is in the past, and his feelings were real, but you are no longer him.

  “That person will have become a story you tell yourself to remember who you thought you were.”

  She’d been right, of course, and now here he was again, unable to connect to the things he’d placed so much importance in months earlier, barely able to recognize that person who had been a student. He hardly even knew that Jonathan’s thoughts or motives any longer, like a stranger who had worn his face in another time.

  He folded up the map he’d completed and fitted it into the front pocket of the jacket.

  Maybe it wasn’t who he planned to be, and maybe no one would ever see anything other than a guy who threw his life away when he was young. That was how he was going to look to the world after all, a man constantly readying himself to be a warrior with no war to fight. Of course, he really was getting ahead of himself, chances were he’d only be this person for another fifteen days, give or take. Even if he survived the Ferox, how could he possibly survive the onslaught? That poorly written paper was a reflection in the mirror. He, like it, had needed to be replaced.

  After putting the gear away, he headed down to the garage to train. He was halfway across the living room when his roommates stopped him. They’d been watching a movie he didn’t recognize and had paused it when Jonathan entered.

  “Jonathan, wait, check this out!” Collin said excitedly, approaching him with his laptop.

  On the screen was a comic book cover that showed a mockup of Jesus basking in light from behind and far more muscular than Jonathan remembered ever seeing him. His garb looked more Jedi-like than the robes of a poor carpenter’s son. He held a gnarled staff that appeared to be radiating with some kind of mysterious comic book energy. Jesus’s eyes glowed with light that hid his pupils.

  “Wow, is this the cover of the first book?” Jonathan asked.

  “Yeah, we’ve got the first three sketched and colored. We’re releasing on the Internet as a digital download, so we don’t have to deal with comic book publishers. We’ve been hyping this up on comic book forums since we thought of it. Got about six more follow up books written, but they aren’t sketched yet. We just need to name the series.

  “Let me know if you like any of these,” Hayden said, consulting a list they had on the table.

  “Jesus-man, God-Man, or Christ-Man?”

  Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Those are terrible.”

  “Man from Heaven? or The Adventures of the Son of God?”

  Jonathan attempted to smile but knew it must look forced.

  “We need feedback from someone who isn’t heavily into comics,” Hayden explained.

  “The New Testament Reloaded?”

  “The First Coming?”

  Jonathan held a hand up to stop them. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something that works.”

  Hayden continued brain storming regardless. “Hey, what if each comic has its own unique subtitle? I mean we can do whatever we want right?”

  “So what are you thinking?” Collin asked.

  “I want to call the first book The New Testament Reloaded: Christ Begins,” Hayden said.

  “As the story arc progresses we’ll change the subtitle for each issue then?” Collin said.

  “Exactly,” Hayden replied.

  Jonathan had walked away, thinking they must now be lost in their creative world again, then noticed their voices were following him into the garage.

  His practice staff was leaning against the weight bench. He must have forgotten to put it away the night before. He picked it up, making a mental effort to tune out his roommates as he fell into the motions, warming up.

  His grace with the weapon was breathtaking at times. He was deep in his mind, imagining the various attacks he might encounter from a Ferox and implementing a response to them in the real world. He realized, suddenly, that he no longer heard any of the chatter that had followed him into the room. He looked up and saw Hayden and Collin watching him. They didn’t snap out of it until Jonathan had stopped moving and started staring back at them.

  “That was amazing, Tibbs.” Hayden’s voice was filled with awe.

  No one other than Heyer and his staff instructor had ever really seen him practice. That it affected his roommates to the point of open jawed amazement caught him by surprise.

  “Yeah man, you’ve got a real talent with that,” Collin agreed.

  Jonathan was flattered briefly, until Collin snapped his fingers and exclaimed, “Let’s go back to the scene where we flashback to Jesus staff training with his father, I want to make Joseph divinely inspired by the power of the Holy Spirit!”

  “Nice!” Hayden agreed as t
hey both turned and headed up the stairs.

