Creature (CENTURIES series: Book #7)

8

After what had happened, I decided that Charlie needed a distraction to ease his mind off the event that had probably caused him to have a few more nightmares. He ate all the same, acted all the same when we talked and I taught, but at night when he was sleeping, I could hear his murmurs through the wall, hear his small whimpers as he tossed and turned. It was that exact reason that caused me to find him a proper distraction.

Like I had mentioned earlier, Charlie had taken a fondness to cartoons. He found the images funny and the dialogue intriguing, and that was why I had climbed up the ladder to my small attic to find an old box I knew I had put up there many years ago.

A box filled with antique comic books.

Yes, in my teen years it wasn't a surprise that I was a bit of a dork. I'd been more interested in gamma radiation and radioactive spider-bites than I had been in playing with makeup and going to parties. Of course it was the same reasons I had pursued a career within science and biology, and more precisely, what happened when the two mixed.

And that's when C.E.N.T.U.R.I.E.S had approached me.

Now, while I didn't approve of their methods, which, granted I only knew so much about, I still found it fascinating to get to work with the specimens they had genetically managed to create. Creatures had been the first successful breed of many, many attempts of creating a stronger human kind, and getting a chance to oversee just how they developed was what had me saying yes to their offer. Even if I still felt the end didn't justify the means.

And now after having spent almost three weeks with Charlie, I knew enough about him to know that what had happened inside that facility had scarred him in a way he didn't even know. It was all he knew, after all. Now trying it on in the real world, he saw just what he had been deprived of.

So climbing down from my attic and closing the latch, I headed down the stairs, carrying my box full of old comic books. They could probably sell handsomely for a total grant in all, but I just didn't have the heart to part with them. They were my childhood, my youth, the one part of me that remained innocent as they clung to the pages of the fiction written within the colorful, laminated pages. Maybe they could give some of the same to Charlie.

"Charlie?" I smiled as I came into the living room and found him chewing on some apple slices I had cut out for him while he was watching Adventure Time intensely with a deep frown like it was complicated, philosophical stuff. "Can I talk to you for a moment? I've got something you might like."

Blinking his eyes away from the TV, he looked at me with the same childish curiosity he always had whenever he was about to absorb something new. His eyes dropped to the dusty box as I set it down in front of him, getting down on my knees next to him.

"I figured since you love cartoons so much, I wanted to introduce you to these," I said and opened the cardboard box, instantly feeling nostalgia swell in my heart by the sight them. "These are called comic books. Back before everyone had a TV, these comic books were how children got their daily yucks. They're the old fashioned version of cartoons," I explained when Charlie gave me a confused look.

Letting his eyes drop to the front cover of the first comic book, he frowned lightly and tilted his head to the side. "What's a Super-man?"

"Superman is..." Wow, I hadn't considered how to explain exactly what they were to him. "Superman is one of many fictional characters that we call superheroes," I begun, thinking fast on how to wing it best. "Whenever someone is in danger, Superman, or any other hero, swoops in to save the day with his or her powers."

"Powers?"

I nodded and picked up the Superman comic book, flipping through the pages until I found one that could demonstrate. "See, here he's using his strength to hold up a heavy piece of roof to prevent it from crushing the woman below. He saves her."