Ignition

  ignition

  William Hawk

  EchoPress

  MICHIGAN

  Copyright © 2017 by William Hawk

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

  EchoPress

  Michigan

  www.williamhawk.net

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Ignition/ William Hawk

  ISBN 978-0-9992887-2-6

  Digital book(s) (epub and mobi) produced by Booknook.biz.

  Until the supernatural becomes more understandable to the natural world, there is no sense in trying to explain the reasons behind all the stories. There are truths buried in the words of this book, and it’s up to you to discover and find the Proof of them.

  I will, however, try to follow the example of selflessness that my mother displayed her entire life. She not only had eight children, but also fostered twenty-six more. Her love for others was unending. The most amazing thing about her was that she thought everybody was like that. Her zip code is no longer on planet earth, but her life continues to have a butterfly effect on countless individuals.

  What a wonderful place earth would be if everyone echoed love like she did. In your mind, pick someone who you love and do one kind gesture a day in honor of that person. It doesn’t matter if they’re still here or have changed addresses. It will change you, and then that act will change those around you.

  William. Come to me. Grace is here.

  I can give her to you. I can give you all the girls you have wanted, all the things you do without. I can free you from your parents’ chains. Everything—I can give you everything, William. Those around you are weak and pitiful creatures there to serve you.

  Come to me.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CHAPTER ONE

  It happened very clearly on my sixteenth birthday. A switch was thrown inside my brain that gave me access to a world of memories I hadn’t even known I possessed.

  Before that day there had been a smattering of images floating in my memory banks that seemed quite vivid, yet foreign, as though they didn’t belong to me. They had been crammed in there; stacked almost like an onion, layer upon layer, for as long as I could remember. I rarely could access more than the first layer, but I had always sensed there was more.

  There was more, much more, and it was revealed to me on the morning of the first day of the one-hundred-and-ninety-second month of my life.

  What had been mysterious became accessible, what had been indecipherable was decoded, revealing wisdom and knowledge that until that moment had been as far from my grasp as the edge of the universe.

  But before that moment, it had been an ordinary day, as banal as any other. I remember waking up and hearing my brother, Cam, outside playing with our dog, Jett, and thinking, Ugh, another day in paradise. A boring weekend, then an even more boring week at school, no money, no car, still a slave to my parents, still an age where I was supposed to stay in line, get ready for college, shut up, and sit down. I craved adventure and excitement. Freedom. But I was sure that all I would really get was more of the same boring, blah-blah-blah life.

  I slipped on a pair of graying shorts and a crumpled AC/DC T-shirt, a growing feeling of excess energy the only hint of extraordinary things to come. I splashed water on my face and brushed my teeth with the last blob left in a flattened toothpaste tube.

  Heading downstairs, I tripped over a toy near the bottom of the steps. My mood morphed in the blink of an eye. I was a teenager. That’s what happens. “Jett,” I shouted to nobody, “why do you have to leave your bone at the bottom of the steps?”

  My mother was in the kitchen. She called out matter-of-factly, “He’s a dog, William.”

  Grumbling, I went to the refrigerator and yanked it open and stood there, staring at the ketchup and week-old Tupperware leftovers, in the way that we guys do when foraging for food. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “It’s lunchtime,” my mother said, “and I’ve made your favorite.”

  I glanced over. A small pot of tomato soup was bubbling, and a sandwich in the grill pan was browning, caramelizing in a lovely way. The scent of grilling cheese reached my nostrils.

  “Look at the clock, honey,” she said.

  I did. It read 12:27 p.m. “So?”

  “You were born exactly sixteen years ago this minute.”

  Oh, yeah. My birthday. I plopped down at the kitchen table.

  My mother, a tiny woman with giant waves of curly brown hair that swished back and forth as she walked, hauled over the steaming bowl of soup and the grilled cheese sandwich. “Happy birthday,” she said. “Sixteen is a big year. My little boy is becoming a man. You will do great things for this family and the world.”

  She planted a kiss on the top of my head, but I couldn’t feel it. Something strange was going on. Her voice faded and compressed, as though it were coming from some faraway place. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head.

  Something weird was suddenly happening inside my skull. Was I going bonkers? Was I having a stroke? I fought back panic.

  I peered around, feeling oddly changed. In the next nanosecond, my vision telescoped. My internal processor accelerated. I saw the kitchen, the house, the neighborhood, the world, and the universe, all bound together in a breathtaking, vibrating, color-saturated web. I grasped the table edge in a death grip with both hands and held tightly, my palms sweating against the wood. It felt as though gravity itself had amplified and was dragging me down in a series of cascading waves, each more powerful than the last. I was caught in the break zone of something vast and terrifying. I was horrified and exhilarated at the same time. What the heck was happening? Was it a brain tumor?

