Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero

by T. Ellery Hodges

  The beast waited for him to raise his head.

  It dropped Excali-bar to the ground before him, using one of its feet to kick the staff behind it, far out of reach in a pile of building supplies. He didn’t understand why it hadn’t thrown the weapon from the roof? Did it want Jonathan to focus on retrieving the weapon? Did it just want inside of his head? Lifting himself off the ground, leaning against the I-beam, he looked down at his fists. They still seemed so inconsequential, useless.

  How was he going to win this? He felt panic seeping in through the cracks in his mental shield. The Ferox seeming to become invincible and terrifying.

  Dams the Gate, Jonathan’s stolen inner voice spoke the words as the Ferox pointed to itself with claws, growling at him in its alien dialect, naming itself. Wants the Challenger’s life more…

  It roared at him from the center of the floor, but his own voice intimidated him from within. It beat its chest again, daring him to try to reclaim the staff, or, even better, to fight unarmed.

  Jonathan didn’t have a plan for this. All he could think about was the beating he’d taken at the hands of Sickens the Fever. Now here he was, with no escape and nowhere to hide. He’d lead himself into a death trap.

  Your blood will run in puddles, Challenger.

  Unable to escape Dams the Gate’s voice within him, he lost what little grip he had on the adrenaline surging through him, heard the desperate sound of his heart racing in his ears.

  The Ferox stepped toward him, beginning to close the gap. Jonathan’s body shook as he stepped away from the I-beam. The Ferox seemed aware of the change in him. The blood lust in its eyes gained fervor, the predator’s impatience at the closeness of its victim more evident.

  You wear your fear, Defending Champion, Bringer of Rain.

  As they approached one another the Ferox drew down lower to the ground. Its head bobbing like a snake coiled for attack as it watched Jonathan with one eye and then the other. It seemed pleased with itself at seeing his hesitance, its teeth clicking again in anticipation. It moved toward him suddenly, and he overreacted, committing to a dodge. He knew immediately that it had feigned the strike, used his fear against him so he would leave his guard open. It rushed toward him then, capitalizing on his mistake, catching his face hard with its solid fist. Jonathan could hear metallic knuckles clinking together against his eye socket as he was spun violently around.

  Defenseless, his back exposed, he whipped back with his fist trying to force the Ferox to dodge. The strike sailed futilely through the air and was returned by a jaw cracking fist that forced his eyes to the sky and loosened the teeth in his mouth. Dizzied, unsure where his enemy now stood, he lashed out again desperately hoping to connect.

  There was a loud clap and he was brought to jarring halt. The Ferox’s claw seized his arm mid swing, gripping him by the wrist, and before he could react he was pulled off balance by the monster. He felt it release his arm as he was flung forward. Helpless to stop his momentum, an anvil came down on him. The monster’s clasped hands hammered into the back of his head sending him straight at the floor.

  Jonathan felt his feet leave the ground and his skull thrash against cement, heard the surface cracking around him as his head broke through the concrete. Dazed, he rolled, barely quick enough to keep the foot coming down for his head from crushing him back into the ground. Dams the Gate’s stomp shook the roof as he rolled further away, hurrying to put distance between them. It charged him, kicking into his abdomen so hard he was ripped from ground and sent shooting across the roof.

  Jonathan crashed through a stack of building supplies that exploded around him, only slowing him enough to drop him into a roll. Disoriented from the barrage, he reached out to stop himself and felt his finger gripping the rim of the roof edge as the surface ran out below him.

  Jonathan scrambled to pull himself back onto the roof.

  The fight became a blur of pain.

  He was hesitating, taking blows he should have dodged, not capitalizing when the beast made a mistake. He tried to defend but the creature was getting in too many hits. Every blow was a failure resonating in his mind, he felt himself coming to know the battle was lost.

