Splintered Energy (The Colors Book 1) (6 page)

He broke into the phone carrier’s records, changed numbers, and altered the stored history to match. He wondered why the dead Malcolm bothered with a cell phone. The reclusive human had existed with apparently little contact with his fellow man.

The Malcolm-being that now existed preferred no contact at all. He wasn’t ready to handle a crowded airport, let alone the confines of a tight space. He could drive faster than a plane could fly, but would be limited by the six-cylinder sedan Malcolm owned.

Steal a twelve-cylinder? And gain what? Grand larceny couldn’t be worth the extra minutes.

A spare set of keys lay on the desk. A measure of hope thudded in his chest. If they belonged to the impounded vehicle, he’d be spared interaction with humans at the garage.
Time
to learn to drive.

Time-time-time to stop obsessing over t-i-m-e
.

Three minutes later, he’d memorized motor vehicle laws, engine schematics, and principles of gasoline-powered combustion. He scanned a direct path and memorized the hospital layout. The moment loomed to face the daylight,
sob
, wrong hues everywhere.

He strode to the bedroom and tossed the blanket on the bed. Teeth gritted, he flung open the closet. White dress shirts shoved aside, he removed a pale blue one. Navy slacks, black socks, black dress shoes followed. Forget the tie, a useless adornment.

In the bathroom, he rummaged for scissors and trimmed his hair even shorter. With a deep sigh, he stroked the blade against the blue-black stubble on his face. The mental debate whether he needed to touch the white faucet took three seconds. Not leaving a mess won over his dread, and five seconds cleansed the sink.

He slapped a navy baseball cap from the collection in the closet on his head. Back at the mirror, he reassured himself that, yes, he appeared as a fit Caucasian—favorite color obvious.

He grabbed wallet, sunglasses, keys and exited the shelter.

Centered on the pretty sky as he ran, the sunlight bathed him. He had no problem staying pulled as far away from his skin as possible. With speed he allowed no human to witness, he reached the garage. Thank deities he didn’t understand, the key slid from his fingers into the ignition.

Like he’d been driving for a lifetime, he skidded off pavement, bypassed the exit-gate, and entered 8:48 AM rush hour traffic.

He exceeded the speed limit, passed in the correct lane, and zigzagged around jealous commuters. The car had a radar detector, and he could react with inhuman reflexes. His luck held, and he reached the interstate without incident.

The left lane belonged to him, and he forced the engine toward maximum capacity. He focused on the sky and tried to ignore the cloud wisps. He found it more difficult to overlook the lines in the road, trees, and many colorful vehicles he whipped past. The wind from the open windows calmed him as it battered through the car.

Enjoyable classical music grew tiresome, yet provided a foundation to build on. He began composing. Notes grew and soared, dancing into a riotous fantasy of distraction. His symphony provided a lovely background for imaginary engine schematics, a vehicle capable of reaching a more acceptable speed.

Forty-two minutes later, Erie, Pennsylvania and the fuel gauge ended his numerically precise composition. The notes tumbled into long-term memory. Two radar traps forced him to stay tucked between a red truck and a black sedan. He took the last exit and headed for the obvious gas station. Stomach cramped, droplets beaded on his forehead, he lined the car up and exited the vehicle.

Red, the damn pump handle has to be red
. He sighed and closed his fingers around the metal. Five oblivious humans in the station eased his mind, but the female wearing a green shirt, tight jeans, pumping fuel ahead of him increased the tremble in his hands. Her stare burned into his peripheral vision. What had he—murderer of Malcolm James—done to interest her?

Finally, the level of sloshing liquid signaled the tank had filled. He’d rather leave a paper trail than place his back to the woman and enter the station. He rejected the pump’s option of a sure-to-be-white receipt, and swallowed hard at her deep breath.

“Hey, I don’t normally talk to strangers, but are you from around here?”

He shifted hidden eyes to her nervous smile. From around here? Understatement of a two-day existence. “No, only passing through.”
Oh my, how I wish I was done passing through
.

“Too bad, it’s just…you look like someone I’d like to know better.” She ran her hand through shoulder length hair, her muscles on edge. She seemed eager yet timid. Did she suspect something non-human about him?

Words to communicate without increasing her fear eluded him. The solution—flee. He mimicked her shrug, dropped his chin, and closed himself off in the car.

