Chapter 16: Brown Out

By a/k/a Simon
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A sea of people stood between the far end of the Victory Gate Mall parking lot and the strobing red and blue lights near the mall itself. The taxi dropped Megan and Greta off as close as possible, but still too far away to know what was going on. Megan looked at Greta, with an expression asking her if she was up for wading through the morass. Greta grabbed her hand and held tightly as they entered the crowd.

The onlookers were reluctant to move. Whatever had happened was a spectacle, and Putnam didn’t get many spectacles. Occasionally a water main might break, or a tree limb might fall in the middle of a busy street and cause an accident. People would come out of their houses, stand on their front lawns, hold informal powwows with their neighbors over what was happening. But very few incidents in town garnered an audience of more than a few hundred. The mob at the mall on this night easily eclipsed the number that gathered every year at Hadley Park to watch the Fourth of July fireworks display. Something was happening or had happened that would be spoken of and remembered in Putnam for years to follow.

Megan moved forcefully through the rabble, walking sideways, her left arm in front to part the crowd, her right pulled back, trying hard to keep a hold on Greta’s hand. They’d make it fifteen feet and a tall, muscular man would shove her aside. Another twenty and they’d be forced to bypass a fat woman who refused to move. A sudden disturbance in the relative calm of the crowd would break the connection between Megan and Greta’s hands, halting their progress until they could link together again.

The throng grew denser as they neared the line of yellow police tape. Officers in a mix of uniforms from surrounding towns stood, arms spread, enforcing the thin plastic barrier. Megan tapped one of them on his shoulder. “I’m looking for my husband,” she said, a tinge of desperation in her voice made all the more frantic by her being winded.

At first the policeman ignored her, his thoughts tensely focused on preventing any breach in the line. Megan tapped and asked again. The officer shook his head and turned his attention to another part of the crowd. “I got a call,” she yelled to him over the din of the onlookers. “From a Sergeant Webster. He said my husband was here.” The name meant nothing to the officer. Megan read the patch on his shoulder, Marblehead Police Department. Webster was probably Putnam Police, probably not a name the officer recognized. He was brought in for crowd control, told not to let anyone pass, and that’s what he was doing.

Greta squeezed Megan’s hand to get her attention. “Look,” she said, pointing to a face she recognized. “Susan!” she yelled to a policewoman standing twenty yards away by a parked cruiser. Greta yelled twice more before the woman heard her.

“Greta,” the officer said, coming over to them, lifting the tape up so they could duck under it. “This must be Megan. We’ve got your husband over by the ambulances.”

“Ambulances?” Megan echoed, worried. “Is Eddie okay? Is he hurt? What’s going on?”

“Didn’t they tell you anything?” the officer said, her pace remaining steady as she led them through the maze of cars. “Some supervillain tore up the mall. He was holding Eddie and your brother Ryan hostage.”

“Are they alright?” Greta asked.

“They’re fine,” the officer assured her. “Just a few bumps and bruises. Nothing serious. We’ve just got the EMTs looking them over to be sure. Procedure.”

“What happened to the supervillain?” Megan inquired.
“This superhero showed up and stopped the guy, took him down like that,” the officer snapped her fingers.

At the mention of a superhero Megan’s mind raced. She wondered if it was Eddie. Had his powers come back? Maybe the stress of the moment, the necessity triggered their return. Did he slip away and make the change, or did he use his powers without worry of concealing his identity? She didn’t know how these things worked. All she could do was speculate.

The red and blue assault of blinking lights changed to red and yellow as they reached the clearing where a number of ambulances were parked. At that exact moment, two were pulling away, their sirens screeching as the police spilt the crowd to allow them through. EMTs and police rushed back and forth, medical bags and notebooks in hand. Megan scanned the commotion and found Eddie, hunched over, sitting on the back of an open ambulance. Ryan was nearby, smoking. She gave a glance to Greta, telling her to check on Ryan while she had a moment with her husband.

“Meg, thanks for coming to get us,” Eddie said as he saw her approach. “They didn’t want Ryan to drive home, after what happened.” He seemed almost blasé about the surrounding ruckus.

