True Heroes (25 page)

              He looked down into the pavement and let the thoughts flow in and out of his head. The blind man felt out his saxophone and began to play an off-tune but passionate piece. ‘Attracting their attention. It won’t matter.’ A sense of passing time slung Caleb’s body around and caused his hands to pull down the mask. ‘There’s no turning back now.’ He slowly swaggered across the street. ‘That breeze feels nice. I wonder if Carol’s still awake or not.’ His mind wandered through tangents that had nothing at all to do with his mission. ‘Justice, not vengeance. That’s the only message that matters from here on.’ The snap of his mind brought all of his focus into the shadow next to the bank with his body, and no more thought took place.

                Caleb stepped out to the front of the bank and let his power explode, imploding the front windows, throwing the newspaper dispensers across the street, and knocking a few of the thugs to their faces. The alarm blared as he slowly walked through the barren frame, his eyes blazing blue, and mentally marked eight men instead of the six he had earlier. Four of them were now pouring out of the vault area while the two on the ground regained their footing and joined two more halfway between. The two guarding the middle ground dropped their satchels and rushed towards him. Caleb was indifferent; he could read their moves easily and would never feel their impact. The guard on his left reached him first, swinging wildly for Caleb’s left temple. Caleb didn’t do anything too fluid or amazing; he simply ducked the hook—making a last second movement after eons of studying the man’s form—and cocked a quick right hook to his mid-section. His power was still checked enough to where the man just doubled over; meanwhile, the other man had a blackjack swinging for Caleb’s ducked head. The boy didn’t move, just extended his power slightly around his head so that the object simply bounced off, never worth a second thought. Caleb grabbed the doubled-over man still resting on his shoulder and slung him against the other man, speedily ending their simple attempts at toppling something they could never understand.

              ‘What time is graduation next week?’

              Caleb stood up, infuriated at his own inability to focus, and cranked up his power to force his emotions and thoughts deeper down. His eyes glowed brighter, and as he looked up, he saw three guns pointing at him from ten feet away. He took in the scene again, taking priority note of the man he was after standing behind the firing squad, and took in a deep breath. Without fear, Caleb spread his hands as he saw the three trigger fingers tighten. ‘I stopped a car for Carol. That’s how we met….’

              The guns fired and Caleb pushed out a wall of energy, feeling the heavy wavelengths vibrating from the gun barrels unto his semi-sphere. This all distracted Caleb as the bullets penetrated about a half-inch into the floated shape, and stopped dead in the blue before noisily clattering to the tile floor, the echoes fanning out and distorting the hopeless thugs as they slowly lowered their guns. From behind them Caleb heard the smashing of glass and astutely noticed his target flying out of the building in a small blur of motion. The other five men were further incensed and rushed. They never saw him coming; Caleb crouched and sprinted, bulldozing the first two of them into the ground before using his energy to slide on his knees up to the next two, whom he lifted at the same time and threw onto the floor. He rose slowly with the final one charging headlong, but was stopped quickly by Caleb’s elbow in his gut. They were left in a moaning fetal position in less than three seconds.

              His movements only slowed enough to fit through the window and land inside the construction site. He didn’t have to look far as the man, frantically trying to climb out of a finished corner of the building opposite of Caleb, fell off a loose part in the wall. The entire site was about forty yards across, and Caleb instantly expanded his energy further and fuller than he ever had. It was a semi-solid blue marble: a radiance and purity that would only be rivaled by the sun was under a blue filter. The man turned around and shielded his eyes from the dazzling sight, and Caleb—cold, indifferent, and untouchable—shouted, “This ends now. You’ll pay for what you’ve done to my family!”

              “Was that my voice?”

              His thoughts sounded aloud within the orb, but nothing changed. The man across from him was saying something beneath the same type of mask, but all Caleb could hear was his own world. Drive totally consumed him and his power continued its eruption; every bit of his being exploded with his scream as his feet slowly moved him forward—

              “No, wait.”

              Nothing mattered; the moon came out from behind a cloud, the girl he cared for woke up in a cold sweat, another breeze blew through a tree down the street, but the only thing that mattered was cornered by steel and brick, about thirty yards in front of him. Any loose object caught in the whirlwind of his radical influence was snatched up and held within the globe of his energy—

              “No, it shouldn’t be like this. Stop.”

              Step after step brought him closer to the dead end. He was the executioner, bringing the electric chair to the inmate’s cell, and, as the world of light and energy drew closer, Caleb saw the man’s eyes light up with a palpable horror that would stain a mirror—

              “No! This isn’t right! Stop now!”

              Every time the man attempted to run again, Caleb slammed his energy against the wall, cutting off his escape until there was a bubble barely big enough for the man to flinch without feeling Caleb’s searing field. The man was soon cowering as Caleb brought all of the loose objects—nails, drill bits, a hammer—right to the edge of the man’s shrinking space. All the tides of his energy suddenly stopped and—

              “No!”

              —every loose object shot out and straight into the man’s chest.

              Caleb felt his energy completely disperse and fell to his knees. His thoughts finally broke through his power, his emotions following close behind. ‘What just happened? Do you realize what you just did?’ A fire began raging through his skin and sweat soaked the ski mask. ‘Take off this damn mask! Can’t breathe, can’t breathe. Calm down, it’s over now. Everything’s over.’

