Chapter 5: Code Red

A small draft of air entered the house as Jack whirled in, slamming the door shut behind him. He threw his bag on the kitchen table and sprinted up the stairs. Reaching the top, he paused a moment and tried to catch his breath.

Jack would have been home hours ago, but Adam had made that quite difficult, nearly hauling Jack back to his house and pestering him with his ridiculous questions and theories. Now it was after dark, and Melissa would arrive shortly to tutor him. She would be there within the hour, leaving him little time to prepare.

“Mom, where are you?" he called. She wasn’t downstairs, and she wasn’t in the basement. The pool of light under her bedroom door and the vacuum-sounding hum were the only indications Jack needed. He dashed the few feet from the foot of the stairs to her bedroom door.

“Hey, Mom, are you in there? I could really use some help right now.”

“Just a second, hun, I’m drying my hair.”

Jack tapped his foot while the seconds whittled away. After a minute that felt like ten, the door opened to reveal a blonde, short-haired woman with an amused expression on her face.

She was in her mid-forties, short, and she carried herself with an air of resolve. She was a pretty woman, kind, and fun loving. For most of Jack’s life, his father had been away on business of some kind or another, seldom finding the time to visit and not for long on those occasions. Most people thought Jack’s parents were divorced, but his mother was very much in love with his father. It wasn’t a typical relationship.

“Now, tell me what it is that’s got you all worked up. And why are you out of breath?”

Panting, Jack held up a finger, taking a second to catch his breath.

“Mom, listen, I need you to help me take down all my posters and wall scrolls.”

Alana blinked in confusion while Jack danced around and moaned.

“What do you mean? Why do you need to take down all that stuff? And why all of a sudden?”

“I can explain as we go, Mom, but we really need to get this done. There’s no time. Oh yeah, and grab some of Dad’s old sports posters and stuff and help me throw them up. I don’t even care which ones, just grab any of them. Except golf, definitely no golf posters. Wait, does he even have golf posters? Ah man, why did Adam hold me up for so long?”

Jack tried to explain as much as he could, but his mother’s confusion slowed everything down.

“Even the Naruto poster?”

“Yes, Mom, especially that one. God help me if she sees that.”

Alana grinned. “She?”

Jack knew right away he’d said too much. His mother wouldn’t be able to resist giving him a hard time. She had a playful nature, which at times deviated into outright harassment for the sake of amusement.

With a hearty chuckle, she said, “Who is this ‘she,’ Jack? Are you bringing home a girlfriend?”

Jack felt his cheeks grow hot. “She’s just a friend, Ma. She’s tutoring me at math, and that’s all.”

“She’s just a friend, huh? I thought Adam tutored you at math.”

“Well, she’s better at it!”

Jack knew his mother was toying with him, trying her best to make him squirm.

“Does this girl have a name?”

Jack soured as even more time spilled away. “Her name’s Melissa. She’s a girl in my class and she said she’d help me learn the math. I figured why not? So she’s just a friend and that’s all there is to it, Mom, so don’t ask any dumb questions or embarrass me when she gets here. And stop looking like you’re enjoying this.”

Alana inhaled and made an exaggerated expression of shock, as if Jack’s words were cruel and unfounded. One of concern quickly replaced it.

“Jack, I got a call that there was a fire in your class today. What happened? Were you scared? I was worried, but they said no one was hurt.”

Aww man, now she’s gonna wanna talk about some dumb fire.

“Mom, we don’t have time for idle chat. Hey, do you still have Dad’s old football poster? You know, the one of that player, umm, Iverson Allenson or something?” Jack recalled seeing it up a few years back.

“I think you mean basketball, sweetie, and it was Allen Iverson. You really need to watch more sports. It’s not normal for someone your age to be this clueless when it comes to man-stuff. Heck, I’m your Mom and I know more than you.”

Jack grunted. He did not have time for a sports lecture from Mrs. Know-It-All.

“Whatever. Do you have anything I can put up that doesn’t make me look geeky?”

Alana frowned. Jack braced himself. He knew she was not one to let her disapproval go unvoiced.

“Now why should you be ashamed of the person you are? I think you’re overreacting and blowing all of this way out of proportion. If you’re trying to impress a girl and you hide who you are, don’t you think she’ll find out eventually, anyway?”

“What? Of course not! Dad used to tell me it’s a man’s job to lie to a woman.”

“Oh? Did he, now?” For a moment, Jack thought he saw her face darken.

