Marshall Conrad: A Superhero Tale Read online

  Marshall Conrad

  Sean Cummings

  Copyright © 2014, Sean Cummings

  Self publishing

  [email protected]

  http://sean-cummings.ca

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

  Also by Sean Cummings

  Shade Fright (Snowbooks)

  Funeral Pallor (Snowbooks)

  Poltergeeks (Strange Chemistry Books)

  Student Bodies (Strange Chemistry Books)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Chapter 1

  My name is Marshall Conrad and the world as you know it is a damned lie.

  I know this because when I first started this crime-fighting gig, I was expecting to cleverly engage a costumed super villain, and it didn’t happen. It still hasn’t happened, and I’ve been at this for over ten years now. Because bald-headed megalomaniacs whose weapon of choice is a freezing ray or homicidal mimes that squirt acid out of a fake flower exist only in the pages of comic books, what I do is largely a form of crime prevention.

  If you’re thinking that I dress up like McGruff the Crime Dog and deliver lectures to children about the dangers of talking to strangers, give your head a shake. I’m not a superhero, despite what the newspapers have been reporting, and I haven’t been called on to save the planet. I’m not even sure that I could save the planet if the opportunity were to present itself. My preference is to work on a much smaller scale, so if you’re disappointed by this fact, deal with it.

  If journalists are reporting the news as opposed to fabricating it, you will have successfully typed www.greenfieldsuperhero.com into the address bar of your web browser, leading you to my thought-provoking blog. Much of what you’re about to read will sound like it came straight from the pages of fantasy novel, and you’ll no doubt continue to question the believability of the mainstream news media whose focus has been on the small City of Greenfield along with yours truly.

  I’m sure you’ve heard about the one-million dollar bounty on my head courtesy of The National Monitor—who hasn’t? Ever since the Drudge Report broke the story about the rescue of Congressman Byron Aldrich’s wife after she was kidnapped from the family cottage at Crystal Beach, the City of Greenfield has become a Mecca for crackpots and conspiracy theorists bent on obtaining proof of my existence.

  It wasn’t just the rescue of Mrs. Aldrich that grabbed the attention of every media outlet in the country—it was the grainy photograph of a man floating high above the roof of the Greenfield County Hospital with a traumatized Mrs. Aldrich slung over his shoulder that has everyone talking. I believe the headline on Drudge’s website read:

  WTF???

  REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN’S WIFE RESCUED BY SUPERMAN?

  Charming.

  Homeland Security is on high alert, Fox News persists in reporting that I’m an Islamic Terrorist, and people are selling t-shirts with the slogan “Somebody Save Me!” with the now infamous snapshot.

  I know the identity of the person who captured my image with her cellphone, and I’ll be contacting her shortly to express my displeasure. If that picture hadn’t been fired off to Drudge, Marilyn Aldrich’s story of being whisked off into sky by a man with glowing eyes would have been dismissed as the hysterical ranting of a traumatized political wife. Better yet, I would be snoring in my bed instead of writing this blog to set the record straight.

  Necessity required that I find and rescue Mrs. Aldrich because the person responsible for her kidnapping fully intended to murder her at 11:55 PM on Wednesday, June 18th. For the record, I don’t normally rescue the damsel in distress while I subdue the bad guy. That might look good in the pages of World’s Finest, but it’s not tactically advantageous since most victims of crime are bouncing off the walls, and most perpetrators are inclined to shoot at you, possibly injuring or killing the person you’re trying to save.

  I discovered the barn where she was hidden that night around 8:30 PM and thankfully, the kidnapper was nowhere in sight. Mrs. Aldrich was stoic throughout her first flight outside a serviceable aircraft. She even asked me if I voted for her husband. God love her.

  She told me the kidnapper would be returning to the barn at 11:00 PM to “purify her body.” I took this to mean that he intended to eviscerate Mrs. Aldrich and scatter her body parts in selected areas of suburban Greenfield as he’s done with three of his eight victims. I would have captured the guy when he returned to the barn, but Drudge posted the “startling” picture of yours truly on his website at 9:45 PM, thereby tipping him off. Thanks a lot, Matt Drudge.

  By the way, while I appreciate the kind words from Congressman Aldrich thanking me for saving his wife, he didn’t get my vote last November because he is a Republican. Please don’t take this personally, Congressman, but you people scare the hell out of me.

  As this is my first-ever attempt at blogging, I am mindful that what I am writing is going to piss off comic book enthusiasts.

  Good.

  You’re a troubling pack of nerdish kooks who seriously need to get a life.

  There’s more to living than watching Star Trek reruns and counting down the weeks to the next comic book convention. Try organized paintball or maybe find a girlfriend instead of locking yourselves away in your mother’s basements and posting your fantasies about Seven of Nine to alt.startrek.borg.

