Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26572345-20160410175507

Hi guys. Sometime in January I posted a small chunk of this story to the workshop and I've been working with it on and off for a bit. It's reached the stage where the plot is laid out as it needs to and I was hoping that it could get some proper feedback now that everything needed is now in place.

My main gripes with it is that the grammar and english are a bit sloppy in certain parts and it may be a bit too wordy for its own good (currently at 9400+ words). If you have any critiques or suggestions I’d be really grateful to hear them.

Thanks again and I hope to hear your thoughts!

Whoosh Man's Sidekick

I’m sure many of you reading this can say that you can look back fondly on your childhood. This delicate period of our lives holds many happy experiences that shape us as we grow, and it is common to cherish these memories from time to time. Birthday parties, road trips and intense hide-and-seek sessions can easily be recalled with heartfelt nostalgia by many a folk. These little slices of innocent joy will always have a place in our hearts, no matter how aged and slow we are likely to be in later years.

With all this said, I cannot bring myself to look back on my younger days with any ounce of fondness or yearning. I was unfortunate to witness something no five year old boy should ever have to see and until recently I thought I had moved past it. A few nights ago, something dark and terrible I had tried so hard to keep forgotten for so many years came back into my life in a way I had never thought possible, and even now I’m still finding it difficult coming to terms with what I’m experiencing.

I’m sure you have many questions as to what I am trying to say but the truth is that even now I’m still trying to put the pieces together. I figured that writing down my experience may stir up some buried recollections that would provide further answers to what I’m going through. I’ll try to be as coherent as I can with this account but I cannot promise it will make all that much sense as I’ll be referring to very murky and troubled memories; those of my childhood.

I suppose I should start with my brother, Joseph. He was older than me by two years and always kept an eye out for me, happily choosing to make me, "Chuck”, his own responsibility. He was regarded as a generally great kid by all his friends and family; selfless and packing a devilish sense of humour, he was just the sort of person anyone would gravitate towards. I loved that son of a gun more than anyone else; the two of us were inseparable and I’m happy to have been as close as we were.

I like to believe that he was shaped somewhat into the good natured soul he was by his love of comic books. When we were growing up, we were both obsessed with superhero stories. We would sit together and read issue after issue, watch the movies and generally be amazed by the great feats of power and righteousness that each character expressed. I tended to prefer the heroes in Marvel’s output; Joe was enamoured by DC’s collection of champions. We’d have the occasional quarrel about which publisher offered the better characters, but our attention spans would lead us back to the comic in our hands and we’d once again find ourselves captivated with what we were reading.

Joseph’s particular favourite was Superman; a character with just about any power possible and could easily be considered a god, but no matter how dire the situation at hand he always tried to do the right thing for the people of Earth. He was the ultimate symbol of justice and righteousness that Joe he absolutely adored. Funnily enough Joe couldn’t get himself enthused about Batman all that much, which I think was due to the lack of fantastical elements that drew him so close to the Man of Steel. Well, that and the Dark Knight’s association with Robin, one of many sidekick characters along with Supergirl and Aqualad that Joe was not above grumbling about when they happened to appear at the turn of a page.

Our enthusiasm got to a point where Joseph decided to create his own superhero. It may not have seemed like a grand undertaking to someone a bit older, but seven year old Joe felt quite sincere about his very own character. I can remember waking up in the middle of the night and peering over to his bed to see him wide awake and sketching what he thought his champion should look like. I can still remember waking one night and peering from the top of the bunk-bed, finding him wrapped up in his Superman pyjamas going wild with pen and paper, writing down name after name trying to find one to match his excited vision.

The result of Joe’s enthusiasm that night was Whoosh Man, who in hindsight came across like a rather simple Superman clone who had more emphasis on flying around and apprehending criminals through the power of flight. Silliness aside, Joe was enamoured with his creation and decided to go further by creating comic books to go with the character. Dad was more than happy to lend him reams of lined paper for him to scribble down issue after issue, hoping to stretch Joe’s creativity. I was always excited when Joe would come hurtling down the stairs, wide-eyed with excitement to show off the latest issue to me and my family.

In these comics, Joseph made himself the main character, and could transform into Whoosh Man at will. He was made out to be a near unstoppable figure that lived a secret underground base he named the Whoosh Cave. Even if he did happen do die in battle, Joe explained that Whoosh Man would be brought back by a large device in the cave which he called the ‘Anti-Death Machine’. He would simply reform and then fly out of the main tunnel and jump right back into the action. As you can tell, childish sensibilities were one of the many things that made these stories fun to read at the time.

Being the closest to him, I instantly became the main reader of his comic series, as well as its main critic. When the Whoosh Cave became a part of his stories, I remember asking Joseph why Whoosh Man didn’t have some kind of base of operations in the sky, or why he didn’t just live in an aircraft if flying was so important to the character. Joe shrugged and simply said that he dreamt about an underground base one night and it seemed to make sense for the character, he didn’t say anything more about it. At that point, small peculiarities like the cave didn’t really matter, all Joe wanted to do now was to write and draw page after page of adventure and action.

