Marvel 2000: Ghost Rider #6

Gabriel College was mid-sized, which was one of the reasons that Troy Abernathy had chosen to attend the school. The good reputation of its secondary education program was a factor, as was its distance from his hometown in Connecticut: far enough that his parents would never drop by unexpectedly, yet close enough to make the drive back and forth each semester, without needing to buy a plane ticket and ship most of his belongings. But the student body of about 9,000 undergrads was strongly appealing; in fact, in Troy’s mind, it was perfect.

Troy could walk from one end of the Gabriel College campus to the other in the middle of the day and pass ten or fifteen students, while catching sight of dozens more, and not know more than two of them. Some days, every single person was a stranger to him. He might recognize the faces, especially since class schedules kept the same people on the same paths at the same hours every Monday-Wednesday-Friday. But they would be anonymous to him, and he would be to them. Troy had friends at Gabriel, and could join them for a meal or a study session any time he wanted, but when he wanted to be alone in the crowd that option was also readily available.

He was especially thankful for the campus population mechanics on a day like this, when he was still basking in the memories of the past Saturday night. He had gone out drinking with some friends, met a girl named Miriam, and ended up spending the night with her. The memories of her body, and what she had known how to do with it, were still visceral and exciting. At a larger school, Troy might not have stood out from the crowd enough to attract Miriam’s attentions. At a smaller school, he would never have been able to avoid her after Saturday night. But at Gabriel, he was able to enjoy one heavenly night and then simply let it fade away.

Troy had known the exact moment that the fate of Saturday night had been sealed. He and Miriam had been exchanging flirtatious comments, and Miriam had said, “I better be careful, or I’m going to end up taking you home.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad,” Troy had replied.

“I don’t take guys home,” Miriam had shaken her head. “It’s never a good idea.”

Troy had looked directly into her eyes and said emphatically, “I’m not like other guys.”

Everything else between that moment and falling into bed together had been formality. And in the morning, Troy had slipped out of Miriam’s apartment and proved that he was exactly like other guys. He had known that all along, had never tried to deny it to himself. He had known what Miriam wanted to hear and had known how to say it so that she would believe him. Yes, it was a lie, but in the end who did it hurt? Both of them had enjoyed the night spent together, and neither would have to deal with the awkwardness of future contact; they could avoid each other with the entire student body between them.

But even so, Troy had to admit, he himself would know what he had allowed to happen. No, that was too passive: what he had done. He had lied to Miriam. He had taken advantage of her; there was no way around that. He had exploited her in an act of utterly reckless selfishness, and no amount of rationalizing that she enjoyed it as well could change that.

Troy staggered off the bricked path that bisected the quad and leaned heavily against a nearby tree. He felt horrible about what he had done, absolutely sick to his stomach. He closed his eyes against an impending sense of vertigo. There in the darkness of his mind he saw Miriam’s face, paling with accusatory sadness, and knew that he was to blame for her suffering.

Troy Abernathy was not sure he could live with that knowledge.

“Thank you again for seeing me, Dr. Sutton,” John Blaze said.

“Call me Mike,” the man behind the desk replied. He was heavyset, with a bald head offset by luxurious mustachios. Reading glasses, almost comically tiny, perched on the tip of his nose. He wore a light sweater, khakis and well-worn loafers, one of which was visible resting casually across the opposite knee. “I may be a professor with a PhD., but I’ve always thought that ‘doctor’ is a title that should be reserved for those who work in hospitals and treat patients and such. Healers.”

“Well, funny you should say that,” Blaze answered. “Because I came here to talk to you about curing a disease.”

“But I …”

“A supernatural disease,” Blaze clarified, cutting off Sutton’s objections.

Sutton blinked, then slowly regained his capacity for speech. “I take it this is … not exactly a hypothetical matter?” he asked.

“Right,” Blaze confirmed. “Don’t worry, I’m not contagious. In fact, I’m not the one who’s sick.”

“I see,” Sutton said. “A family member, then?”

“What makes you say that?”

“The vast majority of my work on the history of folklore is theoretical, Mr. Blaze …”

“John.”

“Of course. John. My work focuses on the theoretical because, even as a person who believes in the supernatural worlds beyond our own, my exposure to those worlds is limited. For most average people, exposure is nil. And the non-zero exposure that does intrude on occasion is dismissed by so-called rational explanations. Only extreme circumstances impacting someone personally, or someone’s loved ones, makes a supernatural experience take root.”

