World Domination

by Steve Beaulieu

  Day 2

  Still alive.

  It’s good to have someone like you who cares, who actually listens.

  OK, so I know I’m not really talking to anyone, but maybe someday, someone will be reading this. And it makes me feel a little better to pretend I’m talking this over with a friend. Because I lost my best friend. I’m just hoping now that Zach doesn’t kill me first. I thought he was going to, last night. Remember when I said I was going to follow him? I did. At least for a while. Then it was him following me.

  I biked over to the park across the street from the Hochberg house. Like I said, he lives in the next block, and his stupid sisters are always out front jumping rope and stuff, so I went the long way around to the back entrance of the park, just past the swings. Some big hedges are facing the street, so I laid down my bike and hid there. Man, was it boring. Zach has three sisters. The oldest, Lydia, is 15, Katie is 12, and Alisa is 11 now. They were sitting on the porch, yakking away nonstop about boys for about three hours it seemed, and my legs started cramping up as much as my brain from the stupid talk. Finally, their mom yelled out the front window to come in and start getting ready for bed. I can’t tell you how long it was until Zach came outside because I’d fallen asleep. The screen door of their house makes a loud creaking noise, which brought me awake. I wiped some drool off the corner of my mouth, watched the direction he headed, then crawled out of the hedges and hopped on my bike.

  Zach turned the corner at the end of his block. Going downtown, I figured. Better businesses to knock off compared to this neighborhood. Anyway, he can fly, and pretty fast, too, so I quickly pedaled in pursuit, and when I rounded the corner I crashed right into him. He’d jumped out from behind a van and when my front tire made contact, both my bike and I went flying in opposite directions.

  Before he gave me the chance to lick my wounds, he picked me up with one hand and set me on my feet.

  “You need to stop following me.”

  Just like that. No “Hi Coby, sorry we don’t hang out anymore,” or “Hey, sorry I forgot to tell you that I’ve developed superhuman strength now.”

  I’m not a tough guy at all, and I’ll be the first to tell you I felt so groggy that I wanted to be back under the big hedge, asleep with drool on my face. When the street light above us started buzzing, I almost jumped out of my shoes. I could have folded right then, but instead I took a deep breath and got to the point.

  “When were you going to tell me?” I felt sorta brave when I said it. There was attitude behind my words. But when I saw the look in his eyes, I realized I’d made a mistake. He didn’t say anything, though. He just kept penetrating my brain with his eyes.

  A car turned the corner and Zach broke eye contact because of the glare from the headlights, so I took the opportunity to go move my bike. Not that it would do any good as a getaway vehicle from crazy Zach, but I didn’t want the car to hit it. Because I’m a good guy, unlike him.

  “I don’t get it,” I said when I pushed my bike over to the side of the road where he was now standing. “I mean, we actually talked about what we’d do if we got powers and stuff. I thought we were like Captain America and Spider-Man, battling the forces of evil, but you’re more like Darkseid.”

  Sometimes when you’ve been friends forever, you know how to strike a nerve, and at that moment I’m fairly certain that’s what happened. I could be wrong, but I thought I read shame on his face. He looked down at his shoes and fidgeted a bit, and I thought I’d brought him back from the abyss.

  Then he raised his head and peered into my eyes with a super-villain stare. “Yeah. We said stuff like that when we were twelve.”

  It felt like the temperature dropped a couple dozen degrees, and I backed up a few steps.

  “You know how much money I’ve brought home over the last couple weeks?” I knew he didn’t expect me to answer so I sat down on the curb. Whenever we have a serious conversation we sit down and talk it out.

  “Listen,” Zach said, getting a little fidgety. I waited for him to go on, and it seemed like forever. If he still felt uncomfortable from what I said, that was a good thing, right?

  “You want a piece of the pie, or what?”

  Even before it was out of his mouth, my gut told me he’d make me an offer. My mom sure could use the money. Everyone in this neighborhood could use the money. I had to think, and when I’m under pressure, I get nervous and sometimes get a little too sarcastic. “So are you turning all Robin Hood on us now? Steal from the rich and give to the poor?”