Joe was always eager to show off his character and the stories he wrote to the neighbourhood kids, but I was always his biggest fan and I felt a little honoured at the time that I would be the first in line to read what my brother would come up with. Not long afterwards, he insisted to our parents that he needed to make a costume, as a way to live out Whoosh Man to the fullest. I can still remember running around the garden watching Joe strut about proudly in his get-up, a bright orange cape billowing behind him with each cocky step.

This fascination with this superhero would go on for quite a long time. Joe would spend his time after school lurched over the table, colouring pencils and paper at hand, going wild with whatever kind of story he managed to dream up in between lessons. I can recall one particular instance where I caught him wearing his costume while drawing, trying his best to get into character; all the while shouting amazingly cheesy one-liners and throwing his fists into the air. He caught me rolling about on the floor laughing, tears streaming down my face.

It was pretty easy to see that Joe got really carried away with Whoosh Man, but this wasn’t something that concerned my parents at first. They were just as happy as Joe was for finding some kind of creative outlet that was keeping him out of trouble, especially when compared to what other local kids our age were getting up to. I should mention that our family lived in a neighbourhood not too far from a hotbed of criminal activity, and our mother and father were always making sure that we weren’t being heavily influenced by whoever came from ‘the bad side of town.’ I can remember one day where we both made a half-baked plan for Joe to dress up as Whoosh Man and to head out to that area one night to take on numerous bad guys, but whenever we set a date Joe would always delay it. He’d climb into bed on whatever night we scheduled and just say that he wasn’t ready yet and needed more time to prepare, leaving me bitterly disappointed.

After about a month of comics and other costumed antics, I began to feel that Joe was trying his hardest make the character a part of his life as much as he could. One time when he brought one of his friends, Brian over for lunch, Joe was decked out in his costume and outright refused to be called by his proper name. When Mom called to him, asking what he wanted on his sandwiches, Joe got pretty crabby at her, saying she might give away his secret identity, outright refusing to be called by anything but the name of his hero. This turned into a small argument and it ended when Joe got up from the table and proclaimed that “Whoosh Man is here to stay”, that being the hero’s catchphrase that was often clumsily placed in every issue. After storming away from the table with Brian in tow, Mom pulled me to one side afterwards and asked me to keep one of my eyes peeled on my brother, just in case there was anything worrying that she and Dad needed to be aware of.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, but one thing that I was able to pick up on was that Joe became increasingly sensitive to recommendations or critiques of his work, and he would often choose to be in a foul mood for most of the day if anyone suggested minor changes. One example that I can remember from early on was asking him if Whoosh Man ever needed a companion, secretly hoping that a cartoon version of myself could be included in the comic for a smaller part, while Joe/Whoosh Man was the central focus. Joseph didn’t like this at all, saying that he would stop writing the stories altogether before even thinking of bringing in a sidekick.

Another instance that stuck in my memory was a week or so after the sidekick conversation, I had just finished reading one of his comic book issues, one that he said he was particularly proud of. I took the time to ask him how the Whoosh Cave worked. From what I recall, the secret base had a holding cell where criminals would be thrown inside and simply left alone, usually kept there by the end of the story but not being there by the following issue. I made some kind of dumb comment about it, asking where the criminals go to after they’re thrown in the cell and then making a sarcastic joke about the villains dying in the cage and then rotting away until there would be nothing left by the next issue.

That was the only time that Joe hit me, I saw quick flash of anger rush through his face and then I felt a quick fist to my jaw. After I tumbled to the floor, I looked up at him, eyes welling with tears and trying to stifle a whine. He looked absolutely horrified at what he had just done; he ran over and put his arms around me, saying he didn’t know what made him do that. Obviously Joseph got punished for it and profusely apologised for his outburst afterwards, but the event stuck with me for a long time. He had gotten so agitated about a petty suggestion that threatened his hero’s appearance of righteous moral perfection that it had made him violent. I think it was at this point that some signs were beginning to show that this wasn’t just his enthusiasm for Whoosh Man; it was starting to develop into something more pronounced and confusing.

Joe’s affinity with the character continued for another couple of months and it eventually got to a point where it was starting to bother my parents. They were always willing to support and entertain Joe’s flights of fancy, but they were beginning to notice that he wasn’t getting enough sleep each night and that his grades at school were plummeting. I was starting to share their concerns as I was most likely the one person who was able to see Joe’s condition at its worst. Joe would wake me up in the middle of the night, his eyes eclipsed in dark rings and his voice croaking after working for several hours on a handful of finished comics. This went on for nights, he would awaken me at stupidly late hours and struggle to talk while trying to hand me comics that I was too groggy to care about.

I had also noticed that the stories were starting to get weirder. There was one particular part in an issue I remember where Whoosh Man had intercepted some criminals robbing a jewellery store and then used his powers of the wind to push the air out of the criminals’ lungs, suffocating them and leaving them unable to scream for help until the police came. Most of that book was set in the Whoosh Cave with Whoosh Man frantically questioning how the ADM came into existence with a fearful expression on his face, which I thought was weird as I had assumed up till then that it had been built. Joe’s handwriting had become scratchy and disjointed as the book went on, making it difficult to understand what he was trying to get across, as well as what was going through his mind.

