Episode 2: "Welcome to hell, b***h"

Teeth. Teeth everywhere. My world goes into slow motion.

Episode 2: “Welcome to Hell, B***h.”

            I wake up from a long night keeping one eye open throughout the early morning hours. I look up at the ceiling. The lights are on again. No police sirens racing up my street. It’s actually a pretty nice day. It’s sunny and early morning cartoons are on TV. Kids like me are supposed to sleep in and lay back on Saturdays like this. And not have to worry about being killed at some point of the day. God my tooth hurts…

            Every time I hear a noise in a bush or behind a corner in the house, I feel like I’m going absolutely insane.

            What if they’re just trying to scare me? Or maybe they really want to kill me and just have fun with me first. If anything, I am NOT ready to die.

            I need to go back to the parking lot later to see if there’s any evidence of that third mystery man that escaped me in the parking lot.  I need to find some sort of lead to go on because I have nothing on him right now. I have no clues or ideas. I need to think. This person that left my tooth has the advantage here. I just need to find one thing. Just one thing to find a weakness in this person... Maybe it’s the people who work for this Kavanagh person. Does this Kavanagh person know who I am now?

            God, I hate not knowing. If this person is trying to scare me, well it’s working like wonders. Bravo. This person could hurt everyone and everything that I care about. I hate thinking of that. Putting on some opera music should ease the mood.

 

After a long and horrifying weekend, it’s time for Monday. Does this mystery person know where I go to school? Have I just put almost 2,000 people at this school in danger?

           

Mr. Johnson’s class was weird today. He was acting strange. He seemed quiet and he wasn’t as happy as he always was. He didn’t even impersonate Breaking Bad characters or make any meth jokes. Maybe he’s just having a bad day too.

The bell rings for lunch and I walk outside. It’s very cloudy today. I can’t even see the beautiful San Diego sun. It’s a little cold and I forgot to put on my jacket. I walk over by the dumpsters and see Sean over there with his girlfriend.

“Frodo, what’s up?” Sean asked.

“Not much.” I muttered.

“Are you okay? You’re acting a little weird, dude.”

“I only said TWO words. What’s with all the questions?”

“Well, you’re still acting weird. You’re usually happier than this. Did something happen over the weekend?”

“Again, too many questions. I’m fine. I’m perfectly normal right now. This is how I always am. You need to calm down okay?”

After my short conversation with Sean, Officer Shrader came by to say hello.

“Alfredo, can I talk to you for a second?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” I asked.

Officer Shrader had me follow him around the corner because he wanted to talk in private… Oh boy…

“Did you see the news this morning?” asked Officer Shrader.

“No, I was in a rush this morning. What happened?”

“There was a man shot in the chest during a drug deal on Eads Avenue Last night.”

“Wow, is he okay?”

Officer Shrader looked at me with disappointment on his face and said, ”His name is John Millard.”

I acted like I knew nothing and said, “Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m telling you this because he dies two hours ago. And two other gang members were admitted into the hospital as well. You didn’t have anything to do with that right? John Millard said here was a third man. If you don’t tell me what’s going on, people are going to get hurt. I asked John if he saw the Red Falcon, but he wouldn’t say a word.”

I kind of looked down for a second. I might as well just tell him now. Maybe he can help me find out who this third man is. Right now, I need any help I can get. It could be my only chance of survival.

“Yeah… I was there.” I admitted.

I began to ask him if he knew who a person named Kavanagh is. He said he didn’t know and that he’s just the school cop. The school police don’t investigate murders. He said he might be able to look in the police database to see if anybody named Kavanagh has been arrested on record. After that, I told him everything that happened that night.

“Then one of the guys hit me right in the face with a baseball bat and then my tooth came out.” I explained.

“Jesus, you should go see the nurse or something.”

“That isn’t even the bad part. I drove back home to clean my mouth and go to sleep. I slept for a few hours until I heard someone knocking on the door at like 4:00am. I looked outside and nobody was there. Then I looked down and saw that somebody had set my broken tooth on the welcome mat that I had left in the parking lot. We need to find out who knows about me.”

Officer Shrader looked down for a second and then looked at me with distress.

“What you need to do is lay low for a while. Maybe don’t go on patrol this week. I’ll check out the crime scene for you and see if I find anything.”

“But he knows where I LIVE”

“You have my phone number. Call me day or at nighttime, I don’t care if you wake me up in the middle of the night, I will come help you with anything you need. I’ll protect you.”

