He turned around to see if Tapestry and Melanie had followed him. The door was shut. He tried the handle, and found it soundly locked.
“Tapestry!” he called, knocking on it. “Hey! Don’t shut me out! We need to figure out what we’re going to do!”
A couple of seconds went by. When Malcolm stopped banging on the wood, he heard her reply.
“…I don’t even know who you are,” she said.
CHAPTER 32
The next few hours passed by in a blur. The looting had begun by the time Malcolm reached his apartment. He found the pistol that Tapestry had given him, the only thing that seemed to matter much as bands of angry men and angrier monsters ran through the streets, causing havoc as the world went completely off rails.
Electricity was out all across Vanderbrook, but Malcolm got a small update midway through the morning when a police vehicle slowly made its way down the street, booming an announcement over its loudspeaker. The officer inside claimed that martial law was in effect, which would have seemed more credible if a demon hadn’t approached with a small gang in tow to flip the cruiser over and light it on fire. Malcolm actually recognized the demon, one by the name of Bicep who was a regular at Terri’s Tavern.
He made the trek back to Tapestry’s house that afternoon. Her car was gone, along with most of the food in her fridge, lots of clothing, and toothbrushes. She and Melanie wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon, and Malcolm couldn’t blame them.
She doesn’t owe me anything for my lies. And with Vanderbrook the way it is, she’s doing what’s smart for her family.
His apartment had been looted by the time he got back to it, though what anyone would want with his PS4 and flat screen with dubious prospects of electricity ever returning was an open question.
He took what little clothing had been left to him, along with a few things he’d bought for Rose, and made the move to his hideout. Without electricity, it felt dank and dreary, but it was well hidden and felt appropriate, given the chaos descending on the town.
Over the next several days Malcolm learned that it wasn’t just Vanderbrook that was in turmoil. While out scavenging for what he could in the midst of the destruction, he joined a small, ragged looking crowd gathered around a man with a battery powered radio. A deathly silence fell over the group as they listened.
London, New York, Paris, Chicago… The list of major cities that had been virtually wiped off the map by Second Wind went on and on, extending into Asia, South America, even Australia and Africa. Multi had contributed in his own way, blowing up major highways within the United States, crippling power plants and points of infrastructure. It was as though his suicide bombings in Vanderbrook had just been a warmup for what came next.
The radio message ended by warning people to stay inside, and to avoid any marauding groups of men or monsters they might see. It made no mention of a governmental response, military, police, or even armed militia fighting to maintain order.
The crowd of people seemed to understand it on the same level that he did. As soon as the message looped back to its beginning, a husky man made a grab for the radio, trying to steal it for himself. Punches were thrown. A gun went off. Malcolm slipped away as soon as he could, holding his gun in one hand and his taser in the other.
He felt naked without his powers, and spent half an hour waiting for a group of men pillaging buildings near his hideout to move on before sneaking into the warehouse and down through the hatch. The sense of hopelessness that overtook Malcolm that night was almost enough to make him give up.
But he didn’t. He was still alive, and that meant that he had to keep going, even without the superpowers that he’d come to take for granted.
He would find Rose, and make things right with Tapestry. Those were both foregone conclusions. The last promise he made to himself, the one that he knew was long overdue, made him tremble both anger and fear.
He would track down Second Wind, and kill him.
Former Champion
Edmund Hughes
This digital book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this title with another person, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Edmund Hughes
Kindle Edition
CONTENTS
Former Champion
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER 1
The trap’s execution was flawless. Malcolm smiled as he examined it, brushing a tree branch aside and dropping to one knee in the early morning dew to get a better look at his catch. It was a fat weasel, with enough meat on it for at least a meal, along with a pelt that might have some value to the right trader.
The unlucky creature had gone for the morsel of food he’d left at the wide end of the hollow log. Pulling it loose had triggered the rock above it to fall, which caused the panicked weasel to flee into the log. Malcolm had rigged a small, self-tightening noose to the narrow escape hole on the other end, and the weasel had wiggled into it, eventually strangling itself.
He pulled the animal loose, carefully resetting all the elements of the trap. It reminded him of a board game he’d played when he was younger involving a marble ball and a convoluted series of tracks and widgets it would roll through. It was a memory from another time, another world, really.
Six months had gone by since Second Wind, Malcolm’s duplicate turned demon, had begun to reign destruction and terror down on the world. Six months since Malcolm had lost his powers, his friends, and everything else that really mattered to him.
For the first few weeks, Malcolm had expected the situation to bounce back, or at least reach an equilibrium. It hadn’t happened, and he had come to expect that it wouldn’t happen, at least not on its own.
Chaos had regularly erupted in the streets in the time after Second Wind’s one man apocalypse, with sprytes, demons, and regular old hooligans running wild and taking what they wanted. Basic utilities like electricity and water were turned off or destroyed. The only news available came from tiny, battery powered radios, and it was always just a daily tally of Second Wind’s murderous exploits. Every major city in the world had been razed. Millions of people were dead, and most of those left lacked the modern necessities they’d come to expect in life.