Superman Elseworlds: 'In the Name of...'

Chapter 5: Odyssey (part 1)

According to Arshid, his friend convinced the passenger to come and see him, 'see what he had done', and the man came and agreed to provide more medicine. He refused to take Arshid to the hospital as he didn't want word of the accident and his involvement in it getting out. Later that evening, the car returned and took Arshid's friend to go get the medicine. This happened a couple more times until the fevers and sickness had passed, and then Arshid's friend…well, some say he committed suicide and others that he was killed in an accident. A few days after the funeral, the car returned and Arshid was specifically sought out.

For several weeks, Arshid was taken on 'long drives'. I met him a couple of months after the funeral as I wandered the streets to get a lay of the land and settle in to living in the city for a while. The months out in the mountains and countryside made me quite twitchy, but the flinch I saw him make when someone brushed by him…

I was looking to do a human interest piece in order to get the ball rolling as I settled in to living in Pakistan, so I introduced myself and, as expected, saw the flash of distrust in his eyes. My American accent certainly wasn't doing me any favours – something I had experienced on countless occasions in my travels – but after I offered to buy him some food from the nearby cart and assured him that we wouldn't be going anywhere, he was a little bit more amenable.

I couldn't help but eye his leg, the protrusion being quite apparent in the breeze, so I asked him about it and suggested he maybe attend one of the newly established clinics in the city. I explained that some expats had returned from the UK and the US, mainly doctors, and that they had set up clinics to help people like him.

It really wasn't easy convincing him to attend one of the clinics, but I got there eventually. Thankfully. It was a few weeks later, when he was recovering from the procedure on his leg, when I was visiting him at the clinic, that he told me about the 'jaanvars'.

…and about what his friend had told him had happened to him.

It doesn't seem to matter where you go in this world, these beasts are out there…

There was nothing I could do about it, though, as Arshid refused to give me anything to go on. Any way of finding out who the driver of the car had been…and that's the advantage these…jaanvar…have…that people like Arshid end up protecting them.

Just over a year after I had moved to Karachi, things were changing. The regular folk were less afraid, and it was the predators that were trying to get by unnoticed.

The mainstream news stations and papers are ignoring it, focusing instead on areas of politics rather than the drop in gang activity; focusing on the drone activity in the north rather than the increase in people venturing out in certain areas of the city.

As the weeks progressed and more and more people were being found in front of police stations, incapacitated and with notes pinned to them, things seemed to be getting brighter.

Yet there was fear.

Of a boy in blue.

The jaanvar that had been preying on vulnerable women and children were afraid, in pain, and rambling.

The women who had been saved from 'bringing dishonour' remained silent, but the children expressed delight.

A boy in blue was the rumour.

A boy of fire and strength.

A boy reciting the Words of God.

And there was fear.

And little Arshid was smiling.

***

(Asiyah)