Chapter 17: Heyday

By a/k/a Simon
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Megan didn’t sleep much that night. Sexual frustration was only the tip of the iceberg. Things were piling up so quickly; she wondered when something good was going to happen. But it all just seemed to be getting worse.

To distract herself, she decided to do something she hadn’t done in years, take a walk in the woods behind the house. She got out of bed and walked across the room quietly, careful not to wake Eddie. On the floor was a pile of denim, two pairs of jeans lumped atop each other. With the shades down in the room, she mistakenly grabbed the wrong pair of pants. She held the pants by the leg, as they dangled a small, white card fell loose from one of the pockets. When she dropped the pants and picked up her own, she noticed the card and read it. Roland Balthasar was a name she’d never heard before. Obviously he had some connection to Eddie. But the stark nature of the card made her curious. All that was printed on it was the name and a phone number. There was no job description or title, no address or e-mail. Just a name and number. The mystery was too tempting to ignore. She committed the number to memory, finished dressing, grabbed her cell phone, and left the room.

The backyard grass was covered with dew, a spotty layer of brown, dead leaves floated in the greening water of the pool. The toes of her shoes quickly grew damp, the suede darkening with the accumulated moisture of every step. Birds sang to each other in the treetops, the sounds of rustling announcing their leaps from one branch to another. Squirrels foraged frantically, preparing for the winter months by hoarding acorns in the ubiquitous oak trees. In the distance she heard a lawnmower racket to life. It was Sunday, people all over town would be grooming their lawns and beautifying their houses.

She stepped over the rock wall that marked the end of the Kroeger property and the start of the woods. The stones had been placed there back in Colonial times, for the most part maintaining the arrangement set so long ago. Even without mortar to hold them in place, each boulder stood fast against the elements and any other forces it encountered.

At the edge of the woods the trees were sparse. It was almost a hundred feet in before she found the trail that so many had walked before her. Foliage had grown over parts of it, but it was still clear that it was a deliberate swath cut through the trees and plants that lived there. She followed the trail as best she could, only the occasional misstep halting her march. A half-mile in a fallen tree trunk blocked the path. Large, beige mushrooms sprouted wild from cracks in the bark. She hefted herself over it, stopping for a minute to take in the elevated view from the top before jumping down to the continuing trail on the other side.

The ground became slippery and muddy as she neared the lake. Drain off soaked into the dirt, turning it into a field of muck. Her steps grew heavy as the mud created suction, holding tight to her shoes as she pulled up to step forward. Eventually it became too messy; she didn’t want to risk losing a shoe in the dirty sludge.

Near where she quit was a rock large enough to sit on. As she rested she thought about the phone number on the card in Eddie’s pants. So much about being a superhero involved mystery, it was one of the things that both intrigued and irked her about her husband. Megan loved a good mystery, but only those that could be solved. Maybe it was the teacher in her, so used to simple laws like addition and subtraction that she enjoyed ways to challenge her mind. But a problem without a solution was just further frustration. There was already enough of that in her life.

She reached into her pocket and took out her cell phone, dialing the series of numbers etched at the forefront of her brain. Before she punched the Call button she hesitated, wondering if she was crossing a line. Was her paranoia justified? After all, it was Eddie who was trying to get back with her. Withholding secrets from her was not the soundest way to rebuild a relationship. Would life after being a superhero be just as hard as it was when he still had the powers? She needed to know what she was welcoming back into her life.
The phone rang twice before a click on the other end told her someone had picked up. “Well hello, Eddie,” a man’s voice said. “Decided to take me up on my offer?”

Megan didn’t speak. She couldn’t think of what to say. Her mind drew a total blank, incapable of even thinking back over past conversations, trying to figure out what the man meant by an offer.
“Eddie?” the man asked. “Eddie, are you there? Speak up, son. I can’t hear you.”

In a stilted voice, Megan said, “Hello?”
“Who is this? How did you get this number?” The man was clearly surprised. “Nobody has this number.”
Her curiosity gave her a push. “Then why does Eddie have it?” she asked.

Silence. She waited for his response. And then, “Megan, is that you?”

