Obdurate Avidities

Chapter 18

 

   By TurtleBoy


            We both remained in silence.  Attempting to remember anything of these seven symbols my mind drew up blank.  James sat down in the chair, his face crossed with worry.  I could see the fear in his eyes along with the shades of denial.  With every moment of silence the intensity of the situation grew.  My heart again sped, and my senses seemed heightened.  I could hear the blood pump through his body, and smelling the misguided adrenaline coursing within his veins.  My vision increased, exposing electric like charges travelling off of James body.  His skin was slowly becoming transparent.  The wiry like strings which I now knew were veins, laced across and between muscles which pulsated and quivered.  Charges of a bluish tint sped off of him vanishing into the air.  It was like he was being electrocuted.  His head was covered in the stuff.  I could see his heart thumping within his chest, my stomach grew ill.  I shouldn’t be seeing this!  With every beat a blast of this blue electricity would shoot from the brain and venture his body, it was there it became clear, this could not be in my imagination!  There was a pattern on his rib cage on the right lower side.  Is this why I was seeing this?  Was I supposed to reveal this to myself?


            I concentrated on the area, the heart would beat and the electric would fire across him, circling and highlighting this area more so than any other place.  As I watched, I noticed the shape to be circular with several straight lines in the shape of sideways A, or maybe a V.  Was James hiding this from me?  Was he part of this?  What the hell was going on?  And why hadn’t I noticed this before?  I’ve seen every part of him, and never taken notice to something like this…

 
“James?  You already knew didn’t you.”  I announced as it seemed to be the only thing that made sense.

 
“What?  What are you talking about?  Knew what?”  James returned.

 
“Things have been happening to you too haven’t they.”  My mind was set, something else was happening here, something he didn’t care to share with me.


“What?!  No!  You’re not making any sense Adrian listen to yourself!”  He snapped back at me, I feared I offended him.

 
“Just tell me!  You have a mark too!  I’m looking at it right now!”   I yelled without control.


“I do not!  Nothing’s happening!  You’re Crazy Adrian stop it!”  I could feel the fear in his tone.

 
“Lift your shirt…  Please?”  Calming my tone, I gestured my hand to assist him.


“If I do will you stop?”  He pleaded to me.


“Promise.”  With that James lifted his shirt, I had to close my eyes and concentrate for a minute to get rid of the whacked out sight I was experiencing, but with a bit of concentration it worked with me.

 
            Looking at James smooth tanned skin, there wasn’t anything there.  It appeared I had been mistaken.  What an idiot I was; giving more belief in some nutty freak occurrence, than I did to my own boyfriend.  Sadness crossed my heart, as I sat down dropping his shirt.  How do I get myself out of this one?  I wouldn’t forgive me for how I’ve been acting, how could I expect him to?  I’ve been so crazy lately and not taking an consideration as to how this may be affecting James.

 
“I’m sorry.  I really am.  Things have just been getting weirder every day…  and I can’t seem to separate what’s real with what isn’t anymore.”  I attempted to explain.

 
“Look Adrian, I’m not angry I swear.  I’m sad, and maybe a little hurt, but only because you’re scaring me.  I promise you, nothing’s been happening to me that I haven’t heard about.  Seriously.”  I’d never seen him so serious before.  God what a Jack Ass I had been making myself out to be.

 
“You forgive me?”  I asked, boarding begged.


“Course I do.  Just promise me you wont try and figure out what ever is happening here on your own.  Don’t want to see you hurt again.”

 
“I promise….”  Looking up at him I just had to know, “You believe me don’t you?”

 
“About what?  You being a monster?  I don’t know.  I really can’t see it.  There are shit loads of other possibilities that could have happened to you.  I believe you believe…”  He grinned, coming right out of the lips of a psychiatrist I swear to god.


“Just give me the benefit of the doubt.  I know this happened, and I know it’s hard to believe, I wouldn’t believe what I was saying either.  Just promise me, if it happens again you’ll run.”


“Adrain… Nothings going to happen, besides if it happened again, I really don’t think you’d hurt me, not even as a monster or whatever.”  He smirked.

            I decided to leave it at that for now.  I figured if the discovery of that thing on my back hadn’t convinced him, than something would happen at some point and he’d have no choice other than to believe me.  Besides, it was still nice out, I was still feeling great, and now I had James.  Hopefully he wasn’t to irritated by our argument to have a little fun.


