Three men, heads appropriately adorned with ratty ski masks, had melodramatically decided to begin their caper by throwing an old lawn chair through the front window. Deciding apparently, that it might be cool to rob and pillage a local fast food joint. One of the bandits waved a tarnished .38 heedlessly around his head, like a sick, ornate baton. Another brandished a six inch switchblade sporting an immaculate pearly handle- probably ripped it off- was my thought. The last it seemed was in charge of gathering the funds in an old burlap sack- some of the fibers were frayed and in disaccordance with the rest of the grainy tapestry. To my dawning disdain, I realized that I had heard them coming at least fifteen seconds before the initial entrance, but it hadn't registered properly. Too much sensory input at once, I thought. Going to have to control it.
"Hand over the cash in the fuckin' bag, shitstick," the one with the gun demanded to the teen tending the register, who looked like he may have recently urinated himself. "Right fucking now."
"Alight. Jesus! Alight... here." Opening the register with unnervingly inept hands- perhaps the dexterity was replaced with terror.
Throughout all this I stared in a dumbfounded paralysis, until I realized that the rectification I needed was unfolding before my very eyes. The notion I had been concocting was that of an utter madman- and perhaps my door was a little unhinged, metaphorically speaking. I also realized that if my notion was false- and it very well could have been- I was as good as deceased, prayed for and buried.
The acne-ridden teen was putting the remainder of the funds into the burlap bag, when the thief grasping the pistol heard a raucous clatter directly behind him. Startled and reeling, he turned brandishing his weapon before him like a talismanic evil dispelling idol against an army of undead fiends. It was as though my entire life flashed before my eyes, knowing that I had fucked my whole plan up. Instead of a aptly cunning deviation, I had tripped clumsily on the leg of a chair that was directly in my path unbeknownst to me. Little did I know at the time, that that mishap may have been my subconscious's own plan.
The crook did not react consciously- it was merely a neurotic impulse that his finger grazed the trigger and sent the weapon off- and blind, sheer panic that set it off five more times. Four of those bullets hit their designated target; two bored holes of exquisite agony into my lower abdomen, one collided with a rib, cracking it in two, and the last lodged itself in my right shoulder, setting about a horrid dislocation. Blood welled up in my lungs and I coughed a substantial amount out before I fell backwards into the randomly strewn furniture. The morbidly obese man had yelled -"shit!" the two men in the corner had looked on with stupid shock, and the two kids behind the counter had dropped dual Sprites on the tiled floor. The accomplices to the violently accredited looked amazed, then actually congratulated their, partner. "You wasted that dude, man."
I looked down at my torso and saw the three holes (and felt the one in my shoulder). The bright incandescence of the fluorescent light bulbs continued their ceaseless, maddening illumination as my eyes closed in accordance with the ebbing of my from my body.
Only the life didn't ebb from my body.
I was alive, and the strange thing was, I could feel my wounds regenerating themselves.
Inside the organic machinery of myself I could feel the innards that had suffered an abrasion begin to mend together, knit, for a better word. The superficial bullet wounds themselves, where the actual skin was cleaved, I felt simply seal over with fresh, untainted skin. The organs in my lower stomach crept back to full composure. The shattered rib righted itself with a sickening, but somewhat reassuring crack. My shoulder was popped back into it's socket with a final snap, and that was it.
I assessed the situation with one eye opened partially, devising a plan of action. The outlaws, after gunning me down, heedlessly regarded their handiwork briefly, then resumed their illegal escapade. The frightened and badly shell-shocked innocents were shaking spasmodically, huddling away from the masquerading law-breakers. And as sporadic as their advent had been, the inauspicious plunderers decided a hasty getaway would be best as well, but the one designated with the task of carrying the money stopped abruptly in his tracks. "Come on," the gun-brandishing villain prodded his colleague.
He didn't budge.
"I said move it, shitheels. We gotta get the fuck outta here." He was about to emphasize this statement with a clout to the side of the cranium, but when Gun Brandisher beheld what his collaborator did, his jaw could have unhinged and dropped to the floor.
The guy he had just wasted was getting up.
"No way. No fuckin' way man." His vocal cords fluctuated and cracked with reproachfulness and regret. The gun was fumbled with indextrously as he tried to break the chamber and load another bullet into his weapon. On the floor, I was still writhing with incredulity. Had what I thought transpired actually happened? Looking down to my shirt, which was slashed to ribbons, provided me with blatantly physical evidence.
But, I had other things to worry about, so I got up and glanced down at my body once more to rectify that it wasn't simply a delirium induced dream. It wasn't. Whatever I had become, it wasn't human. I had the facade of a human, but there was something more to it. Something submerged just below the layer of epidermis. And I thought that it was....
Not yet. I had a task to attend to.
Several .38 caliber bullets plummeted to the floor and landed with a metallic tint. "I shot him, Leo. I motherfucking blew him away," Gun Brandisher said, voice seething with disbelief. "And the weird thing is, he wasn't even wearing body armor. I saw the bullets hit him man, I saw it."
Money Carrier, presumably the one named Leo, just nodded absently, for any speech he uttered would have come out completely inaudible.
I had finally managed to stand erect, and laced my arms about my chest in a defiant yet oddly casual looking pose. Despite my smug appearance, I was just as thunderstruck as the villains themselves were, and to be quite honest, I had no idea what I was supposed to do.
