Time Spent (3 page)

______________________

"I dunno," Brandon said as the credits
scrolled on the television. "Talking in metaphor? Kinda far
fetched."

"No, it makes total sense!" Beth
exclaimed.

They were sitting on the couch in her TV
room. Beth was wearing an old t-shirt and gray sweats, which
somehow made her even more adorable in Brandon's eyes. She also had
a habit of curling her legs up and tucking her feet under Brandon's
leg to keep them warm. Why Brandon loved having her freezing cold
feet pressed up against him so much, he had no idea, but he did. He
really did. It was late, her parents had already gone to bed, and
they were alone, having watched three back-to-back episodes of
Star Trek: The Next Generation
.

"Think about it," she said. "All the
literature and pop culture you absorb all day, it would be so easy
to talk in references all the time. 'I'm like Ariel under the sea'.
'This guy at school is my Megatron'. 'I feel like I'm going to the
dark side'."

"That's pretty much how we talk anyway,"
Brandon said with a smirk.

She ignored him. "Cabin in the forest," she
said.

"Huh?"

"Oh, my parents have this old cabin out in
the woods. My grandparents, my mom's parents, they retired there,
but they died a while back. Sometimes I walk out there. It's nice,
but it's kind of lonely, makes me sad. Makes a good metaphor, for
times lost and gone. Cabin in the forest."

Brandon was still focused on the television
episode. "But if they always talk in metaphor, how did those
original stories get written? And how do they write new ones? It
doesn't hold up."

She pulled a cushion from behind her and
smacked him with it. "Overanalyze much?"

"Did you just hit me with a couch cushion?"
he asked.

"I believe I did."

"Oh no you didn't...you did not just hit me
with a couch cushion!" He reached down and grabbed her feet to
tickle them. Beth was extremely ticklish.

"Ahh! Brandon! No!" she kicked at him,
laughing.

"Besides," said Brandon, releasing he feet,
"we both know Janeway is a much better Captain."

"Than Picard? You're crazy!"

"Picard's all stodgy and...British," he
said. "Janeway's awesome."

"Picard's French you moron," she said,
laughing. "And he's sexy," she added.

"Oh, you like bald guys, huh?" Brandon
asked, putting a hand to his unruly brown curls.

She raised a hand to tousle his hair. "Not
always."

They were silent for a moment, looking into
each other's eyes.

"Well, I better go," Brandon said,
standing.

"Okay," she said, with a disappointed
tone.

Brandon ejected the DVD from the player and
put it back in the case.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow," he said.

At the door, he bent to give her a hug, and
lingered for a bit. Then he walked to his dad's Lexus, waiting in
her driveway. She watched him get in, waved, and closed the
door.

"Stupid, stupid, STUPID!" Brandon said,
banging the steering wheel. "Should have kissed her, it was
perfect, WHY DIDN'T I KISS HER?"

He drove home through the night, and while
he drove he imagined a society of the future, where people spoke in
metaphor, and the phrase "Brandon and Beth" carried a note of great
sadness and loss. It stood for failed potential: a romance lost
because one lover was too afraid to make his move.

"Stupid," he said again. "Brandon and Beth.
I'm such an idiot...just lock me up in the cabin in the forest and
throw away the key."

______________________

He descended out of the sky into his back
yard, curving up at the last moment to land on his feet with a
practiced step.

Getting better at that,
he
thought.

He could have walked around to the front and
come through the hole in his living room, which was secured only by
plastic sheeting, but then his naked body would have been seen by
anyone in his neighborhood who happened to be on the street. Not
that there was much point in hiding his nakedness at this point.
Brandon had had to sail down numerous times to get close enough to
read the highway signs, so he was sure he had been spotted a dozen
or more times on the way home. Nevertheless, he walked up to the
sliding glass door and peered in, cupping his hands beside his eyes
to block the light. He saw no one moving inside. His mother and
father were nowhere to be found.

Why am I not surprised?

