William Rabkin - Psych - A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read

“Now run!” Shawn shouted. Gus hadn’t waited for him to explain the rest of the cunning plan. He was halfway to the door before Shawn was on his feet. Somewhere behind him he knew the potatoes was pulling himself up on his spud feet and reloading the shotgun. Gus could feel the muscles in his back rearranging themselves into the concentric circles of a practice target, and he needed to put the bull’s-eye out of range.

In college, Gus had tried out for the track team to impress a girl his roommate had described as “fast.” With the sure, if completely mistaken, knowledge of a date with the most beautiful woman in the northwest quadrant of campus as his reward, Gus ran faster that day than he ever had before, missing the qualifying time for the four hundred meter by less than a minute.

If only he’d had a shotgun pointed at his back in college, Gus might have had a chance to learn just how little interest the “fast” girl actually had in runners. Because Gus was blasting through that qualifying pace. He could feel the hot asphalt slamming into his feet through the thin leather soles of his English dress shoes as if he were barefoot, and he didn’t care. His calves were coiled springs, propelling him violently forward with every step.

In the distance behind him, Gus could hear someone calling his name. If he’d stopped to think about it, he would have known it was Shawn, probably begging him to slow down a little to let him catch up. But he wasn’t going to stop for anyone, not even his best friend.

It wasn’t fear driving Gus anymore. Not completely, anyway. It was the exhilaration of the run-the sense of speed, of freedom, of life itself. He felt that if he could increase his pace just a fraction, he could achieve escape velocity, actually lift off the earth and into orbit. He’d be flying.

“Gus, stop!” Shawn was shouting somewhere in the far distance. Gus ignored him. Couldn’t Shawn see he was about to fly?

“Gus, car!”

When Shawn shouted, Gus was at least thirty feet in front of him. Since sound travels at seven hundred seventy miles per hour, it took his voice at least one-thirty-fifth of a second to reach Gus. Maybe a fraction more, since he was accelerating away from Shawn, and there was the Doppler effect to consider. Even after Gus heard Shawn’s voice, it would have taken at least another. 028 of a second for the meaning of the word to penetrate his brain. Even if he could have shaved a couple of milliseconds off, there was no way Gus could have altered his direction in the time necessary. He was in midstride, both feet off the ground. The best he could do was twist his trunk around so he could see down the length of road he was crossing.

So he could see the bright red Mercedes S500 slaloming down the street as its driver pounded the brakes. So he could smell each particle of rubber scraped off the smoking tires as they left sharp black skid marks on the faded asphalt. So he could appreciate the glint of sunlight off the shiny Mercedes logo heading straight for him.

For one second, Gus knew exactly what he needed to do. If he could somehow keep himself in the air, postpone his descent for just one fraction of a second, he could clear the car’s hood and land on its opposite side with catlike grace.

Gus squeezed his eyes shut and willed all his strength into his ankles. If they didn’t sprout small wings to keep him aloft like the Sub-Mariner’s, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.

A second passed, and Gus realized he hadn’t been smashed against the windshield like a bug. He opened his eyes and saw the car screeching to a stop behind him. He did it. He flew. He looked down at his ankles to see if the wings had sprouted there.

There were of course no wings. But that wasn’t the problem. He’d lived this long without feathered ankles. The real problem was the other thing he didn’t see down there.

The road.

Or any solid ground.

All he saw was the battered gray metal of the guard rail disappearing under his feet. And then the long, long drop to the garbage dump below.

The asphalt was surprisingly soft under Gus’ back. When he was running, he could feel every pebble and shard of glass piercing the soles of his shoes. But now that he was sprawled out over the pavement, it felt soft, smooth, and pliable. Gus stretched out a hand and probed the ground with his fingers. The asphalt compressed under his touch as if it were stuffed with down.

Gus tried to understand what was happening. There was a faint possibility that he had developed super-strength to go along with his newfound ability to fly. But the aches in his muscles, the pounding in his head, and the screaming pain from his rib cage were suggesting strongly that he was not about to be sworn into the Legion of Superheroes. Which made it far more likely that what he was feeling under him was actually not the road where he’d fallen. He probed the surface again, and this time recognized the slip of sheet over mattress.

He was in a bed. But how did he get here? He might convince himself that he’d dreamed the whole thing, Veronica Mason’s trial included, if there was an inch of his body that didn’t hurt.

Using all the strength he could muster, Gus forced his eyelids open. A giant head filled his vision, sandy brows nearly brushing his own eyeballs. Gus let out a scream.

The giant head screamed, too, and moved away quickly. Gus’ eyes fought to focus.

“Dude, you’re awake,” Shawn said.

Gus squinted against the light and was able to make out Shawn’s beaming face over his.

“I was just checking to see if you were still breathing,” Shawn said.

“What happened?”

“You were,” Shawn said.

“Before that,” Gus said. “How did I get here?”

“Someone tried to kill us.”

Gus tried to recapture his last, fleeting memory. A red Mercedes flitted across his consciousness before his subconscious hauled it back with the other moments too painful to remember.

“With a car.”

“With a shotgun.”

There was something about a gun tickling the edges of Gus’ brain. For some reason, he envisioned what could only have been the mascot for the University of Idaho’s skeet-shooting team; a giant smiling potato holding a shotgun. And then it all came flooding back. The Echo. The shack. The attendant.

“He tried to kill us!”

Gus fought the screaming pain in his shoulders and moved his arms across his body, checking for spatter pattern. There didn’t seem to be any.

“Don’t worry, buddy,” Shawn said. “Nothing but soft-tissue damage. At least that’s what a fleet of doctors tells me.”

“Doctors?”

For the first time, it occurred to Gus to wonder exactly where he was. He managed to shift his eyes away from Shawn’s face, even his ocular muscles aching with the strain, to see the dull fluorescent tube throbbing on the ceiling, the small TV bolted to the wall, the cheery sailboat painting hanging over the institutional sink. He flexed his fingers over his chest and noticed that his starched button-down business shirt had been replaced with a flimsy sheath of slick, flameproof polyester.

“I’m in the hospital?”

Shawn patted him proudly on the shoulder. It felt like a sledgehammer on Gus’ bruises. “And they were worried about potential brain damage. I knew your brain was too strong for that.”

“Who was worried?”

“And I was right. They all agreed that everything was going to be just fine. As long as you woke up before-” Shawn checked his watch. “Hey, right under the wire. Good timing, buddy.”

“What if I didn’t wake up now?”

Before Shawn could answer, Gus heard the sound of a door opening across the room.

“Shawn?” It was a woman’s voice. Gus risked dislodging several vertebrae and twisted his neck so he could see the door. A pair of blazing red shoes, the toes more sharply pointed than the four-inch spike heels, appeared in the threshold. Gus could hear the heels digging divots out of the linoleum with every step. Forcing his head higher, Gus could make out a long stretch of tanned, muscular legs. He put his hand under his chin and forced his head up farther. The bare legs seemed to go on forever. Finally, far above the point where any normal piece of clothing would have ended, Gus saw a flash of hem. Blazing red hem.