“Okay. This is all just so scary. I’ve never had to deal with somebody that knows who I am.”

“Hang in there. You just need some help.”

 

It’s Wednesday and now I’ve been lying low for a couple days. I hate lying low and hiding during the day. Especially having paranoia going along with it. I feel like I have an urge to go out and fight crime and be the vigilante that I am. It’s also new comic day this week and I’m not letting this creeper ruin my comic new book day. Time to go to the comic shop to blow off some steam. Today, I get to pick up the newest issues of Justice League and X-Men. Finally something to look forward to. I walk in and suck in that smell. I haven’t seen anybody suspicious or any teeth lying around for a while, so maybe somebody just did that to scare me off.

I walk over to the new releases shelf and glance at the poster for a second. I haven’t been able to become that man for five nights now.

The store is a little busy today. I guess since more comic book movies have been coming out, more and more people of all ages want to read the comics. I think that’s awesome. I say hello to the man behind the counter. He waves back and says hi too. He likes the store regulars and gives us discounts sometimes. He also looks like Dale from the Walking Dead because he’s an older guy with a white beard and wears a hat. I kind of think he does it on purpose. His nametag is his Comic-Con badge, which I thought was kind of clever.

I pick up my new comics and walk to the 1-dollar comics bin to see if I can find anything cool. It’s just proper geek routine.

It was at that moment when I look out at the big window next to the entrance and see a weird man standing next to the door outside. He looks at me and begins walking into the comic shop. He’s in a long black suit and he’s carrying a briefcase. He’s an older man and has very yellow teeth. Right now I’m about to get ready and prepare for the worst. Every second begins to feel like an eternity as he walks toward me. My world goes into slow motion. He’s holding something in his hand. Is it a gun? Is it some sort of weapon to kill me? Will it set off a bomb and blow up all of these people along with these beautiful comic books? Have I not just put all of these people in danger, but also that X-Men issue #1 on that top shelf too? That thing is worth over 250,000 dollars. Come on! Could you please kill me somewhere else? I’m fine with the ice cream parlor. I feel like I die there all the time anyways. Just… please! Not THIS comic book store. This place means so much to people like me. Now I realize how much I actually treasure this very store I am standing in right now.

Well, this is it… I’m dead. Goodbye harsh and painful world. Now I won’t get to live and see the day when I marry Jessica Costa or what it will be like when we grow old together. The man now stands before me. He gives me a small book and begins to speak.        

“Would you like to talk about Jesus Christ? Our lord and our savior?”

Ohhhh. My. God. What the hell? He’s just a freaking priest giving out little freaking bibles. I actually thought my life was over. That priest literally just scared the piss out of me. See? This is what paranoia has done to me. I hate my brain so much right now it’s not even funny.

The priest walks over to another person wearing a Green Lantern shirt and hands him a bible.

Jesus Christ… literally. I can’t believe what had just happened. Now I’m back in the clear. For now. I look inside the weird bible the guy gave me. I don’t think I really want this. I have nothing against religion, but I just don’t need this right now.

I walk up to the register to pay for my comics. I found some pretty cool Batman and Robins in the 1-dollar bins. I also found some cool Superman issues too.

“Somebody’s doing a lot of reading tonight,” joked the man at the register.

“Yeah, I’m really into Superman right now.”

As he checks each comic book and punches the numbers into the register, I kind of smile and look out the window to see the sun shining and cars passing by on La Jolla Boulevard. I see cars move through the parking lot. There’s a black SUV that stop in front of the store. Haha probably a group of kids having mom drop them off to get comics. So cute. Or… never mind. A bald man is stepping out from the back seat. He’s wearing sunglasses and looks kind of sketchy. Well… doesn’t everyone look sketchy around here? I think he’s no big deal until he smiles at me. At ME. With a weird grin on his face. Umm… why is he looking at me like that? Now all I see is pure evil on his face. Again, my world goes back into slow motion. He slowly pulls out a gun and points it into the store. S**t… I really hope he’s a priest right now. Please be priest.

I hear gunfire and it sounds like it’s bouncing in and out of my head. Everyone ducks down for cover and the whole store erupts with glass flying everywhere. Still in slow motion by the way. Comic book paper is raining all over the ground. He’s firing a machine gun. So many bullets. For some reason Opera music starts playing in my head. All I hear is a woman’s voice echoing inside of my skull. Supported with violins in the background. It’s quite beautiful really. Ohhh… it’s Mozart. Uh oh… now my life is flashing before my eyes. Visions of old memories. I see my real parents looking down at me. Mostly my mother. She looks like she’s scared. My father looks angry and is about to hit her. He raises his hand and then I see a little kid run behind him with a knife. And the kid stabs him in the back. Blood everywhere. Then my vision goes blank. I begin to hear people screaming. Reality sets back in.