  Yes, Jeri Ryan is hot, and the good people who produced Voyager gave her that tight-fitting bodysuit for a reason—to get people like you away from your role-playing games long enough to watch their program. I should add that your obsession with errors in Hollywood’s portrayal of comic book heroes is getting a little old because nobody but you gives a damn if the big screen Spider Man has organic web shooters instead of mechanical ones.

  If you feel like sending me hate mail because you’re lumped with the “Trekkies,” suck it up. I won’t be reading your comments because I don’t have an email address. You can try snail mail, but don’t hold your breath waiting for me to respond because it’s unlikely that I will survive what is about to occur in t
he next twenty-four hours. Even if I miraculously do pull through, which is doubtful, I won’t receive your letters because my mailman is an asshole.

  Frankly, I don’t understand America’s fascination with superheroes. I know that many thousands of people play online games like City of Heroes or World of Warcraft and hey—who wouldn’t want epic powers, right? You get a groovy costume and it’s great fun to fantasize about super-jumping over a building or blasting laser beams out of your fingertips.

  Unfortunately, video games bear little resemblance to how I spend most evenings, and fighting crime isn’t all that glamorous. While super strength or the ability to teleport yourself eight city blocks might sound attractive, you have to remember that until last week, most people weren’t psychologically prepared to see a grown man floating in the air without mechanical assistance.

  You’re no doubt wondering why I sound like a prick, and you’re probably troubled that I’m not offering myself as an inspiring role model for others. Why the hell is that my job?

  I’ve created this blog to explain why you’ll be seeing Greenfield residents hacking one another to pieces on the news should I fail to take out Grim Geoffrey. If you’re clueless as to what I’m talking about, I recommend that you continue reading because your neighborhood might just be next on his hit list.

  While you’re at it, kindly remember that popular culture often portrays crime fighters as god-like beings who swoop down from the sky to thwart a criminal mastermind’s evil plan with seconds to spare. Movies and fantasy novels suggest that my kind represents the very best in humanity while ignoring that much of humanity is a cesspool of twisted people with addictions to everything from porn to crystal meth. I’m not a hero. I’m just a guy from New England. My hope is that readers will stop slurping on their Starbucks for longer than ten minutes to simply look at the world through my eyes, because it’s an ugly place.

  You’ll see the pedophile who lives down the street busily preparing a lesson plan for his third grade class while the little boy he molested grows up to become damaged goods. You’ll learn that your golfing buddy regularly beats the crap out of his wife and that she’s mastered the art of disguising a shiner with liquid foundation while he jokes with you about missing that last putt on the ninth hole. Frankly, it’s depressing.

  I have no wish to motivate others with a sense of community responsibility or to act as a mentor for at-risk youth. I like to come home when my work is done, and more often than not, I just want to go to bed. I’m a solitary person by choice and the only person whose opinion I value nearly as much as my own is Walter’s—and he’s a cat.

  I don’t possess an excessively muscular physique that should be immortalized in marble, though I do look good in my outfit. It’s not a costume, got that? Spandex tights aren’t practical, and because I work exclusively at night, primary colors generally attract gunshots or worse, cops. I hate cops.

  Don’t get me wrong, I completely respect their profession, but they have the bargaining power of a union and are paid for protecting you whereas I’m on my own. When it’s teeming rain outside, they can take shelter in a squad car and watch everyone else get soaked. If it’s the middle of January and the weather office has issued a wind-chill advisory, they can crank up the heat while I zip around town freezing my ass off.

  There are over fifty thousand people in Greenfield and I’m suspicious of every single one of them. I’m not motivated to protect the city and its citizens for noble reasons, and I sure as hell don’t pursue truth, justice and the American way. Like Batman, that is also a damned lie. I’m a crime fighter primarily because of migraine headaches. More on that later.

  Grim Geoffrey, if you’re reading this, you should know that I look forward to finally meeting you. It’s been a helluva ride, hasn’t it? I’m sure you believe that kidnapping Mrs. Aldrich and dispatching your herald to kill eight people was a nifty way of spreading fear throughout the community, but the netherworld is a big place, and human souls are not food. Your remarkable ability to produce a sterile crime scene on eight separate occasions may have befuddled the Greenfield County Sheriff’s Department, but don’t take a bow just yet. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, so expect to be dazzled.

  The summer solstice will soon be here and I’ve left instructions for a news release to go to CNN along with conclusive proof that a flying man resides in Greenfield. I doubt The National Monitor will be paying out the million-dollar reward because if anyone is reading this blog, it means that I am dead and a supernatural phenomenon is underway that makes my existence seem like a fart in the breeze. With this in mind, we’ll start at the beginning and take it from there. Don’t look for me to disclose too much information about my abilities, and don’t assume I am the lone survivor of a long dead planet like that other guy. I was born in Vermont and raised by a single mom. Okay, here goes...

