Chapter 2: Black Powder

No answers came and although Seth was unable to forget about the incident, he pushed it to the back of his mind, determined to do better in his studies. Being just a first year student, the professors were being hard on Seth. He hadn’t yet proven himself to any of them, so none of them were cutting him any slack. Seth told himself that he would make his schooling his first priority, but whenever he had any time to himself, he found his mind wandering to the warning he had been given. Again and again, he reminded himself that it was just a joke and that he had nothing to worry about, but he couldn’t wipe Randal’s look of urgent sincerity from his mind.

A week past with no incident and no strange black powder, and Seth began to allow his troubled mind to release it’s tension. He was feeling rather at ease when poker night rolled around. He was glad that he could concentrate on taking his friends’ money rather than on Randal’s foreboding voice.

Seth’s cousin, Tyrone Manning was the first to show up. Considering his name, a person would think that Tyrone was a large, black man able to break watermelons with his head, but he was in fact, a skinny white kid, barely out of high school, barely able to break a pencil. He epitomized the idea of arms as skinny as toothpicks. He waltzed into the living room and with a quick greeting plopped his plaid dressed self onto the sofa, to wait for others to arrive.
Bill Addison and Cosmo came together. Bill was an accountant and was pretty much as typical as possible. He had a wife and two kids, a boy and a girl. He lived in a quiet suburb with low crime levels and a playground across the street. He lived what could be called a mundane existence, so when he came to poker night, all his suppressed excitement rushed to the surface and he became as he liked to call it, "The Wild One".

Cosmo followed Bill to the poker table and sat down at it, continuing a conversation they had started on the way over. Cosmo’s real name was Shaw Sinclair. He was nicknamed Cosmo because of his occupation as an astronomer. He always had outer space on his mind, so whenever the opportunity arose, he would throw in some useless fact about the galaxy.

"Actually, Bill, we aren’t actually sitting still. Everything is in constant motion. We don’t even know the meaning of being totally still."

There was one more player coming, but seen as how Tanner was traditionally late, the four of them started the game without him. All thoughts of danger were thrown from Seth’s mind as he called a bet of ten. His pile of chips grew as steadily as his friends’ frustration. He had always been able to tell when they were bluffing or not. For some reason, he had an uncanny ability to read what people were thinking just by looking at them. It was almost surprising that they came back every week, despite their losses. Seth figured it was a testament to their true friendship. Tanner had still not shown up and Seth was beginning to let his concern overshadow his game play.

"He usually at least calls," Seth said after folding. "Do you think something happened?"

"I doubt it," Tyrone said confidently, "Don’t you remember how he accused you of cheating last week? He’s probably still peeved about it."

"Yeah, but I wasn’t..."

Before Seth could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. They could hear footsteps, as a person slowly trudged up the wooden stairs.

"Finally! It took you long enough," Cosmo said, exasperated.

"Yeah, we’re almost finished," Bill added, his face beaming, as he had just won the last hand.

They all looked at the stairs with eager anticipation of the final member of their mismatched gang of pals.

Tanner stumbled up the last few steps and into view. He was dragging his feet along the dark hardwood floor, and he looked exhausted, as though he hadn’t slept in a week. He hair was a mess and he had large bags beneath his eyes. His slightly overweight body looked ready to drop to the floor, and although he wobbled slightly, he managed to stay on his feet.

"Whoa, Tan, what is wrong with you? You look absolutely beat," Seth said, stating the obvious, with a bit of a smirk on his face.

Suddenly the smirk vanished, as Seth noticed that which he had been dreading all week. Tanner’s fingers looked like they had been dipped in black chalk. Seth’s chest tightened with fear as Tanner took a step forward. Randal had said to be wary of friends. Tanner gave a slight shudder, sending a small amount of powder flying off of his black t-shirt. The residue blended with the material, making it impossible for Seth to determine how much of it there was. Seth stood up out of his chair, staring at Tanner.

Bill looked his familiar friend up and down, and then with a smile asked, "What are you covered in, man? Is that dirt? That doesn’t look like dirt."

Bill’s perplexed questioning was echoed around the room. Everyone waited, expectantly for an answer, but Tanner would say nothing. Cosmo got up and grabbed Tanner by the shoulders, staring him straight in the eyes.

"Did something happen to you? Are you hurt? Talk to us. We’re your friends."

Everyone was beginning to see that there was nothing funny about the situation. Tanner’s eyes were unable to focus on anything, but the floor, and his friends worried that he might pass out at any moment. Finally, Tanner mumbled something.

"I forget...I think I fell asleep at the wheel. I can’t remember. It was all black."

Seth instantly realized the danger he was in. He no longer had any doubt about what Randal had said.

With no explanation, he rushed over to Tanner, and said softly, "Tan, you’ve got to go."