“At least help me get rid of my playing cards. We can move them into the den for a little while until she leaves. If she sees my collection she’s gonna laugh at me. Just make sure you don’t—”

“I know,” Alana said, cutting him off. “Don’t touch the ‘Black Lotus.’”

“That’s right, Ma, never ever mishandle my beta edition ‘Black Lotus’. It’s my most precious treasure. For no Mana, it gives me three, not two, but three Mana of any color until the end of my turn. No one but me can handle ‘The Lotus.’”

“Jack, honey, don’t you think you’re just a bit too young to be telling me how to handle a ‘lotus?’”

“No, why would I be? You don’t even know anything about Magic the—” Jack stopped short. “Oh, wait, oh, OH MOM, come on.” Jack felt his face flush with embarrassment. Alana erupted with thunderous laughter.

“Look, hun, you’re not changing anything. I’ll be damned if I’m raising a coward who needs to hide behind false images of himself. Just be yourself. The way you always talk about this girl to Adam over the phone—and yes, I can overhear your conversations, don’t give me that look—I know you really like this one. But trust me, you’re a great person, and I promise you that you alone are enough for any girl, and always will be.”

Jack didn’t know how to respond. He felt his eyes grow moist at the confidence his mother had in him.

“Thanks, Mom. I just hope I have enough time to prepare before she gets here.”

As if on cue, loud chimes rang over the intercom, announcing a visitor.

“Ah, that’s the door. Well? Go answer it, Jack.”

In the time between heartbeats, Jack went from calm and collected to nervous and frantic.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for this! What if I say the wrong thing? What if you embarrass me by accident? What if I trip and fall on my face, and then I have to go to the hospital, cause like, I’d be bleeding from falling?”

“Man up, Jack, and get the door. Or I will.” The playful-yet-sinister look returned to her eyes.

Jack ran down the stairs in pairs of two and then paused in front of the door. Reflexively, he patted his shirt and the sides of his black jeans. He tugged to straighten out each end. With a deep breath, he opened the door.

Standing in the frame was the goddess he’d come to fawn over. Her delicate golden hair rested gently on the back of her pink tank top. She wore tight-fitting jeans, and her arms were crossed, cradling math books, extra pencils and a bundle of loose-leaf paper.

“Hey, sorry I’m late. I got a bit held up on the way over here. Are you just going to stand there or let me in?”

Jack tried to form words, he really did, but nothing seemed to come out. Instead, he forced his feet to move. He stood aside and waved his arms toward him in an inviting gesture.

Melissa entered the home and followed Jack into the kitchen. She set down her books and turned her gaze on him.

How can anything be this pretty? It doesn’t even make sense.

Jack forced saliva into his mouth and spoke. “Can I get you something to drink, Melissa?”

“Just water—I’m trying to watch my weight. The last thing I need is soda or more carbs.”

Gliding down the staircase behind them, Alana Harris carried a look of pure amusement as she examined Melissa like a hawk searching for prey.

“You must be the Melissa my son has told me so much about.”

“Only good things, I hope.”

Alana gave Jack a wink that he prayed to all known deities went unobserved by Melissa.

“Well, we might as well get started. We’ve got a lot to cover, and you’re pretty far behind. Where’s your room?”

“This way,” Jack croaked.

****

“This is impossible. No human brain can comprehend this stuff. It’s completely and utterly impossible."

All thoughts of happiness, joy and even apprehension had been thrown out the window in favor of total frustration.

“Oh, stop being such a baby and actually look at the problem. Okay, look. The integral of ‘two x squared, from zero to four.’ Just like all the other problems, we just need to add ‘n plus one’ to the exponent and divide by ‘n plus one.’”

Jack inhaled. “Melissa, I understand what you’re saying, but all I see here is a ‘two’ and an ‘x.’ Where is this ‘n’ thing? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re making this up as you go along.”

Melissa chuckled. “Oh, come on, you asked me the same question just before. The ‘n’ value is what we call the degree of the exponent. In this example, it’s two, because we have an ‘x squared.’”

Jack looked at the loose-leaf paper and stared at it with the intensity of a burning star.

“Okay. I think I see what you’re saying. Basically, what you’re trying to tell me is that this garbage is beyond what the human mind is capable of solving, no sane person can do it and we should just give up because no one would ever need or want to know this stuff.”

“Yep! I think you finally solved the enigma. The real way of winning is not to play!”

