CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
MONDAY | SEPTEMBER 5, 2005 | 3:45 AM
WHEN Hayden woke, it was early morning. The clock on his bedside table read three forty-five. He rolled around a bit trying to get back to sleep, but failed. He heard movement in the house and knew Jonathan was likely awake. How his roommate slept as little as he did and still had the energy to train in that garage for hours on end was beyond him.
When he reached the kitchen he filled a glass from the tap. He hadn’t seen him when he walked in, but Jonathan was leaning against a table, staring out their front window. It wasn’t a comforting scene.
“Jonathan, FYI it’s creepy to wake in the middle of the night and find your roommate with his new militant haircut staring out the window at four in the morning,” Hayden said, taking a sip from his water.
“Can’t sleep,” Jonathan said.
“What are you looking at anyway?” Hayden said, joining him by the front window.
“Absolutely nothing,” Jonathan said. “I’m just daydreaming.”
Hayden shrugged, and turned to head back to his bedroom.
“Hayden,” Jonathan said, “would you stay up with me for a bit? I wanted to ask you something anyway.”
Jonathan looked lonely, and Hayden detected a note of anxiety in his tone, even if he hadn’t meant it to be there.
“What’s up?” Hayden said, taking a seat at the table.
“Well, you’re the only person of faith in the house. I don’t know what Paige believes, but Collin isn’t religious. I don’t want to offend you,” Jonathan said, “but is it the fear of death? Is it the idea of ceasing to exist? Is that why you believe in God?”
Hayden didn’t like this question and it wasn’t because it was offensive. It just made him reappraise what he might have walked in on. He felt a tinge of nervousness. What might be the real reason for Jonathan’s creepy hundred yard stare out the window at nothing?
“Well, it’s part of it, maybe the root of it, but not all of it. The idea of ceasing to exist has always been unpleasant,” Hayden said. “What’s got you thinking about the afterlife?”
Jonathan returned to looking out the window before responding.
“I just think the fear might be misplaced.” Jonathan seemed to be looking for a better way to put it. “I guess, life is a lot of work. It’s exhausting, really. It seems like it might be nice, at the end to just ‘not be’ anymore.”
Hayden grew more anxious. It occurred to him that he might start looking around to make sure his roommate hadn’t taken a bottle full of pills. He’d never heard Jonathan talk like this before, not even in the weeks after the hospital.
“Jonathan, I know you’ve had a rough few months.” Hayden hesitated. “You aren’t thinking of doing anything stupid, are you?”
Jonathan looked confused by Hayden’s question before realizing how this might look from Hayden’s perspective.
“No, nothing like that. It’s just one of those things you start thinking about at four in the morning when you can’t sleep,” Jonathan said. “Seriously.”
He seemed to be holding in a laugh. The levity did make Hayden relax.
“Suicidal, really?” Jonathan asked. “Is that how this looks?”
“Little bit, bro,” Hayden replied, smiling now.
“I just wanted to ask. My family wasn’t ever religious,” Jonathan said.
“Well,” Hayden replied, “it’s not that I don’t see what you’re saying, but the idea of ceasing to exist makes my soul quake.”
Jonathan looked like he was thinking about it. A moment or two passed before he spoke again.
“I’m afraid of pain, broken bones, drowning, being mauled by a bear. I’m afraid of feeling helpless, like when that man attacked me in the house. I don’t think I’m afraid of what comes after,” Jonathan said.
Hayden shrugged. “Call me a coward if you want, but it disturbs me.”
Jonathan frowned, suddenly growing too serious in Hayden’s estimation.
“Hayden, I’ll never call you a coward. You’re probably the bravest person in this house. You might be afraid of the end, but I know you would put that fear behind you if your friends needed you.”
Hayden raised an eyebrow. What the hell had gotten into Jonathan this morning? Maybe he should be looking for an empty bottle of booze somewhere instead of worrying about finding a suicide note.
