The Gifted

  Chapter 23: Fire with fire

  We were already at the base of the stairs that led up to the main school. The problem was going to be getting past all those kids. Each of them with gifts of their own and each of them trained to attack. We all walked up the stairs of the dungeon. Hayasa was panting at my side and running up and down the stairs, whizzing by in a blur. The little paper man walked quickly in front of us, our body guard, even though he was only about seven inches tall. Brock and Tracy were in front, and Han and I were behind them and I have no idea where Guido was. Behind us were the soldiers, some of whom were wounded, but all able to walk.

  Upon reaching the top of the stairs, we came to a door. Brock opened it cautiously and stepped through. The coast was clear, no one around. We all came through, just as two boys entered from another room. We were in a large room, and these boys took one look at us and assumed a fighting stance.

  “Here we go,” said Brock.

  “Here they are, Sam!” said one of the boys. “Let’s practice what we’ve learned.”

  The other boy lifted up his hands and we heard a noise like a loud wind. Then we felt it as it came out of nowhere. It blew the paper guy away and many of us fell over. Brock was big enough that he was able to stay up, but he couldn’t walk forward. There were soldiers sliding on their backs to the back wall, unable to get up. Then Hayasa ran around the outside of the room in a blur, came up behind him and bit him on the rear. “Aaahhh! Get him off me!”

  The other kid ignored his friend and clapped his hands dramatically. Out from his hands came snakes. They looked the size and shape of cobras. Flying from his hands, they started to slither toward us.

  “Ohhh, snakes,” said Brock. “I can do this.”

  At first I thought he was joking, but then I saw him trembling and he was sweating. One of the soldiers said, “I think these are poisonous.” We backed away to the wall. Some men, who were still lying down from the wind, were now getting up and moving toward the corner as well.

  “How do we get rid of snakes?” I asked.

  “On the farm,” said Han, “people shoot snakes with shot guns.”

  “Not here,” said Brock. “The ricochet would kill us.” He turned his head, “Tracy, torch ‘em.”

  “Sure thing,” she said. In seconds, the ground was littered with flaming, sizzling snake meat.

  The boy laughed and said, “There’s plenty more where that came from!” But at that moment our paper ninja came running up from wherever he’d blown to, jogged up the kid’s chest, and punched him in the nose. Blood began to gush. He cried out and ran out the door. Hayasa let go of the other boy, who followed his friend out of the room.

  “We may have more after us soon,” said Brock. “You can bet they’ll tell others.”

  We checked the men, but there were no injuries. We all headed toward the door. We didn’t even get that far. Soon, two boys and a girl showed up. They looked ready for a fight as well. Good practice for them, I guess.

  One boy closed his eyes and I felt a sudden fear. This was not just like being afraid of the dark. This was fear of horrible things happening to me. I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of dying, afraid of spiders, afraid of being lost, afraid of losing my family, and afraid of bubble gum getting stuck in my hair all at once! It made no sense. I knew it was this boy. Many of the men started to tremble when he did this.

  I remembered a Bible verse I had to memorize in school which said, “Fear not, for I am with you.” I often thought of this when I felt scared or lonely. And who is bigger than God? I focused on this verse, saying it over and over. When I opened my eyes, everyone else was crouching down in fear. I straightened up, still feeling fear, but knowing it was a lie. I walked over to the boy in spite of what I felt, reached down and grabbed his ankles out from under him. He crashed to the ground. Then I grabbed a couple of dead, burnt snakes that were lying next to him and I tied his hands and ankles so he could not get up. Kind of gross, but it worked.

  The second boy looked at me, shocked. Then he closed his eyes. The room got cold. Really cold. I could see my breath, but this didn’t really stop me. It was a neat trick though. I looked for other scraps of snakes, but couldn’t find any. Before I even got a chance, I heard a “thunk” sound. Brock, no longer afraid since I took care of the first boy, had walked up to the second boy and clubbed him on the head with his fist. The boy toppled to the ground like a load of laundry. “I don’t think he’ll be doing that again anytime soon,” he said.

