The Wanderer (Book 1): The Wanderer Read online

  “My… uncle,” I said.

  “Well where are you now?”

  “My house. Shouldn’t you be in class right now?”

  “You’re late for school!” she shouted. “Don’t judge me!” I pulled the phone away, and saw that it was 8:30. School started at 7:35, so I was only an hour late. I only skipped one class so far then, which was good.

  “Sam’s already there?” I guessed.

  “Yep,” Alannah said.

  See that was bad. Sam was my ride to school, as his mom was his ride to school. Yes, it was incredibly awkward recently, but my uncle was not giving me the luxury of a ride to my legally binding education.

  “Well I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Ana. I don’t have a ride,” I explained.

  “No kidding, dumbass,” she replied. See? Fiery.

  Then I had an idea. It was stupid, absolutely, but nonetheless, it could potentially get me to school a hell of a lot sooner than walking would.

  “Alright, I think I know how to make it in… less than like, twenty minutes, probably.”

  “How? You know I can’t just drive over there, neither can Alex or Will.”

  “I know, I’m not asking you to. I’ve got it, don’t worry. I swear I won’t miss physics.” Physics was the one class Alannah and I had together. It was awesome. I’d flirt talk to her all day, and she’d actually learn. We had a blast together, she and I.

  “Promise?” she asked.

  “You have my word,” I said. “Third period, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Okay, Jason. If you say so. You better tell me all about that camping trip when you get here.”

  “Oh from car ride there to the car ride back, you’ll get every little detail,” I said. I facepalmed for speaking before thinking, yet again. I really hated myself sometimes.

  “Okay, weirdo,” she laughed. Damn… that laugh always got me. “See you in a little bit, Jason.”

  “Yeah… bye,” I said, still a little spacey over the whole giggle thing.

  Alannah hung up, and I came back to Earth. I grabbed my backpack from the kitchen, slipped an additional sweatshirt on over my first one to better hide the chestplate, and stepped outside into the backyard.

  “Okay,” I said, shaking my arms and legs. “Okay, this should be easy enough, right? I know I can do it, I just need to… just need to do it.”

  I took a deep breath, and crouched down a little. Then, suddenly, I leapt up into the air. And while, no, I did not fly, I did reach about the roof of my two floor house, which seemed… different.

  Luckily, I landed on my feet, and I realized I had to just work with what I had. All the same, if people saw some 16 year old kid leaping over buildings and whatnot, they’d probably lose their minds. Luckily, there was a train track just a ways through the woods that cut through most of town.

  So, I leapt off, running whenever I landed– which by the way, I could also do really fast now– to the tracks. Once I got there, I kept trying to fly, but it was just larger and longer leaps through the sky.

  This would have been totally fine, but I forgot one key piece of information. It was 8:30 a.m. on a Monday. People were heading into Boston for work, so the train was of course going to be on said train tracks.

  “Oh, that’s not good,” I said.

  I heard it coming, but I didn’t see anything yet. Honestly, I couldn’t tell if the train was coming from behind me or in front, and I was garbage with cardinal directions, so I had no clue which way pointed toward the city.

  Rather than just hold off a minute on the side of the tracks, I leapt some hundred feet into the air– like I said, higher and higher with every go– and looked around.

  It was in front of me, alright, and headed right for me. Not only was it headed right for me, but I also was about to land, get this, directly in front of it!

  “Son of a bitch…” I groaned.

  I slammed down on the tracks, and before the conductor could even react, the front of the train slammed into my face. It hurt like… well, like a train to the face, but I wasn’t dead. I guess that pain tolerance thing really meant business.

  Now this was, in itself, strange enough. Because life was turning upside-down on me recently, however, that was not all. The train hit my entire front, meaning it also hit the protruding alien armor sitting square on my chest.

  When it did, I guess it tapped the button on the chestplate, and as I flew off down the rails, it just… expanded. Metallic material grew from my torso down to my fingers and toes, and up all around my head.