“What did happen?” she asked, putting a hand carefully on his back and rubbing tenderly up and down.

“Oh, some two-bit loser with powers was IDed by a security guard and went overboard trying to escape. Nothing major.”

“Nothing major?” she repeated, waving her free arm over the scene of catastrophe. “You call this ‘nothing major’?”

Eddie looked at her with an expression of disbelief. “Meg, I fought a war inside a living black hole? Relatively speaking…”

She had to chuckle. His world was so foreign to her, her only exposure second-hand stories told over dinner or laying in bed. For him, a day like this must be as common as teaching ‘I before E except after C’ must be to her.

Then she remembered what the policewoman had said. “Eddie,” she thought about how to put it. “They told me a superhero stopped the guy. You didn’t…I mean, your powers…Did they…?”

Before she could finish her question a peculiar sound, like stone on pavement, approached from behind. “There he is,” a gravelly voice said. Megan looked over her shoulder and saw what looked like a granite statue walking toward her. He wasn’t much taller than she was; his height wasn’t what made his presence so imposing. It was the mass of the man that was unavoidable. He was thick, bulky around the middle and his limbs were like petrified tree trunks. His walk was light, a bounding step that seemed unlikely considering his size. An ivory grin reflected the alternating lights of the surrounding emergency vehicles. He walked up beside Eddie and extended his hand. “I’ve been trying to find you,” he said. “While I was waiting on the roof for an opening I heard you talking to Shadowclaw. You managed to distract him enough that I could make my move. Just wanted to shake your hand.”

Eddie took the heroes hand and shook it once. Megan could tell he was uncomfortable. Sledgehog put his other hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Man, did you plan that? Did you know I was up there or something?” Eddie shook his head. “So that was just instinct? Pretty solid. Too bad you don’t have powers. You’d have made a good superhero.”


It was late when the Subaru Impreza finally pulled into the driveway of the Kroeger house that night. The scene at the mall made everything take longer than it normally would. Eddie and Ryan gave their statements separately, and the police compared notes to make sure the stories corroborated each other. Putnam didn’t have much crime, but they believed in prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law any infraction they did encounter. Shadowclaw was facing a bevy of new charges on top of the previous convictions he had yet to serve full time for. Eddie wasn’t used to dealing with filing assault and battery. Whenever a supervillain was defeated, the crimes were usually so numerous and severe that heroes didn’t bother filing charges themselves. After destroying a building or almost conquering the planet, assault and battery seemed a little pointless.

Everyone in the car was so shaken by the events of the evening that they didn’t notice the driveway lights were not on. They were hooked up to an automatic timer that was set for sundown but it hadn’t gone off. Megan drove up to the house with only her headlights lighting the way.

Ryan was first through the front door, flipping a switch as he entered the house. Nothing happened. He flipped it again, then the two other switches next to it. He walked a few feet down the hallway until he could see into the kitchen. The digital display on the microwave was blank. “Fucking brown out again,” he said, continuing into the kitchen.

“Again?” Megan asked. Ryan could be heard shuffling through the cabinets, objects clanging around as he searched the darkness.

“All the time,” Greta said, annoyed. “Ever since they closed your father’s plant down, the whole area gets brown outs constantly. The houses around here soak up so much energy, because they were built when the plant was still running. Everyone thought nuclear power would give us more than we could ever use. So why conserve, right? Then the plant closes and that surplus turned right into a shortage. But people are so used to the way things were they don’t want to change, even if county power can’t support their habits. So now we get brown outs at least once a week. Real pain in the ass, if you ask me.”

A light came from the kitchen. They watched Ryan walk by with a flashlight. He didn’t say a word, just opened the door to the basement and disappeared.

Greta wandered into the kitchen while Megan and Eddie stood by the stairs. “I think I’m just going to go to bed,” Eddie said.

“Can you find your way in the dark?” Megan asked.

“Shouldn’t be a problem.” She gave his shoulder a final rub and he headed up the stairs.