Brandon yanked on the door, only to find it
locked. Luckily, he knew this door well enough to have a trick up
his sleeve. He jiggled it up and down and the lock came free,
allowing the door to slide open.

Brandon went straight to his room and
grabbed some clothes: a pair of brown corduroys and a Green Lantern
t-shirt.
Just in case this turns out to be the blackest
night,
he thought.

Kevin and the others were still there with
the guy who had sent him into space with an empty metal shell,
pretending it was a satellite. For all he knew, the scientist could
have done something to any or all of them.

Gotta get back there fast,
he
thought.

Brandon picked up his cell phone, still
sitting on his nightstand where he had left it. He dialed it, and
put it up to his ear.

"You've reached Mitchell,"
his
father's voice said cheerfully.

"And Melissa!"
his mother's voice
added, equally cheerful.

"Annnnnd we're not available right now!"

"You never are!" Brandon said to the machine
in mock cheerfulness.

"You know what to do next!"

BEEEEP.

"Mom, Dad, uhh...some really weird things
are happening, and I really need you to come home. Look, just come
home okay? Please." Brandon tried, but couldn't think of anything
better to say. "Just come home. Bye." He ended the call.

He sat in the chair in front of his computer
and slid the keyboard forward, concentrating. He had just one more
thing to do before he left.

______________________

EXCERPT FROM "IDIOT SYNCRATIC": THE BLOG OF
BRANDON HOLT

Hey guys. Things really going insane in a
hurry. Sorry I don't have much time, just want you all to know that
we found the kids from the bus, and I was right, we all have powers
somehow.

There are these military guys, they want us
dead for some reason, and this scientist guy is in charge of them.
He said that there was some kind of disaster going to happen, that
he was trying to stop it, but he lied, I think. The satellite he
sent me to take into space was empty.

I'm going back there to try to stop him and
help the others. If this is my last entry, I just want you all to
know I went out fighting. That's what superheroes do.

Beth would want it that way.

______________________

Brandon pressed the "Post" button and
watched as the blog host site posted the entry. He looked at it for
a moment, then slid the keyboard back and turned off the
computer.

One more stop,
he thought.

He walked back to the living room and with a
yank he pulled down the plastic sheeting.

"Can I help you find something?" the girl
with pulled-back black hair said. She wore an orange apron with
white lettering, like all the salespeople did, and chewed spearmint
gum with a wide-open mouth.

"I'm looking for safety goggles," Brandon
said.

"Oh yeah, we have those." She chewed loudly
as she led him down an aisle. "Right over here."

An assortment of various types of goggles
lined one shelf. Brandon grabbed one box, looking over it.

"Are these adjustable?" he asked.

"Um...I think so..." She picked up one of
the boxes and started reading.

Brandon rolled his eyes. "Never mind,
this'll do."

"Ok," she said disinterestedly.

He took them to the register and she rang
them up. Brandon paid her with his dad's emergency card. She
started to pull out a bag, but Brandon stopped her.

"Don't worry about it. I'll wear them out."
He opened the box and took the goggles out.

"You'll...wait, what?"

He put them on, adjusting the strap as he
walked outside.

The girl shrugged, looking down at a
magazine she had by the register.
WHOOOOOOOSH!!!
A burst of
air banged the glass doors open.

"What the...?" She stepped outside and
looked around to see what had happened. She would have seen Brandon
then, if she hadn't made an obvious mistake:

She never looked up.

Brandon plummeted out of the sky and sailed
through the open garage-style door that led to the lab where the
scientist had led him to the empty satellite. He landed on his feet
and looked around. There was no one in the room.

"Kevin?" he called. "Hello?"

He heard something then, a series of muffled
explosions, followed by a loud piercing wail. He covered his ears
with his hands, but the sound went right through them, bringing him
to his knees. Finally, it stopped.

The doors to the lab banged open and someone
came in, a pimple-faced young man with greasy brown hair, wearing
army fatigues. He was wiggling a finger in his ear.

"Ow," the man said. "That shit's loud huh?
What was that?"