  The girl who was left surprised us when she opened up her mouth and out came a deafening siren sound. Then she turned and ran away.

  “Uh oh,” I said. “I guess that means we can expect others soon.”

  “Then let’s get moving,” said Brock.

  Brock picked up the pace to a jog, and all the men followed him, including the injured. It reminded me of the days back at the training facility when our trainer would get us jogging daily. I missed those days, mostly because I wasn’t scared for my life back then.

  We ran out of the room and into the hallway, following Brock, who was taking cues from Tracy. It did not take long, though, before we encountered more kids. One came in and immediately closed his eyes in concentration, but our dog, Hayasa, streaked up to him, ran right up his body, and bit him on the nose. He yelled a muffled yell while the Hayasa was still hanging on to his nose. I almost laughed. When Hayasa finally let go of him, the paper man ripped the kid’s shirt off, tore it into strips, and tied him up.

  Brock said, “When we go fast, they don’t have enough time to focus. Let’s keep up the speed!”

  For the next two boys we saw, Hayasa, who was the fastest of us, distract them. Then the paper man took care of one and Brock took care of the other. Things were going smoothly so far.

  “Where do we go?” said Brock.

  “We still have a long ways,” said Tracy. “Go up ahead, then to the right.”

  When we turned, we saw a group of kids, both boys and girls. They looked like they were waiting for us. Many of them already had their eyes closed. This was bad, very bad.

  I heard a couple of our men in back yell simultaneously, “Aggh!” and fall to the ground. One yelled loudly to another, “Do you see that?”

  “I see it,” said the other.

  “How could they get that Elephant in here?” He sounded scared. But they were staring at a blank wall! Hallucinations.

  Several of our men began to talk in other languages and could not understand each other. A few soldiers started to fight each other for no apparent reason. It was complete mayhem!

  How could we fight against all this? I felt an uncontrollable itching on my stomach. It was so overpowering I dropped to the ground and started scratching my stomach. I couldn’t believe that I was going to die because I couldn’t control an itch!

  As we were all helplessly being affected in one way or another, I heard an “Ouch!” from one of our tormentors. “Thud,” he hit the ground. While scratching wildly, I heard another kid fall. One by one, each of the kids fell to the ground for no reason I could see. My itching stopped in an instant. Once they were all down, I heard Guido yell up ahead, “Come On, let’s go! Hurry!” He had saved us. While we were under their power, Guido went totally unnoticed. Our enemies couldn’t affect what they didn’t know was there.

  “Our stealth hit man,” said Brock. “Good job, Guido. Okay men, let’s get moving!”

  We all got up. There were a few bloody noses and other injuries, mostly from the men who had been fighting each other. They apologized and shook hands. We were off again.

  Jogging down the hallway again, we came to a place where the floor fell away. Hayasa came near the edge and backed away, his tongue hanging out. One moment there was a floor and the next it was a bottomless pit.

  “What?” I said. “How could this be?”

  “I guess it was something built for emergencies like this,” said Brock. “Is there another way over?” he asked.


  “None I know of,” said Tracy.

  “Somehow we have to get to the other side,” Brock shouted. “I’m currently taking ideas from any of you. It’s probably 30 feet to the other side. There’s no floor but we have the walls and ceiling.”

  “But I’ve never seen this before,” I said.

  “You were only here a few days,” said Brock. “Did you expect them to tell you all their secrets?”

  “I guess not,” I said.

  “I’ll give it a shot Captain,” said a tall lanky soldier. “I do a bit of climbing back home.”

  He tried getting finger holds on the bricks, but there just wasn’t enough to grab ahold of. “If I had my climbing equipment I could do it,” he said. “But freestyle, there’s no way.”

  “Paper guy could make it,” said Han. Then he had the paper man climb up the wall and over to the other side. He was safely on the ground. But no one else could follow.

  The climber said, “We need handholds.”

