Stronger: A Super Human Clash, page 3
What’s happened to me? I wondered. I was still too shocked to fully take it in. Somehow I had changed from an average-sized twelve-year-old to a hairless blue giant.
I tried to say, “Pastor Cullen, please, you’ve got to help me!” but again my words came out like angry gibberish.
Then a voice from outside, electronically amplified, called, “This is the police. Whoever—whatever—you are, come out now! Hands where we can see them!”
I looked toward the rear of the church, at the doors that until a few minutes ago had seemed more than adequate—I’d always wondered why church doors were so large—but now I wasn’t actually sure that I could get out.
I made my way toward them, my legs awkward and only barely under control, crushing the wooden pews into splinters. Then I had to get down on my knees to peer through the doors.
Six police cars waited directly outside, the officers half crouched behind their open doors, their guns aimed directly at me, and even more police cars were roaring toward the church from both directions.
“Don’t shoot!” I yelled, but it came out as a growl.
The police officers shuffled in place, steadying their aim, clearly wanting to be anywhere else.
Beyond them I could see two hundred people: the members of the congregation, the rest of the choir—Chad was there, his face pale with shock—and then I spotted my parents. Pa had his arm wrapped around Ma’s shoulders, and I wasn’t sure whether he was holding her back or holding her up.
“Ma, it’s me!” I called, but my words—rough, guttural, and unintelligible to their ears—did nothing to calm down anyone.
On my hands and knees I squeezed myself out through the doors, then straightened up. The onlookers all backed away even farther.
Everything looked smaller—and weaker—from this perspective.
One of the police officers lowered his gun, but kept it in his hand as he slowly approached me. “Who are you? Why did you attack these people?”
I started trying to tell him that I hadn’t attacked anyone, but gave up almost immediately.
The officer stopped a few yards in front of me and swallowed hard. “Look, you have to let us inside to help the wounded, all right?”
I shook my head, trying to tell him that there were no wounded inside, but that was clearly the wrong move, because he took a couple of steps back and tightened his grip on his gun.
What happened next was so fast, I guess no one can really be blamed: I stepped to the side so that the officer could see past me into the church, and on the edge of my vision something large and white and flapping rushed straight toward me. I reacted without thinking: I grabbed hold of the attacking thing and threw it.
It was only when it was in the air, soaring over the crowd, that I realized it had been Pastor Cullen trying to dart past me. Screams burst from the spectators as the pastor crashed down onto the roof of a police car that was screeching to a stop, shattering its windshield and crushing its red and blue lights.
If the police had been waiting for a signal to open fire, this was all they needed. The first bullet struck me in the chest and the next two hit my shoulder. They hurt—no more than a bee sting but enough to make me cry out. And that was enough to kick the whole mess into a higher gear.
Bullets ripped into me and into the wall of the church. The screams of the fleeing onlookers were almost loud enough to drown out the gunfire.
A bullet hit me just below my left eye and I instinctively grabbed the nearest thing I could find to shield myself: one of the church’s thick wooden doors. I ripped the door from its hinges and held it in front of me. Almost immediately it shattered to splinters: I’d been squeezing it too tightly, and crushed it.
The bullets were still coming, and then there was an even louder boom and something heavy struck me in the chest, hard enough to knock me back against the wall.
I looked up long enough to see another cop standing by his car with smoke wafting from the barrel of his shotgun, and then I ducked down through the doorway and back into the church.
OK, all right …, I said to myself. What’s happened? Why am I like this? Is this even real?
I’d heard of lucid dreaming—when you know you’re dreaming but still can’t wake up—but I’d never experienced it before.
Even if this was a dream, I sure wasn’t going to wait around for them to find a weapon powerful enough to kill me. As it was, the whole of my upper body—arms, chest, neck, head, and back—was covered with bullet holes. They didn’t hurt much, but there was quite a lot of blood. When I squeezed one of the holes, the bullet popped out, like when you squeeze a zit.
I looked around for something to clean up the blood, but the only thing I could find was the shredded remains of my alb. I used it to wipe down my arms and chest—which dislodged a few more bullets—then tossed the ruined alb aside. Ma was going to give me grief over that—they’re not cheap.
The growing wail of approaching sirens echoed through the church, and I knew I had to get out of there. The back door was ordinary sized, and I wasn’t sure I’d fit through.
And I also wasn’t sure that I wanted to run…. Where would I go? And how long was I going to be like this? That thought hit me harder than the shotgun blast: Am I going to be like this forever?
Why I didn’t go insane, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because kids are more resilient to change than adults. I saw that often enough in the mine.
I sat down next to the front door with my back to the wall and tried to get a handle on what had happened.
Outside, the shooting had stopped and I could hear one cop barking orders: “Get these people out of here—now! You two: around the back. I want all possible exits covered! There’s still a kid in there with that thing!”
Why don’t I just go out? I asked myself. If I just stand there and don’t do anything to scare them, maybe they’ll realize I’m not a threat.
Right. Like that’ll work.
But even if I couldn’t talk to them—and I was doing my best to push that thought out of my mind—I could still make them understand me.