Fear gripped her and she hit the End button, canceling the call. On the display the number and length of the call flashed off and on. She thought about deleting the number from the phone’s log, erasing the evidence of what she’d done. But then she realized that it was pointless. Whoever was on the other end of the line knew who she was. If he knew who she was then it wouldn’t be hard for him to track her down. Caller ID would confirm any thoughts he might have to her identity. All she could hope now was that she hadn’t involved herself in something dangerous, that she hadn’t learned too much.


Eddie was in the kitchen filling a bowl with Frosted Flakes when Greta walked in. She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Sleep well,” she asked, sitting down to the table and ladling sugar into her mug.

“Actually, no,” Eddie told her honestly. He decided not to go into the story of his impotence. Besides, it was only part of the reason he’d had trouble sleeping the night before.

“I imagine it was hard to wind down from everything that happened at the mall last night,” Greta speculated.

“That wasn’t really it,” Eddie confessed. “Like I told Meg, that was strictly bush league compared to some of the things I’ve seen.”

“Yes, but without your powers, you must have been afraid. The adrenaline…”

“Never kicked in,” he said. “Maybe, with everything that was going on, my mind just forgot that my powers were gone. Like amnesia, only triggered by danger. Whatever it was, I never felt like I was in any danger. I reacted like I had been trained to react, to assess the situation and discern a solution. The only thing that surprised me was how I adapted to being powerless and immediately made use of my other faculties.”

“I guess you were just born to be a hero,” Greta lauded, taking a careful sip of her steaming coffee.

“More like bred,” Eddie corrected. He reached into a drawer and found a spoon. There was plenty of room at the table, but he felt like standing up while he ate.

“So then, what’s been keeping you up?” Greta prodded.

Eddie swallowed a spoonful of flakes and milk. He wiped his lower lip with a napkin. “I’ve been having these dreams,” he began. “Maybe that’s not the best way to describe them.”

“Dreams, or nightmares?” she asked.

“More like memories,” he clarified. “Images of things that I don’t remember happening, but fit with stories that people told me.”

“From before you had powers?”

“So far they seem to be about the day I got my powers.” He ate another heap of cereal. “When I try to think back to anything before and including that day, all I get is a blank. I’ve never really had dreams before, certainly not nightmares. But now they’ve started, memories, dreams, nightmares, all in one.”

Greta stated the obvious, “Since you lost your powers, right?”

Eddie nodded. “The first dream, two nights ago, I watched as my parents’ bodies were burned to a crisp in the accident that made me what I was. That one really scared me. Last night I had another, but it was more odd than frightening. I dreamed I was lying in a box, strapped to a wooden stick. Next to me, lined up, are matches. The box opens and I see Doctor Friedkin, from Biotron, only he’s huge, a giant. He takes me out of the box and strikes me on the side, setting my head on fire. The fire surrounds me. Then he uses me to light all sorts of things, cigars, logs in a fireplace, the pilot light on a stove. Once he’s finished, he squeezes me between his fingers, extinguishing my fire, and throws me in the trash.”

Greta shook her head. “Well, it doesn’t take Freud to figure out what that dream meant.”

“Tell me about it,” Eddie agreed, nodding and swirling his cereal around in the bowl.


Megan came back into the house without making a sound. It was still early and she didn’t know who was still asleep. She stepped softly down the hall toward the stairs. As she neared the end she could hear the presence of people in the kitchen. From their voices she knew it was Greta and Eddie. She wasn’t ready to deal with either of them yet and began up the stairs.

“What was it like,” Greta asked after a lull in the conversation. “If you don’t want to talk about it I’ll understand. I’m just curious what it was like being a superhero.”

Megan stopped mid-step, turned and sat on the stairs, careful not to be heard, interested in Greta’s question, but more interested in Eddie’s response.


Eddie finished washing his bowl, placed it on the drying rack, and leaned back onto the counter. “It’s a feeling I can’t describe,” he said. “For every person it’s unique, just like their powers. Some people fall in love with it; others treat it like a curse. I can’t really say how it happens in anyone else. For me it was just the way I was raised. It was all I knew. So describing what it was like, from my perspective, is like you telling me what life is like from your perspective. How do you describe what it’s like to drive a car, or paint a picture?”