  My mother had turned her back to me, cleaning up the kitchen. “Any big plans today?” she asked cheerily as my mind soared.

  “Nope,” I croaked, steadying myself, and then I staggered for the safety of my room.

  I didn’t know it, but my First Activation had just occurred.

  In my room, I lay on my bed, catching my breath. I carefully positioned my head on my pillow and faced the ceiling. This was how Newton invented calculus, I remembered. He stared at his ceiling, studied the patterns in the wood, and built a new grammar of mathematics. Like me, he also thought he was going crazy.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. The simple act of thinking had changed, and my enhanced awareness was struggling to adjust to linear time. Memories of things that had once been nothing more than whispers in my consciousness were now as vivid and as concrete as if they had just happened. In my mind’s eye, I was seeing people I’d never known, and yet I somehow knew. They opened their mouths to speak to me…then dissolved into nothingness.

  I realized I had to accept that something extraordinary w
as happening to me, though I wasn’t sure what or how. Yet, somehow I knew that I didn’t need a doctor or a shrink. I needed a plan.

  The things that I had spent time thinking about before were now shuffled far back on my list of priorities. First, how was I going to navigate as part of my family without giving away the monumental change I’d just experienced? And what abilities did I really have? Was I now a superhero? Did I have extraordinary powers?

  I wasn’t sure. My gaze bounced from one object in my room to the next; it was as though I was unable to rest my eyes on one thing for too long. I blinked absently at the space posters above my bed. Then it hit me: What if I could move one of them with my mind? Telekinetically? It sounds crazy, but at that incredible moment, it seemed far from impossible.

  I decided to try ripping a poster off the wall using nothing but mental powers. I propped myself up on my elbows and zeroed in on the poster, concentrating to the point of nearly giving myself a migraine. I couldn’t get even the edge of the poster to roll up. Then I glanced over at my dresser, where an old fake Babe Ruth signed baseball sat on top. I squinted hard at it. Roll, you stupid ball. Roll. It didn’t budge.

  Last try. I plucked a penny off my nightstand and held it in my palm. I placed my other hand two inches above it. I concentrated with all my might, mentally trying to force the penny to leap. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I imagined, the penny didn’t even flutter.

  I was not a superhero. I knew I was something different now, and I was sure the powers that I had just tried to control were in me, somewhere. Most importantly, I knew—I knew—that I had come into existence through a black hole.

  And then the name Hunter came to me. I tensed.

  Who the hell was Hunter?

  Suddenly there was the fleeting image of a man who looked at me with cold eyes and had this wacked-out wink. As that image faded away another replaced it. It was a helmet. It floated in the air, spinning 360 degrees, and looked kind of like a hologram.

  Then it was gone.

  I jumped to my feet and paced my room like a feral animal. I couldn’t shake it. The image of the helmet had imprinted itself in my mind—large, round, deep blue, with short twin antennae and a horizontal band of circuitry across the forehead.

  And what was up with that creepy dude winking at me?

  That was it. I couldn’t let my thoughts go any further. I had to control this, keep it to myself, because if this wasn’t enough to get me a free room with four padded walls, I didn’t know what was. I walked over to my dresser and gazed at myself in the mirror. Here I was, still a kid, really, and out of the blue my life, my brain, my memories, my entire being had changed in an instant. But all around me, things were the same. Mom was in the kitchen. Dad was probably in the garage workshop, tinkering as usual. I wanted to tell them everything.

  But no one would believe me.

  I struggled to my feet, clutching my head. I would talk to my father, but in a roundabout way. He could help.

  I stepped into the garage and found my father hunched over his worktable, a soldering iron in his hand. The blue flame reflected in the protective goggles on his eyes. His workshop was of the mad-scientist variety, kind of wacky and crowded with gadgets nobody but he understood.

  “Hang on one minute,” he said, scratching his bald melon. Seeing that made me wonder again if my hair would fall out someday. Lucky me.

  I stood at the back of the room and looked around. This was my dad’s den, his happy place, where he had the freedom to experiment with his endless wild ideas. He’d been trained as an electrical engineer and was proud to keep himself on the cutting edge. For a long time, he’d been working on improving battery storage, the great white whale of the field. I didn’t know if he was still doing that anymore, because it was hard to get information out of him.

  He turned off the soldering iron and lifted his goggles, blinking his bulgy blue eyes at me. “What is it, William?”

  “I had a dream,” I said, “and someone came to me and showed me a helmet.”

  “A helmet.”

  I nodded. “It was about this big.” I spread my hands. “And it was blue, and there were two antennae, short ones.”

  I could tell my dad was trying not to smile. “Can you describe anything else about it?”

  “There was circuitry along the top, right above the forehead.”

