TOUCH | Part 4

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Sean remembered falling into unconsciousness. The attached sensations – the sharp pain of the rock colliding with his skull, the blood seeping from his head wound, the cool floor of the trailer – were distant and inaccessible. Sean accepted that others felt those things, but to him they were part of a language he could never learn.

So when he opened his eyes to find a pair of large glasses staring down at him, cradling Sean’s head in his hands, he was slightly surprised.

“Can you hear me?” the glasses asked. It was a man’s voice, soft and low, with a thick accent Sean couldn’t place.

“I’m fine,” Sean said. He tried to sit up, but the man gently pushed him back down.

“You may have a concussion,” he said. “There is blood from where Edwin hit you, but I cannot find the wound.”

“There isn’t one,” Sean said. He scooted away from the man and sat upright. “Trust me. I’m fine.”

The man shrugged and stood up. In the dim light from a nearby space heater, Sean saw a thin, scraggly beard on the man’s face. His disheveled hair and wrinkled suit led Sean to believe that the man had been trapped in here for days.

“How long?” Sean asked. “Since the guy knocked me out, that is.”

“Just a few minutes,” the man said. He glanced at the back of the trailer, where more people huddled together in warmth of the space heater. “You recover quickly. But please, let me help you. I am a doctor.”

Sean obliged, letting the man place his fingers on his temples.

“My name is Farhad,” he said. “Can you feel this?”

Sean almost laughed. “No. But I can’t feel anything. It’s a…gift.”

Farhad nodded as if that were a perfectly clear explanation. “How did you find us?”

“Long story,” Sean said. “I came to rescue Edwin from the storm. Looks like you’re the ones that need it.”

Farhad looked back at his companions again. “That is true. We’ve found ourselves in what I believe you Americans call a pickle.”

The others drew closer, fear giving way to curiosity. Sean counted three children, three men, and five women. Most of the adults were in their fifties or older, clutching thin blankets with weathered fingers. One woman stepped forward, placing a hand on Farhad’s shoulder, and Sean realized that she was probably close to his own age. She spoke to Farhad in hushed tones using a language Sean didn’t recognize.

“Where are you from?” Sean asked.

“Iran,” Farhad said, patting the woman’s hand. “We came here seeking asylum. As you say, long story.”

“So how’d you end up in a truck trailer in Wisconsin?”

“Wisconsin?” Farhad nodded. “So we have crossed the border. We had to trust in some very suspicious characters to make it this far.”

“Why?”

Farhad frowned at Sean. “Young man, you have much to learn in the way of manners.”

Sean guessed that his face was reddening, although he couldn’t feel it. “I’m sorry, Farhad,” he said, pronouncing the unfamiliar name slowly. “If we can get out, there’s a town two miles south of here where you’ll be safe.”

Edwin had taken Sean’s phone. He couldn’t call for help.

“Do you have any tools or supplies?” Sean asked.

“Just some food,” Farhad said. “And the space heater.”

Sean inspected the heater. It was an industrial model, designed for heating large commercial spaces, plugged into a single outlet set into the wall of the trailer. He’d seen one like it in the Bayfield hospital where his stepfather worked. They’d put it on a moderate setting because of the enclosed space. Even with a blizzard brewing outside, there was a risk of overheating.

“I have an idea,” Sean said. “What if we used the space heater to heat up the metal in the container door? If it melts even a little bit, maybe we could pry it open.”

“With what?” Farhad asked. “I do not know if your idea would work, but the metal would be too hot to touch without serious injury.”

“Do you have any other ideas?” Sean asked.

Farhad shook his head. “Let me ask my cousin. Daria?”

Farhad turned to the woman who had approached him earlier, speaking quietly to her in their language. She went to the heater, looking closely at the label and safety sticker. Was she reading the wattage? After a few moments, she spoke to Farhad again, then looked at Sean.

“It works,” Daria said in broken English. “Long time.”

“She says heating the metal in the doors will take at least thirty minutes,” Farhad explained. “Perhaps longer.”

