Like a Surge Page 9

  As Ash noticed the kiss of dawn upon the river’s surface, he floated up to the surface and peeked out, eager to greet the sun. A jumble of flashing lights on the bridge, however, marred the lovely grays of the morning sky and the layers of warm pastels that smiled upon the city from the east. He tried to tune out the blaring sirens of emergency vehicles, but soon gave up the fight and ducked back into the river.

  I hope nobody’s hurt. He left it at that. It wasn’t as though he could swim up and help. The ambulance was already at the site of what was, probably, yet another fender-bender. Ash let the silty current caress the frown off his face. Had he known that this location would be this busy, he would have been less eager to buy property right by the bridge.

  Yet making the bank of the Allegheny a site of his and Cooper’s new house was a necessity, driven by their need to keep an eye on what used to be a rogue node. Two ley lines that carried power had converged at a natural confluence, but since another team had been dumping excess power created by fracking down the ley lines, the node had become overloaded to the point of melting the sedimentary rock around it.

  If people didn’t like the little earthquakes that were a natural by-product of Marcellus shale gas extraction, they would have been up for an even ruder awakening, had the node exploded.

  Nobody had ever expected a small volcano in the city of Pittsburgh.

  It would be fine, Ash soothed himself. The node would remain pacified. Russ and Paul would get trained. Brian Clegg, his adversary, would move on to some other way of making money.

  Of the three, the last one was the least likely to happen.

  A fish swam past Ash, then another.

  Brian Clegg was as unlikely to stop helping with fracking on illegal turf as the fish were to school one day before Halloween – except the fish were schooling, and it was one day before Halloween. They should’ve been eating the last of their food and settling down for hibernation, not engaging in springtime mating behavior!

  He spun, suspended halfway between the silty bottom he knew was down there somewhere, shrouded in darkness, and the pale green light that reflected the early morning light off the surface above his head. Sauger, walleye, and gar weren’t supposed to swim together. The territorial fish didn’t tend to inhabit the same spaces, nor were they active at the same time, yet here they were, ghosting from the faraway mists into his visible range.

  Ignoring him entirely, the fish swam upstream.

  There weren’t just two, or ten. Fifty, or two hundred or even more fish of all kinds, both big and small, were heading up river in search of something decidedly unusual.

  Like the fish, Ash followed them, curious to see what drew their attention.

  A huge flathead catfish passed a foot under his belly like a shadow, and Ash focused on it, extending his mind in its direction.

  The catfish drifted up, as though to check him out.

  Hello, big river friend, Ash thought at it, exuding harmlessness and love. He touched its slimy skin, gently – GENTLY – skimming its huge back until the dorsal fin touched his forearm.

  He held on, light and sleek, straightening his body so it was streamlined and unobtrusive.

  The fish was as long as he, likely just as heavy, but certainly a lot stronger.

  Thank you, big river friend, Ash whispered in his mind, wondering whether the legendary river monster would break his hold with a swish of its powerful tail. He tried not to think about the size of its mouth, and the legends of divers who had lost a limb while noodling for catfish a lot smaller than this one.

  The catfish paid him no mind as it swam upstream with a single-minded focus of every scaled and finned inhabitant of this part of the river.

  What was wrong with them all?

  Something weird and unusual had to be coaxing the fish out of their natural patterns, but his sensitized skin didn’t bring news of unusual pollutant levels, or floods, or upcoming storms. No PCBs, or heavy metals, or...

  Ah. Now he felt it, a steady buzz of an electric eel.

  Ash let go of the slick catfish fin. He remembered the alarming buzz of a far-away electric eel from his travels, except electric eels didn’t belong in the Allegheny River. Cooper’s cousin Paul, however, lived right nearby.

  Ash flutter-kicked, feeling the tingle of the electric potential on his arms and in the back of his neck. No wonder the fish were going crazy – the current disturbed their natural communications and drew them as surely as a magnet would draw iron filings.