  “Oh,” said Brock. “Right. Do you mean like this?” He pulled out his gun and I immediately covered my ears with my hands. “This might ricochet a bit down the hall.” He pulled the trigger repeatedly.

  I remember one time when I was in the mountains with a few friends and we saw a tree hit by lightening. It was only a few feet away from us and the sound was so loud I thought I was dead. This sound was like that. The sound drove my eardrums through my skull. Again and again.

  The bullets were so big that they blew big chunks out of the wall. There seemed to be no ricochet. Some bullets went all the way through so we could see daylight. Hayasa whined in pain.

  When Brock was done, there were hand and footholds all the way to the other side, but Brock had to reload twice to do it. Our experienced climber went first. He got safely to the other side, showing us the right way to do it as he went.

  As soon as he reached the other side, I thought I heard a sound like muffled laughter from far down the hall, though it was hard to tell with so much ringing in my ears.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked. But no one else responded. Maybe it was my imagination.

  Next, other soldiers went across. It took a while, but eventually all of us got over the drop-off. The last man took Hayasa and strapped him to his back before climbing. Hayasa whined, but didn’t resist. Once he got to the other side, I thought I heard the sound of retreating steps.

  “One of the soldiers said, “Look!” We all turned around, and the bottomless hole was gone.

  “What happened?” said Brock.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  We all followed Brock. He was the kind of leader we needed. A man of action who knew how to fight and would do what it took to get us to where we needed to go. I was glad to not have the responsibility of all these men.

  “Up ahead take another right,” said Tracy.

  We went right and were surprised by a blaze of fire in front of us from one side of the hallway to the other. The fire reached to the ceiling and left no safe place to cross. “They must have lit it when they knew we were coming,” said Brock. “What is it, a gas fire or something?”

  Hayasa was running up to the fire, barking and then running back. He did this repeatedly.

  “Do we have any flame resistant clothes?” I said.

  “Nothing like that,” said Brock. “We just didn’t come prepared for anything like this. This is the strangest military campaign.” He shook his head. “Give me bullets and grenades any day.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Tracy.

  “Well,” said Brock, “it must have limited fuel. I don’t see anything feeding it.”

  “What do we do?” I said.

  “In that case, we wait,” said Brock. “It will eventually run out of fuel and burn out. And be prepared for any kids who come from behind.”

  We all sat down and just waited. No one else came to fight us and all we could hear was the crackle of fire and the smell of smoke. After a few minutes I heard stifled laughter again. A thought occurred to me.

  I walked over to Tracy. “I think I’ve got it!”

  “I hope it’s not catching” said Tracy.

  “Can you create a fire, much like this one?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Not as intense, but I could make a fire that’s similar.”

  “Great,” I said. “Put it right where that one is.”

  Tracy furled her brow, “But there’s one already there.”

  “Can you trust me in this?”

  “Okay.” She closed her eyes and concentrated.

  I could see no difference, but then, “Ouch! Ahhh!” A boy who had not been there a second ago ran away from us down the hall, his pants smoking.

  “That’s our fire!” I shouted. “Get him!”

  Immediately the fire before us disappeared and Brock took off like a bullet before anyone else even moved. He tackled the kid to the ground knocking him unconscious as he did so. Brock was no lightweight.

  Tracy spoke up, “The fire was imaginary, wasn’t it? He was hiding in it.”

  I laughed, “Sometimes, Tracy, you’ve got to fight fire with fire.”

  Chapter 24: Things revealed

  We walked up to Brock who wasn’t even breathing hard. “That was our bottomless pit too, I’ll bet,” said Guido.

  “What a waste of ammo,” said Brock. “Those bullets are special made. So now we have to remember, we can’t believe everything we see.”

  Suddenly we heard the roar of a large beast that sent a shiver up my spine. On the other end of the hallway was a boy in the process of turning into a beast.

  “Jeremy,” said Tracy. “I know him. And yes, this is real.” Hayasa started barking up a storm.

  “How many guys did you get to know, anyway?” said Guido.

