TIGER BOY #1 Stacy Dooks The origin, part one. Welcome. You've come a long way for this story. I am your humble servant, as always. You pay good coin and you wish to hear the tale, so that is enough for me. I have been scribe and storyteller in my day, so reading aloud what you commissioned me to chronicle is no bother, none at all. It was no easy thing; I trust you will appreciate that fact. The sources I had to inquire with to gain all aspects of the story were...esoteric, to say the least. But, as I say, you pay good coin. I will tell the story, the story of the one history calls the Shir'in, the Savior, of who he was, how he came to be, and what he came to do here. But you must understand that before we can move forward, we must know what came before. It is why you heeded the council of elders and came to me, correct? Good, good. I see there's some hope for you. A leader open to new ideas, to hearing all sides of the story, miracles never cease these days. I warn you that before we go any further, you may find my voice changes from its proper tone to one far more...informal. The thoughts and deeds of those chronicled in these scrolls do not always tread along the path of propriety, despite their noble hearts and what they did for us. Do not take offense, nor strike me down for blasphemy, I beg you. Do not kill the messenger for that which you wish to hear, however discordant it may seem with what is detailed in the sacred texts. For here, in the tent of a humble marketplace scribe, is where you will find the whole truth. The unpolished truth, sometimes unpalatable, but the truth. The truth of the Shar'in, the truth of our world's salvation, and the one true chronicle of the one mortals called...Tiger Boy. Let us read on... * * * Red Hart, Montana, some time prior. "Gah!" Mike Graham liked to think he was a fairly level-headed guy. A life lived with an even temper and sympathy for the little guy had earned him a reputation for being something of a mediator all through high school, trying his best to keep the peace between the jocks, the nerds, and all points in between. It was one of the reasons he was attending Red Hart College, working on his teaching degree. But while he was pretty calm and collected most of the time-able to ride herd on a class full of students and make them think they were getting their way while he was getting his-there were times when his composure ('Jedi Master Calm' as his friend Dave liked to call it) slipped. Like when Dave drove, for instance. "Ack!" Mike yelped again, nearly slamming into the door as Dave took another intersection turn a little too fast and a little too sharp for his liking. Mike glowered at his friend, doing his best not to spill the coffee they'd picked up before Mike had realized his watch was slow and he now had to make his normal half-hour commute in half the time. Dave, being Dave, had volunteered to drive him to campus which had resulted in their mad-dash commute through the city streets. "Oh relax Mike, you sound like my mom" Dave snickered, easing the pedal down just a few inches further to the floorboard than was comfortable for Michael. He sighed inwardly, calling on reserves of patience. Dave didn't understand. He was young, good-looking, a jock with a 'B' average and girls flirting with him. The universe showered its gifts on him and Dave assumed everything would turn out okay because it always had, in all the years Mike had known him, from ninth grade to college. There were times Mike really wanted to smack him. This time? Oh yeah. "Dave, it's not like I don't appreciate the ride, it's just that I'd like to make the trip with my vital organs and bones all in the same place and condition they were in when we left the house. Yellow, yellow!" he pointed forward at their next stop, the crowded intersection filling as the cars before them slowed. "Oh relax, we'll get there. I just have to drop you off at Goodman Hall, that's practically off the main drag. You'll be in just in time to watch all their eyes glaze over as they realize they're in for a Mike Graham Sleeper Special." Mike glowered, popping down the sun visor to look in the mirror. His close cropped brown hair was a little dishevelled, but okay, and the wireframe glasses were still holding up despite almost being knocked from his face a few times. He blinked as he adjusted them over his blue eyes then grumbled. "Guess you're pretty familiar with that look, after all, you patented the 'Dave Murphy Bored Ladies Pick-Up' eye glaze back in high school." He smirked. "Ass." "Doofus." "So how goes it anyway? Any prospects in the romance dept? Getting a couple of the young coeds to stay