Chapter Text
Abby saw the man in the superhero costume on her way past Casady’s Diner. She didn’t go into Casady’s any more - it was where she used to hang out with her chickenshit ex-boyfriend, Bryce - but she had to walk past it on her way home. Bryce and his friends were inside - she’d seen them in a booth by the window - and she’d hoped to get past the diner without them noticing.
She didn’t. Bryce’s new girlfriend Lisa had pointed her out, and they’d all banged on the glass and shouted curses that the window did not manage to muffle. Abby’d pulled her jacket tighter around her and hurried on, her head down, and that was when she’d seen the trail of blood. Looking up, she saw a mid-20s man in a blue spandex suit, red boots and cape, crawling along the ground. He was the source of the blood; Abby followed him around the corner to the back of the diner.
“Hey, mister, you okay?” she asked, rushing to his side. She felt stupid for asking the question - clearly he wasn’t okay - but what else do you say to someone who’s bleeding?
The man looked up at her in surprise. His face was bruised from a severe beating. And he looked a little like Ryan Reynolds.
“You can see me?” he said, his voice a throaty wheeze.
“Yeah, sure I can,” Abby replied. “What happened to you?” She touched his arm, then yelped. He felt... different. Like electricity, but solid.
“How can you see me?” the man asked. “That’s not... wait, I know you.”
“What?” Abby said. “Look, I need to get you some help.” She looked around for something to blanket him with. It was early spring, and still frightfully cold out.
“You’re Abby,” the man said, his eyes widening. “Christopher’s friend!”
Abby’s mouth fell open, and for a moment she was unable to speak.
“How do you know about him?” she asked. And there was fear in her voice. Nobody knew about Christopher. How could they?
“I’m Captain Excellent,” the man told her. “Richard’s friend.”
“Richard? You mean Richard Dunn?” Abby said. This was getting stranger and stranger. “Look, never mind. I need to call an ambulance...”
“Check it out!”
Abby turned and saw Bryce and his buddies standing behind her.
“My crazy ex-girlfriend’s talkin’ to nobody!” Bryce went on, and his buddies laughed.
“Bryce, this man’s hurt,” Abby said, ignoring his comment. “He needs help! Do any of you guys have a phone?”
“What guy?” Bryce laughed. “Man, you’ve really flipped out this time.”
“What’re you talking about? This guy!” she said, pointing at Captain Excellent.
“There’s nobody there,” said Conrad one of Bryce’s buddies, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“You’re standing in his blood!” Abby indicated his shoe. Conrad looked down, then back up, and shrugged.
“No blood there,” he said, and chuckled.
“Nut-zo!” said Lisa, while another buddy rotated a finger beside his head.
“They can’t see me,” Excellent whispered.
“How can they not see you?” Abby said, looking from him to Bryce and his posse. “He’s right there!”
A small crowd had formed. Behind Bryce’s friends were a few curious onlookers: an old couple who happened to be passing; one of the kitchen staff, who’d come out the back door with a bag of garbage; and a skinny spikey-haired man in a long brown coat.
“You’re fuckin’ schitzo,” said Lisa.
“Yeah,” Bryce agreed. “Ain’t nobody there.”
“I disagree,” said the spikey-haired man in the brown coat. “Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
He stepped forward, holding a gizmo out before him. It was little metal box with buttons and switches and blinking lights all over it. And a tiny little bell that went, ding.
“And there is most definitely something here,” he crouched next to Abby, his eyes on his funny little box.
“What is that?” Abby asked.
“It’s a little box that goes, ding,” the man said, and the bell dinged again. “There. Told you. What do you see?”
“There’s... a man, lying here,” Abby gestured, “bleeding. He’s wearing a blue suit and a red cape, and says his name is Captain Excellent.”
Bryce and his group exploded into laughter, and moments later the old couple joined in. The cook just shook his head, dropped his bag of trash and went back inside. Abby cringed.
“Can he see me?” Excellent asked.
“He wants to know if you can see him,” Abby said.
“No, I can’t,” the brown-coated man replied, “but my little dingy box detects him. How badly is he bleeding?”
“Pretty bad,” Abby said. “Are you a doctor?”
“Abby...” Excellent gasped.
“Come on!” Bryce said. “There’s nothing there.”
“You know, I don’t think you’re helping,” the brown-coated man turned to look at him. “I know for a fact there is someone there, someone who’s in trouble and quite possibly dying, and I’m not about to let you or anyone else get in the way of my saving him. So why don’t you and your friends push off and find something useful to do elsewhere. NOW.” He didn’t shout his last word, but Bryce recoiled as if he had.
“What-ever!” he said when he’d regained his composure. “Let’s go, guys. Leave these two schitzos to their schitzo-shit.” He turned and stomped off, and his posse followed him.
The old couple stayed. This was the most interesting thing that had happened to them all week.
“Abby, you’ve got to...” Excellent started, then gurgled and choked.
“Oh, no,” said the man in the coat, and he shook his ding-box. “No, no no no!”
‘What’s wrong?” Abby asked.
“Our friend here is fading,” the man said. “This box, it detects the presence of very specific energy signatures. It’s how I know your mister Excellent...”
“Captain...” Excellent said.
“...is really here,” the skinny man went on as if he hadn’t heard the blue-suited man, which of course he hadn’t. “But the signal’s getting weaker. He’s dying.”
“Dying?” Abby cried. “Can’t you do anything?”