I believe the final straw came when my parents learnt that Joe was responsible for a violent incident at school. I wasn’t aware of this on the day, but he had hidden the Whoosh Man outfit in his backpack and brought it with him into class. By the time lunch came around and the other kids had made their way onto the playground, Joseph had gone into the toilets, changed into his costume and started indiscriminately beating up other kids, mostly the ones from the rough neighbourhood. I remember him running up to one of the quiet polite kids, Geoff, and punching him repeatedly in the face, knocking out his two front teeth.

I was there when the school decided to hold a family meeting shortly after the assault. Joe was also in the room but he didn’t look particularly concerned, more agitated than anything, like he needed to get something off his chest. The councillor had told Mom and Dad that Joe’s behaviour was disruptive and that if he didn’t change his attitude towards Whoosh Man and settle down, he would face the risk of being removed from the school. While in the office, Joe was insistent that what he did was the right thing; he had convinced himself that Geoff was already committing acts of crime, and he later told us that the poor kid was destined to be a criminal when he grew up.

My parents decided that they had to do something help Joe before this spiralled into something damaging. While I can understand that what they did was an act of love, when I look back on it now they appeared to be ill-informed on how to properly sort out the troubles that my brother was going through. One night, my mother came into our room with a glass of water and said she had a surprise for Joe. She sat on the end of his bed and held out her hand, showing us a little white disc.

“This is a Super-Pill”, she said, clearly trying to hold Joe’s attention, “These pills can give you special powers, but they only work when you go to sleep after swallowing them”.

This was enough for Joe to reach out and throw the disc into his mouth, taking a swig of water afterwards. I remember asking for one as well, but Mom said that Joseph needed it more than I did. She also said that she only had enough pills for one of us, and that it would take several nights before anybody would notice any powers developing. I went to bed feeling pretty dejected that night.

The following morning, Joe got onto bragging about how these new superpowers were going to open up new story ideas and that he couldn’t wait for when they would emerge and wouldn’t shut up about it for the rest of the day. When we were getting ready for bed later that night, Dad came in with another small white disc and a glass of water. Joe didn’t even give him a chance to speak before snatching the pill and gulping it, not even stopping for water.

Our parents kept this routine up for several nights, Mom or Dad would bring the pill and water for Joe to excitedly gulp down. After about a week or so, Joe was starting to get increasingly impatient, getting sick and tired of waiting for his powers to appear, but he was getting more sleep each night and seemed to have recovered from his period of daily drowsiness. While my mother and father were satisfied with the results, but I was the closest to Joe and I could tell that he still wasn’t acting as normally as he was before, seeming more paranoid and distant.

Joe’s output on the comics had slowed down, but the distressing jagged artwork and the changes in tone were still a common occurrence. I did ask him during one of his drawing sessions whether he would like to sit down and read some Marvel or DC with me for old times’ sake, just to briefly take his near constant focus away from Whoosh Man. He then snapped at me, saying that “none of those fake heroes matter now, only the real ones mean anything to me”, then turned and sat hunched over the table, fixated on the scrawled, crinkled paper he continued to draw on. It was clear that Joseph wasn’t entirely on the road to recovery; he had stated that Whoosh Man was a real person. I remember getting worried that this change in Joe’s behaviour was going to be an ongoing thing, but I don’t think I had any idea how this was all going to turn out.

That night as I was getting ready for bed, I made my way into my room and found Joseph stapling the pages of his latest book together. By the time he had finished, I had already curled up into my blankets; I didn’t feel like being bothered at all, especially with how loud and indignant he was that I should read his latest piece, saying over and over that it was his masterpiece. After holding my ground after a couple of nudges and pushes, Joe relented and went over to his bed taking the comic with him, muttering and grumbling under his breath. At this point I was too tired to care.

After what felt like a short while, I was shaken awake by my father, agitated and distressed by something. Still somewhat woozy, I looked around the room and saw Joe’s bed vacant. Turning towards Dad anticipating bad news, he said that Joseph had gone missing and that he couldn’t be found anywhere in the house. The police were called only a few minutes ago and told me that Joe’s costume was missing as well. Even more worrying was that the cabinet where the ‘Super Pills’ were kept had been raided, leaving an empty canister. I felt my heart leap into my throat, a thousand thoughts rushed through my mind, pondering what kind of trouble Joseph could be getting himself into this time.

After Dad had left the room, I rushed straight towards the cupboard to see if Joe was hiding inside. Finding nothing, I rushed back to Joe’s bed and pulled back the sheets, still hoping that this was some kind of poorly conceived practical joke and that he would make himself known before too long. I looked under his pillow and found another comic book, one that I think he had meant to show me on the night he’d finished it, but I didn’t care enough to read it at the time. I flicked through the pages, teary eyed and sweating, looking for anything that might explain why Joe had to rush off without telling anyone.

