I first fell in with Black October in college. It was the next-to-last year of my doctoral program and, as usual, I was ridiculously drunk at the little beer bar near the university. I was the next thing to completely pissed on imported, Belgian ale bought with grant money. It wasn't common to see superpowers back then; it's not common today, I supposed, but it seems like it because of media inundation. Nevertheless, everyone regarded it as a possibility, the same way people who live in the bad parts of towns regard drive-by shootings as a possibility. The majority of Compton's residents have never been accosted and brutalized by gang members; the news, Hollywood and rap might have you believe otherwise.
Even so, my first thought when I saw the hulking mass bent over the girl at the bus stop wasn't, there's a superhuman over there. It was more like, that big guy is getting up to some kind of fuckery with that passed-out girl. Alcohol makes heroes of us all, so I made my way over to investigate. I want to stress, I didn't seriously think anything would happen, even on a mundane scale. I thought, at most, the appearance of another conscious person on the scene would force the overly desperate homeless man or overly amorous frat guy to move along. When I judged myself in hearing range, I cleared my throat. When the man didn't move, I shuffled closer and asked, "What's going on there, Guy?" I would have liked a more dramatic opening phrase, but I didn't know what the night had planned.
When the thing turned to face me I remember thinking, "He's unfortunately ugly." Then its features clicked into place in my mind. The darkness covering its body was not clothing, but rough fur; the sloping belly, cast iron muscle rather than a beer gut. It's protruding lips pulled back over pointed, curving teeth. The sodium vapor streetlight cast just enough illumination to give the blood on its teeth a red, fresh-strawberries, hue.
Before my body could react, before my mind registered anything but shock, the carnivorous ape had me. One of its great hands clamped down over my shoulder and it lifted me into the air. I am not a little guy. It roared; reverb fed through a child's nightmare. The sound split the world. Tears ran down my face in rivers. My teeth vibrated. Its breath smelled like burning metal and onions. My stomach turned and, bizarrely, I thought a quick prayer to Jesus, asking not to throw up. I hate throwing up.
I kicked out with both feet, steel toed boots catching in the thick muscle of the ape's abdomen. I may as well have been a struggling puppy.
That's when I heard someone call out. I found out later the word was Chimeran, though my buzzing ears translated it to "Cimmerian". The word filled me with an irrational kind of hope. If a monstrosity from a Robert E. Howard story had appeared in the city streets to murder me, why wouldn't Conan the Barbarian appear to save me.
My shoulder dislocated as the ape slammed me into the cement sidewalk next to the bus stop's wire bench. The ground felt sticky, like I'd landed in drying fruit preserves; the girl's congealing blood. Looking up, I saw the baseball size chunks of flesh torn from her upper arm and right breast. It roared again. This time, I heard mad rage in its howl, clearly distinct from the dominance challenge moments before. It feels important to note that there's no way I could know its intent with each roar. I don't know anything about animal behavior beyond what everyone who has cable picks up from National Geographic or Animal Planet; more like something inside me, a holdout from before we ruined the world with carbon emissions and reality TV, caught the ape's intention and bowed down before it.
I tried to sit up, ended up on an elbow, trying to process what had happened through the haze of 9% beers and a likely concussion. That's when I saw the angel. I know, for some, that's a term of endearment or a flowery description of a pretty girl. That's not what I'm going for here. I saw a figure, in the absolute physical prime of his youth, untamed hair blowing in a breeze I couldn't feel; and the glow. He shined, not brightly enough to hurt the eyes, but enough to warrant the descriptor luminous, like looking at the full moon on a clear night.
The gorilla charged in a kind of graceful shamble that ended in a swipe with one forepaw and successive kicks with his feet. All three passed through the glowing man as if he were a hologram in a science fiction movie, his whole visage flickering and going unsteady. He then sidestepped, extended an arm, reaching into the carnivorous ape's barrel chest, and jerked, as if pulling the handle of a slot machine. The monster's legs gave out and it fell back on its haunches, breathing heavily, stunned.
The glowing man walked to me and knelt. He spoke, but by then the adrenaline that had been keeping me conscious was starting to run out. The last thing I remember before waking up in the private room of that same local beer bar, was placing the black, orange and yellow of his uniform. Black October.
Terrorists, huh?
Cheers,
-B.H.
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