Exceptional - Part 6 - Conclusion

This is the final chaoter of our ongoing fictional series. Hope you've read the previous 5 episodes and enjoyed them. Without further ado...

James opened his eyes slowly to see his mother sitting on the side of his bed.

“Good morning, Jimmy,” she said, placing a hand on his forehead. “Doesn’t look like you have a fever anymore, but you still better get some sleep. I already called school, so you just get your rest. I have to go help grandma with a few errands, but I’ll be back by lunch time, okay?”

While she was talking, James was attempting to get over his surprise that he was still alive. Having done that, he hesitated in answering due to his surprise that he was in his room, not the hospital.

“Okay,” he said in a quiet and confused voice. His mother took his confusion as fatigue and found it adorable.

She smiled at James and left his room, closing the door behind her. Her footsteps went down the hall. A door opened and closed. The car started and James listened to the sound of the engine move away from the house, slowly at first, then faster until it was gone.

James was in his room by himself. Alive.

For a moment, James thought the whole night must have been a dream. Maybe some of it was real and in his anger and embarrassment he dreamt the rest. Maybe he really had been very sick with a fever and had hallucinated the whole thing.

In a revelation, James kicked the blankets from his body and pulled up his t-shirt. There, on his stomach, was a dark purple bruise about the size and shape of a silver dollar. The rest of his skin around it was yellow and greenish.

He touched it lightly and winced in pain.

“Damn, that hurts,” he said to himself. While he didn’t enjoy having the bruise, James thought it was better than the hole that should have be there.

How could this be? James wondered.

He thought the shot might have been off. Had he been on his side and the bullet simply glanced off his skin, not puncturing it? He thought he’d heard of something like that happening before.

Or maybe there was a malfunction with the man’s gun. Or perhaps it wasn’t a real gun at all. Maybe it was a paint gun or pellet gun.

James was standing shirtless in front of the full length mirror on the back of his bedroom door, wondering all of this and inspecting the extent of his bruising. He turned to see more bruises on his back, and then heard the overhead door of the garage going up.

Thinking his mother must have forgotten something, James threw on his shirt and jumped back into bed.

The car’s engine shut off and its door opened and closed. The door into the house opened then and footsteps made their way toward James’ bedroom. James closed his eyes and turned his head so that his mother would think he was asleep.

The door to his room opened and there was silence. James considered opening his eyes and turning to look, but instead took a deep, snore-like breath.

There were more footsteps, then weight pushing down on the side of his bed as his visitor sat.

“I thought she’d never leave,” his father’s voice said.

James instantly felt like he was back on the floor of that garage, fading out of consciousness, being saved by someone he couldn't see. He could practically feel his father's hand lifting his head from the concrete again.

In one motion, James opened his eyes, sat up and threw his arms around his father. James held on tightly and tears welled in his eyes. There were also tears in his father’s eyes for a moment, but they were gone before James noticed them.

When they separated from their embrace, James wiped the tears away quickly. “What happened?” James asked.

“First, let’s see your bruise.”

James lifted his shirt to show his father what he had just been looking at. His father winced on James’ behalf and then reached out to touch it.

“Don’t,” James said and pulled away.

“Relax,” his father assured him. “I’m trying to help. Just let me touch it.”

“It hurts bad,” James protested.

“Trust me,” his father said. “You think I pulled you out of there last night and told your mother you had a fever and should stay home from school just so I could torture you?”

James thought it over.

“Just let me touch it.”

With this, James conceded and braced for the pain as his father’s hand drew closer. Yet, when his father placed his palm over the bruise, the pain was nowhere near as bad as when he’d touched it himself just moments ago. When his father took his hand off of it, James even thought the bruise looked smaller and not as dark.

James started to ask, “What did you…” when his father held up a finger to interrupt him.

“Now, we talk about what happened last night,” he said. “What were you doing there?”

James explained. He told his father the whole story. He told him of the scent, how he ran from the men the first time and about the dreams he had. He described in painful detail the way the men stormed the garage, how he nearly took them all, how much the gunshot hurt and how he thought he was dead.

He went back to describe the previous events of the day to include his confrontation in the hallway at school. He went far back enough to include his tale of dodge ball glory and even the dent in his locker door. James figured if his father knew how different and how strong he had felt as of late, maybe he wouldn’t seem quite as stupid for going into such a bad neighborhood and trying to save that girl.

James went on for several minutes and his father let him. As James spoke, his father listened in silence. He gave James his full attention and nodded occasionally, nothing more.

After James felt like he’d gotten it all out and made his case, he ended by saying, “I just had to do something. I couldn’t leave that girl alone.”

