Ability (Omnibus) (21 page)

“I’m thinking in the morning. You’ll go about your normal routine and I’ll check out of the motel. We’ll meet up down the road. Then we’ll double back and make our way over to Radek’s place. You should be able to wander off behind the motel and no one will notice for an hour or so, right?”

“Trevor Barco will notice.”

“Don’t worry about that. I think with whatever the Stocktons have been up to tonight, everyone will be too busy to worry about one norm wandering away.”

“What if he isn’t too busy?”

Garret leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s try to get some sleep.”

He returned to the bed, plopping down on his back. Donella stared at him, making him uncomfortable, especially when he realized she was staring at his partial erection. Garret’s face turned red and he pulled the sheet up to cover his lower half.

“Sorry,” he mumbled in embarrassment.

“Don’t be,” she said, standing up.

Garret watched her remove her clothes, unable to take his eyes from her dark skin. He didn’t know how old she was, but her face and her body suggested she was in her late twenties, which couldn’t be right because of her daughter’s age. Her graying hair suggested she might be in her late forties, maybe even her fifties. With no grocery stores to buy hair dye, he’d seen a lot of gray hair over the last few months.

She pulled the sheet back and nudged Garret until he moved over. She lay next to him, her hands tracing lines across his arm and his chest.

“Are you sure?” Garret asked, feeling himself respond down below.

“It will be the first time in almost four months I’ve done it of my own free will.”

*****

Garret awoke to the urgent buzzing in his ear. He reached over to the nightstand and touched the tablet’s screen, silencing the alarm. He froze at the sound of the lock’s manual override being triggered with a physical key. He focused on keeping the door locked as he nudged Donella until she woke up. He immediately put a finger over her lips to make sure she stayed quiet. After listening for a moment to the muted voices outside of his room, he motioned for her to hide on the other side of the bed while he put on his pants.

A loud knock brought him to full wakefulness, and he walked to the door. After removing the alarm and putting it inside of the duffel, he opened the door to find five men standing outside. A look through a gap between two of the men revealed a small crowd in the parking lot below.

“Yes?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Give us the whore,” a man that was Garret’s age demanded from his left. An older man, Garret was sure he was the younger man’s father, clapped his son on the shoulder, and turned to Garret.

“What Franklin here means, is that we would like to speak with Miss Donella.”

“What about?” Garret asked, deciding to not hide the fact she was in his room.

“Oh, you know,” the older man said vaguely, “Town business. Something an outsider, no offense, wouldn’t be interested in.”

“None taken,” Garret said. He stood on his toes and pretended to look over the mens’ shoulders to the crowd milling around the parking lot. “Seems like a lot of you just to talk to a single woman about town business. No offense.”

“Mr….”

“Garret.”

“Mr. Garret, we believe the woman was involved in a murder last night.”

“Really?” Garret asked, pretending to be surprised. “What time did that happen?”

“Listen, asshole—” Franklin growled before being cut off by his father.

“Mr. Garret, it’s a good bet that you’ve got some kind of supernatural ability. Not many that come through here are free of that burden these days. And while I’m sure you’ve seen many things in your travels, and have had to defend yourself, or possibly even go on the offensive just to survive, let me assure you that we don’t need to be polite about this. The five of us, and the thirty or so waiting down there are all packing a wallop, the same as you.

“We are being polite because the world is evil enough with whatever has been unleashed, and as you might have noticed, we haven’t broken down like other communities. We have no quarrel with you, and though you are trying Franklin’s patience, and to be honest, mine as well, we wish no harm on you. We could have blasted a hole through the wall and hoped that she survived long enough to face justice, but again, we have no quarrel with you.”

“Good speech,” Garret said. When the older man opened his mouth, Garret held up a hand. “I’d like to help you gentleman, and I will. Miss Donella was with me all evening, and all through the night. In fact, she’s still in my company.”

“Fucking whore,” Franklin said, leaning his head around the door frame.

“Well, I wouldn’t go around insulting people like that,” Garret said. “She’s a woman, I’m a man. We do those kinds of things.”

“I’ve had just about enough of your smart mouth, mister,” the older man said, his temper beginning to unravel. “Give us the woman or we’ll take her from your corpse.”

“I guess this is where I warn you boys to pack up your little mob and head home before someone gets hurt.” The man on the right started to bring his arms up, but Garret pointed at him, never taking his eyes off the group’s leader. “You probably don’t want to do that.”

“Mister,” the man second from the right said, “you might get one or all of us, but you ain’t gettin’ by the whole town.”

Garret smiled at the man’s reasonable tone, recognizing the suggestive push in his voice.“You might be right about that.” He set the man’s brain to slowly begin boiling in his skull. “Well, gentlemen,” he said as if he was taking his leave of a club meeting, “I’m sure you are busy with town business and such.”

“Fuck you,” Franklin snarled and took a step inside the door.

Garret clapped his hands together and the five men nearly disintegrated from the blast wave. The concrete balcony in front of his open door shattered and exploded outward, killing more than half of the waiting mob below. The pressure wave that followed the explosion knocked over anyone left standing. Garret blinked in surprise at the devastation, then stepped out of his room and jumped down from the second floor, landing on his feet. He immediately grabbed a woman by her throat, channeling force down his arm, decapitating her when he squeezed her neck and twisted his hand.

He let go of the corpse’s neck and raised his left arm to shield himself from a miniature tornado of sand, shoving it back toward his attacker. He began to walk across the parking lot, killing anyone still alive with a range of attacks. A man in a flannel shirt and jeans to his right withered then crumbled into dust. A short, fat woman in front of him flew at least twenty meters, as if she were a football that had been punted, before crashing face-first into the edge of the raised sidewalk across the street from the motel.