“You’re it!”  I yelled, tapping his hand and running off the porch and across the back yard.

 
“You dick!”  He chuckled, bouncing out of his chair and running after me.


“Bet you can’t catch me!”  I teased.


“Bet you’re wrong!”  He cried, while lashing out directly behind me and slapping my shoulder.


            It was on!  Whipping a 180, I jumped back in his direction.  He zig zagged up and down the ditch separating our yards, I started to laugh at the memory of our first venture with this ditch.  I think James did too cause he turned his head around laughing his ass off, and poking his tongue out.  As he ran up towards his out and around to the other side, I figured I’d head him off at the other end.  Darting the opposite was as him, I sped off sharply cutting the corner of the house throwing some turf in the air from the force of my step.  I saw James jump out from the opposite side, the look on his face when he saw me in front of him was priceless.  Instead of running after him like I should have I fell to the ground in a hysterical laughter.

 
“You dork!  You could have had me!”  He chuckled making sure to keep his distance.  In attempts to hold back the laughter, I rolled to my side and swung my arm at his ankles.


“Wow!  Haha, you’re face!!!... was awesome!”  Gasping for air, I forced myself to my feet.


“You may be sneaky but your follow through is horrid!  Bad show old chap.”


“Really?  Let’s just see.”  My feet began to sprint towards him before I could finish my sentence.  With a quick *RrrAhHH*  From James, he darted off in the direction he had came.



            This time I wasn’t fooling around, I was gonna get him, and I was going to do it before he made it back to that dirty ditch!  I felt my feet hitting harder into the ground as I sped my pace.  The rapidness that I had acquired startled me, but I did not slow.  As I neared my target, I crouched slapping my hands against the grass; with out another thought, as my knees bent to meet balance with the rest of me I felt my self thrust away from the ground.  The sensation was incredible!  I must have been more than six feet in the air!  With a clumsy spin, I dived over James head and rolled in front of him.  My body did a backwards head-over-hill as I bounced back up towards him and tagged his arm.  James just froze in his tracks.  Not a word nor facial expression, just an awkward blank stare.


“I…  Ummm… I believe you.”  He said softly.  His face grew flush while the rest of him paled.


“Holy Shit! That was amazing!  Did you see that!?! Jesus Christ! WOW!”  I paraded in circles unable to contain myself.

 
“I umm, I think I better get my brother in for lunch…  I’ll talk to you later, K?”  He asked already leaving to his house.

 
“James wait!  What did I do?!”  I questioned, but already knew the answer.  I scared him.


“Come one Austin time for lunch buddy.”  James ushered Austin into the house, turning and looking back at me, “I’ll call you a little later K?  I promise.”


“Are you mad at me?”  I could feel tears forming in my eyes.


“No, promise…. I just..  I don’t know, I’ll call you, we can hang out a little later alright?”  His eyes were pleading for me to just let him go inside.


“Alright..  So long as you promise.”  I than turned and sluggishly drifted back to the house.

 
            Damn it!  How could I be so stupid!  Why couldn’t I just show a little self control! GOD!  Kicking some shrubs on the way back to the house, I remembered Dads request to cut back some of the branches.  That would help relieve some frustration.  Heading towards the shed where we kept the axe, I unlatched the door and yanked the axe from its holster on the side board.  Whipping the door closed again, I turned to examine my new found mission.  The branches were think and heavy.  They were many.

 
            I smile crossed my face, a blast of adrenaline shot through me.  With nothing more to be done I walked towards my first target.  It was low to the ground and seemed to be the more troubled area.  I drew the axe back behind my head, and thrust down on the wood as hard as I could.  Before it even registered that I had hit the branch, the axe was heavy in the dirt below it; the branch had tumbled to the ground.  A burst of power took over, I could do better than that.  I turned to the closest tree looking up, with out a thought I jumped swinging at the same time.  The same result; down fell the branch.  With a smile that I didn’t even know I was capable of creating, and knowing I would never admit to it, I let myself go.  I swung and swiped at nearly anything in my path.  Branches flew to the ground one after the other.  By the time all the obvious spots were now scattered along the lawn, I couldn’t stop there.  Climbing the nearest tree, I began to chop all the lower branches.  Jumping from tree to tree like it was a jungle gym, feeling my strength rise with every moment.  The power I was experiencing was consuming me.  It was than I froze.  The realization that the world around me had once more become that tainted red that I despised and loved at the same time.


