Marshall Conrad: A Superhero Tale Page 24

“And what do I do?”

  “You’ll head to Delaney Park and take out his host before Grim Geoffrey emerges.”

  “Where’s Ruby during all this?” I asked, nervous as hell about the tight timeline.

  “With me,” said Stella. “I’ll need her there to recite the incantation. Only a Chieftain or a Vanguard has the power to project their voice across an entire city. Once we’ve cast the spell, we’ll meet you at Delaney Park to help you subdue his host or destroy Grim Geoffrey, whichever comes first.”

  I slumped back in the sofa, absorbing everything Stella told me.

  It sounded like a workable plan, but there were still many unknown variables. What if the spell didn’t work? What if Grim Geoffrey’s host didn’t show up as planned? I already knew what would happen if we couldn’t destroy the Púca; that was the easy part. A lingering sense of doom twisted my stomach into knots. Ruby and I had been unsuccessful at finding a portal after scouring the area for days, and I’d missed my chance to capture the host the previous night.

  Fate would decide the outcome. I had to somehow make peace with this fact.

  I made a conscious decision to warn everyone about the cataclysm that was about to unfold should we fail to destroy Grim Geoffrey. If technology was responsible for revealing that a superhero saved Marilyn Aldrich, I’d use the same technology to warn the rest of the country about the dangerous days ahead.

  Chapter 41

  I slept surprisingly well for a guy who was probably going to be dead by the end of the solstice.

  I’d initially thought Stella had put some kind of herbal sedative in the tea, but she and Ruby had left for The Curiosity Nook hours before I crawled off the sofa.

  I got dressed and hopped in the Tempo, deciding I’d simply sneak back into my apartment to write the blog. Matters were now out of my hands and I had to trust Ruby and Stella to come up with one hell of a dark spell to put psychic blinders on the citizens of Greenfield.

  As I drove past The Curiosity Nook, I noticed a large crowd had gathered just outside and were peering in the windows. Boris Yeltsin wasn’t waving and a closed sign hung loosely from his hand.

  “That makes sense,” I muttered. “Where else would all the kooks go if not the kookiest store in town?” I slowed down and considered going in the back entrance, but changed my mind at the last second. Ruby and Stella needed to complete the final preparations for the spell and I imagined Ruby was cursing up a storm, knowing the geeks and freaks were clamoring to come inside. The last thing they needed was for me to hang around asking stupid questions.

  I stepped on the gas and within minutes I’d pulled into the parking lot outside my building. I looked around for Marnie’s white Honda Civic. It was nowhere to be seen, so I decided to park my car in a vacant spot beside a large motor home, thinking she wouldn’t see my car.

  I snuck in to the building, looking over my shoulder just in case Marnie was around, then went in my apartment. As I closed the door, I noticed a pink envelope on the floor, so I sat down on my easy chair and opened it up. It was a letter from Marnie.

  Dear Marshall:

  I knew it was you all along, I only wish that we’d trusted each other enough to talk about your secret before you freaked out on me.

  Marnie

  At least Marnie admitted it was she who took the picture, not that it mattered.

  I folded the letter and slid it into my pocket, then went to the fridge and grabbed a Red Bull. The leftover Thai Food from my dinner with Marnie was still on the table, and I sighed heavily as I went to the spare bedroom to fire up the computer.

  I grabbed my credit card and registered “Greenfieldsuperhero.com” with a hosting service from outside the country. Within minutes I received an email telling me how to log into my hosting service and set up a web page. I found a simple blog format and installed it on the server.

  Then, I started to write.

  I kept on writing for the better part of a day, then spent a few hours editing and rewriting over eighty thousand words that gave a detailed account of the events leading up to my discovery on the Drudge Report. It felt a lot like I was completing a condensed autobiography, but that wasn’t my intent. While I’d become disgusted by the media furor and resulting invasion of kooks after news of my existence became public, I kept my focus on presenting the facts as I knew them: The unseen world was real. There was a mass grave containing the bodies of five homeless people the public was unaware of. Grim Geoffrey needed fear and mass hysteria to build his domain in the mortal realm. He had designs on expanding his domain and people had better forget about the images they’d be seeing on the news showing Greenfield residents hacking one another to pieces if they planned to survive.