Bill and Tyrone protested immediately. Cosmo said nothing. Apparently, he had no scientific explanation for Tanner’s behavior. Seth noticed that Cosmo was pale, as though the blood had fled from his face. He was staring blankly, his eyes fixed upon Tanner. Cosmo noticed Seth watching him and for a brief moment their eyes met, before Cosmo blinked rapidly and looked at the ground. Seth scrunched his forehead in bewilderment. The astronomer had looked more afraid than Seth had ever seen him. Even more than the time than he had come home to discover his telescope missing (Tyrone had moved it out to the backyard without asking).

"Can’t you see something’s wrong with the man." Bill had switched out of wild mode, back into responsible mode. "We’ve got to get him to the hospital. I think he’s sick."

Tanner did look even more sick than when he had entered the house. His face was a ghostly white and his hands were trembling.

"I’ve never felt this before. I feel like I’m going to throw up, yet I can’t," Tanner said in a whisper.

Bill put a finger to his lips, letting Tanner know that he didn’t need to talk. Seth could think of nothing, but getting Tanner out of the house. He just knew that he couldn’t be anywhere near that black powder.

"Fine, you take him to the hospital," Seth pleaded.

His friends looked at each other, unsure of what to do, not understanding Seth’s strange reaction.

"Just go!" Seth shouted, panic flooding his system.

"Fine, we’ll go. We’re taking him to the hospital." Bill said with a disapproving tone.

Tyrone walked towards the stairs, following the other two out.

He glared at Seth as he passed, scolding, "A true friend would come with us. And you say you wanna be a doctor, you wanna help people." He scoffed as he began to go down the steps. "If you change your mind, you know where we’ll be."

Seth could already feel the guilt. He may have put his friends’ lives at risk. He almost yelled at them to come back, but once again his own life felt more important to him than his friend’s safety.

"You don’t understand!" Seth yelled, attempting to relieve his guilty conscience. He told himself that he would call and make sure that Tanner was going to be alright.

"Randal told me to watch out for my friends and my enemies. I did the right thing. I’m the one in danger, not my friends," Seth spoke out loud to himself trying to clear his head. He glanced out the window and saw his three friends, helping Tanner get into Bill’s car. Bill jumped in the driver’s seat and sped off towards the hospital. Questions bounced around Seth’s mind, but just as before, answers were hard to come by.

"What if the powder was just dirt? Am I getting paranoid? Of course, I’m getting paranoid, but is it justified?"

Seth grabbed his hair in frustration and collapsed onto the plush, chestnut-colored sofa. Violet was working a late shift at the deli, so he had plenty of time to mull things over in his mind. He wondered if there was anyway to contact Randal, but in his mind he knew that the mysterious dwarf would be no more willing to divulge any secrets than he was at their first meeting. A dark thought danced across Seth’s mind. Randal didn’t necessarily have to be willing to talk. Seth was obviously a lot bigger and stronger than him. This thought became eclipsed by the realization that Randal could turn invisible.

Seth was beginning to see a side of him that had not emerged since he was young. His worry-free nature was being overtaken by paranoia and selfishness. He could see that he was putting himself before anyone else and that scared him. But what scared him even more was what happened next.

Something caught Seth’s eye as he leaned back further on the couch. A small piece of paper was lying on the floor near where Tanner had been standing. Seth got up and moved towards it, eyeing it as he did so. He noticed that the floor surrounding the note had a little bit of black powder smothered across it, yet the note was powder-free. This note had fallen onto the floor just as Tanner left.

As Seth bent down to pick up the note, a list of possibilities formed in his head.

"Is it a cry for help? Is there something Tanner could not say in front of the other three that he needed to tell me?"

Seth held the note close to his eyes and read slowly making sure he understood it clearly.
It read, "Next time, your friends won’t be there to save you."

Seth’s heart jumped in fear. The note clearly wasn’t from Tanner, but then who was it from? Seth was more bemused than ever. All the things that had happened in the past week were a jumble inside his head. Nothing made sense. First the man in the truck, then Randal, and now a good friend had added to the mystery. The strangest thing of all was the fact that Randal’s warning was coming true. Most people would have dismissed the little man for crazy, but lucky for Seth, he took the man seriously. If only there was some way to get some clarity.

A thought occurred to Seth. Tanner had looked as though he was sick. What if he had just gotten some contagious disease that Randal knew about? If there was one person who Seth knew would be able to identify a disease, it was Professor Phillip Reed. Not wanting to talk to Professor Reed over the phone, Seth grabbed his coat off of its hanger, slipped on his runners, and stepped outside into the cool night air. He tried his car, but the trusty old Civic decided to be stubborn. The engine refused to turn over. Seth slammed his hands on the steering wheel and yelled violently at the machine.

