Max Baker: Guardian of the Ninth Sector (2 page)

An hour or two had passed, it seemed like an eternity, and Max was brought back into the room.  The nurse placed him in Evelyn’s arms and she silently stared down at the child with glassy swollen eyes.  Colin watched as the child smiled up at Evelyn, but she did not smile back.  And in that moment he knew that his wife shared the same grief in her heart that he possessed.  He dragged the chair over to the hospital bed and placed his arm around both of them.  They sat there silently for the rest of the night.

* * *

Outside of the hospital, a man sat drinking a cup of coffee.  He watched the entrance of the hospital quietly, as he slowly sipped the hot beverage, letting it warm his frozen insides.

Another car entered the parking lot of the hospital; it crept through the snow and circled around until it came to a stop beside him.  A man dressed all in black exited the car and walked around to the passenger side of the man with the coffee’s car.  He knocked on the window and the man holding his coffee waved him inside.

“Are you Donovan Reese?” the man with the coffee asked as he took another sip of the hot java.  The man’s voice was deep and he spoke with a heavy accent.

“I am,” the man in black said, extending his hand.  The man with the coffee did not return the gesture, and the man in black lowered his hand.  “It is Abrham, right?”

“That is correct,” the man with the coffee said, never taking his focus off of the entrance of the hospital. 

“So is it true that the child could be
t
he Guardian
?” the man in black asked excitedly.

“That is not important,” Abrham said, taking another sip from his cup.  “What is important is that we are here in case-”

“Ausiris,” the man in black interrupted.

“Exactly,” Abrham answered. 

There was a long moment of silence as the two sat watching the entryway.

“If the child is truly the Guardian,” the man in black said, “then that would make you the Protector, am I right?”

Abrham turned toward the man in black, who simply smiled at him.  The man in black’s face was wrinkled and grotesquely scarred. 

“You are not Donovan,” Abrham said, his voice shaking.  “You are...”

The car erupted in a bright orange light.  It illuminated the entire parking lot, reflecting off the blanket of snow that was enshrouding the black asphalt below.  The light disappeared, and the man in black exited the car.  He held Abrham’s coffee in his hand and took a sip of it.

“Garbage,” he said and sneered at the cup full of black liquid.  The man threw the cup into the car and slammed the door.  He turned and headed toward the entrance of the hospital.

Max awoke to the manic beeping of his alarm clock.  The red digital display read 6:30.  With one hand, he covered his head with his pillow. His other hand frantically searched for the snooze button and managed to hit it, silencing the plastic devil.

The silence was welcomed as Max immediately began to drift back to sleep, but was quickly interrupted by a loud knocking on the bedroom door.

“Are you up Max?” he heard his mother’s soft voice ask him from the other side of the door.

“No,” he answered, his voice muffled by the pillow.

“Well rise and shine.  I’m making you a birthday breakfast.”

“Fine,” he said groggily.  He continued to lay there for a moment, staring at the alarm clock.  He wished that he could freeze time and go back to sleep for the next 10 to 15 hours.  Defiantly the clock changed from 6:30 to 6:31.

“I hate you so much,” he told the tiny clock as he begrudgingly exited the warm comfort of his bed.

Max took his time getting ready for school.  He took an extra 10 minutes in the shower, dreading the moment that he would have to step out of the warm safety of the water into the cold, depressing world around him.  He turned off the water and pressed his head against the cool slippery tile.   

Max had struggled with a feeling of being incomplete his entire life, but being in high school had only amplified it.  As others in his grade were beginning to explore potential colleges and joining extracurricular groups, Max found himself doing less and less.  He felt as if he was becoming more detached from the rest of the world. 

His mother had knocked on the bathroom door three different times, rushing him to breakfast.  Each attempt had been ignored, although he was excited about the prospect of a warm, home cooked meal; he had grown accustomed to a bowl of cereal or a couple of nuked toaster pastries.

After his shower, Max commenced with his morning ritual of examining himself in the mirror for zits and blemishes.  This had become an unwelcomed routine of his adolescent life. While the dreaded teenage disease of acne hadn’t stricken him like others in his class, he wasn’t lucky enough to be immune to it. 

