The Push Chronicles (Book 1): Indomitable (3 page)

Chapter 5 Grave

The problem I faced as I got ready to head over to the cemetery was what, if anything, I should do to prepare myself.  It’s not as if there had been a seminar on how to deal with a crazy ex-boyfriend with superhuman powers to take when I was in college.  I had severe doubts as to the point of carrying that can of mace or the rape whistle.  Even the .32 caliber pistol my father had insisted Eric and I take as a housewarming gift (for home defense, of course) seemed pretty silly to think about taking.  Dad had died just a month later, bless his soul.  If I was right and Eric had been the one who caught a jumbo jet out of flight, the only sensible thing to do was to take nothing even remotely threatening and pick up the sword of reason against him.  I felt remarkably foolish and woefully unprotected.

I just had to put faith in the notion that Eric still had some kind of feelings for me.  After all, I couldn’t dispute that that I didn’t have some towards him, so it was a good chance the reverse was true.  His text after the Whiteout implied that.

I was still going to dump him though.  So very hard.  It would have to wait, at least officially, until I made this shot at trying to ... well, I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure on what exactly I was looking to achieve.  I was holding onto a rather unlikely hope that, if I could convince Eric that this experiment was a mistake, that he both had the means and the will to fix things back to the way they were.

Not that the rest of the world seemed eager for that.  As I had finished getting into my most practical set of motorcycle leathers, the only thing the TV could drone on about was the Whiteout.  It was now thirteen hours into the Push (the media had coined the term in the last hour, some sound byte about having power ‘pushed’ through the body) and everyone wanted to talk to a Pushed person.  It seemed like no one paid much attention to the fact that Congress had been called into emergency session to address the Whiteout crisis or that fatalities from Push-related violence had already topped two hundred people.  It was, to me, unfathomable how no one seemed to care.

I took a deep, steadying breath as I slipped on my motorcycle helmet.  I had to keep my focus, remember my arguments, and keep the alien thoughts out of my head.  Easy.

I kicked the Kawasaki to life and rode out of the parking deck.

Atlanta has always been infamous for it’s horrible traffic snarls, so I wasn’t immediately surprised to hit an unmoving mass of vehicles headed out from the apartment.  I took the moment to once again run down in my head the approach I would take if, no, when I saw Eric.  It was the roar of sirens that caused me to pay attention. Several police motorcycles wove through the gaps in the vehicles and roared past me, lights flashing.

I tried to focus on their destination but all I could see was a large billowing cloud of smoke or dust.  I wasn’t the only one who was curious by the sudden police presence as several motorists came out of their cars, craning necks and holding up smartphones.  The sirens grew more distant then suddenly stopped, their glaring noise being cut off by another, far more violent, sound.

The explosion shattered car windows and sent bystanders tumbling.  I could see shrapnel and debris pepper the nearest cars to the cloud of smoke as I braced myself against the sudden pressure.  As the cloud itself was torn into wisps by the shockwave, my skin instantly began to crawl as what it had been hiding was dramatically revealed.

It was the first time I had seen direct evidence of one of the Pushed.  The organism I saw undoubtedly had once been human and was still humanoid in shape.  Whatever shaped this creature's alterations took inspiration from fire itself because living flame was the best description I could come up with at the time.  To fly further in the face of conventional science, his flames seemed selective for the pair of slacks he wore and the watch on his wrist remained surprisingly undamaged by his new form.  There seemed to be something else, something more ... real beneath the flames, but I could see what it was from so far away.

All around me, a wave that combined fascination with terror swept among those watching.  Some started to run away, weaving and pushing through the press of vehicles.  Others continued to stare and gawk while snapping away with their phone’s cameras.  As for myself, I felt neither.  Yes, I was afraid, but not in some primal way.  Yes, I was fascinated, but not to the point of loosing my senses.  My scientific curiosity was peaked.

More so, I was overcome with the sudden sense that someone had to do something.  Who knows how many people had died from that explosion?  Who knows how many more people were about to die as the man made of fire started to stalk up the street?   Coupled with that urgency of action was the sick sensation that I was about to do something my rational mind was trying to fight off at any cost.