New York State approached, and he tried to regain his serenity in the music. The sunlight sparkled off the shades covering his barely opened eyes, creating a constant nausea in harmony with his brooding. That woman had wanted something from him. Clarification would enable him to survive without harming, or most important, having his personal space evaded.

A rush of despair compounded his worry as he acknowledged his chronophobia. The hourglass ticked in his thoughts, an uncontrollable obsession. If he took too long understanding the means of escape from this confusing plane of existence, he’d fail. So, he’d left the computer and reacted to inconclusive data by hopping in a car? No. He’d made the correct move. If the woman in the morgue had a connection to him, her future autopsy made it certain he’d never see the pure light of his past again.

In this moment, he’d best forget the female he ran from and the one he headed toward, before his head exploded.
Time
for a concrete distraction involving speculative fantasy. He needed a force field to block rays in his imaginary super-car capable of instant velocity regardless of space curvature. Windows must be down, simple tinted glass ruled out…

Chapter Six

Demon had been trapped, wherever he was, for what seemed a very long time. The irritating light had disappeared. Darkness and the soft breeze demanded activity. He bounded up from under the tree and headed toward the glimmering in the east. He’d take more answers from the first thing that confronted him—such as the pretty, yet deadly threat looming in his path.

He crept closer and closer to the metal with the octagon shaped STOP image. Not a circle, it had eight equal sides and acted important perched on top of a thin pole. Arms crossed, he stood under it.

Nothing.

A long two seconds passed. He couldn’t wait forever. He reached his littlest finger to brush the lowest section of the dead-white S—he jerked back. He, Demon, remained wherever he was!

A careful pat on the beautiful-red caused the metal to splinter, cracking into the dead-white, and he understood another constant. Death was powerless. STOP, Jaylynn’s arm, the ugly little thing, the orange-clad one, everything broke with ease. Demon was very strong in this bewildering existence.

Air snorted from his nose, he uncrossed his arms and let the night currents flow round him. Charged with power, his energy escalated into an explosion of movement under the impotent image. He danced in place, a riotous delight of strength.

He wished he held Jaylynn. Even a mean cruel demon from hell could learn to be careful with the fragile ones afraid to die—if they didn’t yell at
Invincible
forever.

* * *

The man put his beer in the cup holder, eased his foot off the gas, and squinted in the streetlight. A barefoot guy with long red hair pranced under the stop sign. He appeared sunburnt all over his shirtless chest and face. Athletic looking, but scrawny. Faggot ballerina. This was a politically red state. So what if the freak matched? Shoulda stayed in a goddamn blue state.

He lowered the wailing country music, slammed on his brakes, and yelled through the open window, “Go back to San Fran, ya fag.”

His laugh died on his lips. The red man strode faster than he’d ever seen anyone move in his life, and the passenger door opened.
Jesus
. Almost ripped off the hinges? The freak jumped in while he scrambled to yank his rifle from behind the seat. If the door to his truck had been broken, this was one dead son of a bitch.

“Demon don’t know fag. Teach San Fran.”

Up close, the guy’s skin looked unnatural. Not Indian, not burned, and in no way normal. The man lit-up and radiated energy. Warm, almost hot blasts of air sparkled blood red around him. Wearing cracked sunglasses at night to hide being high on somethin’ other than alcohol? What type of queer glowed like that? He struggled to aim at the weirdo less than two feet away.

“Get the hell outta my truck, before I blow your ugly red head off.”

The stranger barked a harsh laugh and yanked the gun from his hand. The freak tossed the rifle to the floor, started tapping with the music, vibrating the dash as he looked around the truck.

I let a fag disarm me!
“Are you crazy? I’ll snap your goddamn neck.” He had a couple inches, sixty pounds over the bizarre man, and it’d been awhile since rage pounded so hard he shook. A white, God-fearing male with inalienable rights. Not to have freaks in his truck remained one of them.

The road was deserted, and who’d blame him? Hell, the guards in the pen at Florence would slap him on the back. If the guy didn’t get out in one minute, he’d eat pavement.

The weirdo sniffed, like a dog scenting territory. A red hand snaked for the ashtray, and the man grabbed the Marlboro’s glowing end. The fag calling himself Demon snarled and threw the cigarette over his shoulder.

Freakin’ Jesus
. He didn’t care if he cracked open his knuckles, it’d be damn satisfying to break this punce’s face before pumping his head full of shotgun pellets—only the splatter of crimson was sure to be HIV tainted. He needed space.

