Hero (15 page)

He grabbed the same chair Mr. Herbert had used, sat down close to the bed.

“So tell me,” Uncle John said, “what did he want?”

Zach was taken off guard. “What did who want?”

“We both know who I’m talking about. I saw him come in and I saw him leave.”

This night just keeps getting stranger,
Zach thought.

“Mr. Herbert, you mean?” Zach said.

John Marshall chuckled. “Is that what he’s calling himself now?”

“You
know
him?” Zach said. “Wait . . . that’s not his real name?”

“He goes by a lot of names. And yes, Zachary, I do know him. Unfortunately.”

“Who is he? I mean, really?”

Uncle John leaned forward and said, “Someone to be feared.”

“But he said he was a friend of Dad’s, that he knows how Dad died. Maybe even why.”

“He’s
not
your friend,” Uncle John said. “He wasn’t your dad’s friend, either. Believe me when I tell you: he’s nobody’s friend.”

“He calls me Zacman. Only Dad ever called me that.”

“I know.” Uncle John reached over, put his hand on Zach’s arm, gave it a squeeze. “He says a lot of things, and acts as if he knows more than he does, and that’s just a way of getting close to you, now that he knows you have powers.”

Zach’s eyes grew wide. Uncle John gave his arm another squeeze. In a voice barely above a whisper he said, “I know, Zachary. I know. About you
and
your dad. I know everything about your dad’s missions. He trusted me. Now I’m asking you to. Tell me what he told you.”

“Mr. Herbert.”

“We can keep calling him that, if you choose. There’s been a lot of names over the years. A lot of battles.”

“Battles?” Zach said. “Between
who
?”

“I don’t mean to sound cryptic, Zachary, but the answer is between us and them.”

Zach shook his head, hard. “That’s the thing,” he said. “That’s the stupid thing.
Neither
of you makes any sense. Mr. Herbert, or whoever he is, keeps talking about me and my powers, but he never
says
anything. I’m not stupid. I can see there’s some evil stuff going on. Now you talk about ‘us and them,’ which fits right in. Only, no one tells me who
they
are.”

“The ones your dad always called ‘the Bads,’ Zachary,” Uncle John said. “They’re real. And they’re going to keep coming because now they know you’re special in the same way your father was.”

“Yeah, I’m so special I ended up in the hospital. That giant took me down like I was a gnat. Why would they want me?”

“They know what I know, Zachary: that someday you’ll be better than them. Same as your father.”

“Same as my father?” Zach said.

“Yeah. Only he was a grown man battling other grown men. You’re still a boy, Zachary. Don’t rush this, no matter what that old man might tell you. Be the Zachary who downs cheeseburgers and runs the bases. And don’t believe a word that old man says.”

“Because you say so?”

It just came out of him. He was tired of being led around the ring like a pony, even if it was his Uncle John doing the leading now.

“Because,” Uncle John said, “even though he wants you to think he is on your side and was on your father’s side, he isn’t. And never was. He’s on the side of evil.”

Zach squeezed his eyes shut. Us versus Them. Good versus Evil. Good versus the Bads. What he really felt like in that moment was that it was him against the world, that nobody was on his side.

He yanked his arm away from Uncle John and said, “I don’t know who or what to believe anymore.”

“Believe me. And in me. The way you always have.”

Zach knew his voice was too loud, that he’d probably bring nurses with it.

But he didn’t care.

“I want my dad back!” Zach said. Shouting now. “He’d tell me what to do!”

“So can I,” Uncle John said. “After all, no one knew your dad better than me.”

At that moment, Zach wished more than ever that he’d known more about his father. That it wasn’t too late.

“Listen,” Uncle John said, “I didn’t just stop by to look in on you. I’m on my way to the airport for an early flight. Business trip. I didn’t want to disappear without saying good-bye.”

“When will you be back?”

“Hard to say,” Uncle John answered. “As soon as I can. You be careful while I’m gone, okay? Don’t go looking for any fights.”

Tell that to the fights,
Zach thought.
They’re the ones that keep looking for me.

ONE
week later, Zach was back at school and feeling no pain. Yet questions never left his mind. Questions that had no answers.

Uncle John was still away, and now Zach’s mom was about to go out of town herself, on her longest campaign trip yet for Senator Kerrigan, up and down California, helping out with fund-raisers.

As usual, she was dressed and ready to go thirty minutes before the car taking her to the airport was scheduled to show up. She had told Zach this was the time when the campaign was getting fun, two weeks on the road and then back to New York to get ready for the big speech Senator Kerrigan was scheduled to make in Central Park. It was expected to be the largest political rally ever held by a presidential candidate in New York City.

When the driver called to say he was out front, she walked over and pulled Zach into an embrace.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” she said.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Mom. I’m fine now.”

“Keep it that way.”

Zach said, “This is real important to you, isn’t it?” Something crossed her face. A sad look Zach didn’t understand.

“More than you know,” she said. The elevator doors opened.

Two minutes later, Elizabeth Harriman was on the road.

 

It was a Saturday afternoon and Kate was at the movies with some girlfriends. Alba had gone grocery-shopping with a friend, another housekeeper in the building.

It was quiet in the apartment, and somehow the quiet made Zach restless, as if he needed to be outside. Not the kind of need that had sent him out into the night or to the reservoir to rescue Kate that day. He hadn’t felt that need—or any of his newfound powers—since he’d gotten out of the hospital.

