TIGER BOY #2 Stacy Dooks The origin, part two. Oh boy. Dave Murphy moaned, grabbing for his spare pillow and dropping it over his face. Jeez, would it kill Mike to be a little considerate? Dave shifted beneath the sheets and grunted. No good, sleep was beyond his reach now. The young man sat up in his bed, bare feet hitting the carpet as he rose, reaching down to the floor to grab his robe as he scratched at the rear of his boxers. He yawned, cinching the robe tight as he stumbled through the hall, the early morning haze coming just past the curtains. He rounded into Mike's room, catching the blaring alarm clock and shutting it off. Hit the snooze bar instead of the off switch again, as per usual. Dave smirked. He made his way into the kitchen of the apartment, rummaging through the cupboards a coffee packet or two. He turned on the machine and stretched. Couple hours ahead on the day, be a good chance to head in to campus, maybe see if that Suzy Chang was working the bookstore at the student union building. She'd been giving him the eye during Dr. Drysdale's biology class. Dave popped a couple waffles in the toaster and slipped onto the couch, flicking the television on. Jeez, what'd Mike do, fall in? Dave sat, munching a waffle as the morning anchorwoman went on "...and continuing our top story, an attempted ritual slaying at Red Hart College was foiled by the heroic efforts of teacher's assistant Michael Graham. Graham, an English graduate working on his master's degree, saved the life of Candita Harries, a science major. Police have no leads on the suspects, and evidence gathering is continuing at the site of the Life Science Center on campus, which sustained heavy damage in a localized explosion believed to have been caused by a ruptured gas main..." Dave checked the clock on the microwave. 8:32. Mike's earliest classes started around 9:30, and his friend and roommate had a real thing about being punctual. "Mike? You okay man? Should be gettin' a move-on if you want to make it to class today." Dave rose, leaving his coffee and breakfast on the end table as he moved into the hall. The bathroom door was still closed, the fan going, though Dave hadn't heard the shower. For some weird reason, Dave felt a shiver go down his back, a weird feeling of foreboding running through him at the sight of the closed door and the quiet. He could hear movement, shuffling of feet. "Mike? Gonna come out of there, or are you really in it for the long haul? They say you'll go blind y'know." Dave smirked weakly. "Dave?" Mike's voice came through the door, muffled of course, but still sounding off. Like he had a frog in his throat. "Um...I don't think I can go to school today. I've...I've come down with something." "Oh...kay...care to come out of there and share the bathroom at least? Not to be rude roomie, but some of us just had coffee and pastry, so some business needs transacting before the day can be properly faced y'know." Dave leaned against the door frame. "Uh...I'm not sure that's a good idea." Mike's voice, weird as it sounded, conveyed a low-level of fear that made Dave's creepy feeling jump from 1 to 10. He frowned. "Mike, open the door. This is getting seriously not funny." A sound, like a sigh. A really heavy, gusty sigh, which rang a faint alarm bell in Dave's head. "Okay. But if I open the door, you've got to promise me you won't freak out." Dave quirked an eyebrow "All right...I won't freak out. Why, you get a tattoo or something?" The doorknob opened, and with a slow creak revealed a huge, striped, horned, tailed monster. A monster with green eyes, red hair...and Mike Graham's face. "...or something." The thing that looked a bit like Mike said sheepishly. * * * "How's the eye?" Mike frowned, looking around a hamburger patty at Dave as they sat on the sofa. "Oh peachy. Y'know, that's the first thing you want to happen when you ask someone not to freak out when you're opening the door. To get hit in the face." He snarled, showing a bit of fang that made Dave scoot down the sofa a bit, wincing at the pain that flared in his back. "Yeah, well you didn't have to slam me into a wall you know. Jeez that hurt. Lucky Mrs. McPhearson thought we were moving furniture. Gah... " he rubbed at his throbbing shoulder blade. "I just meant to shove you. I didn't think you were going to go flying down the hall." Mike said, sheepishly as he moved the patty away from his eye. He didn't feel the hurt anymore, and it didn't seem to be swelling...and why was Dave staring at him like that...apart from the