Broken Toys

Chapter 1

Billy watched as his new roommate wiped the blood from his face. He cleaned himself up efficiently, with the air of someone who was used to being beaten and bloodied.

The kid threw away the wad of stained tissues and stripped off his shirt, tossing it aside without bothering to see where it landed. Pulling on a clean shirt, he took one last look in the mirror, not reacting to the battered image. A look in Billy's direction and he was gone, off to class before the bell rang.

With a sigh, Billy turned on his side and tried to study. Five minutes later he sighed again and closed the book.

Stupid kid.

Ignoring the rumpled bedding, stacks of books and piles of dirty clothes, Billy left the room in search of some diversion. He wasn't going to stick his nose into the kid's business. Definitely not.

"So what can you tell me about him?" he was asking almost as soon as he found his friends. They were outside enjoying the sunny January day, hands stuffed into pockets and breath making white puffs between them.

"Why the sudden interest?" Snuffy asked, sniffling. "When he got here three weeks ago, you didn't care if you even knew his name."

"Yeah, well, I'm sick of him bleeding all over the place. It's pathetic the way he gets beaten up all the time."

"I noticed," Hank said, frowning. Don't think I've ever seen him without some kind of bruise or cut. Who keeps messing him up?"

"Why?" Ricardo wanted to know. "I know he's the new guy, but it's kind of ridiculous."

"You guys really don't pay attention do you?" Snuffy said, smirking. "The kid's a celebrity. Cover of Time and Newsweek. People magazine even. Seems he saved his whole town from alien invasion."

"Get serious." Hank shoved Snuffy, laughing at his expression.

"Look it up if you don't believe me." Snuffy crossed his arms and leaned back. "Since you're so smart and all."

"Doesn't explain what he's doing here. Or why he's the new school punching bag."

"Sure it does. The kid flipped; went crazy in a bus station. Had to be dragged away in handcuffs. Tested clean for drugs so they figured he'd gone nuts - seeing aliens and all. I guess they decided he was the right kind of reject for this place. He doesn't put up much of a fight, though. Makes an easy target."

"And why is it you know all this?" Billy wanted to know.

"Just curious." Snuffy said with a shrug. "Can't be all bad if he defeated an alien by himself. What?" he demanded when they all rolled their eyes.

*****

Billy Tepper had gotten used to living alone in the room that he used to share with Joey. He didn't want a roommate.

The kid had moved in the day before the start of winter term, arriving alone with just a suitcase, a backpack and a camera.

Other than a few nice black and white photos and a stack of cds, he'd made no effort to personalize his space. Nothing but the essentials on his desk and bureau, clothes all neatly folded in drawers or hung in the closet.

He rarely talked, which was fine with Billy, although the silence could be pretty unnerving sometimes, especially when Billy was sure the kid was looking at him. He had the freakiest eyes.

Mostly the kid just buried himself in his books, putting on headphones to let his music block out the world. On weekends he'd take his camera and disappear for hours. Billy wasn't interested enough to ask where he went.

The kid's taste in music wasn't too bad, Billy admitted. He'd checked out the stack of cds when the kid was in class. Maybe he'd ask to borrow some once the kid calmed down a bit.

He was a jumpy little thing. He startled easily and didn't seem to sleep much. Once when Billy had approached him from behind, the kid had gone pale and backed away so fast he'd nearly tripped over the chair. Billy was sure the kid was going to pass out or something.

The second day of classes he'd come back to the room with a bloody nose and grass stains on his clothing. Instead of cursing and storming around, the kid had simply cleaned himself up and headed off to his next class.

When Billy had opened his mouth to say something, the kid had stopped him.

"Don't. Just... don't." And then he was gone.

Billy noticed that he'd left his camera behind, placed carefully on the desk. Billy looked at it, careful not to touch. It seemed like a nice camera, though Billy didn't know much about photography. The way the kid handled it though; you could tell right away that it was his most treasured possession.

There were a few blades of grass clinging to it and Billy was tempted to remove them, but resisted. Better not to touch. Not his business.

But now... if what Snuffy had said was true... It seemed that there might be more to this kid after all.

For now, Billy could make it his business to find out who kept beating the kid up. At least a half-dozen times now that Billy knew of, and it was only the third week of the term.

Leaning over the desk, Billy looked at the kid's class schedule. It was carefully pinned to the bulletin board along with a campus map.

"British Lit. With Sorens. Lucky you. Hope you can stay awake, kid."

The kid had a full schedule today. He'd probably be gone until late afternoon. Good. This was Billy's easy day and his one class had been cancelled because the teacher was ill.

Time to learn a few things about Casey Conner.

It didn't take him long to search Casey's few belongings. Uninteresting clothing, generic personal hygiene products, lots of film for his camera.

One of the film containers yielded $47 cash. A plastic cup held some change, mostly quarters.