afterwards for some private french tutoring?" Dave leered playfully as the light turned green, heading up Center Street toward campus. Mike shrugged " Eh. I don't know really. I haven't really been looking for a girl since Lisa..." "Ripped your heart out and left you a pathetic shell of a man?" Mike scowled a hint of real anger there. "Thanks, could I get a little more salt for the open wound? That'd be great." He smiled without humor. "Sorry Mike, but you know me and Anna worry. We just want you to find someone who'll make you happy. We're your friends after all, we don't like to see you bottle up into Antisocialman like this. You need to come out with me sometime, we'll hit Chanties, we'll shoot the shit, meet some girls. I know a couple who're bookworms like you, it'll be fun." Dave smiled, and Mike forgave him. The guy could be an irritating jerk at times, but beneath it all his motives were sincere. "I'll think about, okay? I just need a bit more time. Anyway, here's my stop." He pointed to the curb at the upcoming intersection. Dave hit his turn signal and pulled up to the side of the road. Mike popped the door and hopped out into the light spring rain, zipping up his coat. "Dave...thanks." Dave shrugged, his expression modest. "Ah, you needed a lift, I had the gas. What're roomies for?" "Not for that and you know it. Thank Anna too if you stop by the store." "I will man, have a good one." Dave grinned that canary-eating grin, slipping the car back in drive as Mike closed the door and waved. He waved back, then eeked slightly as he checked his watch, pace moving from slow walk to brisk trot to flat out sprint as he realized his class started about eight minutes prior. I swear, I ever get the idea to sub for the prof while he's out sick again, I'm laying down until the feeling passes... He entered the confines of Goodman Hall, wondering if the looming thunder behind him was another sign of how off his day was going to be. He didn't know the half of it. * * * Mike rubbed the bridge of his eyes, glasses resting on the pile of term papers before him. He checked the clock on the wall as he set them back on the bridge of his nose. 9:48 PM. He'd been working about non-stop for roughly seven hours or so. The class had actually been really fun. A long talk on Gothic Literature in the late 19th century, particularly his three favorites; Dracula, Frankenstien, and The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. The class had been perked up, and once the caffeine had hit his brain Mike started teaching a hot streak. He received their papers from Mr. Norrington's assignment two weeks prior, and left them with the promise of further discussion on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles later in the week. Mike grinned, the smile of a man who's seen a day's hard work done and was proud of what he accomplished. Teaching was something he never got tired of, the chance to impart something meaningful to someone else, to get them jazzed about literature, about the words, about the meaning behind the words...it was powerful stuff. He failed to contain a long, deep yawn. Powerful stuff yeah, but sleep was beckoning. Time enough to wrap up the last of tonight's grading and head for the bus stop home. He slid the papers graded over to one side, the ones needing marking to another, then rose from his chair, letting his spine pop satisfyingly. He grabbed his coat and walked out of his office (more of a closet really, but a TA could only have so much). Locking it he shrugged on his jacket, heading out into the cool October night, pulling up the collar of his coat against the chill. Be good to get home, get into bed, maybe break out that Michael Chabon book I've been meaning to read, see if Dave wants to go in on a pizza...Mike smiled, thinking of a relaxing evening at 'The Bachelor's Pad', as Anna had dubbed the disaster area they called home. Then he heard the scream. He spun, nearly overbalancing. Red Hart College was a fairly large campus, but there hadn't been any kind of trouble since they'd started the Tiger Patrol a few years back, walking students back to the dorms at night. But the scream lingered, a sharp cry for help that was suddenly silenced. Mike's eyes weren't the greatest, but his ears were sharp, and he spun in the direction of the Science Center. He squinted, noting something off...some forms moving. Two, half-carrying, half-dragging a third. Mike ducked behind a tree. His prior fatigue gone like morning mist before the cold rush of fear and adrenaline. He ran a hand over his face, his mind conflicted. Get to a phone you idiot! Call the cops! It's a girl, two guys've jumped a