I Am Phantom (Novella): Subject Number One (8 page)

But what would that accomplish? Questions would
get asked. Uncomfortable situations brought up. And as much as I didn’t like
Kent, and felt sick at how Missy had treated me, the thought of doing something
like that to them made me internally cringe. It just wasn’t me.

The first punch came from the side. I saw it
coming a mile away, but I let it glance off the side of my head. What horrible
aim. That probably hurt his hand more than it hurt my hard head.

I decided to make this easy for them and dropped
to the ground. In a second they were all over me like a pack of dogs, kicking
and punching, yelling slurred words and laughing. I just curled my head in and
covered it, trying not to think how I could have easily destroyed them, broken
their bones, made them pay…

After a minute they let up. I didn’t hurt at
all. Whether they were so drunk their strength reverted back to that of a
two-year-old or my fast healing ability deadened the pain, I didn’t know.

Kent spit on my hoodie. “He’s done.” I picked my
head up. Kent had leveled a finger at my face. “You stay away from Missy. In
fact, you just stay away from everyone. Nobody wants to see your face.”

He laughed and backed up towards the side
railing of the bridge. A couple of his friends looked back at me as he pulled
out a cigarette and lit it.

“Hey,” one asked, “we done or what?”

Kent took a drag and stared down at me, his
upper lip lit up in the orange glow of the tip. “Yeah, we’re done.” He wound up
to deliver one more kick.

That was one too many for me. I caught his leg
and leapt up, shoving him gently back. “Go home, Kent.”

Kent staggered, thrown off guard. His arms
pinwheeled above his head as he tried to regain his balance. And then his back
hit the railing and he was toppling over, the lit tip of the cigarette
disappearing over the edge into the roaring river below.

Chapter
Two

Put
to the Test

Are you
kidding
me? I
barely
shoved him.

Out of all the clumsy, idiotic morons to go
tumbling into the river, it had to be him.

“
Kent
!” One of
his friends yelled. They hurried to the edge and peered over the railing. “Man,
somebody get ‘em! Somebody save him!”

Yeah, somebody could help him, like maybe his
friends
. But none of them looked willing to do it. So it
came down to me. I swore to myself and vaulted over the edge.

The fall was a lot farther than it looked. I had
a second to take a breath before I hit the roiling water, and it felt as if it
had just thawed right before I jumped in. My lungs froze. I tried to grab a
rock, but my fingers were already numb and the rock just out of reach. My
backpack had soaked with water and was dragging me down. I could vaguely hear
kids shouting above my head and see Kent’s flailing arms just cresting the
water. He was getting away from me.

Abandoning all pretense of subtlety, I let loose
with all my strength. No amount of hiding it would do any good if Kent or I
were dead. I sliced through the water towards him, using the rocks I could push
off beneath me to propel forward to him. My muscles rejoiced in being used to
their full capacity.

“Help! HEL—” He plunged under again.

What a whiny baby. I lunged forward and snagged
the back of his jacket. With my other hand, I latched on to a wayward tree
branch that had dipped too close to the surface, but it wouldn’t hold us for
long. And the icy water would make my muscles seize up before that.

I judged the distance to an open spot on shore.
It was a good twenty yards away, and the longer I waited, the more the tree
branch stretched, about to break. My feet slipped and slid beneath me as I
tried for footing.

Screw it. I had no other choice. Here went
nothing.

I twisted in the water, managed to lodge my foot
between two rocks and with a massive heave, wrenched a semi-conscious, soaking
wet, dead weight Kent out of the water and hurled him on to shore, where he
landed with an ungraceful splat.

Olympic potential right there, ladies and gents.

I hung on for just a second or two longer. Long enough
for the water to soak into my arms, long enough to see Kent sputter and spit up
water, long enough to hear the calls of his friends as they threaded through
the trees on the side of the river.

Then I let go and let the stream carry me away.

*
                                                         
*
                                                         
*

Somewhere along the way, my powers kicked in
again.

I had a knack for a regenerative healing of
sorts. Nothing like restoring limbs or anything extreme, but my muscles almost
never grew tired under normal conditions, and any smaller injuries I did get,
like cuts, or even broken bones, healed remarkably fast.

One time, shortly after I gained my abilities
and still had friends, I busted my skull open trying to prove that you could in
fact ride head first on a skateboard while tethered to the back of said
friend’s truck. No surprise, I’d started swerving side to side and my face
promptly met a NO PARKING sign off Blair road. My friend had stopped the truck
and nearly vomited at the amount of blood pooling from my head.

The cut was gone by the time the ambulance
arrived. The EMT’s had confusedly searched through blood-matted hair for a cut
that was, miraculously, not there anymore.

