Havana or Hell, part four
#4 of Havana or Hell
Recap from part Three:
"Watch out!" she cried. "He is here."
"What is he doing here?" asked the General.
"He shouldn't be here", replied Karen. She sounded concerned.
"It's too dangerous."
"Guys, you're playing yesterday's tape!" I sneered at the voices. "I know I'm here. I was here the day before yesterday and yes, I'm here today also."
"Not you," said the General. "The tall man."
"He has come for you."
- - -
VII
I looked up from the hex-map, and from my seat at the gaming table I spotted a tall man moving around among the stands and the tables. Zigzagging among the cos-players and the vendors, he made a smooth path towards us. He wore a different suit from yesterday, but I recognized him in an instant. Tall, skinny and deadly determined. This was the man I'd had bumped into in the hallway. This was the man who killed Kendall Duran and the same guy who put a bullet in my leg. And now he was here to finish the job. Panicky, I looked around. Surely he wouldn't kill me right here in the middle of a crowd. If we were in a crowd, I couldn't tell. Hallucinations came flowing fast now and the killer's face was wrinkled and deflated, like a leaky beach ball.
"Why won't you show me his true face?" I asked the voices. "This isn't helping,"
"You see what we see,"replied both.
Shit!
Mike Ayers was of no use. He moved the game pieces to random positions across the map and giggled like a baby, or maybe he had already left and gone back to his shop and I was playing against a lingering memory. At this point I couldn't tell reality from visions anymore. I got up and made an unstable escape towards the nearest exit. It led outside and into to a short alley that connected to the main street. Any sane person would have taken to the streets and either hidden themselves in one of the shops along the way, or just kept running. But I am not a sane person, and the stitches in my leg shot fiery bolts of agony through my body with every step, so running was not an option. Within moments, beach-ball head would exit the convention center and look for me, so I was too pressed for time to make a sound decision.
Going up, I thought when I saw a fire exit ladder extend from the first floor. He won't expect me to go up. It was going to kill my leg, but I made a giant leap to reach the first two rungs. To my surprise, I missed the mark and tumbled to the ground. I jumped again, and once again I failed to reach the escape ladder. I had no sense of distance or dimension and my legs were leaden. I could neither run nor jump.
"Help!", I cried silently.
"You must become," said the general.
"Become what?" I shot back. "Angry? Scared? Dead?"
"You must become that which is within you," replied Karen.
I groaned in frustration. I was seconds away from being murdered, and the voices in my head were spouting new-age drivel.
"You must become, demon."
"I'm the demon piece in the game?" I wondered. And in those precious seconds I was overcome with the now familiar sensation of being a tiny seed, floating in an endless dark void. Coated with sticky amniotic fluid and itching to be born. Now was the time to sprout from that seed. Now was the time to hatch from my ovum. Part of me was aching to be released, clawing at the shell to be born and come alive. But the other part of me, the part that was human knew this would be an irreversible decision. Whatever happened next could not be undone.
"Relax, said the General. Relax and become."
"How can you expect me to relax?" I cursed. "I'm about to get murdered in an Oakfort back alley, and my corpse will end up in a black refuse bag on that trash-heap like yesterday's pizza."
I was about to give up and accept my fate, when a wave of darkness washed over me, rendering me deaf, blind and paralyzed. Yet I didn't fall to the ground. Instead I was floating in the same endless void I had known before. Now I knew, I was that tiny pinprick seed about to germinate, I was that ovum covered in mucus, and now was the time to hatch. The shell cracked open and I floated freely in my massive dark womb. As if pulled by an invisible force I drifted gently towards a rift in my surrounding space, irregular and burning cold with tongues of purple flames licking in every direction. I had no sense of my own body size, I could have been an insect or a leviathan, but I knew I would squeeze through that crack and re-enter the human world. With a roar, I was born in that back alley. I was still Daniel Kent, a twenty-two year old citizen of Oakfort, and failing sociology student. But my legs had grown strong and covered in light brown fur, my arms grew long and powerful while I watched. My hands and feet turned into monstrous, clawed paws And something about my face was changing too. My clothes strained against the sudden change in size, until both my jeans and T-shirt split at the seams and dropped off my body like leftover skin from a molting snake. My shoes no longer fit my feet and were left behind when I took my first, unsteady step. My socks tore and fell off my paws like tissue paper.
