Fiction.

I watched Lauren stomp off into the night as porch railings turned to gold, acorns popped into soap bubbles, and oak leaves puffed into sand and fell to the ground. Amelia sighed as if too tired to deal with any new drama. James pointed after Lauren and began thrusting in her general direction. Both of them seemed OK with letting her wander off, by herself, with a crazed lunatic sleep inducing bum/supervillain out to get us.

I shot a frustrated glance at the two of them and took off after Lauren. As I grabbed her elbow images flooded into my mind.

Something about my power had leveled up a notch during the most recent encounter with our mysterious, yet smelly, adversary. The first time I encountered him I was able to see some incomplete information about his past. During the second encounter I vividly saw some gruesome torture sessions he participated in during the Gulf War … and something even more terrifying.

Lauren’s images weren’t terrifying or gruesome. A picture of her gluing macaroni onto some paper with her mother whizzed past followed by Lauren crying while Amelia tried to comfort her. Then I saw a hazy image of Lauren, neck extended and lips parted, reaching up to kiss … me!?

“HELLO? Hey asshole, are you just going to stare at me, or did you have something to say?”

Like, whoa? I was pretty sure I’d never made out with this chick before. “Um, yeah. Hey! Don’t go.” I stuttered as I shook the sand out of my hair. Lauren flushed.

“We’ll I’m going. Someone’s got to do something!” she said.

“Lauren, look. You aren’t going to stop this guy by yourself. We’ve got to work together. God that sounds cheesy, I know. But it’s true. Without the rest of us you’d just be some severed head at this point.” Lauren grimaced and rubbed the nasty red mark on her neck.

“Come back to the house,” I suggested, “we can come up with a plan.”

She sighed resignedly. “I just want to do something. I’ve never done anything my whole entire boring life. Here is a chance for me to really do something that has meaning, and I’m going to do it.” She turned to head back to the house.

I put my arm around her shoulder as we walked back.

“Get your arm off of me.” She paused. “Asshole.”

Back in the house James and Amelia were on the couch watching a local news anchor drone on about a chemical plant explosion in Hopewell: twenty-two dead. Could things get any worse around here?

“So Tits, you’ve decided to come back to us?” James said as he eyed Lauren’s chest. “We are so glad to have you and your rack on our side again.”

Amelia gave James a quick kick in the shin and stood up. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do now. We certainly can’t stay here now that that guy has been here. Maybe we should …”

I interrupted her “I think we need to go to Diana’s house. Like right now.”

“Who?” asked Amelia.

“His whiny bitch of a sister.” answered James.

“I saw him … ” I staggered — just now fully remembering what I had seen — and grabbed the back of the couch for support. “I saw him killing Diana. But it was hazy, not like the other stuff I saw. I don’t know what’s going on but we need to get over there.”

Even James looked concerned for a second before he started scratching his balls. “Well, lets go then.” He stood up and walked out the door. “OK, we go then!” said Amelia.

The ride to Diana’s was long. It didn’t help that Amelia, while she could pull a mean parking job, was probably the worst driver in the world. It didn’t matter though. I couldn’t stop replaying what I had seen: Diana laying tied to a bed with her legs sawed off above the knee.

I rushed up the stairs to Diana’s apartment and banged on the door. “Diana? Diana! ARE YOU THERE? It’s Kaiser! Open up. PLEASE!”

The door swung open to reveal a very much bipedal, yet thoroughly bedraggled, Diana. “Oh god you are here. And you can walk!” I rushed in, picked her up in my arms, and swung her around. My mind was filled with images of our childhood together: playing in a sandbox on West Avenue, jumping off of the pedestrian bridge at Belle Isle into the River, and eating lunch together on the capitol lawn.

“Kaiser, what in the world are you doing here. It is the middle of the night! You can’t just bust in here after you’ve had too much to drink. You need to leave. Right now before you wake up Dan.”

“Dee, I haven’t been drinking … today. I swear. Listen.”

She looked over my should at James, Amelia, and Lauren and shook her head. “Leave. Now. Take your friends with you.”

James stepped into the apartment and faced Diana. His eyes closed briefly. “Diana is it? Listen, we were staying at my place but the power is out. We’ve got no air conditioning and it is hot as hell out there. Kaiser said you might be able to offer us a place to stay, just for the night?”

“Oh … air conditioner … sure. Sure. Come on in.” mumbled my sister as she shuffled back into her bedroom and shut the door.

I looked at James and he smiled.