| ★ wanayoo — archive 1999 http://www.samizdat.com/comic1.html | Nouvelle recherche | Portail wanayoo |
Copyright by Michael Seltzer 1995
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim electronic copies of this story for non-commercial purposes provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. This story has not yet been published in paper form. The author is a freshman at St. Sebastian's School in Needham, MA. To send email to him, click here.
Everyone has secrets. Everyone has done things that they don't want anyone else to know about, especially governments. Every day some dictator executes people in order to keep secrets safe. But that couldn't possibly happen in a country that was based on democracy, could it? The U.S. government would make things such as biologically engineering humans public knowledge, wouldn't they? No they wouldn't. Especially if the people that had been engineered were done so against their own will. But nothing lasts forever. Eventually secrets are revealed. Deadly genies are let out of their bottles. It's just some are released sooner than others.
A strange figure is waiting in the treetops outside a government laboratory talking to himself. "I can see them from here. There's three of them under the tree, in the park. They did this to me, with their machines and their potions. 'ALL IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE.' They're almost to the door. I bet they don't even know I'm gone. I let the others out just to confuse things. They should be fine, unlike the three humans who did this to me. I'll watch them die before I ...." BOOOMMM!!
There is an explosion heard all throughout the city. One unlike any that has ever occured. Because this one was caused with no elements, except for the young boy that is floating outside the now large entrance to the governmentally funded genetic laboratory. The boy known only to the late scientists, as Charcoal. The facility was made with the idea of turning the "useless" of society, into the perfect fighting machines. This boy is an example of their "accomplishment." He has the ability to become a walking fireball. On this occasion he has found it necessary to enlarge the amount of fire surrounding his skin, in order to free himself from his long and unwanted captivity. The idea of hurting, much less killing anyone hadn't even crossed the mind of this confused youth. While escaping it was necessary to brush some guards out of the way. So he stops to grieve the deaths of these unknown tormentors, and this is what puts him in his first contact with another like himself. For now the figure from the trees that he hadn't noticed before, strikes.
"YOU WILL PAY FOR ROBBING ME OF MY REVENGE," screams the attacker. Charcoal turns to meet this stranger and is filled with horror at the sight. For flying straight towards him with fangs and claws bared, was a gargoyle. But luckily for him the woman who had been following him through the door, was not so easily startled. She blasts the gargoyle-like figure with enough static charge to kill an elephant, and it falls. But to her amazement, it gets up. Still dazed it manages to say, " Hi Shocker, how's life in the Charge Chamber.
Elsewhere...
He is General James Matheson. Born into a rich family with powerful influence he hasn't had many days where things didn't go his way, but today's one of them. "...I don't care what the cost, just secure all the specimens. If this gets out, people will scream 'civil rights' and 'desecration of nature.'" With that he slammed the phone down and sat back in his chair, praying for good news.
Meanwhile, back at the cause of the General's alarm the strange woman known only as Shocker sees to the fallen Gargoyle. "Did I injure you badly? My purpose was merely to keep the youth unharmed," she said.
"Your pitiful light show only delayed my retribution. I shall kill him for that which he has done, and you too, if you choose to get in my way again," said the monsterous Gargoyle.
"You would kill a mere boy over such a petty thing as him killing people that you wanted to. What kind of animal are you?" retorts Shocker.
"The kind that likes its meals raw." And with those words the six foot, eight hundred pound creature lunges at Shocker in a fit of rage. She dodges him easily and fires another huge blast right in his face as he turns around. The Gargoyle falls, but returns to his feet. But just as he prepares to lunge, the ground begins to tremble underneath them, and all three of them look on in horror as they see the hordes of others like themselves charging frantically towards them.
Hundreds of biological horrors poured out of the hole made in the building by Charcoal. All that the three original escapees could do was run in the same direction, or be trampled by the mob. The only thing on the mob's mind was freedom. But that was denied them by the dozens of military choppers that began firing missiles at the would-be free men and women. The screams of the dying were silenced soon after with another volley.
Three minutes and thirty-seven seconds later ground crews began hauling away the bodies by the dozens, and burning them. One hour later the government released a message to the towns within earshot of the explosions. It said that what they had heard had been an equipment malfunction which caused a rather large plane to go down in the dessert. It had been carrying a large amount of explosives which went off on impact. The press did report the incident, but nobody heard anything outside of what was released. A week later the only thing that seemed to be noteworthy was the fact that a large number of homeless people seemed to be missing. A volunteer in a shelter in Rome, Wisconsin, said, "People I used to see all the time just don't seem to be around anymore. One day they just vanished." The government had a team research the disappearances for a while, but it's like somebody just took them and hid them somewhere. The government couldn't be lying, could they?