  It like armor, but it was oddly light and flexible. You know, for flying through the air toward the ground, anyway.

  It also felt like… I don’t know, but in the same way as how the chestplate felt like a part of me– an extension– so did this. I suppose this was just what the chestplate was, really: a suit.

  So, when I thought to myself how I really didn’t want to slam into that train again once I landed, and wished I could just fly off. I maneuvered my body, and like that, I took off into the air. Well, off into the trees, but eventually I angled myself up.

  “How is this happening…?” I asked, looking all around the inside of the suit. I stopped myself mid-air, which was unbelievably awesome, by the way, and checked myself out.

  Looking down at my body, the armor was like a darkish blue with gold details, and little white lights here and there. It was awesome. Also, I had this pointy “Y” shaped visor that went from about my eyebrows down to my chin, and it was also gold; maybe it was a little more orangey, I couldn’t really tell from inside.

  “Oh my God! This is…! This–! Oh my God!” was more or less what I stammered out. I mean, can you blame me, really? I looked like a total badass, and I was actually flying now. “Alright, school,” I said, taking off.

  It still felt kind of wobbly, but I was able to actually fly the rest of the way there. It felt weird. It was kind of like I was using a muscle, but I felt it all around my torso. Not like wings or anything, but like…

  Okay, so if you’re sitting right now, and you hunch a little, and then move just your upper body to sit up straight, it’s kind of like that, but consistently. Also, it eked out a little to my arms and legs, too.

  Anyway, I got above the school, and landed on the roof, to try and stay as inconspicuous as possible. The landing part was actually pretty easy. The suit coming off part… not so much.

  “Alright, uh… suit: off,” I commanded. Nothing happened. “Suit: retract.” still nothing. “Suit: chestplate… mode?”

  If you can believe it, that didn’t do the job, either. Then though, I had the brilliant idea to look down, and press the button in the middle of my chest. Guess what took the suit off, right away?

  “Alright, what time is it?” I asked myself, about to pull my phone out of my pocket, when I realized that, unbeknownst to me, my shirt, sweatshirt, and second sweatshirt, were all torn to shreds. “What the hell!?”

  Thankfully, my pants were fine, but I guess the suit ripped through the upper clothing when it came on through the chestplate.

  “Oh goddamn…” I whined, pulling my phone out. It was only like 9:00, thankfully. Physics didn’t start until like 10:00. I called Will, and after a couple rings, he answered.

  “Jason?” he whispered. “Where are you right now, man? Where have you been?”

  “I’m on the roof right now, actually,” I said.

  “What?” he asked, his whisper falling to the wayside almost immediately. It sounded like a teacher scolded him, noticing he was on the phone. Luckily, Will could be quick on his feet sometimes. “Sorry, family emergency, Ms. Keller. I’ll– I’ll be right back. I… yeah, alright; I look forward to it”

  I just sat outside, literally freezing my nipples off, just waiting on Will to get out of the classroom.

  “You just got me a lunch detention, dude.”

  “Sorry, pal. I’ll sit in with you,” I said.

&nb
sp; “Sounds like a date. Okay, look, how are you up there?” he asked, clearly hustling down the hall now. “And why?”

  “Long story, but look, can you just do me a favor? A no questions favor?”

  “No questions? I… sure, what is it?”

  “I need a shirt. And a sweatshirt, if you got one.”

  “Why? Don’t tell me… Are you shirtless on the roof of our highschool right now?” Will asked, stopping in his tracks. I could hear his sneakers squeak against the floor.

  “In a… sense,” I said, looking around uncomfortably. “Look I know you’ve at least got an extra shirt in your gym locker, can you just get it for me, please?”

  “I guess, but I can’t open the door, dude. I don’t know the code.”

  “I’ll just open it once you’re there, make my way down.”

  “Why don’t you just do that now?”

  “Why don’t you just get the shirt and stop asking so many questions for a no questions favor?”

  “This is a weird no questions favor, though, Jase,” Will insisted.