  Tracy turned red, but didn’t reply.

  “Great,” said Brock. “Just what we needed.” Brock, pulled out his gun. “Well, there’s one way I know to stop a charging animal.”

  “No!” yelled Tracy. “Please don’t kill him!”

  “I won’t kill him,” said Brock. “I’ll just maim him a little. Maybe give him a permanent limp.”

  “In that case, fire away!” said Tracy.

  Brock fired at the beast, but it bounced off.

  “Not good,” said Guido.

  The animal, which looked like a cross between a bull and a goat, was stamping its feet as though it was about to charge. “Prepare for retreat, men!”

  “I don’t think we can run from it either,” said Tracy.

  “Ideas?” said Brock.

  Guido spoke up, “What are all animals afraid of?”

  “Fire!” yelled Tracy. “Han, do you have any more paper?”

  Han smiled again and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out three folded sheets of paper. “Airplanes,” Tracy said, in a panic.

  Han commenced folding so fast I could hardly see his fingers. “Impressive,” said Brock.

  Then Tracy said, “And a man.”

  While Han was working on it, the bull-goat started charging. “To the walls!” shouted Brock as it approached. Everyone lunged against the walls at the last second. But the bull-goat turned its head just after Brock shouted and slashed at Brock with its horns. “Aach!” yelled Brock, and the bull rushed on by. Once it passed, Hayasa ran up the animal’s back and was now seated just behind its head and was panting excitedly. He did this for a moment, and then zipped back off the animal’s back and came back to join us.

  Brock was bleeding through his shirt about belly button height. I must have looked concerned, “I’m okay,” he said trying to smile at me.

  Han knelt back down, working on his paper man, like the first, except smaller. “I think he’s after me,” said Brock. “Everyone else to the walls!” Brock stood his ground in the middle of the passageway while the bull-goat charged from the opposite direction.

  Everyone else flattened themselves against the walls. As the bull lowered its horns to attack, Brock
leaped in the air. The bull-goat lifted up its horns at the last second, but Brock was already behind its head, coming down almost on the tail of the beast while it rushed on by.

  Han finished the paper man. Tracy shouted, “Okay, everything goes to the bull!”

  Han breathed on the planes and threw them. Then he breathed on the new paper man and the new and the old one starting running toward the bull.

  The bull-goat looked confused. Tracy closed her eyes and both planes ignited. Hayasa gave a yelp and now the bull-goat’s eyes got large and it turned the other way, but just stood there, staring at the planes, unmoving.

  Tracy closed her eyes again and the heads of the two paper men caught fire. At this, the bull creature began a slow canter, but as they got closer it started to run in earnest, with the paper fires following behind.

  “Men!” Brock yelled, “Follow that fire!”

  All of us began to run. Because we were following the fires, and the bull was running from them, it looked like we were chasing the bull. Tracy said, “This way!” She entered through a door on the right and we followed behind. The last we saw of the bull, it was snorting and running as fast as it could away from us and the flaming paper men.

  Once we got through the door, we saw cubicles and small work spaces. The office. “Click!” We heard the cocking of the hammer of an ancient gun. A man in a military uniform held the gun leveled at Brock’s head. Then several things at once happened. First Hayasa was the last to come through the door and he came as a blur. The man, startled, said, “What?” Brock dropped to the ground, simultaneously pulling out his much larger gun, and pointed it at the man’s chest. Brock’s gun looked like a canon compared to that of the other man. The man dropped his gun and ran out of the room through the other door. Brock let him go.

  Hayasa was happily panting and looking at us. I gave him a pat on the head and said, “Good boy!”

  “That settles that then,” said Brock. He put the gun away and stood up. “Now where do we look?”

  “I have no idea,” said Tracy.

  “Okay, men,” said Brock. “I know we’re soldiers, not paper pushers, but let’s see what we can find.”

  “What are we looking for?” I asked.

  “Something important,” said Brock.

  “Right,” said Guido. “That really settles it. I thought you were going to say something enigmatic, big guy.”