James’ father nodded in agreement and then there was a long silence as they stared at one another.

“You certainly did something alright,” his father said finally.

James laughed a little, but looked at his father as he did to find a stone serious face looking back at him. He stopped laughing.

“James, you almost got yourself killed.”

“I know,” James said and looked down.

His father’s hand came to his chin and pushed it back up.

“When I’m disappointed in you, you can look down,” his father told him, “but right now, you keep your chin up because you did a great thing. I’m proud to see what you chose to do last night. Be proud of yourself.”

His father sighed and continued. “But, to be honest, I am scared. You are obviously special and talented and…exceptional, like I knew you would be. But if you don’t understand your own power, your own ability, things have the potential to go very wrong. I just want you to know that before you do anything like you did last night again.”

James nodded and then asked, “How did you know?”

“That you were special?”

“Exceptional,” James corrected him.

His father smiled. “The odds were in your favor,” he said. “Knowing that, I saw the ease with which things came to you as you grew up. School was never a problem for you. Any sport you felt like playing, you were great at. Don’t you remember how you were riding your bike faster than all your friends?”

“I guess,” James said.

“And tell me, James, when was the last time you remember having cut yourself on anything?”

“Oh my God,” James whispered, then said excitedly, “So I have powers. And you have powers. Are we super heroes?!”

“Easy,” his father said. “It’s not like the comic books and the movies, but we have special talents, just like your grandfather and great grandfather did.”

“What powers did they have?” James asked.

“That’s for another day.”

“Well, I have super smell and super strength and...” James thought for a moment. “Is that it? That would kinda suck.”

“It doesn’t suck,” James’ father protested. “Your sense of smell allowed you to find that girl. You probably picked up on certain pheromones or her sweat or even adrenaline, like smelling fear. Your strength helped you fight those men. You’re also very smart and very fast. I followed you after you climbed out the window last night, but I couldn’t keep up. I lost you.” His father put his hand on James’ shoulder. “I was a nervous wreck when I lost you.”

“Yeah, but you can fly, right? That’s how you found me?”

“No!” James’ father explained. “That’s comic book stuff. Nobody can fly. Strength, intelligence, energy, stuff like that. That’s real. People like us have enhancements to existing talents. I can’t fly.”

“Then how’d you find me?”

“I knew which way you had gone and heard gunshots.” He paused for a moment and James saw fear in his father’s eyes. “I went toward the shots and, thank God, I found you. I just jumped through the roof, no flying.”

“But you landed right on that guy. How’d you know where he was?”

“I can see through things. I saw him, I saw him pointing the gun at you. I saw you climb out of the window earlier last night. I saw you had a broken rib from the bullet even though it couldn’t go through your skin.”

“So I have super strong skin, too,” James said.

“It looks that way, but let’s give the super stuff a rest, okay?” his father said, smiling and shaking his head. Then he looked at his watch and said, “James, I need to go. Your mother will be back soon and she can’t know about any of this, okay? At least not yet.”

“Okay,” James said, even though he wanted to know more. He wondered if his father was out most nights, fighting crime or if his grandfather had used his abilities in World War II. James even wondered if one of his ancestors had gone down a different path and been a super villain.

“I know you have a lot of questions,” James’ father said, making James wonder if he could read minds as well. “But we’ll talk more about this tonight. For now, you get your rest and remember that I’m proud of you. Not everybody decides to help people with their talents, but you did. I’m so proud of you for that.”

“Thanks, dad,” James said.

“Well, you had me worried there for a while. You seemed to be acting a bit selfish and reckless.”

“I know,” James said and smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”

His father stared at him a while longer, then sighed and came back to James’ bed. He embraced James again. “And James, do me a favor,” his father said with his arms still around him. “Next time, tell me before you go running off pulling a stunt like that. You remember when I told you to come talk to me if anything was different?”

“Yeah?”

James’ father stood and made his way back to the door. “You’re not alone out there,” he said finally. “When things get dark and ugly and you think you’re the only one who can or wants to do anything about it, just remember that you’re not alone.”

With that, he shut the door and James heard the car start and pull away from the house.

James sat on his bed with his head buzzing in excitement. It all had been real and his father really was something more exceptional than he had ever let on. James felt the pride his father told him he ought to have. He had saved a young girl last night from certain death. He imagined all the other things he could do in the future now that he knew for sure he was different. The world seemed brand new to James and he had so many questions.

The most surprising thing of all was that, for the first time that he could remember, James was looking forward to having a long talk with his father when he got home.

The End. Thanks for reading.