Teachers are a lot of horrible things. First, they are demanding. They make you show your work when you have the answer already figured out in six seconds. They force you to do scads and scads of problems just to show you can embed a single formula somewhere in your cranium. They all seem to conspire to give you huge amounts of homework on the same weekends that new games or movies come out.
Second, teachers are hypocrites. They tell you to act like proper human beings and then prop their feet up on their desks. They tell you to sit up, and then sit on their desks hunched over. They tell you smoking’s bad for you, and light up as soon as they get in their cars to head home. They urge you to be punctual and then leave you sitting outside their classroom ten minutes after first bell goes. They never apologize for loading you up with a million things to do. They never seem to accept it when you just get the project done and no more. They make themselves out to be these all-seeing, all-knowing beings without a single fault, and when you test them, they admit they don’t know.
But as far as teachers went, Michael had never known teachers to be violent. Oh, sure, he’d heard the stories about the old guard history teacher with the baseball bat he’d slam on students’ desks if they fell asleep, and he’d heard about the time that the baseball bat broke some kid’s fingers a few years ago, but you never knew who the kid was. And you’d hear about the teacher who got fired for flicking a student on the ear, but you never knew who that teacher was.
You never heard about getting bum rushed by thirty teachers all at once with murder in their eyes, but that’s just what was happening. At least he’d have gone out doing some damage.
And it was a sweet shot, if he did say so. Michael’s W-bomb sailed through the air with just enough time for Mr. L to flinch to one side and take the hit on his shoulder rather than his nose. There was a satisfying crunch, and Mr. L spun to the floor with a sissy little shriek of pain.
“Good job Mikey,” Terrence Jackson called. “Now get your skinny little butt out of here!”
“Don’t call me Mikey!” he shouted. The army of zombie teachers was pounding up the stairs. The only ways down were the elevator (yeah right) and jumping fifteen feet down onto bookshelves. Both were right out. Neither was he keen on getting torn limb from limb by a pack of wild teachers. He didn’t have a whole lot of options here.
“Go on Charlotte,” he muttered as he went. “Get out of here. Go on.”
Michael darted back to the reference shelves and heaved out another volume. This one was random. He definitely had enough time to get in position and, there, hurl another book bomb down at the bad guy.
The heavy volume plummeted through the air, but Mr. L was quicker this time. One of the teachers raised her hand and the book exploded into a thousand fluttery, charred and burning little pieces. It was like flaming snow.
Nuts.
The mob of teachers appeared at the doorway and surged toward him. Well, that was it for his options. If he went down the elevator, he was going to be facing ten or fifteen rabid teachers when the doors slid open. He could go up, and, what? Delay getting caught by another minute? Get Mr. L even angrier with him?
He climbed up on one of the study desks and looked out over the edge of the railing. It looked like a long way to fall, with nothing soft to land on. The tops of the bookshelves were covered in other books, globes, and a couple of toys that went with the books. They weren’t even that wide, those bookshelves. Even if he landed on one he was bound to fall the wrong way and fall an extra four feet to the floor below. And that floor had carpeting so thin and hard you could use it in wood shop as sand paper. Or a saw.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Mr. L said.
“Right here, Mikey!” Terrence shouted.
Sure, he could jump down onto the people holding Terrence, if he was an Olympic long jumper. There was no way he’d clear fifteen feet with one jump. More likely he’d land on a chair or a table and break every single bone in his body.
They were getting closer. Michael looked straight down. It would be a simpler drop, just land on the bookshelf and sprint toward the exit. Just dodge around the super-zombie teachers and avoid getting scorched into nothing. He wondered if the terror squirming around in his stomach was the same kind of thing people felt when they were about to commit suicide.
He jumped.
And landed hard. Books clattered off the top of the shelf, and his knee banged against a globe, instantly tearing it open on the metal top, but the globe itself went flying off the top of the bookshelf. The pain was bright and immediate, but he tried not to listen to it. It might be telling him to lie down and cry until his mom showed up with the band-aids, but this was neither the time nor the place. He steadied himself with his hands, then bolted down the aisle toward the only exit available.
“Get after him!” Mr. L screamed. A dozen zombie faces turned and started moving toward the exit, but for some reason they weren't sprinting like the others. Then he realized: these ones were all older. The ones who had come up the stairs were the younger teachers. Did it make a difference? He didn't have time to find out.
Michael's body was a lean, mean running machine. He'd taken a few beatings, but more importantly, he'd worked his tail off two and half hours a day pedaling and running all over the neighborhood to pay off Trent, and later just because he liked making money.