obvious? "What?" Mike said, his voice muffled. Then he realized it. He'd popped the raw patty into his mouth and had been chewing it without realizing. He swallowed the meat with a guilty look. Dave shook his head "God Mike, what the hell happened? I mean, you went to bed looking normal and you wake up with this?" Dave batted the flicking tip of his roommate's tail from his face as the now-much-larger man rose. "I don't know! I mean, my hand kind of itched beneath the bandages, and yeah, I was feeling like a walking bruise, but I didn't dream this..." Mike blinked. He'd looked down at his hand, at the one that had touched Red Rock while he'd been struggling with Mallick, when the palm had been cut. His palm was padded, like a big cats', but in the midst was the glyph, the primal-looking slashes he'd glimpsed on the stone before...he frowned, padding around the room. "What am I going to do? I can't go into class looking like this...I can't go anywhere...what happened to me?" Mike rumbled, his frown deepening, tail lashing from the slit he'd torn in his (formerly) largest pair of jeans, which now barely fit him. "God, it's like something out of the comics man. Didn't get bitten by any radioactive tigers did you?" Dave rose, moving to put a hand on his friend's shoulder. Mike snarled at him, which put Dave back a pace because up close the eyes, horns, and fangs made that snarl really, really scary. "Dave!" "Okay, okay, bad joke, I get it. So what do we do? I mean, we can't go to anyone with this, they'd stick you in a lab somewhere in Nevada faster than you could say Chris Carter." Dave ran a hand through his sandy blond hair, brow furrowing. "I know. We need someone knowledgeable." Mike crossed his arms, tail lashing back and forth as he tossed his head reflexively. The horns were going to take some getting used to. "With big-time experience involving the weird." "Yeah..." Mike ran a hand over his face. It came to them both at once, their eyes meeting as Mike turned, both speaking in unison. "Anna." * * * "Hello, Weird Tales bookstore, your source for all things genre and rare." Anna picked up the phone smoothly, juggling the inventory sheet with an almost poetic grace as she jotted down numbers and had a conversation at the same time. "Mmhm, first edition Arkham House Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers? I think we still have one in our rare books section...let me just check..." she thumbed through a ledger on the crowded counter "Mm...yeah. Near-mint, good condition, signed by L.Sprague de Camp. Going price..." she quoted a number. "Um, yeah, but it is a first edition, and signed no less. Ebay? Pfft. Ebay is for suckers, I thought you were a collector. Okay...okay...got it. You put together the shipping and handling, you send the cheque and this sweet baby'll be winging it's way to your doorstep in no time. Pleasure doing business with you sir. Bye." She hung up the phone and whooped. "Oh yeah! All bow before the power of the great and powerful Bookseller! She is mighty!" she grinned, placing the ledger to one side as she snagged her soon-to-be captive audience, a fat gray tabby. She snickered as the cat yowled at the indignity of being danced with by an obviously crazed shaven primate. " Ooooh yeah, and they say small business is dead. I'm ruling the roost! Couple more sales like that and I might actually crest the upper portion of the yellow Tibbs. And beyond that...black. Black Tibbs! Think of it...the beginnings of my literary empire!" The cat mrphed at the plans of this crazed female, wiggling free of her clutches to light with surprising nimbleness on the windowsill, the legend SELAT DRIEW emblazoned on the glass before him, curling up into a ball in the sunlight. Anna smirked, running a hand through her pageboy cut as she made her way back behind the counter. Tibbs was a good kitty, but couldn't appreciate his mum's newfound fortune. Dealing rare books, keeping the stacks clean, brining in new stock and hunting down the old...it was gravy for a girl like Anna. She'd inherited the shop from her uncle John, had practically grown up in the place, and loved every musty, cozy, armchair and shelf-strewn inch of it. Red Hart was known for it's mildly populous Literati subculture, and Weird Tales was easily one of the better known 'niche' bookstores, for people wanting a bit of everything. It was her place, hers in all senses of the word, and she loved it. She went back to the inventory, checking and unchecking things as she glanced at her watch. Where were