            Jumping from the tree and landing between a few of the piled up branches, I crouched my head breathing deeply.  With my eyes closed I tried to fight off this urge.  I already knew that nothing good could come from it.  From the rise of the power, as good as it felt; came the hunger.  ‘I will not let this happen again!’ I promised myself.  I couldn’t let this happen yet.  I wasn’t ready; I had no idea how to maintain control.  I felt my chest become confused.  It would speed in beating than decrease, my breathe would rise and fall in fluctuating speeds.  I could feel the need wanting to be released, but as I concentrated harder the yearning diminished.  Gaining the confidence in myself to open my eyes once more, the red was gone.  The panic soon subsided, and after a nice cool drink I returned to clean the mess that I had created.


            It must have taken several hours to finish; it seemed I was unable to use that same strength as I had before.  Guess I couldn’t have it all hehe.  Shame really could have used that boost to help haul out all the logs and leaves.  By the time I managed to get back in it was almost 3.  Mom was in the living room watching some TV.  There was a sandwich wrapped up on the table for me, but I really had to wash up a bit before I did anything.  I could just hear moms fit now haha.  So up to the shower once more.

 
“You’re mighty energetic today Adrian.”   My mom commented with a smile.


“Yea no kidding, must be from all that sleep I’ve been having lately.”


“Maybe…  Either way wonderful job back there!  I’ve been trying to get you Dad to do that since we moved here.”


“HAha!  He didn’t add that part, he just said for a while.”  I giggled

 
“Well that would be your father, a cons con.”  She smiled.
 

“I wouldn’t go that far.  Any other day I would have said no.”


“That’s probably true.  Regardless Thanks Sweetie.”


“No prob Ma.  But I think it’s best I head up to the shower I’m a mess.”


“Okay, make sure to chuck your clothes down the shoot right away, who knows what kind of bugs are crawling on you!”  Her voice shuddered as she said it.

 
            GAH!!! I hadn’t had thought about that!  Gross!  With that in mind I whipped up the stairs, ripped off my clothes dropped them down the shoot and shot into the shower.  That’s just great, Adrian the teenage Monster nothing can stop him… except a few ants…  Wow…  that’s sad.


            James did end up calling me, but I had passed out.  By the time I woke up he had already gone to bed.  With nothing else seeming to entertain me, I ended up surfing the web for some kind of answers on what might be happening to me.  I must say there are a lot of interesting sites on folklore and monsters.  But nothing seemingly real, or nothing that I could really relate to.  Seemed the web was close to useless.  All the biggest sites were that of vampires and werewolves, but those; even as descriptive as they were, didn’t satisfy me.  There was definitely something more going on in Oakpoint that the rest of the world had no knowledge on.  Just from that one visit to the library here, I learned more about monsters and the towns background than I would about anything else on the web.  Guess I was alone.  Being sick of theories I decided to attempt to get some shut eye.  Maybe tomorrow I could smooth things out with James and drag him over to the library.


            I had managed to pass out a lot easier than I had thought.  Seems yard work can drain even the most powerful beasts.  My mind kept trailing off between James and my new found predicament.  How was I gonna smooth things over with him?  If I managed to do that… will things actually manage to be the same as they were?  The thought of what I could do excited me to no end.  But it scared me even more.  I had only hints on how to control myself.  I didn’t want to be a disgusting beast like the one at the farm.  It wasn’t me, and I wasn’t going to let it!  The only question was how.  I hadn’t the slightest on where to start.  The usual would be trial and error, but… that would require taking a chance with every trail, which may not end so well.  There was no way in hell I was going to allow myself to kill again.  I don’t want to be another secret to the town of Oakpoint Bay.  I’ve really got to get to that library and read up some more on everything that’s happening here.


            There was one thing I knew for certain, I couldn’t do this alone.  I need James.  It hurt so much to know he was afraid of me.  Being angry can be fixed, but fear is something different.  It’s more powerful.  However he did call, that’s a good sign.  I guess I’m over thinking this, he’s the most understanding and forgiving person there is.  And here I am not giving him any credit and doubting him…  GAH! I must stop!  I really gotta go to sleep… Again…  Hehe guess it wasn’t so easy.



Chapter 19