I decided to go to bed early last night, in the midst of watching A Very Long Engagement on netflix. I've been staying up later and later, as my classes are in the evening, but I thought I should rectify that in order to rejoin normal society. So I hit the sack.
Then about 15 minutes ago, I woke up. I turned over and stared at my fan, feeling that cold you have at 5 o'clock in the morning when your body is at low-tide. I had dreamed about my old house in Lakeside. The place I'd spent 11 years of my childhood, from 3rd to 12th grade (if I'd had one), growing up. In the dream, there was a party going on at my house. Although I couldn't see who was there, in my mind's eye I know it was people like the youth group from LCPC or friends from school. My parents were from the era too. I recognized them as the people they were back then. My father, the judicial law giver, sitting and smiling in his big blue chair. My mother, chatting, her mouth speaking and smiling at the same time. The only other character I remember clearly is Lucas Coleman, who just happened to be hanging out. I remember him because when I woke up I immediately recalled a time when he had come over unnannounced, while I was watching a movie with my girlfriend, and we had awkwardly all watched a movie together. I'm sure there were others. I would be remiss for not inviting everyone into my subconscious for a party, I suppose.
I guess that's the terrible thing about dreams, that you can only really remember the end clearly, and even that seems to be disintegrating slowly, like sand from a hourglass. In any case, the end of my dream found me waking in the middle of the night. I was up in my room, except it wasn't quite the way I'd left it. There was a large desk in the middle of it. I went to turn on the light, in order to see what we'd all been working on, but the light wouldn't turn on. All around me were the party goers, now sleeping quietly in heaps and mounds. I opened my door and walked out of my room. In the hall, I looked into the bathroom and saw more people sleeping. They were on the counter and the floor, blocking the door from opening all the way. I can picture them curled up in the tub, quietly slumbering in my subconscious. I turned away.
I went past my parents room and down the stairs. I came to the kitchen and found my father, up early and tinkering. I asked him what was wrong with the lights. I don't remember what he said exactly, but I remember a feeling like "I guess that's just the way things are."
It leaves me with a feeling I can't describe. I feel a sort of mixed nostalgia tinged with longing. Some might say they're the same thing, but I know this isn't. This is counterbalance with the feeling of "so it goes" from the end of my dream.
Sometimes I really do miss every one I grew up with. I miss them in the way people miss tv shows they watched as a kid. I miss them, but only the way they were. The memory of knowing them. The memory of watching hey arnold at night when you're eating fruit loops on the couch. I miss them just as they were when I knew them, but I understand that they are all different now, no matter how much they seem similar. The Kyles and Joels and Deannas are all strangers with similar faces and names to their counterparts in my memories.
I've spent the last few years of my life sleeping on floors and couches and in other strange places. Now that I'm back in a bed, back in school, my mind feeds me the similarities with my old childhood home. It's one of those funny things your brain does, I guess. No matter how much time you spend adventuring or traveling or learning, it puts you in your place. It knows were you came from and reminds you of it, highlighting the before and after of your existence. In my dream, I see a lights gone out. I wonder what it was?
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Wyrm
A martian epic I started. We all have our wild sides I suppose.
The Wyrm
Pt.1
On Mercury, Hermes stood. He skin was light and dark, shining out in all directions while he pitched the little ball, on which he stood, faster and faster.
The landscape shifted like quiksilver and he watched the planets and spun.
He was smiling at the stars when he heard a flutter of wings behind him. A small cherubic boy stood before him, a parcel tucked under his arm.
Hermes frowned at the child, but watched intently, nonetheless as the child drew a pictograph in the air. As the message began to unfold, Hermes expression waned and even the sun king grew pale.
As it was, no one could remember who arrived on Mars first anymore. It had become one of those useless details which, given the number of newsworthy incidents, had been eclipsed in the grander scheme of things.
All anyone could remember was the race.
Each of Earth's country's had sought to colonize the red planet. Each president and politician drove it's people to new fervors. They talked incessantly about a place they had never been and the wonders that could be found there. It was an El Dorado for the 21st century. It's red carpet led, not to gold, but new scientific discoveries.