My vision comes back to the real world and I see the gunman hop back into the SUV and drive away. The bumper sticker says KAV. Kav. Kavanagh.

I get up on my hands and knees and hear a loud ringing noise. My world keeps going in slow motion and I can’t control it. I hear people yelling. It sounds faint because I can barely hear.

My hearing comes back very slowly. I look up to see if the X-Men #1 is okay. Good. It wasn’t even hit. There are bullet holes all around it, but every single one of them missed. Wait a second… why did I check to see if X-Men was okay instead of the innocent civilians?

It doesn’t look like anyone is hurt. Nobody was shot. I’m really glad everybody is okay.

 The entire store is a disaster. It will take days or even weeks to clean up the store and restore everything. That man destroyed all of these beautiful comic books. So evil.

The priest stands up with a bullet hole shot clean through his bible.

“The lord has saved us all!” he yelled.

Nobody has been shot. Not one single bullet out of the hundreds that were fired hit anybody in the store. That is pure luck. If there is any lord, maybe he did save us, but I’m pretty sure the shooter just came here to scare me or has really bad aim.

I turn my head and see the poster of the man in the cape. There’s only one bullet hole and it’s through the man’s eyes. Right in the head. I know exactly what the shooter was here for. That man came here to set fear in and show me what it’s like to stare right into the death.

That bumper sticker says it all. I guess Kavanagh is the big drug lord around here. Maybe that man in the window was Kavanagh himself. No. Men like himself hire other people to do the dirty work for them. I guess the Red Falcon has done too much damage to his gang over the years and now he’s fed up with it.

I run through the back door and escape to my car. The police will be all over this place within the next few minutes. If it weren’t for me, that comic book store wouldn’t be destroyed by now.

I think Kavanagh is the leader or whatever of the La Jolla Bandits. It’s kind of clear now. He wants me to know. The La Jolla Bandits are a notorious street gang that I’ve been busting the past couple years. They’ve been at a constant war with the Mission Bay Brotherhood for about ten years now.

There are hundreds of members that work under Kavanagh and the LJ Bandits. Such a lame name. If you’re going to start a gang, at least make a cool name for it. Come on.

I race home in my Helix hoping to god they haven’t shot up my house too. I’ve lost too many loved ones in my life and I can’t afford to lose anyone else.

When I get home, the house is untouched. Everything is okay for now. I walk into the garage and look at my gear. I could suit up and go out right now if I wanted. But that could be really dangerous and I can’t take them on by myself. I need someone else. A partner would be really nice. Haha, maybe a sidekick or something.

I stay at my house for a while to cope for a little bit and realize what just happened. I stand in front of the sink and look into the mirror. I look real hard. At my real face. Look at me… I don’t even know what I am anymore. Where do I even fit in?

Well, time to go to work and act like nothing happened. God, I just don’t know what to do right now. There’s nobody in the ice cream parlor right now. It’s a slow day. Probably because there was just a shooting a few blocks down south. I need to get my head straight.

After about 30 minutes, finally, a customer walks in with her daughter. I laugh a little. There’s a massive shooting at a store down the street. Let’s take our kids for ice cream! Yay!

“How’s your day going? Can I help you with something?” I said.

“How’s the vanilla ice cream here?” asked the lady.

“Sorry we’re all out of vanilla right now. (Because I stole it yesterday)”

“What kind of ice cream place runs out of vanilla?”

“Apparently this one. It’s pretty popular here. Just saying.”

After a minute of showing her other flavors of ice cream, both of them get a strawberry ice cream to share. They give me exact change, which is always nice. Makes things a little easier. They walk out with their ice cream and become two new satisfied customers of the ice cream parlor. Mission accomplished. I open the cash register. It’s hard to open. It must be jammed or something. I go to the back and grab a crow bar or something. I don’t want to break the register though. This crowbar should get the job done.