As Max stared into the reflection, he scrutinized over the changes from his previous birthday to now.  His sandy blonde hair was a little longer and more disheveled than it had been.  He noticed that he had put on a little more weight than last year; his former bird chest now resembled something more like a man than a sickly boy.  He even sported a small tuft of chest hair between his pecs.  He ran his fingers over the oddly shaped pink birthmark on his abdomen.  It was in the shape of a small circle with a single crooked line piercing the center of it. 

His bright blue eyes stared back at him through the foggy mirror.  They looked sad and haunted.  They made him feel alone.  He removed his hand from his stomach and wiped off some of the condensation so he could see himself more clearly.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he told the reflection.

He was startled by another knock on the door.

“Max, who are you talking to?” asked his mother.

The unexpected interruption had scared him, and he cursed loudly.  His heart jumped and skipped a beat.  He could feel his pulse racing.  Max caught his breath and then yelled loudly at the closed door, “I said I would be down in a minute!” 

“A: Watch your mouth,” his mother responded, her voice not raising a decibel.  “You might be 16 now, but I am still your mother.  B: Breakfast is ready.  Hurry up or it’ll be cold.”

His heart was still pounding loudly in his chest. For a split second, he thought that he saw a faint blue light coming from his fingertips.  He held his fingers closer to his face, but they were the same pink fleshy color as always.  Perhaps it was the lighting or his eyes playing tricks on him.  He examined his hands for a moment longer by holding them up to the bright lights of the vanity.  Nothing. 

Max sighed.  He knew that today was going to be difficult for him, but he knew that it would be especially so for his mother.  The joy of celebrating the birth of one son was always severely diminished by mourning the loss of the other. 

Max had dreaded the day ever since his fifth birthday party.  It had been held at the Forest Valley Skating Rink, Max’s favorite place in the world at that time.  They were halfway through singing ‘Happy Birthday’ when his mother had a complete meltdown and locked herself in the bathroom for three hours.  The fire department had to knock the door down to get her to come out.  The manager of the skating rink asked them not to return after that.

His birthday was rough for him as well.  He constantly wondered what it would have been like to have a brother.  Especially a twin brother.  He imagined the misadventures they would have had.  He also wondered what it would have been like if his dad would have stuck around for his mom after Aiden died.  He wondered what it would be like to have a family.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he repeated.

Max exited the bathroom and walked down the hallway to find his best friend, Noah Allman, sitting at the dining room table. He was stuffing his face with a forkful of pancakes. 

Noah had been Max’s best friend since the two were in kindergarten, and they had been inseparable ever since.  Noah lived a couple of streets down on Sycamore, and he met Max every morning at 7:30am. Then the two would skateboard to school together.  However, Noah had never shown up for breakfast.

Noah looked like Max had looked last year.  He was small and wiry.  His hair had been dyed purple, and he spiked the top of it into a mohawk.  He wore a black hoodie and baggy jeans that were two sizes too large for his small frame.

Evelyn sat at the table beside Noah, wearing a paper hat with ‘Happy Birthday’ printed on it.  Max was about to comment on how goofy she looked wearing the stupid little hat, but he noticed that she was smiling and refrained.  She never smiled anymore.

The table was covered with all of Max’s favorites.  A dinner plate stacked high with pancakes.  A large serving bowl full of scrambled eggs.  A saucer with biscuits sat next to a gravy boat filled with thick, sawmill gravy.  Another saucer was filled with a heaping pile of bacon.  Noah had a half filled plate of the goodies that he was furiously working on.

“Good Morning, buttlicker,” Noah said happily.

“Noah!” Evelyn exclaimed, swatting at him at the same time.  Noah half-heartedly moved to evade the blow.  He smiled at Max and waved him over with his syrup covered knife and fork. 

Max joined them at the head of the table.  His plate had already been filled, and he sat down quietly to eat the gourmet meal.  Everything tasted delicious; it was possibly the best meal Evelyn had ever made him.  Or at least the best that he could remember.

His mother had rarely been home since taking on a second job at the local diner down the street.  She typically worked 15 to 16 hour days, which left little time for her to make Max a well-balanced meal.  This had led to Max learning to cook for himself.  His two specialties were frozen pizza and macaroni and cheese.  Just what a growing boy needed…junk and more junk.

