Joshua Dread (6 page)

A lot of the writing was pretty cheesy, and there were definitely a few chapters (“Summer Camps for Superheroes,” “My Mutant and Me”) that I planned to skip. But there was also a lot of helpful information. An entire chapter on how to choose whether to be a superhero or a supervillain. Tips on how to control your Gyft. Profiles
of major figures in the super community, like Captain Justice, Scarlett Flame, and even my parents.

As long as I was stuck with this weird power, I figured I ought to at least know a little about what it meant and how to use it.

As we approached New York, I watched the tall buildings emerge over the horizon, glimmering in the morning sunlight. The traffic got crazier when we reached the city. I jolted forward and sideways as Dad navigated our station wagon through crowded intersections between swarms of jostling cabs. Finally the car lurched to a halt.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked. A massive warehouse loomed outside my window. Its steel walls were brown with rust and covered in graffiti. The windows were shattered. The place looked like it was about to cave in on itself.

“They had to choose a location that wouldn’t be too conspicuous,” Mom said. “Otherwise, police and superheroes might find out about it.”

Out of nowhere, a burly man in a red jacket approached the driver’s window. I instinctively reached for the lock button. Then I noticed the tag on the man’s jacket.

Dad rolled down his window. The valet leaned forward, a clipboard in one hand, and asked to see my dad’s identification. Dad handed over his driver’s license. The valet inspected his clipboard, then handed back the card.

“Welcome to the Vile Fair,” he said. “Please step out of the car.”

We did as we were told. Once we were out of the car, the valet reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small silver device. He nonchalantly pointed the device at our car and pressed a button. An explosion of sparks, a puff of smoke, and suddenly the car was nothing more than a chunk of metal, about the size of a cell phone.

The valet picked the miniature car off the ground and handed it to Dad, who slipped it into his pocket and gave the valet a couple of dollars.

“When we’re ready to leave, we just give the car back to him,” Dad said as we walked up the stairs toward the warehouse. “He’ll zap the car again and bring it back to its previous size.”

“Is that safe?” I asked.

“There are usually a few extra scratches after the resizing process. But it’s better than trying to find a parking space in the city.”

As we entered through the main doors, I looked around in awe. The inside of the building was nothing like the outside. I had expected a room full of rusted metal and broken bricks, but what I saw was glimmering
polished steel and huge video monitors on the walls, service desks and leather sofas in the reception area.

The vast room was packed with villains. They moved around the floor in their uniforms, chatting with each other and looking into the various stands that were spread out in long rows. Above each stand was a sign with the name of the company and the product that was being displayed.

I followed my parents past a woman in an aluminum bikini and matching helmet. She was speaking to a massive bodybuilder type with concrete for skin. A group of Japanese villains appeared to be comparing their laser cannons. An elderly man zoomed past on a hover wheelchair.

In a nearby booth, a woman was demonstrating zombie obedience techniques. Mom stopped to watch.

“Throughout history,” the woman said, “zombies have offered an effective means to horrify the masses. Unfortunately, working with zombies can present significant
difficulties. They are nearly impossible to control, they have an insatiable appetite for brains, and they have terrible grooming habits.”

She turned to face the zombie next to her. He was gray-skinned, with dark eyes and bloodstained lips. A chain held him to the edge of the booth.

“However,” the woman went on, “I would like to show you that it
is
possible to train zombies so they will be aggressive, bloodthirsty heathens, but with a sense of respect for their owners’ commands.”

She pointed at the zombie with one outstretched finger.

“Sit,” she said.

The zombie took a seat in the chair beside him.

“Now speak,” she commanded.

“BLARRRGH!”

“Very good!” The woman turned to us. “Now comes the crucial part. We must reward the zombie for good behavior. Otherwise he’ll have no incentive for obedience in the future. But we all know that rewarding him by feeding him brains will only send him into an uncontrollable killing frenzy.”

Mom nodded.

“I believe I have found the perfect compromise,” the woman said.

She reached into a cooler and removed a squishy pink
substance. The zombie leaned forward in his chair enthusiastically.

“As you can see, this has the look and texture of brains. It also smells and tastes remarkably similar. But it’s actually”—she lowered her voice—“tofu.”

She tossed a handful of the tofu to the zombie. He devoured it in one horrifying bite.

“This refreshing and nutritious snack will keep your zombies satisfied and obedient. And because it’s not real brains, they won’t go on a wild killing rampage unless you give the order.”

Everyone clapped. Mom purchased three boxes.

We wandered deeper into the hall. Along the way, I saw every kind of supervillain I could imagine (and many others I couldn’t). A pair of sword-wielding Siamese twins. A man whose head was composed of fire. Groups of international villains chatting with each other in languages I didn’t recognize. Insane scientists. Sane scientists. Evil billionaires screaming into their cell phones. Dictators speaking with government contractors.

Every once in a while, my parents would bump into someone they knew and I would have to stand around while they chatted about some new model of utility belt they’d seen or about which supervirus was the deadliest.

At the center of the conference hall was a stage. And
in the center of the stage was a man. He was bald, with an eye patch, and a long scar down the side of his face. In his hand, he was gripping a cane with a handle that was shaped like a skull.

“That’s Phineas Vex!” Dad said, pointing.

“Who?”

“The head of VexaCorp Industries.”

This rang a bell. I’d seen the VexaCorp logo on all sorts of things around our house. It was the company that had manufactured my parents’ hover scooters, utility belts, and plasma guns. Every season, a new VexaCorp catalog arrived in the mail. It was thicker than the phone book.

“I’ve been trying for years to get VexaCorp to buy one of my inventions,” Dad said. “Just imagine it—supervillains across the world using something that
I
made.”