"It wasn’t my fault that stupid truck was there. C’mon!"

The car did not want to cooperate, so Seth committed himself to the five block walk to the university. It was a calm spring night. The wind whistled gently across the road, holding some garbage in it’s grasp. It felt good to be outside in the soothing air. Seth began to calm down and even wondered if he should just wait until the morning to talk to Reed, but he had already made it two blocks, so he trudged on, along the dark, paved street, dimly lit by the lamps above.

The university came into view at the end of the street and Seth quickened his pace to reach the doors. The pillars surrounding the main entrance towered above, casting eerie, immense shadows on the ground. The moon, although not full, illuminated the sidewalk as Seth trotted up it, and pulled on the glass doors. They banged loudly as he jerked on them, but they did not open. The school was locked as Seth had worried it would be. He hoped to see a janitor or someone working late inside. He knew one of those people staying late would be Professor Reed. He always worked past traditional hours on Sundays preparing for the first lessons of the week. The adrenaline of the previous events had just started to wear off and fear was trickling back into Seth’s mind. He realized that he probably shouldn’t have left the house, seen as how he was apparently in danger. Seth glanced around nervously, surveying the area, making sure that no one was watching him, before he knocked heavily on the doors and waiting for a few seconds before shouting at the top of his lungs.

"HELLO?"

To his surprise, someone came to the door. It wasn’t the janitor, as had been Seth’s first thought, but the university librarian. She had a pointed chin, deep sunken eyes, and wispy grey hair strewn across her face covering her eyes. She spoke with a raspy, yet kind voice.

"Yes, deary?"

"I’m really sorry and I know this is out of line, but I need to talk to Professor Reed right away!" Seth said very rapidly. He spoke out of courtesy, as there was no way that this shriveled up old lady was going to keep him out.

"Oh, dear. I’m not sure, but he might have gone home. The only reason I’m here is to reorganize the books after the little incident we had yesterday. You know, you could just call the professor," said the librarian.

Seth wondered about the incident that she mentioned, but dismissing it from his mind, he took a step closer to the open door and said in the most polite voice he could conjure, "Do you think I could just go check up at his office?"

The librarian hesitated, but then with a warm smile said, "Why not? But I’ll have to go with you, my dear."

The two headed up the stairs to the left. Seth tried to walk quickly, but the librarian kept asking him to slow down.

"I’m not as feisty as you young ones," she said as they finally reached Professor Reed’s door.

Seth knocked on the door, trying to peak through the small window into the office.

Apparently, Reed had not gone home because a hoarse voice answered the knock by saying, "Is that you Harriet? I’ll be out in a second, so you can clean."

The librarian called back in a pleasant voice, "No, Phillip, it’s Pauline. There’s a young man hear to see you.

Seth could hear Professor Reed get out of his chair and walk towards the door. The door opened and Reed came into view. He didn’t look much different from when he was giving lectures, except for the dark circles beneath his eyes and the sweats that had replaced his normal dress pants. He was wearing an evergreen sweater vest topped off with a classy dress coat. It looked as though he had closed his eyes and pulled his outfit from the closet without seeing if things matched. Reed didn’t seem to notice that he looked ridiculous. He smiled at and thanked Pauline, before ushering Seth inside, a silly grin plastered on his face.

"Ah, Mr. Manning! I love seeing students with such dedication. You need help with some of the assignment? You want some after hour tutoring? I am here for you. I must say I am a bit surprised to see you making this much of an effort just for some help. But as medicine is the most important profession in our world today, I am ecstatic that you are finally taking it as seriously as you should be."

Seth was about to respond by telling his professor the real reason he had come, but he caught himself and instead came to the conclusion that it would be beneficial to get on Reed’s good side. Since Reed was just about to leave, Seth decided to give him a reason to stay.

"Uh, yeah. I was doing the report on proper sterilization that you assigned and I wanted to throw in a little something about some of the rarer infections that can occur if you don’t clean up properly."

Seth knew that his story was full of holes, yet Reed, eager to help, rushed to his desk to get his textbook.

"I know some of the really rare ones are in chapter four. Let’s see...we’ve got protozoa and toxoplasmosis. No, that’s not it. There’s some better ones in here." Reed flipped through the pages, glancing at each one and stating what it was about. "Uh, Pseudomonas. That’s a bit closer. You could try that."

Reed continued through the book, and with each turn of a page, Seth’s impatience multiplied. He had expected a quick explanation, so he could get on with asking about the black powder.

Finally Seth abandoned the lie and blurted, "Sir, I’m not here for help."

Reed looked up from the book, baffled that Seth would dare lie to him.

"So what are you doing? Sneaking around the school, stealing things? Are you a thief?" Reed slammed the book shut and continued, "Yeah. Pauline caught you didn’t she and you made up some excuse about needing help from me. I see what’s going on."

