Hello everybody!
Thanks to everybody who dropped me a note about last issue,
or the whole arc, among them: Jamas Enright, Kelly Pekrul,
Rory Bryant, Brian Smith, Ben Rawluk, Rom Russell, Jaelle,
and Chris Kerr. Y'all rock.
Language is a bit strong in this one once or twice. Just so you
know.
Enjoy!
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DERELICT Press Presents
The thirty-third issue of
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" Grief "
Echo: Part 1 of 6
A psuedo-Acraphobe title
._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.'COVER`._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.
A trenchcoat with a multicolor profusion of patches is spread
out, tattered and worn at the edges. On top of it sits a fishbowl, empty
of everything but air.
)()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()
Your grief and mine
Must intertwine
Like sea and river
Be fused and mingle
Diverse yet single
Forever and forever
-- Countee Cullen "Any Human to Another"
Paytan had pounded down the hallway, hurtled forward as fast as
she could go, her footsetps echoing throughout the entire floor. She had
skidded around the corner and ran up to Brittany's door, hurled it open
to slam against the wall as she rushed through it.
Binky. He could fix it. The damn fish was a cosmic power after
all. He could bring her back.
Brightly glowing eyes had gone immediately to the altar in the
corner, covered with battle mementos, paper wrappers, gadgets and
gewgaws. Eyes had widened, then narrowed and closed. The makeshift wooden
altar still occupied one corner of the room, where a fishbowl sat, full
of old, dirty water and nothing else.
Allen arrived and reached out to touch her just as she began to
turn. She snarled at him and ran from the room, leaving him there staring
after her.
Three days passed.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Savannah was thinking about mold.
She lay on her bed, the covers folding over her curled body and
tucked tightly around her chin. The whole room was stuffy and warm, the
window closed. The sun shone against this side of the LNHHQ, but she
hadn't gotten up to open the window, or try the air conditioning. She
hadn't really felt like it.
Bryan was sweet. He kept bringing her food, and now plates of it
lay scattered here and there about the room. If she bothered to look
closely, she expected she would find things growing there too.
But the mold she was looking at was right in front of her eyes,
tiny, tiny spores that weren't visible to the naked eye yet. Her pillow,
for reasons she chose not to think about, had been damp for the past few
days, and what with the warmth a few hardy growths had taken root.
She wondered when she would be able to smell them, when the
colonies would grow large enough until the pillow picked up the mildewy
smell one would expect.
Today was the third day after --
She would have to get up soon. The heat of the room gathered
closer around her, until the air itself seemed to weigh enough to pin her
to the mattress forever. She didn't even feel like standing right now,
let alone going to --
She did not want to move.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Paytan was walking. She had been in motion for the last three
days, when she wasn't sleeping. Ever since the demon horse crumpled and
died beneath her, and she came to the wrecked circle of stones, with
Brittany and Draen at their center.
So still.
Her feet crushed the grass as she moved, circling the outer edge
of the LNHHQ grounds. Everything here was overgrown and uncared for. She
came to what had probably started out as a small patch of trees. It was a
grove now, covered in shadows and thick with fallen leaves. Her feet
kicked up their remains, and filled the air with the smell of fall and
rotting things.
The branches arched overhead, nature's own cathedral. There was
no wind today, leaves simply hanging in the dim light, like a million
tiny men on the end of a million tiny ropes. Then she cleared the trees,
and the coolness evaporated around her.
It was sunny overhead, without a single cloud in the sky. Sunny
and hot.
Her eyes had trouble adjusting from the shade, and for a minute
or two the light was so blazingly bright that she couldn't see. The heat
beat onto her back, crawled down her spine and sank into her skin like
poisons into the earth. She began to sweat, her shirt sticking between
her shoulder blades and at the small of her back. And still it was too
bright.
She was squinting when it happened. The light was burning into
the ground all around her, until even the blades of grass had no shadows.
Paytan looked up.
At the sun. A bead of sweat ran down her forehead and down the
side of her cheek. It blazed steadily down at her, unrelenting and
bright.
She took a quick, shallow breath, drew back her hand, and
launched a ball of neon green fire into the sky.