I glanced back at Phineas Vex. He was standing in front of a microphone, staring across the crowd with an intense glimmer in his one good eye. On either side of him, the VexaCorp logo swirled across dozens of sky-blue flat-screen TV sets.

Vex leaned toward the microphone. “Greetings to my villainous brethren!” His voice boomed across the hall.

The crowd cheered. Vex waited until the cheering died away, then began to speak again.

“I, along with everyone at VexaCorp Industries, would like to welcome you to the twelfth annual Vile Fair,” he said.

The entire hall burst into applause.

“A lot has changed in the supervillain community in the forty years since I started VexaCorp,” Vex said. “The modern evil mastermind is no longer the two-dimensional figure from dusty old comic books. Nowadays, a villain has to view his job from a global context that integrates technology and efficiency with a capable media strategy. Together, we’ve made significant progress. International conflict has risen more than three hundred percent, and global villainy is at an all-time high.”

Another wave of applause swept through the hall.

“But there is still plenty of room for us to improve,” Vex said. “At VexaCorp, we’re constantly working on new technologies that will make your life easier. Software that can simplify your schedules so that you can balance evil schemes
and
time with family. Or the newest generations of hover vehicles—cars, scooters, and SUVs—that will ensure you can go wherever you want to go, whenever you want to go there.”

As Vex spoke, images drifted across the flat-screens all around him—supervillains gathered around a computer, a green-skinned woman loading groceries into the
trunk of her hover SUV, children trying on their capes for the first time as their beaming parents watched.

“However, the greatest innovation can’t be measured in a microchip. It can’t be plugged in or tried on. It wasn’t manufactured in a lab or assembled in a factory. No, the greatest innovation is much simpler than that. The greatest innovation is
you
.”

Holding the microphone in one hand and his cane in the other, Vex stepped to the front of the stage.

“
You
are the reason that superheroes lose sleep at night,” he said. “
You
strike fear into the hearts of feeble humans.
You
interrupt the local news with terrifying and elaborate threats;
you
alter the weather in strange and distressing ways.”

I noticed Dad nod at this last point.

“Without you,” Vex said, “none of our services matter. We are here because we believe in the awful things you are doing. That’s why we do our best—so you can do your worst!”

The crowd broke into raucous applause. I was surprised to find that I was clapping too. I still felt skeptical about all the evil schemes and terrible threats, but for the first time, I could actually understand what was so appealing about the lifestyle of a supervillain. It was a form of power, a way to take control in an uncontrollable world.

The cheering seemed to go on for a lot longer this time. The conference hall filled with noise. Feet stomping, shouts. Glancing behind me, I noticed that people weren’t cheering at all. They were
screaming
.

Something had gone horribly wrong.

V
illains near the back of the room ran for the exits, knocking each other over, drawing their weapons. Vex had cut off his speech. The noise was overwhelming.

I looked out over the mob, and that was when I saw the smoke.

It drifted into the back of the conference hall like a dark cloud. But as it approached, I realized it wasn’t
drifting
at all. It was walking.

The smoke was shaped like a human. And it moved like a human too.

It was more than six feet tall, with all the dimensions of a man. Two legs, two arms. Strands of smoke where its fingers would be. But its body was nothing more than a cloud, and its face was a dark, formless haze.

Phineas Vex was standing on the stage, watching the smoke creature with a mixture of confusion and fear. VexaCorp employees surrounded him. He tried to speak into the microphone, but his voice was overwhelmed by the screams that filled the space.

A VexaCorp security guard jumped down from the stage, firing a plasma cannon, but the beam passed right through the creature. It was like trying to shoot a cloud. Before the security guard could fire off another round, the creature stretched out its smoky hand and took hold of the man’s neck. Instantly the guard dropped his plasma cannon. The man struggled to kick the thing, but his elbows and feet passed harmlessly through the dark smoke.

The creature gripped the man tighter, surrounding him in a dark cloud that pitched and swirled like a tornado. A burst of lightning shot through the darkness. And just like that, the security guard was gone.

A wave of horror passed over me as I saw that there were more of the smoke creatures. They were everywhere. There must’ve been twenty, maybe thirty, of them, each shaped like a human, and each indestructible in every way. They stalked across the room, taking hold
of anyone in their path. As soon as they had someone in their grip, it was always the same—

A dark swirl of clouds.

A burst of lightning.

And then the person vanished. Gone.

“Wh-what are those things?” I asked.

Dad looked down at me. His face was as pale as ice. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

The inside of the conference hall was a madhouse. Screams filled the air. People knocked into each other. Villains on hover scooters flew near the ceiling, looking down at the terrible scene. Others blasted holes in the wall to get away. Some tried using their powers against the smoke monsters. Fireballs, freeze rays, sonic booms. But nothing worked.

A shiver of fear ran down my neck. If these things couldn’t be stopped by a huge building full of supervillains, then the rest of the world didn’t stand a chance.

I was knocked to the ground by a mob of people running toward an exit. I turned in time to see what the group was running from.

One of the smoke creatures was heading toward me.

Its featureless face turned in my direction. As I tried to stagger away, my feet slipped on a pile of Cheswick’s Vintage Villain Uniforms and I fell to the floor again.

The creature was only a few feet away. Its arm reached out.

I rolled under the table of vintage uniforms and out the other side just as the thing grabbed for my leg. Clambering to my feet, I began to run. Pushing through a screaming crowd, I managed to lose the smoke creature in the maze of smoldering booths. To my left, I caught sight of the stage. Vex looked like he was trying to climb down to the floor level, as if he wanted to personally fight the smoke creatures who’d interrupted his speech, but a team of bodyguards held him back.