  His skin began to itch, not from the current but from its natural need to change, and Ash knew he was running out of time. Out of oxygen, too.

  A few swift kicks, and his head broke the surface with a splash.

  To his surprise, the huge catfish had carried him for at least a mile. He was close to home, the gray stone pillars of the 40th Street Bridge looming near, and the sky-blue ironwork of its arches and railing soaring in the air as though it was made of old-time porcelain.

  Twenty feet away from him, just where the river bottom started to shallow out, Paul and Russ stood in a deep embrace, lost to the world in a soul-searing kiss.

  PAUL PRESSED HIMSELF against Russ, thrilling to the sensation of his touch. Their bodies ignored the cold-water current, as though they were making their own heat with just this. Just this human contact, which Paul had been denied for all these years.

  He yearned for it.

  He craved it.

  He would do anything, absolutely anything in his power, to make Russ stay and make him feel this sheltered, this comfortable and protected and cherished. That palpable sensation of being accepted, which he vaguely remembered from his parent’s generous embrace, had been banished by necessity as soon as his cursed power surges began to manifest. Only his twin brother, Mark, was able to withstand his numerous accidents.

  And now, Russ. Russ, who absorbed willingly and without harm all that the river didn’t take away.

  Russ and his expressive eyebrows, and dark eyes, and lips composed of compound curves which were unable to form a straight line even under duress.

  “Russ...” Paul sighed as they broke for air.

  Russ straightened and gripped Paul’s shoulders in sudden alarm.

  His eyes widened.

  “What?” Paul said as he turned in his embrace.

  Silent as the night, Ash Ravenna swam toward them, eyebrows drawn together and jaw so tight, Paul didn’t know how the man could swim and breathe at the same time.

  “I’m sorry to break up the party, guys,” Ash said, “but your electrical field is disturbing the fish.”

  “Ash?” Paul just about squeaked. “Where did you come from?” He watched Ash swim a little closer, then change his mind and let himself drift a few feet away.

  “I was about a mile downstream when the fish started heading toward you. They still are. They’re probably all around you now.” Ash grinned uneasily. “And I hitched a ride on a monster of a catfish to get here faster. I didn’t know it was you guys, pretending to be a tangle of electric eels!”

  Russ begun to chuckle. “Oh, you’re one of those! Do you do just ordinary storytelling, or do you enter those liar’s contests, too?”

  Paul kicked him in the shin, then faced Ash again. “Sorry! I’m really sorry. Are you saying that dumping my surge into the river’s a bad idea?”

  Ash, treading water in place, tilted his head in an approximation of a shrug. “I can’t say it’s horrible, but it sure seems to have some unexpected consequences.” He waved. “I’ll be off now. I have some phone calls to make, and I suggest you get out unless you want wade back through some mighty interesting critters.”

  “They don’t bite, do they, Ash?” Paul hated how concerned he sounded just then.

  “Some do. Mostly, you’re just jamming their systems. Can you shut down the field around you at all? Cooper said you had no shields to speak of.”

  “I’ll try.” Paul frowned in deep concentration. He visualized a rubber suit all over his body, on
e that wouldn’t let a single electron energize the water on the other side of his pretend skin. One where he’d be safe to others, humans and fish alike. Phones, too.

  A surprised smile blossomed on Ash’s face. “That’s better. There’s still a bit of a buzz, but it’s not like before.” He pointed to where Paul and Russ got in the water earlier. “Watch out for that mud over there, okay? It’s so deep, it can be deadly. Go around the other side. We’ll have to clean it up. Meanwhile, there’re some rocks, so we can get in and out easier.”

  Russ stiffened next to Paul, his arms like iron bands. “Deadly? In what way?”

  “Don’t ever jump into this river,” Ash said casually, as though warning of lethal dangers was an everyday task. “People jump in, get stuck in the mud, and can’t get out again. They drown, and only the gases of their body’s decomposition pull them up again! That’s why most floaters are at least a week old.”