Greta understood. From his own vantage point, having powers probably seemed fairly mundane. “Well, do you have any favorite adventures or stories to tell?” she asked, hoping for an interesting tale.

As he searched his memories his smile grew wide. It was the closest thing to happiness that Greta had seen on his face yet. “Actually…” he walked over to the table and sat down across from Greta, leaning in to start his story.

“The first time I ever remember really loving being a superhero was when I worked with the Mighty Society to take down Virion. Virion was this supervillain whose power was to emit disease particles into the air. Anyone who entered the same room as the guy, or got too close to any air that he laced with viruses would get sick and die. His powers not only gave him the ability to manufacture the viruses using the chemicals in his body’s system, but his enhanced physiology gave them a boost, making the incubation period as fast as a spray of bullets. He could kill a person within minutes.

“The Mighty Society had been trying to stop him for a while, and lost a couple of their members in the process. A scientist who had examined one of the bodies came up with the idea that Virion’s viruses might be susceptible to radiation, that a decent enough dose could kill anything he could create, giving other heroes a shot at taking him out. The Mighty Society didn’t have anyone with radioactive powers. Their energy-thrower used lasers instead. So they needed to call in a freelancer.

“I had just turned twenty-one, and that made me eligible to help them out. The Society had a policy of not endangering minors whenever possible. If not, they could have used someone from their training program, the Society Mites. But I ended up getting called in because I made the age cut. Kind of an unspectacular way to be chosen for a job, but whatever.

“My powers were radioactive, but in a special way that didn’t harm people. However, tests showed that I could kill the Virion viruses, so I was the perfect match for the job. Anyway, Biotron vouched for my skills and I hooked up with the squad for the planning session. What they had in mind was going to be tough, I wasn’t completely sure I could do it. But if I did, it would make my reputation as superhero.

“So I was the first wave once they tracked Virion down to a location, sent in to clean the place of any existing virus particles in the air. I probably could have taken him down myself, but he wore this armor that made him a little too tough for one person. Besides, my focus was on keeping the air clean, giving the others a chance to attack without worrying about being killed by some sudden plague.

“I gave the signal and the Society came bursting in. Virion used his armor to fight back. The battle wasn’t quick, but I didn’t want it to end too fast. I had a front row seat to watch the premier team of superheroes in the world in action. As I kept the air clean, I watched as they moved like the highly trained unit that they were, like each one was an appendage of a single body. In the actual fight I didn’t get to do much, but just being there…It was amazing.”

“Did they offer you a chance to join up?” Greta asked when Eddie’s story was finished. “Sounds like you could have added something to the team.”

Eddie shook his head as he sat back in his chair. “No, the Mighty Society works on a strict apprenticeship system. You have to start as a Society Mite first, go through the program, then maybe you graduate to becoming a member of the adult Society.”

“Are all teams like that?” she asked, fascinated by the bureaucracy of being a superhero.

Again he shook his head. “Some are. The Society gets funding from the government and some other groups that imposed a bunch of rules on them. Other than random freelance missions, the Society mostly sticks to themselves.” Something sparked in his mind. “Speaking of the government and teams I’ll never be a part of…The Misfits are this group of monsters, literally. They’re led by a vampire and their members include a werewolf, a mummy, a gargoyle, and a bunch of other things you’d see in old Universal films.”

“And they’re superheroes?”

“Not really. Superheroes tend to have missions or patrol around stopping crime. The Misfits have their own problems to deal with that are specific to the members of the team. Like the time I ended up working with them. Not exactly the kind of problem a typical hero faces.

“The Misfits came to me with this story about vampires having infiltrated the US House of Representatives. It sounded far-fetched at first, but once they showed me the evidence it was hard to deny. Among other things, they spend all day inside the House, travelling around the city in a private subway system. Their connections provide countless ways to hide their true nature. And it’s not unheard of for an elected official to get away with murder. When you think about it, Congress is the perfect place for a bloodsucker to hide.