"Shoot him, John, shoot him for chrissakes!" Leo finally managed to to bellow. His voice was at the very capacity of it's volume, and every octave coursed with panic. John was was still fumbling with the chamber inarticulately. The other nameless accomplice, the one holding the switchblade, had snapped out of the shell-shocked state he was in and irreverently lunged forward with his weapon outstretched in a graceless gesture. Subconsciously, I was always aware of said crook, on my left flank, and when the lunge was preformed I acted just as quixotically. It wasn't even a matter of knowing thought; nerve impulses and instinct guided my actions with a meticulous fluidity and impossible litheness. The arm belonging to the crook was seized promptly, darting out at incomprehensible speed. I turned my head to look at him, and although his face was obscured by cheap wool, I could feel the fear radiating from him in pulses that felt physical. My viselike grip tightened until a sick snap broke the eerie silence which had settled uneasily over the scene. The crook cried out in a bloodcurdling falsetto and fell to his knees.
"He broke my arm! Oh, fuck.... my armmmmm!" He ended in a harsh sob, which didn't have the slightest effect on me, for a veil of coldness had draped over my emotions, dulling them indeterminably. I released my hold on the mans arm and didn't give him another look. I knew that he wouldn't attack me again. Somehow knew it.
I knew they were there before a move was made, I had been keeping track of them while my arm-breaking epidemic was ensuing. Smug slyness had stolen over the group, who had tried to surround me in a sloppy formation while I was occupied. Leo had advanced and revolved behind me like a satellite in orbit and was preparing to preform a head lock. John took up my right flank apprehensively. They counted down, a gesture which they thought inaudible to me- it wasn't- and emphatically screamed the final number -"three!"- then dove in unison.
The guy behind me had to go first, I didn't feel like fighting a guy latched onto my neck, and that might have slown me down. Without looking back, I struck out vehemently with my left elbow. The gesture was so sudden and without premonition that the ill-fated crook ran right into my jutting, bony extremity. The epicenter of his face connected with it solidly, shattering his nose bridge instantly, thus impounding it into the rest of his face, leaving a large gory crater in it's wake.
Footsteps to my right informed me of what I needed to know- that an adrenaline-stoked man named John was charging me blindly, arms outstretched in a queer gesture that, under other circumstances, would have appeared affectionate in nature. Without time to react consciously, even with sparse thought, that strange new instinctive impulse possessed my calf muscles, projecting me with a great leap towards the ceiling. That cautious and apprehensive voice inside me said to slow down, slow the fuck down, or you're head's going to collide with the cheap plaster. This supposition didn't scare me either way, so what if my head collided with the ceiling? It was only shitty plaster stuff, and the wounds would heal, right?
Maybe, that little voice crooned ominously, want to find out? But I knew that I wouldn't find out- not yet- because the instinctive automation animated my body again. My hands- palm up- shot from my sides to make contact with the ceiling, ceasing my inertia with a startling abruptness. The villain ran on as if his target was still there, and crashed into a few tables with had fallen askew, landing on his face.
That might've been a cool move, buddy, Keanu Reeves could learn a thing or two, but what about the part where you fall down because of that thing called gravity?
Before the opposing voice could counteract, I found out.
Instead of plummeting as a helpless constituent to the earthly force of gravity, I simply dangled, hands still pressed against the ceiling flat-palmed. Just like Spider-Man. Wonders, I surmised, would never cease.
Worry about that later, Peter Parker, you've got a job to do. But did I? I was skeptical about the vigilante deal. I acted in self defense, the burglars had obviously been dispatched, so why not vacate the premises before the authorities arrived? It would have saved me an explanation- one that I didn't possess, myself.
I dropped to the floor and recoiled my knees as I made contact with the tile to absorb the impact. The inauspicsious outlaws were sprawled out on the floor, each in their own comical recumbent position, but I barely paid them any heed; for I knew, as I had known that I wouldn't have been attacked again by the subdued man after breaking his forearm, that these guys weren't going to recooperate any time tonight. Something like precognition... but that's not it. Not really. I mused for the right word cerebrally, for the ones I was acessing didn't fit the context. No... telepathy? Closer. Though it wasn't as if I was actually reading minds...sensing emotions, maybe, but not reading minds.
Empathy! That's it. I can sense the emotions of another entity, at least human ones so far. Like getting a strong vibe about somebody.
I strode by the oblivious criminals with an aristocratic gait-- I couldn't help gloating marginally. I mean, cut me some slack here- I had just performed athletic feats Olympic gymnists couldn't even concieve of, displays of strength unattainable probably only by the most zealous of bodybulders, and exhibited psychic phenomenon that the phonies on TV couldn't touch with a ten foot cattle prod. Pretty fucking cool, huh? It was... but I still had to mull a few things over in my brain. Some issues had been evading me all night, and just as I was about to be enlightened, something came up, vanquishing the revelation. No more, though, I thought, Time to find a place and set things straight. For good.
The bystanders who were witness to the all but incredulous epidemic (which had transpired in an allotted timespan of approximately eight minutes) were thunderstruck. I bowed my head morosely to eradicate the pompous aura that had briefly settled over me.... Perhaps such an attitude could be more justified when I knew what forces I was dealing with.
The glass door thudded shut and the revenant walked out.
