The Franklin Incident (Philly-Punk) (4 page)

I turn toward the woman, yelling "RUN!" but my voice is drowned in the din of their noises and can't seem to turn from her gaze from the creature.  It has pulled the short blade that had killed so many upstairs and has almost reached the landing.

The woman isn't going to run. 

She's going to die.

I have to do something.  Forget who I was or who I might become.  Who am I right here and now if I let a defenseless woman die at the hands of this sadistic killer?  I am someone who has no business living on this earth at all.

Gunpowder.

Chewing gum.

Iron hand.

Instantly – as it used to happen many times before – a course of action plants itself in my head.

1. Smear the chewing gum over the iron fist.

I rush toward the spilled gunpowder and the chewing gum I found on the ground.  As I pull up the gum from the floor, the creature reaches the bottom stair and the landing below.  I can smell that horrible stench of decay and death that seems to surround it.  Through the small portholes, I can see a pale, putrid skin covered in multiple eyes that have gone milky white.  There's no movement to the eyes.  It's as if they are—

The thing inside is dead!  That smell is nothing but the dead creature... who walks and moves as if it is alive.

2. Open remaining cartridges with teeth.

Paper cartridge clenched in my teeth, I hear the woman's scream suddenly die in her throat.  I turn to find that she has opened the door she'd come through.  I take the cartridge out of my lips and encourage her behavior: "GET THROUGH THE FUCKING DOOR!"

3. Pour gunpowder on chewing gum-covered iron fist.

A sudden blur of moment and I barely have a chance to move before the killer is lunging for me, that Shoto sword arcing towards me.  I lean out of its path and draw my iron fist-encased arm back, hearing an audible click come from the Fightin' Jack.  Electricity sizzles and the pistons on either side of the brace contract. 

4. Trigger the Fightin' Jack.

The creature's helmet suddenly splits down the center, opening partially to reveal the putrid-skinned thing inside.  The dead eyes – though milky still – seem to be alive now, swiveling crazily on fibrous stalks.  An oval mouth full of long shear-like teeth opens!

"GET DOWN!"  I yell to anyone who is listening.

The force with which shoots my arm forward takes me utterly by surprise!  This power is not my own.  It is technology.

My fist collides with the helmet just aside the open maw.  Instantly, there's a sharp flash of orange flames, sparkling and igniting outward like fireworks.  The compression from the fist and the flames causes the gunpowder to explode outward, sending a jet of flames into the helmet that incinerates the undead creature inside.  I feel the flames lick at my arm and face as suddenly I'm throttled backward.  For a moment or two, gravity has no effect on me.  I am beyond this world's restraints.  Then I connect with something hard (a banister) and physics reasserts its control on me.  Darkness creeps in from all sides and, this time, I do not fight it.  I embrace oblivion as she envelopes me in her arms, holding me steady until I am asleep like a loving mother.

* * *

The first thing I am aware of is the rough texture of a cool washcloth drawn delicately across my face.  None of my other senses are alive except for touch.  The washcloth traces across my forehead then down the side of my face.  The skin feels tight and tingles slightly under the cool water.  It feels wonderful.

A soft lilting hum whispers in and I know that I my hearing is fine also.  Someone – a woman, I imagine – is humming a sweet tune that has an air of familiarity to it.  She cascades over the chorus once, twice and I, oddly, think of my mother.  I can smell instantly the strong scent of the soap she used to clean the floors with.  Her callused hands wrapped in mine as we walked to church.  I—

I open my eyes.

The woman who kneels before me is unbearably beautiful.  Though she wears a plain white maid's dress, it cannot mask her pretty Irish looks.  She's the woman who discovered the creature on the stairs.  Her blue eyes twinkle for a moment, a small tear appearing in the left.  "I thought you dead."

"Not without trying," I reply, my voice sounding rougher than before.

"Your face is burned slightly.  Same with your left hand," she says grimly, carefully touching my check and forehead with her cloth.  But when she meets my eyes, she smiled.  "I imagine that you'll live, though."

"Duly noted."

She fixed me a look, holding my eyes for a moment.  "You saved my life, good sir."

I shook my head slightly about to make another witty retort but found none to say.  All I could do was watch her eyes.  She glanced off to the side and I followed her eyes.  Poe stood speaking to a collection of men in fine uniforms, some the dark blue of the Constabulary and the others the red of the military.  Other men were carefully examining the floor, stairs, and landing above for evidence.  The Chief Constable of Detectives was a man with interesting ideas in investigation.

Poe noticed us looking at him and nodded, leaving the men he had been speaking to.

"The constable wants to talk to you," the woman – whose name, I realize, I don’t know – tells me as she stands up.

I watch her rise and smooth out the wrinkles in her dress.  Poe comes up beside her and she takes her leave of me, nodding to Poe and mouthing the words 'thank you' as she walks away.

Poe makes to crouch before me and I can see him wincing with every movement.  The gash on his forehead had been tended to, a few black stitches against his chalk white skin to mark the spot, though he is clearly injured in other places.  I put out my hand, eager to meet him on a level playing field.  He takes my hand and helps me stand up.  Muscles scream, joints pop, skin feels like stretched leather, and I feel as if I might pass out or vomit.  He hands me a walking stick.  "Here."

I take the thing and lean on it, feeling slightly steadier.

"How's the head?"

"I could ask you the same question," I replied.

Poe grimaces, a strange sight I am sure to the men in the room.  "We both lived.  That's a bit better than I thought we would fare."

