Glow (3 page)

She’d stood, squaring her shoulders. That was the Hazel that Ben was familiar with. “Well, pardon my language, but screw that. There are Retroacts and Lookouts all over this country that The Society has shunned that could be of great assistance to our cause.”

“Sounds like you’re gearing up to build an army of misfit ladies and gay dudes, Biggie Z.”

“I so wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Hazel had chided. “But yes, you’re correct.”

After they’d all chosen rooms and gotten settled in, the group’s first priority had been, once again, to look for Mildred. Once again, they’d come up with nothing but dead ends.

Ben and Frank had gone with Christopher to his old hangout, Woodlawn cemetery, to chat up some of his contacts. Unfortunately no one in the spirit world knew where Mildred was, and if she’d had any allies in the living world, in The Society, they were lying low.

They’d began to sort out the files in the jumbled, disorganized records room, separating what they’d discovered into two categories. One was archival stuff, which Christopher had found way more fascinating than Ben had. Ben tried to live in the now.

 The other category was recent records, from within the last fifty years, minus the white kids from the decade he, Zellie and Christopher had been born in. Zellie’s grandma Rachel had destroyed all of those, instead of destroying the children like she was supposed to. Next, they’d compiled boxes of files, further categorizing them by decade and sex.

It had taken the group the better part of two months to get the records organized. They’d all put effort into it with the exception of Gabrielle, who continued to interrogate her fellow spirits for information on the whereabouts of Mildred. It wasn’t like Gaby could physically move anything anyway.

Again, Hazel had put herself in charge (not that anyone minded) and decided that she and the other women would track down the daughters that The Society had been keeping an eye on and that Ben, Christopher and Frank would track down the sons.

The women had more people to contact, but their files were more complete. Hazel had thought that trying to retrieve any of the current Society members, who had fled the office when Mildred had almost been defeated, was a waste of time. Better to get new blood on their side, she’d said.

Tracking down the boys had been slow going. Of the ones they’d managed to find, each had been straight and powerless, and had given no sign that they knew anything of their mother’s past. Some hadn’t known their mothers at all.

Secretly, well maybe not so secretly to Frank, Ben had been getting a little bummed out by all the dead and absent moms. It made him miss his own mom like crazy. She’d been his best friend and, he couldn’t care less if that made him a pussy and a mama’s boy. When you were a bisexual dude with half-assed powers, you got used to people calling you names.

He’d been able to pretend for a little bit with Zellie’s mom, Grace. Had been able to care about her and keep her safe. That had only given him another mom to miss, though.

Antoine’s grandma came back out into the family room, followed by three people, only one of which, Antoine, was actually, physically there.

Christopher squeezed Ben’s knee. He saw them too. Ben glanced at Antoine’s mom and dad and then at the boy. He was a scrawny kid, his hands stuffed deep into his baggy jeans pockets, but Ben could see how he was going to grow up to look a lot like his handsome pops.

His grandma nudged him forward. “Go on now. These men are here to talk to you about an after-school program.”

Antoine dragged his feet as he walked over to the couch and sat as far away from them as possible. “Hey,” he mumbled.

Frank stood and took Antoine’s grandma by the elbow. “Could I trouble you for a glass of water?”

“I s’pose. You all right, Ant?”

The boy nodded. Frank led her away toward the kitchen.

When he was sure Antoine’s grandma was out of ear shot, Ben cut to the chase. “Antoine, can you see your parents?”

The boys’ eyes got wide and he sat up straight. “What do you mean?” he asked, cautious.

Ben got up and walked over to Antoine’s mom and extended his hand to her. “Hi, I’m Ben.”

The woman stuck her hand into his, giving him a little buzz. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “You Society?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. Christopher and I,” he pointed to Christopher, “are both Retroacts who have the ability to speak with spirits. Chris has also got some mind control powers.”

Antoine shot his hand out and rewound Ben back to the couch, looking over his shoulder to make sure his grandma hadn’t seen him.

“Nice!” Christopher commented.

Ben rolled his shoulders. “He just rewound me?”

“He sure did.”

A huge grin broke out on Antoine’s face.

“Do you have a boyfriend, Antoine?” Ben inquired.

The boy’s grin faded.

Christopher elbowed Ben in the ribs.

