Enter Charise

Charise was panting lightly as she trod down the road. The last streaks of orange were fading from the surprisingly warm fall evening. She was on her way home from marching band practice. She played tenor sax, but she was in the colorguard, or flaggers, as they called themselves, for marching band. A gust of wind flicking across her ebony cheek made her look up at the sky as it became a soft purple velvet unblemished by any wisp of cloud. She stopped to marvel at how something as ordinary, as ever present as the sky could still be so breathtaking. Another gust of wind brought her attention back to the ground and she turned back, quickening her pace so that she would arrive home before the full dark of night took hold.
There was a bridge three blocks from the school, and her house was two in on the other side. She was gently humming "El Gato Triste" by Chuck Mangione when she heard a car approaching from behind. Charise stepped up onto the curb and thought nothing of it until there was a screech and a loud crack. She jumped at the sound and turned around to find a tan car with a light pole crashed down on top of it. The door pushed open and a man stumbled out.
Charise ran over, "Are you ok?"
He pulled a two foot metal bar out of his jacket and thrust it at her. "Hide it!" "What?"
"It’s a top secret military weapon, but it’s not finished yet. You can't let them have it!"
Charise looked skeptically at the pipe, it was nothing out of the ordinary. She figured that he was either delirious from the crash or on drugs. Either way, she thought she'd humor him. She set her backpack down and reached her hand out to him.
“Do you have someone I could call for you? Any family… 911?” He didn’t answer, only pushed the pipe toward her. She winced as a sharp edge nicked her hand.
The man collapsed and began to vomit up blood. She was about to scream for help when three black armored trucks rounded the corner and hit the gas. Charise didn't know what was going on, but she was starting to believe the guy. She began to sprint. A glance over her shoulder revealed that one of the trucks had stopped by the crashed car, but the other two were still gunning it for her. The vehicles were nearly upon her when someone jumped out into the middle of the road. He thrust his hands out toward the trucks. Immediately the trucks slowed down, though their tires began to squeal as they slipped on the ground. At the same time, it was as though a blast had hit the person, as he started to slide backward over the ground. Charise stopped and stared at him. He had some kind of metal looking stuff on his arms and head. It was arranged in an odd pattern on his skin and glinted in the light of the street lamps that had popped on a few second prior. He turned to face her, revealing chilling eyes of complete, flawless silver. He blinked and then turned back to the trucks.
“Get over the bridge!”
She didn't wait a moment. The guy had been pushed onto the bridge and was tiring from the strain. Charise watched from the other side as he fell forward and the trucks were released from his restraining force. Their tires ceased their squealing and the trucks lurched forward. They were seconds away from hitting him when he brought his hands forward and then violently to the side. Both trucks were pushed off the side of the bridge. There was a tremendous crash as they broke through the side rails and then a horrible silence before they splashed into the river.
Charise turned and ran to the driveway of her house. Once there, she glanced back to find the guy gone. She turned to go in, and was met by his face. She would have screamed but he placed a hand gently, but firmly over her mouth and whispered,
“Shhh. May I have that?"
Charise didn't say anything, just held out her hand. He took a quick glance at it and stuck it in his pocket.
"Don't tell anyone about this, say you were just going in when you heard the crash, and only if you are asked about it. Meet me outside of the band room tomorrow after school." He turned to leave, then stopped.
“And here’s you backpack.”
"Uh, who are you?"
The guy closed his eyes and the metal stuff on his face seemed to melt and trickle down to his neck. He opened his eyes and looked at her.
Charise gasped and quickly got a hand over her own mouth before she could laugh out loud. After a moment she removed it and allowed herself a fast ‘huh.”
"You’re… you’re the tuba guy from marching band!" she exclaimed.
“It's a sousaphone, but yes. Remember, keep quiet and we'll talk about this tomorrow."
He again closed his eyes and the metal returned to its former position. He signaled farewell with a nod of his head, then darted off into the night.