“Mike, you may not believe me when I say this, but I’ve probably had more experience with the supernatural than everyone you’ve ever interviewed put together,” Blaze informed his host.

Sutton regarded Blaze with the gaze of a scholar. He took in the scruffy, road-weary exterior, as well as the soulful depths of Blaze’s eyes. Those eyes had seen much, Sutton could tell, and they appeared, if not haunted, then at least deeply marked. “I do believe you,” Sutton nodded, “which makes me wonder why you’ve come to see me in the first place.”

“Because I’m a dabbler,” Blaze confessed. “I’ve seen things, but I haven’t studied them. Experience and expertise are two different things.”

“Fair enough,” Sutton acknowledged, scratching his mustachios with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know if I can help you, but I’d like to try. Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

“I’ll give you the relevant details,” Blaze said. “If I start at the beginning we’ll be here for days.”

Callie Emmons stood in the small kitchen of the Iota Phi Alpha sorority house and wondered if she could rationalize going back outside for another cigarette. Although she often lost count of how many she smoked when she was out drinking, or during finals week, for the majority of the semester she tried to smoke no more than three during daylight hours: the ritual post-lunch and post-dinner cigarettes, and one in the mid-afternoon when she needed a break. She had just finished the mid-afternoon cigarette five minutes ago, then had come into the kitchen and poured herself a diet Sprite. Now that the drink was gone, she was craving another cigarette. And Callie had neither alcohol nor exam stress to blame it on.

She had other kinds of stress, though. Her roommate Becca had recently broken up with her long-distance boyfriend and now mooned around their room in a deep, dramatic depression. Her parents were threatening to send her younger brother Randy to visit and tour Gabriel College to decide if he should apply there, despite Callie explaining repeatedly that boys – even younger brothers – could not stay in the Iota Phi Alpha house. And although it wasn’t time for finals yet, Callie could already see how miserable they were going to be this semester; not a day went by that she didn’t wish she had withdrawn from organic chem. when she had the chance.

It was small wonder, then, that Callie had taken out all of her frustrations on one of her classmates the day before. The mid-afternoon cigarette had been lit and the first drag inhaled as soon as she stepped out of Marten Hall after another grueling organic chem lecture. Callie was willing the nicotine buzz to transport her to a calmer place when the boy bumped into her as he walked past. She didn’t know his name, but she recognized him by his oversized, unfashionable glasses, his unkempt hair, his acne and his dingy clothes.

“Watch where you’re going, you mouth-breather!” Callie yelled, far louder than she needed to, loud enough to attract the attention of other students in the area. “Don’t those special-ed glasses help you to see at all? God! Use the losers’ entrance next time!”

The boy scurried away, mortified. It was stupid, elementary school behavior and Callie had slipped into it easily. On some level she knew she would never stop being the pretty, popular girl who belittled the ugly and the awkward, partly because she could get away with it and partly because they irritated her for being ugly and awkward to begin with.

And what did that say about her? Had she been born with good genes into a good family just so that she could lord it over less fortunate people? Could there ever be any justification for being needlessly cruel? How much worse was it that her cruelty was actually gratifying to her on some level? No one deserved to be the victim of her temper tantrums. And she did not deserve any of the good things in her own life that had been handed to her on a silver platter.

Callie Emmons buried her face in her hands as the grievous, moaning sobs wracked her body.

“I’ll do my best to figure out what’s happened to your brother, John,” Mike Sutton said, shaking John Blaze’s hand on the front steps of the Hazelton building. “I think we can rule out zombification and standard demonic possession … but then I’m guessing you already knew that.”

“Yeah,” Blaze admitted. “If it were that simple, I wouldn’t be here. And to be perfectly blunt, while I realize the value of identifying what happened to Dan, I’m mainly interested in finding a way to undo it, whatever it is.”

“Of course, of course,” Sutton agreed. “Your brother is lucky to have you looking out for him.”

“That’s debatable,” Blaze shrugged.

“No, it’s true,” Sutton insisted. “I can’t even remember the last time I helped my own brother with anything. It’s been a while since we’ve even spoken, at that. And … he’s always … been there for me. I can’t even … make the time to call him? I … I have to go … have to …”

Sutton looked stricken as he wheeled suddenly away from Blaze and staggered back into the Hazelton building. Blaze considered following the professor, until he heard what sounded like someone screaming from a great distance away.

“Punishment … for … the guilty!”

