people in the room. He’s having a hard time figuring out if they believe him or consider him a lunatic.
“You guys all moved to Maple Street after I already lived here, right?”
Cassie murmurs “yes” under her breath for her husband and herself. All Melody can do is nod her head.
“Let me show you something.”
DiNario looks over the living room. He’s clearly in thought. A few moments pass by, then the TV begins to air a documentary about evolution, and the volume is turned all the way up. Mind you, the TV wasn’t on when the neighbors began their discussion.
“Hold on a second, Dominick.” Matt says. “I must have bumped the remote control.”
“No. No you didn’t.”
Dominick pauses again. This time he takes a deep sigh.
“Melody,” DiNario starts. “Where did the stain on your shirt go?”
She looks down to where the coffee stain on her scrubs was this morning, but is no longer there.
“It isn’t there anymore.”
Matt is starting to get curious, but also frustrated. “What’s the point here, bud? Our TV turned on and Mel’s shirt is no longer stained, so that proves you can make lightning appear out of nowhere? I think I am going to need to ask you to leave our house.”
“No... Fine. Give me one second.”
As soon as Dominick is done with his sentence, the wine glasses become removed from the grips of his neighbors’ hands, and begin to float in the air.
“Is this evidence enough for you?”
Everyone is stunned. To the point of an uneasy feeling setting in.
“Let me better explain this. The reasons you must not call anyone about any of this.”
DiNario would go on to discuss his life. That his mother had died while giving birth to him, that he’s not too sure but he thinks he only ages one year for every twenty that precipitated it, and that he’s lived on Maple Street for roughly 70 years.”
“With certainty,” Dominick states. “I can tell you that I am well over 150 years of age. And, yes, I realize I look like I am in my early thirties.”
This stuns the entire group. After all, they just witnessed their wine glasses floating in the air after a man told them that he’s more than a century old and that he has all sorts of weird powers. Now, not only are they stunned, but the group is fearful.
“Old man Jenkins has to know about this, right?” Matt asks.
“Matt, I have allowed you to banter with Robert for roughly four years now. The keyword here being -- allowed. I’m going to ask you to stop asking questions.”
DiNario walks around the living room in a casual manner. He is still observing the pictures on the wall, where the sofas are put, everything that he can possibly absorb.
“Listen, there’s no need to be afraid. The four of you are Maple Street lifers. If this can merely stay within the confines of our pathetic little pathway, I see no reason for this to become an issue.”
Cassie is taken back. “The four of us” she thinks. She realizes that her once shy and reclusive neighbor is including Giovanna in the discussion.
“Is that a threat?”
“Do you want it to be?”
All the lights in the house flicker. Darkness then fills the house. A door can be heard opening, then shutting. When the lights finally come back on, only the three neighbors who started the discussion are left in the Francis’ living room. Dominick is gone.
(
“What in the hell was that!” Matt says in a tone bordering between fear and anger. “I’m going over to Jenkins’ house. He has to know something about this freaking guy.”
Before anyone can argue against his idea, Matt is out the door. A beeline to the Jenkins’ house it is. Not exactly sprinting, but in enough of a hustle that Melody and Cassie can’t keep pace.
He begins to pound on Jenkins’ door. “Jenkins, old man! Open the door!”
This goes on for a few minutes. Finally, old man Jenkins opens the door.
“What is it Francis? You back for some more?”
Out of breath, Matt asks not so politely, “What do you know about Dominick DiNario? Why is it you’ve lived here for so long, but not once mentioned the fact that one of our neighbors never ages?”
Jenkins laughs. “You want answers about this from me? This is a road you don’t want to travel. Clearly, Francis, you are barking up the wrong tree.”
Infuriated, Matt busts through Jenkins’ door, plowing him over in the process. He can’t help but notice how much of a debacle his house is in. Clothing on the floor, stains on carpet, magazine and newspaper clippings all over the wall.