Under a stack of jeans he found a paperback copy of Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters" with an inscription from someone named Stokely. Inside was a Polaroid of a group of teenagers with Casey in the middle, actually smiling. No names or dates. Not too old, though, as the kid looked the same there as he did now.

Nothing else of interest in the bureau. On to the closet. Billy knew where the loose floorboard was. He and Joey had used that space to stash a variety of things over the last few years. Now it was empty.

Okay. That means that Casey is either very smart, or he hadn't found it yet. Billy was willing to bet it was the first one. The kid would figure that Billy knew about the hiding place. So where...?

Nothing interesting in the desk or on the shelf. But... He grabbed his flashlight before pulling out the bottom desk drawer. He set it aside and directed the flashlight towards the back of the desk... yes!

There was a flat box, about the size of a small shirt box. Pulling it out carefully, Billy flicked off the flashlight and put the drawer back before taking the box over to his desk.

"Well, well, well..." Billy studied the contents of the box with interest. "Cover of Time, cover of Newsweek. People magazine...all last year. Just like Snuffy said." How'd I miss that? Oh... that was right after Joey... "What else is here? Oh, much more interesting photos... "

The sound of the feet approaching and the door opening didn't register until too late.

"No!"

Suddenly Casey was there, shoving Billy aside and gathering up the scattered contents of the box, making a futile attempt to hide what Billy had already seen.

"You had no right." Casey shouted at him, eyes filled with anger, hands clenched tight around his secrets. For the briefest of moments, Billy expected to be hit. Instead, those eyes glittered, filling with unshed tears.

Billy reached for him, wanting to offer an apology, suddenly ashamed at having invaded the kid's privacy.

Casey pulled away, backing up awkwardly. "Leave me alone." Only then did Billy notice the kid's bloody lip.

Something snapped. This had to stop.

He held up his hands, managing to keep his voice soft despite his anger at whoever was tormenting this boy.

"I'm sorry, Casey." he said, and meant it. "I'll leave you alone for a while."

He left, closing the door behind him, waiting for the expected click of the lock. Casey didn't disappoint him.

First stop was the library. A computer search yielded 19 entries for Casey Conner. The library holdings included 7 of the periodicals. He printed out the sheet and went to the stacks.

Seven tries, seven failures. Someone had carefully removed those particular issues from their binding leaving the other magazines undamaged.

Okay, on to the newspapers on microfilm. Again, someone had carefully sliced out those portions, splicing the film neatly so that the rest of the spool was undamaged.

Back to the computer for full-text and cross-referenced searches. Casey couldn't have removed everything.

An hour later he pushed away from the computer, a small pile of print-outs in his hand. Not much, but a good start.

He found Snuffy and Hank outside and got their attention. They moved away from the other students so no one would overhear their conversation.

"I want to know who's giving Casey a hard time and I want them to stop. Now. And I don't want the kid to know I had anything to do with it." he waited until they both nodded their agreement before continuing. "And I need make a visit to the town library."

"Think Dean Parker is gonna let us go on a field trip?" Snuffy wanted to know.

"Doesn't hurt to ask," Hank said, smiling.

"After the fact." Billy added. "You have anything planned for the evening?"

They shook their heads: no.

"Then it looks like we're taking a trip to the library."

*****

Ten minutes before curfew, Billy hurried into the room, red-faced, out of breath and frustrated that his trip to the library had yielded little information.

Someone had removed materials there just as in the school library.

He tossed his backpack down onto the bed, noting that some of the things on his desk and bureau had been moved. Either someone was clumsy, or they wanted him to know they'd been through his things. Most likely the latter.

He walked over and turned off Casey's cd player, ignoring the kid's angry glare until he took his headphones off.

"Find anything interesting?" Billy asked smugly.

"Define interesting," the kid replied evenly, then calmly opened his desk drawer and to reveal a pile of printouts. "Just studying some school history."

Under the printouts was a photograph. Casey held it out to him.

"You little..." It was Joey, shirtless, reclining on Billy's rumpled bed. Joey had called it the slut photo. Billy had taken it one lazy Saturday when they'd spent most of the day in bed. He always kept it well hidden. If the kid had found it, then...

"Just repaying the favor, Billy." and there was nothing weak and soft about Casey now. There was only steel and daggers. "Don't worry; I didn't touch your drugs or booze. Just the interesting stuff."

Billy made a move for him, ready to kill, but the kid was brave or really stupid. He just stood there, not moving as Billy raised his hand. At the last second Billy stopped himself, spinning away from the sight of Casey's eyes and everything he'd seen in them; anger, fear, desperation.

After a long silence, Casey spoke, his voice steady, despite the tremble in his hands, clenched hard into fists. "Let's get this straight. You don't want me here. I don't want to be here. Neither of us have much choice. If I answer some of your questions, will you back off? No telling your friends, no rifling my stuff? Just... leave me alone."

