1 Chapter 1: Scraped Knuckles

Sweat beaded on Solomon's creased brow and his palms clenched in desperation. He couldn't move. He knew it would end in a few seconds. Patrick never let it go on this long. The edge of his knuckles scraped against the bricks of the science wing as Patrick pinned him effortlessly to the wall.

Patrick tugged his nipple, pinching it just enough to make Solomon wince despite his best efforts. He squirmed impulsively, but it only aroused chuckles from Patrick's teammates.

To Solomon they sounded like low-IQ hyenas. "Wtf is wrong with you dude. Just let me fucking go," he demanded weakly. He had almost made it off campus. Almost.

"What a baby," Patrick said as he leaned in. His musty breath teased Solomon's ear with the stale reminder of potato chips and beef jerky Patrick had for lunch. "What do you guys think, does he like it?"

"Do you even brush?" Solomon asked in response.

"The fuck, dude! Of course I brush." Patrick said with sudden offense. He dropped Solomon, but left him trapped between the wall and his body. Patrick pulled his arm around Solomon's head to test his own breath. Patrick's football jersey was drenched in sweat, and the smell filled his lungs with a strange mixture of scents and conflicting emotions.

"Or bath?" Solomon added slightly more confident. He couldn't outrun Patrick. He was the fastest and strongest kid in school. Probably the hottest. But at least he could make him look like an idiot in front of his friends. "Do all you guys hug and kiss this way?" Solomon asked. Conlan, Patrick's best friend snickered under his breath.

"Naw that's just for you sugar-tits." Patrick could see he was losing the moment, and just when Solomon was prepared for another "titty-twister," an explosion, perhaps a block away, punched holes in their ears.

As they collectively turned to see what had happened, another one rocked them all to the ground. It's one thing to see an explosion in a movie or a video game. It's quite another to watch you and your bullies fly through the air like rag dolls. Solomon lost consciousness as they landed in a heap. He wasn't sure how long he was out. It was silent at first. A hazy fog seemed to pass through him that left him somewhere between drunk and stoned. Moments later, the adrenaline kicked in.

The football players seemed to be coming too and a few were helping each other up. Solomon started to check himself beginning with his head. He nervously felt for superficial wounds as his scraped fingers pushed through hair product and gravel. He cared more about his precious brain than anything else. That was what separated him from the rest of the neanderthals he went to school with. Nothing bleeding.

Fortunately he had been pinned to the wall and Patrick had somehow taken most of the blast. Patrick, being used to head trauma from football, didn't seem any worse for the wear. Patrick's frame rose above the others and his chiseled face and muscular physique posed in a battle stance as he surveyed the damage and the activity. Patrick looked like a viking when he was angry. Solomon was having trouble getting his bearings when a strong hand, Conlan's, pulled him up.

Solomon's eyes focused in on the nearest point of damage. The florist shop across the street was burning. Smoke poured out through the broken glass as a hundred petals rained down on the sidewalk. A rose petal landed on Solomon's face and he brushed it away as he tried to think of what to do. He started to speak, but realized he couldn't hear anything. He forced down the fear that it might be permanent, as he looked for his bullies.

Patrick seemed to be yelling, but everybody just stared blankly. Patrick got frustrated and then started using hand signs from football, and the team organized into some formation. They sprinted towards the florist shop and the broken window. Solomon kept up. He wasn't as fast as Patrick, but he jogged in his spare time - enough to stay with their pack.

Two of them grabbed stones and began chipping away enough to get inside. Sound started to return. It was a distant hum at first. A ringing at that filled his entire head. Slowly the ringing was broken by the sound of clinking glass, and moving debris. The humming became piercing, and more human. Solomon froze for a second when he realized it was screaming. It was the blood curdling sound of someone fighting for their life and he momentarily wished the sound hadn't returned.

He wasn't the only one beginning to speak. The football team was busy pulling debris from off a teenage worker and it was someone Solomon recognized. She was on the cheer-leading squad and dated one of the linemen. She had always been really sweet to Solomon. Now her voice cut through the air like tearing steel. Her leg was pinned to the ground and she had blood on her face. It took three of the team to pull the desk off her leg. He couldn't imagine her walking again.

There were more sounds in the back. A cat covered in glass and some sort of powder. As Solomon made his way to the back he wasn't prepared for the body parts and blood. Patrick surveyed the scene and for some reason Solomon found himself at his side. "I don't think there's anything we can do here," Solomon said solemnly.

"I knew her." Patrick said absently. "She used to babysit me when I was little. Her name was Judy." Judy was everywhere along with the contents of the florist shop she had owned.

"We should help Tracy," Solomon said, turning to go back to the front of the store. At the same moment they heard movement in the last room of the shop. It was hard to imagine anybody surviving any closer to the explosion.

Perhaps Solomon expected to see more help arriving. The fire department would have made sense. Instead, what he saw was someone his age in an all black tracksuit pushing pieces of the bodies around and taking bits like he was playing a shuffle board. A faded hoodie pulled away from his face for the flickering fluorescent light to reveal tired eyes and a shaven head. His right hand clenched the tarnished edge of a silver carrying so that it obscured the occult symbols crudely etched into the surface.

"Who the fuck are you! What are you doing to her!" Patrick bellowed with clenched fists. If Solomon had ever been scared of Patrick, he didn't know why after seeing him like this.

"I didn't expect to see anybody here so fast," the kid said with a smile. He couldn't have been more than a year or two older than Solomon. He picked through the flesh like he was at a grocery store, as his hands pawed over the still-living bits of tissue. "I'm just a collector. Don't mind me."