girl, dragging her off... But why the Science Center? What... Do something! He shook his head clear. No cell phone, the last payphone he'd seen was at least another 10 minutes walk. Too much time for the creeps to do...whatever they were going to do the girl in question. He frowned. He wasn't a big guy, but he wasn't a wimp either. If he could get her away, back to the Student Union Building, they could call the cops. Only two of them, so it couldn't be too rough...right? This is stupid. Who do you think you are, Bruce Willis? He shrugged off his inner doubts, and stalked toward the Science Center's imposing, Victorian silhouette. * * * The more he looked into this, the stranger it became. The door to the science center was unlocked. After hours security should have taken care of it, but the door pulled out easily for him, as if everything was fine. Mike shivered, but he braced his courage and headed inside. Shadows loomed everywhere, dioramas of wildlife native to the area, some profiles on the local fossil deposits... A fanged maw, claws, and yellow eyes loomed out of the darkness. Mike almost screamed. The fiberglass velociraptor wiggled a bit from where Mike had bumped into it. For a moment the young man had a moment of near hysterical laughter, but bit it back. He heard something. Voices, and lights, further down the hall, flickering and dim. In the geological exhibition. The image of the young man reflected in the glass eye of the long-extinct beast, rounding the corner. He crouched behind a wastebasket, peering around it toward the source of the light. He blinked, almost pausing to remove his glasses to see if they were dirty. What he was seeing couldn't be real. When Mike had been a kid his grandfather had given him a box full of old pulp novels. Covers of Strange Adventures or Doc Savage or The Shadow with scenes of the hero in peril. The tableau before him felt like one of those covers. Three figures were gathered beside the large, stone obelisk that was Red Rock. The stone had been part of Red Hart since the town's founding, and even before, sitting in the midst of what would become town square for years before they'd paved it over, moving the geological puzzle that was the stone to the geological department of RHC. The stone was something of a local mystery, a massive piece of rock, roughly heart-shaped, covered in carved runes that corresponded to no known alphabet. It was considered some kind of hoax, a piece of the past that never really made much sense. Bound at the feet of the first figure, taller and more imposing than the latter two was the girl. One Mike recognized; Candi Harries. He'd helped her with an English paper once, help she'd appreciated as a biology major. She was trussed up like a calf at a rodeo. All three of the shrouded figures were in hooded robes, like something out of one of his grandfather's pulps. Chanting, something that sounded like Latin, but felt wrong somehow. Like listening to nails down a chalkboard, or smelling a bucket full of minced garlic. Wrong and bad. The tall figure read from a book in his hand, setting it atop a glass case of mineral samples as he reached into the long sleeve of his robe, drawing forth one very long, very nasty looking blade. The figure gestured toward the stone, drawing back his hood with a hand. A balding pate, intense blue eyes, and a continual sneer of superiority. Mike's eyes widened. William Mallick, bane of the anthropology department, something of an occult nut, always glowering and browbeating anyone in the faculty that went against him in getting more funding for his 'esoteric studies'. Stephen Norrington, Mike's professor and mentor, was one of the few who could walk away from a verbal assault by Mallick and come out on top. Mallick grinned, a thin razor smile that didn't meat his eyes. Even in the flickering candlelight Mike could see his eyes were cold, cold as ice. He finished his speaking in that odd, wrong tongue, moving down to grip into Candi's hair. " Now, my friends. We come to it. The sacrifice is taken, the spell begun. All we need now is expiation and the door will open, allowing we three here to share in the power. To become as gods among insects, to rule the world in the name of the Ones Who Came Before!" the old man drew Candi's head back, baring her neck. Mike looked around quickly, searching for anything he could use as a weapon. He settled on a small pole, one of a set of two holding a rope barring the way to a hall undergoing renovation. He tugged the rope free, lifted the pole and charged. He came in fast, slamming the heavy base of the pole into the lower back of the first of the two hooded