Billy considered, watching the kid back away and take a seat in the desk chair. He had no idea why, but for some reason he no longer felt like ripping the kid apart. An odd feeling flooded him. Relief? Finally he nodded his agreement.

"Here's the deal. Question for question. I answer one, you answer one. Either one of us can refuse to answer a question. Deal?"

"Deal," Billy agreed, and for just a moment, as the kid smiled, it reminded him of Joey.

Casey settled back. "You can go first," he said calmly, although his hands were still clenched tight and his shoulders were tense.

"Okay, I'll start with an easy one: why are you here?"

"My therapist convinced my parents that I needed a change; thought I was developing an attitude problem. Next thing I know, I've got a one-way bus ticket to this place." The voice was steady but Billy could feel the kid's anger.

"Now you," Casey said after a moment. "Same question: why are you here?"

Billy smiled grimly. "Because they haven't kicked me out yet. Dean Parker made it his personal goal to see me graduate from his place. So here I am."

Billy leaned forward, ready for the real fun to begin. "Why were you on the cover of Time and all those other magazines?"

Casey nodded, he had been expecting this. "I'll give you the sound bite version. The whole story would take too long."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Well I don't feel like telling it. An alien took over my high school and most of the town. A group of us figured out something was going on, found a way to stop the creature, and killed it. The media found out about it. End of story."

Billy started to talk but Casey stopped him. "I read the news reports about the terrorists taking over the school. What's your version of the story?"

"Same thing; the short version. The father of one of the students is a judge. He sent a man to jail and the man's son objected. He intended to take the student hostage, but the FBI had already moved him. So the terrorists decided to hold the whole school hostage instead. We managed to overpower some of the guards so the Feds could take out the bad guys. We got lucky." He said the last sentence with heavy irony, then quickly asked his question before Casey could speak. "How did you find out there was an alien in your school."

"There were a lot of strange things happening that didn't make any sense. I tried to get my parents to listen but they thought I was just making it up to get attention - accused me of doing drugs. That's when the therapist started. But then I found this small creature. I took it to the science teacher to identify. He'd never seen anything like it. Later a group of us went back to look at it again and the teacher tried to assimilate us. Ze... one of the other students stabbed him with a pen full of a mixture of household chemicals. It killed the alien parasite inside of the teacher. That's how we defeated the alien itself. I trapped it behind the bleachers in the gym and stabbed it in the eye with a pen full of the chemicals. The alien was water-based and the chemicals dried it out."

Casey's face was expressionless, but his posture was defensive, his shoulders rigid. His voice was full of bitterness. "The media had a field day. First we're heroes, media darlings. My dad is suddenly my manager, pimping me to whoever will pay. He got a nice new car out of it, Mom redid the house. I got a therapist and an "image" to maintain. Reporters followed me everywhere and total strangers fell over themselves to be my friend. There was the book deal and the movie rights and talk of product endorsements. Until the lawsuits started. Suddenly I've got an attitude problem. The next thing I know I'm here."

"Yeah, next best place to the Ritz," Billy said, laughing. Casey smiled a half-smile and looked away.

"Do you ever think about... what would have happened?"

"What if we hadn't been able to stop Cali and his men? Yeah, yeah... all the time." Billy looked down at his hands, surprised to find them twisted together. Carefully he untangled them, spreading the fingers apart to ease the tension in his hands and wrists.

"What was the creature like?"

Casey shrugged, trying to look unconcerned, "It was a creature. Alien. Big and ugly. It could shape shift into the form of a human girl. MaryBeth. It had these things..parasites that burrowed into a person's body and took over, linking everyone to the creature so she could control them."

Unconsciously Casey rubbed at his face remembering the feel of the parasites burrowing into his skin.

"Did you? Were you infected?" Billy asked, somehow knowing the truth of it. Casey just nodded.

"Yeah," he said at last. "I was the last one. All the others were infected except Zeke and he was unconscious. I trapped the creature in the gym and stabbed it in the eye with Zeke's sc... chemicals. It spat these parasites at me - right in my face. I could feel them...digging in..." Casey looked away. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. I didn't tell this to anyone except Zeke. He's the only one..."

Billy blinked, watching as Casey seemed to collapse in on himself. He knew how the kid felt.

"How long were you... together?" Billy asked, sure that he already knew the answer.

A bitter laugh and Casey's expression hardened. "We were never together." His eyes narrowed. "My turn. Tell me what happened to you when the terrorists were here."

Now it was Billy's' turn to laugh bitterly. "Everything. I had the brilliant idea that we could stop them. My friends and I gathered all the information we could and I snuck out and gave it to the Feds. The terrorists did a head count every hour and would kill people if even one of us was missing. The Feds wouldn't let me go, they wanted to keep me safe. I had to run; I barely made it back. I pretended I had been in the shower and didn't hear the bell."