“Hazard, the leader of the Misfits, explained to me that sunlight doesn’t have to be in its pure form to kill a vampire. The light from my powers, created by nuclear radiation, could just as easily take a vamp down. Some would no doubt have taken extra precautions, but my help was the quickest way to take down the large majority of their numbers.

“Through Biotron we did our best to make sure that any representative who was definitely not a vampire would be absent from the assembly on a specific day. It was impossible to get them all out ahead of time, but other members of the team were given the responsibility of evacuating the innocent once the show started.

“I remember being afraid while I sat in the observation seats, waiting for the right moment to light up. Up to that point I didn’t have much experience with the supernatural. When you’re a hero you develop patterns, certain types of villains you tend to fight again and again. I wasn’t the type that would be staking vampires after sundown. But the fact that I was a walking miniature sun gave me enough confidence to get the job done.

“Before the lunch break the observation seats were cleared. When the last of the civilians were gone I hopped over the railing and flew to the center of the chamber, dousing it with light. A dozen Congressmen turned to dust instantly. Still others cowered from the light. The doors burst open and the Misfits came rushing in, tackling anyone who was suspect. Those that weren’t vampires were pulled, kicking and screaming, out of the chamber, probably afraid they were being dragged somewhere else to be killed, not realizing it was for their own safety. Hazard and the rest of his crew started wasting vamps left and right. A few got away, their jobs revoked and their seats replaced soon after with human representatives. The Misfits never got full credit for what they did, but that’s the way it usually goes with the outsider teams.”

“So who did the credit go to?” Greta inquired. “I would think something like that would make your reputation even bigger.”

“Yeah,” Eddie chuckled. “Funny how my name was barely mentioned in the news reports. An opportunistic representative named MacMurray took center stage and claimed it was all because of his investigation. I’ll admit he had a little to do with it, like getting a good number of the others to take a vacation day, but he managed to grab a lot more credit than he deserved. It’s really amazing how you can stop a small army from taking over, do it all right under people’s noses, and nobody even cares. Like the time I helped the Odd Squad stop the Menacers from coming to the surface.

“The Menacers were a subterranean race that had survived since the days of Atlantis. The earthquake that sent that continent into the ocean also opened up a rift that led to the center of the Earth. A small society was formed down there, then trapped when the rift closed decades later. Since then they’ve been working on schemes to get back to the surface. Of course, the more time passed and the more they learned about the advancements made up top, the more they became bitter. Their plans eventually stopped being about rejoining society and became about conquering it.

“The Odd Squad discovered a new rift that could be used to reach the Menacers underground civilization. Over the years they ended up facing off against the core-dwellers, doing what they could to stop their attempts to come above ground. The Odd Squad had just finished a mission involving Sophia Phobia when they learned of the Menacers latest plan. The mission had left them experiencing uncontrollable fear, one of which was fear of darkness, and they were incapable of entering the rift to stop the advancing army.

“I had worked with various members of the Odd Squad on a few cases over the years, and they came to me looking for help. They wanted to use my powers to light the path down to the Menacers city, so they wouldn’t be afraid of the dark. A trip to the center of the Earth sounded interesting, so I went along, even if I was only going as a glorified torch.

“We got down there and…all I can say is that it must have been like encountering the Morlocks in The Time Machine. The Menacers lived up to their name, big brutish creatures, pale as snow and all muscle. They didn’t have much in the way of strategy, but their numbers were impressive. I never felt in any danger, because they were attacking with blunt objects made of molten rock and my powers were more than a match for any of them. I hate to make light of a legitimate threat to our world, but fighting the Menacers was like playing a game of football. It was just pure fun, a chance to use my powers without worrying about whether I could stop the threat. I got a good workout that day.”


Megan couldn’t listen to anymore. She’d spent almost every minute of the last few days with Eddie and, for the first time, the despair was gone from his voice. When he talked about his time as a superhero he sounded like a child on Christmas, such pure joy in the tone he used. She liked the way he spoke when he talked about being a hero, even if she resented the subject matter. She knew that he would never speak that way about a life without his powers.

Megan snuck up the stairs, neither Eddie nor Greta aware of her ever having been there.

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