In the desert. Just over that ridge.

Long hair whipped around the freak’s head as he stared at the sputtering flame devouring the food wrappers on the back seat. “Fire. Demon like.”

A blow of his fist knocked his truck into park. He lunged over the seat and smashed the burning wrappers. “Are you crazy? Vocabulary of a two-year-old? Outta my truck, before I kill you. I’ll rip your demon head off.”

Electricity gripped his neck to thrust him backward, and the dashboard slammed into his skull.
The damn gun. Get the damn gun
. He pushed himself off the console. The smack on his jaw knocked him sideways into the driver’s window, and his head cracked glass.

A dull ache told him his jaw was fractured. It’d hurt like hell after the alcohol wore off and—
Jesus, goddamn teeth loose?
He rubbed the back of his head, blood on his hand, and his panic spun out of control. What sat in his truck? An honest-to-God demon? “What the fuck do you want?”

With an arrogant snap of fingers, the fiend gestured forward.

Tears spilled, and he almost bawled for the first time since childhood. He had to be concussed, and his rifle lay in front of an impossibly strong freak.

He threw the truck into gear. The banging of the passenger door echoed the rage and hurt throbbing through him while he drove into Payson. As the small fire burned itself out on the leather seat, demon-freak scowled with childish disappointment. The psycho’s attention spun back to the radio. Instead of drumming with the beat as before, he growled and rubbed his temple. “Hurts head. Make stop. Faster.”

How’d I get in a B grade horror movie?
“Make stop? Your fuckin’ head hurts? You should feel what you did to mine.”

A red finger tapped the radio—instant silence. “Faster,” demon man growled.

No doubt, they’d find a battered corpse under a cactus.
Me, gnawed by coyotes
. The stoplight facing him turned red. Would he be eviscerated if he stopped? He pulled behind a station wagon with a couple of teenage boys.

The demon broke into a feral grin and bounced out the broken door.

* * *

“Hey man, what’re ya doing?” Kevin clutched the wheel and gaped at the red-haired, red-skinned, shirtless man pushing Tim over to sit next to him. The truck behind them did a frantic U-turn before speeding away, its open passenger door banging.

Kevin wished he hadn’t just smoked a reefer.

A nervous Tim giggled. “Hey dude.” He glanced at Kevin. “Is he red? Or am I hallucinating?”

“Hello.” Kevin should strangle Tim. What garbage was in that pot? “I’m Kevin and this is Tim. What’s your name? Er…most people ask first, for a ride I mean.”

“Don’t know name. Jaylynn said, Demon.” The stranger wearing shades spoke in a growly voice that flowed with authority. He gestured at the green light. “Go.”

Kevin began driving. “Okay, um…where you headed? You know your door’s open?”

The stranger grasped the door handle, and Tim wasn’t the only one hallucinating. It looked like the man smashed the door back into its frame. The strange dude began drumming on the dashboard.

“Like the tunes?” Kevin asked.

The man lit with sparkles of vermillion joy and nodded.

“Yeah, it’s old but good,” Tim said. “What’s with the truck you were in?”

“Truck music hurt head.”

“What? Don’t like redneck? You’d think being red and all.” Kevin laughed, pounding the steering wheel. “Why are you all red? You in a movie or something?”

“Don’t know. Drive faster.”

The vibrant man crackled with energy. The muscles in his arms flowed with coiled strength like a…did red panthers exist? Wild. Kevin pulled his stare away to concentrate on driving.
Jesus
—weed laced with what? Mushrooms could send crimson dots dancing through your vision.
My every breath feels, yeah, like electric
. The air in the car now smelled, tasted as he imagined a radical current would. Intoxicating, powerful, and it pulsated—Kevin was sure—from the red dude, not the stuff in the ashtray.

“Your name’s Demon?” Tim seemed unable to stop giggling. “What kinda name’s that? Some sort of evil cult here from hell to kill? You foreign or somethin’? You mean to say Da Mon, right? I’d hate to share a ride with a satanic dude.”

To Kevin’s fascination, a sigh like a huge weight had been lifted, escaped the man. His grin sharp, he seemed pleased with Tim’s switch of his name. “Damon? No kill. Thank you.”

“We’re going to Phoenix. Where you headin’?” Tim asked.