"I don't know," Brandon said. "What's
happening here? I heard explosions."

"Yeah, some big shit's goin' down back
there."

Another man banged through the doors, also
wearing fatigues. This one had a shaved head and was hugely
muscled. Brandon recognized him instantly.

"Tommy?" Brandon asked, incredulous. "Tommy
Malone?"

Tommy turned and saw him, and a disgusted
look came across his face. "Holt? The hell are you doing here?"
Then he added: "Nice goggles, nerd."

"He was just standing in here," the other
guy said, and now Brandon recognized him as well: Tommy's sidekick,
Russell Sykes.

"I'm looking...wait, what are you doing
here?" Brandon asked.

"I woke up on a table in there. We both
did." Tommy walked closer, and as he walked, his muscles bulged
even larger. He grew half a foot as he walked across the room,
causing his fatigues to stretch and tear.

"But...wait...you weren't on the school
bus," Brandon said.

Russell walked around the other side of the
big table in the room and started to approach Brandon from the
other side. Suddenly, his back arched and he howled in pain.

"What's happening to him?" Tommy asked.
"What did you do?"

"Me??"

Russell fell to his knees, and suddenly his
legs fused together, bursting out of his pants. His body twisted
and undulated, forming a snakelike tail to which his torso was
attached.

"Stop it!" Tommy said, and swung downward at
Brandon with one massive fist.

Brandon activated his power and whizzed
backward across the room, his feet skidding on the floor. Tommy's
fist hit the floor and the stone cracked, sending fragments
exploding outward.

That would have caved my head in.

"Ahhhhh...ahhh..." Russell writhed and
twisted on the floor, his arms wriggling and reshaping into
undulating reptilian forms. Finally, with a jolt, his hands became
miniature snake heads, and opened to hiss at Brandon, venom
dripping from their teeth. His head reared back, and his mouth
opened, a forked tongue lolling out over canines thrust forth to
form sharp fangs.

Tommy grabbed one of the stone tabletops
that lined the wall and yanked it free of the wood and plaster. He
hurled it at Brandon. Brandon again zoomed across the room, evading
the blow.

"Look guys, I didn't do anything. I don't
even know how you got involved with this. Neither of you were on
the school bus!"

"The thcool buth?" Russell said, "latht
thing I remember it crathed. I don't remember theeing
you
there!"

"Yeah, I don't remember anything after the
crash, either," Tommy said, "until I woke up naked back there with
that blond guy putting his hands on me."

Zachary,
thought Brandon. "You were
naked? Where did you get the clothes?"

"Took 'em off thome tholdierth," said
Russell.

"Right after I broke their necks," Tommy
said with a grin.

Russell emitted a high pitched giggle.

Okay, this is not good,
Brandon
thought. He backed off a bit, trying to keep them both in sight.
Tommy suddenly raised his hands high, and Brandon saw the muscles
in his arms bulging again. The camo shirt tore completely free and
fell to the ground in tatters.

"Hell yeah!" Tommy said. "I'd like to see my
old man take a poke at me now!"

"Okay," Brandon said, "we can figure this
out, okay? Let's just calm down."

"Ragghh!" Tommy ran at him, and Brandon
again zoomed backwards away from him.

Russell lashed one of his snake arms and it
stretched out like a hose, wrapping around Brandon's neck.

"Ah!" Brandon reached up to try and pry it
free, and in that moment, Russell snapped the other snake around
his left arm. Russell then reeled him in and his tail coiled around
Brandon's legs.

"Oh I'm calm. I'm real calm." Russell said
with a giggle.

The snake around Brandon's arm sank its
fangs into the flesh of Brandon's left hand.

______________________

The hole widened, and through it, Brandon's
eyes beheld shapes of light and color. It took a moment, but as
they became clearer, he recognized them. They were masses of
strange lights, with large globes in the center surrounded by
satellites of smaller lights that whirled around them.

Dozens of them.

The ships of light exploded from the opening
and sailed out into the sky in all directions.

At last, the aliens had come.