Billy paused his eyes sliding closed at the memory of what happened next. "Cali thought I needed to be taught a lesson. When he was done he sent me outside with the others as an example. The next day we defeated them and that was it. Over."

"What happened to the boy in the picture?"

Billy shook his head, his throat tight. "I'll answer if you tell me about Zeke."

Casey ran a hand over his face, considering. He was surprised at how easy it was to talk about this with Billy when he hadn't been able to tell anyone else. But there was something about him - something that made him a kindred soul. Slowly Casey nodded.

"All right." Billy swallowed hard. "But not one word of this to anyone. Not shrinks, parents, students, anyone. Got it? You repeat one word and I will kill you, Conner."

"It's Casey, and yeah, I get it. Same for what I tell you."

Billy laughed. "I have no idea why I'm telling you this stuff but it seems right. Okay." He took a deep breath. "Joey Trotta. My best friend. Cali was going to let him go. Joey managed to get a gun from one of the guards and tried to free us. The guards emptied their guns into him. Cali just let him lie there, walked right over this body like he was nothing."

"Did he... were you...?" The question was barely whispered but Casey's body seemed to vibrate with the importance of it, even though he couldn't say the words.

A shaky breath. "Yeah, yeah we were. We became friends the day we met. Best friends. And then we just... Everything was right when we were together. We were good for each other."

Casey looked away and Billy thought he saw the glitter of unshed tears in his eyes. He rubbed at the moisture in his own eyes. "You and Zeke?"

Casey looked back and there was pain etched in his face. "We were good for a few weeks but we never...just that night after the alien. Then the press got to him. He was so afraid of the reporters and their cameras. He wouldn't even look at me anymore. Out of nowhere he takes up with a teacher."

Casey closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands. "He joined the football team. Became friends with the neanderthals that slammed me into the flagpole and lockers and whatever else was handy."

A choked sob and then silence and finally, softly, "I went out with Delilah for a while - head cheerleader, my dream date since 6th grade - but as soon as the press found another story she found another boyfriend."

A laugh, "I was pretty depressed. Thought about killing myself a lot. My parents started searching my room for drugs or weapons. That's when the therapist suggested a change. Only this place is just like the last except there's no darkroom here - the one place that I could go and not be beaten up or humiliated. The one place where I could be happy."

He motioned at the photos on the walls. "And Zeke, he gave me a fake id and passport, loaned me money for a bus ticket. I thought he was going to help me. Instead, he ratted me out to my parents, who called the cops and had me arrested in the bus station like a criminal." He leaned back and closed his eyes before

adding, "It would have been better if the alien had taken me."

"You don't mean that, Casey." Billy's voice broke and he had to clear his throat before continuing. "Look, I don't know what it's like. After the terrorists... I was pretty messed up. The dean, he talked to my parents, told them to keep me out of all that, didn't let the press near me. I hated it at first; they were camped just off the school grounds, watching for me. I felt like I was still a prisoner in this place. But it was better. It just took a while for me to realize that. See, Joey..."

Billy squeezed his eyes tight against the threat of tears. How could it still hurt so much just to say his name? And how could he possibly sit here and talk to this kid he barely knew about this?

There was a soft sound, a drawer opening and closing and then footsteps. A whisper of movement and then Casey was in front of him, a photograph in his hand, the edges slightly curled but the surface glossy, the image a soft-focus black and white of a young man standing by a car. Billy didn't have to ask who it was.

As he watched, Casey let the photograph fall and it fluttered to the ground. They stared down at it for a moment until Casey lifted his foot, intending to stomp on the photo. Billy reached out and caught his wrist.

"No."

They regarded each other for a moment, measuring each other. At long last Casey stepped back, the photo untouched.

Billy leaned down to retrieve it. He studied the image for a long time before returning the photo to Casey.

"Put it away for a while, Casey. Where you won't see it for a long time."

Casey nodded slowly, but before he could turn away Billy caught his wrist again. Two faint white scars were barely visible, but Billy ran his finger over the flesh, measuring the marks. Looking into Casey's eyes he held up his own wrists for comparison. He bore the same pale scars.

"Painful and messy but not fatal," Casey told him as if reciting. "An obvious cry for help."

"Or a way to feel something when you're numb."

"Did it help?" Casey wanted to know.

Billy just closed his eyes and shook his head.

Silence.

A whisper of warmth, a breath, then a touch. So soft it almost wasn't there.

Billy clung to it and opened his eyes.

And looked directly into Casey's.

Contact.

Another long silence, then nothing as they turned away from each other.

Casey put the photo away carefully, then returned to his studies, headphones on to block out the world.

Billy turned to look out the window.

It was dark outside, but too cloudy for stars.

There might be snow tomorrow, he thought, and wondered what Dean Parker would think about adding a darkroom.

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