Training

Vinnie had tried to talk him out of it, but Sam had eaten the shape. Whatever it was, that strange peudo-lifeform from the other side which he had killed, Sam instinctually decided he could eat it. And that he should.

Sam had dug his hand into the vague mass and pulled it out holding a clump of its “meat” for lack of a more fitting term. The nine-year old had shovelled the clump into his face. Then he had followed it with another handful. And another. Minutes later the thing was gone and the boy’s face and hands were smeared with a mess that would be invisible to most living beings, but was clear to Vinnie.

Afterward Sam had wandered back to the stream to drink and wash himself.

***

Vinnie didn’t talk to Sam about the shape. Sam didn’t seem to care what it was or where it had come from. But the ghost was bemused. He’d been dead for a lot longer than he’d been alive and, in that time, he thought he’d gotten a pretty good idea about how things were supposed to fit together between the world of the living and that beyond it. This boy seemed to contradict what he thought he knew.

Though Sam didn’t care about the origin of the shape, a change had occurred in him. He wasn’t afraid any more. He would wander further from his car, and even slept outside of it when the weather permitted. When they would take trips to the lake, Sam still avoided the cabins, but wasn’t scared of them either.

“I’m going to get my revenge,” he said to Vinnie one day.

“What’s that?”

“When the winter is over, I’m going to go into town and find the people that killed my family.” He was just stating a fact. He and Vinnie had been walking returning to the car in silence before this.

“What will you do if you find them?” Vinnie asked.

“I’ll kill them all,” Sam said.

They were silent until they reached the car. Vinnie said “Why wait until the winter is over?”

Sam said “I’ve got to train first.”

***

Though Vinnie didn’t like the idea of Sam looking for revenge, he didn’t say it. The boy, he thought, should get back into town. He can’t live in the woods forever. The sooner the better, probably. But vengeance wasn’t a good path for a child.

After Sam had made the announcement, Vinnie spent the night hovering above the car and worrying.

The next day, his worry lessened. Sam’s idea of training apparently consisted of climbing trees, then jumping off while shouting “Hah!” and making what he considered to be karate poses. This became Sam’s morning routine and Vinnie, glad to see the boy still acting like a child, did notice progress over time. After a few weeks Sam could scale a tree in seconds and he could jump from the tops without a problem. “Hah!”

To further distract him, Vinnie invented a game. He would float around and Sam would throw rocks at him. If the rock passed through Vinnie’s non-corporeal form, he won that round. If Vinnie avoided it, he won. Progress was made here as well. Soon Sam was “hitting” Vinnie more often than not from further and further away.

It all seemed childish enough though that Vinnie soon forgot about what Sam had said.

***

They saw another shape thing. This one was larger than the first, but as grey and vague as the other. Still they could both still see it. It was high above. Among the clouds. Sam was again filled with dread by the sight of it, but ignored that.

“Get its attention,” he said to the ghost.

“What?”

“Fly up there and draw it down here.”

“Why? That thing could hurt you.”

“It won’t. I’m going to hurt it.”

Vinnie intended to refuse, but the thing seemingly noticed them. At any rate, it had started in their direction and picked up speed.

“I don’t think you should do this,” Vinnie said.

“I’m going to eat it,” Sam replied, as if that were a counter-point.

It was over in seconds. The shape dropped toward the child like a bomb, but the child leapt directly at it. But Sam had miscalculated. Suddenly he couldn’t see. He couldn’t move. He had jumped right into the thing. He was stuck. It was fogging his mind. It was digesting his mind. Had there been a human viewer they would have seen the boy floating above the ground, writhing.

Vinnie swished himself through the shape repeatedly, trying to prevent it with something better to eat. He broadcast thoughts at it that could be translated “Look at me! Over here! Let that thing go! Eat me!” but the shape ignored the ghost.

Then it burst. Sam had leveraged himself against the shape and stretched it beyond its capacity with purely physical brute force. Sam gasped as though he’d been underwater, then looked at the bits of vague material that floated around him. He laughed hard, then ate well.

***

Sam’s tenth birthday passed unnoticed and uncelebrated.

***

When it snowed, Sam spent a whole day in the car. His clothes were straps and rags that did nothing to shelter him. Condensation on the windows was frozen. Snow piled up and soon light couldn’t get in.

Sam lay in the back seat looking at the ceiling. Vinnie, after watching the snowfall for some time passed through the window and floated above the driver’s seat, looking back.

“Are you cold?” he aked.

“No,” said Sam. “I think my powers make me cold-proof.”

Vinnie knew exactly what he was talking about, but this was the first time Sam had been open about it. “Your powers?”