The story was another weird one; Whoosh Man spent an entire issue fighting his arch-nemesis, the disembodied head of an insane scientist in a floating device with claws, known as ‘Dr Behead’. Whoosh Man ended up dying a record total of five times before violently putting the villain down and throwing him into the holding cell in the Whoosh Cave. Each time the ADM revived him, Whoosh Man grew more distressed and badly drawn, Joe’s handwriting getting more scratchy and bold with each panel, clearly trying to show him in a state of utter panic. The last few panels had the sketchy disturbed hero contemplating that with such a strong opponent, he will need to have a sidekick in the future; the comic ending with a promise that the next issue will reveal who is set to take the mantle as Whoosh Man’s companion.

Something about this story just felt off; it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that Joe would be happy to write about at all. Whoosh Man would never be this out of his depth in the previous stories and Joe never liked the idea of sidekicks in the regular comics he read. I slipped it back under his pillow and stumbled downstairs to the kitchen. Mom was on the phone to several of her neighbours, desperately asking if Joe was seen by any of them. I sheepishly helped myself to a bowl of cereal; any distraction was welcome at this point.

After a while, I heard a knocking at our door and both parents rushed to answer it. I bounded out the kitchen to the front door, hoping to welcome Joseph back with open arms, but instead a gaunt old man in a black cloak stood unevenly in the doorway. Our local priest, Father Morrison stood panting and drenched in sweat, trying to indicate something to us but not finding the breath to do so. After collecting himself, he said that we had to hurry before Joseph did something dangerous. I missed the beginning of the conversation as he was slurring his words, so I didn’t grasp what kind of trouble Joe had gotten himself into. Without hesitation, Dad grabbed my arm and followed Mom to the car, my mind still trying to process what could be happening.

With my mother taking the wheel, she pursued Morrison’s vehicle through Saturday morning traffic, and it didn’t take long before we arrived at the church. I was then yanked out of the car and held in my father’s arms as they rushed onto the yard, greenery and gravestones rushing past me. A crowd had gathered around the building and I saw that they were all looking up towards the roof. I found by head turning upwards and saw the silhouette of a small figure, strutting around with a thin cape billowing behind him against a grim, grey sky. I felt my stomach drop and my eyes grow wide with horror as I made the connection.

Joe had somehow managed to climb onto the roof of the church, still dressed in his costume and looking out of breath. When Dad asked what was going on, an onlooker said that Joe had been up there for hours, running back and forth along the roof, as if he was trying to prepare himself for something. My mother shrieked and shouted at her son to come down, pleading with him to see sense. Joseph stopped in his tracks and looked down; a shocked and disgusted was stretched across his face when he gazed upon the gathering, following up with a pointed finger. He shouted towards Mom, his voice trailing off somewhat in the breeze but his vitriol was unmistakable.

“How could you? Revealing my secret identity to everyone, nobody’s supposed to know! The last thing I need is you running your stupid mouth before my powers are activated, today’s the big day!”

Commotion broke out among the spectators, each of them frantically calling up to Joe, telling him that he should just wait until services arrived to take him down. I found myself being hurriedly questioned by anyone nearby about what they could say to bring him back to earth, but it became obvious the more I stared that he wasn’t going to listen to anybody. He just continued pacing and snarling down at the group below, strangely appearing somewhat content with the melee of panicked townsfolk he had accumulated.

I found it hard to believe that the little angry boy staggering on the church was my dear brother; it was if I was witnessing a stranger parade about in Joseph’s place. The shock and awe of it all kept me silent for a short while, briefly losing myself taking in the unsettling spectacle before calling up to him again with the rest of the gathering. After a short while of my parents continually trying to find other ways to coerce him down, Joe paused again and started to address the crowd once more, his orange cape billowing more intensely in the morning wind.

“The time has come to prove myself, and the new age of heroes begins with my maiden flight across town! The Anti-Death Machine guarantees that I will be the greatest of all heroes!”

Gasps of abject horror from my parents weren’t enough to bring him out of this manic state, neither were the pleas and desperate words of the confused onlookers enough to sway him. His eyes shifted and darted from one person to the other, wide and confused as his jaw trembled. I joined several other people in calling his name, trying to get him to realise what he was doing, but we were all met with another shrill shout and a hateful stare.

“Stop calling me that! Joseph is nothing but a memory, Whoosh Man is here to stay!”

He then started sprinting across the roof; his gaze was fixed on the skyline, his fists clenched and his teeth bared. The increased frantic shouts and screams of the crowd didn’t appear to faze him as he kept on moving, getting ever closer to the edge with one arm outstretched in the direction he was running. I shrieked his name as loud as I could, hoping that I could do something to prevent this tragedy, but he rushed onwards and kept on going until his feet touched nothing but air. The orange cape fluttered behind him as he screamed all the way down.

Joe’s head hit one of the gravestones, breaking his neck and caving the left side of his skull, a sickening crunch and crackle echoed in the churchyard. He landed on his back, then a torrent of red fluid gushed out of his nose and mouth; his eyes went dull and lost focus while his pulsating neck was nearly horizontal. I remember screaming and begging whoever was near to do something, anything to save him from dying. My young mind couldn’t understand at that point that it was already too late for him, and no amount of tears and wailing would be able to fix this. I saw him quiver one last time, watched his hands shake violently in front of his chest, and then he finally stopped moving in a still puddle of blood. My brother, Joseph, was dead.