  After I finished the blog, I prepared a brief news release that pointed to my web address and then I used my web cam to record a video file of me hovering above the floor of my spare bedroom, glowing eyes and all. This would be the conclusive proof for anyone doubting that I was Greenfield’s mysterious flying man.

  There was one problem.

  I’d uploaded the video file to the server, and the blog was ready to go. What I needed someone to fire off the news release to the media, I just didn’t know who that someone would be. I’d assumed that either Ruby or Stella could do it, but one or both of them might die. I decided there was no way of knowing who, if anyone, would survive the night, so I scrawled the web address to the blog with the login and password onto two sticky notes, one for Ruby and the other for Stella. I stuffed them into the pocket of my leather jacket and glanced at my watch. 7:05 PM.

  According to the plan Stella’d hatched, I was to arrive at Delaney Park at 8:45, so I changed into my outfit, went to the kitchen, and nuked a Quesadilla because it was the only thing in my fridge the gremlins hadn’t eaten. “Cripes, even guys on death row get a better last meal than this,” I grumbled as I munched away.

  My stomach was in knots so I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, then gulped down a huge mouthful of Pepto Bismol. It didn’t help. I switched off the bathroom light and stepped into the front hallway when I heard a familiar sound coming from my living room

  “Meow,” Walter wailed from atop my easy chair. I walked into the living room and plopped myself down on the sofa. Walter jumped onto my lap and started rubbing his head against my chin, purring like an outboard motor.

  “Hi, pal. You’ve come to say goodbye, haven’t you?” I asked, scratching behind his ears.

  Walter looked up at me and blinked, as if he was saying yes.

  Suddenly I was awash in sadness as I pulled Walter to my chest and sobbed.

  “Stupid goddamned cat,” I said, choking back the tears. Walter rubbed his head against my face and kneaded my chest. To anyone looking in, it would have been a pathetic spectacle, but it was bittersweet.

  I cradled him in my arms as I left my apartment and headed to the parking lot. When I stepped outside the building, I noticed the temperature had dropped, and it smelled like rain. I held Walter in the air, taking one last good look at him. His black legs stuck out of his fat body like the branches on a tree.

  “Walt, it’s time for you to get outta Dodge,” I said.

  Walter meowed one last time as I put him down on the ground.

  “Scat!” I shouted, and Walter took off into the night.

  Since there was still a remote possibility that I would actually defeat Grim Geoffrey, I decided to destroy my car before Sheriff Don Neuman figured out a way to plant the severed head from the mass grave. It would be just my luck to destroy the creature responsible for the unsolved murders and then come home to find a posse of deputies waiting at my doorstep. I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance—the Tempo had to go. If I were going to destroy my car in the parking lot outside my building, that meant someone would probably see me, record it and send it to the news media.

  I could already hear the lead-in on Fox News: Greenfield Superhero Attacks Ford Tempo while Mythical Creature Oversees Mass Slaught
er of Citizens.

  It didn’t matter.

  The wind stirred around my feet as I walked toward my car, then I heard something.

  “Goddammit!” a female voice shouted from the general direction of the Tempo. I jumped behind a minivan and did a quick scan of the parking lot for a white Honda Civic, but I didn’t see one. “Shit!” the voice rang out again. It sounded like Marnie Brindle. I crept toward my car, keeping myself hidden behind the chestnut trees that formed the perimeter of the parking lot until I spotted the Tempo. It was Marnie, all right. She’d smashed the passenger window and was rifling through the glove box, still searching for proof. But why? Her note pronounced her belief that I was her rescuer, so why break into my car?

  I watched her for another minute and then decided the time had come to reveal myself in my entire unnatural splendor. Well, not really, but it sounded good.