“My super powers. I don’t know all of them yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m cold proof.”

Vinnie couldn’t tell the temperature of the living world, but he had seen the snow and could hear the wind. But Sam wasn’t even shivering. “I think you’re right.”

“I wonder what other powers I have. I’m strong and I can jump really good.”

“And you’re very fast and agile.”

“What’s a jile?”

“Agile. It means you move good.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Vinnie hesitated, then said “I think you might be partially outside of the world of the living.”

Sam sat up and looked at the ghost. Vinnie continued. “Well, you can see and hear me, first of all. And you can see those shapes too. Most people can’t. But what’s really different is that you can touch the shapes. You can physically touch something that is outside your state of existence. It isn’t normal. I’ve never seen anything like it.

“I saw a guy once, years ago, who seemed to be able to see ghosts. He was one of those ‘psychics’ who people pay to talk to dead relatives. I know there are a lot of people who fake it, but when this guy looked at me, it felt like he legitimately saw me. But I wasn’t related to any of those people, so I never talked to him.

“But you’re different. You don’t just see the other side. You can touch it. I think, in order to survive that contact with esoteric things, your body has to be tougher than a normal living thing. So now you’re between the worlds and equipped for both. You can see the unseen and touch the untouchable.”

“I can’t touch you.”

“Well, I’m dead. That means I’m as far from your plane of existence as I can get. But those shapes are in a realm beyond yours, but not dead. It’s a realm where thought energy is stronger than physicality. But you are totally able to punch those things. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The conversation ended there. Soon Sam was asleep. Vinnie floated there, wondering where a ghost could go to learn more about how the world worked.

Surviving

Vinnie convinced Sam to sleep in the backseat of the car, swearing to watch over him through the night. The ghost did that, and Sam felt safer than he had in all his time in the woods. The next morning Sam, well rested for a change, was happy to find the ghost still there in the daylight, though he seemed dimmer.

That first morning together, Sam made the most of his first social contact in months and talked at length. He told of the night his family was killed, stopping to cry several times. Vinnie said little at first, it had been nearly a century since he’d last had a conversation, and listened eagerly. When the boy was apparently finished, the ghost tried to offer some consolation, saying “It isn’t that bad being dead, for what it’s worth.”

This drew Sam’s mind back to the fact his companion was a ghost. “It’s not?”

“Nope. I’ve been dead for a long time and I’ve been enjoying it.”

“Are my family ghosts now?”

“Well, I haven’t seen them around. I think they probably moved on to the proper afterlife, you know?” and feeling compelled to make it sound better, he added. “Heaven.”

“Why aren’t you in heaven?” said Sam wiping at his eyes with his dirty shirt.

“I felt like sticking around here. There was a lot I wanted to see before I went away.”

“How did you die?”

“I don’t remember, honestly. I was walking down the street one minute and then I was a ghost. I figure I must have been hit by a car or something, but by the time I knew how to be a ghost it was too late to see what had happened.”

“Were you white when you were alive?”

“I was Italian. Does that matter to you?”

“Not really, I guess.”

“Are you white?”

“I’m black, can’t you tell?”

“Not really. From this side it is hard to tell that sort of thing.”

Sam was quiet for a while. “So my family are okay?”

“I guarantee it,” said the ghost.

***

It was weeks before Vinnie remembered that living humans are supposed to eat. Sam, as far as he had seen, was not eating, but seemed as healthy as ever. Still, Vinnie brought it up and Sam agreed that it wouldn’t hurt to find something to eat.

They went to the bushes where Sam had found berries earlier in the year, but only a few withered specimens remained.

Sam didn’t want to kill a rabbit or a deer, when Vinnie suggested. They finally agreed to find fish. Vinnie flew off while Sam slept and located a lake. The next morning the two of them set out. When they got there Sam noticed cabins on the far side of the lake. “I don’t want to be here,” he said.

Vinnie followed his gaze. “Don’t worry,” he said. “There’s nobody over there. Just empty cabins. You’re safe.”

It was a pleasant day and Sam waded into the water up to his waist. Almost an hour later, he’d caught a fish with his hands.

Vinnie’s attempt to teach Sam to build a fire was ignored. Sam ate the fish raw and cold.

Watching this, Vinnie noticed a contrast between the boy and the fish. From his side of life Sam appeared much clearer. Sam was in some way closer to the other side than normal living beings.

***

They returned to the car. Vinnie suggested moving into one of the empty cabins, but Sam refused. Eventually Autumn came. The ghost and the boy spent more time wandering the woods, but never more than a few hours away from the car.

Then came a day when Sam was attacked.