When Evelyn
was
home, she was either asleep or intoxicated.  More often than not it was a combination of the two.  Max had grown accustomed to it.  She had been drinking regularly as long as he could remember.  She would start with a few beers and eventually graduate to gin or scotch by the end of the evening. She would isolate herself in their living room and stare mindlessly at the television until she passed out. 

“So I was thinking,” Noah started, “that after school we could go see that new alien movie everyone is raving about.”  Evelyn shot Noah a look of disapproval.  “You know the one with all the blood and the gore and the people dying and probably lots of sex and stuff.”  He smiled at Evelyn who stared back with a scornful look. 

“Watch it,” she muttered to him.

“As long as your mother is okay with it, I mean,” he added innocently.

“Yeah,” Max answered, not looking toward his mom.  “Sounds like fun.”  As much as he would have liked to convince himself that he cared what his mother would say, he didn’t.  She had been such an absentee figure for the last few years of his life that their relationship had degraded to the point of a text message every few days to make sure the other was still alive.

Max saw his mother’s glare shift from Noah to him. He glanced down at his watch.

“We have to go,” Max said, rising abruptly from the table.

“But you’ve barely eaten anything,” Evelyn said.

“I’m sorry,” Max said, motioning for Noah to get up.  “We can’t be late for school.”  Max watched as Noah continued shoveling in as much food as he could into his mouth; his cheeks were swollen like a chipmunk’s.  He could feel his mother’s disappointment, and he avoided making eye contact with her.

“Noah!” Max yelled at him.

“Fine,” Noah said, shoving one more piece of bacon into his mouth and rising from his chair.

“I love you, Mom.” Max planted a kiss on the back of her head and darted for the front door.  

“Happy Birthday,” Evelyn called after him.

* * *

“That was weird,” Noah said to Max as he hopped off of the beat-up skateboard and pressed the crosswalk signal button. 

The two of them had been skateboarding to school for a couple of years.  Before then Noah’s mother would take them and pick them up.  Before that, they had ridden the bus, but had been banished after starting a miniature riot on their last day of the third grade. 

“What was?” Max asked rolling to a stop next to him.

“Your mom made a sick breakfast for you, invited me over to share in the festivities, and you could not get out of the door fast enough.  Now don’t get me wrong, I know that you and your mom just have a weird relationship, and this is normally the one day a year that your mother is a little cuckoo…but that breakfast was ridiculous.  And as much as you can’t stand her, I happen to think your mom is quite the pleasant and attractive woman.  In fact, I think the only thing wrong with her is that she needs to feel the strong touch of a man.  Did you happen to see the way she was looking at me?”

“If you continue to try to convince me that my mother has a crush on you, I will be forced to beat you to death with this skateboard,” Max said through his clinched teeth.

“Fine,” Noah said, “but you can at least tell me why you two can’t be in the same room together for more than 10 minutes at a time.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Max said.  The crosswalk indicator changed from ‘Don’t Walk’ to ‘Walk.’ The duo hopped back onto their boards and continued the three mile trek to the school. 

It was warm for December, and Max had worn just a tee shirt that morning.  He had contemplated wearing shorts as well, but knew that it would probably draw criticism from his mother. 
“Who wears shorts in December?”
he could hear her ask him in his head.

“Max,” Noah said, “I’ve been your best friend since the first day of kindergarten, when you pulled John Green’s pants down and then yelled at everyone in the class to look at him.”

“He was telling everyone that you smelled like pee,” Max said.

“Exactly,” Noah said.  “You’ve had my back since we were five years old.  That was 11 years ago.  You would think that in 11 years we would have established some sort of reciprocal level of trust by now.  Try me.”

But Max didn’t try.  He skated silently the rest of the way to the high school.  Noah, on the other hand, never shut up.  Once he had accepted that Max wasn’t going to talk about the strained relationship that he shared with his mother, he moved on to the movie they were going to see that evening, and then to how hot the cheerleading squad’s new uniforms were, and then to how a ninja could easily kill a full grown Tyrannosaurs Rex.  The last subject had been a common theme with Noah since they were little: some stupid idea that he would ramble on and on about until Max would either join in or tell him to shut up.