those two? Dave had called, asking if she'd mind Mike and him stopping by this afternoon. Something weird had apparently went down the night of the explosion on campus, and Mike was a little freaked apparently. Freaked enough to want to talk to her about it, all his gentle jibes about her 'spoooooky books' long forgotten. Such a dork, both of them really, but they were her friends. Besides, she could employ them in helping unload a couple of crates, stock a couple of shelves, and thusly balance business and pleasure in one very fell swoop. She heard a knock, coming from the back entrance. The alley one, to be precise. Weird. Normally only couriers or the trash people rummaged around in back of the building, the area having once been a cul-de-sac turned into an alley by urban renewal. She moved to the door, peeking through the eye hole, greeted by Dave's elongated features, and the sight of something huddled over in a blanket. " Hi Anna. Can we come in? Quick?" Dave said, his eyes ducking all over the place. "Sure, just a sec..." Anna said, a half-smirk on her face. Mike covered up like that...it'd have to be in some Wal-Mart bought Halloween mask meant to give her a pre-Halloween spook...she braced herself, readying a withering response as she unlocked the door and ushered them into the small stock room/receiving area of Weird Tales. "So what seems to be the problem boys? Mike met up with Vlad Tepes and he made you his Renfield?" The blanket fell away, and something big...and tall...and striped, greeted her, clad in a pair of jeans and Dave's Red Hart Rebels hockey jersey, the one with the steer skull for a logo over black and red. "Something like that. Anna...help?" Mike's voice came rumbling from the thing as Anna suddenly remembered to breath. "Okay." She peeped. * * * "Let me see if I have this exactly right." The room was shadowy, darkened, the curtains drawn. An oaken desk, a few couches, the trappings of an office. A large one, befitting the rank of the figure silhouetted in the shadows. A hand held a piece of paper, the legend PROGRESS REPORT just barely legible in the dim. "We find a suitable candidate to bring into the fold, we promise him power undreamed of by pathetic mortal minds, we give him the resources and two of our finer hired facilitators to help him with his little ritual. They capture the sacrifice, they set things up...and now we find that the Rock has been drained of it's power, two of our brighter agents have been atomized, Mallick has disappeared, and someone else has the power of the Avatar thrust upon them." The figure rose, long hair glinting in the darkness, an hourglass figure contained in a powersuit, her long heels clacking across the tasteful porcelain tile. She heaved in a breath, the man before her visibly cringing. "An x-factor James. A random variable in my carefully maintained equation. I have been working long and hard on this project, to find a perfect, malleable pawn with the right combination of arrogance and ego to become this organization's agent of blood and mayhem. If Mallick had blooded the sacrifice, smeared the runes in the manner we'd arrange for him to uncover, we'd have ourselves a brainless pile of muscle that would take orders from one person. Just one. Me." The woman sighed, a sound of exasperation that made her toady - a small, thin man - cringe even more. A long, red nail traced along James's jawline, tracing slow loops and swirls. "Now I have to go before the Merry One and tell him that my plan has been derailed. And while I've done good, solid work for him in the past, he's not going to be happy, despite his ever-chipper grin. No, not happy in the least. He's going to want an explanation, and then he's going to want heads to roll." "M...miss Abeni, you have to understand..." James began, adjusting his glasses, shifting from one foot to the other. He never saw it coming. One moment the wheedling plea for understanding was on his lips. The next his head clonked onto the tile, arterial blood gushing forth in a bright fountain before his body joined him on the floor. Abeni crossed the room, tapping a key on the intercom on her desk, the long, barbed blade that had once been her hand and forearm slowly returning to normal. "Alicia, please call maintenance, have them send someone up to clean a sudden mess. The drain in the floor will get most of it, but I don't want the blood to clot on my desk and couch. I have important clients to talk to later this morning, I can't have them finding my office in a state." She smiled at her