Authors: H. I. Defaz
Predominance
PREDOMINANCE
Text copyright © 2013 by H. I. Defaz
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Predominance Novels
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First Edition: June 2014
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Defaz, H. I., 1979-
Predominance: a novel / by H. I. Defaz. — 1st ed.
p
. cm.
Summary: After volunteering for radical medical procedure that might just save his life, Victor Bellator becomes paranormally gifted with the power of telekinesis, but soon he learns that the same force, now-fueling his new abilities, is slowly taking away his humanity, and will soon warp him into an unfeeling being, too dangerous to be kept alive.
ISBN-10: 0692235558
ISBN-13: 978-0692235553
Library of Congress Registration Number: TXu1-891-575
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Published by P
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PREDOMINANCE
__________________
H. I. Defaz
Predominance Novels, Boston
For my Wife Yelena,
without whose support and encouragement this book would still be just an unsettling dream from which she awakened me one night.
CONTENTS
Chapter One: Waking Up To Painful Memories
Chapter Five
: Blast from The Past
Chapter Seven
: Camping With Sarah
Chapter Eight
: Testing the Ropes
Chapter Twelve
: Roger’s Foresight
Chapter Thirteen
: Tragedy at the Warehouse
Chapter Fourteen
: Spit and Image
Chapter Fifteen
: Laws of Physics
Chapter Sixteen
: Not a Goodbye
Chapter Seventeen
: Our Boat of Dreams
Chapter Eighteen
: Predominance
Waking Up to Painful Memories
THE SOUND OF
the storm brought me abruptly out of unconsciousness. Neurons began to fire in my brain with each thudding raindrop that hit the tin roof above me. It stunned me to realize that I could track every single one of them as they lit off. The rust and moisture that saturated the air also reached my sore senses: I could taste the bitterness, like an old coin had been shoved in my mouth. My confusion increased as my eyes flew open to the darkness of the empty shack. The right side of my face, pressed against the dusty floorboards, hurt just as much as the rest of my body did. It felt like I'd been lying there for days. Maybe I had been. I examined the wood grain of the nearest board in almost microscopic detail for a moment, and determined that it had been milled at least fifty years before using a five-tooth-per-inch, three-foot circular saw powered by a diesel engine.
I groaned as I rolled onto my back and stared up through the darkness at the ceiling, frightened by the knowledge, trying to remember how I had come to this place. But my memories were shattered, my nerves shot. It didn't occur to me at the time to wonder how my eyes were collecting enough photons to see so clearly in the dead of night, in the middle of a rainstorm.
After finding the strength to haul myself up to a sitting position, I noticed something that made my heart race even faster. My shirt had been torn to rags, and blood had distorted its original color. Concerned, I checked myself for injuries, but found nothing. The blood wasn't mine. This did not, however, put me at ease. On the contrary, it worried me even more; I winced at the bright slaughterhouse smell.
What's happening to me? The question rumbled through my head as I considered the strange connections my senses were making with my surroundings. Sharpness and acuity and accuracy were words too weak to describe my current level of sensory perception. Yet it wasn't until I felt a vague disturbance in the air pressure and looked over my shoulder that I realized I wasn't alone in the shack. A young woman lay unconscious or asleep on the floor. She too had bloodstains on her clothes; but although she looked like she'd gone through hell, she appeared to be unharmed. I could tell from the smell that the blood wasn't hers; it was human, but male.
Staring at her, pressing my hands to my temples in the face of the sensory onslaught, I couldn't help but notice how attractive she was. The long red curls that rested on the side of her chiseled face contrasted with her milky-white skin, which seemed almost airbrushed. Who was she? And more importantly, what was she doing here? I fought hard to remember, but everything remained unclear. My head was spinning and I felt exhausted, as if I'd just run a marathon carrying weights on my shoulders. I could feel the lactic acid poisoning my muscle fibers. I was also starving; I felt like I hadn't eaten in days. I was shaky, my mouth dry and bitter, and my body had already started to break down muscle tissue for energy. I knew without thinking about it that I'd already lost 1.23 pounds, and had no significant body fat left.
But none of that mattered as much as the acute increase in sensory perception I was experiencing. All my senses—sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, balance, even the sense of where my body parts were and how I carried myself (proprioception, my brain supplied helpfully) had been somehow intensified. I could close my eyes and literally feel everything around me.
