Audubann’s Weblog

There were sirens in the distance and John hoped he was lucky enough to have all of his bones intact.  He got up and walked around the cruiser and over to the kid who was still on the ground.  He was clutching his shoulder looked like he was closing to passing out from the pain.

            “You’re welcome.  Hang in there, kid.”

            John didn’t know if the young man could even here him.  He was covered in sweat and it looked like his eyes just might fully rollup into the top of his head.

            He would have liked to have stayed and comforted the kid, but Stackhouse and Mulroy were nowhere to be found.  There was just a lot of blood on the ground.  John grabbed his bike whose tires by some miracle had not been bent to hell. 

            The sirens sounded like they were coming from the north so he headed straight south, across the grass of the dorm buildings, straight toward his apartment.  Once he had crossed the train tracks, a quarter mile away, he could see a multitude of flashing emergency vehicle lights.

            Once he got home, he pulled his bike inside with him and locked the door.  Usually, he locked up his bike on the rack outside, but there was still some blood on it.  He was annoyed at that.  Even though he left it outside, he made regular efforts to keep it regularly oiled and relatively clean at all times.

            John pulled off his shirt and headed into his room.  He got undressed and heading for the shower, but stopped short.  The university owned apartment he lived in was quite small and the refrigerator was just a few feet away from the bathroom door.  He opened the top freezer section and took the rum he had inside.  After taking a long hard swig, he tossed it back inside and hopped into the shower.  The water took a while to get hot, but he didn’t care.  It just felt good to wash away the dirt and sweat.

            After 20 soothing minutes, John got out of the shower.  He toweled himself dry and threw on a pair of sweats and a clean t-shirt .  He sat down in front of the television for a moment.  He flipped through the channels and found a horror movie playing.  He hoped it would occupy his mind for a while and let him doze off on the couch.  The last things he remembered before falling asleep was something about a man named Sutter Cain and the main character freaking out over the color blue.

            When he woke up, everything was turned off and it was dark except for the green LED on his computer.  When he turned on his monitor he could see that it had restarted because it was asking him to log back into his instant messenger account.  He looked outside and did not see any other lights on.  The moon was nearly full, but it was a heavily clouded night, so it did not provide much lighting. 

The power was out.  His computer was running off of the back-up battery he purchased for it.  The back-up power supply only had about 15 minutes of total juice in it and so the power must have just gone out.  He turned the computer off and headed for his room to sleep in his bed.  He walked through the doorway to his room and stopped cold.  He felt terrified and backed up.  He didn’t know if he had time to grab a knife and could not remember if he had washed it or left it in the sink.  He didn’t want to cut himself in the very weapon he would be reaching around for.  So, he just put his fist up.

     John could see the darkness move.  It looked like it was ruffling itself.  He was simply thankful enough that his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light fast enough so that he could tell the difference in colors.  His room was dark, but the figure standing near his bed wasn’t just dark, it looked like it was a depression in the air.  Like a black hole taken form. 

“Ha.  Good job.”  The entities voice was deep and cold.  “This is a dark day for you, John.  This night is only going to get blacker,” the entity said.

John snorted before responding.  “Who or what the hell are you?  Why are you intruding into my home?” John said.

The entity ruffled a bit more and then opened its eyes.  Its yellow eyes lit the room up enough for John to make it demonic features. 

“You know why I’m here, John,” the entity snarkily said while licking its lips.

“Bullshit,” John spat out.  “Get the fuck out or I’m gonna pummel you.”

“Oh come on now, John boy,” the entity said in a mock imitation of pain. 

It unfurled its arms and extended its talons.  “I’m only here because you invited me.  I’m only here because you invited me,” it repeated as it lunged forward.

John stood firm and threw the hardest punch he could.  As his fist nearly connected to the entity and its talons were about to slash into him, he was yanked back by something.  The darkness quickly became light and he wasn’t standing in his room, he was on his couch.  The television was still on and daylight was shining through his window blinds.  As he went to rub his head, he was stopped short by a loud rapping on his door.

He quickly got up and looked through the peephole.  He saw outside his door stood a man and a woman.  Both were in uniform.  They were cops. 

(This is the first two pages.  The setting might throw some of you off, but you will have to just keep reading to understand how this will unfold and tie into the DC universe.)

The October night was unusually warm. It caused John to believe more and more in the theory of global warming. While fighting overseas as a marine, he was only concerned about whether or not he was going to have the supplies he needed in order to accomplish his missions. So what if the vehicles gave off a lot of carbon emissions? If terrorist destroyed the world, who could care less about global warming? A lieutenant once even told him that global warming was just something made up by pacifist who would say anything to convince the world that the military was doing more harm than good.