Poe motions beyond us and I follow his gesture to a black tarp near the wall.  It covers some unseen misshapen form.  "You saved lives today.  Mine included.  If that thing had gotten out—"

"It wasn't trying to get out," I replied, turning away from it.  The airship still hung in the sky, though, no lights were lit.  "It was here for a reason.  What I have no clue but it was supposed to be here and, I think, kill certain people."

"I know."

I spun on Poe as best as I could without turning all the way around and falling to the ground.  "You— you what?"

Poe watched me carefully as if he were trying to glean some information from my face.  Clearly unsatisfied, he began, "This wasn't the first time this has happened.  It's the third."

"The—"

"On two other occasions, multiple people have been found dead inside an office building like this.  All have been servants."

"Why the hell didn't you tell me—"

Poe made to reply, his face twisted in anger but he stopped himself.  He took a deep breath, then fixed those coal-black eyes on me.  "You have never been straight with me, Jonathan Adams, so why should I be so with you?  I asked you to come today because I knew...," he paused for a moment and carefully pointed to the tarp, finishing, "I knew you could handle that."

"Why would you think that I could—"

"Because you are more dangerous than you seem."

Poe took a step back from me and motioned to a constable standing behind him.  The man held my valise and coat slung over his arms.  I was being told to leave, I was sure; but there was no way in hell I was going to go!  Why would he think anything about... this?  I have never given him any reason to believe I am anyone but who I say I am!  I—

Poe motions to the door.  "Our business is concluded, Mr. Adams.  Good evening.  I imagine we will not call on you anytime soon."

Bastard.
  I fix him a grim face and take my belongings from the constable.  "That, dear sir, is fine by me."

I do not give anyone the satisfaction of drawing this scene out any longer.  Clearly, by the faces on the Constabulary and military officers, they are enjoying this little farce.  I almost tell them to find a Nickelodeon if they wanted to take in a show but I keep my tongue.  Instead, I am mute as I storm to the door, throw it open, and leave The Franklin Building.

* * *

It is only when I am far enough away from the building that I dare sneak a peak in my valise.  Ah!  I knew he would deliver! Standing underneath Franklin's statue, an arc of water leaping from his lips, I carefully take out the device that Poe had handed to me only hours ago.  I knew he had put it in there.  I'm unsure of how much of what he said was actual truth – for I panicked when he talked of lying because I have been, to him – but I knew he was doing it for the benefit of the audience.  He wanted me to have this device to find out more about it.  Three sets of murders.  The game was indeed afoot.

As I found my way onto Market to hail a cab, I allow myself a small moment of pride.  Not for stopping the creature but for not becoming something else in the process.  I have stared down many dark things in my days and what they brought out in me time and again is something I truly fear more than anything else in the world.  But not today.  Today I remained me.  I know so... because I hadn’t taken the creature apart limb from limb, segment from segment, with an ax.

And smiled the whole time.

Jonathan Adams will return

for another tale from Philly-Punk.

In the meantime, turn the page

and enjoy an exciting excerpt from

The Fire Inside: Sidekicks Book 1

Ten Years Ago...

Osprey ran out of the stairwell door first.  He was a handsome young man (just a few months into nineteen), lean and tall.  He wore his jet-black hair short and a domino mask framed chocolate brown eyes that darted around the room, marking the three men.  All were in crimson leather jackets – the signature of one of The Rook’s badasses.  One drew a pistol, another a knife, while a third swung a nasty-looking machine gun.  The black leather cape fastened to Osprey’s grey tunic flapped behind him as he leapt and tucked into a roll, gunfire filling the small kitchen with a deafening
clap-clap-clap
.  Windows exploded, tile chunks flew, and pieces of white dinner plates rained down like hail as he rolled across the faded linoleum floor.  Without hesitation, he leapt onto his feet and catapulted himself for the shooter.

Behind him, Osprey’s best friend, Sparks, stormed out of the stairwell, the stomping of his rubber boots being the only sound of his arrival.  He was a blur of dark blue (his fire resistant body suit) and red (his hair) as he slammed into the thug with the knife, his powerful body a locomotive bearing down on the strung-out henchman.

Osprey heard bones crunch and metal clang to the ground as he dropped the machine-gunner with a quick roundhouse then jerked to the right, cartwheeling across the decaying dirty blue linoleum as the third thug unloaded his pistol.  The kitchen pulsated with light as the henchman fired on Osprey and–

WHAM!
  The thug got clocked aside the head, turning slightly to see flaming eyes before a follow-up punch sent him pitching into darkness.

Osprey bolted after Sparks, his friend already flying through the living room and foyer.  They’d woken up, tied to chairs, in this deserted house.  Osprey had no idea how they’d gotten here or where here was but he was going to find out.

Sparks threw open the door and they ran out of a run-down rowhouse on a street that didn’t look much better.  Osprey spied a few parked cars.

They needed to get uptown fast!

* * *

Minutes later, they were shooting uptown on a main thoroughfare.  Osprey was in the passenger seat gripping the 'oh-shit' handle while Sparks drove the car, pushing it as fast as it could go.  Feeling Osprey glancing at him, Sparks turned his way.  Osprey said nothing but they’d been best friends long enough that a glance was sometimes as loud as a scream.  “What?”  Sparks asked.

BOOM!
  Straight ahead, thunder shook the air and the sky flashed an intense orange for a second.

“Nothing.  Just keep driving.”

“You’re sighing over there like my mother.”

“You never knew your mother.”

“I imagine she was sigher," Sparks snipped.  "All the women I’ve ever met have been!”

“It’s just...  could you have stolen a slower car?”