“What I mean to ask is,” he held his hands up, palms out, in front of him, “is there a special someone you’ve had a vision of? A vision of their death?”

Antoine Sr. spoke up. “His mother’s explained all that to him as best she could and he’s broken things off with Marcus, haven’t you Ant?”

“Yes, sir,” Antoine mumbled.

Ben didn’t like the tone of Antoine Sr.’s voice. He looked at the kid. “You broke up with Marcus because of the vision? To keep him safe? Or because your dad doesn’t want you to be gay?”

“My son’s not gay,” Antoine’s dad said.

Christopher cleared his throat. “Sir, with all due respect, if your son wasn’t gay, you wouldn’t be able to communicate with him and he wouldn’t possess extraordinary powers.” He addressed Willamina. “I’m sure that when you were coming up in The Society, all the Retroacts were female?”

She nodded. “Yes. That’s why Ant having abilities…I just figured he was an anomaly.”

Christopher smiled at her. “I can assure you he’s not.” He waved his hand between himself and Ben. “As far as we know, during the late Eighties, a shift occurred. We’re the first generation of men to also possess Retro abilities.”

Antoine Sr. looked skeptical. “So you’re both gay too, then?”

“I wasn’t always,” Ben said. “Actually, I’m still not one hundred percent. But after I met my trigger, Connor, I realized I was attracted to both men and women.”

“Then there’s the possibility that Antoine isn’t gay eith--”

“The key to understanding this is the triggers,” Christopher interrupted. “They are the person whose, uh,
love
kick starts our abilities. Like you did for your wife. Triggers are always male. So, it would stand to reason that if Ben and I and Antoine all have Retroact powers, it’s because on some level we’re homosexuals.” He focused on Antoine Sr. “And you ought to be happy about that, Sir. If Antoine and Marcus had never fallen in love - if Marcus had never triggered Antoine’s abilities - you wouldn’t be able to have a relationship with your son.”

Ant’s dad looked Christopher over. “Are your parents happy about it?”

Christopher met his gaze head-on. “No, my adoptive parents probably aren’t. But I don’t give a damn. I haven’t seen them in years.  When my trigger Liam died, I was distraught. I didn’t have anyone to explain to me that the dream I’d had about him every night was actually going to come true. And it was all because I had unsupportive parents who were disgusted with me for being gay.” He turned to Ant. “I refuse to let what happened to me happen to another kid.”

“Son,” Antoine Sr. said, “You have to know I’m not disgusted with--”

Ant’s grandma and Frank came back into the room. Frank was carrying a tray of drinks and cookies. He raised an eyebrow at Ben. “Refreshments?”

Ben stood up. “Yeah, in just a sec. Antoine was going to show me...”
His etchings? His bowling trophy? His Justin Timberlake shrine?

“...his comic book collection,” Christopher chimed in. “We hear he’s quite the aficionado.”

“Uh, yeah, come check it out,” Antoine said as he got to his feet. He shuffled off toward his bedroom and Ben followed. Surprisingly, his parents stayed behind in the family room.

Antoine closed his bedroom door and looked at Ben. “So, you’re really like me?”

“Yup.” Ben nodded his head, picking up a pair of crumpled jeans from the desk chair and throwing them onto Antoine’s twin bed so he could sit down. “Christopher too. So are my friend Zellie and her mom...there are a lot of us.”

Antoine pushed the jeans onto the hardwood floor and sat on the bed cross-legged. “But you all aren’t in The Society, like my mom used to be?”

“The lady leading The Society, she’s a bad person. She wants to use us and our powers, and spirits like your mom and dad, to control the world.”

Antoine grimaced. “How’s she gonna do that?”

“We don’t know everything. What we do know is that Mildred, that’s the lady’s name, she is very skilled at mind control and working with spirits. We think she can stop us from using our powers for good, stop us from rewinding people out of deadly situations, and force us to use our visions to her advantage.”

Antoine stared at him blankly.

Ben tried to think of a straight-forward example. “Like, say I have a vision of a rich man getting beat up and robbed. Normally, I would go to the scene of the crime before it was gonna happen and then rewind the robbery to a crucial point so that the thief would get caught. Meanwhile, my Lookout Frank…did your mom explain to you what a Lookout is?” Antoine nodded. “Frank would call the police and time it so the thief would be arrested and the rich guy wouldn’t get hurt.