“How does she know that?” Sean asked.

Farhad smiled. “Trust her, my friend. She knows many things.”

Sean and Farhad carried the heater to the trailer doors. The cord was just long enough to place the heater within two inches of the astragal that sealed the gap between the doors. Sean cranked the heat up to maximum and stepped back.

“Now we wait,” Farhad said.

They stood next to the heater for ten minutes, carefully watching the metal. Nothing seemed to change. Farhad went to sit down, mopping sweat from his brow as he did.

Sean wiped his own forehead, which came away with streaks of perspiration that he couldn’t feel. He found it strange that his body reacted to stimuli normally in every way even without the accompanying sensations. He could taste, sometimes, and he could just barely smell incredibly strong scents. He could see and hear as well as anyone he knew. But touch was completely unfamiliar.

Ten minutes turned to twenty, then forty. Farhad and the rest of the group gathered at the far end of the trailer, spreading out as the enclosure grew hot and stuffy. Sean stood by the heater, willing the metal to melt more quickly.

After an hour had passed, the metal started to glow a dull red. Sean motioned to Farhad, and the man joined him at the front of the trailer.

“Progress,” Farhad breathed. “Now what?”

“Give it a bit more time,” Sean said. “We want it as hot as possible. How are you all doing back there?”

Farhad wiped his brow again. “We need to leave soon. We’re out of water.”

He turned to leave, but Sean caught his arm. “Thank you,” Sean said slowly, “for trusting me. I won’t let you down.”

Farhad smiled. “Of course not.” He patted Sean’s hand and retreated to the group.

Sean’s patience ran out fifteen minutes later, as the heat had spread nearly into an irregular circle nearly a foot in diameter. The heater itself made a strange ticking noise, and Sean worried that it might overheat and burn out any moment. He turned off the machine and dragged it a few feet back from the door.

“So how do we open it?” Farhad asked. The rest of the group followed him, watching silently. “We don’t have any tools.”

“You have me,” Sean said. Then he stuck his fingers into the molten metal.

Something sizzled. Sean pulled with all his strength, bracing against one door while trying to create a gap with his right hand. The metal burned his fingers instantly, searing the skin like steak. Sean looked away as the heat began to dissolve the outer layers of skin. That would be distracting.

There. A gap opened up in the metal, large enough for Sean to stick his other hand in. More sizzling. It smelled like burning rubber, and Sean knew that if he could smell it, the rest of the group was likely gagging right now. He didn’t look back. He had to keep pulling.

“You cannot do this!” Farhad yelled. “You’re killing yourself!”

“Wrong,” Sean replied. He tugged at the gap he had created, widening it one excruciating inch at a time. Both of his hands were little more than charred muscle and bone. Flesh and tendons tried to grow back, but the heat singed them away immediately. If Sean stayed here for hours, it would become a constant cycle of healing and melting, over and over again.

Sunlight. A pale sliver of white became visible through the crack Sean had opened. The metal cooled quickly, the red glow fading more rapidly than he’d expected. With a yell, Sean pulled one more time, widening the gap two more inches. Then he stepped back, his hands covered in brittle black flesh. He brushed them together, and what looked like half of each hand crumbled away and fell to the floor.

“That,” Farhad said from behind him. “was disgusting.”

Sean grinned back at him. “Sorry.” He held up his hands. The flesh crawled slowly but persistently up from his wrists. “But it should be enough.”

Sean leaned down to look through the crack. Edwin had replaced the busted lock with a new one. Just one more obstacle to overcome.

A face appeared inches from Sean’s own.

Sean stumbled back, bracing against the wall of the trailer. Farhad caught him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s your lucky day,” called a female voice from outside. It sounded too familiar.

“Paul, get over here,” Betty said as she smiled through the gap. “Looks like we weren’t too late after all.”

~

Read PART 5 (published 3/18/22).

The YOUNG HEROES GUILD is an anthology of untold stories from children and teenagers with superhuman abilities. Subscribe for new chapters and send your story suggestions to [email protected].