I was still clutching my mother’s leg and hysterically sobbing when the ambulance came to take his body away, I didn’t dare turn round to look. The crowd did their best to offer their sympathies and Father Morrison said he would do what he could to help with the funeral arrangements, but my mother didn’t want to hear any of it, Dad just sat on the steps with his head in his hands. Mom took me to the car while my father stayed behind in the churchyard, barely holding himself together as he relayed the details to the police. As the car drove away from the church I lay across the seats of the car, screaming in anguish, tears streaming down my face, coming to terms with the fact that I would never see my best friend again.

Joe was buried in the same churchyard a few days later; his body had been examined and made presentable for the service. Looking around the nave I could easily recall some familiar faces from the neighbourhood, Brian and a couple of classmates were there with their families to pay their respects. Even the Geoff kid who Joe attacked was there in a suit, but it was pretty obvious that he arrived out of morbid curiosity, wanting to see the weird kid who punched his teeth out be put in the ground. The coffin was built in a way where the door would separate into two parts; the larger section opening to reveal his body up unto the shoulders, the smaller section was thankfully locked to stop anyone curious from gazing at what was left of his face. Geoff tried on the upper handle and was quickly shooed out of the room by Father Morrison; the priest then gently beckoned me closer, it was time for me to pay my final respects.

His casket had a number of Superman comics inside it and understandably, no trace of Whoosh Man. My parents made sure to keep any remnants of Joe’s manic period away from the proceedings, storing his comics in a cardboard box back at home. I placed the paper and pens he used to draw his comics on top of his ice white hands, hoping that he would continue sketching and doing what he loved in whatever life came after. The coffin was hauled outside by a couple of local groundskeepers, over towards the sombre crowd surrounding a hollowed plot in the earth.

I couldn’t bring myself to watch Joe be buried, it just seemed wrong that the energetic, excitable kid I knew was going to be lowered down and his cold rigid body would just be buried and left to rot for the rest of time. I was driven home by my Aunt Kelly and locked myself in my room to be alone with my thoughts. I spent the rest of the night with all the comics he wrote and drew, sitting cross legged on the floor, turning page after page with my stinging eyes full of tears and a pained whimper aching in my throat.

It has been fourteen years since that awful day and I have been trying my hardest to run from those memories for most of my life. No matter how horrible the event was, I had to learn to move on and live without my boisterous brother, something I had difficulty accepting for the longest time. Father Morrison was kind enough to offer counselling sessions as I grew older, making sure to say some words of encouragement with every visit. While these sessions didn’t make me feel any better about losing one of my closest and dearest companions, I did start to get a clearer sense as to what direction I wanted to head towards in my life.

Not long ago I joined the local police station as a young recruit and as of writing this, currently at the position of deputy sheriff. It only took me a few nights to realise that I was mostly oblivious to how much the place I grew up in needed help, and it didn’t just begin and end with “the bad side of town”. It wasn’t long before I had to get involved with stopping attempted rapes, child abductions and other sick occurrences, all of which are happening on a shockingly regular basis. I suppose those years reading comic books with all the amazing superhuman heroics did leave an impression on me, one for the better though, something of a weird contrast as to how the same impression manifested into something so self-destructive in Joe.

Whilst working for the force, I managed to find the coroner’s report for Joe’s autopsy and reading it did confirm some suspicions I had developed over time. The examiners had concluded that Joseph was experiencing a period of “Benzodiazepine Induced Delirium”; the examination of his stomach revealed that he had swallowed enough pills to cause some degree of mental impairment. It was speculated that he climbed out of the bedroom window and passed out somewhere in the neighbourhood, waking in a state of psychosis the following morning that gave him the misguided confidence to climb onto the church roof.

After confiding in my family and telling them what I knew of the report, I was told by my mother and father that the white discs they had been giving him before bed were over-the-counter tranquilizers, and that Joseph’s bizarre twist was the side-effect of an overdose. All they wanted was for Joe to get some extra hours of sleep away from his Whoosh Man fixation and in turn improve his demeanour. It would be easy to hate my parents for allowing this to happen, but it was common in the local area for families to medicate their kids on whatever was recommended through hearsay. Given how bad Joe’s obsession got just before the end, I only see what they did as a misguided and desperate act of love, but I may never find it in myself to forgive them.

My family and I equally share guilt over what happened to Joseph; I sometimes blame myself for getting so involved in Joe’s obsession before up until it developed into his period of mania. That said, I held onto the belief that Joe would have been happy for me, totally proud of the upstanding citizen I had become from the naive, giddy eyed little boy he knew. The tragedy will always live with me, but I felt that Joe’s death had made me stronger as a person, more determined to prepare myself for whatever challenges life would throw at me further down the line. I’ll keep being strong until my dying day, that’s all Joseph would have wanted out of little “Chuck”.

It’s getting harder to be strong though, far harder than I would have guessed. My grim account really should have ended here, but now it’s being carried on in a manner beyond belief. This only started happening very recently, it can’t have been any more than a week ago that this dark chapter of my life reared its ugly head and started to test my resolve along with my understanding of the world. I would have been satisfied with knowing my hometown’s seedy underbelly of immorality, I know now that a greater darkness is seeking to stretch far further, quite easily beyond the mind of man.