  “Remember when I bought all those flowers and nonsense for you so you could give them to your ‘secret crush?’” It was Julia, by the way. And there was nothing secret about it to anyone but Will.

  “Fine,” he sighed. “Gimme five.”

  So, five minutes later, and I heard a knock on the door. I really wished Will would have just left the shirt by the door and left, but I knew he’d have questions.

  I opened the door, and quickly slipped inside.

  “Hey,” I said, catching the shirt as he tossed it to me. I slipped it on over the chestplate, but it was still pretty obvious.

  “What the hell is that?” Will asked, scoffing at the size of it.

  “It’s a… back brace,” I said. Not my best, but honestly not my worst either. His little nod looked like he bought it, at least for the moment.

  “So why were you on the roof?”

  “No questions, remember?”

  “Ugh, fine, whatever,” Will groaned. “You gotta tell me one of these days, though.”

  “Fine, one of these days,” I agreed. “Can I borrow your sweatshirt, please? This thing is sticking out like crazy. I don’t want people to tear me apart any more than usual.”

  “Fine, fine, take it,” Will said, taking his hoodie off over his head. He handed it to me, and I slipped it on. It helped a little, but it still seemed like my chest had at least doubled in size over the course of a single weekend.

  “Alright, cool. Thanks, buddy,” I said. Will just nodded, and we did our little handshake. We just dapped each other up, and then fired a double-finger gun once in the air. Adorable, I know.

  We both walked off to class, and I sat through the remainder of my history class racking my brain over all my powers. None of it really made sense to me. I knew that I could do these things: flying, being strong as hell, surviving a train to the face, but I had no control over it.

  The suit seemed to be some kind of training-wheels for them, though. Without it I was just jumping around. I was getting higher on my own, sure, but as soon as the suit came into play, I was soaring.

  I still felt the muscle-like strain when I was flying, but there was something about it I just couldn’t really grasp on my own.

  At least, I couldn’t at first.

  As I sat in my seat in the last few minutes of class, a desk blocking my lower half, my mind trying to understand all the intricacies of my newfound “gifts,” I felt that same muscular strain in my torso, and I started to hover a little out of my seat. I leapt out of my skin, and clutched the sides of the desk for dear life– which crushed the desk, by the way, making very deep finger marks in its sides.

  Some people glanced back at me, hearing the small commotion, and I just did my best to look down and ignore them, acting like everything was fine. Everything was not fine, however, and I felt my feet leave the ground.

  “Nope!” I whispered, standing up out of my seat, and walking over to the door.

  “Mr. Rhodes,” my teacher, Mr. Rey, said. “Where are you going?”

  “Bathroom,” I said, grabbing the door frame, and trying my best to subtly push my body down. “Really gotta use the bathroom.”

  “Alright, well can you sign out, please?” The sign-out sheet was right next to me, on a desk by the door. But if I let go of that door frame, I really didn’t know what would happen.

  “Ah, do I have to?” I asked. “You know where I’m going, right?”

  “Well, considering you were 20 minutes late to class, I’m going to say yes, you have to,” Mr. Rey said.

  “I… Okay…” I sighed.

  I very slowly crept my hands down the door frame, and then quickly latched onto the desk, and slipped my foot under its leg, trying to stay still. I could feel my body fighting against myself, so I just kind of scribbled my name and the time, and then rushed out the door.

  I got to the bathroom, grasping lockers and walls for dear life the whole way there, and locked myself in a stall. I tried to just sit down on the toilet and press my hands against the stall walls until it passed, but uh… that wasn’t working out.

  I flew up into the ceiling, knocked a tile down, and then skidded across said ceiling back and forth, smacking into walls until I fell on the ground, outside the bathroom stall.

  The bright side was, I didn’t feel the sensation of flight anymore, but I mean… I was on a god damn bathroom floor.

  “Jason Chodes,” said the biggest dickhead of the year. Greg.

  I looked up from the bathroom floor, and saw him standing over me, smirking like an ass.

  “Hey Greg,” I said, picking myself up off the ground.