"No, sir," Seth tried to explain, "I do need your help. It’s just not with homework."

"Oh, so you’ve got your paper done?" Reed asked, already knowing the answer..

"Well, no, but..."

Reed interrupted him.

"Well then maybe we ought to get that done. Sit at this desk, Mr. Manning."

Seth moved over to the desk and sat down, reluctantly.

"Sir, I really need to..."

"I don’t really want to listen to you right now. You are going to work and I don’t.."

"But, sir."

"...care what you have to say."

Seth could feel the anger and frustration churning around inside his chest, speeding up the pounding of his heart. Professor Reed continued to talk in his disciplinary tone and Seth tried to contain himself. Tanner’s face, so dazed and pale, formed in his mind’s eye and he instantly remembered the urgency of the situation. He yelled without restraint.

"PROFESSOR REED! This is important!"

Reed immediately shut his mouth and looked down his nose at Seth. Before his yelling could be reflected, Seth spoke, quiet and distinct.

"This is important. Before you start yelling...or strangling, listen to me."

Reed sat down at his desk, his eyes still burning into Seth’s soul. His forehead was turning red in anger, making his receding hairline stand out more than ever. He placed his hands, which seemed to be shaking, on the desk in front of him and although he was still outraged at having a raised voice directed at him, he managed to pull himself together. He spoke in a such a voice as to let Seth know that if this wasn’t important he was going to be killed.

"Go on."

Seth explained what had happened after the poker game. He didn’t tell Reed about Randal because he didn’t want to come off as crazy. After hearing the symptoms that Tanner had exhibited, Reed gave a little chuckle and leaned back in his chair.

"Seth, even you should be able to tell me what your friend, Tanner, has."

Seth had the feeling that he was missing the obvious. He squinted his eyes in thought.

"Think, Seth. Pale face, shaky hands, stuttering voice. Not to mention the fact that he had just had a very traumatic experience by falling asleep at the wheel."

Seth, still unsure, questioned, "What? Post-traumatic stress?"

"I’m not sure I would go that far. I would label this as standard shock," Professor Reed said. "He went through something that frightened him and the experience sent him into mild shock. I’m sure that’s what the nurses at the hospital will say."

"Yeah, but what about the black powder?" Seth said fiercely, determined to get a better answer than that.

"He obviously fell in something. People in shock often become woozy and will fall down. You know all of this, Seth." Professor Reed could tell that Seth was unsatisfied with this answer. "What are you fishing for? You can’t honestly think that your friend has some disease that makes him exude black powder."

Seth noticed something odd in the way his professor said "black powder". He wasn’t sure, but it seemed to him that Reed was hiding something.

"No, I don’t think that he’s exuding it, but I think whoever made him act the way he did, dropped this powder onto him. Either that or it’s the black powder that is causing the symptoms. I thought you’d be able to shed some light, but obviously not."

Seth stood up from his desk, maintaining eye contact with Reed. He was sure that Reed knew more than he was telling. Taking a step towards the desk at the front, Seth spoke in a whisper to emphasize his seriousness.

"Professor, if you know anything...Please."

Professor Reed appeared to think for a second. He looked distant, his eyes shifting all over the room, refusing to meet with Seth’s. Finally, he looked up at Seth and said apologetically, "Sorry, Seth. I’ve got nothing more for you. Your friend was in shock. Now if you wouldn’t mind, I’ve got work to do."

Seth didn’t want to leave. He wanted to press his professor for answers, but realizing that trying to uproot Reed’s stubbornness could in fact unleash his wrath, Seth turned and walked out the door, his head turned over his shoulder, hoping to hear his teacher call him back. No such call came, but just as Seth pulled the door shut, he could hear Reed open the drawer in his desk. Seth stopped in his tracks and spying out of his peripherals, he watched Reed reach inside the drawer and begin to lift something. He pulled a small vial from out of his desk and observed it closely, rolling it between his fingers. It was full of something darkly colored, either brown or black. Seth moved his face closer to the window and stared intently, no longer trying to hide his interest.

Suddenly, Reed caught sight of Seth, peaking through the window, and abruptly shoved the vial back in it’s drawer. He gave Seth a false smile and shooed him away with a flick of his wrist. Seth returned the false nicety, but as he was doing so, he slowly turned the doorknob to the office, desperate to confront Reed about the vial. Finding the door had automatically locked upon his exit, he submitted to Reed’s request and turned to leave the building. He walked down the hallway slowly, periodically swiveling his head to look behind him. Contemplating what he had just seen, he knew he wouldn’t be able to retire or confirm his suspicions, until he could talk to Reed again.

He wasn’t sure, but he had a hunch about what secret Reed’s vial contained.