  If there was anyone who I wanted to survive what was about to unfold, it was Marnie. It didn’t matter how much she’d obsessed over proving I was a superhero, she was still a good person and deserved to live. Then it dawned on me: here was the person who could publish my blog. I looked at my watch again. It was 7:21 PM—more than enough time to grab Marnie and fly her to safety.

  “Here goes,” I said, as I pulled my hood over my head and stretched out my hands.

  I pushed off the ground and slowly lifted above the chestnut trees. My eyes began to glow as I hovered about thirty feet above my car.

  “Marnie Brindle... Stop vandalizing that Ford Tempo!” I shouted, trying to sound like the voice of doom.

  Startled, Marnie jumped out of the passenger seat and looked up, the color draining from her face.

  “M-Marshall?” she squeaked. “Is that you?”

  “There isn’t time to explain,” I said, sounding ominous. “Step back from that car!”

  In an instant, Marnie’s legs buckled and she fainted.

  Chapter 42

  I carried Marnie to a safe place under a chestnut tree until she came to, and then turned my attention to the Tempo.

  I’d paid less than a thousand dollars for it, so it wasn’t like I was destroying something of great value. I couldn’t torch it—that would bring the fire department, and the fire might spread to other cars. Instead, I decided to drop it.

  You know, from a great height.

  I stepped in front of the Tempo and grabbed the bumper, lifting the car up to my waist. Then I squatted down and heaved it up onto its rear bumper so the front end of the car was pointing at the sky. I reached underneath, keeping one hand on the front end, grabbed a handful of the frame, and then slowly raised the car over my head, groaning under the strain.

  “M-Marshall—what are you doing?” she shouted, astonished.

  “Just stay there.” I bent my knees. “I’ll be right back.”

  A line of cars had stopped on the street next to my parking lot and a crowd of people stood on the sidewalk, their collective jaws dropped.

  “Nothing to see here!” I shouted, pushing against the ground until I was in the air. I shot straight up to a little more than two hundred feet and started looking for a place to drop the Tempo. I spotted a freshly excavated tract of land where they were going to build a new subdivision. It was empty of any people or vehicles, so it seemed like a good place. I flew for about a minute until I was certain there was nothing below me and then shoved with all my might.

  The Tempo plummeted to earth like a meteor, smashing into the ground with a tremendous crash that echoed into the distance. A cloud of dust blew out in all directions as car parts shot into the air. I flew down to take a look, and smiled. It had landed on its roof and crumpled under its weight. The door pillars had caved in and all that was left of my car was a flattened-out shape that once resembled a reliable automobile.

  “Take that, Don Neuman,” I sneered, as I took off into the sky and headed back to my building. Marnie was walking around in a daze, so I dove down and grabbed her like a hawk snatching a ground squirrel for a snack.

  She screamed as her legs dangled in the air until I scooped her into my arms and jettisoned skyward.

  “Don’t look down,” I said. “Just keep your eyes closed and hold on.”

  “M-Marshall, are you going to kill me because of the picture I took?”

  “No Marnie, I don’t kill people I care about,” I said.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “As far the hell away from Greenfield as possible,” I said, reassuringly.

  “W-Why did you wreck your car? W-What’s going on?”

  I turned my head and looked at her. The glow from my eyes lit up her face, giving her an angelic appearance. “A cataclysm that’s going to make news of my existence seem like a fart in the breeze,” I said.

  “C-Cataclysm?”

  “Magic, evil juju, mythical creatures and mass hysteria—the stuff of nightmares.”

  She threw her face into my shoulder and squeezed her arms around my neck so tightly that I thought she’d cut off my circulation.

  “I-Is this about the rocks—the spirals?”

  “Yep. And eight murders and one big ass demon.”

  “Demon?”

  “Don’t ask. If you don’t hear from me you’ll be hearing about it on the radio.”

  “This isn’t real, it can’t be,” she said in a stunned voice. “I’m not really here.”