It arched upward, then slowed, already beginning to fall. But she
had already followed it with another, and begun to chant. Neon green
sprung up out of her skin like the sweat, coated her body and flared
outward from her eyes and fingers. She launched a bolt upward, the size
of a van, and this one did not fall but continued onward into the sky.
She was already working on the next.
She would shatter it.
Crack it in two, crush it beneath her heels until the whole world
went dark. Burrow into its center and blow it to smithereens, to nothing
but atoms.
She didn't realize she was screaming until Allen grabbed her by
the shoulders and shook.
"Paytan! Paytan, stop it, stop it," he said, and her hands fell
to her sides. He made soothing noises, and put his arms around her, held
her close. She stared steadily upward, and clenched one of her hands over
his, hanging on for dear life.
"I just need to be alone for a little while," she whispered,
Overhead, the cords of green light grew slowly smaller. They
dispersed before it even got out of the atmosphere. Too weak to make it
into space, to hurtle outward and shatter, destroy, pitch, and tear.
Too fucking weak.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Bryan leaned against the wall outside Savannah's room, and took a
deep breath.
At least Paytan was eating. She'd wrecked her room and wouldn't
stop walking, but Savannah hadn't had more than three bites of anything
since they got home, and he was beginning to think she'd starve herself
to death.
She had retreated into her room, into her bed, and could not be
convinced to move. Like someone had flipped a switch, and the princess
had become a servant, the hero an invalid. He'd leave her for hours, and
come back to find she hadn't even changed position. Sometimes it was
hard to tell if she was even breathing.
He knocked at her door, and there was no answer. Not that he'd
expected one.
Had it been this way with Jenna? His memory was clouded by the
panic of that time, the Reality's first attack and its aftermath, and he
couldn't be sure. Perhaps a piece of himself had fallen away then, and he
just hadn't noticed.
Part of him didn't even want to be in this hallway, in the LNHHQ.
He wanted to be in the Amazon, Chi.net, B.alt.imore, the Net.erlands. He
knew where they were, at last, at last. He wanted to lay his hands
against the side of the Reality's headquarters and charge the whole
building up, see what they thought when the battle was taken to their own
doorstep. But Savannah was here.
Bryan opened the door and crept softly into the room. It was
humid inside, and warm. She was still on the bed, hadn't even touched
breakfast. Curled into a ball, staring at something with an intensity he
could tell was a result of her powers. She was focusing again, deeply. No
wonder she hadn't heard the door.
"Savannah?" he said softly. "Savannah, it's almost time." She
didn't move.
He sat on the bed, carefully so as not to jar her, and reached
out to lay his hand gently on top of her head. It wouldn't do to startle
her, make her loose the focus point and knock herself out. Slowly he
brushed his fingers down her forehead, until he reached her eyes, and
carefully pushed her lids down until they were shut.
"Bryan?" she asked.
"Hey 'Vannah."
"What's going on?" One hand emerged from the blankets, and patted
around until she found his knee. She squeezed once, briefly.
For all the time that he'd spent with Savannah, he had never
gotten to know Brittany and Paytan very well. Just a glimpse, a word here
or there. But he felt it, a weaker pulse next to the place inside where
Jenna had been. Loss.
"It's time," he whispered. She didn't move, barely even showed
any sign of hearing him. "C'mon, just sit up. For me, okay?"
She smiled, and pushed herself into a sitting position on the
bed. He took both of her hands in his own. "Okay, now all you have to
is stand."
Savannah opened her eyes and met his, the force of her attention
startling him for just a moment, as it always did. She was still smiling
faintly. "I'm not a child, Bryan."
"I know. But you're still not standing," he pointed out. She
closed her eyes again and shook her head, then leaned forward and stood.
They still hadn't 'made-up' in the strictest sense of the words. They
hadn't sat down, or talked about the fact that he was a villain and she
was a hero, and what that meant. Right now it didn't matter.
"Now then, just a step or two, and we'll be at the door. We've
got time, don't worry."
"We should have been there sooner," she said, matter-of-fact. It
took him a second to realize she wasn't talking about here and now.
"Savannah, you and Paytan rode a demon steed to _death_," he said
softly. "I don't think an FTL drive could have gotten you there any
faster."
