Every Day is Like Doomsday (29 page)

“Apparently the apple falls really, really far away
from the tree. Like, in another hemisphere far.”
“Shut up. I’d say this was a mistake but she died
when I was six and so I barely even remember her. I guess
she could have been a Villain.”
“She was French?”
“Yeah, but she spent most of her life here as far as
I know.”
“Your family is a mess.”
Elliot’s head was already spinning and he wasn’t
sure how to take the news that both of his parents were
Villains. “Let’s just get on with our search. I’ll deal with
that later.” He reached across Innya and closed the program despite her protests.
“Check this out!” Innya squealed suddenly as she
opened a document titled “Magnificent”.
Together they read that Mr. Magnificent started
out as one of the first Villains of the VA. But he had several flaws, particularly his over-the-top grandstanding.
It got so bad that they couldn’t control him any longer.
So they flunked him but they knew that he was far too
annoying to be released into the general populace.
“So they used him as a guinea pig, changed his personality, made him a good guy,” said Innya. “That way
whenever there was a problem, or a fabricated problem
that your dad knew of in advance, your dad could call on
him and he could foil the plot and make your dad look
good and tough on crime.”
“That’s so messed up,” said Elliot.
“It’s genius! Mr. Magnificent really
is
a loser! I
mean, we saw that coming a mile away but now it makes
so much more sense.” Innya clicked the button to print
the case file and moved on.
They read how the VA had been conceived as a
training camp for an evil syndicate and that the students
who were “expelled” to Antarctica were actually given
jobs in Vane’s organization. If you graduated from the
VA, however, your chances at success were less impressive.
Innya’s face reddened in the cold digital light as she
took in the nefarious details of the Villains Academy’s
actual purpose. “So if I played by the rules my reward
would be a one-way ticket to Italy, where I would be met
by the authorities on the tarmac, arrested, and detained
for life without a trial?” Innya asked, her voice tight with
anger. “
Schließen sie die haustür
. It’s not fair.”
Elliot couldn’t help thinking that if he had survived
his time at the VA that would have been his fate, as well.
Life imprisonment for simply opening a gate. Innya was
right. It wasn’t fair.
“I’m sorry,” said Elliot, knowing it wouldn’t be
enough to make up for the fact that his father was planning
to use them all as pawns in his bid for world domination.
“Fuck apologizing,” snapped Innya. “Get revenge.”
As she continued to scowl at the document, a light
on the desk caught Elliot’s attention. It was coming from
one of the dead phones. Elliot leaned over and when he
did his own face appeared on the screen, fuzzy but recognizable.
“Shit! It’s the camera!” he said, his voice tight with
panic.
The phone display went blank and even though
there was still ample moonlight by which to see, it felt as
if an evil darkness had descended upon them.
“We have to get out of here now,” whispered Elliot.
Suddenly, Elliot’s pocket began to ring and vibrate
and the electronic jingle sounded like a full orchestra in
the silence of the house. Innya and Elliot paused and
exchanged glances and then Elliot dug into his interior
coat pocket and pulled out Craig’s dead cell phone. The
caller ID read, “unknown.”
Innya plucked it out of his hands and swiped the
screen to answer it before Elliot could stop her. She put
the phone on speaker so they could both listen in.
“Hello?” she asked sweetly. They both knew who
it would be before he said a word but Elliot’s jaw still
clenched at the sound of Craig’s voice.
“You’re getting in over your head,little girl,”Craig said.
Elliot opened his mouth to speak, to tell Craig exactly
where he could shove it but Innya covered his mouth with
one small, cold hand and Elliot sat back, defeated.
“Oooh, I’m so scared. You’re going down, Ginger,”
said Innya. “So is your boss.”
“Oooh, I’m so scared,” mocked Craig. And then he
laughed.
Elliot reached over and touched the screen to disconnect the call. He looked at his watch. It was close to
midnight. He started to gather up the media and the files
they had strewn about the desk and the floor. “We need
to head back.”
“Yup,” said Innya. “You okay?”
Elliot paused in his gathering. Was he okay? Not at
all.His worldview had been shattered in a matter of minutes
and it would take him a little while longer to put everything
back into perspective. He briefly wondered if smashing
things would make him feel better. But it could wait.
“I’ll be fine,” he said stiffly, “What should we do
with all this stuff ?”
“Put it all in the bag. We’re taking everything.”
“We’re not going to get away with this,” said Elliot
as he placed the duffel bag on the desk and started to toss
everything into it.
“Doesn’t matter considering we just upped the ante.
But we’ll have all the proof and they can’t come after us
without exposing themselves.”
Innya grabbed the papers from the printer and
placed them into the bag, then zipped it closed and slung
it back over her shoulder.
“Let’s go before Craig sends in the SWAT team,”
said Elliot.
Innya followed Elliot through the house to the
back door, muttering, “It’s not the SWAT team I’m worried about.”