So when he bolted, he really bolted. The books on top of the shelves didn't matter now, they were just hurdles. He imagined himself jumping over bikes and dogs and lawnmowers in peoples' yards. The front door came closer and closer with every hop. And then the Actives hit him.
Somebody pushed him, just a nudge and he lost his balance. He fell full on into the next bookshelf. Fire raced up his back where he cracked his spine against a couple of dozen other spines. He cried out in pain, this time he couldn't help it, before finally smacking into that scrub-sponge carpeting. All the air instantly left his body, and it was a miracle he got any back into his lungs after that. It was torture just to take a breath. Now both his knees were scraped up, along with his elbows.
They were getting closer now, and though Michael knew it, he couldn't make his body get up and go. It could have been worse, he knew that. Charlotte had all the time in the world to get out. That was the important thing. He tried to focus on Charlotte, but the pain kept bringing him back to the present.
“Well there, the all-important little bag of dirt, Mr. Michael Washington, in the flesh.”
Michael slumped over onto his back and got a look at Mr. L's big fat smug smile. Yeah, those eyes were nuts. You could see right away, and Michael wondered how he'd missed that.
“I'm not even a telepath!” he tried to say. Failed. The sound his tortured lungs made was more like 'nuh, tuh'.
“I have to give you some credit though,” Mr. L said. He was holding his arm. “At least you put up a fight. I couldn’t just let you die at that assembly. And that Trent kid couldn’t finish the job either. Too bad nobody's going to remember you. And we've had our setbacks, young Mr. Washington, but let's not let that stop us, shall we? Where was I?”
Mr. L had put all those kids up to the task of killing Michael. It all made sense, in a twisted sort of way. Whatever Mr. L thought Michael had, he didn’t. Whatever ability he was supposed to get wasn’t there. Still, that didn’t stop Mr. L from mistakenly believing it, and wanting him dead all the same.
Mr. L turned, squinted, then smiled again.
“You know why I love telepathy?” he asked.
“You're...out of...your mind?” Michael wheezed.
“Ha! Oh, aha, that was great. Out of my mind...and in someone else's mind. I get it, I get jokes, I do. Such spirit. My associates would like you, I'm sure of it. No, I like telepathy because you can take all the fight out of people, even after you give up the power. It’s no regeneration. Sure you can’t die, but your enemies are still coming after you. With telepathy though, you mess with somebody’s mind enough, they aren’t coming out of it. They’re ju
st like putty, Michael, you shape them however you like. More bang for your buck.”
He spread his fingers and his entire hand erupted into flame.
“I was just going to let this town bowl itself over. Let everything fall apart while the people started rioting. You can just imagine it...so and so doesn't bring back the lawnmower after he borrows it, and the owner's had a bad day, so he obliterates his neighbor. Then the tardy lawnmower borrower's friends come over for poker night, find his smoking skeleton, and war starts. Houses get smashed to bits. It's Tallahassee and Memphis and Peoria all over again. It's Salem Oregon and Rio de Jeneiro and Prague and Gwangzhou. Poof! Only this one, you know, you've got so many Actives here, it would just about upset the earth's revolution, and end up with us freezing to death before we crashed into Mars.” He threw back his head and brayed laughter. There was something definitely donkey-like about him, and it wasn’t just the laugh.
“Why?” Michael wheezed.
“Why, yes, that’s always the question,” Mr. L said. “Why? Because when you have these abilities, you don’t limit yourself. You don’t tell an Olympic sprinter to slow down. You don’t tell the scientists to hold back and call it a day. Scientists keep pushing the boundaries of what we know, runners run as hard as they can, and Actives need to be, well, active. We have to use it, find out all it can do. Take this ability. You’d think Mr. Terrence Jackson over there could make himself into a god. He could transform the world. You set up the subconscious blocks, and people are no longer a threat to you. They follow your directions, and they tear apart their minds if they ever think of trying to resist. Why, Michael, should we have to limit ourselves? Because we could break their little buildings and upset the little civilization out there? Because everybody else is afraid of us? Let them be afraid. They should be terrified, they’re obsolete.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something. It was a flicker of movement... it was himself. There was a boy standing near the library office who looked just like him. No, exactly like him.
Michael sighed theatrically. “What’s the fire for anyway?” he asked.
The smirk dropped off Mr. L’s face. “What?”
“I’m starting to think you’re just going to talk me to death.”
“Why you little—” and he stopped, staring up at something. “What the... no! This one must be an imposter. Get him!”