Charise didn’t know what to think. The whole thing was like a dream. She stood gazing at nothing until you mother called through the open door.
“Char baby, what happened?”
“Uh, oh, uh, there was a car crash mom. A truck ran off the bridge.”
“Oh my heaves! Are you ok?”
“Yes mom, I’m fine. I was on my way up the driveway when it happened.”
“Then get inside honey, I’m gonna call 911.”
Charise walked into the kitchen and navigated around the phone to give her mom a kiss on the cheek. She could hear her mom talking as she walked up the stairs.
After dumping her stuff in her room she stumbled into the bathroom and almost collapsed, using the sink for support. She turned the water on and leaned into the sink, splashing water in her face to try and… she didn’t really know why. Charise looked at her hands and found them shaking. She slowly raised her head until she met her reflection in the mirror. It surprised her how shaken she looked. Her head quivered slightly with every quick breath and the tremors in her hands only added more to her unnerved appearance. She focused on her own dark eyes, trying to find something in them that would calm her down. All she could find was fear and confusion and… something else.
Her breathing slowed and she relaxed as she discovered it was amazement. She was amazed that of all the people in Goose Creek that car had to crash next to her, and of all the people in Goose Creek, the one that saved her was the goofy tuba kind covered in some kind of metal that apparently gave him the ability to chuck truck over bridges.
Charise sat down on the toilet and laid her head down on the counter. Things like this don’t happen in Goose Creek, it’s a small town, there aren’t crazy military weapons or, what’s the word… telekinetic tubists. She thought to herself. And these things diffidently don’t happen around me. She began to breathe quickly in shallow breaths and soon became lightheaded.
She took some slow deep breaths and breathed out while tonguing and fingering along to her band music. When she felt better, she crept to her room and collapsed on her bed.
For a long time she lay there, her mind racing but unable to catch what was running through it. Finally she curled up into a ball and cried softly until her eyes were read and empty. She pulled the sheets down and slid under the covers, still in her clothes and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
***
Zeke sprinted across the street, through two yards, across another street and jumped over a fence. He sat there, engulfed in shadow and tried to collect himself. He closed his eyes, but it didn’t matter, either way he say everything in a shades of grey. Everything near him was light and stuff got darker as it got further away. The dark didn’t matter, neither did the fact that some objects were behind others, he saw everything. Zeke focused and pulled the metal out of his eyes. He opened them and saw the world as most people do. He closed them again, this time for a while. Zeke thought back to how lucky he was been that evening.
It had begun like many nights. He was out on a jog, using his dinucleic vision to see in the dwindling light. He wouldn’t have been kept running past the girl walking on the curb if a car hadn’t almost hit her. She was not hit and looked as though she was taking care of the accident and Zeke had started to run off, but the sound of three trucks gunning it caught his attention. When he saw the trucks running her down, he knew he had to do something, but he didn’t know what. He ran along the sidewalk, he was closer to the bridge and thought maybe he could dash across the road and pull her out of the way before the trucks got to her. He jumped out and realized that there wasn’t enough time to get the rest of the way across. Zeke instinctively thrust his hands out at the trucks and was surprised that his actions had an effect. He felt a terrible drain and knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long.
He shouted at the girl to move and tried to hold the trucks back while he began sliding against the road. Finally the strain was too much and he collapsed. Zeke picked his head up to see the trucks on top of him. Again he acted instinctively and pushed the trucks off of the bridge.
Zeke could really feel the drain now and he knew he needed to get this taken care of before he was too tired. He grabbed her bag and met her at the door of her house. All the while he was explaining and retrieving the metal pipe, it took all his focus just to stay awake. Now he was safe and hidden and didn’t need to be saving anyone.
The exhaustion of his efforts finally hit him full force and he slipped out of consciousness right there in a stranger’s yard. His last thought was a flicker of happiness knowing that he had saved someone.