Blog of a Teenage Superhero

Chapter Twelve: No Capes

It occurs to me that I haven't described myself. At all. And that, probably, you see me as some freakishly tall shadow-blob, chugging coffee as she shuffles from butt-kicking to butt-kicking. Or you see pieces of yourself in me. Maybe you're a reader who slips into these words and wears my experiences like a second skin. Which is pretty dang cool to a nerd like yours truly, and even more so to the superhero I'm supposed to be. Anyone can be Red Comet, so anyone should be Onyx, too.

But if Masquerade ever really kicks my butt, I've decided it would be nice if a few devoted readers could identify my body.

"So," I say to the whirling circle on my screen. "I can't disclose my sources. But this is my first lead on the disappearance of Red Comet." I flip the phone around. You have to remember, I draft my stories on a typewriter.  I don't know how a phone works. My post got a few reads, a few comments. Most asked for proof I'm the real Onyx. The rest called me a creep. 

I hover over the warehouse behind the cottage Masquerade jumped me. It looks like a playset. A little gray toy sticking up on the green quilt forest. A little closer, and there's the hissing brown bog with the bubbles scraping the clouds before they pop on the blades of grass with several snaps in quick succession. My heart slams. I can feel the odd heartbeats, the stabbing heat in my side. In another thirty minutes I get to take a second dosage of pills to relieve the hearth that's begun to stir again in my bones. 'Cause who needs actual rest, am I right?

"See that warehouse?" I swoop down over the bog, my toes dangling just above the little hissing bubbles. The warehouse's sides are orange with a coat of rust, a few chains slung over the door and looped around the brass knob. The air reeks of acid, the metallic-tinge of sheet metal stinging my nose. I pull the sleeves of my hoodie over my fingers and yank the chains so hard they snap. "Huh," I say to the phone. "It looks like I'm a... a... " Can't think of a pun about my super-strength, so I stand there, laughing this low eh heh heh at the camera. The door creaks behind me and swings open with a painful squeal. My heart skips. I lick one finger and hold it up to the sky like all the sailors do in the old movies. The air is dead still.

This is where the smart people stop. They turn around, or call the police, or so something that does not include walking into the very clear trap. But I'm sure I've established that I'm not one of these smart people. Evidence is evidence, and I need it.

Someone comments that I'm stupid. "Very," I say, and take to floating, balancing on the thin web of molecules on the toes of my mud-slicked sneakers. 

The warehouse, from the inside, is everything you'd expect and wouldn't all balled in one. The roof is supported by rotting wooden rafters. You can make out the cracks in the oak, the molds and weeds peeking out through the slender 'Xs'. The ceiling is torn. Sunlight slants on the floor, painting the metal all around me with seams of gold. Filing cabinets are pressed up against the walls, manila folders piled up under my floating my feet like the dead leaves I used to jump into as a kid when I lived inland. But that's not the disturbing part, none of this is, really.

The warehouse is filled with hooks.

They dangle low on steel chains. Rusty at the tips, splattered brown. They clang like demented wind chimes when I push past them, catching in my unbrushed hair, tugging at my hoodie strings. My hands have gone clammy and cold. 

This is what it must feel like in a slaughterhouse.

The reception here is low and the live-stream is depleting my battery, so I cut it off with one last panoramic snap of the warehouse and an even quicker 'bye.' I take pictures instead, the adrenaline rush so overpowering I almost forget to miss my camera. I wade through the files. Most of them are burned or filled with holes. Of the papers I can salvage, the ink runs together, blurring the words. Half are crisp with a thin dry, brown layer. Drenched and air-dried.