“Thanks, Jonathan,” he said slowly. “So, what have we been drinking then?”
Jonathan just smiled.
“Speaking of religion, how are things going with the gospel reboot?” Jonathan asked.
Hayden smiled, “We had a pretty awesome breakthrough for the next story arc,” he said excitedly. “I mean assuming the first run does well enough to bother with a second.”
“Do I get to hear about it or is it a secret?” Jonathan asked.
“Come on, Tibbs, you’re in the circle of trust, of course,” Hayden said. “Jesus is going to find out that the son of the devil is also on earth at the same time as him.”
“That seems kind of obvious, plot wise. Why is it so exciting?” Jonathan asked.
Hayden, so pumped to talk to someone other than Collin about the new ideas, didn’t know where to start.
“Tibbs, you have to understand, in comic books superheroes and super villains are essentially the same character,” Hayden explained.
“The hero or villain has something bad happen to him, and then they either become good or bad. Bruce Wayne’s parents die, he becomes Batman. Harvey Dent gets his face blown off, he becomes Two-Face. Uncle Ben gets killed and Peter Parker becomes Spider-man. Erik Lehnsherr loses his family in the holocaust and becomes Magneto,” Hayden said.
“Okay, so how does this play into Christ and the anti-Christ?” Jonathan asked.
“That’s the beauty of the plot! You see as our story unfolds, Jesus will find that there’s nothing intrinsically good about him, and the anti-Christ, whom we are calling Damian for now, will find out that likewise there’s nothing intrinsically evil about him.”
“Okay?” Jonathan said, still seeming confused.
Hayden finally just blurted it out.
“There are only a couple of times in the real Bible where Jesus’ humanity is played up. He flips over tables in the cathedral getting angry at the merchants, the agony in the garden, and the cry of being forsaken on the cross. It always bothered me as a Christian that Jesus was somehow inherently good because he was the son of God. His faith isn’t faith because he knows God exists. What’s impressive about being perfect when you’re made that way? What is impressive about having faith when it isn’t really faith at all? Nothing, right?” Hayden asked.
“I guess I never really thought about it,” Jonathan said shrugging. “Sorry.”
“Tibbs! Come on, everyone has thought about it!” Hayden replied.
“Well! Anyway, in our new version, we see Jesus making choices. The reader gets to see the consequences of those choices weigh in on him, affecting his decisions,” Hayden said excitedly. “Jesus and Damian could go either way, it’s all a matter of how they respond to what happens to them. There’s no sure bet that one will become the savior.”
Jonathan frowned.
“Isn’t that like trying to change the ending of Titanic?” Jonathan said. “It’s not like everyone doesn’t know where it ends.”
“It’s the journey that gets you there that makes a story relevant,” Hayden said, “not the ending.”
Jonathan nodded, and they stood quietly for a moment.
“Do you ever think,” Jonathan asked carefully. “That for a savior, God seems to ask for a lot of, I don’t know, recognition.”
“Not sure I follow you,” Hayden said.
“Don’t you think that a god who doesn’t get any credit for being the world’s savior, but does it anyway, that that god would be the more, heroic one?”
“I suppose,” Hayden said, “but it’s really not here nor there, because no one would ever
know to thank him.”
Jonathan’s face had gone pale all of a sudden, his hand reaching for his chest.
“Are you alright, Tibbs?” Hayden asked.
“Step away from me, Hayden.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
MONDAY | SEPTEMBER 5, 2005 | 4:20 AM
HEYER. The alien’s face had been the last thing that had gone through Jonathan’s mind before the change replaced all thinking with fire.
He knew now why he trusted the alien. No one had asked him to step in on man’s behalf, yet he had. He’d never looked to earth to give him any credit. He’d gone out of his way to conceal his actions on our behalf; watched over mankind for no reason other than that he had the power to do so.
“Jonathan!” Hayden cried out. “How are you not, how are you being so calm!”
