667: Issue #9 "Rewritten"

The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.

Stephen Hawking



Jail.

I never thought that I would have ended up in jail…ever.

And definitely not in an American jail—in New Orleans.

But we couldn’t get out of it, no matter how hard we wanted to. We were arrested right out in front of St. Louis cemetery in front of at least a hundred people in the wee morning hours of November 1st.

November 1st, 2016

“I said hands up where I can see them!” The officer demanded as the crowd of people now circled around us outside of St. Louis Cemetery.

“What are you doing? They saved us!” A woman hollered from the crowd and we were met with a series of murmured agreement.

One officer lowered his weapon when he saw that we were unarmed, but the rest demanded that we line up so they could cuff us.

“They could be dangerous; just look at them.” Another officer pointed at Adam’s flaming arms and over at Khaine’s giant size.

The crowd began to boo, but the unarmed officer came forward to begin cuffing us anyway.

“I don’t know what just happened, but you somehow kept the city from being destroyed. We have to take you in for questioning, it’s protocol, but you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do for City Hall and the mayor. I don’t know who you folks are, but thank you,” He spoke low as he handcuffed me and Adam side by side.

“We’re the weirdos, mister; we call ourselves the 667,” I retorted proudly, “And you won’t believe us when we tell you about what just happened.” The officer handcuffed me while another placed cuffs on Adam.

“I’m sure I won’t.” He turned me around up against the brick wall of the building and patted me down for weapons—but I was clearly the only weapon.

“Hey, watch the arms, man. You don’t want to get burnt.” Adam warned the officer that was now frisking him.

“Are you threatening me, sir?” The officer asked and I watched Adam roll his eyes.

“His arms are on fire.” I pointed out and Adam’s officer grimaced at me.

I looked to my other friends and saw Khaine with his head hung low while Salome snapped at another officer that was running his hands down her legs to check for anything that might cause him bodily harm. Naomi had her eyes to the sky and seemed visibly disgruntled while she was being detained and Janus looked like he was trying to flirt with the officer that was handling him.

“This way, ma’am.” My officer turned me around and began walking me towards a police car that was parked crookedly behind the original barrier that the SWAT team had set up.

“Sure thing.” I agreed and followed him.

“Come on, man! What are you doing? You can’t arrest them!” I heard Henri yell out as a few other police officers held him back, threatening to arrest him too if he got in the way.

“Don’t get yourself in trouble, brother. Keep calm,” Adam hollered as his head was ducked into the police car.

“I’m going to get ya’ll out; I promise,” Henri yelled one last time as the crowd began to murmur again with the moral divide between agreeing or disagreeing with what was going on.

I let my officer slip me in the car next to Adam before they flicked their lights on and waited for the rest of their fellow men in blue to direct us safely through the crowd and down to the precinct.

I was going to fucking jail in the U.S. and there was nothing I could do to get out of it.

(*)

“I told you: there was a Demon that was hell bent on summoning the dead to take over the city and destroy it; we were trying to stop him. Or we did stop him rather,” I explained to the officer that had arrested me. His name was Hernandez and he didn’t look like he actually believed anything I was saying.

“And that is your actual statement? Your final statement?” He had been asking me the same question for the past half an hour.

“Yes. Like I said, we are some sort of supernatural human hybrid with a mission that we don’t quite know yet. All I do know is that we had to save the city and its people.” I was blunt with him as he glared at me over his paperwork.

“You know this is going to go on record, right?” Hernandez asked as he jotted down notes.

“Well, I can’t falsify information; that’s illegal.” I was being a bit snarky, but hell—we were technically outed now.

“So, you say that you have the power of mind-bending or something?” He asked and I sighed loudly.

“Reality alteration. I can pretty much consciously manipulate anything I want.” I corrected him.

“Like Carry? Professor-X?” Hernandez kept questioning me and I just laughed.

“No, more like Doctor Strange, I guess.” I pursed my lips in a half smile.

“Oh. Isn’t that something. Can you show me?” He seemed intrigued now.

“Eh, it doesn’t always work.” I fibbed. If I proved to this man that I could do anything and he was smart enough to realize that I could essentially break right out of jail in the blink of an eye—I’d have way more problems than I already did.

“And your friends?” Hernandez kept right on with the questioning.

“I’ll let them disclose that information to you.” I didn’t want to say too much.

Hernandez finished writing up his report while the rest of us were being interviewed elsewhere. I wasn’t sure if we were actually being arrested or if they had just brought us in for questioning, but I was curious.