It was broad daylight. There was no warning. Sam had been playing in a stream and was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of dread. He called out and Vinnie, who had been hovering high above came down to find the boy being stalked a vague shape.

“Get out of there Sam! Run!”

Sam ran. The shape followed.

“What’s happening?” Sam shouted to the ghost.

“It’s hungry! Don’t let it touch you!”

Vinnie recognized the creature. He’d seen shapes like it wandering around the other side, but normally they seemed unable to contact, or even notice, the living world. Sam apparently was out of his world enough to be noticed.

Sam scrambled up a steep, rocky incline, using his hands to steady himself. Vinnie waved his disembodied consciousness in front of the thing, trying to distract it. The shapes had never shown any interest in ghosts and that remained the same. It continued after the boy.

At the top of the hill Sam swore under his breath. He turned and looked at the shape. Looking at it sent a cold twisty feeling through his gut. His thoughts began to swirl and darken. His eyes couldn’t focus on the thing, but an impression of a bat or a shark came to him. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes. He jumped toward the thing.

He rained down blows on the shape. It was like punching gelatine, offering little resistance. After a full minute of violence Sam stopped and stood and looked down on the thing that had stopped moving half a minute before, but still hovered a foot above the ground.

Vinnie watched. Sam kicked at the lifeless shape.

Captain Chivalry versus Doctor Dragon

Captain Chivalry stood on a rooftop. People on the street below looked up. Mothers whispered to their children, “He saved the city,” “He stopped the explosion,” “He fought the aliens.” The children didn’t understand; such threats were unimportant to them. One man thanked God that the Captain was there to save the day whenever trouble should arise.

Above, the Captain looked out upon the city. Millions of people, he’d saved them all, more than once. He looked down. A crowd had formed at the base of the building. They looked up and pointed and cheered. He leapt to a building across the street. From there he jumped to another. He stopped when he saw smoke rising from a nearby shopping mall. He heard sirens approaching and hesitated, but did decide to react.

Captain Chivalry arrived on the scene. Doctor Dragon and his henchmen were in the mall. A fire had started when Doctor Dragon torched a security guard, nearly killing him. The fire was out now. The henchmen had gathered hostages and were demanding money. They wanted five million dollars in exchange for the thirty-nine lives they held in their hands.

When the Captain appeared one of the henchmen emptied his weapon trying to defeat him. They usually tried this, despite the well-known fact that bullets wouldn’t cut it against the Captain. The superhero fired a blast of force at the attacking henchman; it knocked him unconscious. The criminal would later tell his mother that being knocked out by the Captain’s force had felt like being awakened, startled from a dream.

The Captain had less trouble from the other henchmen; they surrendered the moment they saw him. This was the man they had, as children pretended to be on the playgrounds during recess. This was the man who had saved the lives of their family and friends. This was Captain Chivalry.

Only Doctor Dragon was left unimpressed. He spat fire at the superhero, whose cape burst into flame. This only stood to make the Captain appear even more awesome as he flew across the room and landed a punch in the lizard-man’s scaled face. Doctor Dragon was hurt, but quickly struck back. It took a lot of willpower to keep from wincing in pain as his fist shattered against the hero’s chest.

The two superhuman champions were quite alike. Both despised the abilities they possessed which set them apart from the average person. Both stayed awake at night wondering how being superhuman could make you so much less than human. Both Captain Chivalry, the magical protector of the Earth and Doctor Dragon, mutated, hated petty thief, were alone. If they didn’t disagree on how their powers should be handled, they could have been good friends.

With one more punch the Captain defeated his foe. The police had been present for the clash’s finale. They too were impressed by the sight of Chivalry as he saved the day. The Captain however did not believe he had done such a good job. As he leaped away, his cape reduced to ashes, he prayed that Doctor Dragon would realize the error of living a life of crime. He prayed the henchmen might become more respectful members of society. He scorned himself for not attempting to save these real victims of the crime. If he were the hero the world believed him to be, he would spend less time fighting dragons and aliens and more time fighting evil.

Sam Dennis In The Woods

Sam Dennis spent weeks alone in the woods. His thoughts never left his butchered family, their remains still in that clearing.

By day he meandered about in a haze, never straying far from the clearing. He found the family car. The cultists had pushed it into the woods so it couldn’t be seen from the road. At night he slept on the rough ground under the car, worried that if someone came along they’d look inside.

He found the road where he and his family had been attacked. He could follow the road to town, but then what? He had no way of knowing who he could trust in town. Or anywhere.

So Sam Dennis spent weeks in the woods. Alone.

