“Yes.”
“My name’s Ken, and you are?” he said, sticking out his hand.
“I’m Lily…Lily Johnson.”
“Do you live far from here, Lily?”
“Not too far, over on Euclid.”
“Would you like a ride home?”
“I guess so.”
“Okay…Mike, you care to keep an eye on our guests there while I run the young lady home?”
Lily got in the car and told the officer everything that happened on the way home.
“Well, here we are. Do you want to press charges?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll head to the station and type up a report based on what you told me, and then tomorrow you can stop by and sign it if you want. Do you have a way to come down tomorrow?”
“Yes, I believe I can do that.”
“Now, let me get this straight. The two men were knocked out by an old man who then just left?”
“Yes, sir. He showed up, punched the one guy out cold, then chased the other one and knocked him out too. They almost…they were about to…I’d like to thank him.”
“You don’t have any idea who it was?”
“No…he said he was in the neighborhood. Just some old guy.”
“Old guy?”
“Not sure how old, sixty or seventy maybe?”
“Okay Lily,” he said, handing her a card, “If you remember anything else, feel free to give me a call. I’m going to head back to the park now so we can book your assailants.”
“Thank you, officer.”
“Hey Ken, get a load of this,” Mike said when his partner returned to the park.
“Get a load of what?”
“One of them is awake, or halfway. I got ‘em both cuffed, but I did some walking around. Found his gun and found these.” He held his hand out to Ken, showing him five flattened bullets.
“What did these hit?”
“They were just lying in the grass over there, not close to anything. I don’t know what they hit, but this guy is mumbling about shooting someone and nothing happening. Now we have bullets in the middle of the grass looking like they were fired into a stone wall. What gives?”
“The girl didn’t say anything about gunfire.”
“She was almost raped. It might take her a while to remember everything.”
“She said an old guy knocked the two men out.”
“That’s for sure. One might have a concussion.”
“Well, let’s get them down to the station. I’m gonna need to do a report.”
“The girl wants to press charges?”
“Yeah, even said she’d stop by to sign the report tomorrow.”
Walter sat down in his recliner with a can of beer and put his feet up.
“You been waiting a while to drink that,” Franklin said.
“Yeah, figure I’ve earned it too.”
“What you do with those bullets?”
“Don’t have ‘em. Think I dropped ‘em in the grass back there.”
“You know the cops will find those.”
“Probably. Won't matter much.”
“Man, we gotta figure out what all you can do.”
“Why do we need to do that?”
“Can’t be a superhero if you don’t know what your powers are.”
“Kid…I’m not any superhero. You read too many comics.”
“Tell that to the girl who didn’t get raped tonight.”
“Anyone would have tried to stop it.”
“And anyone else would have been killed. Dude, those bullets bounced off you like Superman. You’re Superman.”
“I don’t think so. Might be some trademark or copyright issues with that.”
“Well, you’re gonna need a name, an outfit, a secret identity…”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, kid.”
“You can stop calling me kid. I’m eighteen.”
“When you get to my age, everyone’s a kid.”
“What do we know so far? You’re strong as hell and bulletproof. That’s a good start. Bad guys can’t shoot you, and you can just knock ‘em out like it’s nothing. Could get kind of boring.”
“What’s boring about not getting shot?”
“All the superheroes got a nemesis, the big bad dude that’s a match for them. Villain that’s also got powers. Just yesterday, there weren’t any people with powers. This ain’t the comic world, where you got dudes all over with powers. It’s just you. That’s wouldn’t sell many comics.”
“Lex Luthor didn't have any powers.”
“But he was super smart.”
“How smart. He always got caught.”
“See, you know how this works. You read comics?”
“I read them when I was your age. Haven’t picked one up in years.”
“I haven’t read many lately either. You tired?”
“Not really. I slept all day. I would like to finish this beer, if you’ll let me.”
“Finish it, then let’s walk over to UC.”
“Why would we want to go over there at this hour?”
“Man, when you were running up to the park, when we heard the girl, I couldn’t keep up with you. You were running crazy fast, like super fast. You know that area they got over by the baseball field?”
“Those fields, before the football stadium?”
“Yeah, got a soccer field with a track around it. We gotta see how fast you are.”
“I don’t think we should be trespassing around there at this hour.”
“Ain’t no cops there at night. I go there all the time, walk around the track and stuff. Sometimes a cop will tell me to leave and I do. No big deal.”
Walter downed the rest of the beer in one big drink and crushed the can.
“What the hell. I’m not gonna get any sleep tonight, anyway.”
Walter started jogging around the track, feeling like he did in his twenties, lap after lap without any sign of fatigue. Franklin stood by the track with a stopwatch, timing the laps.
“How you feeling?” he asked when Walter passed him, ninety minutes later.
“This feels great,” Walter said the next time around, “Not even getting tired, and I must have done miles.”
“You’ve already done a marathon, in record time probably…more than a marathon. If I’m counting the laps right, you’re over thirty-two miles.”
Walter stopped and stood there for a second, not even panting.
“You sure about that? How long have we been here?”
“Over an hour and a half, and you’ve done over thirty-two miles. You’re not even winded.”
“No. This feels damn good. I could run the pig. How much they pay to the winner?”
“You could, but the Flying Pig was last month.”
“Oh…but I’m kinda fast.”
“You looked