“What do you mean?” Asked Elliot as he opened
the back door and stepped out into the icy, moonlit porch.
“She probably means me.”
Elliot froze as Mr. Magnificent sauntered into the
backyard and paused at bottom of the steps up to the
porch. He was smoking a cigarette.
Innya came up beside Elliot and sighed. “How do
you always seem to know exactly where to show up to
really piss me off ?”
“I always have my ear to the ground.”
“Good. Put your ear back to the ground so I can
stomp on your head,” said Innya.
“You’re a sore loser. You’re also a Villain shacking
up with a Norm who pretends to be a Villain.”
“Why would you think that?” Innya asked.
“I’m not an idiot.” Innya snorted but Mr. Magnificent continued, “I’ve been around the senator’s son for
years. A little makeup and hair dye isn’t going to make
him unrecognizable. This isn’t a Superman comic, you
know. Besides, as I said, I have my sources. What would
the others say if they knew he wasn’t a Villain?”
“Don’t tell them,” Elliot said softly. Innya elbowed
Elliot sharply in the ribs and he sucked in a breath against
the pain as she jostled his old injuries.
“Dammit,Elliot!”she hissed.Elliot realized he had just
given himself away and shook his head, feeling like an idiot.
“Thanks for the confirmation, kid.”
Innya puffed out her chest and told Mr. Magnificent, “You wouldn’t dare.”
“My dear,” said Mr. Magnificent, “It will all come
out once I bring you in. They will all know that the Zombie was a fraud and you’ll both be silently disposed of.”
“Speaking of frauds,” said Innya, letting her voice
trail off into nothingness.
“What?” Mr. Magnificent asked.
“Should we tell him?” she asked Elliot.
It took Elliot a moment to figure out what she was
talking about and once he did his fear evaporated.They had
knowledge and that knowledge gave them the upper hand.
“I think it’s our civic duty,” Elliot said in mock sincerity.
“I don’t care about civic duty. I just want to destroy
him.” She pulled a packet of paperwork from the black
duffel bag and held it out to Mr. Magnificent. “This is for
you. Consider it a gift.”
Mr. Magnificent eyeballed the papers for a moment
but eventually decided that nothing sinister could be hidden inside and reached out and snatched them from her
hand. He backed away once more lest they get the jump
on him while he read over the papers.
Silence settled over them as they watched Mr. Magnificent read the story of his forgotten life. His demeanor

traveled from proud and boastful, to confused, to pained,
to defiant, and then to accepting and incredibly depressed.
As he flipped the final page over and dropped his hands
to his sides he didn’t even look up, just turned around and
floated slowly toward the street in a very dejected manner.

Once he was out of sight Elliot looked over at
Innya, who seemed very pleased with herself. Elliot felt
uncomfortable. The act of destroying Mr. Magnificent,
which had seemed like a good idea just a moment ago,
had left him with a bad taste in his mouth.

Innya said.
“Really?” asked Elliot. “He seemed broken.”
“He’ll get over it. And if he doesn’t, oh well. At least

he’s out of our way now.”
“You’re kind of cold.”
“I’m a Villain. Deal with it.”
Elliot was taken aback by the harsh tone of her

voice. After everything they had gone through together
he thought she would have softened at least a little. And
perhaps she had, just not in the ways he expected. Elliot
knew that he had certainly become harder.

Innya slid her hand into his and entwined their fingers. “I know what would take your mind off of the poor,
broken down, ex-super hero,” she whispered seductively
into his ear.

Elliot didn’t want to be distracted though and spat
out, “Let’s go get some food!” before Innya could kiss him
and play her little Jedi mind trick on him. He preferred
to drown this uncomfortable guilt in a wave of hot fudge
sundaes and gravy instead of hypnotically-induced sexual
mania.

Innya narrowed her eyes at him as if she suspected
that he was hiding something but eventually agreed.
“Okay. Let’s go to the diner on the way out of town.”

She took his hand again and for a moment Elliot
let himself think that they were boyfriend and girlfriend,
that she really cared for him. In truth he wasn’t so sure
anymore that she could care deeply about anyone but
herself. And he couldn’t imagine caring about anyone else.

On the way to the diner they passed by the park
and the sight of Mr. Magnificent sitting hunched over on
a bench stabbed Elliot in the heart.