secretary's cheerful acknowledgement, then leaned back, resting her elbow on the table as she sucked some stray blood from a nail. "One down..." * * * "Nothing." Anna sighed, plunking another book down on her dining room table. "Not even a reference? A hint on how to turn people back from being...this...to their old selves? I don't suppose there's anything downstairs in the front?" Anna bit her lower lip. Mike's bulk took up the better part of her favorite armchair in the living room. She took her glasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose, slipping up from the table, now covered in old books. She didn't like that forlorn expression in his eyes...or the way the chair was creaking and groaning with each twitch of his large frame. "No, all the books of 'magic' out front are strictly for the poseur crowd. The older stuff...the more dangerous stuff...I tend to keep in the back room. Locked. Uncle John said never to mess with it, that the books weren't so much for sale as for keeping away from people..." she sighed, flopping onto the couch by Dave, who had his head buried in another tome, who shut it and sighed, letting it thunk to the coffee table with a grunt. "Nothing here either. I mean, there are whole chapters on the mating habits of succubi and incubi...with some really interesting engravings..." Dave smirked " but nothing on your condition Mike. At least nothing I can find, you'd have to ask Occult Girl here." He jerked a thumb at Anna, who glowered. "Hey, I'm trying here, okay? Up until a few hours ago I never really believed in this stuff, I just used to use it to creep you two out. But now..." She reached over, putting a hand on Mike's broad, striped arm. He looked up at her, giving his head a shake that sent the mane of bright crimson hair shaking, covering his eyes a bit and draping over the large, curled horns. He sighed, and Anna's heart nearly broke. "I know. I...I just don't remember what happened. I fell back on the rock, I touched it...then light, and burning...the police said it was a gas main." Mike frowned, opening his right hand and showing it to Anna. She peered at the odd glyph, loops and swirls burned into Mike's flesh. "But I got this...and I got this." He frowned, catching his swishing tail in hand, looking at it. Anna frowned. "Michael, I promise you I'll do whatever it takes to find a way to help you. I'll look through every book in the back rooms until I find something. We can fix this. We will fix this. We promise." She gripped his hand...then glared at Dave, who was flipping through an old Vault of Horror that had gotten mixed in with the books. She kicked his shin. "Ow! Of course we will. But I mean, c'mon. You got to admit it is kinda cool. Do you think you've got any superpowers? You were lifting those boxes of books out of the way like they were made of paper mache. You're like a superhero or something. Michael Graham, the Terrific Tiger Boy. Think we could sell it to Marvel?" Dave grinned, then winced, rubbing an arm with an envious look in his eyes. "Anyway, all that calorie burning worked up an appetite. I'm gonna order a pizza. Anna, mind if I borrow the phone?" he rose, making his way to the loft apartment's kitchen as Anna nodded absently. Dave's penchant for pizza calls was legendary; the man could inhale pizzas and still kept his athletic figure. Another smackworthy reason in Mike's eyes. Mike looked at Anna, his bright green eyes sullen. She smiled, stroking his cheek a bit. It felt odd, a mixture of skin and fur combined somehow. "I'm a freak." He rumbled. "No. You're not a freak. You just have a problem. One we're going to solve. One that's going to be interesting as hell to solve too. I mean, what are you now Michael? You look so..." "Ugly?" He smirked. "Exotic, I was going to say." She grinned, flicking a tufted ear. "Don't let it get you down. We'll figure something out. Did you call the school?" she asked casually, steering the subject away from his state, hoping to get him out of the funk he seemed dead set on settling into. "Yeah, I told them I was going to take some personal time, shaken up from the explosion and all that. Professor Norrington said I could take as much time as I needed, and my class load is pretty light besides, nothing I can't get from the online curriculum...in case...in case this goes on for awhile." Mike sighed, then smiled wanly. "Anna, I love you for trying to get my mind on this, but I need some time. You mind if I go up on the roof for awhile?" he rose, moving toward the door. "Do you want company?" she frowned, her eyes worried. Mike looked back at her with that grin, the one that always made her smile back. It looked a little different, with the fangs, but it was still him. "Ann, I'm not going to jump. I just want some air. Rooms feel a bit...cramped to me right now." He shrugged, then walked out, closing the door behind him. Dave walked back in, popping the tab on a can of soda. " So...