Zap and Troy: The Legendary Journeys

I guess it was naïve of me to think that it was all over when I killed Satoris. It sure seemed like it was; the Ziox idol was destroyed, the city rose from the ground, and all the cult members that were there took off their hoods and walked away. Even Rowsdower’s Ziox brand had disappeared.

But I should have known that a cult that had waited thousands of years to take over the world would have more than one plan, and that it could survive the death of one of its leaders. It makes perfect sense now, of course, but then…well, I was happy to be alive, and there were so many other feelings, too….

But first things should be first. After the idol was destroyed and we escaped the cult, Zap took me back home to Aunt Betty. I hadn’t been gone for long, but looking at it from her perspective--door chainsawed, me missing with no note, and an unconscious hooded man hanging out of the kitchen window--I can see why she’d call the police. Of course I wasn’t hurt, but there were a lot of awkward questions for Rowsdower, and we hadn’t thought to come up with a cover story before we got back to town. Eventually Zap convinced the police to come with us to the lost city. We even found Dad’s old archeology partner, Mike Pipper, there, and he helped to explain about the cult to the police.

So things settled down for a while. I went back to school, bulked up some thanks to P.E. classes, and on weekends I was allowed to help Mike Pipper as he began studying the Ziox city. I’d put away most of my Dad’s old things, his files and maps and stuff, but I wanted to learn more about the Ziox because it helped me feel closer to him. For my eighteenth birthday Aunt Betty helped me buy a car so I didn’t have to keep borrowing hers to drive out to the site.

At first Rowsdower seemed happier, too. He rented a little place here in town, but after a few months, he left again. It was inevitable, really. He’d confided in me that drifting around the countryside had gotten into his blood, and he wasn’t content to stay in one place too long, so one day he loaded up his old truck and just drove away.

I wasn’t surprised in the least; it’s part of the romance of men like Rowsdower that they keep wandering. But it was strange to me how sad I was to see him go. I barely remembered my Dad, and Rowsdower was the only man I’d been around for any length of time. Aunt Betty never dated anyone; in fact, the only person she ever spent any time with was Linda Covington, the old spinster down the street. Aunt Betty would come home from her house at all hours, always smiling really big and saying what a wonderful time she’d had. (I know what that all means now, of course, but I didn’t put it together back then, having my own issues to deal with.)

But even so, I couldn’t figure out why I missed Rowsdower so much. Sure, I was going to miss the feeling of safety I had when he was around, but that didn’t explain the rush of adrenaline I got on the few occasions when he hugged me, or the way my heart raced when I saw him working on his truck with no shirt on.

So that’s how things were a year later, when things started to get out of control again. I suppose there had been some signs, but at first I didn’t notice anything, because I was still trying to figure out why I missed Rowsdower so much. But when he turned up again, bruised and bleeding on my doorstep, it all went way too fast to look for signs and warnings.