#parapocalypse

It took little time to set up a new camp with Ed and Isabel to help.  Isabel whipped up a fire with ease, extruding a pile of paper kindling and borrowing the still warm kindling of Max’s prior fire.  Ed gathered the packs, arranging them as back rests around the fire before cleaning the trash of the junkyard out of their camp.  Meanwhile Max wandered a larger circle doing the exact opposite, scattering bits of metal in an ever widening circle of debris around their camp and the towers of trash nearby.  As he did so, Scrap guided him in tying little strands of magnetism between the pieces of trash, balancing the pull just enough to keep them all still, but only barely. Just bumping one piece of metal out of place, would lead to it being pulled to which ever neighbor was closer, causing a clamor as it had earlier in the night when the Consortium Agents had tried to sneak up on him.  Plus, it was just good sense to surround your field of potential battle with metal objects if your specialty was magnetism.  Max had learned a long time ago that the alternative of carrying a pile of scrap in your backpack had its downsides.  

A spectral thrum of energy pulsed from his bat and reverberated in his mind, letting him know that Scrap was either satisfied, or tired.  More likely tired, since Manifesting and then damaging himself enough to return to the bat was draining.  

“Got ya buddy,” Max muttered to the bat before turning and heading back to the camp.  The magnetic sixth sense that Scrap had taught him to use made his trip back easy for all that he walked through a littered field of cans and car parts.

Back at the fire, Isabel had rummaged for a larger pot than the small serving bowl Max had been using prior the fight.  She had balanced it on a precarious tripod of poles before pouring in the soup.  It was the best option for their group meals.  His bat/chain trick wasn’t workable when balancing a pot for three, not if he didn’t want his arm to get tired.  

 “I got it, Isabel,” Max said, stepping in to oversee the process.  Isabel might be a master fighter, ace tool wielder, unmatched medium, general kicker of all asses and taker of all names, and most recently connoisseur of fine literature, but no one had apparently ever bothered to feed Eightfold a cookbook and Isabel’s Home Ec grades before their lives went sideways were…not up to the same level of excellence as her other talents.  Max and Ed had learned that the hard way.  She could be trusted to boil water, most of the time, but soup was all too easily burned.

 “Whatever, Max,” Isabel started to object, before catching a poorly concealed wince cross Max’s face as he stretched reached into his backpack to pull out a makeshift ladle. Her eyes traced to the still damp spot on his side where his shirt showed a clear tear.  She frowned as she stepped back letting him handle the soup while she watched him, hawk-like, for any more signs of discomfort.  For his part, Max hid any further reactions, knowing she was waiting for a sign of weakness to pounce and play nurse.  Which was awkward even when Ed wasn’t sitting across the fire, watching the entire thing with mannequin stiffness.  Best not to stir the pot, unless that pot had soup in it of course.

 Soon enough the smell said done, even if it wasn’t a hundredth as good as tomato soup smelled, of course Max was alone in that opinion amongst his friends.  Except for Isaac, HE liked tomato bisque he used to get so excited when dad made it at home.  The hand stirring the soup trembled a second as memories of Zoey, Isaac, and his dad sitting around a table devouring tomato bisque and grilled cheese while playing some stupid game, dragged Max away from the fire and the junkyard.  The ghost of laughter and friendly camaraderie of days past drew him from one bright memory to another, until a flash of heat in his hand recalled him.  His hand throbbed having been held in place to long over the boiling soup.  With a curse, Max jerked his hand back, waving it lightly, before seeing Isabel start beside him.  She looked from his hand, then up to his eyes, which were stinging. His eyes felt red and he told himself it was irritation from the soup, as he collected his emotions internally, holding them in an iron grip.  I will not have a breakdown over soup, god damn it.  Beside him Isabel tensed, misreading his sudden shift as his hand or his side paining him.  Max leveled a flat gaze at her, projecting confidence and calm as he flexed his hand once, slowly, to show it was fine.  I’m fine.  Everything’s fine.  Just got caught off guard by a stray memory.