I jam the crowbar into the small opening of the register to try and pry it open. After a minute or two, I hear it make a banging noise and now I can pull the drawer out with my hands. I place my hands on the sides of the jammed drawer and pull. It’s still jammed, but I can pull it open if I pull hard enough. I go again. Almost at full strength. Then finally…

The drawer flies open at light speed and my world goes back into slow motion. Teeth. Flying in the air. Teeth everywhere. Dollar bills and teeth rain down all over the shop with me standing in the middle looking down in shock. I can’t believe my eyes. I look ahead and see the customers I had just served running back into the store. My world is silent. She’s yelling at me. I can’t hear her. I can only see her lips moving. They found teeth in their cone and want a refund. I slowly walk away from her. She looks at the ground and I see her scream. She grabs her daughter by the hand and runs back out. The daughter looks back at me. Her look is so innocent. I wish I was innocent. I run over to the serving counter and see teeth embedded in the ice cream like chocolate chips. I can’t believe what’s happening. I just can’t. I just drop the crowbar and fall to my knees and cry. I’ve never felt so much fear until now.

Who are all of the victims? Whose teeth are these? Why did these people deserve it? Are they from people I love and care about? Are they my foster mother’s, her kids, or officer Shrader’s teeth? Who is this man and why is he obsessed with teeth!? What has my world become?

I hear footsteps and look back quickly. It’s my boss standing and moving teeth around with his foot.

He says “What the HELL is going on!?”

I turn and look at him.

“I quit”

I rip off my apron and storm through the back door into the alley.

“Hey! Get back here!”

“Piss off!”

“What did you say to me!?”

“I said piss off, A*****E”

I run to my helix hoping that it’s not filled with teeth… okay it isn’t. Thank god. I put my key in the ignition and feel my phone vibrating. It’s Officer Shrader. I wonder what he wants.

“Hello?”

“Alfredo, you need to get to the hospital RIGHT now.”

“What’s going on? Is everyone okay? There’s teeth everywhere at the ice cream parlor!”

“What?! Did you say teeth!?”

“Yes!”

“Oh my god…”

“What?”

“Get. Here. Now.”

“Okay, I’m driving there right now.”

“Hurry up.”

After what seemed like a long drive, I arrive at the hospital. I run to the entrance and look up at the big emergency sign lit up in red letters and continue on into the lobby. The receptionist tells me the room Shrader is in. I take the elevator. There’s a father and a small boy in there with me.

“Daddy, my toof is loose and it weely hurts!”

“Don’t worry, Jack. It’ll all pay off once the tooth fairy comes.”

The boy looks at me and says, “Do you believe in the tooth fairy?”

I have a look of shock on my face.

“Jack, don’t bother him, he looks upset. We’ll get your tooth out and get ice cream after okay? Strawberry flavor.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

The elevator doors open and they walk out. I have a look of fear and disgust on my face. Holy freaking coincidence right? I’m watchin’ them! I take another floor up and I see Shrader in the hallway waiting for me. He waves me in and walks into the room. I walk slowly up the hallway. Who is in the hospital bed? god the fear. The dread. My world goes into slow motion and I look into the big window and see a man lying on the bed with bandages all around his face. I open the door slowly into the room.

I can’t believe my eyes. Mr. Johnson. He’s unconscious and losing blood. All of his teeth have been ripped out of his mouth. Why Mr. Johnson? Whoever is doing this is targeting everyone and everything that I love and I have nothing on where this evil person could be. I put Mr. Johnson in this danger. Me. I did it. It’s my fault. Mr. Johnson is amazing and is the most beloved teacher at Nautilus High School.

Now here he lies in this room and I don’t know if he’ll ever wake up. It’s so hard to see him like this. He looks so lifeless.

I run back into the hallway and into the closest bathroom. I slam the door and lock it. I have a mental breakdown. So much emotion just coming out of me. I think I’m gonna be sick. I vomit into the toilet. I get up to wash my face. I look at the mirror yet again today. I look hard into the mirror. At my real face. Am I really a hero? Or am I just another curse in this city? If there were no Red Falcon, Mr. Johnson wouldn’t be in this hospital right now.

I am so sick and tired of running away and hiding. I’m sick of pretending like nothing is wrong. I started this mess and now I’m going to finish it. The Red Falcon needs to come back. I need to come back.

This Kavanagh person has targeted everything and found my weaknesses. I clench my hands tightly on the sides of the white sink and look closely into my wet eyes as a tear runs down my left cheek.

I will find a center of weakness in you, Kavanagh.  Will chew it up, spit it out, and leave you there to die. You will have nothing. Nothing left. You think you’re so harmless and powerful. You screw with me? I get you back. I make it even. You wanna play? Well two can play at this game. You’ve had a few swings. Now it’s my turn. You’ll be afraid. I will go out of my way and make sure you burn.

Welcome to hell, b***h.