  The viaduct all over again, the creature toyed with him. He was rolled over the pavement, smashed into the steel beams, slowing down, and stiffening as the blows added up. Finally the creature lifted him, grabbing him by the front of his jacket. He felt his body spun, thrown across the roof.

  He thought it was the end, that he‘d soon feel himself falling as he plunged from the building. Instead, he slammed into the metal doors that housed the temporary elevator shaft that the construction workers used to get to the roof.

  He’d have broken straight through and fallen to his death at the bottom, but the lattice metal doors were held shut by a padlock and heavy chain. The doors bent around him until they absorbed the full force of his impact and spit him back onto the cement.

  His ears were ringing, the wind and rain pounding him there. He coughed and blood spat onto the concrete in front of him. He knew what it meant; internal bleeding. The red puddled in front of him, bringing him back to the kitchen floor, whispering to him what seemed so obvious now. He was always going to die. He’d been dead from the moment he woken up that night, been headed right back to that puddle since the moment he dared to crawl out of it.

  He wondered then if Heyer was seeing this now. Would he really not intervene, would he watch him fail? Would the alien close his eyes when the Ferox tore the life out of him, only to have the whole ordeal cease to have ever been a moment later?

  Despair gripped him.

  A beam of light hit the Ferox. It was the helicopter finding them, now, when his hope was lost. Perhaps his friends would all see him die up here before this timeline ceased to be. The light on the monster made it all the more menacing, casting its shadow onto Jonathan. Dams the Gate hesitated in the light for a moment, pulling focus from its prey until it decided the helicopter wasn’t a threat.

  Jonathan heard the thudding now, the sound of the helicopter’s blades tuning out the rest of the world’s noise. It was calming, having the chaos of so many sounds reduced to one. He turned his head and saw the chain dangling from the elevator doors.

  He knew he had to get up but he didn’t want to, he wanted to let it be over.

  Don’t lie down in front of him.

  It was the voice of some wise old man, the words someone was supposed to be there to say to him, now, there in his thoughts. A hot spark of anger awoke in Jonathan as the isolation he felt pressed in on him, reminding him that no one was coming, that he was alone. The thing inside of him, stirred by the injustice of it, came alive and growled.

  Dams the Gate should have been on top of him by now. What was it waiting for?

  He looked again and found the monster taking its time walking over to finish him. This savoring of their victory seemed to be a species trait. Even this one, so impatient for the kill, wanted him to keep fighting, wanted his death to be drawn out.

  His eyes fell back to the ground, to the blood before him. The rain had begun diluting it, washing away the red. The anger screamed out from within him, desperate to be heard.

  This is the moment.

  It surged up in him, showing him the things he couldn’t bear; the stacks of dead, the murdered trophies of Sickens the Fever. The shame he’d endured for allowing it to happen.

  I do not feel guilt. I will not lose to fear.

  The voice was his, and yet it belonged to the part struggling to be freed inside of him. It showed him the face of the little girl. Her broken body, her innocence contaminated.

  I can be whatever it takes.

  Like a fuse being ignited, the rage took hold of his perception, changed the way he saw things. His abandonment ceased to be his weakness. His isolation wasn’t a curse. No one was watching, no one would ever remember.

  The rage didn’t see despair. It saw permission. It saw freedom.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EI
GHT

  TUESDAY | SEPTEMBER 5, 2005 | 5:20 AM

  JONATHAN knew then why he was lying near defeated on this roof top. He’d come down here with his shiny new weapon, like some damn knight riding a horse. He’d been trying to protect himself from the truth of it all. Save what was left of him from the last real horror.

  As he pushed himself to his feet, it all became so simple. Dams the Gate wanted to be here, and Jonathan was still looking for a way out. The Ferox desired every moment of this, wanted him to get up and keep fighting, wanted to feel pain and give it in return. It wasn’t conflicted, it had no doubts about its goals, it was primal rage and taking his life was its only purpose in this existence. It came here eagerly, through a gate to another world, to find him, and he’d still been running away.