The bat as his back vibrated again, a soundless sort of spectral thrum, and Max knew there was at least one person not fooled in the slightest by his act.  He sighed, forcing his shoulders to relax and project calm towards his tool.  Scrap was good with anger, irritation, excitement, and even for some people fondness. Remorse and nostalgia; however, were definitely not in the Grudges limited emotional vocabulary, and things Scrap didn’t understand tended to make him angry.  With all the leeway Max gave the spirit in the bat, and the depth of their connection, it was best to keep things peaceful.  Scraps anger and bloodlust could bleed through at times into Max’s own emotions, and on occasion he’d even exert magnetic control through Max, without Max’s conscious thought. The price of their closer bond.

 Distraction at last came in Isabel finally catching the smell of soup herself and turning to the pot with a hungry grin.

Max smiled, pulling two fresh bowls from his pack, and ladling soup into each.  Then he grabbed a thermos, filling it as well, before capping it and holding it out to Ed.  Ed took it silently, though he nodded in a way they’d come to accept as his new equivalent for “thank you.”  Then Ed stood up, and began to slowly work his way away from the campfire to start the first patrol.  His departure was cautious, and his face down, as he navigated the magnetized-junk alarm system with delicacy.

Isabel watched Ed depart, a frown on her face.  “I…wish he’d still eat with us.” She said absently once he’d turned around a pile of junk and was out of sight.  As soon as the words left her mouth she gave a start, surprised at herself for expressing the thought aloud.

“He doesn’t,” Max motioned to his face with his hand, miming lifting the mask, “he’s just not ready yet for that Is.  Give him time.”

“Time,” she sighed, “It’s been over a year Max, a year since Spender and BL and this mess.  A year and he’s taken the mask off around us what…two, three times?  Does he really think we’d care?”

“It’s not what we feel, and you know it.  It’s what he feels.”

“Or doesn’t,” Isabel added her head dropping towards the soup bowl in front of her with a frown. She reached out for a book, and started tearing strips of paper before dropping them into the soup to soak, like thin black and white speckled bits of bread.  

Max let her words and the odd dietary habit both go uncommented on.  Ed and Isabel…were, or at least had been, something before it all went down, but what that was a mystery unsolvable to anyone outside of their ‘something.’  Max had been quite happy with Isaac, but it was far less complicated relationship, lacking as it did, Ed and Isabel’s creepy, near psychic levels of communication and brain-sharing.  After that thing had ripped through Ed, though, Isabel insisted he was a different person.  That whatever Ed used to feel, he just didn’t anymore, or at least didn’t for very long. Max didn’t understand the theory, but on spectral stuff, he was always going to be a few years behind someone like Isabel, born and raised as a spectral.  Ed still had to feel things though, Max figured, or he’d have wandered off and left them months ago, instead of sticking by them, and helping them guard a home that had no meaning to him.  Then again, maybe if Ed didn’t feel anything, he didn’t see a reason to leave? Maybe it really was just habit and momentum that kept them together as a team.  Max knew he wasn’t the Ed expert, but he didn’t believe that part.  Not completely.  Ed still made jokes on the rare occasion, and sometimes his head, even obscured by the mask, had that same tilt it used to have when he was smiling at something with amused curiosity or fondness.  Especially if it was Isabel he was looking at or ‘talking’ to.  And sometimes Ed didn’t look so amused when Isabel and he…Max shook the thought from his head with a frown.  The rest of the meal was punctuated only by the occasional crackle for the fire, the scrape of spoons on bowls, and muffled slurps.  

Max finished first, probably because he wasn’t waiting for the torn up pages to turn soggy.  He debated a second helping, but passed on the idea.  His heart just wasn’t in it for Chicken Noodle, for anything really.  He set his bowl down by the fire and stood, for the moment dismissing the simmering pot.  Anything they couldn’t finish would go in another thermos for the road, and probably be a cold quick breakfast tomorrow, but it was better to let Isabel and Ed decide if they wanted seconds before putting it away.  Max moved away from his backpack, stepping from the fire and slipping his hands into his jacket pocket to ward off the chill that stalked around the edge of the fire.  