  Two hours later Jonathan found himself drenched in sweat and exhausted, another day behind him. He took off the bag gloves and unwrapped his hands. He remembered the first time he’d attempted to use the bag without the wraps supporting his wrist. His hands had shaken for an hour afterward and he couldn’t understand how boxers could hit a bag for so long without damaging their hands and wrists. It turned out certain safety precautions got left out when you bought a secondhand heavy bag at a garage sale.

  He hung the wrist wraps and gloves on the wall where he’d built a place for them, then found himself staring down at his hands.

  They were young looking, callused, but not the massive hands of a man. His father’s hands would make his look like they belonged to a child. He couldn’t help but think they would never be enough. The Ferox could probably swallow his entire fist without even choking. How could these hands ever stop the beast? It wasn’t a confidence building thought, and it wasn’t the first time he’d looked down at his hands and worried about how fragile they made him feel.

  He needed to look down at his hands and see weapons.

  He was about to leave the garage when he saw his staff lying on the floor. He picked it up to return it to the cabinet and noticed the contents were not as he had left them.

  The cabinet usually housed his two practice staffs and the metal demolition bar. Today there was an additional item. It was as long and tall as the demolition bar but was wrapped in brown recycled paper with a piece of twine. There was a note attached to it. Jonathan pulled it out and sat on the bench. It was heavy, but not as heavy as the demolition bar. The note was typed, not handwritten, and simply said:

  This is within earthly means, but barely.

  It will not break. I promise.

  Will be around soon.

  The note wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be. Heyer had left this for him. He’d even wrapped it.

  Jonathan pulled the staff from the paper and stared into a reflective surface. It was an exact replica of the demolition bar as far as dimensions went, but it wasn’t the same material.

  Beautiful, Jonathan found himself thinking, no other word coming to mind.

  His eyes got lost in its reflective surface like a man mesmerized by a camp fire. He didn’t know anything about metal working, but he’d seen a lot of different materials in his time at the hardware store. This he didn’t recognize. It was smooth to the touch and it caught the light strangely, as though it were dark graphite at one angle and then silver at another. He could feel its resilience. Perhaps it was an alloy that was hard to come by or that humans didn’t know how to isolate or temper; maybe it was the way the weapon had been forged, but it felt invincible.

  He ran his hand down the surface and felt some imperfections in the steel near the center. He flipped it over to see that the alien had put an engraving into one of the surfaces.

  “Excali-bar,” Jonathan said out loud.

  He smiled, rolling his eyes at the alien’s sense of humor. It occurred to him that he’d never thought of Heyer as having a sense of humor.

  He tested its fit in the motorcycle holster and was pleased to find it clicked into place as well as the original. For a moment he thought he might show it to Mr. Fletcher, see if he knew what it was, but realized it wouldn’t be wise. Better to keep it hidden until he needed it, especially if it might border on being otherworldly.

  Confidence seemed to flow through the staff into him. He saw himself before the beast holding this weapon, and briefly, felt something he hadn’t before: impatient. He looked forward to standing in front of his enemy with this weapon, to strike the monster down with it. It was iconic, something a knight would slay a dragon with; something a king would pull from a stone. It reminded him of the stories his roommates indulged in over and over again.

  He was honored just to hold it. He’d never felt this for the device implanted in his chest. That had been forced on him, and he could never set it down. The implant owned him, it wasn’t a weapon so much as it was the chain shackling him to his future. This was different, he’d earned this weapon, and it made him feel like fate was finally trying to level the field.

  He didn’t believe in such things, it wasn’t his nature. Still, it felt good to think that maybe, the universe saw him, and was on his side.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  WEDNESDAY | AUGUST 24, 2005 | 8:15 PM

  JONATHAN put the phone down on the bed next to him. He took a deep breath as he finally released his grip.

  Telling his mother, with no real explanation, that he hadn’t attended college for the last quarter was like his nightmares; not for the fear, but for the shame. Her disapproval had been raw and genuine.

  Like all of his conversations, it was overshadowed by his frustrating silence in the face of the question why? It was worse with his mother, because he’d kept her in the dark about the night in the hospital. He couldn’t just rely on her taking pity on him, she wouldn’t assume that something inside him was injured and needed time to heal. It felt like, to her eyes, he was purposely and self-destructively throwing his life away.