As he made his way through the crowd, he was death incarnate, the destroyer of their world. Garret always relished the feeling of power that flowed through his mind, his body when his aggression was up. This felt different. He’d never felt his abilities this fluid, this easily wielded before. Not just the ease of which he cycled through them, but the almost unlimited power that he felt behind each attack. He amused himself as man and woman alike fell before him, failing in their clumsy attempts to use their abilities against him.

In less than three minutes, the parking lot was a ruin, the asphalt soaking in the blood from the dozens of bodies strewn about. Garret was the only one left standing. He caught a movement from the corner of his eye and turned toward the office. The proprietor, a mousy little man that looked to be in his sixties, had stayed inside the small office. Garret walked to the glass door and opened it, waiting a moment to see if the man would attempt to fight. When all he could hear was heavy breathing and snuffling sobs behind the counter, he chuckled and walked in.

Garret rang the bell on the counter three times. The old man finally peeled himself from the floor, shivering in fright at the bloody apparition across from him.

“Who runs this shithole?” Garret asked.

“I… I do,” the old man stuttered.

“Seriously? You run this whole town? No offense, old man, but you don’t seem like mayor material.”

“N-n-no, I run the motel.”

“Well who runs this shithole of a town then?”

“The Stocktons, the Radeks, the Haleys, and the Barcos.”

Garret squinted down at the old man. “And who, out of those assholes, is in charge?”

“D-D-David Stockton and Belan Radek.” Garret waited for the man to name more names.

When the old man didn’t, Garret dinged the bell on the counter again, making the proprietor visibly jump in fright.

“Gary Haley. Thomas Barco.”

“Right. And where might I find these esteemed gentlemen?”

“You… you just killed them.”

“All of them?” Garret asked, a smile brightening his face.

“I didn’t see Thomas with them, but everyone else…”

“Awesome,” Garret said. “By the way, I’m going to need a different room. I think the balcony is broken. You might want to get that fixed before someone gets hurt.”

He winked at the old man. The man stared at him, afraid to move. Garret rang the bell twice, each time making the old man jerk as if he’d touched a live electrical line.

“What’s your name, old man?”

“Jacob.”

“Jacob what?”

“Jacob… Stockton.”

“Well how about that,” Garret said to himself. “Now, how about getting me a different room, Jacob?”

Jacob stayed frozen to his spot until Garret rang the bell three more times. The old man sprang to life like a wind-up toy, walked to the peg board and retrieved a manual key, the electronic keys now less than useless.

“Many thanks, Jacob,” Garret said, taking the key from the man. “If I were you, I’d be looking to avoid any kind of trouble. I’d sit in this little office and keep your yap shut.”

He left the office and walked across the parking lot, careful to not step in any of the congealing pools of blood or soft body parts that littered the pavement. When he reached the section where his room was, he looked up, seeing Donella in the doorway. Her eyes were wide with either fear or shock, Garret couldn’t tell. She looked down at him.

“Jacob gave us a new room,” he said, holding up the key. “One-oh-six. Do me a favor and grab all the gear off the nightstand and table, stuff it in the big duffel, and toss all of the bags down to me.”

Donella turned and went to the nightstand, gathering up Garret’s tablet, chron, a few other items she didn’t recognize, and put them in the largest duffel. When she tried to pick it up, it felt like her shoulder had been ripped out of its socket. Donella stood up and walked to the doorway again, looking down at Garret for a few seconds, wondering how the young man was able to carry one duffel, let alone a second one, without breaking a sweat.

“Oh, yeah,” he called up to her. “I forgot to tell you that they are probably pretty heavy. Just drag them to the edge and push them over.”

Donella went back to the large duffel and pulled on the nylon straps. The bag scraped across the floor a few centimeters at a time. By the time she’d made it the meter back to the doorway, she was sweating. She sat down behind the bag and pushed at it with her legs. On the third push, it went over the edge. Her ears waited for the crash, but none came. She scooted to the edge of the doorway and looked down. Garret was rummaging through the bag. He looked up and gave her the thumbs-up sign.

Donella retrieved the smaller duffel, her arms aching by the time she made it to the doorway. She heaved the bag out, and watched it fall to the ground. She blinked when it landed softly, getting another thumbs-up from Garret. She took one last look around the room before grabbing the tablet bags. Satisfied she wasn’t leaving anything behind, she went to the doorway. Donella wondered how she was going to get down. The balcony for three meters on each side of the doorway was missing, and the only way out of the room was straight down to the parking lot.

“Jump,” Garret said, waving a hand at her. When she looked at him in fear, he waved again. “Come on, I promise you’ll make it safely.”

Donella held her breath and stepped out of the room and into the empty space. She panicked at the speed of her fall, bracing her legs for the landing, knowing one or both of them would end up broken. Her feet touched the walkway that lined the lower floor, and a half second later she felt as if a weight had been loaded onto her back. She blinked and realized that it was just her normal weight returning to her somehow.

“See?” he asked with a grin.

He put his hand out, and Donella handed him the tablet bags. He took them and put them on top of the large duffel, then reached his hand out again. She looked at his hand, then his face, then to the carnage in the parking lot, and finally above her head to the missing six meter chunk of concrete walkway. When her eyes met his face again, his grin became wider. Donella stepped forward and took his hand, allowing herself to be pulled in close. They held each other, oblivious of the wreckage of bodies for the moment.

“What have you done?” she asked softly, her lips near his neck.

“I think I just became mayor of Brewster,” he joked.