The voice was so small it seemed to originate beyond Blaze’s range of sight, but he knew better; he could not see the speaker because the words came from inside his soul. He knew the owner of the voice immediately as well: Noble Kale.

“Punishment … for … the guilty!” Kale repeated the command, bellowing across the void.

This was new. Blaze still felt as if he were in complete control of the Spirit of Vengeance, but Kale was now making his own desires known. The spirit of his ancestor was gaining strength. John Blaze wondered how much stronger Noble Kale would become.

Blaze walked around the Hazelton building toward the small side street where he had parked his motorcycle. He noticed a boy who looked no older than eighteen – skinny, long-haired, with pierced ears – sitting behind the steering wheel of a car at the curb, weeping uncontrollably. As he approached, Blaze felt the fiery pressure building within chest, his curse begging for release. He could practically taste the boy’s wrongdoing, a sensation that only grew sharper as Blaze closed the distance between himself and the car.

Blaze reached the driver’s side door and gave in. Fire erupted from his eyes and engulfed his entire body, a furious mystical immolation that rendered his facial features into a gleaming white skull. The flames receded from his limbs and torso but continued to burn brightly around his head. The boy in the car paid the Ghost Rider absolutely no attention, even as Ghost Rider smashed a bony fist through the car window and hauled the boy physically from the vehicle.

“You reek of transgression, mortal,” Ghost Rider hissed, in a voice that was partly Noble Kale and partly John Blaze. The boy’s feet dangled helplessly above the ground as Ghost Rider held him at upraised arm’s length. “You must … know … punishment!” Ghost Rider’s eyes flared with white-hot fury, and the boy’s memories were laid bare before the gaze of the Spirit of Vengeance. He had recently stolen twenty dollars from the cash register at the campus bookstore where he worked.

“Is that it?” Ghost Rider demanded, dropping the boy from his grasp. The boy was insensate, tumbling to the ground and continuing to weep. Ghost Rider looked in all directions like a predatory animal searching out a scent. Now that the Spirit of Vengeance was manifested in the physical world, the air seemed to be choked with offense and sin. Ghost Rider conjured forth his hellfire-cycle, mounted it, and sped around the Hazelton building, cutting a fiery trail across campus.

Every student or faculty member that Ghost Rider could see along the walkways of Gabriel College was in agony, incoherent with self-remonstration. Yet every time Ghost Rider reached out and took hold of one of them, piercing them with his Penance Stare, the fault was mundane: a girl who had cheated on a biology exam, an adjunct professor who had lied to his wife about working late when really he had gone out for beers with the guys, a boy who had uttered a racial slur in a drunken, angry rant. Petty deeds, with feelings of horrific self-loathing out of all proportion.

“Kale,” Ghost Rider said, his voice nearly the same as that of John Blaze, “something unnatural is happening here. We need to find where this madness is originating.”

After a few moments, Ghost Rider answered himself, sounding more like Noble Kale. “There.” The Ghost Rider pointed, then leaned back on the hellfire-cycle and roared away.

Soon the Spirit of Vengeance had arrived at Sven Farnon Memorial Hall, home of the Gabriel College physics department. The hellfire-cycle passed like an immaterial thing through the front doors of the building, and sped along the main corridor and down a staircase at one end. Here and there, graduate students and senior researchers, all in white lab coats atop their various clothes, lay huddled in fetal positions on the floors. They seemed physically unharmed, but wailed like the very damned.

From the bottom of the staircase, Ghost Rider raced to one of the basement laboratories and burst through the door. The lab was dominated by a large apparatus at its center, a gleaming collection of interconnected metallic chambers. In front of the apparatus stood a humanoid figure. The figure wore bulky armor of silvery white, with green boots, green gauntlets and green piping trim. Its head was encased in a helmet, also green except for the faceplate, which was gold and black with severe, exaggerated features. Cradled in one arm, the figure held a large gray box.

As Ghost Rider dismounted from the hellfire-cycle and began uncoiling a length of chain, the figure turned its opaque white eyes on him. “What is this?” the armored creature asked. “None should be able to resist my latest experiment.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Ghost Rider rasped.

“No matter. You will succumb. All will bow down before their superior … the Psycho-Man!”

The Psycho-Man turned the gray box so that Ghost Rider could see the three panels on its front. The bottom two panels were inert, but the top one was illuminated and displayed a single word:

GUILT.

TO BE CONTINUED!