  He started the conversation by explaining that there was nothing to be done, he’d waited until registration for the coming quarter had come and passed. She hadn’t exploded in anger. He‘d caught her so off guard that she’d been at a loss on how to deal with the news. At times, there had been a silence on the other side of the phone line that disturbed him to his core.

  This was far from the last of it. Evelyn would show up in person soon. She’d be upset with Paige for not having told her that Jonathan was having such an unexpected shift in his behavior. He’d have to explain that he’d forbidden her and again be left unable to explain his actions.

  Why? The looming question he faced gave him sympathy for Heyer. There he’d been, demanding answers the alien felt he had good reason not to give. What was truly worse, not knowing the answer, or being forced to carry the truth alone?

  When he’d finally succeeded in getting off the phone, he knew he’d be screening his calls for weeks. Unless he could think of something to say, a lie that would satisfy her, a story that fit the appearance but wasn’t the truth. Maybe, when she showed up on his doorstep, he’d have to tell her about the attack. That was a problem for a future Jonathan to deal with. Right now he had to be concerned with getting to that future.

  He took some solace in the thought that at least he’d told her, she hadn’t heard it from a student loan adviser, she wouldn’t just find out when he ended up dead in the weeks to come. Given the time-traveling parallel dimension-jumping paradoxical complexities of the whole mess, Jonathan didn’t know what it would look like to the people he left behind if he died. He would have to ask the alien; of course, that didn’t mean he would get a straight answer, or any answer for that matter.

  No. He would demand to know this much.

  It was with these thoughts that Jonathan rested his head that night. He’d ceased to be afraid of sleep. Troubling dreams were just a part of what he was now, perhaps a part of his training. He was quite familiar with the sensation of fear. He got a lesson every night.

  A few days later, he looked up from his computer screen to see Heyer’s reflection in his window.

  The alien either came into existence in his bedroom or had entered the house so quietly that he hadn’t heard him. Both were possible, but at least Jonathan hadn’t jumped this time.

  “I was starting to worry you wouldn’t be back again,” Jonathan said.

  “I said I would be here,” Heyer said, “so here I am.”

  “Yeah,” Jonathan replied, turning in his chair to face him.

  “How are you fairing?” Heyer asked. “The gate will be breached soon.”

  At first, it seemed like a commanding officer asking a soldier for a progress report, but Jonathan wasn’t in the military. The question was a kindness, a concern for his state of mind.

  As the day drew nearer, Jonathan’s
self-preservation refused to come to terms with the realities. It was possible that nothing Jonathan did between now and the moment the Ferox arrived could ever make him strong enough to defeat it, and this uncertainty in the face of a slow tortuous death begged him to search for an escape. Beg as it may, the situation was a cage with no door: no way to flee, no lock to pick. Knowing it and accepting it was not the same thing.

  “I’d like some straight answers on a few things,” Jonathan said.

  If Heyer noticed the blatant side step of his question, he showed no offense to it.

  “I’ll do my best to accommodate,” Heyer replied.

  He studied the alien for a moment.

  “If I die, if the Ferox kills me, what will happen?” Jonathan asked. “What will it look like to my friends and family?”

  “Jonathan, I think it best not to entertain the-” Heyer began.

  “Please don’t, not on this. Just tell me,” Jonathan said.

  Heyer paused at being interrupted, seeming to look into Jonathan’s eyes and weigh his motives. Jonathan just hoped he would see his need for certainty on this of all things.

  Soon, the alien took a breath and let it out slowly.

  “Your body will disappear from this plane of existence. If you are in a room with people, it will appear that you blinked away. The time of your disappearance will correspond to the moment of your activation. The moment the gate begins to open on earth.”

  “Aren’t you worried someone will notice?” Jonathan asked.

  “No, if this contingency is to occur and someone is looking directly at you, they will most likely not be believed upon reporting. More than likely, over time, they will simply assume that they misremembered what happened, that you got up and left or some such scenario, and disappeared later. Even if the worst case scenario was to occur and multiple witnesses corroborated that you had vanished, what would come of it?” Heyer pointed out.