  “So, this is definitely a new low for you, I’d say, huh?”

  “Sure, it’s not my finest moment.”

  “I mean I get it, you’re falling into what the whole school thinks of you anyways; if you can’t beat their expectations, meet ‘em, right?” he scoffed.

  “Yeah. Look I gotta get to class, man. I’m already late,” I said, trying to walk past him. He held his arm out before me, though, and I stopped.

  Yes, I probably could have kicked his ass, but on the one hand it might kill him, and on the other hand I hadn’t actually tested out my strength yet, so maybe I could just survive an ass-whooping.

  “No, not yet,” he said. “I’ve gotta give you something first.”

  “What, you’re looking to regift the knuckles your dad gave you?” I said. “You know, Greg, therapy really isn’t anything to be ashamed–!”

  Greg shoved me against the wall, right by the sinks and the mirrors. He pressed his forearm up against my neck, and I glanced down at the sink. I could probably shove his head into it, but again if I did it too hard, it might kill him like that. Plus it would break the sink, and that’d just be a whole thing.

  “Listen freak, everybody knows you’re nothing here. Even your best friend figured it out. The fact that you seriously can’t get that through your thick god damn skull is pathetic. I can’t tell whether to be more furious or disgusted,” Greg spat. See what I mean? Total dickhead.

  “Have you considered sympathy?” I asked, gripping onto his wrist with my hand. For a split second, I could see him wince, and I knew I had to pull back. If I did that any harder, it would definitely break.

  Greg slammed me into the wall again, and spit on my face. Honestly, that part was just excessive, but it definitely succeeded in pissing me off, which I think was his goal.

  I scowled at him, and grabbed his forearm with my other hand. I pushed it away from my neck, it was much easier than I’d thought it would be.

  “Greg, now really isn’t the time, man,” I growled. He scoffed.

  “Really? Why? You gonna win a fight for once, Chodes?” Greg asked. “I know you love losing, I doubt you’d just change now.”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said. I felt so angry, it was as if I could feel my whole body starting to heat up.

  I know this see
ms like a random, chance encounter with a typical, mean-for-the-sake-of-mean bully, but this guy had been a thorn in my side since I was like 10 years old. Greg was just a dick, and he loved picking me apart because my home life was one of the few actually worse than his own.

  Yes, we fought a lot, and yes I often lost. Still, it’s nonsense how little he’d let up on me. He could be a dick to whoever got in his way if they weren’t “cool” enough, but still, I was like his number one target. Back in the day, all the guys and girls would defend me, and keep us from getting too heated if they could; Sam especially, he always got in the way, even fought Greg off with me a few times.

  Nowadays though, especially when I was alone like this, nobody would really do much about it. How could they I was alone.

  Or at least, I was.

  “Hey!” Sam shouted, sprinting over, and chucking Greg over into the stall door. It was still locked, thanks to me, so he just kind of bounced off it and had to catch himself on the bathroom floor. Oh, the irony. I guess class must have ended, and people were starting to move to third period.

  “Gah! What the hell, man?” Greg asked, checking his hand for a gash. He was fine, the big baby. “I thought you hated–”

  “Get the hell out of here, now,” Sam said. Remember when I said Sam was pretty big? Yeah, it really showed when he got mad. It was rare, and honestly Sam wasn’t as much of a fighter, but he knew how to defend people. Especially, I guess, me.

  Greg got up, and after shooting me another dirty look, he scampered out of the bathroom. I brushed myself off, and looked over at Sam. He still watched until Greg was fully out of there.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I was fine, though.”

  “Yeah, looked like it,” Sam muttered.

  “I was,” I insisted. Sam turned to me, and scanned me up and down real quick. He nodded toward my neck.

  “You hurt?”

  “No, he just pressed on it; I’m fine.”

  “Alright,” Sam said, turning away. “Good. I’m gonna use another bathroom… try to stop getting into so many fights, Jason; especially if you can’t win.”

  He made his way out, and I reached out my hand, wanting to say something, but the words just… didn’t come to me.