"Oh!" I said, surprised. This was easier than I remembered.
I scaled the ladder in a single leap, I jumped past the first floor and I kept moving in effortless, graceful jumps until I reached the rooftop. Here I squatted down and watched the tall man as he burst through the door and searched for me outside the convention center. I felt invigorated. My leg didn't hurt and I didn't even have gasp to catch my breath, which speaks volumes about my smoking habit. The tall man looked around, confused when he found the torn remains of my clothes, then he looked up and down the main street. Finally he gave up searching and walked back to the parking lot. I sat down, resting against an exhaust vent. I was relieved, but at the same time confused.
Why did I let him go?
Why did I sit and cower on a rooftop, when I could have pounced on him from above and crushed his spine like a stick of grissini between my massive paws. I was a demon, twice his size and four times his weight. Besides, he was only human.
He deserved to die.
My mind was cloudy and I couldn't quite remember the rules.
Were I allowed to kill humans?
I wasn't sure.
My body was built for the hunt, but my very instincts screamed that killing humans were off-limits. Most of the time, anyway.
_Shucks!_I growled, and ignoring the complaints from my hunting instinct, I watched the tall man getting into his black Lexus Sedan and driving off. Slowly, the adrenaline rush wore off, and with it, my blood-thirst. I sat on the rooftop for an hour, quietly waiting for things to return to normal, while the pale October sun clouded over and the rains set in. Like a muscle cramp letting go of its grip, my body returned to its normal shape and size. But now I was buck naked. Slowly I descended the ladder back to the ground level. The rain whipped against my body. I was cold, uncomfortable and confused, and the rusty rungs hurt my feet.
Had this change been for real? I wondered, or had I gone into some panicky survival mode and imagined the whole thing? I was painfully aware how my mind and I don't always get along. It plays tricks on me, and maybe I'd had another psychotic break. A brain-fuck cocktail from adrenaline and neurotransmitters fueled by fear, lunacy and dopamine? Or did I have to share myself with two commanding voices and now, a raging demon thrown in for additional value?
I searched the rubbish bin. Here I found a brown robe, made for live role playing. It was several sizes too large and badly stained. But I pulled the hood over my head and tied a length of twine around my midriff. This way I could pass for a barefoot monk while I made my way through the convention center. The vendors were idly closing their shops for the day, and Mike, now back to his normal looks and age, was busy emptying his shelves and stuffing unsold merchandise into boxes. I didn't wish to bother him anymore, so I headed straight for the playing area, where the last remaining copy of Future Battalion still remained on the table, mid-game the way we had left it. My home-base was no longer a hole in the desert, but a simple barrack with a helicopter landing pad on the roof. The demon piece was gone, but in its place I found an unarmed unit with both his hands in his pockets. When I turned it over, the writing on the bottom simply read: The Spy. I quickly folded the map up, scooped every piece into the box and made for the exit.
I was alive.
Confused, but alive. For once, I had listened to the voices in my head when they told me to become.
- and they had saved my life.
VIII
Explaining to people you are more than what they see, is no easy task. Explaining to yourself, you are more than you have always been told, is even more difficult. But explaining to those who are closest to you, that you are different from everyone else, is what gets you committed. And committed is the last thing I wanted.
What happened today, in the back alley at the Oakfort convention center_was a surefire ticket to another long series of conversations with a well meaning but excruciatingly dull therapist, so I kept my mouth shut. My mother and Kat knew about the murder of Kendall Duran from the news. How could they not? It was all over the front page, and on CBS news at nine. They knew I had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I couldn't run away from my stitched-up leg, so when I came home to visit that night, I played the part of unlucky bystander. I chewed with my mouth closed and said _ouch! when I moved my bandaged leg, they way they expected me to. I repeated all the details they wanted to hear. I told them I had gone to a pop-culture convention and some famous games designer got himself killed in an act of industry rivalry. I had been in the way and caught a stray bullet. Mom and Kat both knew I've had voices in my head for years. It's something that's difficult to hide, and really not an uncommon inconvenience. It's something I share with point five percent of the world's population. But shifting your everyday self into a grossly disfigured demon that scales ladders and leaps across rooftops with feline grace, is something that's way out of the ordinary. An inconvenience better left to cheap fantasy novels, so I conveniently left out that bit. Though it was tugging at me constantly. Since the day dad left, the three of us have stuck together and I wanted to share it with them, somehow. Only, I didn't know how somehow worked out.
