Zach’s Becoming
Zach’s mother tried to pull him into a tight embrace as his father towered over them. The look in his eyes was pure hatred. Did his father actually hate him? It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. Not really. Something inside him kept him from caring. He pushed against his mother’s hard abdomen. The corset giving him enough solidity to break free.
“Oh, Zach. Are you alright? Never leave me like that again. Do you hear me young man? A dead body is no place for a child to be.” His mother was in near hysterics.
If she only knew the dead things he played with in his room. Maybe that was why his father looked at him like that. Maybe he knew. Zach searched the train compartment for the cold man and couldn’t find him in all the chaos. Something told him his future lay with that man. He needed to find him. Needed to find out what he was. That strength, that coldness. He knew how that coldness felt from his experiments but the strength? Those eyes? He still felt as if those eyes were on him.
The rest of the trip went without incident. Well, mostly. Zach spent all his time searching the train for the cold man. He never found him but he always searched. At night, he would wake from dreams of him in a cold sweat. It left him weak. His mother fussed over him but he pushed her away saying he was fine. Food smelled foul. No matter how much water he drank, he was still left with a thirst.
Finally, as the train pulled into the station, his mother insisted on taking Zach to the town doctor. His father dismissed it all as another stunt for attention and went off to a local tavern. When they got to the doctor’s house, she told him of Zach’s progressive illness on the train. For a brief second, the doctor’s eyes dimmed with a knowledge he knew he couldn’t share. Instead, he gave Zach’s mother a brown glass bottle of tonic to give him every night before bed.
That afternoon they left by horse drawn carriages. The road was bumpy. There was nothing to do. His mother was fascinated by the scenery passing them by and tried hard to get him interested as well. Instead, he retreated to his dark thoughts. The eyes of that man still haunted him. He wasn’t afraid. He was simply curious. And you know what curiosity gets you.