  He got ticked off and started walking away.

  “Wait Zach, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture, but you need to stop before you or somebody else gets hurt.”

  Walking backwards now, Zach spat on the street and shook his head. “I can’t get hurt, Coby. Someone shot me a couple nights ago, but the bullet didn’t penetrate. Nothing can stop me.” He pulled a ski mask out of his pocket, slipped it over his head, turned around, and leaped into the air.

  In seconds I was on my bike and zooming down the street as fast as I could go, trying to keep up.

  “I’ll tell everyone who you are,” I screamed. “I’m gonna go call the police because you have to be stopped.” Dogs started barking and a couple porch lights came on, and before I could blink, my bike was ten feet below me and we were soaring past the trees. I closed my eyes, figuring he’d toss me into the street, and I’d die or get paralyzed or something.

  I don’t know how long we flew like that, but I knew if we didn’t stop soon I’d vomit, and I made sure to tell him. Then we landed and I sank to my knees, trying to pull my heart back into my chest. When I opened my eyes I couldn’t see much. There was one weak lightbulb on the side of a brick building, and I could tell we were on some old concrete parking lot, with lots of cracks and spray painted symbols all over it.

  “You tell anyone, and there’ll be plenty more of this,” Zach said, pulling me to my feet and slapping my stomach. Well, it looked like a slap, but he has super strength now, and it knocked the wind—and probably my spleen—right out of me. Then he started flicking his fingers on my arms and legs. I couldn’t believe how painful it felt, and at the time, no kidding, I sort of wanted to die and just get it over with. “Don’t forget to keep your mouth shut, or next time will be so much worse,” he said, then flew away.

  This is Coby Cook, signing out.

  Day 3

  The worst part about getting home last night was figuring out where Zach left me. Besides it being so dark there, clouds covered the night sky and I couldn’t even see the moon. Once I recovered enough from the beating Zach gave me, I stood up and found my way out of the parking lot and just started walking along the street. There were no cars, which was spooky enough, but no people, either. My arms broke out in gooseflesh, which actually kind of hurt because of all the finger flicks from that jerk, Hochberg.

  When I got to the corner, there was a streetlight and I could read the street sign above me. Maple and 4th Avenue. Ugh. That left me about three miles from home. And every step hurt. It was pretty obvious to me that Zach meant business. Leave him alone, don’t tell anyone, and I wouldn’t get hurt anymore. But that’s not the right thing to do, and if he knows me at all, it won’t surprise him that I’m not giving up my crusade to stop him. At any cost.

  How long did it take me to get home? Probably over an hour, but I didn’t really know. It felt like forever, and a couple times I hid behind parked cars when I saw people. Even though it was Sunday night, and getting late, people were out roaming around. As far as I know there aren’t any gangs around here, but I wasn’t taking chances. And with my body feeling so sore, being a bit of a chicken seemed to be my only option. I tried playing hero earlier, and look where that got me.

  When I got home I popped a couple pain pills mom keeps in the medicine cabinet then grabbed a Coke and turned on the TV. I should have just gone to bed, but to be honest I felt a little scared that Zach might decide to come in and finish me off, a
nd I didn’t want to die in my sleep. If my mom had been here, maybe I would have felt differently, but she wouldn’t be home for a while because she got an extra cleaning assignment at some hotel. Something about a weekend convention and needing extra hands. I needed extra hands to help me pound on Zach. But if bullets couldn’t penetrate his skin, what good would punches do?

  I didn’t go to school today. My body is just too sore. My muscles are bruised and my bones are aching. I told my mom I felt like I might vomit, which isn’t too far from the truth.