  He wasn’t supposed to recognize himself when this was over. He wasn’t walking away unscathed. He couldn’t be normal or ever hope to find normal again. He’d been naïve to hold on to the hope that he could.

  The dark side of the story, Jonathan, you know its name.

  All of this, every last atrocity was happening in a place where only he and Dams the Gate mattered. The world didn’t need to like what he’d have to become to save it. Today, mankind didn’t need him to be a champion, it didn’t need him to be a savior.

  It just needs a killer.

  Jonathan felt himself let go, felt himself give permission to the part of him struggling for its freedom. The panic muted around him, pushed out by the fury rising to the forefront, and as the change touched his eyes, the light, the spark in them that could be a victim, went out.

  Reaching his feet, the eyes of a killer found the Ferox stepping toward him. Jonathan reached up, finding the zipper of his coat, and pulled it open. The light from his chest spilled out of its confines, and Dams the Gate grew insane with bloodlust at the sight of it.

  Its neck began to bulge, darkening as the thick tar surged into its jugular, blackening its eyes. Jonathan’s hands dropped to his side as he waited, letting it all happen, letting the beast come to him.

  Death won’t be able to tell us apart.

  He didn’t move, not until the Ferox, sure of its impending victory, drunk with the anticipation of violence, lunged for him.

  He reached up to intercept it. His hands grabbing hold of its chest and neck, the beast’s momentum sliding him back over the wet cement toward the shaft of the elevator. Its jaws snapped at his face like a raptor trying to sink its beak into prey. He could feel the force of the monster pressing in on him, trying to shorten the distance between them, trying to make his arms bend to its strength. Jonathan’s feet skidded across the ground, unable to find traction on the wet cement.

  They stopped abruptly when his boot found leverage against the elevator shaft. He held it off there, pushing back against the metal doors. He remembered the syringe in the hallway, the pillar below the viaduct. His nightmares, now powerless over him, only fueled his rage, feeding the violence he’d let free within.

  As he pushed back, growling with the effort, everything he had was brought to bear against it, and he felt the Ferox begin to lose ground.

  Its inability to force its will on him was a revelation. He gazed back into the monsters eyes as the truth revealed itself, a smile cracking his lips as he returned the monster’s stare. The beast, becoming agitated, shook with effort as it realized what was happening. He saw, behind those white eyes turned black, it recognized it could be the one to die.

  In its moment of fear, he brought his hand down from the beast’s chest, gripping it into a fist. No longer fragile or small, the hand was steel. He let out a roar as the fist smashed into the monsters throat. Its legs buckled as its hands instinctively came up to protect its neck. Its guard down, the Ferox dropped to its knees in pain. In an instant, he kicked hard into its chest, rolling it back across the roof.

  Jonathan, eager for more, began to step forward, but stopped as a thought occurred to him. He turned to the chain dangling behind him, gripping the padlock with his hands and crushing the mechanism in on itself. Quickly, he pulled it free and returned his attention to the injured Ferox.

  The helicopter had circled and the light now shown down on Jonathan’s back, making the monster flinch to keep its eyes on him. It was hunched over, one hand on its neck, hacking up its black blood. Its eyes watching Jonathan step toward it with uncertainty.

  As he closed the distance between them, he wrapped the chain around his right glove tightly, until if felt like a part of him, making his hand into a hammer.

  “You know, Dams the Gate, I wish I could send you back alive. So you could tell every last one of your kind what waits for them here.”

  As the Ferox tried to stand, Jonathan charged. The creature’s legs were unsure, it hesitated, not knowing if it should attack or protect its injury. It made the wrong decision. It covered up defensively and was knocked hard across the roof, ramming into one of the I-beams protruding from building’s skeleton.

  He was on it again in a second, giving no mercy, feeling no pity. It would not be allowed to collect itself.