Over in the corner was the church’s visitor’s book resting on a little table. I reached out to it and pulled the table closer. The pen was tiny in my massive blue hand, but I was sure I now had enough control of my body to write a message in the book. I was wrong: The pen snapped between my fingers.
All right, I decided as I tossed the pen aside. Just wait and see what happens. I looked down at my blue arms and wondered how long it would be before the effect wore off, before I turned back to normal.
I spent I don’t know how long sitting there with my back to the wall, listening to the panic outside and picturing myself as I had been that morning, concentrating on that image and trying to somehow force myself to change back. I hoped and wished and even begged God to restore me to normal. None of it made the slightest difference.
At the back of my mind, the horrible thought remained that maybe this was permanent. Maybe I was never going to be normal again.
And with that came an even more disturbing thought: What if I can’t make them understand me, and then Pastor Cullen dies and they think I murdered him?
Something outside went Ptoof! Ptoof! and two small canisters bounced through the door and came to a stop in the center aisle. For a second I thought they were soda cans, but then they popped and started belching thick white smoke into the air.
Immediately the church was swarming with men: They darted in through the main door two at a time, they smashed in the rear door behind the altar, they came crashing through the big windows on either side, showering the church with fragments of glass. All of the men were wearing black body armor and gas masks.
The smoke from the canisters stung my eyes a little, but not much more than when you’re flipping the burgers on a barbecue and the wind suddenly changes direction. Whatever the stuff was—probably tear gas—it didn’t affect me as much as the soldiers had hoped. They spread out, surrounding me, each one aiming a wicked-looking gun.
One of them yelled, “On the ground! Now! Facedown, arms spread! Do it!”
They kept their distance as I did what I was told—I figured that the sooner I got to speak to someone in charge, the sooner they could figure out what had happened to me.
For the next few minutes the soldiers remained just out of arm’s reach, not doing anything except staring at me. Every time I tried to move, they barked another order to “Freeze!”
When the tear gas cleared, there were more heavy footsteps behind me, and soon the church was fuller than I’d ever seen it. Pastor Cullen would have been overjoyed to see that many people on a normal Sunday. There were army guys, cops, and guys in dark suits who looked like they might be with the FBI, all talking softly and slowly walking around me.
In school, we’d read about Gulliver in Lilliput: That’s kind of what it felt like.
After what must have been more than an hour of waiting, a tall, dark-haired woman wearing a black suit walked up to me, coming closer than anyone else. She crouched down to look me in the eye. “My name is Harmony Yuan. I’m a Special Agent with the FBI. What are you?”
I started to speak, but again it came out as a growl. Everyone except the FBI woman took a step back.
“Can you understand me?”
I nodded.
“But you can’t talk?”
I shrugged. Not so easy to do when you’re lying facedown with your arms spread.
“All right.” Her eyes narrowed as she peered at me for a moment. “We have a lot of questions, but right now there’s only one that’s important.” She raised her hand and snapped her fingers. An army guy passed her a transparent plastic bag that contained my shredded, blood-stained alb. She held it in front of me. “Everyone is accounted for, except for one boy. This is all we can find of him. What have you done with his body?”
CHAPTER 4
THE FIRST CHURCH of Saint Matthew had become a prison with hundreds of guards and one inmate: me.
They didn’t quite know what to do with me. I overheard a couple of them who were standing guard near the door:
“He ain’t doin’ anythin’! Why ain’t he doin’ anythin’?”
“What, you want him to do something?”
“Heck no. I’m just sayin’ … Lookit the size of ’im.” The man shuddered. “That ain’t right. Ain’t natural. I’m tellin’ ya, Joey, it’s creepin’ me out.”
“Creeping all of us out.”
Harmony Yuan was the only person in the church who didn’t seem to be afraid of me.
She allowed me to sit up, which was a little more comfortable than lying facedown on the floor. “We could put chains on you, but that wouldn’t slow you down much, would it? You probably weigh … what? Fourteen hundred pounds? Fifteen?”
I shook my head and shrugged. I’d had no idea of my weight before I changed.
“I’m guessing that’s in the ballpark. You’re more than twice the height of the average adult male. That makes you eight times the mass, at least.”
Harmony signaled to two of the army guys to drag one of the pews closer. They scraped it across the floor to just in front of me and quickly backed away. Harmony sat with her left leg crossed over the right, her left elbow on her knee and her chin resting lightly on her hand. A very casual pose probably designed to make me feel more at ease. “The missing boy is Gethin Rao. Twelve years old. His mother and father are understandably upset. What have you done with him? Why are his vestments covered in blood?”
I spread my arms, trying to show that I didn’t know what she was talking about. That was the only thing I could think of—there didn’t seem to be a universally accepted gesture that meant “I’m the boy you think has been killed.”
“The witnesses all say the same thing: The pastor was in the middle of his sermon when there was a sudden flash and a sort of shock wave, like a brief but powerful gust of wind. Everyone in the choir was knocked over, and then, somehow, you were there among them. Everyone panicked and fled. Everyone except the pastor, who was knocked from the pulpit. It was some minutes before anyone realized that Gethin didn’t come out with the rest of the choir. So you tell me now: Did you hurt him?”