“Home.”

Tim snickered. “Seriously, where do you live, Mars?”

No answer. The man began to hum, low and eerily beautiful. Had to be the weed. Kevin grinned. “Okay, Damon, you’re the man. Phoenix, here we come.” The twisted mountain road took them south, leaving Payson, rednecks, and reality in the dust.

Ten minutes later, Kevin and Tim sang while Damon drummed a perfect beat. Kevin decided to see if the dude, who refused to answer why he looked like he did, wanted to groove before they reached the city. Wheel in one hand, he took the joint from the ashtray. When Tim flicked his black lighter, the man’s smile widened. “Damon like fire.”

“That’s sweet. A pyro. You’ll like this stuff even better.” Kevin took a drag and started to hand the joint over.

The agitated guy sniffed, and then the air detonated with hot anger around him. Brow furrowed, Damon vibrated with violence.
Crap!
Postal over a freakin’ joint? The smoke came out of Kevin’s mouth in a coughed gasp.

“Too much bad air,” Damon barked. “Make go away.”

“Sorry? Doesn’t smell right to you?” Kevin swallowed hard. Damon had been acting so cool, glowing with exhilarating energy. Kevin was positive anyone that into it would appreciate the addition of smoke to the music, but Damon…Demon changed. Instantly.

The snarling stranger tapped the passenger window. Shatterproof glass shattered and hit the pavement. He leaned over a terrified Tim, ripped the joint from Kevin, and flung it into the night.

“What’s your problem?” Tim slammed against Kevin.

Kevin hit the brakes. For the first time in years he—he wanted his mom to tell him what to do.

* * *

What was
their
problem? Damon hadn’t smashed ugly faces, only the window. He’d ignored the wrong scents when he first got in the car, but that much bad smell was intolerable.

He didn’t care when the large one in the red-neck-truck—which didn’t make sense because it was an ugly-green truck—had been afraid. He didn’t understand many of the words it yelled.

Damon wanted to rip its head off, like the fragile thing wanted to do to Damon. He’d left the head on. It hadn’t been easy. These smaller ones had sweetness in their voices. They didn’t annoy too much, but now his head ached. It was difficult to block billions of noises, when irritation pounded along with the chaos of sound.

Damon-Demon is a mean cruel freak
. Everyone he tried to communicate with feared him. Tim shook, his airflow beating too hard and terrified, he’d leak water soon. Fluid welled in Damon’s eyes, too. He’d broken Jaylynn’s arm. Not easy, controlling invincible. “Damon won’t touch Tim. Why afraid? Teach.”

“You didn’t have to break the window. Kevin’s mom will kill him.”

A dead window mattered? Tim’s words didn’t have any tone suggesting they weren’t true. He scowled. “Damon knows kill. Where Mom? Teach. Now.”

“You want to tell my mom you smashed her car?” Kevin yelled. “Are you crazy?”

Overwhelming frustration throbbed within his aching head. Not only did Kevin not go faster, he pulled over and slowed to a halt. Damon could see the glow from whatever Phoenix was. Maybe if he went fast, he’d find his home.

Damon couldn’t take much more of this. Something needed to break, something always broke, and he wanted to flee this confusing world. What actually happened when a head came off? Damon banged his forehead on the dashboard—metal dented—his pulsating head stayed on.

“This is really weird. We have to do something,” Kevin whispered to Tim.

“Want us to get you some help?” Tim’s trembling fingers patted Damon on the knee. “What’s wrong?”

Many things were wrong, but a new emotion shook Damon. Tim’s voice texture rang frightened and concerned, and he’d touched Damon. The first time someone had chosen to do so.

He lifted his head and wiped his leaking eyes. “Help Damon?” The glasses wanted to fall off. If his eyes showed, would his name be Demon again?

“We could bring you to a hospital,” Kevin said. “They must have a mental or psych unit in Phoenix.”

“Psych unit fix head noise?”

“Sure, that’s what they’re for.”

“Mom kill Kevin?”

“Yeah, but I can make up some fuckin’ story.”

“Take to Mom, then psych unit. No fuckin’. Damon don’t like. Go faster.”

Kevin’s ugly mouth fell open. “Take you to my mom? You’re really whacked! I can’t go faster. I just got my license. We’ve been smoking. I can’t risk the police on top of the broken window. She really would kill me.”