“Don’t worry, Hayden. The pain is past,” Jonathan said, “step back a bit.”
Once Hayden moved he got up carefully as to not to accidentally put a hole in the floor with the strength of his legs.
Collin burst out of his bedroom, his eyes frantic, as though he was expecting the house to be on fire. The last thing Jonathan remembered hearing before the change muted his external senses was Hayden screaming for help.
“What? What’s going–” Collin fell short as he noticed that Jonathan was glowing from beneath his t-shirt.
“Holy crap!”
“Stay calm, guys, I’m okay,” he said this as he was on the move heading for his room.
When he reached the foot of the stairs, Paige popped her head out of the hallway at the top. She, too, was still in her sleep attire. She looked as startled as Collin. Her speech failed her just as quickly when she saw him, chest ablaze, carefully walking up the stairs toward her.
She quickly stepped aside.
“What’s going on?” she asked, as he turned towards his bedroom.
In his room he pulled the jacket on over his torso. The roommates all stood in his doorway, staring at him, waiting for him to explain why his chest had turned into a neon light. They seemed unable to form complete thoughts until Jonathan hid the glow under the leather of the jacket.
“Jonathan,” Paige asked “what’s happening? Why do you…”
He grabbed his motorcycle keys, helmet, and his backpack and headed past them again straight for the garage. They parted as they saw him heading toward the doorway. He couldn’t tell if they were afraid of him or if they could see he didn’t mean to be slowed down.
He realized as they trailed behind him that if he survived tonight he would have to experience something like this every time he was activated. They would always stare at him like he was suddenly an alien in Jonathan’s body. They were trying to process something so unfamiliar, while he didn’t have time to stand still and explain it to them.
“Jonathan, stop! Stop moving! And tell us what’s happening!” Paige said, starting to sound more angry then upset. “What’s wrong with your chest?”
Her voice was quivering. He could see she was afraid for him.
“I have to go. There is no good explanation. A monster just got let loose somewhere to the west of here and I need to,” Jonathan hesitated. “I have to kill it.”
It was relieving. They’d never remember all this, but at least he could tell them all his secrets for a moment and not have to hide anything. It wasn’t like he’d have to prove it, especially if he made the news again. Hayden and Collin seemed to be trying to process what Jonathan had said. Paige didn’t look satisfied in the least.
“That isn’t an explanation! What monster? Why do you have to kill it? Jonathan!” Her voice followed him into the garage. He was careful not to pull the door off the hinges this time.
He pushed the garage opener and the mechanical door started to rise. He walked over to the cabinet, removing the practice staffs and the facade he’d installed to hide the bar Heyer had made for him. They watched him as though they didn’t know him at all, yet at the same time as though any theory they’d had about what he was up to the last few months was flying out the window. It must have been like watching Batman run down to the Batcave and jump into the Batmobile, if Batman had the salary of a part-time hardware store employee.
“I don’t have all the answers, Paige,” Jonathan said.
He placed the staff into the latches Leah had welded on. It lodged in with a satisfying click, then he started the bike’s engine. He pulled on the harness he’d fashioned to tie the staff across his back and quickly got it into place over his jacket. The knapsack he put under the cargo net on the back of the bike. He was efficient; he’d practiced all these steps before, except without super strength threatening to snap the leather garments and three roommates staring at him wide eyed.
He mounted the bike. He was about to put his helmet on and blaze out of the garage when he remembered it might be the last time he saw them.
“Guys, no matter what you might see on the news tonight, stay out of downtown. You won’t remember any of this. I know you don’t understand, but in case this is the last time I see you, thank you for everything,” Jonathan said to all of them, then he turned to Paige. “You’re like family to me.”
He wasn’t a poet. It was all he could think to say.
“Jonathan, I don’t understand. Why is this happening? What are you going to do?” Hayden asked.
He paused before he put his helmet on.
“Batman,” he said, “is going to try and take down Superman.”