She shrugged. "We _still_ should have been there sooner."
Then she closed her eyes and leaned against him, let him guide
her out of the room and down the hallway. So light and heavy at the same
time that it frightened him.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Allen ran his hand through his hair and contemplated punching the
wall. He stared around the remains of Paytan's room for the umpteenth
time, and still she wasn't there. Damn, he should have stuck a tracker on
her.
He really didn't know what more he could do. He wanted to help
her...so desperately wanted her...to help her, but she just shut him off.
Allen feared for her. Paytan wasn't the most stable person, and
this was him thinking this, and Brittany's death could easily tip the
scale and send Paytan into insanity.
As it was, he barely managed to keep her from summoning a demon
last time...although she went ahead and did it later anyway. If she had
done it that first time, would she have gotten there in time? Might he, as
well intentioned as he was, have let Brittany die just so Paytan wouldn't
draw the attention of the demons?
Allen shook his head. This wasn't the time for those kinds of
thoughts. Especially not if Paytan thought them as well. Perhaps she had
and that's why she was shunning him?
He closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall for a
moment, and took a deep breath. This was unproductive. He had to catch up
with Paytan. Stop her from hurting herself.
Glancing at his watch, he saw it was nearly time. But there was
time enough for another sweep of the grounds. Worked last time.
Still, he swept his gaze over the room once more, helplessness
sweeping over him. He turned to leave...then with a sudden impulse he
lashed out, thumping his fist into the wall, hurting himself more than
anything.
He squeezed his eyes shut again for a moment, regaining control,
then set off down the corridor.
The lone tear that had been squeezed out glistened as it ran down
his cheek.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Brittany's room was dark, the door shut and locked solidly, the
curtains pulled across the window. Shoes and socks, pieces of paper and
colored ribbon lay scattered across the floor. The nightstand was coated
in silly string. The bodies of Brittany's doves were everywhere. They
had been dead when Paytan arrived.
She knelt, leaning on the side of the bed for support, in front
of Brittany's altar. The amalgamation of wood and shelving had grown
since it had first been built, encroaching on the rest of the room. The
empty goldfish bowl still sat center stage, untouched.
Paytan's hair hadn't been combed in days and it hung around her
face in a mass of ruddy tangles, half-clogged with dirt and dust. Her
clothes wrinkled, jacket half-hanging off her thin frame. Her glowing
eyes threw an unearthly light over the altar.
She reached out, and took a laser-scarred piece of rock from one
of the shelves. A card had been taped to it, neatly labeled:
Our first battle
Us vs. a mech thingie
Villains 0
Heroes 0
There was a grass skirt and a spear from that time with all the
kiwis, a test tube, and a snail's shell, among other things. Paytan
lifted a plastic baggie with a bloodied bandage inside. The card said:
Our tenth battle
Us vs. the JBoNV
Heroes 1
Villains 0
Dirmarw 1
Brittany in the alleyway with her hands behind her back, hiding
the cut. Dirmarw laughing, laughing at the power he had over them both,
now. But he was gone before he got a chance to really use it. Shattered.
The next card was taped to hank of azurine blue hair.
Our eleventh battle
Us vs. Hell
Heroes 1
Demonlord 1
Dirmarw 0
Paytan didn't know where Brittany had gotten the hair. She didn't
remember much of the actual rescue, just a blurred sensation of pain and
that gaping whole in her mind where Dirmarw had once crouched.
The little reports continued, all the way up to a piece of
battered metal, probably from a helicopter, and the card:
Our fifteenth battle
Us vs. Lord Corvine, Censor Girl, and Assorted Lackeys
Heroes 1 (barely)
Villains 0
That was the last one.
But Brittany had more than just labeled battle mementos
scattered around the shrine. There were rocks with no discernible
purpose, bits of string and little drawings here and there.
She found the cubby hole as she was putting back the metal shard.
It was hidden beneath the trailing edge of the altar cloth, with a piece
of cardboard over it. Inside a tin box she found a stick figure drawing
of two hospital beds, both occupied. One of the figures on the bed had
horns badly sketched in. Both of the figures had been scribbled over in
heavy pencil strokes. Behind it was another drawing, lots of little stick
figures standing around. One had horns, one was in a trenchcoat. There
was one with what was probably intended to be longish blond hair, and
another holding hands with the horned one, with a big gun. Another figure
stood near the blond one, with little hearts in his eyes.