He also found a small stream and drank from it, out of habit more than noticing any thirst. On occasion when he found berries he would absentmindedly taste them. Perhaps if he were older he’d have wondered why he wasn’t starving to death, but the thought never crossed his mind. He also failed to wonder about the absence of animals, for nothing bird, mammal, or even insect came close to the clearing.

Weeks began to pass and Sam grew accustomed to this way of life.

***

He had to bury them.

He couldn’t say why, but Sam decided that he should bury his family. Perhaps it had come to him in a dream, for he had awakened thinking it, but he couldn’t remember now.

The sun hadn’t risen yet. There was no moon. Still, Sam was habituated to the darkness and made his way from the car to the clearing easily. He had not been to the clearing at night. Not since the first night anyway, and he was surprised to find that it glowed. Specifically the stone mound left by the cultists seemed to radiate a sickly green aura. This pale light caused unease in Sam, a sense of something being misplaced, but he ignored it.

He approached the bodies of his family. Though they were stiff and pale, they were in pristine condition. No animals had wanted to eat these bodies, it seemed. Even the bacteria that should have claimed them were uninterested.

Sam began digging in the pit where a fire had been. He used his hands. As he worked the sun rose behind him. As it got higher, Sam began to sweat while he worked, but he did not slow down. By noon, the hole was deep and wide and Sam’s hands, with dirt caked under broken nails, were starting to ache.

He took the bodies one at a time and dragged them to the grave. First his mother, then sister, then finally his father. They would like being together, he told himself. Families should be together.

He cried as he filled the grave again. First softly, then weeping, but by the time it was filled he was silent again. He seemed to run out of dirt before the grave was full, which he found strange since there were three bodies in there now as well, but it was close enough. After a rest it occurred to him to mark the grave. He went to the pile of stones and grabbed one of the larger rocks. He looked at it and then noticed again the glow.

The rock was tainted somehow. All of these rocks were tainted. Sam kicked at the mound and it crumbled, rocks rolled to the ground.

Sam decided to leave the grave unmarked.

His work done he went to the stream to drink, and then washed himself.

***

Sam was awakened by a light. Or perhaps it was a smell. In any case, something was nearby. Staying prone, Sam positioned himself near the wheel and peered out.

A skull seemed to be floating through the trees.

It wafted gently, slowly, but independent of the breeze. It would occasionally stop. Turn. Apparently look at things. Then it saw the car. It came nearer.

The skull glowed. It reminded Sam of the tainted rocks at the clearing, it was weeks since the burial now, but the skull did not seem tainted. It seemed to glow correctly somehow. Or perhaps to smell correctly. Sam could not tell.

Sam lost sight of it for a moment as it circled the car, then seemed to pass through the car door to the inside. Sam found it again at the back of the car where it was apparently looking at the plates. It floated downward. It was looking under the car now. It was looking at Sam.

“Whaoo!” came a strange inhuman noise from the direction of the skull. Sam scrambled out of there, hitting his shoulder on the frame of the car.

Once to his feet Sam ran. “Raai!” the skull moaned behind him. Sam ran through the dark woods faster than he thought he could, but in a moment the skull was beside him. It floated there and looked at him. Sam swatted at it, but his hand passed through the air, feeling nothing.

Sam continued running and the skull kept pace apparently effortlessly. It moaned again and again. Sam tripped on a rock and fell on his face. Getting back up, he stared at his pursuer, who had stopped with him and now watched.

Sam was tired. And sore. And terrified. The skull seemed almost serene as it bobbed slightly in the air and stared.

“Sssssaaaaaaahh,” came from it.

Sam swung his fist.

The punch passed through the ghost and hit a tree, which shook violently. Wood splintered and flew. Sam had left a fist-sized hole in the tree, but he didn’t even notice. He turned and swung again.

“Saaaarrrhh,” the skull moaned as Sam passed through it again.

This time his attack smote only the air and Sam lost his balance and fell to the ground. He began to kick his feet.

“Saaarr! Saarry! Sorry!” The skull said. “Sorry, kid!”

Sam stopped flailing. The voice, still someone inhuman, sounded sincere. It sounded nice.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, kid. I didn’t know there would be anyone out in these woods, let alone one who could see me. And it’s been so long since I’ve had to talk, I kinda forgot how. Are you okay?”

Sam got to his feet. He hadn’t spoken in a long time either, but now he said “What are you?”

“The name’s Vinnie, kid. And I’m a dead guy. What’s your name?”

“Sam,” he replied after a moment.

"Well, gee, Sam. I'm sorry for scaring you like that. What say I walk you back to... back to your car, I guess, and you can tell me why you can see me."