Jack scratched his head. “Stop teasing me. I’m really trying here.”

He flinched as Melissa ruffled his hair. “Hey, you’re actually making progress,” she said. “Don’t feel down. I mean, look, you managed to finally get derivatives … even if it did take us all night.”

Jack smiled as the reality of his situation dawned on him. He was in the company of a beautiful woman who wanted to help him, and he had made her proud. Melissa laughed and playfully punched him on the arm.

“What are you smiling about?”

When she laughs she’s so beautiful. Well, even when she doesn’t she is, but especially then, when her smile lights up her face.

The sound of his mother’s voice snapped him out of his reverie.

“Jack, Melissa, dinner’s ready. Come down!”

Melissa followed him down the steps to the warm smell of a pot roast. Initially, Melissa had insisted she wasn’t hungry and that Alana shouldn’t go through the trouble of cooking a big dinner on her behalf. But Jack’s mother was stubborn, and “no” was not being taken for an answer.

As usual, the food was delicious. Jack’s Mom was quite the cook. She had prepared a plump pot roast with well-seasoned mashed potatoes and her homemade iced tea with just the right amount of sweetness.

Jack was amazed by how much Melissa ate, asking for both seconds and thirds. His father had once told him that a girl who wasn’t afraid to eat was a keeper. In a moment of clarity, he wondered if he would ever be able to make Melissa his girlfriend, someone who seemed so clearly out of his league.

So much for her avoiding carbs, Jack mused.

“So, Melissa, how do you like living in our humble little town? I hear you moved out from New York and transferred to Jack’s school early this semester.” Jack flushed with embarrassment as his mother spat the words out between mouthfuls of pork.

Melissa did something Jack would never have expected of a lady and barked a response back the same way, almost appearing to have a food fight with his mother.

“Well, I whike-iwt," she barked while chomping on her potatoes. With a humongous and painful looking gulp she continued. “But I do miss the big city.”

“I’ve been to the old N.Y.C a few times with my husband when he wasn’t away on work. It’s quite a place there, very noisy, though.”

Jack’s mother and Melissa continued the idle chat while they ate with the kitchen TV playing reruns in the background. For dessert they had apple-pie and coffee, with Melissa politely asking for tea. Alana smiled and was happy to oblige.

For nearly an hour, they laughed and discussed current events, even the fire from earlier in the day. Jack and Melissa each took turns describing it from their perspectives, agreeing on certain parts and laughing at others.

“And the teacher’s hair was a mess! He was drenched from the sprinklers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so mad.”

A moment of quiet overtook the room. The television playing in the background paused.

“We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news.”

Jack put down his fork and turned around.

“Local One has more.” The screen flashed, and the picture resumed with a tall Hispanic reporter centered on the screen. He had the Local One microphone held close to his mouth, and his eyes were wide with shock.

“This is Michael Alvarez of Local One, reporting live from Maple Hill. What started off as a warm, peaceful summer day has ended in a tragedy of unspeakable proportions. Richard Davins, age sixteen, along with his mother Roberta Davins, age forty-four, and two Seven year old sisters, Casey and Brianna, were found brutally massacred in their home just a few hours earlier.”

“Very little is known at this point, including the means of murder, leads on who is responsible, or why this even occurred in the first place. What has been a peaceful community for over twenty years is now the site of one of the most brutal killings any of the officers on the scene have ever born witness to. We haven’t been able to get a look, but judging by the officers’ faces, it’s pretty bad, folks.”

Behind the reporter, dozens of police, medical and forensic personnel were visible, scurrying from task to task while the reporter spoke from behind the yellow tape.

“RICHARD, ROBERTA! Please … Oh God, please let me see them!”

Cries of pure anguish echoed from behind the reporter, as the father of the victims struggled to get through the police.

“My family, my babies, my sweet little girls. And my son! I want to see them. LET ME SEE THEM!”

Jack remained motionless at the dinner table, as did his mother and Melissa. To his own surprise, he was the first to speak. Despite his voice being cold and dispassionate, there was a heat behind it. There was a burning fire that spoke volumes more than the words themselves.

“This is horrible. How could someone do this to another person? How can we live in a world where this is allowed?”

Jack stood up from his chair, his arms hanging loose from his sides while Melissa and his Mom watched with puzzled expressions. He turned away from them.

“This morning I hated Richard, his name brought me anger. But this, no, he didn’t deserve this. What in this entire world could possibly possess a person to inflict this on another?”