There was a child's locket as well, the kind with photographs
inside. Paytan clicked open the clasp, and found a picture of Brittany's
mother.
An hour passed, with Paytan gently picking things up and putting
them down again. Until she had gone through it all, and reached the end.
She paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and went back to the
first item. Began again.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
There weren't many people there. A lot of heroes, yes, LNHers,
but very few civilians.
They had called the Reeves household in Wyoming, but no one ever
picked up the phone. It just rang and rang and rang.
Paytan wasn't there.
Savannah noted this as she sat down, as if she were writing down
the time she woke up in the morning, or her latest score as she finished
one of the tests she gave herself to improve her powers. Scientifically.
Allen slid into one of the seats next to her and Bryan.
"Savannah?" he asked tentatively.
"What?"
"Do you know where Paytan is? I've been looking for her..."
"Have you checked her room, or the LNHHQ grounds?"
"Both of them. She's not."
"I don't know then," said Savannah.
Allen stood and quietly left the room. Maybe Paytan had the right
idea. Just then the room fell silent, and someone standing behind the
podium began to speak. She did not look at them, simply shut them out,
staring at the back of her hand, focusing in until she could see nothing
but tiny cells, and the whole world had fallen silent around her.
Her whole hand was composed of cells.
Skin itself was made of cells, old ones drifting to the top then
falling away, to reveal newer ones. Beneath them the cells were forming,
birthing. To reach that deep would draw blood.
If one of the stages were to stop, the system would break. There
would not be enough, or there would be too many.
A creature whose system had broken was --
She was twelve years old, walking home with her mother. Her legs
ached with pleasant exhaustion, and she smelled of crushed grass and
chalk. The screech of tires on pavement shattered the familiar thoughts
of home and rest.
A little girl, younger than Savannah, had run into the road after
a ball. She never even saw the car.
Savannah had spun, and stared, and for just a second seen the
tiny form in a flowered dress, clashing with the blood beginning to pour
out onto the blacktop. Then her mother's hands slammed over her eyes, and
she was picked up and carried the rest of the way home.
She wished there was someone who could cover her eyes now.
The ghost image hovered in front of her, and she could not erase
it. Brittany and Draen, a few simple feet from each other.
Draen had fought the power flowing through him. He was burned,
the flesh puckered and blackened around his wrists and neck, like
overcooked pork. She had looked away before she came to his face.
Brittany had...
Brittany was gone.
It hit her suddenly, and she sucked in a deep breath. Inhaled
until it seemed her lungs could open no further, trying to drown herself
in air. It kept the tears in.
She closed her eyes, brought up a hand to press against them
until the blackness was broken by a thousand glittering lights. She
pressed harder, and the lights became a wave of flashes of color, a
psychedelic lightshow. If she pressed harder, would everything turn
white?
Would Brittany, thrown across the rocks with the barest edge of a
smile on her too-still face, finally disappear at last from sight?
Pain shot through her skull from the pressure on her eyes, and
the light show continued. She let her hand fall back to her lap and
leaned forward a little further. It would never turn white. All she'd do
is burst her eyes, and then it would be black forever, a canvas far more
suited for memory than forgetfulness.
Then her name was called, and she stood up to give the eulogy.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Even her teeth had a golden sheen to them now, and she hadn't
eaten in days. Hadn't needed to. Kismet should have been planning to go
home. She should have _been_ home, already. But she could not leave now.
"Brittany," said Kismet, facing the wind. She spoke the name
tentatively, as if she were testing it.
When her mother had been nothing but a child, the Great War had
swept through her people. Millions died, whole countries were emptied.
They had tried to build a memorial, but there were not enough living left
to remember the names of all the dead.
In a single decade her people had almost annihilated themselves.
Kismet stood at the edge of the roof, her wings spread until the
sun shone off them like torchlight. She stared out across the city, and
moved only to breathe. She had not expected to lose a friend in this
place.
