Earth Man (14 page)

His injuries were so severe, all over his body, that he could not ev
en register them all anymore; all he wanted was to get to his feet. The alien had slammed him so hard he’d sunk three inches into the soft grass. It climbed on top of him before he could get up, pressing down on his chest with tremendous weight. Spikes jutted from its legs, tearing into his side and hips. Danny knew it was over, he could not struggle or move his arms. It was too heavy and it had pinned him like a child. The Third reached down, opened Danny’s jacket and picked at the perfect slice across his chest. It reached into his shirt and tore a strip of flesh off, holding it in the air over its mouth.

“
You are the second champion I have defeated,” the Third said, “I wonder how you’ll taste in comparison.”

A putrid yellow human tongue lashed out and s
lurped down the small piece of Danny’s skin. As it swallowed Danny bucked and fought with all his might. The creature waited until he had exhausted himself and then began to slash at him with its nails. His leather jacket took much of the attack but he instinctively put up his hands to protect his face. The nails sliced through his hands and wrists and one blow caught him across the face, slashing open his forehead. Suddenly there was so much blood in his eyes that he could not see. He felt the creature shift, pulling back its arm for the final blow. Then it was suddenly gone and the air rushed back into his lungs.

As Danny rolled over on his stomach, wiping the blood from his face, he saw the creature land a dozen feet away. Danny covered his eyes from the
blinding sun as a shadow fell over him. He turned and saw the deer standing there in the sun like a mythical beast sent by the Gods. It had come to save him and it had grown even larger than before. The antlers were at least eight feet wide and as thick as steel cables. The Third roared in pain and kicked at the dirt as Danny got to his feet. The blood was so heavy from his face wound that he had to constantly wipe his eyes just to see. The blood caked his hands, front and back.

The deer lowered its antle
rs and charged at the alien monster, kicking up chunks of the lawn under its huge hooves. There was a sickening squishing sound as the deer impaled the Third on its antlers, but the alien was still alive. It kicked and screamed, digging its feet into the ground and wrestling with the deer. It began to pull itself closer to the deer’s head, pushing the antlers further through its own chest. The deer tried to shake it loose or pull free but the creature was too strong, too heavy to be moved. The deer had trapped itself and it snorted angrily at its predicament. Danny could hear the alien’s mandibles clicking hungrily and the deer was frightened. He pushed out with his powers, farther and stronger than he ever had before. The Third seemed to ooze over the antlers, forcing the deer to the ground. Everything was happening too fast for him. The alien grabbed the deer’s head and pushed it down. The poor animal began to squeal.

Danny couldn
’t see what was happening; the Third had its back to him when it took the deer down. All he could see were the deer’s feet kicking frantically. A red glow formed on Danny’s skin, trailing off in wisps like steam. There was a pool of blood beneath him, soaking into the grass. Animals were all around him but he couldn’t think of any way to use them, there was nothing he could imagine that would give him the power to conquer the Growth. Deer, squirrel, bear, beaver, ant, wolverine. There seemed to be nothing he could use, nothing that could save them.

The deer let out a shriek as it d
ied and Danny knew he would soon be next. With his injuries he could barely move, there was no way in hell he was going to run anywhere. A wail of police sirens rose in the distance, heading toward him. With houses on either side of them someone must have called the police; it was the middle of day on a sunny Saturday afternoon and Danny realized he was not alone. As the Third began to pull its body back into a human shape, Danny looked around him. A woman sat in the window in the house on the left, a phone stuck to her head. In the kitchen behind her, her dinner had escaped. The lobster had crawled off the counter and was searching along the floor for water. Lobsters have armour. Lobsters also have claws. The Third turned around and adjusted its doctor coat. It was all theatre, the monster had completely consumed Dr. Rue and it used his gestures to mock his victim’s species. It brushed back its human hair with an armoured black hand, an obscene gesture that imitated the man whose body it had stolen. Danny lifted his hands again into the same boxing stance as before. This time giant red claws formed over his arms. The red energy burning through him created armour over his entire body, only his face was clear. Danny and the Third collided, ripping and tearing at each other.

Police surrounded them as they slammed their fists into each other, no more skill or finesse was left in them. They battled at a primitive level, relying only on their base instincts and inner capacity for violence. It lasted only a min
ute but the ending came quickly. The Third backed up into the road and was struck by an oncoming car. As it recovered it grabbed onto Danny, pulling him across the street. That was close enough to for Danny to take advantage and he grabbed the Third with a large claw, squeezing it around the neck. There was a quick snap and the head rolled off. Just to be sure, Danny chopped off both arms as well. Two snaps and the creature could no longer fight back; its body began to falter just as Danny's power faded away. As the last arm hit the ground, Danny caught his breath enough to speak.

“
That was . . . for my old .  . arm.”

Without the armour to protect him any longer, the abuse he
’d suffered at the hands of the monster threatened to overtake him. A small crowd had gathered around him but no one seemed willing to help. The police kept the crowd back, unsure of what to do as Danny stumbled about.

