So I decided to do something a little different and post  a chapter from my work in progress, The Last Hero. Hope you enjoy!

May 1st, 2015

The poorly lit tavern reeked of cigarette smoke and old sweat. At one end of the bar an old man had been arguing with the bartender for the better part of an hour. One minute he was ranting about the city’s undisciplined youth and the next he was arguing about the corporate elite sucking all the money from the people. It was enough to drive someone mad, but luckily for him the bartender seemed to own an iron constitution. In a dark corner of the room a couple sat at a corner table, heads bowed, seemingly more interested in their drinks than each other. She sipped on a light beer while he stirred his martini with his finger. Besides them there had been only one other person in the place. The lone stranger at the opposite end of the bar cradled his drink as if he were about to make love to it. He bowed his head while both hands cupped the glass in a lover’s embrace. The hood of his sweatshirt hung loosely around his face like a cowl. No one in the bar, with the exception of the bartender occasionally checking up on him, paid any real attention to him. That had been fine for him. He loved the solitude which was the primary reason for frequenting the place. It certainly wasn’t for the liquor, which was overpriced and watered down.

The old man ceased his arguing long enough to run to the bathroom. The bartender used this welcomed break to wander over and check on the hooded stranger.

“How ya doing buddy?” He smiled and motioned toward the glass. “Do you need me to fill her up?”

The stranger swallowed what was left and nodded. He slammed it down on the bar and slid it toward the bartender. “Don’t bother putting any ice in it,” he growled. “This crap doesn’t need any more water.”

The barkeep nodded slightly and his smile wavered. He measured the stranger, eyeballing him to see if he had a bit too much liquor in him. The last thing he needed was a violent drunk. Eventually he decided the stranger was okay at the moment and departed to fill up his glass. When he returned he slid the glass gingerly across the bar. The stranger looked up and pulled the hood back. Dark brown hair, greasy with sweat, fell lifelessly across his forehead. He flicked it away from his dark, hollow eyes and grunted. He had the look of a man who had just crawled from a ten year bender in a darkened wine cellar. Salt and pepper beard stubble landscaped the lower half of his face where tiny specks of his last meal could be found.

Junkie. That was the bartender’s first reaction. However, when the stranger lifted the glass to his lips a sense of familiarity came over him. When the stranger put the glass down, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled the bartender took a step back. He recognized him.

“Holy cow, it can’t be!” he exclaimed with eyes as wide as saucers. “It’s you!”

The stranger’s smile faded and his eyes closed. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He reached into his pocket and produced a pack of cigarettes and a plastic lighter molded into the shape of a firetruck. He shoved the cigarette in his mouth and lit it before quickly shoving it back into his pocket.

“And who might I be?” he muttered.

The bartender nervously cleared his throat. “Hey listen I meant no trouble by my outburst. I just thought….I mean…people said you were dead.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” the stranger responded dryly.

The bartender relaxed slightly and chuckled. “Yeah right.” He removed a rag from his back pocket and wiped the bar down, pretending his curiosity had waned. The stranger eyed him warily, apparently seeing through the ruse. The bartender shrugged and decided to press the matter. “Your name’s Bryan, right?”

Bryan took a long drag on the cigarette and let the smoke drift slowly between his teeth. “Yep.”

“Sorry man, I didn’t mean to get excited like that,” the bartender explained. “It’s just not often we get your kind around here.” He flipped a thumb over his shoulder, toward the old man who had returned from the bathroom and was about to down a shot of Crown Royal. “We usually just get the dregs like him in here.”

“My kind?” Bryan looked up slowly from his glass and placed the cigarette into a nearby ashtray. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The bartender offered a nervous smile in an effort to diffuse the tension. “Celebrities of course.”

Bryan’s sarcastic chuckle echoed throughout the bar. The old man glanced at them with mild curiosity. The couple in the corner didn’t even look up from their drinks. Inside the nearly empty tavern, the laugh sounded like a goose choking.

“Celebrities?” Bryan rasped. “Sure man, whatever floats your boat. Just keep the drinks coming and don’t get all gushy on me. I don’t do autographs.”

The bartender held up his hands. “No, no, nothing like that! Sorry to bother you. How about this? The drink is on the house and we’ll call it even, okay?”

Bryan pointed his finger and cocked his thumb like a gun. “Now you’re talking!” He offered the bartender a broad smile.

The bartender nearly tripped over himself to get back to the old guy. Apparently arguing about the city’s past was better than dealing with a washed up, alcoholic has-been. Bryan didn’t blame the guy, he would probably do the same if roles had been reversed. He picked up his glass and started to drink but stopped when the news popped up on the television which hung over the “Town Tap” sign behind the bar. A masked figure, adorned from head to toe in black body armor with various gadgets attached to a belt around his waist, dragged two handcuffed Hispanic teenagers across the ground toward a fleet of police cars. The police trained their guns on the two teens while the masked figure adjusted a nylon tube attached to his wrist which extended toward a pack on his back. The scene cut away to a reporter who stood about a block away from the action.