“Look at that,” Elliot said softly. He gestured to Mr.
Magnificent, who looked like a beaten man. His head hung
so low below his hunched shoulders he looked neck-less.
His rounded back looked as if it held the weight of the
world and Elliot couldn’t be sure but he thought that those
big, muscular shoulders were shuddering. He was crying.

Elliot looked sideways at her, suddenly not sure of
her at all. “What do you mean? Sad-sad or pathetic-sad?”
“A little of both, I think.”
“Well, that’s a start.”
“Let’s go talk to him,” Innya said.
She pulled on his arm but Elliot held back. “I don’t
think we should push him right now. He doesn’t seem to
be in the best of places. He might just go postal on us.”
Innya grinned, “Maybe he just needs a distraction
from his woes and I am the queen of distractions.Come on.”
Innya dragged Elliot over to where Mr. Magnificent was sobbing on the bench. She released Elliot’s hand
and then plopped down right beside Mr. Magnificent.
Sitting next to him like that she looked like a child.
“Awww, why so glum, chum?” she asked, all dazzling smiles and big eyes.
When Mr. Magnificent looked up and Elliot saw
his puffy, tear-streaked face, for the first time he felt a sort
of righteous outrage over what his father and Craig had
done. Even if Mr. Magnificent was a Villain, even if all
the kids he attended school with were Villains, they didn’t
deserve to be manipulated like this.
Instead of answering the question Mr. Magnificent offered Innya the bottle he had been drinking from.
Innya’s grin widened as she took the bottle wrapped in a
brown paper bag from his hand and took a swig. Elliot
was impressed but not surprised when she didn’t even
grimace at the taste.
She gave the bottle back to Mr. Magnificent, who
handed it directly to Elliot. Elliot hesitated, “Isn’t that
illegal? We’re under 21,” he said. In truth, he wouldn’t
have minded a taste but he didn’t like the idea of sharing
a bottle with Mr. Magnificent or the idea of the now exsuperhero seeing him wince like a baby when whatever
was in that bottle washed over his tongue.
Mr. Magnificent shrugged, “Who cares? You’re just
going to drink anyway.”
“How’d you get this so fast, anyway?” Elliot asked.
The label looked stained, the edges were peeling and the
bottle was ice cold.
“I’ve got bottles stashed all over this town, kid.”
“Don’t be a pussy,” Innya said. She watched Elliot
with mocking eyes as he took the bottle, lifted it to his lips,
closed his eyes and took a long swig. And he swallowed.
And then his stomach heaved and but he clamped his
mouth shut and forced it to stay down. He made an unattractive noise and shook his head to cope with the nasty
taste while Innya and Mr. Magnificent laughed at him.
“What’s wrong, boy? You never had cheap whiskey?” Mr. Magnificent asked.
“He’s never had expensive whiskey,” said Innya.
“You mean this is a virgin stomach? Is that indicative of the rest of his body?”
“Not anymore,” said Innya.
“I’m right here!”
“Give it back to me,” said Mr. Magnificent, snatching the bottle from Elliot’s hands, “I’ll show you how it’s
done.” Then he waggled at eyebrows at Innya, “And after
that maybe I’ll show you how something else is done.”
Innya’s grin soured. “That’s disgusting. You’re older
than my father.”
“With age comes wisdom.”
Innya rolled her eyes, grabbed Elliot by the collar and
pulled him toward the sidewalk. Once they were a good
distance away she let him go and he stumbled sideways.
“That is so rude!” Elliot said. His mouth tasted like
ass. It was gross. He smacked his lips and wished he had a
bucket of mouthwash. “Do you have any gum?” he asked.
Then he caught the mischievous glint in her eyes and
asked, “What are you planning?”
“Let’s kill Mr. Magnificent,” she said, so full of
excitement she might just explode.
Elliot couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He
shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s kicking a man when he’s down. He’s
out of the game. Isn’t that enough?”
“No. He’s down and that means he’s easy pickings.”
“Have you no standards?” Elliot asked, amazed that
he was even having this conversation. If someone had
told him a year ago he’d be standing in the park at midnight debating whether to destroy the town superhero he
would have laughed. But in the comic book his life had
become he simply took it all in stride.
“Not when it comes to destroying my enemy. Here’s
what we’ll do. You distract him with some lame conversation. I’ll sneak up behind him and,”she pulled a short knife
from the clip on her belt and drew it across her throat.
Elliot shuddered. “Not a chance.”
Innya bit her lip and looked at her shoes for a
moment as if rethinking her plan. When she looked up
once more she said, “Come on, be a man, let’s do it. We’d
return to school as heroes.”
Something in her voice, a hesitation, perhaps, or
maybe just the fact that she was suggesting it to him and