  “You’re here,” I said, as my eyes blazed through the sky. “Things were humming along nicely until you outed me. I’m not too happy about that.”

  “A-Are you going to drop me like you did with your car?” she asked, dead serious.

  “Nope. I’m saving your life because I care about you. That and you’re going to be doing something of critical importance,” I said, scanning the ground for a good place to land.

  “W-What?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said.

  I spotted a truck stop on about a mile ahead and decided it would do. I’d been following the Interstate for about ten miles, carefully keeping track of the exits to ensure that we were far enough outside Greenfield to guarantee her safety. I leaned into the air current and started a controlled descent toward a fireguard about a quarter mile from the truck stop where I would drop her off and give instructions.

  We landed a few hundred yards from where the fireguard intersected with the Interstate, and I put her down. I could hear the sound of transport trucks roaring by, so I knew she’d have a short walk to the truck stop. I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of the sticky notes, then handed it to her.

  “What’s this?” she asked, still sounding frightened.

  “The web address for a blog I’ve prepared,” I said. “Everything the world needs to know about me and what’s going to happen tonight in Greenfield is on there.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “Partly to explain who the hell I am, thanks to you,” I said. “But mostly warnings for people to take shelter, hide, run like hell—whatever. I don’t expect I’ll live through the night.”

  “O-Okay.” She forced a weak smile. “Whatever you say.”

  I reached into my pocket and handed her an envelope. “This is a news release that you will fax to CNN. The fax number is inside. You will fax this news release if you don’t hear from me by morning. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I’ll do it.”

  “Good,” I said, putting my hands on her waist. “I am not some do-gooder from another planet. It’s still plain old cranky Marshall underneath the hood and behind the glowing eyes.”

  Marnie nodded, her eyes welled up with tears.

  “I want to apologize for yelling at you the other night. I had to go.”

  She sniffed and rubbed her eyes with a sleeve. “I understand.”

  “Good, then,” I said. “Before I leave, you need to know that everything I told you about my feelings was true. I might have lied to you about saving you that night at Chesterton, but it was necessary. I’m not a superhero. Half the time
I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing. What you need to understand is that while I’ve kept secrets, I never once lied to you about my feelings.”

  She threw her arms around me and buried her face in my chest. Her body let out a painful series of sobs. Grief and fear poured out of her like water through the spillway of a dam.

  “I’m so sorry, Marshall, I am so sorry for everything,” she sobbed, not holding back. “A-Are you really going to die?”

  I pulled her close and tried to sound hopeful, but I had to be honest. There had been more than enough secrets between us, and I didn’t want this last moment with the woman who’d touched my heart go to waste.

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” I whispered. “Nobody will be more surprised than me if I survive this night. I want you to know that until you walked into my life, I was a hollow shell of a man. I was angry at the world for losing Cynthia, and I didn’t believe I would ever find love again. You changed all that. Somehow you changed me. Always remember that, no matter what happens.”

  She looked up at me and tried to smile. “I w-will,” she said, quietly.

  “I have to go now,” I said.

  “I know.”

  I looked up at the sky and readied myself to take off when she put her hands on my face and kissed me, full and hard and not wanting to let go. I took her hands and slowly brought them to my chest.

  “Stand back now.” I said, as I bent my knees and gently lifted off the ground, hovering higher and higher until I was just above the treetops.

  “I’m in love with you, Marshall Conrad!” Marnie shouted, jumping up and down.

  And then I was gone.

  Chapter 43

  The rain started falling, softly at first, then in a constant stream that stung my eyes.

  I looked at my watch. 7:43 PM. Marnie would be well on her way to the truck stop. Now all I had to do was head over to Delaney Park and wait.

  Rolling terrain passed below me as I dodged air pockets and swirling downdrafts that smashed against the top of my body, dropping me dozens of feet in an instant. I’d adjust my trajectory, pushing my body through columns of steel-colored clouds, supercharged electric energy that threatened to lash out at me as I forced my way through the gathering storm.