Surely, they said, that by knowing more about our neighboring planet, we will be able to ascertain new information about our own!
So it was settled, in all manner of ways.
Each country set off for the new world, brushing their shoulders against the other.
It was risky and rash. Each astronaut, cosmonaut, what-have-you, was pushed to be the first. Pilots made ridiculous decisions, politicians made ridiculous statements; and, as the race went on, it seemed as if everyone was winning, in all directions, and all at once.
Then a rocket exploded, killing twelve men and women. All genius' in their field, all in the best form of their lives.
This, in a twisted way, brought the interstellar aviators back down to Earth.
One captain looked at his crew and broke the silence. Another answered and spoke to another. In a fleet of 9 crafts, each had been flying solo.
One ship was almost out of food.
Another had lost their navigating equipment and had been following the others, line-of-sight, ever since.
On the dark road of space, between home and glory, they became one nation, one people, one cause.
The stress and anxiety dissolved with those twelve.
It was so when they arrived, each man a refugee. The countries of Earth had laughed at their soldiers and scientists, so far away from home. Politicians sipping exotic flavors had told them that they should do what they are told, if they knew what was good for them.
But the new people new what was good for them.
As the settlers to America, so many years in the past, they had no idea.
Pin stood in the desert, breathing deep and looked at the red sand shifting across the horizon. It blew through his hair, painting his face chest. He watched the horizon ripple with the wind. The great ocean of sand, billowing out into infinity.
From the depths of the ocean, there came a call.
It sang across the great distance to him. He listened, but did not understand. The horizon continued to ripple. A shape emerged from the waves.
Pin looked down at the small outcrop of rocks on which he stood, bare but for some shorts. Alive when he shouldn't be. He looked down at his hands. They were blood stained evenly from the tip of his fingernail to his elbow and onto his chest.
He was a martian, he thought.
He heard a deep echoing call and looked out again. Amongst the waves, the shape grew larger and larger still. It was too far off to make out anything more than it's size. It was immense, but moved with incredible finesse through the rolling landscape.
Pin became afraid.
The creature was growing in size, thrusting it's way towards him. It's splashing and jumping were precise and patterned, so that it became a leviathan arrow; flying towards him out of the heart of the great planet.
The echoing began to sound like rolling thunder. Or laughter.
Pin's legs felt weak, but he couldn't sit or fall over. The wind kept him upright and motionless. The painting desert presented him to the creature. The creature would take him, he knew.
It was as the creature finally neared him that he finally felt something cold pressed into his palm. He looked down at the new weight and found a huge jagged sword.
He lifted it up at the howling monster and the dream evaporated around him.
It was on an unknown date, unknown month, unknown year, that Pin awoke in a bunk inside North Dome. He looked around hazily, stopping to look at his skin, which wasn't crimson at all. He sighed and lay back against the bed. He closed his eyes and stretched his arms and legs out.
When his hand came down on the mattress, it struck something cold.
Pin felt a shiver cross him. His fingers felt around the spot for the hard, metallic cold. The came around a round ball, which attached to a filligreed cylinder. The sword.
Pin shivered and felt himself shake all over. He breathed a deep sigh and took his hand from the object.
He opened his eyes, through off the blanket, and calmly ran from his bed.
In the years following their settling of Mars, the newcomers built and made and invented, with a ferocity mankind had never seen. They still hadn't seen, as mankind had turned its back on the explorers upon the space fleets arrival to Mars. Communication was lost, or abandoned, and in the hopelessness of the situation, many died quietly alone in their beds.
It was in this vacuum, that Charles Fox stepped forward and presented them with a future.
He outlined a plan. A plan for survival. A plan for sustainability. He presented them with life.
So they made the domes, dividing them into cardinal points.
They made the houses and bunkers within the domes to keep the sand at bay.
The built labs and workshops, silos and farms.
When they came upon a problem, the collective mind of the colony invented a way around it.
If the ground was too hard, they built a better drill.
It the water was too far and too cold, they built a better aquaduct.
If the people became, fatigued, sickly, or weak; they made and created and worked around or through it.
In those first ten years, only 11 died.