  “Hmm.” He thought about that. “What do you think was this helmet’s purpose?”

  “I don’t know, but I feel like I’m supposed to make it.”

  My dad finally broke out into a big smile. “And you want your old man’s help?”

  “Yeah. What could the thing be?”

  He drummed his fingers against the workbench. “It came to you in a dream.”

  “Yeah, like it was a communication from someone in another universe or something.”

  “But it wasn’t an astronaut’s helmet.”

  “No,” I said, “there was no faceplate. It was all open.”

  “But what does it do?”

  I rubbed my forehead. “Maybe… it might help me think?”

  “Think how?

  “I don’t know. Get more out of my brain.”

  “Well, that couldn’t hurt. They’re developing technology now to read our thoughts.”

  “Maybe it’s something paranormal.”

  My dad thought about that and grew pensive. “There’s been some interesting progress in the world of ghost hunters. EVPs and such.” He stroked his chin. “Is it okay if I sketch something out? Sometimes that helps me think.”

  “Sure.”

  “Stay here. This will just take five minutes.”

  My dad rummaged around until he finally produced a piece of drafting paper. Meanwhile, I roamed through the garage, looking at the debris, cut-up wires, discarded bits of cable, discarded motherboards, electrician’s pliers.

  I heard a sound behind me, and Jett trotted up to me with a drool-slicked toy bone in his mouth, the same bone I had tripped over. But as soon as we made eye contact, he stopped in his tracks. I watched as he began to tremble. Slowly, my faithful pet sank to the ground, as though someone were letting the air out of an inner tube.

  I reached my hand down to pet him, and he let loose a strange yelp and slunk backward. I yanked my hand back.

  My father looked up. “Quit hurting him, William.”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “It sure sounds like you are.”

  The dog slunk off. But my dad didn’t go back to his work with the drafting paper. Instead he stared at my hand.

  “What’s on your hand, son?”

  I looked down. An X had formed on the back of my left hand. I felt my heart accelerate, my chest tighten. What the hell? I had no idea what it was, but I bucked up, tried to appear nonchalant.

  “It’s just something I drew in class,” I lied. “Inside joke. Arthur drew one, too.”

  “Hope it comes off easy.” My dad turned back to his desk. “Hey, why don’t you give me a day or so to think about this?”

  “All right. You don’t think I’m crazy?”

  He looked me in the eye. “Of course not, William. There’s a lot about this world we don’t understand yet.”

  I accepted that and turned around to leave the garage.

  “And tell your mother that I want the roast beef for dinner.”

  “Okay.”

  I wandered back into the house and into the bathroom. I bent over the sink and splashed some icy water on my face and watched the beads slide down my cheeks.

  This was really happening.

  I slapped myself on the face. A red welt bloomed on my cheek.

  I went to my room, grabbed my wallet and house keys, and headed out the door.

  I had to go see Arthur.

  Arthur lived two blocks away. He was my best friend, and we’d known each other half our lives. He was a chunky guy with a meaty nose, beaming blue eyes, and too-long arms. He was mechanical too, like my father, and he liked
working on cars. He was in the process of trying to fix up an old green Chevelle that an uncle had given him. He already had his driver’s license and was really trying to get the thing functional. I was supposed to get my license soon, too, but had no ride of my own yet.

  But now, suddenly, getting my license wasn’t even on my radar.

  Arthur was hosing off his car in the driveway. Without even a glance, he turned the hose on me. In half a second my shirt was soaked.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I said.

  “That’s how we greet people around here on their birthday when it’s eighty degrees out, Willie.”

  I should’ve expected something like that from Arthur. He could be such a practical joking pain in the rear.

  “Don’t call me Willie,” I said.

  “Sorry, Willie.”

  I stood there, just staring at him, trying to work up the courage to discuss what I’d been experiencing.

  “You’re acting weird,” he said.

  “I feel weird,” I told Arthur. “It’s not normal what happened to me today.”

  “Everybody turns sixteen, dude—it happened to me four months ago.”

  “No, something else happened. Promise you won’t tell anybody?”

  He continued hosing down his car. “Sure.”

  I sat down on the grass. “Have you ever thought about where we come from?”

  He looked at me, puzzled. “You mean, like, from apes?”

  “No.” I struggled to find the words. “I don’t know. Just…I’ve been thinking about how I maybe existed someplace else, before this life.”

  “You talking reincarnation?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” I described everything to him, the visions, the telescoping reality, the guy and the helmet. The words came tumbling out of my mouth. I must have sounded strange because he shut the hose off and leaned against his car with his arms crossed.

  “And this too,” I said.

  “What?”

  I held out my left hand for him to see the strange cross. His eyes squinched. “William, you can’t draw on yourself and say that some alien left his mark…”