“So, here’s the deal.” Matt says as Jenkins lays on the floor. “You’re going to tell us what you know, because you clearly know something. If not, we are calling the cops to go to DiNario’s house.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
As the two bitter rivals continue their back and forth discussion, with Jenkins using his typical routine of not answering any of Matt’s questions by using condescension and avoidance, Cassie and Melody walk into the house.
“Oh, Cassie.” Jenkins greeting his neighbor as if they’ve been friends forever. “Please tell your husband to leave. Honestly, I am begging you. This is for your own good.”
Cassie has had enough.
“I want answers, too.”
“Answers? You don’t even know what questions to ask.”
Melody begins to notice that a lot of the magazine and newspaper clippings on the walls are of events that have happened. Some good, others tragic. From such a small event as a baby somehow overcoming being born four months early yet still somehow surviving, all the way to plane crashes; and volcanos erupting that destroyed entire villages.
“What… what is all of this?” Melody asks.
Before Jenkins can even answer, in walks in Dominick DiNario with a blank look in his eyes.
“Everyone stop.” DiNario demands. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
Jenkins shifts over to his stained couch as DiNario continues.
“I can’t tell you how many people are out there like me. I know that there’s a few groups of people who have formed an alliance of sorts. I also know that there’s a few others like me. Ones who prefer to stay out of sight and preferably out of mind. Some of us use our powers for good. Others, well, they think they’re using it for good, but you would likely describe it as being evil.”
“What are you?” Melody asks.
“This is a question I don’t have an honest answer for. I’m not a what, though. I am a who. My name is indeed Dominick DiNario. And I think it is high-time we continue this…”
Before DiNario can finish his words, the fear and anger that has been building within Matt over the course of the entire day finally gives way. He runs over to DiNario to tackle him. However, before he can hit his neighbor square in the chest, he is stopped.
DiNario is simply holding out his arm straight with his palm open. Yet it is leaving Matt a few feet off the ground and with his head tilted backwards. Not in pain, Matt is clearly in discomfort.
“You people will never cease to amaze me.” DiNario says. “I prove to you that I was the one who caused the lightning, I do amazing things inside your house, and you think you can come after me? Are you an insane person?”
Jenkins stands from his spot near the couch, “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what? I did everything in my powers to prevent this from happening. I value family. I loved my wife and do my child. But this person here, this Matthew, has had to go and test me far too often. Keeping a restraint on putting him in his proper place was one of the hardest of my battles. And I did it for you.”
DiNario puts down his arm. Matt drops to the floor.
Jenkins is attempting to walk over to DiNario, but before he can make it within nine feet of the man, everything in the house begins to tremble. Papers are flying across the room, furnitur
e is lifted to the ceiling, and the walls are shaking so hard that paint chips are falling off of them.
“I kindly asked you all to let this be. Instead you came here. You even had the level of thought to ask me if I was threatening you and your child, Cassie, but you still allowed this… This isn’t on me, but on you.”
A piece of broken glass from a picture hanging on a wall shoots across the room. It cuts right into the neck of Melody Kleybon. She falls to the ground, dead.
“Why won’t you people simply let me be.”
Matt looks over at his wife. A woman that he has loved since the day he met her. The same woman who saved him from himself. He then turns to DiNario. “I… I am wrong here. Please do nothing to my wife and daughter. You can do whatever you need to do to me.”
Dominick DiNario laughs. It is a mighty laugh.
“Funny. It is funny how you think your actions won’t have consequences. Not only for you, but your family. But no need to worry, Matthew Francis. Your troubled soul will be spared ever so slightly. I won’t force you to watch the woman you love die before you meet your maker. And I, Matthew, am your maker.”
When Dominick is done with his small speech, a tubed-television falls from the ceiling onto Matt’s head. It kills him instantly.
Cassie beings to cry. She is horrified, alone, and can’t even comprehend what is happening.
DiNario walks over to her slowly. He stares at his neighbor laying on the floor. “I am sincerely sorry it had to come to this. I truly am. If there is an afterlife, I hope it is there you come to understand how little I wanted it to come to this.”
Dominick lifts up his foot, then stomps it against