They continued to strive, but to some, it seemed forever hopeless. They could not breathe the air or go outside without a suit. They were foreign contaminants to a planet that did not want them.
It was such that, no matter the level of success in providing food or medicine or safety; they settlers never felt like more than unwelcome guests.
Pin stepped into a shaft of light and climbed the stairs to the Mess. His stomach growled at him and he stepped quickly into the queue of people. He flexed his hand and tried to forget his bed and his dream. Friends smiled at him and he bid them a fine day, but he was lost inside himself. He stepped through the line and received his meal, thanking the service man and receding to a table next to a portculis.
There he was sitting when Plenty arrived.
As the first children were born, the crew turned colonists turned parents, decided to name their children after the things they missed about their old home. Children were called Garden or Tree or Gelato, each to the smiles and sadness of those who could remember their life before the domes and the sand.
This was done in a lighthearted manner in a time when most of the crew members considered dying quietly, alone in their beds. However, with the first child, a strange new emotion climbed into the hearts of the men and women.
For once, they began to see the future as more than a bleak cliff in the red landscape; that they would, at some point or another, topple off, ending all that they had built. Without discussion or consensus they had all come to believe that it was all just Christmas lights on a dead tree.
But, when the first child came, the first human ever born on Mars, those who had felt only abandonment and estrangement, indulged in hope.
“What's new?” she asked.
He looked out the glass, trying to count the inches between himself and the desert.
“Oi!” She tapped at his cup. Without looking over at her, he said:
“Plenty of time to tell.”
She made a noise in her throat and stood up.
He paused for effect and looked over, watching as she carried her bowl to her brother's table. He sighed and turned back to the window.
The horizon seemed to ripple and he felt a moment of euphoria. He turned to his food.
Pin stood in the docks, his bare feet shuffling through the dust colored by iron oxide. Each man in the bay moved quickly. Gathering gear and setting it out for the next expedition. Pin looked and looked about the room, searching for Plenty's brother.
“Pin?” someone said to his left. He turned to find Peanut, a great jovial hulk, looking down at him. He shuffled his feet and turned to the giant.
“Peanut!” He said with a great smile, “Where are you off to today?”
“Same as usual,” said the man with a sigh, “What're you doing down here?”
“Well...” Pin started, looking casually around the room for any alarm, “I was wondering if you had an extra spot open for today's trip?”
Peanut's expression brightened. Since an accident a few weeks back had sucked Pin's second cousin, Noodle, out of his suit, partly; the volunteers for the excursions for water had been wanting.
“Well sure, I think we can figure something out.”
It was almost funny to the settlers. It reminded them of back home, when you saw something one way from far away, but as it came closer, it was the opposite.
They broke ground on the dome as fast as they could, but ran into a number of problems with the wind that whipped around the planet. They had thousands of tons of materials,including their ships, turning over because of it.
Finally, with little recourse, they drilled the dense Martian soil, with the hopes of creating a more solid base for the domes to rest upon.
It was then that they made a fantastic discovery.
After less than a hundred feet, they struck mud. This sent the scientists into frenzies, each with a Nobel Prize in mind. But Fox stepped forward and pointed to the mud that came oozing out of the ground and said one word: water.
Pin was more than halfway into his suit, when a voice called to him. He sagged as Plenty's brother, Good, was pointed to him. He could hear Good siddle up behind him and whisper in his ear.
“What's this about messing with my sister?”
Pin turned quickly around at him, his eyes staring into Good's. Good was taken aback by the gesture and repeated his question.
“I've done nothing to her, mate,” Pin answered.
“Why do you shun her when she clearly thinks the Earth of you?”
He didn't know. He never knew. It was just the way he felt. But how can you say that to her brother, he thought. How can you tell her that, in a place filled with death and survival, you can't bring yourself to enough civility to procreate.
“I..” he started. Good's eyebrows ticked up.
“I'll talked...I'll talk to her about it.”
Good looked at him for a moment, still weary, but unsatisfied. Pin turned from him and continued to prep his suit.