  After she left for work, I crawled back in bed and tried to get some sleep. My night was full of tossing and turning, and it didn’t matter if I flipped on my right side or left side or back or stomach, it all hurt. I keep a pile of my favorite comic books on my nightstand and started reading an old issue of Marvel Team-Up I’d found with my dad’s stuff in the basement. You’d think that if Spider-Man and Howard the Duck could fight on the same side, so could Zach and I. But at this point we’re more like Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny. Only there’s nothing funny about it. I didn’t want to be depressed so I got up, popped more pain relief pills, grabbed a pack of Pop-Tarts and a can of Coke because it was the easiest breakfast I could think of, and binge-watched Fuller House on Netflix. Don’t judge me. It was the easiest way to get Zach out of my head for a few hours.

  Somewhere along the fifth or sixth episode in, my mind started drifting back to a couple weeks ago. The images on the screen were replaced with…well, you guessed it: the fateful day that the hero makes a shocking discovery that his best friend is a supervillain.

  When it happened, it was kind of late, maybe close to 9:30 p.m., and since my mom was working, I biked over to Zach’s so we could hang out for a while. There are five stairs leading up to the Hochberg porch, and as typical, I do a little stutter step and jump to the third step, then spring on to the porch. Zach always did it and I picked it up from him. I thought I heard a noise above me, and I was reminded how for years Zach’s room faced the street, and he’d sneak out his window, walk across the little roof above the porch, and slide down one of the support beams at the corner. One day, when he was around 14 or 15, he came sliding down only to see his mother on the porch, watching him. After that, Lydia and Katie moved into that room, and now the window in Zach’s room is useless because there’s a straight drop onto the concrete driveway, so no more sneaking out at night.

  Then I heard the noise again and realized Zach must be opening his window, so I walked over to the edge of the porch, was just about to yell up to him, and he jumped out. My breath caught in my chest and I couldn’t get anything out, because right in front of my eyes my best friend has become Superman and is flying. I mean flying, like above the trees! Okay reader, so you already know he can fly, but the first time I witnessed it, I nearly cried tears of joy. It took me all of two seconds to get my head in the game, jump off the porch, and try to follow on my bike. But he was fast, it was dark, and in just seconds I couldn’t tell you where he went if my life depended on it. Until the next day when I saw in the newspaper that someone broke into a little convenient mart and made off with some cash. The store had security cameras, but they’d been destroyed, and the hard drive they download to turned up missing.

  Did I really suspect Zach at that point? Maybe. But maybe he was playing superhero and patrolling the city at night. The crime spree didn’t stop. I waited for Zach to tell me about his powers, but it was like he’d dropped off the face of the earth, at least in our friendship world. No calls, no texts, no emails. He wouldn’t look at me at school. I tried to talk, and he mumbled something about not feeling well, and needed his space. He became a loner. And the stories about the mysterious robberies became a regular thing in the paper. Just small stores, nothing big like a bank. Why, I don’t know. I’m sure he has his reasons.

  Okay, it’s getting late, my body still aches, and thinking about Zach gives me a big headache. But one last thing. Revenge is the word that keeps floating around in my head, yet this is bigger than revenge. Now it’s about stopping a dangerous criminal.

  This is Coby Cook, signing out.

  Day 4

  Somehow I made it through classes today, but my body still hurts all over. Zach and I passed each other in the hallway a few times but he wouldn’t look at me. In Mrs. Falconi’s third period English class we sit right next to each other, and Hochberg did his best to make it awkward by scooting his desk away from me. And at an angle. No doubt Mrs. Falconi could tell something was up, but she’s a pretty cool teacher and just let it go.

  Zach had to read Hamlet’s soliloquy to the class. You know, that “To be or not to be” speech, and I wondered if he thought about our situation at all. I know I did, especially the part where Hamlet says, “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,” because right now I am a coward. My bones and muscles ache so much, and Zach barely laid a hand on me. So my conscience is telling me to obey Hochberg and keep my mouth shut. I mean, I don’t have any powers, and while I’m far from stupid, how do I outsmart someone who can easily kill me?

  After school I leafed through my mom’s newspaper to see what Zach did last night. A small flower shop had its cash register broken into, and the security footage is conveniently missing. The article said the mayor held a special council meeting and there will be extra police patrols around the clock. Some of the local business owners stated they’d be hiring armed guards, hoping to put a stop to this.

