BlueK Dynasty: The 1st Seven Days (11 page)

The train was just as
crowded, and the ride was rough. The lights flickered on and off as
usual. The walls were covered in advertisements. All the seats were
taken, and Santino and the guys stood huddled together at the end
of the car. They were big and bulky; some people stared at them,
others quickly looked away. Santino had a posse now, and he
imagined he looked like a badass in his leather jacket. But was
that what he wanted? He had a brother who looked up to him. He had
friends and teammates. He didn’t know if he wanted to trade his old
life for this new one.
  

As he watched everyone
else going about their day-to-day lives, he thought about where his
was headed. Was he immortal? He knew bullets didn’t penetrate his
skin; he knew he could jump high, look far, and see in the dark; he
knew he had abilities he had never dreamed of. And he had an
appetite that caused other people deadly harm, which meant he could
never go back to his old life.
  

The call for St. Peter’s
station came over the PA, and Santino alerted the
others.
  

“
St.
Peter’s is going to be crazy tonight since it’s the weekend,” said
Kosner. “I don’t want anyone to see us like this. I think we should
stay near the walls.”
  

The group agreed and
silently stalked out of the AirTrains one by one. They went down
the stairs in single file with their heads down. Santino pulled up
his hood, VIN repositioned his cap, Leon put his hands in his
pockets, and Kosner quickly led the group out of the
station.
  

“
Which
way, boss?” he asked Santino.
  

“
Boss?”
asked VIN in a sarcastic tone.
  

Santino looked at VIN and
knew that sooner rather than later he would need to let VIN in on
the secret: Santino was the leader—period. He didn’t want to be a
tyrant, but when it came down to it he was the strongest, fastest,
and oldest out of the four. He believed VIN saw him as a dictator,
but he had to find a way to show he wasn’t like
that.
  

“
Go up
40th
 
Ave. and make the first right onto McClire Lane. You can’t
miss it,” Santino said.
  

The night was cold and
misty with a light drizzle, and the streets were still teemed with
people as the group neared the heart of the city. All the
skyscrapers were lit, and the restaurants and clubs were coming
alive. The group weaved in and out of the walking traffic and
attracted unwanted attention here and there. Santino was afraid
someone would antagonize them because of their size and height, but
fortunately it didn’t happen, and they made it to McClire Lane in
one piece—without touching anyone.
  

Trinidad Gym had the
perfect location. It was in the middle of the city, and the only
building on its block. The street was off of a main drag, and most
of the time got few visitors. Santino’s grandfather had once owned
the gym until the building had gone into foreclosure,
and
 
he sold
it. Santino’s father had even managed the place at one time. His
father used to train real fighters before he went to prison. When
he was released, he got a position back at the gym as a junior
training coach. Santino wasn’t worried about running into his dad
today though; he knew Darius was on leave because he’d gotten into
an altercation with one of the new hitters. This was good. He was
the last person Santino wanted to see.
  

The gym came into view,
and Santino directed the guys around back. A huge, metal fence
blocked off the entrance. Santino had snuck in hundreds of times,
and this time was no different. There was a bunker in the back that
used to be the custodian’s room, but then the gym was renovated and
the bunker became an extra space for old gloves, ropes, sandbags,
and weights. Only a few people knew about it—the original owners
and the custodian. It seemed like a good place for Santino to
collect his thoughts.
  

Leon needed help jumping
the fence, but the group went unnoticed by the patrons of the gym.
Santino could hear sparring inside as he looked for the bunker. He
found it, looking just as tiny and isolated as he remembered from
his younger years, when he would hang back there with his
dad.
  

The door was unlocked.
There were no windows, and inside the room was pitch
black.
  

“
This
looks like it should be in a horror film,” Leon said from the back,
his eyes scanning the empty lot behind the
gym.
  

Santino felt around on the
wall for the light switch,
 
H
 
found it and flicked it on,
then hurried the guys, who were acting reluctant and scared, into
the room and shut the door behind them. They crouched in the
crowded space. The room was filled with old equipment, a desk and a
chair, three old sandbags, and two duffels overflowing with
athletic tape.
  

Santino hoisted himself up
onto the desk and felt it creak under his weight. He remembered
bringing girls back there and doing things on that desk that would
have shamed a nun.
  

“
Alright, so now that we’re all here, let’s hear it. What did
you do to us?” VIN was the first to ask. He parked himself on a
bench in the back and waited for Santino to fill him in on
everything. He wanted to know why he could hear so good, why he had
sharp nails, how he was twice as strong as he used to be, why had
all his hair fallen out, why he needed two rows of shark-like
teeth, and, most of all, why did human flesh tasted like turkey and
stuffing on Thanksgiving day. He wanted answers. He hadn’t stayed
behind and snitched to the police about Santino. Now Santino had
better hold up his end of the deal, or VIN would talk about what
happened—but to the cops.
  

Santino clapped his hands
and took off his jacket. He got comfortable on top of the hard,
wooden desk. The lights flickered a bit as he prepared to begin his
story. Everybody quieted down, and all eyes were on him. Santino
breathed in deeply and began.
  

“
I
wasn’t bit by a spider. I’m not an alien from another planet. I
didn’t run away from an underground testing facility that was doing
unapproved experiments.” He paused as he collected his thoughts.
“As I tried to say before, I was a regular teenager. I go to
Cacheus High School over on Brixton Circle. My mom’s is cool. I got
two little sisters and a little brother. I’m All-City, varsity, I
play football, basketball, the works. I used to box in this very
gym until I quit last year. I had a girlfriend named Kurma up until
recently.”
  