Eddie had changed into his pajamas and was curled up against the wall in Megan’s bed. He tried closing his eyes to sleep, but it was darker with them open. When he closed them he replayed the scene at the mall. His imagination pictured how it would have happened if he still had powers. As Corona he lit up the shopping center, his beams of energy cutting through the black conjurings of Shadowclaw. The first kiosk still flew through the air, giving Corona his call to battle. But everything after that was different. His powers ignited and he stopped the kiosk in mid air, disintegrating it so that only a light shower of ash fell to the ground. Not a single civilian or security guard was hurt, or even touched. Corona dispatched Shadowclaw before the police could even arrive. When Sledgehog got there, there was nothing for him to do but shake Corona’s hand. “Looks like I missed all the fun,” he would say, instead of how it really happened. Maybe the two heroes would compare notes on Shadowclaw, Corona still an insider privy to such things. Sledgehog would go back to Boston having wasted his time with the trip. Corona would sneak off somewhere to de-power, turning back into Eddie Sanchez so he could find Ryan and leave. It was like a clinic on how to be a superhero.

Instead, Eddie ended up sitting on the back of an ambulance, detailing to a common police officer how a low-level supervillain manhandled him, tossed him around and taunted him. How the best Eddie could do was distract him until a true hero could make his move.

Eddie lay in the bed with his eyes open. He was exhausted, more mentally than physically. Sleep would come, but not until his mind couldn’t take anymore and was forced to shut down.

The door opened and flickering light entered from the hallway. In her hand Megan held a candlestick with a lit candle on top. She walked over to the desk and set it down, just enough light to cast heavy shadows on every angle and form in the room.

Eddie was on his back, he didn’t move, but she could see that his eyes were open, enough light that the whites glimmered. Her hands reached up the back of her T-shirt and released the clasp of her bra. Artfully she slid one strap down her arm and pulled the device out her other sleeve, keeping her shirt on the whole time. The shadows altered slightly to describe how her breasts relaxed under their own weight.

The button on her jeans was already undone as she unzipped the front and pulled them down her legs, switching her hips back and forth to ease the clothing down. She stepped out of the pile of denim on the floor, her fingers adjusting the bottom of her panties. For a second she stood there, her expression obscured as the candle lit her from behind. Her T-shirt conformed to her shape and ended just below her bellybutton, a small patch of skin revealed itself in the space before the top of her only other piece of clothing began.

It had been a long time since he’d seen her this undressed. They’d shared a bed the night before, but she had changed into full pajamas while Eddie was in the bathroom. He didn’t want to assume anything, their relationship as shaky as it was. Maybe she thought he was asleep and it was too hot for her to wear so much clothing to bed. Really, what she was wearing wasn’t all that different than what she would look like at the beach. Only, Megan didn’t go to the beach.

As she approached the bed, he stopped looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She lifted the thin cover delicately and slipped her bare legs beneath it. He could hear the soft sound of her limbs rubbing against each other, the quiet whoosh of flesh on cotton.

Megan turned on her side to face him. “Eddie,” she said in a whisper, “are you still awake?”

“Yes,” he said with a small cough in his throat.

She leaned over and rested her head on his chest, her hand landing on his stomach. She began to caress him through his pajama top, making circles around his abdomen. He adjusted his position and put his arm around her, rubbing her shoulder up and down. Mixed feelings went through his head. Who was comforting who at this point? Her mother was dead. He was here to support her. Had the roles suddenly reversed? Was she giving him sympathy, or pity?

The circles she made grew larger in circumference. Soon she was rubbing the top of his thigh. With every upward motion she crept a little further inward until she grazed his testicles with her fingers. Megan’s ear was only inches from his heart and she could hear his pulse quicken. Her hand moved up from his leg and slid under his top, running her fingers over his soft stomach, through the thin hairs of his torso. She tilted her head on his chest to make eye contact. He looked worried, confused. Her stare was blank, revealing nothing, refusing to explain why this was happening.

She lifted the front of his pajama top, pulling it as far up as she could with him still lying on his back. Realizing her objective, he leaned forward, helping her pull the top over his head and off his arms. They returned to their previous position, her head on his chest. She pressed her lips to his bare skin and gave a light kiss, then another. Her lips worked a trail from his right pectoral, around his shoulder, up his neck, and across his cheek until her mouth found his.