They called the short distance to the wells and pumps “The Opening Measure”, because after that, anything was bound to happen. Peanut stood out near the front of the line, as he was very tall. Each of them wore what looked like a suit of armor, their heads encapsulated in shining metal bubbles. The suits had once been white, Pin had been told, but now each of them were brown and red from long use.
Peanut trudged along quietly for a while, the rest of the procession, a short man named Curry, a lanky boy named Corn and a few others Pin didn't readily remember, walk along in his footsteps.
After a few minutes of it, his intercom switched on. It was Peanut.
“Hey ya Pin.”
“Hi Peanut.”
“So what will it be today?”
Peanut scanned the horizon for a moment and turned the group slightly to the right.
“What's available, Pea?”
“Well we got Curry here checking the electrical on the wells, Bobo is with him while Corn and me check the pumps. You up for checking the line?”
“Sure thing.”
The intercom clicked off.
Curry sped up for a moment and Pin assumed that he was talking with Peanut.
Pin knew that while in the Measure, it was extremely important to focus on the line. The leaders realized that the corroding of the paint on the suit, while detrimental in a small way, made for good camouflage. Not that there were any predators, but they still decided on playing it safe.
But as they were the only life on Mars, Pin had always thought it like hiding from oneself.
Pin understood all of this, but, as it was a clear day of sorts, he indulged himself. He looked around, watching the clouds, great dust devils off in the distance. The mountains (the distance of sight affirming the beauty of the day) were great and hulking in the distance. Their size so much more than imposing. As a child, Pin had asked his father once if he could climb them. His father skipped the rational response in this and told him instead: “Maybe someday”.
Peanut clicked on again, this time as an all call.
“Alright folks, there she is in the distance. You guys know what to do, so let's be quick and get out of here so we can see the look on Station Manager's face at all the oxygen we saved.”
There was no hurray from the men, only the click and the absence of Peanut's voice.
There were six wells. Each was set 50 meters from the one before it. Wires ran between them for the teams to use in transit. The wells were set at staggers depths, but all drew from an enormous underground reservoir known as Fox Deep. Above each well, there were large pumps, each with a reinforced hose leading to the main line. This line was made from incredibly thick pipe, and was buried for it's own safety.
Pin's job, was to check the distance from each hose to the mainline, looking for leaks, abrasions, etc. When they arrived, Curry handed Pin a flashlight and a scanner to accomplish his task. The problem with the hoses was, due to their reinforced nature, no anchoring wires were attached to them. The scientists either didn't want to weaken them or forgot, no one knew.
It was a clear day, the sky a swirling light orange, the martian landscape some semblance of calm. Peanut had a radio in his helmet that with which the domes could reach him. This channel was only used in case of emergency. If they should find themselves stranded or if one of them were hurt, they would radio to base and measures would be taken.
These radio transmissions only occurred three times in the history of Mars.
The first, happened during the building of the wells. A group scientists wanted to try to build at night, such was the fervor for water at the time. When questioned, they outlined addition measures for the protection of themselves and their suits. These, with the radio, they said, would provide them ample security to survive anything the night had to offer. One man, George Mannecart, asked them, at the time, what measures they had to survive an attack (this before they had found that their sector, if not all of Mars, was uninhabited). The scientists proposed that one of them might bring along a tazer and the matter was settled.
That evening, before sunset, the group, radio code Red Eye, the group reached the well construction site and relieved the day crew. A few hours after the sun set on the red planet, the radio transmission was received:
“Help! This is a mayday! SOS! Whatever the bloody hell you want! Over!”
“Lt. Martyr. Come in. What is the problem?”
“We've got a hurricane HQ! Some of the scientists are blathering that it's so large we don't even have a classification for it! There also seem to be a number of tornadoes joined in with the storm! Over!”
“What's your 20? Over.”
“We've taken shelter in as much of the construction site as there is left to offer, but it's tearing the wells and the equipment apart! Over!”
“Okay, we are have paged Dr. Mansard. He'll advise as to survival protocol. Over!”
“This is Mansard. Martyr?”
“Yes sir! Over!”
“We exactly in the site are you? Erm...Over.”
“We have taken shelter in the wells sir! I'm here with Stepan, and Peter and Nikolai are in another! Our positions are temporary, at most! The storm is destroying everything sir! Over.”