Sweat ran down his face and arms as he pedaled toward his apartment. He could see blue and red lights up ahead. The campus police had stopped someone. He biked faster. A few seconds later and he saw who was in the stopped vehicle. It was a young white guy with slick brown hair. He was driving a station wagon with a bunch of stuff in the back with a mattress tied to the top. He looked to be either moving in or moving out.

John slowed down a bit to see who the officers were. To his horror, he saw that they weren’t actually officers at all. They were Stackhouse and Mulroy. They were posing as cops and for some reason had targeted this poor kid. He was unsure of what to do. Those two were very dangerous, but he couldn’t just leave that kid to be hurt. He thought to call the real police, but there probably wasn’t enough time. Especially at this late hour, the cops were probably busy dealing with rowdy students partying after the football team’s big win.

He made a right turn down the next sidewalk and sped up. He went about 100 yards down and stopped. Catching his breath, he hoped that he had enough distance and that it would actually work. He started pedaling at a middle gear. He was rapidly switching to higher gears in order to achieve maximum speed from his efforts.

As he got closer, he could see that Stackhouse and Mulroy had gotten the kid out of the car. John was at a diagonal and couldn’t see much of his front, so he just had to imagine the expression of fear that must have been on the poor kids face as Stackhouse raised the real enough baton and brought it down across the kids shoulder. The kid cried out and slumped to the ground. Stackhouse’s face was a profile of demented glee.

When John was shopping for his bike a few months earlier, the store manager had convinced him that he should get the expensive Trek because it had a titanium frame. Just in case he needed something tough for the times he went mounting biking. John knew that he probably would never go mountain biking, but his years of military service had taught him that stronger was always better. Even if it costs a little bit more. Skimping out on good equipment is what often led to needless casualties. He was glad he paid the extra money and he hoped that the company’s advertisements about the bike’s frame were sincere.

He switched into the highest of the twenty-two gears and reached what he thought would be his maximum speed. The south part of campus was nearly empty because even the freshmen were out of their dorms partying. The bike operated smoothly and made so little sound that it was inaudible over the police cruiser’s running engine. Now came the really hard part. John almost wished that he was like Spider Man and had mounted a camera somewhere to take a photo.

Stackhouse and Mulroy were too involved in taunting the kid to notice anything else. Thank goodness the kid was already on the ground so that John wouldn’t have to worry too much about him getting hurt too.

With out about twenty yards left, he did it. He knew he had to aim it just right, especially with the forward momentum the bike would maintain. He also had to make sure it was sideways, in order to take out both. He turned to his left side in the seat so that he was riding the bike on sideways. It took time and distance. He was only ten yards away and then they noticed him, but it was too late. John slammed down hard on the left side pedal and hunched over. His muscles were still ripe from working out at the gym not more than ten minutes earlier, making this easier. The bike flipped up high as expected and he grabbed the top cross bar. With the speed he had going, the hardly needed to add any more torque. The hardest part was just aiming it correctly. The bike somersaulted and turned several times on its side in the air. It went cleanly over the top of the kid’s station wagon and slammed into the upper torsos of Stackhouse and Mulroy. They were thrown several feet back and before they even hit the ground, blood spurted out from where the bike connected with their necks and faces. Good thing they were a pair tall bastards.

John didn’t get to see the impact, but knew it connected from the sound their bones made as the titanium frame slammed into them. There had been times in Afghanistan when he had to fight up close and the sound of bones breaking was familiar to him. Unfortunately for him, the effort of throwing the bike at such a high speed had caused him to flip with it. He landed hard on his back two feet in front of the station wagon with the wind knocked out of him. Hopefully, the kid would have enough sense to run away or call for help, because John was going to be getting up for a while.

Three years ago, I wrote a few beginning pages of a novel about John Stewart.  I ended up losing the pages due to a reformatting mistake of my computer.  At the time, I had heard news of a possible Green Lantern movie.  I had also heard that it would be featuring Hal Jordan or Guy Gardner as the main character.  I thought this to be very odd since John Stewert was the featured Green Lantern in the animated series of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited.

Although, I can understand the marketing of not using John Stewart as the main character.  Plainly put, many viewers are much more comfortable with white heroes.  And when they do see an African American hero, they want it to be in the fashion of Hitch.  A morally and ethically decayed Black man who needs the help of someone White to be all that he can be.  Don’t get me wrong- I liked Hitch.  It was funny and even endearing to me.  But John Stewert simply isn’t that type of character and I don’t think people are ready to see him on the big screen.

Hopefully I”m wrong.  Anyways, I am going to write a novel that features John Stewert.  It will be free and updated with a few pages at least once a week.  I hope you all enjoy it.