But my coordination betrayed me the moment I tried to rise to my feet; I ended up on my hands and knees instead. The bitter taste in my mouth made my lower jaw tingle with nausea, and a disgusting yellowish bile splashed out of my mouth and onto the floorboards. After my body's expulsion of the revolting stuff, I began to feel better, or at least strong enough to get up and lumber around the room. The shack was pretty much empty with the exception of a few broken crates, some old newspapers strewn on the floor, and a big old pot, which was now catching rainwater from the leaky roof.
Hoping to find a clue as to where I was, I stumbled to the only unboarded window and peered out. But the rain had been accompanied by an impenetrable bank of fog, adding to the already spooky atmosphere of the pitch-black night.
Refocusing my eyes on the cloudy window, I used it as a mirror and considered my reflection. I looked just like I felt: like crap. My face was tired and strained, and my eyes were bloodshot. Not a pretty sight, especially for someone like me. You see, my Sicilian heritage has endowed me with these big, bold, brown eyes that—although rated as attractive by some—most people would consider to be extremely intimidating. But that wasn't the case that night. My eyes were weary, and they looked almost as black as the night.
Come on, Victor! I encouraged myself, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Wake up!” I yelled, hoping this was just another one of my nightmares. But as the echoes of my words crashed through the vault of my skull, and I ran my fingers through my thick black hair—another gift of my Sicilian heritage—I realized this nightmare was real.
The girl on the floor moaned suddenly, and turned over onto her back. I knew she had to know what was happening, yet the notion of finding out the truth suddenly slid a chill down my spine. It was as if I was subconsciously afraid to remember.
I turned back to the window and embraced myself, shivering.
And then it hit me: The pain in my head was gone! The horrible pain that had tormented me for years was gone!
Three years before, I'd sustained a major head injury in an automobile accident. The physical and psychological aftermath of that event had haunted me since, but probably not as much as the painful memory of how it happened.
My best friend Xavier and I had decided to drive home from school for winter break—a four-hour trip from Utica, New York to Weehawken, New Jersey. We wanted to spend the holidays with our families, who hadn't seen much of us for the previous six months, due to our hectic schedules. Xavier studied management, while I was the geek in the mathematics/physics program; and though we shared a few classes together, that wasn't the basis of our friendship. Xavier and I met not long after my father decided to sell our old house and move us out of the neighborhood I was born into. I was twelve years old at the time, and I was heartbroken. Everything that I ever knew and loved was in that neighborhood, and when we left, I knew I was never going back again.
That was the real purpose of my father's decision to move, which had not been made based on typical circumstances.
My mother left us when I was six, and my father didn't take it well. He was devastated, yet never lost hope that one day, she'd come back. But after six years of waiting, his hope became a dagger that twisted in his heart every time he thought of her. He used to say that everything reminded him of her, so I guess he figured that the only way to remove the dagger from his heart was to leave all the memories behind.
What he didn't count on was the fact that memories, unlike people, don't live in houses or neighborhoods. They live in you. And no matter where you go, you always take them with you. After we settled in our new home, a hundred miles away from our old one, I became depressed, especially when it came time to go back to school. It was then that I met Xavier. He befriended me and helped me through the most difficult transition of my life. After being my best friend through middle school, high school, and college, he became the closest thing I'd ever had to a brother.
But I digress. Xavier seemed pretty happy to be heading home to his family's Christmas party—which despite my protests, he kept inviting me to. The truth is, I don't like crowded places. I'm not claustrophobic or anything; I just like to keep to myself, and that wasn't a possibility in Xavier's house. He had a very big family. He was the third of five brothers and sisters, his parents had never divorced, and all his grandparents were still alive—not to mention his aunts and uncles and all the annoying neighbors who were going to be there too. So it wasn't really my kind of scene. Besides, I wasn't going to be alone for the holidays; I was coming home to my lonely yet lovable drunkard of a father, who was all the family I'd ever needed—which was pretty lucky, considering he was the only family I ever got.
After finally getting Xavier out of his dorm room, I helped him stuff the back of his beat-up station wagon with our bags and a whole bunch of Christmas presents, which presented a challenge when it came time to close the hatchback door. “Maybe we should strap the bags on top of the car. What do you think?” Xavier asked.