asking his opinion, gave Elliot the impression that she
was only suggesting it because she knew he would say ‘no’
and that she really didn’t want to kill Mr. Magnificent but
it made her look good to suggest it.
Elliot relaxed a little and said softly, “I can’t let you
do that, Innya.”
She narrowed her eyes as she realized that he had
called her bluff. “
Sluit de voordeur
, pussy,” she said and
stalked back to Mr. Magnificent and their big black bag
full of top secret information.
When they drew near him, Mr. Magnificent looked
up, tears in his eyes, and said with some surprise, “Aren’t
you going to kill me now? I’d be easy pickings.”
“No.Trust me, I’d much rather be standing over your
slowly cooling corpse right now but
someone
had an attack
of conscience,” said Innya. She snatched the bottle from
Mr. Magnificent’s meaty hands and took a long swig.
Mr. Magnificent leveled his eyes at Elliot and asked,
“What are you, some kind of a pussy?”
“That’s what I said,” muttered Innya.
Elliot clenched his jaw. He wasn’t going to let them
put him down for not committing murder. “Give me that
bottle,” he said as he grabbed it from Innya. He latched
onto it, tipped it over his mouth and, amazingly, was able
to suppress the gag reflex long enough to take several
long pulls form the bottle.
“Pussies don’t drink like that,”said Mr. Magnificent
with a note of awe in his slurring voice.
As Innya and Mr. Magnificent argued over what
makes a pussy a pussy, Elliot faded into the background
and drank more. His head started to feel all swimmy. He
was used to a light beer buzz and this was more like running headfirst into a brick wall. He felt as if all of his
joints were disconnected as he eventually maneuvered his
body over to the bench and sat down next to Mr. Magnificent. He took another swig since he couldn’t even taste
it anymore. He wondered whether that was a good thing
or a bad thing.
“Hey kid,” said Mr. Magnificent, plucking the bottle from Elliot’s hands. “You’re not a bad guy. You’re a shit
Villain but you’re not a bad guy.”
Innya snorted derisively and they both gave her
matching dirty looks. Elliot slung his arm over Mr. Magnificent’s enormous shoulder and his hand barely made it
to his neck. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Hey,” the drunken, pathetic superhero said, as
excited as the man who invented toast, or at least how
Elliot imagined the man must have sounded. “You ever
do karaoke?”
“Oh, G.O.D., no,” Innya grumbled but Elliot
ignored her.
He had a new friend, a friend who was being nice
to him and who needed him because he was in such a bad
place. A friend who had whiskey stashed all over town.
Innya couldn’t compete with that at the moment, even
though she had boobs, which was a great argument in itself.
“I never have. But for you, my friend, I would give it
a try.” Elliot had a hard time wrapping his tongue around
the necessary words and mused that English was a far too
complicated language to pronounce.
“Then let’s go,” said Mr. Magnificent and he stood
up, pulling Elliot with him. The world wavered beneath
Elliot’s feet and he thought that perhaps he was too drunk
to ambulate if the sidewalk was going to feel like clouds
of marshmallows. Then he realized that he was still holding on to Mr. Magnificent’s shoulder and his feet weren’t
even touching the ground.
“Can you put me down, please?” he asked.
“Oh, sorry.” Mr. Magnificent set Elliot’s feet gently
on the ground.
“Thank you, sir.”
You have got to be kidding me!” hissed Innya. She
rounded on Elliot. “This is cavorting with the enemy. I
can’t let you do this.”
“You’re not the boss of me, woman, and you cannot
stand between a man and his microphone.”
“Preach it,” said Mr. Magnificent.
“Shut up!”Then to Elliot, “Listen, this is ridiculous.
Let’s go back to the VA and go over our spoils.”
“Nope. The music calls me.” Mr. Magnificent was
already walking away. On a whim Elliot pulled Innya
hard against him and kissed her hard. He felt like a man,
more like a man than he had ever felt in their relationship. “I must obey. Are you coming?”
Innya pouted, rolled her eyes and even rearranged
her boobs in her bra but nothing worked. Eventually
she sighed. “Fine. But only so that you don’t get yourself
killed, Zombie.”
Elliot grinned his goofiest drunken grin, “You love
me,” he said.
Innya punched him in the arm. He knew she had
hit him hard but he barely felt it. “Hardly. Your boyfriend
has a head start. We’d better catch up.”
They started walking and with each step the ground
felt softer, until he felt as if he were walking through a tub
full of ice cold gelatin. “I want to sing ‘Enter Sandman’,”
he said.
“Uh-huh.”
Elliot sensed Innya’s disapproval but he didn’t care
because he knew that once he took the stage he would
feel acceptance and love and the universal oneness of all
things. At the moment that was worth her disapproval.
Then he passed out.