              “Caleb?”

              All pain and exhaustion was turned down. Caleb, seeing the spreading blood pool and hearing the rasping breath, moved his eyes quickly upwards. The bits, nails, and back of the hammer sticking out of the torso and arms only held his interest for a second as his eyes moved swiftly up. By the time his eyes finally made it to the upper chest, the man’s breathing had completely stopped and his chin had come to rest. A sudden fear hit him as he looked towards the masked face that held speckles of blood across both cheeks. Caleb’s hand reached towards and pulled the mask off without actually looking at his face. Still staring at his chest, Caleb let the mask drop to the cement, and his eyes dared a glance. They first saw a chiseled jaw line covered in dark hair, then a strong nose between two eyes, as grey as the most overcast days, and Caleb fell backwards. Every trait Caleb had ever admired about his father was now staring him in the face.

              Caleb’s hands couldn’t hold his weight anymore; his anxious clamoring pulled him to his feet and ran him to a near-by girder. The mixture of the intense heat and his body’s confusion caused him to vomit. A few sobs crashed through any sense of resistance to his sadness he had left. Caleb’s tears crunched against the cement. Nearly a minute passed before Caleb stood from his wallowing spiral and heard the distant wail of a siren. He unsteadily wavered back towards the building and climbed back into the bank. The closest of the grumbling gangsters was stirred up to his knees, and Caleb lashed out. Without any power, he kicked the man’s ribs as hard as he could. It was enough to gain another grunt and to roll the unmasked man over. Caleb grabbed the man’s shirt collar. “Did my father kill my mother? Did he?”

              ‘Guy from the living room. Same tattoo as everyone else here.’ “What the hell are you doing here, kid?”

              “You talk again without an answer, you go through a wall. Answer!”

              “Hell no. He never touched your mom, kid. The asshole that killed her was a disgruntled ex-employee of your dad’s. Richard sent him down the river last week after torturing his ass for another week. What are you doing here?”

              Caleb didn’t answer. The sirens were close now, and an intense fear overtook him again. His legs pushed him back outside as the sirens stopped moving, but they’d never catch him. Those legs that carried him to everything carried him forward until the light rose over the horizon the next morning.           

Chapter 6

             
Kain Lawrence let his shoulder bag fall to the wooden floor and threw his keys in the general vicinity of the key hook. The sun cut across his path in dusty tendrils, perhaps offering its warming caress as a comfort, and was violently broken by Kain’s swift stride. The boxy living room gave way, through means of a wide hallway beyond a curved staircase, to the marbled kitchen. Everything he touched slammed open and closed, drawing attention from the two occupants of the adjacent dining room. One of which placed her hand on her belly to calm it while the other labored his joints to lower the newspaper he was reading and glowered over the edge of his glasses. Kain leaned heavily on the countertop and closed his eyes, facing his inner anger. The older man sitting at the head of the brown table folded the paper haphazardly and slapped it to the placemat. “What kind of father did you have that would allow things to be slammed and thrown around in his own house? Because it sure as hell wasn’t me.”

              Kain looked up at the rich mahogany cabinets and felt the castrating, raspy voice of the older man swash throughout his head, scattering the more intense of his angry thoughts. He turned and rubbed at his head while still looking down. “Sorry, I…I had another lead…forget it. I’m sorry, Dad.”

              He knew his father was drilling into his cranium with his eyes, attempting to unearth a real answer, but Kain needed his own clarity before he could share any. He found his way to the fridge and quickly snatched a soda, breaking his arbitrary vow to lower his sugar intake. The tab popped open while he spun again to his family at the table: his father—folded hands and stern look—and Kain’s radiant wife—slouching to relieve the pressure on her abdomen. Her figure melted away his enduring annoyance; her permanently tanned skin lightened his when they were together, and a raised hump added a new dimension to her landscape—made it real for Kain, and the depth of her mocha eyes hypnotized more men than any potent drug. The sun came out from behind a short cloud and permeated the glass door across from the table, a single wide ray splashing off the table and reflecting a wave unto her stomach. Her hand moved there again, surely feeling the nearly new-born kicking in response to the gentle heat, and she smiled with pride.

              Kain didn’t smile. The loving woman and the small miracle made his recent failures more magnified, and it was that magnification that brought his family more pain. He walked over to the table, giving his wife a kiss on the side of the head, and taking the seat open by his curious father. The old man playfully punched Kain on the shoulder and turned back to the table. “You’ll get one every thirty seconds you don’t spill the beans.”

              The flustered son finally cracked a half-smile and attempted to simplify the situation. “Just graduate school. The topic for my thesis isn’t coming along at all and I’m supposed to be nearly done.”

              His wife, who had almost as extensive knowledge as he in his own field, spoke up. “Leads not leading you anywhere?

              “Not even blind-alley leads. Nothing. Nobody knows a thing about the biggest mystery man in the city.”

              “What are the initials he leaves again?”

              “Always a fake name, then C.W. Those letters are etched into my brain for…life.” He made sure to omit the curse he was instinctively thinking in front of his father.

              Another punch rocked Kain’s shoulder before his father spoke. “You never did explain what this important-ass project was all about.”