Cold sweats and fevered dreams; those are all that Steve Burrows knew in the hours between midnight and dawn for the better part of six months. It should have been a sign. It should have meant something to him, but he blamed it on stress and Star City’s failing economy.
A financier in a high-rise corner office, Steve had been able to rise above the utter hopelessness gripping the streets below for the better part of the recession. Lately however, things had taken a dark turn in the corporation he called home.
Work consumed him. The clammy grasp of the status-quo gripped his soul. He had always considered himself a decent enough man. He left the hard choices to those reckless few whose blind ambition often accelerated them to the top of the financial food chain. That was no place to be in a town like Star City. Something like that could get you killed, or worse.
His family was the only motivation he needed. In this town you needed resources to stay out of the gutter and off the streets. His wife Mary and twin daughters were his focus—his reason.
The road to hell really is paved with good intentions. It was a Thursday when Burrows learned the truth of this oft-ignored idiom.
What started as any other normal working day full of high stress and multi-million dollar deals spiraled into something altogether different when a cryptic message appeared on Steve’s monitor, “We have your family. We have you. No cops. No capes. Do as we say.”
Steve wasn’t sure how to respond. What should he do? “No cops or capes,” the message read. Panicked and afraid he waited and more instructions came.
“Memorize this number. Go home.”
He obeyed, dismissing himself to his family’s bungalow on the edge of the financial district.
There Steve waited for three days with no word. Fear for his family his only companion. Finally, the dull hum of the television powering on broke him from a melancholic trance. “Go to your bank. The number is a box. The key is in your mail box. Instructions wait inside.” The TV shut off.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiittttt!!!!!!!!” Steve screamed in a torrent of misery. “Where is my family, where is my family . . . where . . .,” the sobs came hard and fast.
Tears streaming, in a soiled suit, he retrieved the key from his mail box and, ignoring his car, ran the five blocks to his family’s bank.
The teller, a cute brunette new-hire, seemed taken aback by his rancid attire and unkempt façade, but she ushered him into a private booth and brought his box.
Steve Burrows fumbled for the key as he wrestled to get the box open, slamming the booth door in the teller’s face. Click. It opened. Inside was a small PDA, and . . . something else.
Steve pressed the power button on the device. Nothing. He wretched from the anxiety, but barely seemed to notice. He pressed the button, again, and again, and again. The stress—the worry, they were all too much. No sleep. No food. He was losing it. He tried to focus. Blackness came unbidden and fought to swallow his consciousness. Steve fought it with the fervor of a deranged man clinging to his only thread of hope. He lost.
Banging and voices shook him awake. Had he passed out?
“Mr. Burrows, excuse me Mr. Burrows? Is everything ok in there? We heard a noise sir.” He tried to answer, but his voiced cracked and nothing but a wheezed groan came out. “Sir, if you don’t answer I’m afraid we’re going to have to come in.”
He stumbled towards the door and it happened. The PDA came to life with family portraits of his wife and kids, imagines stolen from his home computer. He found his voice. “What? I’m sorry. No, everything’s ok.”
“Alright sir, sorry to have bothered you,” came the uncertain reply from the other side of the door.
Steve wasn’t paying attention. The happy family portraits had been replaced with something else. A new picture of his wife and daughters strapped to chairs in a dark room—masked gunmen were standing around, weapons pointed at his beloved family. The next message came. This time it was audio.
A filtered voice commanded in cool crisp tones, “Mr. Burrows, this is almost over and you can have your family back. Take this device. Use your deposit box key on this PDA to open the back cover. The secondary device from the box will combine with this one. You have thirty seconds to figure it out.”
He moved with the clumsiness of a man who’d suffered three days of living hell. He fitted the secondary device into the back panel just as the voice returned with its final message.
“Mr. Burrows, you have just completed the construction of a digital relay which controls a sizable portion of weapons-grade explosives hidden throughout the financial district. Several of my associates are en route to your location and will arrive in approximately 90 seconds. You have until they arrive to use that device to detonate the explosives. If you do not comply your family will die. Good bye.”
The screen went dark for a split second before the image reverted to a video feed of his family at gunpoint.
“Wait! What? How can I . . .” Steve fell on his knees.
He stared at the relay. What choice was there? He couldn’t simply let his family be killed. How could he? Gunshots erupted in the lobby. Screams. Had it already been 90 seconds? He clutched the device to his chest, tears splattering the dark images of his captured family.
“God forgive me.” Steve Burrows activated the relay.
The noise was deafening as a chain of explosions began on the far side of the district. Burrows stared, agonizing over the image of his family. “Forgive me, forgive me, forgive . . .” he repeated. Then he watched in horror as the image of his family erupted in a flash of flame and fire and agony.
“Nooooooooooooooo!!!,” the inhuman scream erupted from his very soul. He didn’t even hear the splintering of the door as a masked gunman kicked it down. He didn’t feel the tearing of his flesh as the hot lead slammed into his back. Madness consumed him, rage filled him, and thoughts of his beloved ones escorted him into the darkness.
The darkness was welcoming. A refuge. In darkness he remained. Almost alone.
Time was immeasurable here, in the darkness. His memories lost to him. His pain gone. He knew only his name. Yet, he could not, would not move on. It was either an eternity or moments that passed, but the darkness took form and spoke.
“Steve Burrows, why do you not move on?” a ghastly tone uttered.
He found words, though not a physical form to speak them. “I, I don’t know. I sense, I feel that I am unfinished.”
“Indeed,” the voice replied, “and what have you yet to finish?”
He searched, though there were no memories, only feelings—emotions captured within his soul from something before. There it was a tumult of agony, pain, and rage. Hopelessness. Longing. Love.
“I see,” intoned the voice. “You were the author of great pain and destruction and yet it was not entirely of your own volition. I see that in the name of love you caused great evil, Steve Burrows. I have the power to grant you a chance. Moments like this are rare. Justice and judgment await you for your deeds, but love and vengeance are also within your grasp. It seems that an impossible choice ties you to this world and an inescapable fate calls you to the next.”
“I don’t understand. What must I do?”
“You must balance the scales of justice and judgment, of course,” groaned the voice.
“But, how?”
“I will show you. Do you accept?”
“I don’t understand, but yes . . . I feel as though I must,” he said as a barrage of warmth and light burned away the darkness, burned away all that was left of Steve Burrows.
When next he opened his eyes, there was a new creature, a ghostly apparition, and more. Now his is the will to balance justice and judgment. His only desire, now to right the wrongs and upend upheaval. Where once there was a man, broken and destroyed, now there is only a Ghostly Avenger.
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