Michael didn’t know what happened exactly, and stood up to get a better look as Mr. L started forward. Both of them stopped short as Mr. Jackson shouted.
“Go on, run you idiot!”
Michael didn’t have to be told twice. He ran for it. Fresh pain lanced up from his elbows and knees, and he pushed past a confused zombie teacher before coming to the automatic doors. They almost didn’t open at all, and he nearly smashed face first into them. They parted just as a burst of fire erupted near his shoulder. He couldn’t risk a glance back, not with the other Michael Washington running up ahead of him.
He burst out of the library and away. Charlotte went one way, and he dashed the other. At least if they caught him, they wouldn’t get her. She could change into basically anybody, so she’d be impossible to find. Then she could get back to her mom and dad.
His mom and dad…
Mr. L was already turning the whole town into a bunch of zombies, starting with the city’s teachers. It wasn’t going to be long before he had control over everybody in town. He could just use Mr. Jackson’s powers to take over the police, and have them shoot anybody who resisted. And when the big boys, the super super powers showed up to make sure the police couldn’t hurt anybody else, boom, Mr. L would take them too.
He didn’t have much time.
There were maybe ten thousand people in town, give or take. Michael had to figure out a way to warn as many of them as he could as quickly as he could. Without help, Mr. L was going to destroy everything. He had to know what Mr. L was doing.
He found a place not far away from the library where he could watch Mr. L go out and into the world. And go he did. Ten teachers went out with Mr. Jackson held up between them. Mr. L went too, somewhere in the procession of teachers. They handed Mr. Jackson around in shifts before they tired themselves out and dropped from exhaustion. As they walked, people walking or driving by stopped what they were doing and joined the enormous blobs of people. They just walked up through Van Buren Road without stopping. It was like a bug zapper, that blob, with all the inquisitive minds drawn in only to be swatted down to nothing. It was a quiet riot calmly walking through the road in protest of the way the town was made up. Whatever force had brought this town together, it was crashing down around their heads. At one point someone flew toward them, only to stop short and float up there for a few seconds. Michael only heard Mr. L laughing in triumph. A few minutes later the mob had grown to several hundred people. Some were breaking off, walking up to homes and knocking on doors. When someone answered, they were pulled from their house, brought before Mr. L, and then joined up. It was the slowest moving surprise attack in history. The flier came back, this time with Grandpa in her arms. He was shouting and telling her to put him down immediately, then there was painful cursing, and Grandpa’s movements slowed, slowed, and then stopped. And then he wasn’t shouting anymore. Mr. L had him. Mr. L had everybody. The town was his.
They were moving, inching really, toward the high school.
Michael rushed home through backyards, outrunning dogs and getting shouted at a little, but he finally made it up to his house. He peeked around the edge, down the street, and saw the roaming groups carrying off someone, thrashing and trying to scream out. He shuddered and pounded into his house.
“Mom!” he shouted. “Mom!”
“What’s on fire?” she called.
“This is serious mom, they’re taking everybody!”
“I’m in the kitchen dear!”
He headed for the kitchen and put his hands on his knees to help him stay standing. His lungs were twin fireballs, and each breath was a struggle.
“Listen, mom—” he started.
“Go wash up for dinner dear.”
“Mom, stop!”
“Michael Edward, what has gotten into you?”
“Okay look, Mr. L is a bad guy and he’s taking everybody in town, I know I thought it was Terrence Jackson—” He didn’t get any further than that.
“I don’t want to hear anymore about it. Whatever strange fantasies you’ve got going on... your grandfather told me Charlotte’s been released and she’s probably been to see you, so I understand if—”
“They’re coming!” he shouted.
“Don’t you take that tone with me young man!” When he started to protest, she snapped again. “To your room, right now. And don’t even think about coming out until one, you’ve got your homework done, or two, you’re ready to use an indoor voice with me. Go on, off to your room. We will talk about this later.”
No they wouldn’t. There was a knock at the door, and Michael’s guts froze.
“Whoever would that be at this time of night?” Susanna wondered aloud.
“Don’t go out there mom!” But she was already going. Michael rushed to the door and flattened himself against it. She stared at him as if she’d never met him in her entire life.
“I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but you are grounded young man. Now get to your room right now. Don’t think you’re too big or too old for me to paddle your butt.”
“Susanna Washington?” someone said from outside. That was it. They knew she was in here. There was no way he could get her out now. They’d just bust the door down and find her. Like all parents, she was just clueless about her own safety. Even if she realized the danger, she’d never move fast enough to get herself out in time.