Just as I was about to gun the engine of my bike over the ever louder protestation of my rational mind, the air suddenly turned frigid as a large crystalline mass flew right past my head.  It was ice, a spear of ice, hurtling past me..  To my eyes, it didn’t even seem entirely real, much like this entire situation outside of the damage and injuries.  The large chunk landed square in what would pass for a chest of a normal human and instantly melted, partially vaporizing in the intense flames.

The flame man made an inhuman roar so loud that I could barely pick up what I thought was a much more mundane scream hidden behind it.  Running past me, hopping from car roof to car roof, was what had to be another Pushed, his mere presence sending my senses into alarm.

I could only guess that he had been a fireman, because that was how he was dressed.  He may have even been responding to the reports of this fire.  Now, though, he was something else.  His black skin was frosted with ice and had an inhuman bluish tinge.  To me, it looked shimmering and phantasmal and I could see the real man underneath the trappings.

Whatever truth lay beneath the skin, it didn't stop the firefighter from instinctively spreading his hands, shrouded in a bluish light.  That light caused a large spray of rapidly-forming ice shards to freeze out of the air itself.  The man of fire lashed out with his limbs, which seemed to grow immensely in size and intensity as he moved, to defend himself from the offending cold.

I did the only thing I could think of doing:  I pushed off my bike and shoved the nearest star-struck bystander to the ground.  The air exploded with super heated steam as the two primal forces collided over our heads.  I and the man beneath me were safe but I could hear the horrible screams of those too slow or addled to find cover.

The Push Battle I witnessed took a total of twelve minutes.  By the time it was over, I could only guess at how many were dead or injured.  It was only by some measure of good fortune my motorcycle wasn’t destroyed.  Despite that luck, I couldn’t just drive on after it was over.

I stopped myself from my trip to help out as many of the injured as I could.  It was grim work.  If I hadn’t already been somewhat inured to injury from my work as a therapist, I don’t know if I could have managed to keep myself together to finish it.

It was when I saw the first hint of the media that I decided I had to leave.  The last thing I wanted was to wind up as part of the media insanity that seemed to be following the Pushed.  I drove off as the super fireman was getting a photo op with the surviving police on site.

Westview Cemetery is, to this very day, a beautiful piece of history in Atlanta.  Green grass, marble mausoleum, and headstones from as far back as the Civil War combine to form a picture of solemn peace.  Unfortunately, it is over 500 acres.  If I hadn’t been left with Eric’s exacting records, partial as they were, I don’t think it would have been likely that I would have found the graves in question.  Even armed as I was with the proper location, it was still a good ten minute hike through the rows before I was even close.

The two marble headstones were in a slight depression in the grassy field.  As I came to the rise, my helmet tucked under my arm, I came to a halt and scanned the area.  It was silent and unmoving, much like the residents beneath the earth.  There were few people out at this time of day, after lunch but before the end of the typical workday, so if I was right, we would have privacy.  More importantly, if something went wrong, no one would be around to get hurt.

The thought made me go rigid.  It wasn’t that I wouldn’t think about something like that.  My field of work was finding ways to help people overcome disease and injury; caring about my fellow man was natural to me.  It was that I wasn’t sure if that was my thought or one of the ever-increasing divergent ideas that simply refused to stop.  I had to admit it was becoming harder to tell them apart and I was becoming increasingly afraid that if I inadvertently gave into one, even if it was so much like my own, that it would open a floodgate in my mind I couldn’t shut.

“Stop it, Irene.”  I used my most strident tone, the one I generally only saved for bad drivers and bullies.  I was right, of course.  If I didn’t stop it, I would start a downward spiral as I began to second-guess my every action, not to mention the biochemical fear response would compromise any attempt at presenting a calm, rational set of arguments in the confrontation ahead.  I closed my eyes, counted backwards from ten (my mother insisted it always worked to calm you down), and then reopened my eyes, determined to focus on my destination.