“No way! You don't have a luggage rack.”
“So?”
“So without a flat surface on top of the roof, you won't have the stability to strap them down tightly enough. Not to mention that it would produce enough wind resistance to considerably increase our gas costs. Plus, it could more than double our ETA.”
“Are you running your stupid numbers again?”
“No,” I lied, “and numbers are not stupid!”
Xavier used to hate the fact that I related everything to mathematics. But what can I say? It was my passion and my way of making sense of the world...though I have to admit I could become quite annoying about it. But I didn't let that stop me from giving Xavier a hard time, or vice-versa. “Can you please forget about your stupid equations for just one day? Besides, we're supposed to be feeling the holiday spirit,” he noted, getting behind the wheel after finally getting the rear door closed. “So please! Don't make me throw you out of a moving vehicle in the middle of the highway. All right?”
“Fair enough,” I chuckled.
“What the hell is an ETA, anyway?”
I couldn't help but laugh as he drove away.
We knew the trip was going to be rough. A big snowstorm had already struck New York, and it was moving in our direction. We started to see the snowfall as soon as we hit I-90 East, but it didn't seem bad at first, so we didn't pay too much attention to it.
“Listen, I know I already asked, and you said no, but I really think that you and your dad should come over and spend Christmas Eve with us,” Xavier offered yet again. “There's going to be plenty of food, and you guys can open some of your Christmas presents with us, and—”
“I appreciate it,” I interjected. “But you know my dad… He's not what you'd call a people person. Besides, we have our own traditions for the holidays.”
“Oh yeah, I know!” Xavier cast me a disapproving look. “But I don't think that listening to a Barry Manilow drown-me-in-the-ocean-'cause-I'm-so-depressed song while downing a bottle of Scotch is the best way to celebrate the holidays.”
“Oh, come on,” I countered defensively. “He's not that bad.” Which was a lie.
“I'm just saying, man. I love your dad, don't get me wrong, but he gets real depressed around this time of year.”
Though Xavier had pointed out the obvious, I couldn't help justifying my dad's behavior. “He's like an old dog, you know? He's not going to change. Besides, it's what makes him happy.”
“Torturing himself while getting drunk makes him happy?” He took turns watching the road and giving me his are-you-serious? look.
“Can we change the subject?” I countered again.
“Whatever,” he said, before giving me the silent treatment for the next few miles.
“Lay Me Down,” I said out of the blue.
“Huh?” He frowned.
“The Barry Manilow song that my dad listens to. It's Lay Me Down.”
“Riiiiight.” He shook his head as if giving up on my stubbornness.
Nightfall caught up with us just before we reached the fork with I-87 South. I kept scanning for a clear radio station, but kept getting the same annoying static every time I turned the dial. “Will you knock it off?” Xavier complained. “Nothing's coming through, dude.”
I didn't respond; I just turned the radio off and sighed. I couldn't believe how much snow had fallen in the past five minutes alone. The blizzard had turned the road into a mess of sleet and ice; yet nothing was as bad as the visibility, which was nearly zero. The windshield wipers were going at full speed, and the defroster was blasting at full power, but neither seemed to help with our visibility problem. By the time we switched highways, we were no longer able to see the vehicles around us, let alone the dividing lines on the road. A short horizon and the highway barrier were our only points of reference.
“I think we should stop,” I advised Xavier, who was growing nervous behind the wheel.
“Stop where?” he yelped, “in the middle of the road?”
“I don't know. Just pull over!” I insisted.
“And then what?” he demanded. “No! We have to find an exit, a rest area, or something. Stopping in the middle of the road would be just as dangerous as continuing to drive.”
Though I understood the logic in his words, I could also see the fear growing in his eyes. The blizzard made minutes feel like hours. Xavier decided to pick up the speed in order to get to the nearest exit as fast as possible. I knew that wasn't a good idea, but the storm had gotten so bad that I, too, just wanted to find a place to stop. Xavier was beginning to lose his cool, and I couldn't blame him. The wind was gusting now, causing the snow on the ground to swirl in front of the windshield.
“What the hell!” he shouted in frustration. “This is ridiculous!” In my nearly twenty years, I had never seen a storm so fierce.
“Hey, is that what I think it is?” Xavier pointed to a very dim light further ahead, hoping for an exit from this nightmare.