Shopping Trip - Day Seven
When Sylar told Luke he’d been controlling his Hunger, he hadn’t been lying, not exactly.
He hadn’t been entirely truthful, either.
Ever since he’d entered the house, he’d felt it crawling under his skin, demanding to be released.
Invisibility, replication, pyrokenisis, precognitive dreaming. There were so many wonderful abilities walking around him, beckoning him to claim them as his own, begging to release them from the ones that couldn’t use them to their full potential.
It was maddening.
Having to put up with the house full of people-the loud carnies, the love polygon, Peter’s emotional instability, his own…whatever you could call his thing with Peter and Claire-was taxing his nerves and his control.
He needed an out.
So he volunteered to go on a grocery run, hoping that along the way some unfortunate zombies would cross his path. It wasn’t nearly the same, but it would be something.
The road was depressingly empty, not a zombie to be seen. He knew the encampment was still there, but it seemed in recent days they’d learned to avoid the house.
For all Sylar knew, zombies were territorial, and Nathan’s presence kept them away. Useful, perhaps, if not annoying at the one time he actually wanted to see one around.
Just as he’d started driving down main street, he thought he’d finally had a bit of luck. There, just off to the side was what had to be a zombie, judging by the slow shuffle of his feet and dead-in-the-eye look.
Finally.
He’d pulled over and was about to hop out of the car when suddenly the zombie caught on fire.
No, immolated was a much better word for it.
He wondered if Amanda was around, but doubted it, even if she was, he didn’t think that she had quite that control over her ability.
It was then that he spotted the zombie’s target.
The man was middle-aged: male-pattern baldness was setting in and there was a hint of paunch around his midsection, a man who had very obviously made as normal a life for himself as he could before the zombies forced him to start using his ability openly.
That itch returned strong than ever.
The now twice-dead zombie meant nothing to him.
He had better prey in sight.
He jogged over to the man who was now staring at him wearily.
“I’m not a zombie, promise,” he said as held up his hands in a defensive manner. “I was going to ask if you needed some help, but it looks like you have it hand.”
“You don’t seemed surprised,” the man responded, clearly suspicious.
“I’m special, just like you are,” Sylar promised. “There’s a whole house of people just like us back that way,” he said pointing down the road.
While weary, Sylar could see some relief in the man’s eyes when he didn’t have to hide what he was.
“I don’t know what compelled me to come out this way, but I ran out of gas just out of town that way,” he said pointing. “The last station was surrounded by ‘em, figuring we were easy pickings I guess and I didn’t think I could fight my way through.”
Sylar supposed not. Getting killed a fire ball of your own creation would be rather embarrassing.
He smiled. “I could give you a lift, if you’d like. I was just about to pick up supplies. If you’d like, I’m sure you could stay or a night or two. We’ve got plenty of room.”
The man suddenly looked ten years younger with the stress of no longer having to run off his shoulders.
If only he knew.
“Stephen,” the man said offering his hand in greeting. “Stephen Wright.”
Sylar smiled. “The name is Sylar.” He took a quick glance around to make sure they were alone. A second later and a wave of the hand later his new friend Stephen was pinned to the wall.
“What’s going on?” he said as the man struggled futilely.
It was a rush, watching the man on the wall. He suddenly felt more alive than he had in months, knowing that this man’s power was so close to being his. He could almost see it dancing along the surface, straining to get out, fingers curled up as if to strike but unable to. It was obvious that Stephen had control over his power, but not nearly the kind of control that he himself would have.
“Just giving your power a better home.”
A look of confusion settled in on the man’s face before the screaming began.
He sighed, why did everyone insist on screaming? It was so distracting from the matter at hand.
His eyes ran over the man’s brain, and he could see the blue-print being drawn in his mind. Once complete he let the man sink to the ground.
He closed his eyes and a shiver ran over his entire body. He finally felt right. Whole again. That missing something that had been growing louder and louder had finally quieted itself.
He smiled and opened his eyes and looked down at the corpse beneath his feet. He’d have to do so something about that.
With a thought, a small flame engulfed the body, like what had happened with the zombie, yet not so overkill.
With a pleased little hum he returned to his truck and back to his task.
After all, there were still groceries to buy.