  Halfway risen to its knees he caught it hard with the chained fist, its jaw wrenched to the side as it took the blow. Black fluid slapped the pavement. His free hand darted in, grabbing holding of it, keeping it in place. He fist rained down blows. Beating the beast into the building, the steel beam bent inward from the rage he’d set lose on the monster.

  He looked down at his enemy, and saw that it had no strength left to stand, saw that links of the chain had broken in the barrage and embedded themselves in its face and throat. It struggled to breath, to hold onto consciousness.

  Jonathan heard the guttural growling of a man losing his sanity, and realized the sound came from him. Blood dripping from his lips he roared down at its defeated body. Unclenching his fist, he wrapped what was left of the chain around the half conscious creature’s neck and pulled it to its feet against the beam.

  From between gritted teeth, the thing inside of him spoke. After lying dormant so long, waiting to have Death by the throat, waiting to have the power to change something, it knew exactly what it wanted, knew exactly what war it was meant to fight.

  “I will be the end of your species.”

  The Ferox’s eyes tried to focus, but Jonathan had no interest in savoring the moment. It could think about his words on its way to the ground. He swung Dams the Gate toward the edge and let go of the chain, watching his enemy fall out of sight as it plummeted from the roof.

  He scaled down the side of the building, the light of the helicopter and the wind from its blades making it all the more difficult to do so. At least it had stopped raining.

  Excali-bar returned to the harness on his back, he dropped a few stories at a time, reaching out to halt his momentum every few levels. He dropped again and again and it hurt every time. Even with the device activated he could feel his injuries draining him. It didn’t matter. He’d be done bleeding soon.

  Pain was just a warning that something was damaged, a little alarm saying, you might want to stop what you’re doing before you break something permanently. As long as he destroyed that stone, the pain in his body could complain all it wanted. He only had to bear it a little longer. When there were only six stories left, he dropped to the ground.

  The helicopter light followed him. The police had the construction site gates open. He was grateful for that. The idea of having to jump over anything else tonight hurt just to think about. He worried that the police would try to stop him, tell him to freeze or to put his hands up, that he would have to push through them to get to the beast’s body. He didn’t want tonight to be the night he found out if he was bulletproof. Luckily, that didn’t happen. They didn’t seem to know what to make of any of this, let alone Jonathan, walking toward them with his chest ablaze.

  As he approached, he saw open mouths, he might have heard murmurs of confusion, but he couldn’t hear them over the helicopter blades. The perpetual thudding noise drowning out what ot
herwise would have been a noisy city street.

  The police parted for him again as he approached the body. They let him walk into a ring where officers surrounded the Ferox. It had put a hole in the city street, large cracks emanated from the point of impact.

  He realized then it wasn’t dead. It was bleeding out, gargling on its own insides. It struggled to move, desperately reaching out for something, like it was hallucinating. What a Ferox might reach for in the throes of death, Jonathan couldn’t imagine. He wished it had died, he wished it would realize that all there was left to do was die.

  As he looked down at it, he remembered that the Ferox was as alone as he was here. Beaten to near death and surrounded by people who were about to forget it existed. This arena that pitted them against each other outside of place and time was isolating to the both of them.

  He didn’t know how it was possible that his pity had returned, that such a pure rage could crawl back inside of him and make room for other emotions. Jonathan unsheathed the staff once again. He wouldn’t make it wait for release, it felt too cruel. He couldn’t help but feel it could be him struggling in the street, reaching out for some last vision of life.

  It was the last time this Jonathan would feel these things, he knew that sympathy for his enemy could only get him killed. He looked for the largest chink in its armor and hammered down blows until there was a crack large enough to impale it.

  He was glad he couldn’t hear the people watching. He didn’t want to know what their reactions were as he reached into the body, dumping that black sludge, still warm, all over the street. Why were they watching him anyway? Why did they have to watch this savagery? He supposed he was like any soldier. The world didn’t need to know he was out there. They certainly shouldn’t want to watch him do whatever he needed to do, become whatever he had to become. They’d reap the benefits of his existence regardless.