🚀 go-pugleaf

THE STORY SO FAR...

   When Phil Richardson moved to Wilcox Township from the big city,
he expected to be treated as an outcast -- but the isolated farm
community already had its outcast, a red-haired girl named Becky-Sue
Tyler, universally snubbed by classmates and teachers alike.  Phil's
interest in Becky-Sue was discouraged by the other students and by
Becky-Sue herself, who challenged the newcomer to an arm-wrestling
match in a ploy intended to get rid of him.  To the amazement of
Becky-Sue and the entire school, Phil won, easily overcoming Becky-
Sue's phenomenal super-strength.  The others assumed that Phil must
have super powers as well, while Phil, knowing that he had no powers
at all, assumed that Becky-Sue had somehow tricked the rest of the
town into believing in her non-existent abilities.  After some
experimentation, Phil and Becky-Sue discovered that Phil had the
ability to see Becky-Sue's powers as a glowing field under her skin,
and to nullify them with a touch.
   A romance began to bud between Phil and Becky-Sue, but Becky-Sue
insisted that their relationship was doomed because of a dark secret
from her past that would eventually tear them apart, no matter how
much Phil argued otherwise.  That afternoon, Phil was visited by
Judge Parker, an imposing figure who ran virtually every aspect of
the community.  The Judge told Phil that Becky-Sue had been
responsible for the deaths of both of her parents, through the
accidental misuse of her powers.  Phil defied the Judge's suggestion
that he stop seeing Becky-Sue, discovering in the process that the
Judge had powers of his own in the form of telepathic persuasion,
which the Judge himself did not even realize he was using.
   Phil visited Becky-Sue at home and met her guardian, Uncle Clem,
an electronics genius who was the son of Judge Parker and former
friend of Becky-Sue's parents, though no relation to either of them.
After dinner, Phil and Becky-Sue reaffirmed their commitment to each
other, and it seemed they were well on the way to a happy ending.
   That night, Phil had a strange dream about a mysterious man who
lived six thousand years in the past and called himself the Giver.
The Giver explained that he was the one responsible for distributing
"Gifts" like Becky-Sue had received, and "Charms" like the one that
allowed Phil to nullify Becky-Sue's Gifted power.  It was the duty of
the Charmed to punish the Gifted when Gifts were abused and,
apparently, the killing of Becky-Sue's parents had been enough of an
abuse for the Giver to assign another Charmed to administer the
punishment -- which was invariably death.

AND NOW...

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                   PARIAH #12: "Calling the Bluff"
         Copyright 1994, Greg Fishbone, all rights reserved.

  Permission is hereby granted to disseminate or reproduce this
  work via electronic means only, for entertainment purposes only,
  and only if all attributions and headers remain in place and the
  text of the work (including attributions and headers) is not
  altered in any way.  Any reproduction of this work for profit of
  any form is strictly forbidden without the express written
  permission of Greg Fishbone.  Hard copy reproduction is limited
  to single copies printed for the use of the user only, and
  cannot be mass produced or disseminated in any way.  All other
  rights not specifically referred to in this notice are reserved
  to Greg Fishbone.  "Pariah", "Wilcox Township", and all
  character names used in this story are trademarks belonging to
  Greg Fishbone, who reserves all rights to their use.  Feedback
  of any kind to fishbone@astro.ocis.temple.edu is always
  appreciated; positive, negative, or bi-polar.  Thanks for
  reading!


