2:00 AM came around, and Ava still hadn’t fallen asleep. A quick peek through the doorway showed that her mother was still firmly asleep on the couch, and had just shifted position slightly, so she grabbed her lighter, crept through, snuck a cigarette out of Lydia’s purse, and snuck out the apartment’s front door, closing it quietly to avoid waking her mother.
Walking down the steps, she looked over across the street that looped around through the apartment complex, and saw Sam laying on the grass stargazing.
“I’ll be damned,” Ava muttered to herself. “He really does live here.” Sam, hearing her muttering, looked up and waved.
“Oh, hey, Ava,” Sam said. Ava sat down next to him, put the cigarette between her lips, and lit it; he frowned. “You really shouldn’t smoke those,” he chided her. Ava raised an eyebrow, took the cigarette out of her mouth, and exhaled towards the street.
“I think, all things considered, I’m a little more likely to die from this Devourer guy eating me than from smoking one of my mom’s cigs when I can’t sleep,” Ava said. Sam laughed.
“Fair point,” he said. “Speaking of, I think we need to work out a plan for how to deal with this jackass. You tired at all?”
“Agreed. And, no. You?” Ava asked.
“Same. Even if I was, no way I could sleep knowing this guy almost definitely wants to eat me alive,” Sam said. “Like I said, I’m not a fighter. If this guy ever catches me, I’m fucked six ways from Sunday. You, however? You’ve got a shot.”
“I’m glad you’re giving me the vote of confidence,” Ava said. “You know anyone else with… I don’t know how else to put this, but combat Codes?”
Sam grunted.
“There’s a couple who might be,” he said. “But they don’t live around here, that I know of, and they don’t really understand their Codes, so they might be useless. You probably picked this up if you went on the site, but you’re kind of lucky; not many people have someone with a Code of Sense to walk them through all this.”
“Yeah, I got that impression,” Ava said. “Lot of people trying weird shit on there.”
“God, I know, right!?” Sam exclaimed, louder than usual. “Did you see that guy who’s trying to wake his Code up by drilling his skull open?”
“Oh, God, you know that guy!?” Ava asked.
“Yeah, I offered to do his reading for free and just tell him what his Code is, but he didn’t want to fly out to Houston for it,” Sam said. “Fair enough, I guess, but trepanation’s a little much, I think.”
“Yeah, I need that like I need a hole in my head,” Ava said. Sam groaned and mimed a rimshot, with appropriate sound effects.
“So, anyways. This Keyes jerk. You know where he’s at?”
“I wish. Like I said, my range is only about half a mile; if I can detect him, and we’re not ready for him, we’re in deep shit,” Sam said. “And we absolutely fucking should not go out looking for him. I know exactly what you’re thinking, and I know what that grin on your face means, and I really do not think it’s a good idea to go fight him,” he went on, sounding increasingly alarmed at the bloodthirsty glee that was forming on Ava’s face.
“Oh, come the fuck on, you knew exactly who you were teaming up with,” Ava said.
“Believe me, I know. But that doesn’t make it a good idea. You’re gonna get yourself killed,” Sam said. “Then we might all be fucked, given he’ll be able to punch so hard he can split an oak tree without even trying. Dude’s got enough fucking Codes as it stands,” he grumbled.
“Wait, he’s already got more than one?” Ava asked. Sam blinked at her.
“I mean, yeah? That’s how I was able to tell it was him. I sensed like, ten of them in the same spot; we think he’s taken six people from the Parasite Watch site, so that means there’s four more who are unaccounted for,” Sam went on. “And none of the six I know of managed to figure out their Code before he got them, so that means we know… absolutely nothing about what he’s capable of.”
“Well, fuck, that’s absolutely great,” Ava groaned.
“Tell me about it,” Sam groaned in turn.
“I will say this, though. When he showed up to threaten me, he got my attention by doing some weird shit that felt like he threw a knife at me,” Ava said, gesturing at the unwanted uneven cut through the side of her hair.
“Did you see anything coming, or see anything hit the ground?” Sam asked.
“No, I didn’t,” Ava said. Sam contemplated for a second, and then perked up.
“Okay, that’s one thing we know, then. He can do some kind of wind or air manipulation,” Sam said.
“…well, that seems uphill from being able to hit really hard, doesn’t it?” Ava asked, annoyed.
“Not necessarily,” Sam said. “Depends on what he can actually do with it. If he can just give you papercuts, but a punch from you would bore straight through his chest cavity and Mola Ram him, you’ve got the distinct advantage, I’d say.”
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Ava looked at him quizzically.
“…Mola Ram him?” she asked. Sam blinked.
“You’re kidding me, you’ve never seen Indiana Jones? Guy who goes ‘kali-ma’ and rips people’s hearts out?” Sam asked, practically jumping off the curb.
“Nah, I never have,” Ava said.
“Maybe when this is over, huh?” Sam asked, smiling.
“Yeah, sure,” Ava said, smiling back.
“You still feeling anxious about this whole Devourer thing?” Sam asked. Ava took a moment to think about her answer.
“Yeah, kinda, but… it’s the good kind of anxiety, if that makes sense,” she said. “Like, it feels like it always does when I’m about to get in a fight, this is just the first time it’ll ever be higher stakes than schoolyard shit.”
“No kidding,” Sam said.
“I think I’m gonna head back up. See you at school?” Ava asked.
“See you at school,” Sam agreed, waving her off back to her apartment.
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Daytime came, and Ava still hadn’t slept. She wasn’t especially tired, either. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins. Her alarm went off, unnecessarily given that she was already wide awake, and she started her morning routine like usual, showering and brushing her teeth and putting on a clean set of clothes.