“As you can see the hostage scene could have taken a deadly turn had it not been for the heroic intervention of Oracle. According to one eyewitness the police had failed to open a dialogue with the hostage takers who threatened to murder a woman and her unborn baby. Our sources tell us that the two men who took her hostage were former members of the street gang ‘The Raging 86’s’ and the woman had been an ex-girlfriend of one of the leaders who sources say left him when he wouldn’t abandon his criminal lifestyle.”

Oracle stood over the gang bangers who squirmed at the feet of waiting police while onlookers, crowded behind bright yellow police tape with adoration in their eyes, screamed his name. Their faces, flushed with excitement looked upon their hero through bulging eyes as if he were the second coming of Jesus Christ. Oracle was the tenth person to emerge from the Hero Factory and anointed as protector of Crystal City. A hero only served a four year term before passing on to the next. That safety protocol had been put into place when the Hero Factory was created back in 1981. Brady Simmonelli, the Chairman of the Hero Factory, considered it the prime safety protocol. “Power corrupts and we aim to prevent corruption,” he had been quoted as saying when the organization had been founded. Bryan will never forget those words.

“Power corrupts indeed,” Bryan muttered to himself as he watched the action unfold on the television screen.

Since 1981, heroes have been extremely successful year after year when it came to protecting the city. Crime had fallen by seventy-five percent. In 1990 (during the term of Twilight Shadow) a police force had been established within city limits for the first time since 1976. The gangs had been all but eliminated. The Hero Factory had been considered universally a success, with the exception of 2014. Since the Hero Factory had been established no government official came into harm’s way. Every year, officials and their families had been kept under the watchful eye of the heroes and every year they had remained safe. Except 2014. That was the year someone bombed City Hall. Thirty-Five people had been killed including the Mayor, the Police Chief and seven out of ten city council members. That year was a blemish in the history of the city.

Bryan drained the glass and placed it on the bar. He remembered the event as if it had happened yesterday. The hero on duty that year failed and had been kicked out of the Hero Program shortly after. It was the biggest embarrassment suffered by the organization since its inception. Simmonelli was furious and the Hero Factory nearly shut its doors permanently that day.

Bryan threw a wad of cash on the bar and chuckled. A false tip. That’s all it took to throw the hero off. Everyone of importance should have known it was phony. The tip placed the hero on the other side of town that day, dangerously far from City Hall. “Gang activity!” He bellowed with laughter. The bartender and the old guy looked over nervously, as if he would crack and shoot up the place at any minute. Gang activity indeed. The gangs hadn’t had any organized activity in years before that tip came in. The hero on duty should have caught on immediately, had he been paying attention. After the bombing, rumors circulated that the hero was drunk or on drugs at the time. Other rumors spread stating he had been banging a blonde stripper who worked at the Double Deuce located on the same side of town. It was neither. The hero on duty that year happened to lose his wife and child to gang members the year before and was still consumed by grief at their loss. He harbored a private vendetta against the gangs and those bad memories came flooding back that day which filled him with bloodlust and clouded his judgement.

Bryan stepped outside and breathed in the night air which was a welcome relief from the stagnant air of the tavern. Police sirens echoed in the distance. He glanced across the street to see a hooker and her john exchanging money. Despite the Hero Factory, this side of town still harbored the junkies, the whores and the destitute. This was the corrupt side of town rarely patrolled by either hero or cop. This was also the place he called home now. As he watched the hooker and her prize hop into a blue pickup and speed off his thoughts drifted to that day in 2014.

“Heroes,” he scoffed and reached for another cigarette. He shoved it into his mouth and retrieved the lighter. The red color of the fire engine reflected the sodium vapor street lights overhead. “Fuck them all.” He turned and walked down the street becoming one with the shadows.

The bartender and the old guy emerged from the tavern and looked both ways, hoping Bryan was out of earshot. “What the hell was that guy going on about?” the old guy asked.

The bartender clutched the bar rag he still held in his hand and frowned. “Zeke, you drank so much whiskey your brain is mush. Don’t you know who that was?”

Zeke shook his head. “You mentioned the name Bryan Whittaker, Bill, but it don’t ring a bell,” Zeke replied.

Bill sighed. “Do you remember the days of Soulfire?” Zeke cocked his head and continued looking confused which only served to make Bill even more exasperated. “Damn your worthless hide Zeke you don’t remember shit!” He looked down the street to make sure Bryan was really gone. He turned to Zeke and lowered his voice, despite the emptiness of the streets. The overhead lights glistened in his eyes as recalled a distant memory.

“He was the hero on duty when City Hall blew up.”