  Paul glanced at Russ and watched him pale. Glad that he wasn’t the only one with such a visceral reaction, he took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

  A rubber suit, with boots and gloves and a head mask. He visualized it with all his might.

  An all-body insulator.

  Go away, fish, go away!

  “Let’s get out,” Russ said, nudging him to where they could see Ash’s head on top of the water as he swam, slowly, to the shore.

  Paul took one step, then another. The pleasant stones, revealed by the current of the small tributary, gave way to mud again and Paul pulled his feet up, floating and treading water. “I think we should swim,” he said, and when Russ nodded, he struck out in Ash’s direction.

  Something solid and slick pressed against his leg. Then again, and once more. “Ash!” Paul screamed in cold terror. “The fish! They’re here!”

  Not seeing through the silty water was bad enough, but having creatures rub their long bodies against him made his stomach flip upside down and sent his heartbeat racing with an atavistic fear of the deep, dark unknown.

  “Keep your shields up!” Ash’s voice carried across the water. They were not far away from him, and each frantic stroke got them closer to that place where Cooper had put down stone.

  A place where they could stand up and not sink into the treacherous river mud.

  By the time Paul found the underwater walkway of flat stones, he was too relieved to get out of the water to think of anything else. He strode out, the water dripping from his chest to his hips, then to his knees. “Damn, Ash. I had never felt fish against my legs like that before!” He shuddered.

  Ash nodded. “Come out this way, there’s a rope hanging off the dock... yeah, and see the footholds?” He navigated them up the unfamiliar surface, first Paul, then Russ. Only once they stood securely next to him, Ash let the corners of his mouth curve up in a slight smile. “You’re lucky they rubbed just against your legs, guys. Besides, we’re in a city...”

  Paul blanched. “Oh, shit!” He picked his way across the dock to its upstream side, where they had left their clothes. Only once he and Russ were dressed again did Paul speak up. “With all the fish, and with that story you made up about the mud, I just plain forgot we were skinny-dipping!”

  Ash forced a hard glare. “I don’t care if you swim naked, as long as Cooper or the cops don’t catch you. It’s your dick, dangling down there like bait. Hell, I used to do that, but the fish leave me alone. But that story about the mud?” He frowned and met Paul’s gaze straight on. “I’ve seen it happen.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Russ looked around his Warrendale apartment and frowned. The neutral-beige walls were all rental and no personality. His furniture was mostly second-hand. He could afford new, but he had never seen the point in doing so. If he could get a leather sofa for a hundred bucks from Craigslist, why not save six hundred or more and stash it away?

  The plug-in cinnamon scent perfumed his lonely home with a smell he associated with fall, and apples, and apple pies. It didn’t have to be all terrible and lonesome, not if he visited his numerous family every so often. Siblings and cousins, his nieces and nephews running underfoot and his parents still keeping in shape, still healthy enough to run with the kids and take care of them while his sisters and their husbands went on a long-weekend vacation.

  He didn’t have to be alone, but nobody had fit into his life, not yet. Nobody within his family had any understanding of his special “visions” and his unnatural ability to tolerate electrical current and live to tell about it.

  They all felt sorry for him. They pitched him potential dates, both female and male. They bombarded him with latest articles on psychiatric medicine, natural healing, and special diets for people who were “strung up and prone to wild imagination.”

  All those intrusive, bothersome efforts to help were a sign that they loved him.

  They were also the reason why he bought only the sorts of things he wouldn’t mind leaving behind. The kinds of furnishings he wouldn’t mourn if he ever had to get committed to a psych ward, or if he decided to make a run for hit, grab his tidy bundle of savings, and start over in another state far away.

  Now, looking at the leather of a sofa scratched by another person’s dog, a sofa whose purchase had been dictated by the tastes of a perfect stranger who was only too happy to take a modest wad of cash and had his old trash hauled away, filled him with grief.