“Can I go now?” I asked, hoping that he would tell me yes and that we’d keep in contact if he needed anything else from me.

“Uh, no ma’am. I have to place you and your friends under arrest,” He responded.

“What? Why?” I blurted.

He had to have seen what happened, at least a little bit of it anyway. He had to know that it wasn’t us that had done any damage or harmed any people.

“You were essentially caught at the scene of the crime—red handed.” He went to cuff me again.

I tried not to panic as I addressed him, “Officer Hernandez—”

“Call me Alex.”

“Uh, Alex…you know that we didn’t do anything, right? You heard some of the witnesses: we were just defending ourselves and the city. Why are you arresting us?” I tried to feign like I didn’t actually know why.

“I know what you told me and I am sure that your side of the story will add up with your friends, but there was no Demon for us to arrest, or anyone else of your kind—the city has to hold someone accountable for the damage and the deaths.” Alex led me out of the interrogation room as he spoke.

“Deaths?” I choked. I was well aware that people had died, but I wasn’t sure if law enforcement knew that.

“Yeah. The body count has totaled sixty-two so far, but we’re still counting.” Alex led me around a corner of the police station and I could see the rest of my friends lined up on a bench, waiting to be carted off to the jail.

“You can’t seriously think that they are going to charge the six of us for all of this.” I was skeptical that the charges would even stick.

“They’ll try; trust me. They have to put the blame on someone and you are all that's left.” He seemed a bit upset that he had to do this, but it was his job after all.

“Well, fuck,” I cussed as he sat me down next to Sal and she leaned over to put her head on my shoulder.

A different officer now read us our rights and let us know what we were being officially arrested for. He was met with opposition but threatened us with more charges if we didn’t quiet down.

They then led us out to the back parking lot and filed the females into one van and the males into another as they took us off to jail.

(*)

Salome, Naomi, and I waited patiently in intake as they took our personal information, finger printed us, confiscated any personal belongings, and made us change into beige jumpsuits before admitting us into population.

It was almost noon on November 1st before we were directed into the cafeteria to eat our lunch.

Women stared and whispered amongst one another as we stood in line for our food and Salome puffed her chest up when a woman side-eyed her.

“This is not going to go well,” Salome whispered between us as a roll was placed on her tray.

“We just have to stay strong and stay together,” I spoke quietly back as a bologna sandwich was plopped on my own tray.

“I mean, in theory…we could blow this place apart if we wanted to,” Naomi spoke confidently as we strode over to a table to not eat our lunch.

“And catch another charge? Nope.” Salome ended that idea real fast.

“Let’s just keep our heads low and our noses clean. When we see the judge we can plead our case and hopefully there isn’t enough evidence to hold us for long.” I spoke as I nibbled on my sandwich.

A burly woman who was easily twice Salome’s size sat down across from us and eyed me angrily. She had a tattoo below her left eye and her hair was slicked back in a face stretching bun.

“You gonna eat that?” She grunted at me and stuck her finger right in the middle of my sandwich.

I just shrugged slightly and tried to keep my cool and carry on my conversation with my friends.

“I said—are you going to eat that?” She grabbed the bologna out from between the bread and threw it at my face.

I felt myself go hot as I took a deep breath and responded, “No, thanks.”

“Maybe you should. Or do you gotta keep up that girlish figure?” She then slung the pudding cup at my face; chocolate goo dripping down my nose and on to my jumpsuit.

“Watch it, bitch,” Salome blurted, immediately regretting her decision to speak.

“What the fuck did you just call me?” The woman stood from the bench and towered over the three of us.

“Already?” I muttered under my breath as I wiped the pudding from my face.

Salome heaved a heavy sigh and repeated herself, “Bitch.”

Ah, come on, Sal!

The woman slung her tray at Salome and she caught it effortlessly, the tray and its contents melting into something that resembled the pudding on my face.

“Want to try that again, Sasquatch?” Salome bucked on the woman that stared wide-eyed at her.

I just knew that a fight was going to break out and I prepared myself.

Before the woman had a chance to leap over the table, I removed her from the situation and she crashed through the sneeze guard in the cafeteria line as her butt squished into the creamed corn.

“Saaaaal,” I groaned as a few more women took her place and prepared for a fight.

Before anything else could happen, a corrections officer appeared and broke everything up as she addressed us, “I need you three to come with me,” and beckoned for us to follow her out of the common area to God knows where.