figures, who fell with a cry and a grunt. He slammed the pole into the second goon's stomach, pushing him back into a diorama with a shattering crash of glass and the fall of stone samples. Mike moved with a speed he barely knew he had, grabbing Mallick from behind and turning him into a hard punch. Mike winced as he felt the skin on his knuckles scrape, Mallicks's expression one of dawning fury. "Graham! You won't stop me, I've worked too long for this. The power is mine!" Mike grabbed for the knife, but as Mallick finished his manic cry the blade slashed across his approaching palm. Mike cried out, staggering backwards as Mallick lunged forward. He reached behind him to steady himself, his bleeding palm touching a glyph on the Red Rock...a moment of searing, intense heat... And everything went white. * * * "Sir? Sir can you hear me?" Mike's eyes opened blearily, then shut as he winced. Light shining in his eyes. It snapped off and he opened an eye cautiously. The paramedic holding the pen light placed it back into her shirt pocket "Good, he's awake. Try not to move sir. It only looks like a couple of bruises, but I want to double-check and make sure nothing's broken." He felt her hands moving over his limbs as he struggled to raise his head. "Wh...what happened? Mallick! He was going to kill her!" Mike shook his head, dazed. The paramedic nodded to her partner, and the two helped him to sit up. His eyes widened in shock. The room was a burnt ruin. Wooden cases smashed and charred, a circle of ashes and burnt timbers from a hole punched into the roof. The glass windows halfway between the floor and the arched ceiling of the Science Center looked blown out. Glass crunched beneath the boots of the firefighters and uniformed cops surveying the damage. Mike blinked, stunned. " Candi...?" "Fine. She's out in one of our ambulances. She's a little bruised and has some minor burns, but she should be okay." The voice came from a heavyset man approaching in plainclothes. He reached into his coat pocket and flashed a badge. Mike shook his head a bit as the paramedics helped him to his feet. " Name's John Bernsen, I'm with the RHPD. Any idea what went on here Mr. . .?" Mike told him his name and as much of the story as he could remember. From the look on the man's face, he could tell his story wasn't exactly sold on the detective. " Robed guys...right. And this professor, this Mallick guy, was waving a knife around." Mike nodded " Yeah. He was babbling something about power and sacrifice. Then I tried to stop him, and the other two guys...then..." Mike frowned. "Then I guess I blacked out. I didn't think I'd lost that much blood from his cut..." Mike moaned softly, feeling his legs giving out under him. The paramedics steadied him, walking him toward the entrance. "Don't think you did. Something happened here. Forensics is still working on it, but we think a gas line got ruptured, the gas caught on one of the candles around here and just caused the place to light up like a Christmas tree. In any case, you and the girl are damn lucky to be alive right now. You were both in the epicenter of the blast but it didn't touch you. Damndest thing. And you say this Mallick was the ringleader?" Mike sat heavily on the bumper of the ambulance, one of the paramedics gave him a hit of oxygen, the other checking the bandages on his right palm. " Yes. It was him. Where is he, and the other two?" "Nobody found anybody in that mess but you and the girl. If there were people in there they were either buried under rubble or managed to get away before the fire engines rolled up. We'll see if we can track down professor Mallick for questioning. Ma'am, a minute?" Bernsen gesture to the female paramedic, and they walked a few paces away onto the quad. Mike took another hit of oxygen, feeling his head clear a bit. Bernsen walked up to him. "Paramedics say you're fit enough to head home, which is damn amazing, frankly. From what we can piece together you were damn near the center of that blast. You get a chance you should buy a lotto ticket in the next couple days. Seems like your luck can't be beat." The detective handed him a card. "I'll take statements from you and the Harries girl later in the week. Just don't leave town." Mike nodded, leaning forward and pinching the bridge of his nose. He suddenly felt exhausted. Checking with the two paramedics he found himself cleared to leave, and called Dave with a cell phone offered by one of his students, gawking at the ruin of the science center behind the cordoned-off lines erected by the police and fire departments. Dave was out of the car in seconds, showing up much, much faster than Mike