As if summoned by that simple ritual, I now saw a figure standing in front of the graves.  It had to be Eric.  Not that he was entirely the same anymore.

“Irene.”  The man I assumed was Eric had waited patiently at graveside.  I was sure he must have seen me when he arrived, in whatever extravagant and relatively silent fashion that was.  “I suppose I should not be surprised to see you here.”

The voice was mostly the same, but instead of the quiet exacting tones of my Eric, this Eric’s voice was backed by the steel of absolute confidence.  His body, though, that was radically different.  Eric had grown at least a foot in height and filled out immensely.  He had been a scarecrow, now he had more in common with sculptures of the Greek ideal than a mortal man.  My mind instantly jumped from that thought to a general connection with his new mode of dress: it definitely was influenced by Greek mythology through the lens of an action movie.  I doubted Zeus needed that half-cape for instance.

In the face I could still see bits and pieces of my Eric, but they had obviously been put through the most drastic Photoshop face-lift I had ever seen.  In the lens of all the research I had done this morning, I could only see Eric as a comic book character given real form.  Every bit of it screamed unnaturally to my senses, exactly as it had during the Push Battle earlier.

“No, you shouldn’t.”  I tried to keep my will totally focused on what approaches to take, but I couldn’t help but be a little distracted by the pain starting to develop in my eyes.  It was like I was continually forced to try to focus on a double image: this new heroic Eric superimposed over the Eric I knew.  I ignored the pain.  “If you thought I would sit at home and go about my routine like a good little girl, you never had any idea who I am.”

“You are right, of course.  I did expect to see you sooner as opposed to later.”  He folded his arms behind his back.  Though his expression was pensive with a pleasant smile, both Erics had a slight tick of an eyebrow, as if he was having a troubling thought.  “I am pleased that you are here now, though.”

“Look, Eric - ”

“No, that was the old me,” he interrupted.  “I think I should be called something new now.  Maybe I will let the media come up with a name for me.  Like they did for Superman.”

“No matter how much you change on the outside, you’re still Eric Flynn to me.”  I took a step towards him.  Every inch forward made my skin crawl, but I suppressed every nervous impulse.  “Do you have any idea what your experiment is doing out there?” 

His brow was knitting together, his eyes (all four of them) focusing on me as if seeing me for the first time.  I thought, for a moment, he was going to react aggressively as I saw those outward signs of a fight-or-flight reaction pop up like streetlights at dusk, but he didn’t move.  The fear, already locked in it’s box, grew stronger, beating at the box lid.  I hadn’t just seen his muscles tense.  They were so unnaturally powerful I actually felt the vibrations in the air as they flexed.

“Of course I do.”  He turned his gaze away from me towards the graves of his parents.   I barely caught the motion as a blur.  “Everywhere around the world, people are being given great power and a chance to use that power to make the world a better place.  In a few days, I am going to travel the world, find the people who were Pushed, and make them the greatest force for good this world has ever seen.  No one is going to have to fear for anything ever again.”

“What?  What's wrong with you?  This is the big plan?  This is the best idea that the smartest man I’ve ever known can come up with?”  I don’t know why I felt this growing anger in me.  I wasn’t sure if it was another alien impulse or whether it was the sheer ignorance Eric had on display.  “Your Whiteout has already killed two hundred people!  In thirteen hours!  This isn’t one of your damn comic books, Eric, this is wrong.”  Calm tones, Irene, be calm, Rational Irene said like a mantra.

“You do not even begin to understand what is going on, dear.”  The double Eric’s voice had an edge to it.  I couldn’t identify it; it was an alien tone.  “This new world, it came from me.  My thoughts, my beliefs, Pure and untainted.  There is no way that, once the changes finish taking hold, when consensual reality settles, that things will not be perfect.”  He waved a hand dismissive in my direction, still not facing me.  “All of this violence and death, it is the death throes of the sad, corrupt world that was here before.  A world that let good people die for no reason.  That let innocent children starve and let corrupt men grow fat.”