  Chapter 2

  Marnie Brindle lives one floor above my apartment and bugs the hell out of me. I should add that she’s causing my cat Walter to present with some kind of feline neurosis, as he’s taken to scratching my new sofa whenever he hears Shakira’s yodeling voice pounding from the ceiling at all hours. I can’t confirm or deny whether Walter actually dislikes Marnie because whenever she comes downstairs for one of her unannounced visits, he usually hides under my bed and won’t come out until she leaves. I had considered that he might actually be afraid of my nosy neighbor, but he is a treacherous bastard and he’s recently allowed himself to become corrupted with her bribes of Pounce, those vile-smelling nuggets that cats love.

  Marnie didn’t know I existed for the first few months she lived in my building, which at the time was my preference because we have less than nothing in common. In hindsight, I’m glad we met because even though the picture she emailed to Drudge has turned Greenfield into a veritable Roswell, she’s always broke and I would imagine that she’ll be a rich woman when she auctions the cellular telephone she used to snap my picture on eBay.

  At twenty-three years of age, Marnie Brindle’s life is consistent with most people in her demographic. She is addicted to American Idol and has been through a string of boyfriends, all of whom she unceremoniously dumped via email. She complains bitterly about her failing grades at Chesterton College and swears that her Women’s Studies professor is out to get her.

  I’ve never really understood why women feel a need to study themselves, but I can see Marnie’s point. It’s probably very easy for a fifty-something professor who authored three books about female body image in the media to hold a grudge against any woman who fits into that ten-percent of the population best described as “beautiful people.” Then again, show me a college student who doesn’t bitch about their grades and I will show you a bald-headed sheep.

  Are we friends? I guess so. Do I love her? Not sure on that one—ask me later.

  My first encounter with Marnie was after I received her copy of Elle in my mailbox. Did I mention that my letter carrier is an asshole? He pulls this crap all the time. My Apartment number is 112 and Marnie lives in 212 . He’s delivered mail to my building for the past eight years and he knows damned well that the only magazine I subscribe to is Fly Fish America, so this was clearly an act of pure spite.

  It seemed reasonable for me to return the magazine to its rightful owner, so I wandered up the stairs and opened the grey metal door leading to the hallway on the second floor. When I found apartment 212, I planned to slide the magazine under the door so I wouldn’t actually have to come into contact with my neighbor, but the door sweep thwarted my efforts. Realizing that I had no choice but to meet the person who’d become my cat’s nemesis, I knocked on the door, hoping that our encounter wouldn’t last more than one minute.

  When the door opened, a strikingly beautiful young woman wearing gym shorts and a pink t-shirt with the words “Old Navy” across her chest stood before me, clutching a mason jar filled with a grayish looking substance in an oven mitted left hand. Her eyes were green with a touch of amber and s
he wore a puzzled look on her face as she glanced down both sides of the hallway, then back at me. My stomach growled loudly, as the scent of cinnamon and fresh apples filled my nostrils. She looked me over, presumably to ensure I wasn’t some pervert standing at her door,

  “Hello, are you Marnie Brindle?” I asked politely.

  “Yes I am. Are you a courier?”

  “No, just a good Samaritan,” I said, presenting her with the magazine. “I live downstairs in one-twelve, and your apartment is obviously two-twelve . The mailman knows I don’t generally read fashion magazines—not my area.”

  She swept her long red hair back with her right hand and chuckled, still looking amused. “No, I guess you don’t, do you? Well, now that you know my name courtesy of the US Postal Service and Elle magazine, which might you be?”

  Rats.

  I hate questions like that. I like being a hermit, and random introductions of this nature generally lead to boring conversations about the weather when I would rather be lying on my couch looking at the weather through my living room window.

  “I’m Marshall Conrad,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t want to shake my hand.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, cocking an eyebrow. “I’ve seen you before. You’re the guy who walks that Siamese cat in a harness every night.”

  It had begun.

  She’d cornered me into a conversation and I instinctively knew that from this day forward, every time I bumped into her, there would be an inquiry about Walter’s health which would inevitably lead into a subsequent chat about what happened on the last mind-numbing episode of The Surreal Life or worse, twenty-something angst.

  “Uh, yeah, that’s me,” I said, trying to sound polite. “My cat is on an exercise regime because the vet told me he’d die of a heart attack if doesn’t lose ten pounds.”

  “Aww, that’s so sweet.” She smiled, and her voice lilted up an octave, immediately causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end. “I’d get a cat but he’d probably move out just like all of my other roommates.”