$33.50 for the pizza, Mike you wanna chip in?" he looked around. " Hey, where'd he go? He is kicking in on the pizza right?" Anna shook her head, her stare incredulous.. "Your brain isn't even wired to the rest of your head is it?" Dave blinked. "What?" * * * I'm a freak. Mike stared out at the city, leaning against the ledge of the brownstone building that housed Weird Tales and Anna's apartment. He sighed, giving his head an irritated toss. Damn these horns...they felt so odd on his head, like a ball cap on just tight enough to be irritating, but one you couldn't get off. He inhaled, and nearly gagged. The smells were so powerful, everything smelled so strong. Inside the brownstone it had been easier;the smell of Anna's perfume, the musty smell of old books, he was familiar with those smells, comfortable with them, even if they were a little strong. Now...the streets, the people, the stink of car exhaust and garbage dumpsters...it hit his nostrils like a freight train. And the sounds, the lights...he shook his head with a growl. An actual growl, low in his throat. God almighty, what the hell am I? He winced, thinking his question could well contain its own answer. He was stronger. Those stacks of books had felt like lifting pieces of paper. He felt stronger too, a feeling of power, his body moving with an athletic grace he - the human Mike Graham anyway - had never really mastered, always just a bit too gangly and clumsy to look 100% cool and assured. Now, he moved with a fluid grace, every step measured, every movement assured and economical. His tail lashed as he leaned on the ledge, looking down over the city. The art district thrummed on a Friday night, people heading further downtown to hit the clubs, the bars...Mike smirked. Guess now being a homebody's more of an asset than ever huh? Now I can't even go out if I wanted to... He scowled, biting his lip hard as he paced away, moving toward the old wire-frame pigeon coop Anna's uncle John had used to keep. Sturdy, strong, Anna had never found time to have it removed. Mike punched it, meaning only to vent some frustration. His eyes widened as he realized his punch has splintered the heavy wood of the frame, pushing his fist clean through the weathered but not yet rotten 2x4. He raised his fist, inspecting knuckles for splinters, burst skin. Nothing. His hand looked as normal as it had on Anna's arm rest. As normal as a striped hand could, with partially unsheathed, slightly curled claws. He opened his hand, examining it. Claws. Mike focused on his hand carefully. The nails on his hands (the claws), lengthened, growing long and sharp and wicked-looking. He flexed his hand, and they drew back, looking like long nails, but nails all the same. "A freak." He shook his head, moving to head back downstairs. Maybe Ann had found something while Dave was waiting for the pi - A scream pierced the early evening. Mike's head snapped in it's direction. Distant enough to be faint, but still audible. A man's scream, a scream of pain and terror. He paused, realizing his body was tense, he'd been crouching a bit, as if ready to spring in the direction of the cry. What?! That's what got you into this mess in the first place dumbass! He turned with a scowl, making his way back toward the stairwell. "Just go inside, eat pizza, find out how to fix this. Trying to help people only gets you hurt." He muttered under his breath, reaching for the doorknob. The scream sounded again, fainter still this time. Mike's jaw clenched, hand resting on the knob. "Hell." He turned and ran, barely realizing it as he lighted off the edge, leaping from the rooftop of Weird Tales to the neighboring coffee shop, then on to the next building on the block, and so on, jumping from rooftop to rooftop in broad, bounding leaps. He began to realize it, the ease of each jump, feeling so easy, but moving so far so quickly. He grinned widely, and for a moment the panic and pain of the past few hours faded, for a little while. Someone was in trouble. He'd help. Simple as that. * * * Bill Gardinier felt like an idiot. Which, for a man about to die, wasn't all that good a thing