As if unsure of how to proceed, Alana stood up and placed a comforting hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“Jack, you knew this boy from school? I understand this can be pretty harsh news, but sit back down, sweetie, we can talk about it. Sometimes really bad things happen to good people. You’re old enough to know this.”

“Know it? Yeah, of course I do. But accept it? No way.”

“Jack, why are you acting so strange all of a sudden? This can’t be the first time you’ve seen a murder on the news. I know you knew this boy, but you’re not acting like yourself.”

Melissa, who until this point had remained quiet, stood next to Alana. Her expression was the oddest in the room—it was a mix of outrage and shock, only it covered her from forehead to chin.

“Jack, turn around," Melissa said. “It’s kinda weird having you turn your back to us for this long.”

Jack spun around. Melissa and Alana recoiled in surprise. Alana gasped, and Melissa’s jaw dropped.

“Jack, your eyes! What’s wrong with them?” Alana seemed frightened. She ran over and cupped his face.

“Why are your eyes dilated?”

Jack felt dizzy for a moment. He shook his head to clear his mind then looked around the room, confused.

“Sorry about that. I was lost in thought for a moment.”

“Jack," Melissa said, “why don’t we go for a walk? It’s a beautiful night, and it’ll be just you and me. What do you say?”

Jack went instantly from impassive coolness to pure delight. “Sounds great! I’ll grab my phone and wallet.” He picked them up from the table in the next room. When he returned, his mother appeared to be deep in thought while Melissa stood by the entrance to the door in silence. Neither of them made eye contact.

“Mom, I’ll be back in a bit, thanks for dinner.”

“Wait a minute, Jack," she said.

“What’s up, Mom? If you’re worried about us running in to the killer from the news, don’t worry. I doubt he’d be out there with all the cops and what not looking for him.”

Alana’s lips formed into a pout, which she held for a few moments, until suddenly a wave of understanding seemed to cross over her. Her eyes opened wider than Jack had ever seen them and she turned her gaze on Melissa.

“Melissa, it was truly lovely meeting you, and I thank you for all your help, but my son may not go for a walk with you.”

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Harris, but I don’t see why not.”

Alana walked over to Melissa, and Jack’s mind hammered him with confusion. What was going on?

“I really don’t think that Jack should go out right now. You saw what just happened on the news, and I think it would be best to stay indoors. You’re welcome to stay as well if you wish.”

Melissa’s face seemed to register some kind of understanding, and her eyes hardened. “Well, I have a feeling we’ll be fine. And I think you and I both want him to go for that walk with me.”

Jack couldn’t put his finger on what was happening, but for some reason both ladies were glaring at each other.

“Do I, now?”

“Yes, you really do.”

“And if I object?”

“You don’t want to.”

“And you can promise my son won’t be hurt? You can guarantee it?”

“I swear it on all that is important to me. This may be hard to believe, but I actually really like Jack.”

Jack didn’t know if at this point it was more advisable to be confused or flattered.

“I guess he should go for that walk with you, then," Alana said. Jack wasn’t sure, but for a moment he thought he saw a tear flash in her eyes.

What the hell are they on about?

“I can tell my son has feelings for you. Treat him right.”

Melissa nodded.

“Whoa, Mom. Embarrass me some more, why don’t you?” Jack felt blood enter his face in such a rush that he wondered how some still managed to travel through his veins.

“Jack, let’s go already, come on. It’s a beautiful night.”

*****

“Requiem, you’re sure it’s the Harris boy?” Ruin sat cross-legged in the shelter, an expression of delight on his face. His sister’s still contained the madness, as it always did, but this time, it contained something else. Pleasure. She wore this expression only at times when she was confident she had solved a problem. It gave her such feelings of elation.

“When I know, I know, Darling. You should understand that about me by now. It’s that Harris boy. Oh, I will love turning this one. Ah! I can see it now. This one’s different than Brother Andy. He’s pure. But he’ll be turned. I want to see it! I want to see it so badly it hurts! The innocence fall away from him, as he kills and takes his birth right. Ruin, oh, Ruin, I want to see it right this instant! I am unable to wait any longer.

“Now, sister, you know the value of patience. First we have to make him ours and convince him. The killings must be done of his own volition.”

Requiem moaned. “Then let us take him, let us take him now! It’s the waiting that hurts more than anything.”

Ruin sighed. “As you wish, let’s make our move.”