Another slosh of cold river water brought me
back to the present. I had continued drifting down the river. My arms had
started tingling.

 
Slowly they gained strength, warming up
until I was able to fight the current and pull myself onto shore and catch a
breath.

Surprisingly, I felt great. The rest of my body
heated up, driving out the icicles of cold that had seeped all over me.

As I lay on the rocky bank of the river, I
finally let my thoughts wander to what had just happened. Kent hadn’t seen what
I’d done, I was sure of that. But had any of the kids on the bridge? Even if
they had, they probably wouldn’t believe it, or I could convince them
otherwise.

And then: How late was it? Mom and dad would
probably be a little concerned. I usually never stayed out this late. The river
had fried my phone so I couldn’t call them to let them know where I was.

I sighed, stood, and walked up the steep
embankment back towards the road.

After a mile of following the path I came to a
gravel road I recognized. The left led to more networks of farm back roads and
equipment barns, to the right, Maize.

I was nearly outside town when I heard a truck approaching
behind me. I got scared for a sec. It could be Kent and his friends. Not that I
was scared of getting
hurt,
they
couldn’t hurt me if they tried, but I wasn’t quite ready to face them, or what
had happened, yet.

The truck headlights washed over me. It slowed.
I prepared to make a break for the far tree line if necessary.

“Hey, kiddo.” A familiar voice called.

I whirled around.

“Dad? What are you doing out here?”

He pushed open the passenger side door and I
clambered inside. “I could ask you the same—Drake! You’re soaked! And
it’s practically freezing outside!”

“I kind of slipped into the river.”

My dad’s concerned face tightened as I buckled
my seat belt and he turned up the heater to full blast. “Geez, Drake. You could
have called me.”

I waggled my waterlogged phone at him. “Not
possible.” He stared at me for a long time. Then he threw the truck in gear and
we rumbled the rest of the way into Maize.

“How’d you know where I was?” I asked. My dad
chuckled, but there wasn’t any humor in it. The lines in his face were still
tight.

“Out doing the same thing you were, probably;
clearing my head. Without taking a polar plunge. I like to come out here and
get some space. Then I came upon this idiot kid just walking on the side of the
road.” He looked over at me. “Really, Drake? You slipped into the river? That’s
the best excuse you could come up with?”

I just shrugged.

“So you were just out walking, maybe thinking a
little too hard, and then slipped and tumbled what, fifty feet? into the
water?”

I shrugged again.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“No, Dad. That’s what happened.”

 
We
were close enough to read the water tower in Maize (Go Bulldogs!). My dad
rubbed his eyes and ran a hand down his tired face. Then he stared straight
ahead as we rolled past the only shopping district and through the other side
towards our house.

“You know,” he said, breaking the silence, “when
you go to college, wherever you decide to go, your mom and I won’t be there
with you.”

Great. Back to the college thing. I started to
open my mouth, but my dad went on,

“And there might be things that don’t have a
clear answer. You may be in a situation where you can’t tell right from wrong.
But I want you to know that your mom and I are proud of you, whatever decision
you make. You’re an amazing young man, and I know these last few years haven’t
been the easiest for you,”

My eyes snapped towards him. Was he saying what
I think he was saying?

“But college will change all that. You can be
who you really are, who you want to be. But one thing you must always do,” he
shook his finger out in front of him as his headlights came across Briarsridge
Lane. “A man stands his ground for what he believes. That is all he can do,
physically or not, he can stand his ground. And I know you can do that, Drake,
I know you can. And if you do that, well,” he threw the truck into park and
killed the engine, letting the country silence settle over us. “Well, you can
be whoever you want.”

I couldn’t say anything. My throat had tightened
up. Whether it was from what he was saying or how much water I’d swallowed
during my brisk swim I didn’t know. My dad pulled the keys out and laughed
softly.

“You know, I heard the weirdest story from the
Brooks brothers this morning. Something about them just walking in the woods,
minding their own business, when a savage deer attacked them…”

In the reflection of the window, I grinned.

Liked
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https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Phantom-Sean-Fletcher-ebook/dp/B00Z7KJJJG

Thanks for reading!

About the Author:

Sean Fletcher was born in the
broiling, arid state some people lovingly refer to as Texas. He is the author
of the I Am Phantom series, as well as the upcoming sci-fi adventure trilogy In
the Depths of Darkness. He has taught writing classes at the Pacific Northwest
Writers Association conference, writing groups, libraries, and writing
workshops. When not making things up and putting them on paper, he can be found
hiking, biking, or traveling. You can visit him on his website:
https://seanfletcherauthor.com
, or on his Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/seannfletcher
.