I had just come back from a long shift at work where I had to be stationed past midnight. I groggily made my way up the stairs, eyes barely open as I crashed out on the bed, hoping that my dazed head would lead me into a deep sleep, something I found myself greatly thankful for after a couple of exhausting months on the force. Not bothering to get changed out of my sweat stained uniform I started my meditations, a handy technique Father Harrison passed onto me during our sessions of therapy. Taking one deep breath after another I found myself fading, barely noticing the comfortable sheets cushioning my weary body. Focusing only on my smooth rhythmic respirations, I felt my eyelids growing heavy and allowed myself to drift peacefully into a welcome state of semi-consciousness.

It must have been very early in the morning when I heard a continuous breeze outside my window. Irritated at first, I buried my head deep into the soft pillow trying to ignore the sound, an uninterrupted slumber being the highest on my list of priorities that night. As if in protest it just got louder the more I tried to take my mind off it. I leaned out of my bed, heaving my weight onto two tired feet and stood on the spot, swaying as my sense of balance tried to adapt to my drowsiness. As I waited in the black, as my ears began to tune themselves to what was around me, my irritation dissipated into an ever growing sense of unease.

It wasn’t a regular gust of wind, it sounded like it began at a singular concentrated point somewhere outside and was getting louder and clearer with every passing second. I don’t know why or how the thought came to me, but I was certain that whatever it was out there creating that sound was making its way towards me, almost as if in pursuit. Not long after I realised this, the noise stopped increasing in volume and I could tell that it was situated directly outside my bedroom window with the curtains drawn, the one facing the street.

I turned to look out one of the other windows in my room, the one that faced my neighbour’s garden with a tree and noticed that no matter how close the ever growing rushing of wind seemed to get, the branches were completely static, as if frozen in place. Whatever this thing was, I could tell what I was experiencing was wholly unnatural and hidden outside was something eager to toy with me, goading me closer. I started to feel a heavy, queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, but my resolve led me ever closer to the window, soft careful steps easily drowned out by the relentless wind.

The seconds seemed to drag as I made my way further onwards, dread and anxiety bubbled inside me with every step until I found myself standing by the cabinet facing my window. The wind had grown in intensity where I would have assumed my neighbourhood was in the middle of some violent hurricane, but I knew it was more than that. Somehow I was certain that whatever was brewing this tempest was making it for my ears only. I held in a sharp intake of breath and slowly reached out towards the heavy fabric.

Hands shaking, I grabbed both curtains pushed them apart. The gale immediately cut out and was replaced with silence, allowing me to take in whatever now faced me. My heart began beating harder as I looked upon a vaguely human shape. Letting out a whimpered gasp I found myself locking eyes with the entity. Before I could force the drape back together, a frail, guttural voice travelled through the air, uninhibited by brick or glass. Just like the storm before it, I knew this was something my intruder wanted to be heard only by me alone.

“Good to see you again, Chuck”.

I tried to scream, but I felt the noise die in my throat as what felt like a gust of wind forced its way out my gullet and out of my mouth, choking me and pushing my lungs from the inside. When it had stopped, I collapsed onto the floor and tried to collect myself. My heart was now racing and I was gasping for as much air as I could manage, forcing myself not to look up, the horrible image of what I saw burnt into my mind and soul.

It knew what it was trying to do, it was suffocating me and it wanted me to keep on looking at it. With my body shaking and eyes streaming, I turned my head towards the window to look upon the hideous figure floating outside my window, barely illuminated by streetlight. I felt compelled to look towards my visitor once more; gazing upon the dirty orange cloak billowing around the stick-like silhouette.

Joseph was outside by the window, somehow floating in the air. He was still wearing his Whoosh Man costume, looking like he had grown over the course of fourteen years, making the messy child-sized outfit appear shrunken and tight despite how corpselike and twisted the now adult body appeared. It also appeared as if he was decomposing somewhat, he was more bone than anything.

A million questions rushed through my mind, but I found myself responding with terror and disbelief. I found myself keeping my guard up, wanting to shout back something with filled with vitriol, but trying to keep myself controlled, not wanting to be suffocated again.

“No... No, you can’t be Joseph! Wha- What the hell are you?”

“I’ve been looking for you after all this time and that’s all you can give me; denial? Tut-tut, I thought you were better than that, little brother”.

I found myself fumbling for the switch for the lamp on my cabinet, casting a shallow ray of light upon my unwelcome visitor. Allowing myself to gaze some more at the crooked visage, I was able to make out more of his hideous features. My eyes darted at this unreal intruder and my unsettled stomach reacted in turn at the sight.

“Better?” I spat, wincing with a stale taste in my mouth “I watched Joe die and you tell me I’m being unreasonable when some corpse comes floating out my window wearing his costume? Tell me what’s going on here!”

There was no other way to describe him other than a levitating cadaver. His eyes were as dull and empty as when he landed on his head, but his skin was gray and flaking all over his slim anorexic frame. It looked like he was stuck in the same position he was in when he died; his bloated neck was still horizontal, his hands still clawed near his chest and the left side of his head looked to have caved in even deeper than I remembered. Dried blood had smothered the lower part of his face, appearing to stem from a triangular opening where his nose should have been.