Her mother, for once, was up and awake.
“You going back to school today?” Lydia asked.
“I mean, yeah? Where else am I gonna go?” Ava asked in return, shrugging.
“I dunno, where do you usually go when you skip?” Lydia followed up, half-sarcastically. “Did you step out last night? I noticed one of my smokes was gone.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep,” Ava said. “You were passed out on the couch and I didn’t wanna wake you up to ask you.”
“Those are expensive,” Lydia grunted.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ll pay you back next time I loot some boy’s wallet off him,” Ava said, shoving a Pop-Tart into her mouth and heading out the door.
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The school day went by mostly uneventfully. Ava’s previous fight had been the one to finally cement her reputation as someone to be feared at Roberts High, and the usual hoodlums scattered instead of challenging her when she walked by in the hallways. Out of twenty fights, and twenty victories, she’d managed to demolish the strongest person in every single group that would have dared cause trouble for her, and so school was now a boring obligation more than a source of fights and excitement.
Things got more interesting when, between Algebra II and English, Sam walked by and nudged her in the side in the hallway.
“Hey, ow,” Ava exclaimed. “Hell was that for?”
“You got a minute?” Sam asked.
“I mean, I’m on my way to class, but I can skip if it’s important,” Ava said.
“Yeah, it’s important, I’d say,” Sam said. “We’ve got company. There’s more than one parasite host here, and our friend the Devourer is outside the school about to come treat it like a Golden Corral.”
Ava’s world stopped for a moment.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she said, picking up the pace. “Fucking hell, I thought this was gonna be something we had a minute to prepare for!”
Sam groaned.
“No, I thought I made it pretty clear that if he’s around here, this is a Now Problem and not a Later Problem,” he said, barely keeping up with her as she broke into an outright run. “You seem like you’ve got a plan; what is it?” She looked back at him, barely avoiding running directly into another student as she did.
“You really don’t know me very well yet, do you?” she asked him.
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The Devourer, Charles Raymond Keyes, stood outside the front door of John Roberts High School. To any observer, he would have appeared to just be a strange Caucasian man with long blonde hair and a lanky, muscular build. He had opted not to wear his usual cloak for this outing; if his hunger had led him to the correct place, he would be unstoppable once he had eaten every parasite host inside, and there was thus no longer any point in attempting to hide his identity.
When he walked through the front door, the receptionist first asked who he was. He silently ignored her, and continued to walk towards the food he detected. She made the mistake of picking up the phone to call the school resource officer, and that mistake proved to be fatal; a razor of air slashed her across the throat, rendering her unable to speak and spraying blood on the desk in front of her with a faint hiss. This was a first for Keyes; he’d never killed anyone he’d have to leave behind before, and he didn’t care much for it.
He kept walking through the door that led to the main hallways of the school campus, passing by teenagers and simply ignoring them as they stared at the strange, tall man. They weren’t hosts; they were merely normal humans, and unless they chose to stand in his way, they were nothing to him.
It didn’t take long for Keyes to find a student who caught his interest: a boy, maybe fifteen, who seemed to realize exactly what was happening, and looked at Keyes with a fear that the Devourer savored.
The other students watched in horror as Keyes grabbed the boy, wrestled him to the ground, and began to tear pieces off of his face with his teeth as they elongated themselves into fangs, spraying blood and matter everywhere as he went. Eventually, he cracked the boy’s skull with his teeth and found his prey: the small, jellyfish-like parasite that had attached itself to the boy’s pineal gland.
As Keyes ate the teen’s brain, and the teen’s half-lifeless body thrashed on the ground, the school resource officer arrived to the scene and fired a Taser dart directly into his back. Unfortunately for the officer, Keyes’ skin rubberized at the point of impact, rendering the electricity as useful as a yell. What’s more, the officer had, himself, been stung by a parasite, meaning he, too, was on the buffet; Keyes tackled him, too, and began chewing on his face as he screamed and thrashed.
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It didn’t take long for Ava and Sam to realize that the Devourer had chosen to make his appearance, between the frenzied screaming and gurgling coming from around the corner and the tidal wave of teenagers running frantically away from the carnage. Ava, for her part, bolted directly into the tidal wave; Sam tried to grab her sleeve, to no avail.
“Ava, did you miss the part where I said you’re going to die if we fight him head on?” Sam asked, worried. Ava looked back at him.
“Do we have any other choice? It’s either that or he rips through this school like wet toilet paper,” she said. “Plus, I’m itching for a fight,” she added, cracking her knuckles as she went back into the fray, pushing her way through the crowd crush in the opposite direction.
“Be careful,” Sam called out to her.
“You too,” she called out back.
When Ava reached the scene of the violence, the first thing she noticed was the smell. It was worse than anything that had ever passed through her nostrils, and it was nearly enough to make her retch. Note to self, don’t do mortuary science, she thought to herself.
The next thing she noticed was the tall, blonde-haired, muscular man hunched over the school resource officer’s twitching corpse, making disgusting noises as he crunched through the man’s skull and ate his brain. The man looked up, blood and bits of matter smeared on his mouth.
“You,” he said.
“Yeah, me, from the sidewalk,” Ava said, cracking her knuckles. “So, am I ready yet, you son of a bitch? You ready to finish that business?”
The Devourer smiled. If he could eat the current bearer of the Code of Fist, he’d have no reason to even bother with the rest of this puny high school.
“I’m ready to eat,” he snarled.
Ava assumed a fighting pose. For the first time, this one was going to be to the death. She’d never felt more alive in her sixteen years of existence.