Entire bloodlines were forgotten. They never figured out the
exact number of dead, or who they all had been. And so, forgotten, more
than half of the dead were swept in a blink into oblivion that had been
beyond their wildest dreams, as if they had never existed at all.
"Brittany," she said, this time a little more certain.
In this world whose people numbered in the billions, who would
remember her? Kismet stared out over the city, seething with those who
were too busy to know, to bother to get to know, anyone other than
themselves.
Kismet reached out to the sky. Her nails, already covered with a
faint metallic sheen, darkened into pure gold, and became sharp like
claws, or the blades of knives. She knelt down on the LNHHQ roof, and
began to carve letters. So long as there was memory, the dead never truly
left.
She whispered Weirdness Girl's name as she worked, over and over,
like a mantra, a prayer.
A goodbye.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Paytan's room was still a wreck. She'd bolted from the
flight.thingee as soon as they landed, and he'd barely been able to keep
up with her as she ran to Brittany's room. And found Binky's empty
goldfish bowl.
He had reached out, but she spun, her eyes beaming bright and run
from the room, to her own. She hadn't come out for two hours, and when
she did every stick of furniture inside was destroyed. Allen didn't think
she'd been back since.
He had checked his own, and Savannah's, and the roof.
And finally Brittany's, which he found locked. From the inside.
He pounded on the door, then again when there was no answer.
"Paytan, let me in!" he called.
He felt a stab of pain in his stomach, a sudden sense that
something was very wrong. The hair on the back of his neck began to rise,
and in seconds a gun was in his hand. He took a step back, aimed very
carefully at the lock, and pulled the trigger.
Neon green coruscated around the door, and the bullet ricocheted
into the floor of the hallway. She had put wards up around the door.
He realized that at some point Paytan had passed beyond grief,
into something with far more purpose. The wards continued to glow
faintly, evidence that she had planned carefully not to be disturbed for
quite a while.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Paytan sat crosslegged in the middle of Brittany's room, still as
windless desert. Her eyes, half-closed, glowed dimmer than they had
ever before, barely enough to light her face with their eerie neon green
shine. It was as if her heart did not beat.
The evening light sank in through the curtains, casting a square
of bluish light across the opposite wall. Somewhere in the distance a
car accelerated around a corner and hummed out of hearing range.
On the floor in front of her lay the body of one of Brittany's
doves, the wounded one that had garnered so much attention from the
trenchcoated girl. One of its wings was still bandaged. A mild breeze
brushed through the closed curtains, and Paytan took a deep breath.
She reached out with both hands and gently lifted the mechanical
corpse into her lap. There must have been a link, a piece of them that
was hooked into the life of Binky's Avatar like a heartline. When
Brittany died, so did they. The body seemed too heavy for its size, one
wing falling half open to brush her knee.
It took a while to smooth down it's feathers, stroking and
stroking them until they were all in place. She ran her forefinger gently
down the neck of the corpse, and cradled it in her hands.
Then she stabbed her thumbs into the bird's chest with crunch,
and tore open the layer of rubber that had served as a skin, forcing her
nails into the cavity that held the wires and circuits that ran the bird.
Shattered bits of plastic sank into her thumb and beneath the nails,
soaking the inside of the bird with blood as she worked inside as far as
her knuckles.
Both her hands spasmed, cracking noises echoing in the room as
more of the bird broke inside her grip. But Paytan's mouth was moving,
whispering things that were and were not words, and the glow in her eyes
increased.
The words began to fill the room, gathering in the corners and
beneath the bed, where the dust lay. She twisted the bird in her hands.
And it screamed.
Paytan's voice rose, and outside the room Allen began to pound on
the door again, fist against wood providing a bang bang bang counterpoint
as her chanting rose from a whisper to a yell, to a demand. The
dove's lids rose.
Its eyes glowed a wild neon green.
________________________________________________________________________
Kismet, Explosion Boy, Out-of-It Lass, Perdition, copyright Jennifer
Whitson, 1995. Allen is Jamas Enright's, but he spends an awful lot of
time with my guys. Everyone else is someone's.
Next Issue:
There's trouble, but not from any villain. It's all on the home
team, now.
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