He stopped and his voice
broke when he said her name. Where was she right now? Last he had
seen, she had wings and was wet and scared.
  

“
My
story gets complicated.” He looked at the guys, who were on the
edges of their seats, taking in everything he said. “Kurma and I
were messing around.”
  

“
Messing
around how?” VIN’s voice exploded in the small, quiet room. “Don’t
leave anything out.”
  

Santino cleared his throat
and continued. “I took my girlfriend’s virginity.  It was
okay. She was kind of shy, kind of stiff, but all in all not bad. I
was laying there after we were done, and all of a sudden she got up
and ran to the bathroom. That was where things got weird. I was
lying in bed, waiting for her to come back so I could go for
another round, and then I got this intense pain in my head. My face
felt like all the blood had drained out of it.”
  

Kosner nodded his head in
recognition.
  

“
I
changed,” Santino went on. “I do not lie when I say I went through
the exact same things you experienced. I even tried to attack my
girlfriend who was in the bathroom. I realized my hunger when I
came upon her. I fell out of her apartment’s window when I
attempted to chase her down.”
  

Santino looked at Leon. “I
survived the fall and immediately began to attack people. One
wasn’t lucky enough to make it out alive. While I was eating his
face off, these guys”—he indicated VIN and Kosner—“tried to stop
me. I touched them with my bare hands and spread this thing to them
without even knowing it. I turned them into Phantoms like
me.”
  

Leon looked scared. VIN
was listening intently. Kosner looked somber, nodding his head at
Santino’s pauses and breaks.
  

“
I now
realize that whatever is in my blood and in my pores can
contaminate other human beings, and change their DNA so they become
like me,” said Santino.
  

“
Do you
recall anything that could have been the reason you changed
originally?” asked VIN. “Anything you ate or any person you
encountered? Someone who could have passed something on to
you?”
  

Santino became quiet; he
thought long and hard. He came up with nothing. “If I could talk to
my girlfriend then I might be able to ask her opinion on the
subject. We were together for most of that day.”
  

“
We eat
people. That’s so crazy to me,” Kosner said in a quiet voice. “Why
do you think we were created to eat
people?”
  

Santino had never thought
of that. “In time, I’m sure all the pieces to the puzzle will fit.
Until then we just have to adjust and move on. We have to make sure
we don’t touch anyone, because then they’ll be turned into
Phantoms, and their new food source could be your mother, your
father, your nieces and nephews. This will turn into an epidemic if
we aren’t careful. We have to kill to eat and eat to kill. There is
no in between.”
  

The room was still as his
message sunk in.
  

“
I want
to change the energy in here a bit,” said Santino as he moved
around the bunker. “You guys now know my story. What about
yours?”
  

VIN was the first to speak
up. “I work at a warehouse in Midtown. I have a girlfriend, and
recently we’ve been having financial issues. I’ve been taking
overnight shifts to avoid the tension between us. My mom is retired
and lives down south. Also, I’ve always disliked pets, and I have
zero offspring. I think that pretty much sums up my
life.”
  

Santino asked, “Kosner,
what about you? I thought I heard you say you were an undercover
police officer.”
  

“
Well, I
lied about that.” Kosner shuffled his feet. “I’m a security guard
down at Walleygreens, and I live on Sussex Way with a couple of
college buddies. I would take you guys by my flat, but I might eat
them and their girlfriends.” He smirked and then turned serious
again. “My dad is dead, and my mom is basically brain dead, and I
work odd jobs trying to keep her in an elderly home. I’m kind of
all over the place at the moment trying to make ends meet. This
doesn’t help my cause one bit.”
  

Santino noticed that
Kosner looked sad. He would have to accept things, as Santino had.
At least he’d been there to look after them when they had first
turned. Santino thought about how he had learned everything on his
own. He’d had to fight for his life.
  

“
It will
get better, Kosner, I swear it,” he said.
  

“
Last
but not least, the new girl has the floor,” VIN
joked.
  

Leon stood up and walked
to the middle of the room.
  

“
My name
is Leon Kirkerfield. I plan on going about my life as best as I
can. I have a good job. I just made assistant manager two months
ago. I have a mother and a father and brothers and sisters who I
love very much. I am a family-oriented man and I believe that they
will accept me,” Leon spoke loud and proud. “I don’t believe they
would disown me, and I have every intention of going back to them
and somehow reversing this thing that has happened to
me.”
  

“
Buddy,
look at you. You have teeth like a shark, and veins growing out of
your face. You eat people for sport,” yelled VIN. “For God’s sake,
man, your hair has fallen out in patches all over your head. Do you
really think you can go back to your old life as if nothing
happened?”
  

“
There
are things called science and hospitals. I know there is some way
to reverse whatever it is that I am.” Leon stood his ground and
believed in his message. “You can come
 
with me. We can both go to the
hospital and get the medical treatment that could turn our lives
around.”
  

Leon was the kind of guy
who looked at his glass as half full. Yes, he was hideous and a
monster, but he knew there was always a way around everything. “I
haven’t eaten any humans, and I don’t plan on it. That is a choice
you all have made, but I just don’t buy it. I believe that with
help and support I can go back to my normal
life.”