He hated the thought, but he had to save himself. Mr. L was going to take his mom, and had already taken his grandfather. Grandpa was already one of those things. That left only one thing for him to do: leave, hide, and find
somebody who could help him.
Sprinting through the house, Michael slammed his bedroom door, slid open the window, and was out in the garage before he wondered if they’d come to look for him. He hadn’t closed the window. He didn’t know how closely they’d look.
A shiver of ice went up Michael’s back as he heard his mother scream in confusion and pain.
“Sherrie? Ross? You let go of me this instant, Leomund! Don’t touch me!” After that it was just screaming, until somebody clamped a hand over her mouth.
They didn’t look for him. There wasn’t anywhere for him to go in the garage, but still, nobody came to look. Michael wasn’t thinking clearly enough to know that Mr. L’s instructions had been pretty simple: look in peoples’ houses. He couldn’t focus through the terror: they had all the adults who mattered to him, or were in the same hemisphere. Even if his super dad came home, what was he about to do against Mr. L and the drone army?
He finally fell asleep out there, propped up in a painful position that woke him sometime in the dead of night with a crick in his neck. He had no way of knowing how much of the town was already under Mr. L’s possession, but he did know one thing: the high school was the right place to take them all. If Michael was a monster, he would make the high school his Mordor. It was big, had an enormous gymnasium or auditorium to hold over a thousand people without any problem. Mr. L could influence everybody he saw, and the gym would be the best place to set up a throne. Outside the gym was an enormous stretch of parking lot for students and teachers. Nobody could get close easily, except through the rest of the school, and his zombies could patrol a few exits easily. Very easily. The high school was definitely Mr. L’s base of operations, and not just because he knew the school like the back of his hand.
“It makes sense,” Michael told himself. Talking to himself didn’t help kill the feeling of emptiness, but he had to hear something.
Now his house was pitch black. Only it was worse than that. It was empty. There was something spooky about his house when there wasn’t anybody in it. Even when he was upstairs, or in his room with the door closed, there was a presence about the house, those random sounds you heard someone make in your house. And even if his mother was sitting down doing some quiet knitting or basket weaving or something stupid, he still felt her there.
Not so now. His house felt like a tomb. His neighborhood felt that way. There were no cars rolling by, casting funky moving shadows on the living room. Nobody jogging by and disturbing the neighborhood bad dogs. Nobody watering their grass, and definitely nobody watching the news.
Knowing why and where everybody was didn’t help. It still felt really wrong. Really spooky.
Michael crept inside and called Charlotte's house. There was no answer, either because Mrs. Sulszko and the kids were hiding or because they'd joined Mr. L's zombie army. Charlotte wasn't there, or she'd be answering. He didn't bother to leave a message. His hands were shaking as he hung up.
Police sirens rang out in the distance, and a few gunshots sounded like weak fireworks. There was a glow over to the south, which Michael discovered was a fire when the blaring yell of the fire trucks sounded. He wondered if somebody had been smoking when they were taken, or if they just left the oven on.
“The oven!” he shouted, and ran to turn it off. He pulled it open and immediately fell back as a choking bunch of black smoke rolled out. The smoke alarm started to squeal while he hacked and coughed the rancid stench of blackened casserole out of his lungs. Terror siezed him. If they heard it, they would come, and they would find him. He couldn't be found, it wasn't possible. After a while he crawled to the broom closet, yanked out something long enough to do the job, and smashed the smoke alarm until the plastic housing was destined for the recycle bin. Finally, he dragged a chair to the center of the kitchen and, still retching and coughing, yanked the battery free. Silence took over.
This was the worst he had ever felt in his life. With his eyes stinging, his throat and nose raw and feeling scratched all the way down to his stomach, and the lost feeling of hopelessness overwhelming him. Back to the kitchen wall, he let the tears come. He coughed and cried at the same time. There was no one to watch him. No jerks like Trent or Davey Rightman, nobody he wanted to impress like Charlotte or Grandpa or Lily, no one he should be strong for, like his mom. There was nobody. He might as well be on another planet.
With no plan, no hope, and nowhere safe to go, Michael felt like a hollow husk. He felt like he'd tried, he'd done all he could, and it still wasn't good enough. Only now there was no teacher he could ask for an extension. He couldn't appeal to his mother to help him finish on time. He had failed before he even knew who the real bad guy was.
At least he felt there was nothing worse than this.
Chapter 17 - To The Mac