“I’m not just ‘some corpse’, I was reborn. The ADM brought me back and I had to make my way out of the Whoosh Cave”. Joe was taking his time with explaining this to me, drawing out his words in a near continuous groan. “There was no tunnel so I had to dig my way out. The cave was so very deep and I was clawing at the dark earth for all these years. The least you could have given me was a warmer welcome”.

I never saw his mouth move whenever he ‘spoke’, as if a croaking voice was being carried on the wind itself. He didn’t really have a mouth anymore, just a row of misshapen yellowed teeth formed into a ghastly sinister grin, like he was mocking me. My fear grew to accommodate a feral anger, I found myself growing more furious that this freakish occurrence was being allowed to happen.

“You can’t be serious, can you?” I stammered, “You made that all up when you were seven; it’s always been childish garbage! You seriously expect me to believe an Anti-Death Machine brought you back to life?’

“It’s not a machine, Chuck; it’s so much more than what I could understand at the time. It’s got an ambitious will of its own, and it found me long before I flew from the church. Looking at it now, it was only a matter of time before it guided me towards its magnificence”.

Knowing that I was trying to make sense of the outright impossible, I instead tried to reach out to him, holding onto the hope that there was still something human hidden away somewhere in his skeletal frame.

“We both know that you didn’t fly. We both know that you’re dead, for god’s sake look at yourself! You’re not even human anymore!”

“No, you’re right, I’m more than human, and I’ve been preparing for this moment. This is the time you and I have been waiting so long for ever since we were kids; I’m finally ready to head out”. I found myself stumbling over my words; as if my own body was refusing to accept what was happening was real.

“What are you trying to tell me? Joe, I’m begging you as your brother, what do you want?”

Joe breathed in; like he was preparing to give a speech he had rehearsed for a long time.

“A new age of heroes is about to begin; I am its vanguard and its conduit. Once I have removed the villains from this community, and I know I will, other heroes will make themselves known. That’s where you come in”.

I froze. My body locked up and I couldn’t find it in myself to talk back. Not only had the dread of what he wanted from me made me too scared to speak, but I’m sad to say that a small part of me had accepted defeat in trying to get through to him. There was hardly any of Joe left, mentally and physically, anything I could say would have been a wasted effort. Sensing that I wasn’t going to entertain him with an answer, he let out a husky, gravelly sigh and continued speaking.

‘This isn’t just a friendly reunion; you’re set to be my sidekick, just like you wanted to all those years ago. Lucky, huh? Oh sure, I may have been a little bit uppity about it first time around, but I’ve looked long and hard at this sick old world we live in. I’m going to need to muster up as much help as I can’.

“No”, I mumbled, barely able to force the words past my trembling lips, “No, this is all so wrong”.

“It’s actually pretty simple, Chuck”, he barked, ignoring me entirely, “All you have to do is come with me, back to the Whoosh Cave. It’s a long way down but the powers you’ll be instilled with are worth the journey. I told the ADM all the things we did together as kids. It wants to meet with you so badly, little brother; it wants you and so many others to become heroes like me”.

“It’s not going to happen, Joe! I’m not ruining my life or anyone else’s for your sake! I don’t care what you are anymore; I just want you to make your way back to us! You’re letting yourself be used by something you don’t understand, can’t you see that?”

A strong gale materialised in the room and threw me against the wall with a thud. I felt the air being rapidly pushed out of my lungs again, almost certain that my ribs would fold inwards and crush my lungs. The carpet did nothing to break my fall as I dropped to the ground, writhing on my back, fighting to stay alive and struggling to make unheard calls for help. I strained my eyes up to the figure in the window, trying to keep focused as intense convulsions pulsed through my aching muscles.

“You’ve got some nerve, Chuck”, his gravelly voice now boomed and rumbled as he grew more enraged, “I’ve spent too long digging in the cold dark for my chance to fly. I was begging for company the whole time, pleading for you to be with me in the deepest depths! You really want to make a difference to the people in this town, policeman? You must help me first!”

His face was still plastered with the same sickly, jaundiced row of teeth curled into a smile, doing nothing to mask his inhuman fury. All I could manage under this onslaught of body and mind was to pathetically shake my head back and forth in protest; feeling like my heart was going to implode. My vision quickly went blurry and black, my pitiful cries for help changed to measly, barely audible bleats for mercy. Joseph shouted once more, still akin to a thunderous roar.

“I’m trying to give you what you wanted! Is this how little our friendship meant to you? You have to come back with me! You must-“.

He stopped as if something had briefly placated him and I heard a faintly croaky gasp travelling through the air. The pressure inside my aching body was instantly lifted, and I made quick work of gulping as much air down as I could manage. His body then swivelled on the spot and looked out over the town, the cape fluttering delicately as he hung in the air. I weakly pulled myself off the floor, wheezing for precious oxygen as I lurched over the cabinet, once again facing the window, struggling to breathe, let alone stand. With a sudden and swift twist, he turned himself to look at me once more, his eyes now more focused and vivid, holding a horrid gleam to them.