His right hand pricked for a moment on something sharp, and Max jerked his hand out, before gently slipping his hand into the pocket again and pulling out the offending intrusion.  A key sat in his hand, a faint red glow visible only due to the darkness around them. Max frowned, overcome by a sense of violation and anger.  The key didn’t belong in his pocket, it didn’t belong anywhere except in the most secure pouch of his backpack, and he certainly would have remembered moving it from there.  Even separated from his bat, Max felt a muted thrum of spectral vibration from Scrap, identifying the culprit.  Sometimes Scrap liked to move things around, and surprise Max, especially if it found a piece of metal it particularly liked the feel of, like a cat or dog bringing its master a small animal or toy.  But this particular key was not on the approved list.  You know you are not, allowed to play with this. Max thought at the bat sternly, trying to focus on anger rather than on the heavier-than-it-looked object in his hand.  Why on earth Scrap had decided to slip this in his pocket, Max had no clue, but he figured it had happened while he was distracted by memories of dinners with his family and Isaac.  Max didn’t think Scrap had any real idea what the key meant, just knew it was an important piece of metal to Max, like other pieces of metal were important to it.  And was just putting it there, probably in a misguided belief that it would help.  But it didn’t help.  It certainly didn’t spark the same warm memories as he’d had before of the good times.  No…the key only reminded him of the end.

*Flashback*

Max had waited three whole weeks after Isaac’s disappearance.  Three weeks of pretending to be as clueless as his friends in their search.  Three weeks of biding his time and acting oblivious, all the while certain, he at least, knew exactly where Isaac had gone.  It had been blindingly obvious when Spender hadn’t been able to find the key to the room and they’d had to bust the door down.  Well obvious to Max, after all he knew about Doorman.  

After three weeks his friends finally decided they couldn’t keep up the nightly searches, and that Max didn’t need a 24/7 watch to make sure he was ok.  Three weeks before he finally got them to agree that Isaac wouldn’t be found till he was ready, and they needed to give him time to come to that point on his own.  

Not that he’d taken his own advice.  The minute they’d given him the privacy he’d been waiting for, free of regular checkups or invitations to scouting parties, he’d raced for the woods, seeking out the path to the old abandoned home hidden there.  He’d gotten lost along the way a few times.  More often than not he’d come to the house by way of Doorman in the past. When Isaac had popped open his bedroom door and invited him over to crash.  But at last he found the twisted path to the drooping porch over the leaning door, of the crooked house. A house with shadowed windows, with a swarm of spirits crawling about.

He caught his breath, trying to project an aura of calm and hide the tremble in his hands as he walked up to the door and knocked.  Once, twice, a few more times.  He knocked louder, hoping it was just size of the house, not even realizing how hard his knocks had gotten till he looked at his hand, blood welling through scrapes along his knuckles.  He debated breaking the door down, or just crawling through a window.  He stopped himself from following through.  That that kind of trespass would just agitate Isaac more.  Still he could be stubborn, in a completely non-confrontational manner, so he sat down, outside the house, leaning against the leaning door, and started talking. Loudly.  Starting with how much he missed Isaac.  How worried Isabel and Ed and Spender where.  How Zoey had asked why Isaac didn’t come around anymore. How his dad had asked the same question, but in a way that hinted he was there if Max needed to talk.  About how much less fun their family game nights where without him to be the fourth for team games.  Or just how much he missed the sound of Isaac’s breathing, his laugh, even his smell.  Then Max switched gears, going over a list of apologies and explanations he’d prepared. About how he thought Isaac wanted free of the spirit.  That it had been driving Isaac crazy.  That it had been driving them apart.  How he thought that if Isaac had been in the Consortium, the last thing that made him feel unwanted in their group would be gone.  How he’d just wanted to help.

Max had talked till his voice was hoarse and the starlight had faded to dawn.  He’d talked till he was reduced to whispers and the birdsong greeting the day was louder by degrees than his scratchy words.  And when the door had finally opened, his hope had been dashed as he found himself face to face with yet another door, and the doorknob head resting on top of it.  Max had tried to look past Doorman into the foyer, but Doorman’s rectangular frame was too similar to the door he obstructed.

“You should go, Master Max.” It wasn’t said coldly or with anger, Max supposed he should be grateful that at least Isaac’s spirit adviser didn’t outright hate him.  A small blessing.  If Doorman didn’t hate him, maybe he could talk Isaac around to forgiving Max. Amazing how tightly one could cling to the thinnest of strands while watching the rope he’s holding unravel.  

“Is…” Max’s strained voice disintegrated in a flurry of coughs.  “Isaac’s safe?”  

“As much as he can be,” Doorman had replied, again with no malice, just neutral calm.  