I shook my head and tried to put on an expression that meant “I’d never hurt anyone!”
“Well, you sure hurt Pastor Cullen…. Then where is the boy? We know he was here when you appeared. And we found fragments of his sneakers and his T-shirt as well as the blood-stained vestments, and that tells us that he was here after you appeared. So where is he? He’s not hiding in the church—there’s nothing showing up on our thermal scans that shouldn’t be there.” Harmony sat back and pursed her lips. “And I’d lay odds that’s his blood under your fingernails.”
I sighed and wished I was able to tell her, Listen, I am Gethin Rao, you stupid woman!
I put my right thumb and index finger together, and made writing motions in the air.
Harmony shrugged. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Oh for Pete’s sake! I saw a discarded hymnbook lying open on the ground and pointed to it, then made the writing gesture again.
“You … you want to conduct a song?”
“Give me a pen and some paper!” I yelled. Of course, it came out like a string of furious grunts and growls and scared the pants off all the cops and soldiers. I froze as several dozen weapons once again swung in my direction. And then I thought, Why not keep going? If I’ve lost the ability to speak, I might have to learn all over again, so the more I talk, the sooner that’ll happen.
So, doing my best to keep my voice calm, I said, “I want something to eat. I’m starving. And I’m thirsty. So don’t just sit there all looking shocked and scared—get it through your thick heads that I am Gethin Rao. He’s not missing—he’s me.”
Harmony regarded me for a moment. “I’m told that Pastor Cullen is in a bad way. Arms and legs broken, possible fractured skull … You also damaged his spine. It’ll be some time before the doctors know whether he’ll be able to walk again. So even if we find that kid alive and well, we’ve got you for assault with intent. You understand what that means? Attempted murder.”
“Oh, come on!” I said. “That was an accident—I thought something was attacking me!”
Moving slowly, Harmony stood up. “Listen up, people! We need to get this creature to the compound in Mussenden, so put your heads together and find a way to transport him out of here. You have two hours. Disperse the crowd outside—and make sure they’re not going to talk. Threaten them with the IRS if you have to. And I want a total media blackout, understood? I see one grainy photo of a giant blue man in the newspapers and you’ll all be facing charges.” She took one last look at me, then walked away.
The other soldiers and police and FBI guys began talking about me as though I wasn’t able to understand them, even though Ms. Yuan had clearly demonstrated that I could.
“Elephant shackles,” a man in a suit said. “You know? When they need to tie up elephants at the circus. That’s what we need.”
“Or a bunch of cattle prods,” another one suggested. “We use them to herd him into the back of an eighteen-wheeler.”
“Heck with that,” a third said. “He killed that kid—I say we all open fire at once and turn his brain into Swiss cheese!”
That was it for me. I’d heard enough. I stood up—they all backed away again—and walked toward the doors.
“Stop!” someone shouted.
I turned around and looked at them. “No.”
They all began to shuffle nervously, fingers tightening on triggers, unsure what to do.
I got down on my hands and knees and passed through the doorway. There was a fresh ripple of gasps and screams from the crowd as I straightened up.
Ahead, Harmony Yuan whirled around to look at me. “Stop! You’re under arrest!”
I walked toward her, slowly so she wouldn’t panic. But that didn’t stop everyone else from panicking, and the crowd began to scatter, racing away from the church.
Then I saw my parents standing with a police officer—the same one who’d fired the shotgun at me—and I turned toward them. “Ma, Pa, it’s me!”
My mother and father turned and ran, Pa dragging Ma away by the arm. But the policeman held his ground and shouted, “Stay back! Haven’t you done enough harm already?”
Then the officer reacted to something behind me. His face paled and he too turned and ran.
I looked to see what had spooked him.
Rumbling slowly along the road was a tank.
I didn’t know what kind of tank it was—I’d never been that interested in military hardware—but it was big and heading straight for me.
No way, I said to myself. They’re not going to actually shoot at me with that thing, are they? I haven’t done anything wrong!
An amplified voice bellowed out, “This will be your only warning! Get down on your knees and place your hands behind your head! You have ten seconds to comply!”
“Look, I know you can’t understand me, but—”
I noticed the flash from the tank’s barrel at the exact moment something slammed into my chest and knocked me back across the church’s parking lot.
I crashed straight through the pastor’s beloved ’65 Mustang and hit the church wall hard enough to crack the bricks.
And then I got up. There was barely a mark on me. The car was ruined, though, and that annoyed me more than the fact that the army had hit me with a shell from a tank. I’d loved that car too. Always wanted one of my own. Now it was just a scattered collection of blackened metal fragments.
I couldn’t understand what was wrong with everyone. OK, so I was huge and blue and probably looked quite scary, but I still hadn’t actually done anything bad. What had happened with Pastor Cullen was an accident—why couldn’t they understand that? If I were a bad guy, wouldn’t I have done more? Wouldn’t I have attacked the cops when they shot at me?
But this was years before I’d heard of the “arachnid response,” the automatic reaction a lot of people have to spiders: They react with fear and revulsion even when they know the spider isn’t dangerous. That was what was happening here: They were just terrified of me.