Mansard consulted his notes and believed he had found a suitably place for them to survive the storm. He consulted with Fox before issuing the orders.
“Martyr? Over.”
“Yes sir. Here sir. Over.”
“There is an outcropping of rocks just east of the site. Do you have your GPS? Over”
“Yes sir, but the storm, sir...Over”
“Martyr, you can't survive there all night. Now in the rocks, there are some small caves. We haven't properly searched them, but the reconnaissance I have suggests that the four of you can fit. I need you to try and make it to the caves. Wait for a break in the storm. It should be more than a hundred and fifty feet away at most. Over.”
“I'll consult the engineers. Over.”
In the end, they were left with no other choice. After radioing back to the domes, Martyr led the men to the caves. After that, the domes lost contact with the scientists. When the morning came, a search party was sent, consisting of three men, to find the Red Eye. They found the site abandoned, but upon entering the caves found the bodies of the three engineers. Each suit had been ravaged and torn, presumably by the storm. Martyr was no where to be found.
The second transmission was some years after that and was equally enigmatic.
It was led by a naval officer named Bottle Jones (earth born), a uproariously funny man, who engaged himself in the finding of new water sources. His team consisted of two twins, Twist and Shout, both born on Mars. They were young, but he employed their speed and dexterity in quick raid missions into the surrounding waste.
They worked in concentric circles, using underground mapping techniques invented and pioneered by Jones himself. He used them to make a three dimensional map of the ground beneath the wells and the domes. What he found was an inlet, leading to Fox's Deep. This river underground was thought, at first, to pour from the reservoir. It was in following it that Bottle discovered that it was widening the farther it went from Fox's. He conjectured that the river, in actuality, was flowing from some where much larger. With this electric news, he went to Fox for permission to follow it back to it's source. He hoped that, if possible, the river could lead to a mass of water large enough to not only sustain them, but allow them to grow more food and plants. He dreamed of expansion. He told Fox that with that level of comfortable survival, they could begin to search out mineral deposits and begin to refine them.
But Fox was unmoved by Bottles elaborate dreams. The two argued over the project, Fox referring to it as a suicide mission, but in the end, consent was given.
After this, Bottle and the twins worked for two months, making the equipment and resources they'd need. Bottle knew they would have to spend at least one night in the Martian landscape, and thus he made provisions for it. Such was Jones' amiable nature, that the entire colony buzzed with excitement. Many began to dream of buildings and resources beyond their grasp. The dreamed of easy life and hope that they might do more than survive.
The day they left, most of the citizens arrived to send them off with songs and cheering. Bottle flashed his brilliant smile and the twins grinned. There is still a picture of three of them in the computers. They look like heroes.
After that, they were never seen from again.
The only data on their mission comes from transmitters in each of their suits. The colony watched in awe as they traversed the landscape. They had only a few satellites to track them with, so they could only map their terrain for a few hundred miles. Bottle's team never made it that far.
The technician on the radio, a woman named Eartha, received Bottle's last transmission very early in the morning of their second day.
“(A great shout, uncomprehensible)”
“Jones, sir? Over.”
“Whhhhhhhat's yyyooooouuuur name?”
“Jones? Over?”
“Whhhhhhooooo iiiiiisssss thissssss?”
“Bottle Jones, sir! Is that you?”
Eartha was shaken by the voice on the receiver. She sent for her directing officer. Miles (short for Smiles) Breener took over for her after she told him about the transmission.
“Chief Jones. Come in. Over.”
“Jooooonnnnessss?”
Miles looked at Eartha. He wasn't smiling.
“Who is this? Over?”
“Jooooonnnnessss?”
“You are not Chief Jones.”
“Yoooouuu aaaaarrrrre nooooot Eaaaaarrrrrtha.”
At this, Eartha fainted.
The transmission severed soon after that and the GPS on the three men moved irratically and then disappeared off of the map.
No search party was sent, as Fox saw their distance and the irrational nature of the transmission as cause to pronounce Bottle's group MIA. The colony felt the blow and mourned the loss of their friends and dreams.
