Hardstop

“Damon, I appreciate the invite, but I’ll pass.” Henry Stubbins told his acquaintance. He held his stop sign proudly, allowing Damon and his children to pass on their way to school.

“It’s fine, Henry. I know you’re a busy guy.”

Henry stepped back to the street corner. He was about as available as anyone could be. But a fight club? Henry had his demons to fight but it seemed drastic. Damon didn’t seem the type either. Could be a secret rager.

Another shift coming to a close. The final occupants of his crosswalk were nearly at the other end when Henry saw a single headlight coming toward the children at a blinding speed. He was numb as his body rushed to reach them. Not again. Never again.

“GO!” he shouted, not sure if he’d get to them before the vehicle.

Henry shoved three children onto the sidewalk and was planted firmly in the way. It all happened in the span of a couple seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

He saw the oncoming speeder and realized it wasn’t the light from a vehicle. It wasn’t a vehicle at all. This was a streak of light on its own. Man-sized and zipping towards him, avoiding cars and other obstacles as it moved.

It just barely grazed Henry when it violated his crosswalk. That was enough. Even at 6’5”, he was launched to the opposite side of the intersection.

“Henry!” Damon knelt beside him, rolled him over and laid a hand on the shoulder he landed on. It felt so cold. Everything went dark.

Before he regained consciousness, Henry had visions of the speedster. Flashes of Bianca. Then back to the light beaming toward him again. Back to the last moment he saw her. The moment he never should have looked away. The moment it struck him. The moment he realized.

“Mr. Stubbins.”

The first thing Henry saw when his eyes opened was a doctor holding his arms down strongly. He must have been thrashing during the visions.

“Mr. Stubbins?” the doctor asked again.

“Doctor Downings.”

“So he told you about me?”

“Who?”

“Damon?”

“Nope. Just read the whiteboard.” Henry pointed to the writing straight ahead. The room was nicer and bigger than any he’d ever been in. Even when Bianca was born, they were roomed with two other couples. “I gotta get out of here.”

“Not a chance. Your arm has multiple fractures. Your ribs… your spine is…” he trailed off as if he simply couldn’t describe it.

Henry’s daze was fading more and more. He looked the doctor up and down before saying anything.

His face was misshapen,  his legs were massive and hairy and he had fangs jutting up from his bottom teeth.  “You’re… not human?”

Doctor Downings removed his glasses and laughed. “Nobody ever asks. I guess it is Big City. But, no, not anymore.”

“Can you even be a doctor?”

“Though I’m twice as qualified as anyone in this hospital, the truth is I don’t need to be a doctor. That’s not what you’re here for.” he said. He removed his surgical gloves to reveal what Henry was noticing already. His hands were emitting a stunning, pure light. Henry couldn’t see the hands beneath the glow. “This is why you were brought to me.”

Doctor Downings gently rested his hands on Henry’s right arm. The light coming from them intensified. Henry looked up, expecting at any moment to feel the healing. The doc’s brow lowered and creased. The light extended from his hands to cover the entire right side of Henry’s body.

Henry covered his closed eyes, and still felt as if he might lose his vision. And then it stopped.

“I can’t heal you.” the doctor said, the corner of his lips curling ever so slightly, his eyes staring blankly.

“What do you mean you can’t heal me? Where’s the cocky wolfman who woke me up?”

“I’ll recommend another doctor.” Downings began to leave the room.

“Listen to me, man.” Henry sat up, fighting back the wince and scream his body was begging for. “There’s something out there that needs to be stopped. Something that doesn’t follow the rules that keep us safe. The ones that keep our children safe.”

“There’s nothing I can do for you.” he turned from the beside again.

Henry fought the enormous pain from all over his body and twisted, grabbed the coat of the doctor and pulled him close.

Doctor Downings bared his teeth and breathed forcefully. “That feeling. That’s what I got. Now you get it.”

“Let it go.” Downings growled.

“My daughter vanished at a crosswalk almost ten years ago.” Henry sat in the quiet of the statement, releasing his grip on the doc. “If I don’t fight for those kids, who will?”

“I’m sorry. Truly. I don’t have the power to heal you, Henry. And if I don’t, I’m not sure anyone will.”

“Forget healing. I need you to make a call for me.”

The doctor agreed and after a day of waiting, a knock at the door came. Accompanying Downings was a woman who seemed to have survived a good thousand years on the Earth. She wore tattered cloth that draped off of her hunched body and swung as she hobbled around.

“Alba Abernathy the third. I’d say it’s been too long, but you freak me out.” Henry smiled.

Downings raised a furry eyebrow and left the two to their business.

“Yes, yes. Let’s begin.” she stated, already aware of the situation.

“Death!”

“DEATH!”

“DIE DIE DIE DIE!” shrieked the face protruding from the center of Alba’s back, pressed against the cloth of her shirt. 

“Ignore her, she must not remember you.” Alba apologized.

“That’s alright. Must be five years now since we looked for her.”

“That much magic takes a toll.” Alba creaked. “Your life must be difficult.”

Henry nodded.

“Desire the power to stop anything.”

“Desire doesn’t quite do it justice.”

“I’ll commence the ritual. It’s critical that you envision the power you need.”

Henry recalled a failure in the locating of Bianca many years prior. “Are you sure this will-”

“She went somewhere beyond this world… How many times must we explain?” the voice from the back face started wailing and then subsided. “This is a different attunement anyways. This will work.” Alba assured him softly.

“Leave! LEAVE!” screamed Alba’s other face. Alba shook her head and smacked it with a book taken from a large sack she’d been dragging on the floor. She then opened it and began to chant the strange words on the page. Words Henry never heard before.

The room quickly began to fade into darkness. Henry could see only the speedster he sought to bring to justice. Visions of the moment returned. The crosswalk. The stoplights. The stop sign in his hand.

Henry fell out of the hospital bed and screamed as his disfigured spine was transmuted from bone to metal. A steel bar replaced the spinal column and each disk jutted out of the skin. His ribcage grew and was reshaped. The wounded skin on his arm twisted around new metal protrusions. He felt every moment of the incredibly violent transformation and finally passed out from the overload of pain.

The crossing guard rose from the ground, but was no longer in the hospital. He was at his intersection. All the children around him, the cars, the birds, the air itself….stopped.

Something felt different. As strange as the stopped world was, stranger still was his body. Henry’s torso was replaced with the symbol he respected more than anything in the world; a stop sign. On his arms were red, green and yellow lights. Henry Stubbins was no more.

To secure the safety of all crosswalks, he was now HardStop.