I excused myself with needing to change the bandage on my leg and went to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror, and a skinny guy with an unruly mop of brown hair and a haunted look in his eyes returned the gaze. Failing sociology student, check. Part-time musician,check.
Part-time demon?
There was nothing demonic about the guy in the mirror. I looked no different than I did two days before.
What if I changed right here? What if I became in the family bathroom, and sat down for dinner nonchalantly with mom and Kat? Horns and fangs and an appetite from hell? Mom is always worried I eat too little, but wolfing down an entire turkey might change all that.
Serving dinner to a demon from the abyss would scare the living crap out of my family, but this was all too much to carry for one person. I really wanted to share my experience with someone... with _anyone_willing to listen. But apart from my closest family I had no one to turn to. Maybe police inspector Quinn would lend me an ear while he slurped premium coffee, but I didn't know him well enough. Or I could confide in Dr. Burris, whom I didn't trust. But mom and Kat have always been there for me. They have seen me through voices and moving shadows, and I knew they would accept me for what I was. Together we could work this thing out.
But a demon? Really?
I decided to give it a try right here, in our bathroom, in front of the mirror. I looked into the mirror and my reflection nodded back.
We were ready for this. My reflection and I.
I concentrated on the sensation of shifting, while it was still fresh in my memory. I vividly recalled the physical sensation of being a tiny seed about to germinate. The emptiness of the void around me. The anticipation of re-entering the human world. The sensation of sprouting, of coming alive, the infant's howl at birth...
Nothing happened.
I tried again. This time focusing on the intense sensation of physical transformation I had experienced. The unexpected growth of claws, fur, fangs and horns. The explosive birth of a howling demon into this world of gray normality.
And.... Nothing.
Why was this so difficult? It had come naturally a few hours ago. Shifting looked so easy in the comic books and on Netflix. All Johnny Storm had to do to change into the Torch was to say "Flame on!"and he was ready to save the world. Robbie Baldwin changed into Speedball, just by crashing into things or striking a wall. I knew nothing about saving the world, but I knew all about bumping into things, so I measured the bathroom wall. It could take a direct hit without cracking, no problem. But I wasn't so sure about my fist.
Let's DO this. I thought. And after a moment's hesitation I rammed my clenched fist hard into the concrete wall. Change! I commanded. Only, now I was bleeding from my raw, still very human knuckles.
Oww! Dammit! I groaned.
"Danny, are alright in there?" Kat asked from the other side of the door.
"Sure," I replied. "The wound is just a bit sore."
Exasperated, I sat down on the edge of the bathtub. This was no comic book. This was no Netflix series. As confusing as this whole demon shifting was, eventually I had to concede there was no demon inside of me. Never was. Never had been. I was an ordinary, every-day citizen of Oakfort, with twenty stitches in my leg and a mental condition. My team of super-powered heroes was an army of well-paid therapists, stumbling over themselves to pin a label on my diagnosis and write out a fistful of pills, for eighty bucks an hour. Forget the demon dream. I had to keep focus on what was for real and keep daydreaming at an arm's length. Kendall Duran had been shot by a tall guy in an expensive suit. This was a fact. Even the Oakfort Herald agreed with me. The same guy had tried to kill me twice already. Both times unsuccessfully and I guessed it didn't look too good on his resume. I had to make sure, a third time didn't happen. The Future Battalion game was also for real. The last remaining copy of it was right here in my backpack. I may not be an expert on the games industry, but from what little I had seen, the game was not worth killing for. The game seemed okay at best, but you don't murder and kidnap people for okay reasons. I unpacked the cardboard box and set up a new game on the living room table. The pieces were back to their normal selves, as were the cards and the map. The voices in my head were quiet and the shadows didn't move. If I were ever to get to the bottom of this case, now was the time.
Alright, Duran. Let's play your damn game.
Continues