He kept telling himself it was because he wasn’t completely healed yet, that his body wasn’t ready to go twelve rounds with the next giant who came along. And maybe that was part of it.

But Zach knew it was more. For the first time, he was afraid. Whatever the battles were that Uncle John had referred to, Zach knew one thing now: they were bigger than him.

A lot bigger.

One more time Zach wished for the power he didn’t have, that no one had—the power to go back in time, to make things the way they were. He wanted to go back and tell his dad not to get on the plane, then sit down and ask him all the questions he couldn’t get answers to now.

He’d trade everything for that
.

Zach didn’t go outside, afraid that no matter where he planned to go, he’d walk right back into Central Park and that trouble would be waiting for him again.

Instead he popped in one of his all-time favorite DVDs,
The Man in the Iron Mask,
getting lost in the adventures of the Musketeers. Zach sat in the den and watched the swordplay and got carried along by the story all over again, even knowing exactly how things were going to play out.

How they usually played out in the movies.

The good guys were going to win in the end.

When the movie ended, the quiet came back to the apartment, until he heard footsteps upstairs.

Had to be Alba. He’d had the sound up pretty good for the end of the movie and probably hadn’t heard her come in.

Zach called her name, his voice sounding way too loud in the quiet.

No reply.

Was he hearing things?

Or was he just feeling anxious about everything since he’d come home from the hospital?

“Alba? Kate? You guys home?”

Nothing.

He walked into the foyer, stood perfectly still and listened. More quiet. There were times when he wanted to turn down the volume in his life, especially when the three women of the place were all talking at once during dinner. But now he wanted them all back, wanted to feel less alone, wanted to hear the sound of a voice other than his own.

Feeling like an idiot, he walked through every room of the first floor. In the dining room, he looked into a mirror, at his own reflection, and said, “Boo!”

Feeling even more like an idiot, he went upstairs to his room.

His laptop was on.

Only . . . he hadn’t used it all day.

Downstairs, he heard the elevator doors opening and felt his heart pound. He froze. Then he heard Alba calling his name.

He was about to answer her when he looked back at his computer screen.

It was then that he saw the message.

ZACH
hadn’t told Kate about Mr. Herbert coming to the hospital or about Uncle John. He hadn’t told her that someone had snuck into the apartment and gotten on his computer and found yet another way to scare him.

He just wanted his mom to come home.

Somehow in a world that seemed to have gone completely haywire, her presence in the apartment made things seem a little more normal.

The day she arrived back, he charged down the stairs and threw his arms around her the way he used to when his dad would come home from a long trip.

“I missed you,” he said.

“Missed you, too, pal.” She pulled back, concerned. “Everything okay?”

Zach said, “Now it is.”

After dinner that night, just the two of them, they went and sat on the balcony outside Zach’s room.

“I need to tell you why I’m throwing myself into the Kerrigan campaign so fully,” she said.

“I assumed it was because you just thought he was the best man for the job.”

They were eating ice cream, looking out at the city.

“He
is
the best man,” she said. “I’m convinced of that. But there’s something more, and it involves your father, and you have a right to know and I should have told you before this.”

Zach waited, thinking:
What now?

More surprises.

“Senator Kerrigan asked your father to be his running mate,” she said.

“Say
what
?”

“It’s true,” she said.

“Vice president . . .
Dad
?”

“Bob Kerrigan approached him with the idea when he first decided to run. Your father just laughed. But it was no joke to Senator Kerrigan. And somehow he managed to convince your father.”

“But Dad used to say the only office he was fit to manage was his fantasy baseball team. And he always finished last.”

“Senator Kerrigan didn’t care. He said that this election was going to be about character and nobody—including
him—
had more character than your father. Besides, it’s not like President Addison was going to stay in office forever. Your father needed to think about his future.”

“And Dad . . . he really wanted to do it?”

“No, not at first. But he finally came around to thinking he was obligated to do it. He said he was getting too old to leap tall buildings in a single bound and that there had to be another way to help his country.”

“Leap tall buildings in a single bound?”

“It’s what they say Superman can do.”

Superman. The way he’d always thought of his dad. Now more than ever.

Zach said, “What did Uncle John think?”

He could hear Uncle John’s voice in his head,
No one knew your dad better than me.

“He was a little funny about it, actually. He didn’t like the idea. Your Uncle John isn’t exactly the biggest Kerrigan fan. It was one of the few things those two actually disagreed about, other than baseball. Your father was nothing if not his own man, though. Once he had his mind made up, there was nothing anyone could say to make him change it.”

Zach took a deep breath, let it out. “Why
didn’t
you tell me this before?” he asked.

His mom turned and looked at him. “Because I thought it was one more thing that would make you sad. And I thought we had enough might-have-beens with your father already.”

“But you’re telling me now.”

“I’m telling you now because I look at the Kerrigan campaign as unfinished business for your father. And if I’m not around much over the next few months the way I want to be, and the way you want me to be, you deserve to understand why.”

“Vice President Dad,” Zach said again.

“Yeah,” his mom said. “And who knows, maybe down the road he even would have been President Dad.”

She took his empty bowl with hers and went inside. Zach sat there, wondering about unfinished business more than ever.