“Will he-“ Max’s voice gave out again, and it was just as well.  Max wasn’t sure himself if the question was going to end with ‘he be ok,’ or ‘we be ok?’  

“I don’t know,” Doorman replied, “But this…this won’t help.  Humans, especially the young ones as you two are, you are quick to act and quicker to react. And when hurt, it is hard to draw you from reaction to reason, especially with the source of the hurt nearby. I have explained the logic of the situation as best as I can grasp it.  As well as my belief that it was misunderstanding, a road paved of good intent and not ill that lead to this pass.”  

For a second Doorman’s words turned from statement to question, and Max felt pathetic in how eagerly he nodded in assurance, as he tried to croak out that he obviously hadn’t ever meant for Isaac of all people to be hurt.   “But…” Max began when his throat finally felt up to speaking.  

“Time, Master Max.  Time heals what wounds that reason cannot.”  

With that the door had closed again, not with a slam, but with a soft finality that still made it clear Max would get no more.  Max had stood, numb and yet raw at the same time, in front of the leaning little door of that crooked little house, conscious of his audience of nervous spirits watching him from every shadow.  Finally under their wary gaze, he’d started to back away slowly, before abruptly stopping and reversing course.  One trembling hand reached into his pocket and pulled out the spare key to his room. The one he’d given Isaac, what felt like ages ago, so that they could arrange late night slumber parties, sneak off for time away from Isabel and Ed, stock the Doorman’s house with snacks from the store, or just get to school on time when one or the other was running late.  The key that Isaac had not taken with him when he’d disappeared out from under Mr. Spender’s watch three weeks prior.  Max set it front of the door, looking up at the various windows of the house, trying to see if any shadow, any face flashed in any of them.  Nothing moved, or plenty of things moved, all spirits of various hue and shapes, but no flash of orange hair or blue eyes, quickly ducking from sight.  With a sigh Max turned around and walked away, hoping that someday or some night, his own door would open and he’d get the chance to make things right, or at least explain how very, very sorry he was.  And for a few weeks, Max had lost sleep every night, closing his door and watching it till exhaustion claimed him, hoping for the knob to turn. Everynight spent falling asleep sitting against his headboard, the small of his back leaning against the pillow, and just watching and waiting. Until the night the sound of fire engines woke him. And he saw a pillar of smoke rising from the woods.

*Flash Forward*

Max’s control slipped, as his memories ran in a dozen different directions, flashes of scrambling through woods, of a burned out husk of a home, of sifting through ash, dodging confused firemen, crying out Isaac’s name through a smoke ravaged throat, and finding a single glowing key, buried under timbers and ashes before being dragged from the still unstable building as smoldering timbers continued to snap and groan.

He stumbled in place, for a second coughing, his voice remembering the thick smoke and the heat of another night.  Heat that he could still feel from the glowing red key in his palm.  One foot absently nudged a can, and in seconds it snapped to the nearest other piece of metal, the connection causing the new piece to smash into another, until the entire web of magnetized metal was erupting in cacophony of crashes and bangs.

 “Max?” Isabel was on her feet in seconds, her second bowl of soup already spilling near the fire, as a few chicken broth soaked pages flared into incandescence.  Her hands were out, in an wary guard, and her eyes searched the junkyard for strangers.  Seeing nothing and observing Max himself wasn’t on guard, she relaxed slightly, moving towards him quickly.

“Max what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Max got out, as he violently shoved the key back into his pocket and out of sight. He turned back, lowering the brim of his hat, to conceal the wetness of his eyes, as he motioned to the pile of junk at his feet.  “I just lost track of my own feet and messed up the alarm.”

Isabel frowned, clear disbelief in her expression.   “Max…”

“It’s nothing just..uh…” Max shrugged and instantly regretted it as his still healing side throbbed angrily.  The poorly concealed wince at least seemed to provide explanation enough for Isabel.

“Max, let me fix it. If you let cellulitis set in, or worse gangrene, even a spectral’s resilience, and Eightfold’s little trick for faster healing bandages won’t be able to keep you from being out for the count for weeks.  And Ed and I,” her voice caught a second, “I can’t do this on my own Max.  I can’t take the quiet for weeks while you’re trying to heal.”

Max frowned, but moved toward the fire.  He sat by it for a second, clearly awkward, before grabbing the hem of his hoddie and shirt, lifting them both over his head in one quick rush.