expected. " Jeezus Mike, are you okay? What the hell happened?" his friend placed a hand on his shoulder. "Later Dave, later. Just take me home. I'm not feeling too hot." Mike stumbled a bit to the car, sitting in the seat. The details of the ride home became a blur. Getting into the house, staggering to his room, closing the door, and dropping on the bed in smoke-laden clothes into a dark, dreamless sleep. The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him was his bandaged hand, draped over his second pillow. Then he slept, and knew no more. * * * Buzzing. The buzzing of an alarm clock. Mike moaned in the pre-dawn darkness of his room. Dammit. Forgot to shut the damn thing off. He sat up a bit in the dark, feeling a little strange. It was warmer somehow, and the room felt off. Smaller. He shook his head a bit, feeling an odd sense of weight he'd never felt before. He scowled, running a hand over his face, feeling something sliding off his arm. Fabric. He rose, feeling his tattered, charred clothes slipping off his body. Had his clothes really been messed up that badly? He blinked in the darkness. Something was wrong, damn wrong. He licked his lips...and felt them. His teeth were...sharper somehow. Okay, this is too damned weird. Get to the bathroom now. He opened the door, making his way into the confines of the bathroom and flicking on the light, looking into the mirror... ...and nearly screaming at the monster that stared back at him, at least until he realized it's eyes were widening as his were, it's jaw dropping as his did. The figure was large, over six feet. Mike had always been just shy of five feet, nine inches tall. Broad, muscular, with dark red hair and green eyes, the irises slit like a cat's. It had horns, curved like a rams, to either side of his head, his form was a mixture of black and orange stripes along outer arms, thighs...he turned, looking over a shoulder and checking his back...because it was him, no matter how much he might wish otherwise. His legs were curved, digitigrades, the weigh on the toes that had long, wicked looking claws clicking along the porcelain. His chest, inner arms, and thighs were white, coated in a soft-looking fur. But something else...he blinked, then moaned. A tail. He had a tail. A tail like that of a tiger mixed with a stegosaur, sharp, wicked-looking hooklike barbs along the tip. Mike looked up into the mirror, his eyes wide, touching it. Touching his face, looking at a palm that was padded like a cat, then back to the mirror. He spoke, a voice kind of like his own, but as if it was being dragged over flint or he was gargling with gravel. "Oh boy." * * * NEXT ISSUE: Things go from mildly odd to downright strange, as Mike tries to deal with what's happening to him, and wakes up to realize his sleepy small town is a hell of a lot more than it first appeared to be. Guess which word in that prior sentence deserves special emphasis? Join us next time, when the adventures of TIGER BOY take off! Author's Notes: Hi there, and welcome to the first instalment of Tiger Boy, an experiment of sorts; a tale set in the ZG-verse featuring original characters. I hope you enjoy this spin-off of the series proper, and I hope I've managed to intrigue you enough with this origin sequence to get you coming back for more. Special thanks and shout-outs go to Joe 'The Dude' Englund for allowing me to come in and play in his sandbox. I only hope I can honor the spirit of his exceptional comic and do my part to help expand the playing field just that much more. As the series develops we'll find our beleaguered hero facing many challenges both of the natural and supernatural variety, and while I do have a plan to bring another striped demon-type onto the scene, I also want to make sure the series stands on its own merits. Mike isn't meant to be a carbon copy of Sandra, and I hope to ensure that while there are definite similarities, the differences add up to make things suitably cool. Music plays a key role in my writing, and the song that helped to inspire this story was New Year's Prayer by Jeff Buckley. It's a theme to another supernatural-themed series, the television version of Stephen King's The Dead Zone, but I felt it fit pretty well as the theme of this issue, and the series as a whole. Any comments or feedback about Tiger Boy can be directed to my e-mail address: stacydooks5@hotmail.com Feel free to let me know what you think, and what you'd like to see in a ZG-verse based series. I intend to honor a lot of my pulp and horror favorites, but if you can point me in the direction of cool ideas or concepts, I'd love to get your input. See you next time! Stacy