   The school bus stop on Jackrabbit Road served all high school
students within a fifteen minute walking radius; six of them,
including Phil.  They sat on a long wooden bench, under a shelter
built decades earlier as part of a now-defunct Greyhound route.
The others regarded Phil with suspicion and anxiety, as he had
expected them to after the previous day's events, but there was
something else as well.  It was something he saw in their facial
expressions, the way they looked at him when they thought he was
not watching, and something he heard in the muted voices they used
to talk about him when he pretended not to be listening.  It was
an almost reverent sense of awe, and it was beginning to get on
his nerves.
   Phil smiled at the others, and as one they turned away and
pretended not to have noticed.  "Nice day, isn't it?" he asked.
   "A little bit too hot," answered one of the girls, and the rest
of her Wilcoxian comrades regarded her with traitorous contempt.
   "Come on, can't we all just be friends?" Phil asked.  Of
course, he did not actually want to be friends with any of these
people even for a moment, but for once he had moral superiority on
his side and he was determined to get some use out of it.
   "I suppose so," said one of the boys.  "After all, *you've*
never murdered anyone, have you?"  The words hung in the air like
morning mist, heavy with significance.  They were a challenge that
Phil could not ignore.
   "You shouldn't have said that," he said with a sad shake of his
head, as he tried to remember whether the boy's name was Elmer or
Alex.  Todd, he finally decided, or at least he *looked* like a
Todd.  Phil rose to his feet and walked slowly and deliberately
toward the Todd's end of the bench, his hands clenched tightly
into fists.
   He was absolutely certain that the Todd would back down, take
back his statement, maybe even get down on his knees and beg
forgiveness.  After all, the Todd surely believed that Phil had
used superhuman strength to defeat Becky-Sue at arm-wrestling, and
Phil was not about to clear up the misunderstanding when it would
be so much more fun to use it to his advantage.  Maybe it was
wrong for him to encourage the Todd's false beliefs.  Maybe it was
wrong for him to bully the Todd into an apology.  Maybe, but Phil
just did not care.  "You should have known that I would feel
honor-bound to defend against any attack on Becky-Sue's honor," he
told the Todd, "even one as clumsy and backhanded as yours."
   As Phil approached, the Todd stood up as well, six inches
taller than Phil and quite a bit more muscular.  The Todd struck a
stubborn pose and looked down at Phil with anger in his eyes,
causing Phil to worry that perhaps he had been wrong after all,
and that his bluff was about to be called in an extremely painful
manner.  "Do you want to see a clumsy backhand?" the Todd asked,
sweeping his hand through the air in front of Phil's face.  Phil
felt the wind from the swat against his cheek, and he realized
that the blow would have probably broken his nose if it had
connected.  Still, he did not blink or show any sign of the fear
he felt, and the Todd's threats did not escalate into violence.
   "What are you doing?" one of the other students hissed at the
Todd.  "He's even stronger'n Becky-Sue, and *she* can bend steel
beams like paperclips!"  The spectators all wore horrified
expressions, but Phil and the Todd both ignored them completely,
locked in each other's gaze.
   "I don't want to hurt you," said Phil, not certain that he even
could.
   "I'm not afraid of you," the Todd sneered.  "I'm not afraid of
Becky-Sue either, and I'm not afraid to say the things that
everyone else keeps to themselves.  Not anymore.  I'm tired of
being afraid."
   "No!" shouted one of the girls on the bench.  "Don't listen to
him, Phil!  He doesn't speak for the rest of us, and he doesn't
speak for me!"
   The Todd pretended not to hear her.  "It's not right, asking us
all to keep her powers a secret from the outside world.  Why
should we shelter a murderer in our township just because the
Judge says we should?  What makes her so special?  If any one of
us killed his or her parents, we'd fry for it -- isn't that right,
Linda?"  He addressed the girl who had spoken out before and
slowly, reluctantly, she nodded in agreement.
   "Becky-Sue never hurt anybody on purpose," said Phil.  "How can
you punish her for something that she had no control over?"  But
even as he said the words, he remembered what the mysterious Giver
had said in his dream the night before.  _The murders of Robert
Tyler and Mary-Beth Tyler were abuses of the Gift.  A Charmed
individual has already been dispatched to punish the Gifted._  And
the Giver had made it clear that the only punishment available was
death.
   The others were arguing now, about whether or not Becky-Sue
should be held responsible for the deaths she had caused by
accident.  Phil tried to follow the conversation, but his mind
kept racing back to the dream.  Somebody was going to kill Becky-
Sue unless he did something to prevent it -- but what could he do?
A Charmed could detect a Gifted person, like Phil could see the
glow of power under Becky-Sue's skin, but could he detect another
Charmed?
   _You must not interfere with the punishment, Phil.  If the
assigned Charmed is unable to perform the punishment, the
assignment will fall to you._  And what if he refused the
assignment?  Who would be sent to punish *him*?
   Phil jarred himself back to reality.  "--I was there," one of
the boys was saying, "in the church, when Mrs. Tyler caught fire."
There were tears in his eyes and his arms were shaking as he
relived the tragedy.  "I remember the panic.  I can still hear her
screaming, always screaming.  Sometimes I still hear Mrs. Tyler
screaming in my nightmares -- sometimes it's my own mother
instead.  And the smell... the smell..."  He trailed off with a
violent shudder.
   "Can you remember what Becky-Sue was doing while this was going
on?" Phil asked gently.
   The boy nodded.  "She was hysterical, crying, pleading, trying
to stop the fire.  She was screaming, 'Make it stop!  Make it
stop!  Mother, I'm not doing it -- it's not *me*!'  She ran out of
the church so fast that the last five rows of pews fell over from
the wind and she created a whole new opening for herself in the
wall.  She was back a few minutes later, with a bucket of river-
water, but by then there was nothing left but ash."
   "Does that sound like the actions of a murderer?"
   The others held a silent council, exchanging questioning looks
until finally they were all staring at one final holdout, the
Todd.  He was still as angry as ever, but at least now Phil was no
longer worried that he would try picking a fight.  After a few
moments, his expression softened.  "You're okay with me, Phil.
And I guess Becky-Sue's not so bad either.  Heck, before those
powers cropped up, we used to be good friends.  She's different
now but she's still one of us, and in Wilcox Township we protect
our own!"
   "If you don't, I will!" Phil declared.  The others laughed as
the final bit of tension was released from the air around them, as
Phil and the Todd shook hands.  Only Phil remained somber and
reflective, not sure of exactly who or what he would have to
protect his new girlfriend from.
   "Here it comes!" shouted Linda, pointing down the road at a
vehicle in the distance, kicking up a cloud of dust as it
approached.  The others picked up their backpacks and bookbags and
shuffled over to the side of the road, muttering about how late
the bus was, and whether they would make it to school in time.
They all watched expectantly as the dust cloud moved closer, and
then, one by one, they dropped their jaws in consternation.
"Wait, that's not the bus, it's--"
   Becky-Sue stopped running and skidded to a stop in front of the
bus stop, her bare feet scraping the road in a manner than made
Phil wince, but which apparently caused her no pain or injury.  "I
passed the bus about five miles back, so it should be along any
time now," she said.  "Did I miss anything?"