to feel. He hadn't meant to be so stupid. He'd been unloading the latest shipment of steel girders for Nellman's Construction, working on the future site of the Stilson Memorial Library. He'd been working with the forklift, moving girders from the back of the flatbed truck to careful piles beside the growing framework of the building's foundation and first story. But it was late, he'd been working for hours on end, no break, caffeine wearing off and he'd made a dumb mistake. The forklift had taken one pallet too many and had overbalanced, falling forward. Bill had been thrown clear, landing in front of the pallet just in time for it to crunch down on his ankle. Pounds upon hundreds of pounds of pressure, crushing his ankle, the whole mess bearing down on him, creaking, the support cables beginning to buckle under the intense strain. Bill let out another cry. Christ but the pain! It'd be months in the hospital, medical bills he and Sheila would have to pay, the kids college fund would take a hit... The pallet creaked and jerked forward, pressure and pain sliding up his calf as the mass leaned closer, his imminent crushing death all the closer. He closed his eyes, muttering a prayer between each shuddering breath. Best to get in good with the man upstairs, seemed they'd be getting to know each other pretty well pretty soon. Then it happened. The crushing pain on his leg lessened. His ankle still felt like he'd dunked it and the lower half of his foot in battery acid, but the pain was gone, the creaking was replaced by clanking, and grunting. The grunting of someone straining with a heavy weight. Bill opened an eye. Then both. Dinner plate wide. A man - or something man-like - was hefting the pallet. Lifting it. Not too easily, but the creature was managing it. His striped hands were gripping into the wooden base, easing the heavy stack of steel girders up and off the forklifts struts, the vehicle falling back on it's rear wheels with a hard clang. The figure...somebody dressed in one weird Halloween suit, a Red Hart Rebels hockey jersey, and jeans, a tail (tail?!) lashing behind him, flung the heavy pallet with a grunt, the wood shattering as it hit the gravel of the construction site a good 15 yards away from Bill, sending girders clattering and clanging, but away from him where they wouldn't do any harm. Bill must've blacked out from the pain, because the next he could remember was a sensation of being lifted. His ankle hurt, but he looked down and say it had been bound up in some kind of makeshift bandage, black and red like that hockey jersey he'd seen. He faded again, feeling wind, motion...and the next he remembered he awoke the next day in the hospital, being told about his luck at being left outside the emergency room, of the door being kicked open, and an anonymous good Samaritan calling out for help before vanishing into the night. Years later, Bill Gardinier would regale his friends with the story of his Guardian Angel, of the night of being saved, lifted, and flown to the hospital. But no matter how many times he told it, to his close friends, to his children or grandchildren, he always left out the one moment. Where he'd awoken in mid flight(or jump, he couldn't tell), and mumbled. "Who are you?" The impression of glowing green cat eyes, of horns, of fangs. And the voice, scary and strong. "A friend." Then blackness, and what came after. * * * NEXT ISSUE: Mike struggles to adapt to his condition, but there are other forces at work in Red Hart, a hidden world none of our three friends had any idea existed. Of course, they're about to find out in a big way. Be back next time for the thrilling conclusion of TIGER BOY: THE ORIGIN! Author's Notes: One of the things I love about writing is that when it's good, the story can take you one place when you'd had this other route planned well in advance. I'd originally planned to pack the second instalment full of demons, mayhem, and the kind of wanton violence that's so hip with the kids these days. But I felt a quieter, more restrained issue might better help us get to know our cast, at least as much as you can in serial fiction, and move things along. The saving of Bill Gardinier touches on the core of Mike's character as person or demon; he can't turn away. He won't. Not that I want to give him the impression of being Captain Whitebread, but he is a heroic sort of guy. We'll be seeing more of that as the series progresses, and time will tell if that noble streak in our protagonist will come back to bite him in the ass. Stacy