Finally
Danny managed to fly into the air, although he was barely conscious. When he crashed through his living room window, Phil and Linda thought he was already dead. Laying there in a pile of broken glass, covered in blood, they did the only thing they knew how to do. They called Helen.

EARTH MAN

PART 3

THE HEALING SEASON

He gives his harness bells a shake
to ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
of easy wind and downy flake.

-
       
Robert Frost

Fall seemed to fly into winter while Danny nursed his wounds, spending most of his time in bed. It wasn’t until November that he began to walk again and a foot of snow had fallen on British Columbia. He’d crashed down hard and bloody in his own living room, dying from his injuries. Helen had helped him, got him into the shower so they could wash off his wounds. By the time she’d had a moment to think about what was happening he’d already begun to recover. Danny’s wounds had healed fast enough but there was cost for the superhuman abilities he’d been given. A heavy exhaustion had settled into his bones and muscles, reaching through ever nerve and vein. He felt deeply depressed without any reason for it; it felt as if he was under a shadow that followed him wherever he went.

The death of the deer
hurt Danny deeply, there had been a bond between the two of them and he felt guilty that it had died to protect him. It was not something he was going to easily get over. In his mind the deer had been a mystical creature, a sign of something magical in the world. All he could think was if he’d been better, or smarter, he could have saved it. The Earth had lost something special when it had died.

Morgan said he
r father had a dark cloud, like a children’s cartoon, following him around and raining on his head. Helen had bandaged him up but there was little she could do for his motivation. The children hadn’t suspected anything, he’d stayed in bed and they didn’t push the subject. Repairing the house had taken a lot of work, especially for Helen who had to do it all herself, but people had donated the supplies and even brought over food for the family. Nobody knew why exactly what Danny had done, but people had felt something, experienced something in their town that they were curious about. Helen let them feed their curiosity until they grew bored.

There had been a lot of fighting th
e first two weeks after his battle with the Third. The media had swarmed their house and between paying the bills and dealing with Danny’s injuries and sudden celebrity, Helen had been carrying all the responsibilities of the house and kids. As well as being the only one of them making any money, Helen had to do all the house repairs, including installing a new window, without any help from Danny. It made her furious that he’d gotten hurt again and there was no way she was going to take him to a hospital after his last doctor turned into an alien monster. Helen juggled the repairs and nursing Danny back to health all by herself, with only their two young children to lend a hand.

The feeling of bein
g powerless made Helen irritable and she took it out on those around her, which only made her angrier at herself. How could she possibly forbid Danny from saving the world? She’d even threatened divorce during their most heated confrontation, but she had no intention of really leaving him. The paparazzi and all the strangeness surrounding her husband lately was easy enough to deal with. Seeing him injured the way he’d been after the fight had horrified her. How could she ever get used to that level of violence? She wondered if that was how the husbands and wives of astronauts and soldiers felt. Her husband had become the Earth’s chosen champion and they would just have to accept that and work through it. It was overwhelming her yet she knew she would hold them all together, even as their money dried up and jobs became harder to find as winter closed in.

             
Every day that Danny was bedridden his son Raymond had sat with him, reading him books on animals or just talking about all the trivial yet devastating things that teenagers went through. They bonded in a way they’d never done before and Danny was proud of his son. His grades were good and Ray was on his way to becoming the type of man Danny had always hoped he’d be. Danny felt completely uninspired, but the kids brought a light into his world that kept him going through the darker months. Morgan and Raymond’s love broke apart the shell of apathy Danny had developed. Day by day as Danny rested, healed and prepared, he dreaded the next confrontation with the alien invaders.

When
Danny began to walk again he started walking the kids to school, as a family. It was a way for them to bond but Danny was also suspicious and overly protective. When Helen was available she went to, although she spent most of her time deflecting questions from the people in town. Everyone wanted to know what had happened to Dr. Rue. There were rumours of course, that the doctor had become an elephant man, or he’d gotten tumours from immigrants, even that he’d become a zombie. The curious death of Dr. Rue was well on its way to becoming a local legend.              

             
There had been offers of course; money in exchange for exclusive interviews and photographs. When the family refused the media began to hide and stalk them. After a few weeks they all grew bored, once they realized that the Boyle family had no interest in being famous. Occasionally they would encounter a reporter, usually from a tabloid or gossip rag, but now with the snow coming even they were packing up and leaving town.

Strangely Danny
’s power didn’t translate well to electronic devices. Someone, perhaps even one of the police officers that had arrived at the scene, had captured the final minute of Danny’s fight with the Third. While the monster was clearly visible in all its horror, Danny appeared only as a man with a red glow. The lobster armour was not at all visible, or even the claws, none of it. Using every electronic device in their possession, Danny’s family had checked and double-checked this oddity and found it to be true for everything, even VHS cassettes. Even the glorious wings he could manifest when he chose appeared only as a red flash of light. While people at the scene swore they’d seen Danny in some kind of armour with clawed hands, there was never any evidence to prove it. Even though the day time media had moved on to other stories, the internet had not and conspiracy theory sites were having a field day with the video. Raymond had even gotten more attention online as the son of the guy in the strange alien YouTube video. All Danny wanted to do was forget the whole thing.