“Mildred could convince us to tell her about the vision and kill the thief. Then she could control the rich guy so that he gives up his bank account numbers. And if we didn’t do what she wanted, she would just send an evil spirit to inhabit our bodies. She’s all about power.”

“Why hasn’t anyone tried to stop her? Why haven’t you?” Antoine scooted toward the edge of the bed and leaned toward Ben conspiratorially.

“That’s the thing. Christopher and Zellie and I? We did try to stop her. We even thought we killed her. But her body has vanished and we haven’t been able to track her down.”

The kid thought for a minute. “So you came to see if me and my mom would help you?”

Ben smiled. “We mostly just came over to check up on you and find out if you even had powers. But yeah, when the time comes to defeat Mildred once and for all, we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

Antoine grinned. “I’m there.”

“Awesome, little man.” Ben gave him a fist bump and then slouched back in the chair, trying to appear nonchalant. “Is there anything else you’d like to talk about? Marcus? Your dad?”

“Nah.” Antoine shook his head. “My dad’s a good guy. He just thinks that if he’d been around for me I wouldn’t have turned out gay, or some silly shit like that. But he
knows
, y’know? There wasn’t any way he and my mom were gonna split up. They
had
to be together, just like Marcus and I do. Mom makes Dad give us some space, so they’re not with me all the time and they could be if it really bothered them. My dad will come around, I know he will.”

“Do you have any idea when your vision of Marcus’s death is going to happen?”

Antoine shrugged. “We’re old. Marcus is bald and has a little belly pooch.” Antoine patted his own flat stomach.

Ben didn’t see those things happening to a teenage boy in the way that Avery’s gray hair had misled Zellie.

“He’s really hot now,” Antoine continued. “And sixteen. He’s got a car. That’s where we...hang out.”

Ben nodded, “I gotcha.”

“Otherwise we’d get our asses beat.”

“Does Marcus know about your visions?”

“Yeah, I couldn’t keep anything from him.”

“Well, if anybody ever tries to beat you guys up, use your power. Rewind the situation. Have Marcus be your Lookout, okay dude?” Ben grabbed Antoine’s cell phone from his desk and put his number in it and then added Antoine’s number to his phone. “You can give me a call whenever, don’t worry about what time it is or anything.”

“Thanks.”

Ben stood up. “No problem. Wanna go have some cookies?”

Chapter Three

Melody waited until they were at the edge of the See-Saw’s parking lot and out of the cop’s hearing range to grab Zellie’s wrist. “I saw that,” she whispered. “I saw what he mouthed to you.”

“Do you think it could be--”

“Grandma?”

Zellie nodded.

“No matter who it is,” Melody said, “I think we need to talk to them. They might know where Mildred is.”

She assessed the situation like Aunt Hazel had taught her. The highway was clear for a half mile going into town and up the mountain for now. The witnesses were the two cops, the produce delivery guy, Daniel, Ramon and Amanda. The delivery guy and his refrigerated truck were going to be the most difficult to deal with. She turned to Zellie. “Start rewinding. I’ll grab the boy and stash him in the car and then come back and help you figure out the rest.”

“So, uh, we’re winging it?” Zellie asked, skeptical.

Jesus! What did her sister expect? It wasn’t like she was the World’s Best Retroact or anything!
“Yes, we’re winging it.” Melody looked over her shoulder; one of the cops had his hand on the backpacker’s head, guiding him in the car. “Start. Now.”

Zellie whipped around and moved toward the cops in rewind mode. She pulled the backpacker out of the car and held their position.

Melody jumped in, snagging the handcuff keys off of the frozen cop’s belt. She freed the boy’s hands and replaced the keys. Then she grabbed his orange backpack from the front seat of the cop car and put it on.

She took a second to look at the boy and gauge his weight. She could tell that he was usually pretty buff. He was her height and had muscular arms, but had scrawned out from being so dehydrated and possibly possessed by the spirit of her grandma. Still, she didn’t think she could lift him, so dragging was her only choice. She held him tightly under the arms and tugged, dislodging him from the rewind.
Ugh.
The skin on his hard chest slid a little under the pressure of her hold. Zellie started the rewind up again, directing the now perp-less cops back into the diner.