“I’ve just spotted myself some criminals, Chuck; it looks like your initiation as my sidekick is going to have to wait for now”, he whispered, his voice now calm and reserved. “Wish me luck on my first night on the job, won’t you? Don’t be disappointed, I’ll make sure to keep on visiting. After all, Whoosh Man is here to stay”.

Then he glided away from the window at an unnatural speed, as if he was a puppet pulled by invisible string, yanked by an unseen hand. As the sound of a brief, yet intense gale echoed in my head, I found my face pressed up against the icy glass, quickly wiping the condensation away only to find that he had disappeared completely into the gloomy night. Something strange came over me, I felt absolute terror and yet at the same time, a kind of childlike wonder and fascination, as if I had just witnessed the birth of a living legend.

That all happened a few nights ago and Joe has been true to his word. Every night since then, his statuesque form hovers outside my window in the early hours of each dark morning, continually beckoning me to come with him and accept my role as his sidekick. It’s getting harder to resist his advances as he’s more than happy to keep suffocating me until he gets his way. Like a recurring nightmare, it’s been the same routine for nearly a week and he’s only getting more violent and headstrong in his approaches.

I know that if I somehow crack and join him out of desperation, I’ll end up doing some truly horrible things. Ever since the first visit a series of strange and bizarre disappearances have been recorded each night in the local area and everyone in the station is completely dumbfounded by it all. The news outlets are saying that the individuals that are missing have criminal records or are suspected of acting illegally. The worst thing about this is that the way the victims are ‘chosen’, which can be vague at best. People linked to comparatively meagre acts like drinking in public and littering are being regarded in the same manner as burglars and rapists; they all just vanish before sunrise.

Joe’s not been shy about his nocturnal activities, he’s not only content with asphyxiating me each time he manifests outside my window, he’s more than happy to boast how many criminals he’s apprehended. He was at my window last night, bragging about carrying miscreants away with powerful gales into his lair. I found the guts to ask Joseph what he’s been doing with his alleged lawbreakers.

“The same as what always happens, Chuck. They’re still in the cell in the Whoosh Cave, just opposite the ADM. You don’t need to concern yourself with them; they chose villainy and it was only going to be a matter of time before I put things right. Of course once you choose to join me, then you’ll get your eyeful of my rogues gallery. I wouldn’t get too attached to them, mind”.

The thought of all those people down there in the dark makes my stomach churn and my chest ache. In a sick sense, maybe this is Joe’s way of getting back at me for that stupid joke I made all those years ago. Now those poor souls really are going to die down here, rotting away until they’re reduced to nothing. This became harder for me to handle this morning looking through the list of names in the newspaper, all missing within the space of a night. I happened upon one name, ‘Geoffrey’, some local thug suspected of armed robbery who could be identified by two gold front teeth. My mind cast back to the fight Joe got into in the playground those years ago, later talking about the kid who was destined to be a criminal later in life, and found myself needing a strong drink.

I haven’t spoken to my family about this, there’s no way they’ll comprehend any of this and I’m not of the mind to tell them something that I can barely understand. I have been considering asking Father Morrison to exhume Joe’s grave, but I’m not sure what good that would do, and may most likely put him in danger. My mother and father have been talking about staying over at my Aunt Kelly’s place out of the state until this all blows over, but I really don’t think the activities are going to let up. If what Joseph said is true, that he escaped from under the earth by digging for fourteen years to carry out some skewed childhood ambition, then I doubt that his twisted sense of justice will ever be sated.

I’ve packed some bags and booked a room at a motel out of town for a few nights, a part of me is hoping that he won’t be able to sniff me out, but I know Joseph will still be hunting me until then, waiting for me to slip. He was always a determined son of a gun when he was alive and I’m not sure I can hold out for much longer if he’s just as determined after death. At this point, I would rather die than surrender out of fear or frailty, but at the same time I wonder if it’s already too late for me. If I die, am I now doomed to follow the same fate as Joseph, to become a hollow husk of who I was?

So many questions run through my mind trying to get to grips with all of this, but one stands out among them all. What is this insidious force that lies so many miles underneath the church? What is this thing that snatched my brother’s soul from peace only to warp him into this decrepit monster? Who or what is the ADM? Can I outrun it? Do I still have time to save myself?

Looking at all of this, I doubt answers will change anything, it’s not going to stop what Joe has become and it won’t stop his sadistic overseer. I can’t predict either of them; there’s no telling whether he’s going to succeed in shaping vulnerable innocents into his companions, or when he’ll grow confident enough to carry out his ambitions beyond sundown. All I know is that he wants me alive and is adamantly determined to make me Whoosh Man’s sidekick before all else. As far as I can tell, I am his one and only obstacle, a fact that doesn’t help me sleep at night.

I don’t know what fate has in store for me or Joe, but all I can find myself doing now is consoling myself that whatever is coming to my window night after night isn’t my big brother anymore. The upstanding young scamp I admired is well and truly gone, lost forever within a malicious shade. With each torturous visit, every time I resist his beckoning call to servitude, the last words of the brother I loved echo in my head.

‘Joseph is nothing but a memory, Whoosh Man is here to stay’. 