  He resented it now, just as he suddenly resented the too-loud hum of the rental refrigerator in a rental apartment, located on the butt-ugly intersection of the turnpike and Route 28. The location was convenient for travel, but not local to anything fun.

  Not like living down by the river, near all the neat little restaurants and quirky Lawrenceville stores. Not near Paul, either. And if Paul could travel all the way to the PittTech campus, maybe Russ could do the same thing.

  Russ headed into the kitchen, cast a surly eye at the outdated laminate counters and the cheap cabinets, and pulled a beer out of the fridge.

  He stopped. No, a beer wasn’t going to clear his mind. Not like a shower would, and a workout at the gym down the road. A whole bunch of people was now telling him that he wasn’t mentally ill.

  He wasn’t just “seeing things.”

  He wasn’t crazy, he didn’t need antipsychotics, he had no use for natural remedies or pop psychology articles.

  He had superpowers.

  He shut the fridge. The thunk of the too-light door was punctuated by a high-pitched giggle. The offensive sound had somehow torn its way out his throat.

  Superpowers.

  And that wasn’t crazy at all.

  PAUL ROLLED OVER, grabbed a rubber spatula, and hit the old, analog electrical alarm clock. The big button on top clicked, and the obnoxious sound stopped. Yet as much as he hated the noise that resembled a cross between an alarmed goose and a far-away train-engine whistle, he was grateful for the old machine, because it wasn’t, strictly speaking, digital.

  The circuits were simple and there was very little to fry. Best of all, it had come from a thrift store, so his guilt level over frying it would be minimal. A small, niggling voice in the back of his mind told Paul that the supply of old-fashioned alarm clocks with their revolving numerals and clumsy settings wasn’t going to be eternal. What would he do then – hunt down an unreliable, spring-wound antique?

  Uneasy thoughts made for lousy bed-fellows, especially after yesterday’s interrupted tryst with Russ. Trust Ash to show up just as he was, for the first time in his life, on the cusp of an orgasm induced by a hand other than his own.

  Ash had brought up a valid point, though – he had lost control of his field, and apparently, so had Russ. The river had spread the happy news, which was confusing to the fish. Dangerously so – he didn’t want to stun them or disrupt the pattern of their autumnal migration. He wondered whether any of them were already hibernating – but, no, not with Ash still swimming in the river as though it was August. Paul dismissed the thought.

  When he stood in the shower few minutes
later, he released his morning electrical charge down the plumbing system. With it, he also released a whole lot of frustration. As he leaned against the cool tile of the bath enclosure, with warm water pounding on his legs, the hair conditioner made his hand nice and slick. Jumbled images of Russ flooded his mind.

  Russ, his lips on his neck.

  Russ, his hand around Paul’s cock.

  Russ, pressing his erect length up Paul’s crack.

  He anchored his forehead against the tile and reached around with his other hand. His own hand felt less familiar between his cheeks when he had Russ on his mind. The flushed and panting Russ, the eager, generous Russ who would hold him, caress him, touch him as though Paul was cherished and precious.

  Russ, and –

  Paul exploded, mouth open in a wide and silent exhalation. He stood up straight to warm his shoulders with water which was no longer scalding hot. Rivulets wended down his forehead, mingling with the salty tears of regret that Russ had been a mere figment of his imagination.

  Russ, the only person who wasn’t afraid to touch him. Who embraced him, voluntarily and with earnest desire for his company. Russ, the only person on the face of the Earth who saw him as a potential partner instead of a problem to solve, or at least to minimize.

  Only when he turned off the shower and slid open the steamy glass door, he realized the light over the mirror was off, and the bathroom fan no longer hummed overhead.

  He had blown the fuses again.

  TWO DAYS LATER, Uncle Owen showed up with uncle Nikko. The Anneveinen men were brothers, and Nikko was Cooper’s father. Nikko had come, ostentatiously, to visit with his son. As Paul looked around Hank’s downstairs living area with all its comfortable space for socializing, however, he realized that this was more a royal inspection than a family visit.