  The whole thing is crazy. Just last month Zach and I were trading comic books and talking about some of the new video games set to launch this year. This isn’t the Zach I’ve known my whole life, so all I can figure is that however he got these powers, it also warped his mind. And speaking of minds, I’m screwed if he has, like, mind reading powers, because the only way I’m going to get him to stop being my nemesis and robbing stores is by coming up with a plan so brilliant that he doesn’t see it coming. Now I just need a plan.

  This is Coby Cook, signing out.

  Day 5

  What in the world happened to my best friend? I feel like sitting here and crying instead of writing all this down, but that won’t do me any good. I guess I can cry when I’m in bed tonight. All the talk at school today was about the security guard who got tossed out the window at Beltran Pharmacy. Poor guy is in a coma now and the doctors don’t know if he’ll make it. Word is, he lives a little outside of the city and wanted to make some extra money for his family, so he signed up to work late night shifts as part of the plan to stop the robberies. They say he has a wife and three kids. I suppose I could look up the story in the paper, but after what I heard at school, I feel sick to my stomach that Zach did this, and I don’t think I want to know the extra details.

  The only good that came out of today was when I bumped into Hochberg in the hall and started thinking, as strongly as I could, that he’s an idiot and his stupidity would be the only part of him that wins in the end. When he didn’t flinch, I tried to project (if that’s the right word) my thoughts that I’d be following him tonight. Again, no response at all. So I guess he can’t read my mind. Which gives me an edge, because when it comes to the two of us, I’ve always been smarter. And now I realize I’m also a much better person than him.

  Truth be told, I’m not following him tonight. That’s done, because I’m not sure my body can take another round of his powerful finger flicks, and at this point, I don’t know how far he’d take it if he caught me again. After what he did to that security guard, anything is possible. I just have to face it that he’s evil. Time for a plan. Time for me to be the hero.

  This is Coby Cook, signing out.

  Day 6

  I daydreamed my way through classes today. Only got embarrassed once, when Mr. Laserna, my chemistry teacher, called on me to answer a question. Hearing your name when your mind is somewhere else can bring you back to reality pretty quickly, and as fear of looking stupid coursed through my veins, the fastest way I could think of to avoid his question was to start coughing. And I
mean loud, rough coughing. No doubt my face turned all shades of red, and Laserna sent me into the hall to get a drink of water. By the time I returned to the room, the bell rang.

  So I know what your question must be. You’re wondering what I was thinking about. Honestly, finding a way to stop Zach should have been the only thing in my head, but as a plan started formulating, I couldn’t help but think back to a couple years ago. Yeah, that’s right. The day my dad walked out on us.

  It happened late at night. Or maybe it was early in the morning. I can’t remember that part so well, but I do remember my parents started arguing just after dinner, and it never seemed to let up. It was a school night, and my mom kept yelling at my dad that he needed to quiet down so I could get enough sleep for school the next day.

  That just made him scream more, and I heard some loud thumps on the walls from my bedroom. I figured they were throwing things around, and I was plenty scared one of them would kill the other. Then I screamed at the top of my lungs for like fifteen seconds, and when I finished, nothing. No more yelling from them. No objects thumping into walls. I hoped it was over for the night, but as it turned out, it was really over for forever, as far as my parents were concerned.

  I found out later that after I screamed, my dad sat on the edge of the bed, and my mom eventually fell asleep. She woke up a few hours later and saw a light on in the hall, and my father was no longer in bed. Turns out he must have waited until we both fell asleep, then got some of his clothes, packed them in an old suitcase, and was headed out the door when my mom found him. That’s when the worst screaming and yelling started.

  Probably everyone in the neighborhood heard it. Dogs started barking, and when I stepped out on the porch I could see several neighbors coming outside to see what was going on.

  Getting embarrassed by Mr. Laserna in chemistry doesn’t begin to rank, compared to everyone on the block watching your family implode.