Tasting her was familiar but new, something he remembered, but a memory so vague that it seemed like it had almost never happened. Their first kiss was awkward; a second try necessary before they each recalled the other’s style. By the third it was like no time had passed. The fourth allowed elaboration, and the fifth was where mutual intent was made clear.

Her tongue fed his mouth with heat, fire travelling down his throat and into his lungs. Eddie pulled her close to him as her hands roamed wildly around his body. He could feel the warmth of her palms as they touched his chest, his arms, his neck, his legs. She was so many places at once he lost track and embraced an overall sensation of contact.

Megan broke away from him, sat up in the bed, and yanked her T-shirt off. She lay back down, arched her back, raising her pelvis into the air, and slid her panties down her legs. Taking his cue from her, Eddie removed his bottoms and the boxer shorts underneath. When they came back together they were naked. He could feel her hard nipples pressing into his chest, breasts spreading out from the pressure of two bodies pulling into each other. Wedging her leg between his, pressing her thigh into his crotch, she could feel the contrasting cold of his testicles and the heat of his penis against her skin.

His penis was still flaccid despite what was happening. Eddie had yet to notice this as he kissed down her neck and took a breast into his mouth. He licked circles around her nipples, giving the peaks quick flicks with his tongue, then sucking hard, taking in as much flesh as possible. He could feel her dampness on his leg as she ground herself on his thigh. Goose bumps coursed over her skin as he ran his fingers down the middle of her back.

And still he was not erect. Megan’s hand found his penis and she wrapped her fingers around it. It was soft and small in its relaxed form. She massaged it against the inside of his leg, tightening and loosening her grip as she moved over the shaft. Everything he was doing had made her ready to be entered. All she needed was to have him hard.

But it wasn’t happening. She tried every technique with her hand that had ever worked and then some that she was forced to invent on the spot. Still nothing. Eddie had finally noticed his problem and eased up his assault, giving her more leeway to work. He was beginning to worry. As so many men before him said to themselves at the time, this had never happened before.

Megan kissed him again, an attempt to allay his fears and not make the problem worse by adding anxiety. She kissed down the center of his torso, around the dark tufts of pubic hair, and at the base of his penis. Her lips parted and she coaxed the limp flesh into her mouth. With her hand she pulled, elongating the skin, as her lips and tongue caressed the surface of the member. She sucked firmly on the head, smoothing saliva to get a softer glide. All to no effect.

Eddie touched her shoulders and pulled her up to him. He kissed her and whispered, “let me try.” At first he tried to incorporate it into the foreplay. While he pleasured himself with one hand he used the other to pleasure Megan. He hoped that contact with her skin, being able to feel all the curves he had enjoyed in times past, would help arouse him. It had been awhile and it was possible that he just needed a little extra push before he could get back up to speed. But the longer he tried to masturbate himself the more futile the endeavor seemed. In his head he was picturing every erotic fantasy and sexual desire he could imagine. Eventually he stopped touching Megan all together, as he pumped furiously at his petulant organ. If desire wasn’t working, then determination would.

But it didn’t. The more time that passed, the more the mood left Megan. She grabbed his hand to stop it and lay back onto the bed beside him, exhaling.

The silence was less than a minute, but it seemed a lot longer to both of them. “I’m sorry,” Eddie said, the only thing he could think to say.

“Don’t apologize, Eddie,” Megan told him. “It’s…”

“Please don’t tell me it’s alright,” he requested despondently.

Another minute passed and the lights came on. The brown out had ended and suddenly the room was awash with incandescent light. The reality of the moment could no longer hide in flickering shadows.

Megan got out of the bed to turn the lights off. Eddie watched her walk naked across the room. In those brief seconds he took in all her beauty. How pathetic was he if a woman like that couldn’t turn him on, he thought.

She blew out the candle and then flipped the light switch. The room returned to total darkness. If only all power could be turned on and off so easily.

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