Light of the Xenocreated

Walt Dennis reluctantly swam back to consciousness. The pain had not lessened. He found he couldn’t open his left eye. Something, a rag perhaps, was stuffed into his mouth. He was lying on his back on a stone slab in a clearing in the woods. It was well past midnight.

He tried to move, but found his arms and legs were chained to the rock. Over the sounds of low chanting he could hear sobbing coming from behind him. His daughter Ashley. To his right was an unconscious woman tied to another slab, struggling to draw breath. His wife Lisa. A bonfire was raging to his left.

When they’d forced his car off the road Walt had assumed it was a race thing, but it wasn’t. He could see the attackers clearly now as they wore robes and busied themselves with gathering small stones into a pile somewhere behind him. There were black men in this crowd as well as white. Whatever was going on, it was not racially motivated. He recognized several of the people from town. He didn’t know any of them well, but they were people who had been recurring parts of the backdrop for the last five years spent living in Carltonville. This one guy was a bus driver, he thought. Another worked at the bank. And the couple who owned the Chinese restaurant on Main Street were there.

He tried to call out, to plead through his gag, but they ignored him. His mouth was dry and his throat sore. When his car had been pushed into the ditch he had reacted quickly. He yelled for his family to run into the woods and though they’d hesitated, they’d done it when he yelled again. Walt had turned to face the crowd that was coming for them.

There had only been two cars when they’d rammed him, but those were joined by three more. Each seemed to be full of passengers. After the crash they began to get out and approach on foot. As his family fled Walt raised his fists and shouted something confrontational at the crowd. There were too many for him to stop them from going around him to follow the family into the woods, but he tried to get their attention. But one had hit him in the face with a baseball bat and the world had briefly flashed white, and then gone black.

***

Now, on the slab in a clearing, the chanting was getting louder. A single voice separated from the other intoners to speak.

“L’Kanerth, you who dwell between the Earths

please accept this sacrifice of flesh

and hear your servants make a small request.

Help us to do your bidding in this sphere

that we can work to bring about your reign.

Remake our humble forms into your tools

and we shall spread the glory of your name.”

The speaker was somewhere behind Walt and by arcing his neck he could he could just make out a pair of hands held toward the sky. He tried again to say something, but was immediately silenced by his daughter’s voice.

“No! No! Go away!”

Walt writhed against the stone. He could not position get into a position that would allow him to see what was happening. Muffled curses escaped his lips. He kicked his feet against the few inches of give the chains allowed.

“No!” Ashley’ voice broke as he cried out. “No!” And then her screams we silenced with a thud.

“For L’Kanerth!” all the robed figures shouted in union.

Then the figures moved to the stone where Lisa was unconscious. Walt could see them now. He could see the man whose hands had been raised. He wore a robe that seemed to reflect the firelight. It was silver perhaps. Though Walt recognized still more faces from town, a mall security guard, a grocery store cashier, he did not recognize the man in the silver robe.

Walt thrashed again as the silver robed man raised a wooden club above his head. A pale green light began to fill the clearing. Walt found he could not look towards the source of the light. It was as though it shone from some direction that could not be looked at with human eyes.

Walt looked at his wife of seventeen years. Her breath was labored, but she looked peaceful. On some level Walt was thankful that Lisa wasn’t awake. The club came down on her head and caved it in.

“For L’Kanerth!” they shouted again.

The sickly light grew stronger. The crowd gathered around Walt and looked down on him. He looked only at the man in the silver robe. At no point did the man’s eyes meet Walt’s. The man did not seem focused on anything at all. Walt did not bother to struggle as the man raised the club.

The club came down and Walt Dennis was no more.

“For L’Kanerth!”

***

The robed figures packed their supplies and left the bodies behind. The fire died down and the air grew colder. Hours passed and the sky grew lighter as the sun approached the horizon. Though none would approach the clearing, birds could be heard singing in the distance.

Day broke. A reluctant figure crawled out of its hiding place in a bush. Sam Dennis. Walt’s nine year old son. When his father had told him to run, Sam had been the fastest. He’d run without looking back. Even as his father shouted at the strange men, even as he heard his mother and sister scream when they were caught, Sam had not looked back.

He’d found the clearing and the large bush and he’d crawled under it. When the men brought his family and chained them up and started a fire, Sam had struggled, tears in his eyes, to keep from making a noise.

When the pale green light had shone on the clearing, it had touched Sam even under the bush. He’d felt a weight come over him and he could not take any more. He’d passed out.

Sam stood and looked at the remains of his family. In the center of the triangle formed by their bodies was a pile of small rock as tall as Sam. He stared at it for several minutes, then ran into the forest and wept.