“No. Nothing,” he stood, his coat billowing around him. “Something’s draining his life away and I can’t do anything! And all I’d need to save him is an old television set, the cathode kind, and a couple of radios, preferably an old World War II wireless pack. But without those things...”
“We have an old television,” said the old lady.
“You do?” the coated man spun around like a top.
“Mildred, don’t encourage them,” said the old man.
“But Stephen, we’ve still got our old set in the basement,” the old lady went on. “And you’ve still got your wireless from your RAF days!”
“Mildred...”
“Do you?” the coated man approached them rapidly, his face a beacon of hope, excitement and joy.
“Tell him, Stephen!” said Mildred.
“We, ah, have those things,” the old man said. “But...”
“That’s brilliant!” the coated man said, and his smile and enthusiasm were infectious. “Are they close?”
“We live just a short walk from here...”
“Brilliant!” the coated man said, and he spun on his heels and returned to Abby’s side. “Look, we have to move him. I’ll need your help, miss...?” He looked at her expectantly.
“Abby.”
“Hello, Abby. I’m the Doctor,” he said. “And over there are Stephen and Mildred...”
“McAdam,” Mildred said. “We’re the McAdams.”
“Stephen and Mildred McAdam, hello! This is Abby, and I’m the Doctor. Abby,” he spun around back to her, “we’re going to take Mr. Excellent here...”
“Captain!”
“...to their house. As you’re the only one who can see him, I need you to take my hand,” he stuffed his ding-box away in a coat pocket, “and place it on his shoulder.”
Abby took the Doctor’s hand and did as he’d instructed. When his fingers made contact with Captain Excellent’s body, his eyes widened in shock.
“Oh, there he is!” the Doctor felt around and found Excellent’s other shoulder, and slid his hands under them. “Now, will you take his feet? It will feel a bit strange - he’s an energy being - but I doubt he’ll be all that heavy.”
“And you can save him?” Abby said, taking Excellent’s feet in her hands.
“Oh, Abby, you just watch me!”
And watch she did. Abby sat in an easy chair the McAdam’s living room, nursing a cup of tea, while the spikey-haired Doctor whirled about in a manic frenzy before her. Millicent sat in the room’s other chair, next to the fireplace, while Stephen rested upon a seat he’d brought in from the dining room.
In moments the Doctor had stripped the television and wireless down to their component parts using a gadget he called a sonic screwdriver. Then he’d reassembled those components into an entirely new Frankenstein’s monster of a creation, next to the couch beside the front window where Captain Excellent lay.
They could all see Excellent now - the Doctor said his machine cancelled out the Captain’s aura, which acted like “a living perception filter,” whatever that was. He also said that Excellent’s bleeding was symbolic - in reality, another entity had wounded him and had been draining away his life.
“My machine blocks the leak of that life energy,” the Doctor said. “It’s like a straw, except not really, but if it helps think of it like a straw between Captain Excellent here and his assailant. I’ve pinched that straw and stopped the flow. A few days’ rest and he’ll be just fine.”
“A few days?” said Stephen worriedly. “Here, I take it?”
“Yeah. Got to keep him next to this,” the Doctor patted his machine, which unexpectedly belched out a couple of slices of toast, “at least until his wound is healed. Is that toast? I don’t remember adding that. Oh, and if you have an automatic garage door, I wouldn’t use it for at least three weeks...”
“But he’s staying here?” Stephen asked again. “On our couch?”
“Well, we can’t send him away!” Millicent admonished him. “Not in the state he’s in.”
“But we’ve got the Kudrows coming over for bridge tomorrow...”
“Abby...” Captain Excellent said, and he reached out a feeble hand toward her. She took his hand - she was used to the sensation by that point - and crouched down beside him.
“It was... Christopher,” Excellent said. “He... did this to me.”
“Christopher?” Abby said. “No, that’s... no! It couldn’t have been.”
“It was him,” Excellent said. “He said... he was hungry...” he tried to continue, but the effort was too much and he passed out again.
“Who’s Christopher?” the Doctor asked.
“Nobody!” Abby stood up quickly, then made for the door. “He’s nobody. He doesn’t exist!” And with that, she fled the house.
The Doctor watched her through the living room window. Then he flipped his sonic screwdriver, caught it, and stuffed it back into his purple blazer.
“Time I was off as well,” he said, and he gathered up his brown coat from the chair where he’d thrown it. “Please take care of your guest. He needs you.”
“Well...” said Stephen.
“Of course we will!” said Millicent. “Where will you be going?”
“To find Christopher, whoever he is,” the Doctor said, and he headed for the front door.
“You will put my wireless back together again, won’t you?” Stephen called after him. “Won’t you?”
Abby ran through town, no real direction in mind. This was all too much. Christopher wasn’t real.
He’d been real to her. But that was all. And even if he’d been more than that...
Abby turned onto Culkin Avenue and stopped suddenly. Standing on the next corner was a tall, blue box. It looked sort of like a phone booth; the words printed at the top said Police Public Call Box. It had doors on one side, opaque windows on all four sides, and a light on top, currently switched off.
And it hadn’t been there that morning. Abby was sure of it. She tried the door, but it was locked. It was next to Lisa Daniel’s Marine Supplies store; was it some kind of promotion? A kind of diving bell for the police? Did diving bells even exist any more?
Abby sat down next to it. She couldn’t say why, but she found the strange box oddly comforting. She sat with her back to the doors, staring north.
Which was why she didn’t see the monster approaching from the south...