Hayden looked like he remembered the conversation, but he couldn’t decipher Jonathan’s meaning in the moment. He pulled the helmet over his head and carefully hit the throttle.
There was no point, not when every second counted. Live or die, these words were for him, they would never exist for his friends.
There wasn’t any traffic to watch for this early in the morning and the roads were cold. The compass in Jonathan’s head still pointed west, the same spot he’d initially sensed the Ferox’s presence, it hadn’t moved.
With great effort, Jonathan kept his mind where he needed it, focused on the implementation of the plan. Cold and machine-like, disciplined, every piece of him centered on what he was doing, not why he was doing it.
Must not lose to fear.
He drove as fast as he dared, the target in his head drawing closer as he poured on the throttle. He concentrated on predicting where this would begin and plotting that point in his mind against the map he had in his front pocket. He didn’t need to look at it. He’d memorized it from hours of study. He’d only kept it in his pocket as a precaution, in case his mental state became too panicked to access the memories he needed.
The instinct directing his route was still novel, but easily understood. It was taking him into downtown Seattle. This was good. Jonathan wanted the beast surrounded by walls and concrete; square blocks of order. Sky scrapers, city streets lined with automobiles and infrastructure he understood and could use to his advantage. He wanted it somewhere completely human in design, and foreign to what he had to imagine its natural habitat would look like.
Though he had alternate strategies, he didn’t want to fight the Ferox in a suburban area with nothing but wood houses and fences. Structures it could easily move through. Worse, he didn’t want to be out in a forest somewhere trying to engage this thing in the dark.
Downtown gave him the best chance, and plenty of water.
It was not long before he sensed himself close. The three dimensional aspect of the instinct became more useful now as he realized the Ferox was not at street level. He looked up and saw that he was targeting a six story parking garage a little ways up the block. He pulled off the street and killed the engine in an alley.
Jonathan pulled Excali-bar free from its road mounts and slipped it into the harness on his back. He swung the knapsack over his shoulder. As it looked like he’d be going up the side of the building; he was going to need his hands free. Fortunately the parking garage was a cement structure, only partially enclosed on the uppe
r levels. He wanted to remain as stealthy as possible. He had no qualms about sneaking up on the beast if he got the opportunity, kicking in a metal security door or ripping a garage door off its rails was bound to be noisy. A parking lot security guard might see him on a camera, but that wasn’t going to matter as soon as he saw the Ferox.
It was exhilarating to be able to move this way again. Heyer hadn’t over exaggerated the potential in increasing his muscle mass. His strength was plain now. It felt like he could bench a pickup truck, run through walls if he had to. It was not just raw power though. He felt stable, balanced, like he would have to be hit by a tank to lose his footing, the frailness of the physical human condition no longer present. He knew not to let it go to his head. After all, nothing had changed about the fragility of the human mind. It might be deadly if he misjudged his limits.
He almost effortlessly jumped to the third story and slipped into the garage. Limits were becoming a real question. If he’d wanted to jump to the roof, could he have? How far could he fall before his legs would break under the impact? It was impossible to know the boundaries anymore.
Tonight he was going to find out.
With that thought he freed Excali-bar from its harness. The Ferox felt as if it were on the next level up. He made a line for the ramp leading to the next level of the garage.
When he reached the ramp, a warning entered his mind. Something wasn’t right about this. At first, he couldn’t pin down what was troubling him, but then he realized it was that the compass still hadn’t moved. When he was miles away it made sense, as he couldn’t detect a movement of a few paces from that distance. Now, with a matter of yards between him and the enemy, the target in his head hadn’t moved at all.
Sickens the Fever had attacked the city by this point, hadn’t he?
The first moments from that night weren’t so clear. They were obscured by panic, clouded by his lack of understanding of what was happening to him, even more by the traumas he’d experienced. Had the Ferox stayed still this long before finally venturing out? Could one behave so vastly different from another? More important than all of these questions, could this be a trap?
Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero Page 34