Isabel wandered over, one hand already stretching wide to expose a slip of paper peaking out from her palm.  Her other hand she held near the fire, letting the heat banish the chill, before tracing it carefully along Max’s side.

“It’s not deep. Not a laceration at least.  Just a really bad abrasion, with a small tear. But it’s jagged, not sharp.  And no visible punctures.  So not likely to be Tetanus.  Thankfully.”  Isabel’s fingers traced a pattern on Max’s skin as she inspected, and he felt the heat in his cheeks that had little to do with the heat of the fire.  He ducked his head again and barely caught the question at the end of her observation.  “Do you even remember when you had your last shot?”

“Tetanus?”  Max laughed awkwardly pulling her attention from their closeness with teasing, while she focused on pulling a strip of surprisingly bandage-soft paper from one hand and started spooling it out.   “Isabel we live in a mostly abandoned town, surrounded by a junkyard.  Oh yeah, with no doctors, and a hospital we can barely turn the lights on for, if and only if the generator’s not feeling testy that day.  If Tetanus is gonna get us, it’s gonna get us. Besides, I got one of those shots like three, four years ago, don’t those things last forever?”

“The Td and the Tdap aren’t permanent, Max,” she scowled, slipping the bandage around Max and tightening it enough to make him wince.  “Ten years.”  Another loop and another tight pull to drive her seriousness home.  “Maybe more, maybe less, but that’s how long they protect you. Of course normally I’d say you’d be ok, but YOU,” she punctuated the ‘you’ with a glare and a third loop pulled uncomfortably tight.  “You spend all your time guarding a junkyard and playing with rusty metal, so forgive me if I worry about you becoming a permanent home to a batch of Clostridium tetani, and spending months dealing with muscle spasms, fever, headache, and maybe dying on us.  Though the lockjaw would mean less arguing.”  She finished with a scowl as she tied a quick not of the bandage. Only then did she stop to look at her work, satisfied, before letting her attention wander to the rest of her patient’s body.  Her own cheeks grew red and she quickly turned to look at the fire.

“Lockjaw, Td, Tdap, lacerations, gangrene, cellulitis, Clostr- Teta-whatever…geeze Is, where you nibbling on another medical dictionary?”  Max said as he pretended not to notice her blush and quickly slipped his shirt back on.

“Max,” Isabel glared, “you know I’ve been eating every book I can find from the hospital.  One of us should know what to do when something bad enough happens that our spirits can’t fix it.  As it is I can barely keep the regular people in Mayview healthy, since they don’t even have the resilience of being a Spectral to help them along.  I basically just apply Doctopi liberally to all the hurt people to numb the pain and hope that the sterile bandages I can make do enough.  With bad nutrition and food getting harder to find, even that’s not…”

Max winced both at what his words had caused and as the stiff tug of the bandages on his side, as he threw an arm around Isabel and pulled her close.

“I’m sorry Is, I didn’t mean it, I’m just…it’s one of those days y’know.  Scrap’s in my head, and I’m in my head.  Thinking about things the way they were.  And I just want to lash out at something.”

“I know,” Isabel added softly, “And you were thinking about him again, earlier.  Weren’t you.”

Max stiffened. “I…yeah.  I miss him.”

“We all do Max,” Isabel added then more softly, “Though not like you do, I suppose.  If I lost Ed.  If I haven’t already…” her voice caught and Max squeezed a little harder, ignoring the wince in his side.

“Max…” Max heard the needy tone in her voice and winced, knowing what was coming, even if part of him felt the same aching need right then.  She saw the wince, and her own guilt and embarrassment colored her face as she quickly changed her words.  “Never mind.”   She said, tough Isabel, trying to show the stiff upper lip and shove all the mess back under the rug.

“Come on Is,” Max said, as he shifted positions to lay down on the ground, his head resting in his pack as he left one arm hang out invitingly.  “Sorry I flinched.  You know it’s not you.  And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to hold someone or be held.  I won’t tell anyone about your super-secret clingy soft side.”

She glared, even as she scooched down next to him and rested her own head his shoulder.  “It’s not clingy, or soft.  Just…you can’t do this anymore with him.  And Ed won’t even let me get close anymore.  So we both just need to the comfort of a fellow warrior. It’s platonic and understandable. And perfectly normal.”