Peanut's transmission was the third.
Pin made footsteps with horizontal lines in the dirt as he paced away from the work crew. He held the scanner close to the pipes and ran his flashlight over it as he walked. For a moment, he had a feeling nudity; he felt all of the layers over his skin. He stood for a moment and looked again out into the red orange landscape. He watched the dust devils, spinning in an almost magnificent way. It's like dancing, he thought; the great whirlwinds spinning this way and that.
Peanut clicked in.
“You alright there?”
“Yeah, I'm good.”
“You thinkin' about Good's sister or something?”
“Nah.”
“Good, 'cause we are done over here so we are moving on to the next. We'll see you over there alright?”
“Right-o.”
Peanut clicked out and Pin continued to walk. He glanced over at the crew, each clipped to the transit wires, making their way over to the next well. I have to hurry, he thought, and returned to the scanner.
His concentration could only hold out for a few moments, however, as his attention was diverted. From the corner of his eye, he thought he noticed something. When he was first allowed out on these missions, his father told him that the desert can play with your eyes. He called it “Marvin the Martian” syndrome. He had bent down to Pin in a loading bay and looked him in the eyes.
“There's nothing out there.” He said and Pin had nodded his agreement.
There was even a rhyme known to the handful of children raised in the domes.
'Marvin the Martian never lived in the ocean/
Marvin the Martian never did./
If Marvin the Martian doesn't live in the ocean/
Then where does the Martian man live?'
The first few times Pin went out into the land ocean, he would hum the words like a mantra; and although no one ever felt truly relaxed or at home, they all stopped humming after a while. It wasn't a comfort with the surroundings, how could it be? They were aliens here.
Try putting a fish on land and asking if it feels the dirt is hospitable.
But because of the mental training and the frequency of excursions in which Pin was included, Pin had learned that there were no monsters or trapdoor spiders hiding in the red sand.
So when Pin turned, he felt like he had found a sword in his bed.
Peanut marched the men over to the next well, taking care to keep an eye on little Curry. He watched the wire and kept an eye on the horizon. It seemed darker to him somehow.
He knew from experience, that it was sometimes possible to see a storm from hundreds of miles away, especially on a clear day like this. He only worried about it in a casual way, like he did members of his team and their equipment.
He walked the last length of the wire and put his hand on the pump. He felt it thrumming through his glove and was relieved. Another of his worries was damaged machinery, a bigger one was water shortage. He walked around the unit, named Prancer, and bent down to open the diagnostics hatch. He looked again at the sky. It seems brighter, he thought.
Curry stepped in next to him and he and Bobo checked the well.
“Still wet sir.” Curry sang to him.
Peanut nodded and pulled out his diagnostic scanner. He plugged it into the machine and waited. All Peanut had to do was to check if it was green or red on the scanner. The more complex data would be uploaded and returned to the engineers in East Dome for decoding. Peanut was no moron, but the danger of the missions necessitated simplicity.
He looked down at Curry and marveled at the speed of the man's hands. He's done this for so long, he thought.
It was just then that his scanner flashed red and the sky began to darken.
It was just as before.
From out in the ocean of sand, Pin heard the call. It sang across a great distance to him, but he did not understand.
I've left my sword in my bunk, Pin thought.
The creature swam across the horizon, as it had in his dream. It grew in size, ebbing and flowing with the martian tide. It moved, again, with incredible dexterity and purpose; as if it was the only creature that could call Mars a home.
Pin was entranced by it, turning his suit away from the pipes and his crew to marvel.
The dream flashed for a moment in his mind and something felt wrong. Terror slid insidiously into him and he stepped towards the creature.
The beast threw itself about in the land ocean, seemingly chaotic, but drawing nearer. It moved as if insane or in great anguish, casting itself unheeding into rocks and dunes. Pin felt there was something sinister about the creature, but before he could press himself as to what, Peanut came on in a panic.
“This is an ALL CALL! REGROUP AT THE FIRST WELL!”
Pin turned quickly and fell into the dirt. He looked up at the gigantic mast of orange clouds storming down upon them. He tried to stand up, but a gust of wind blew him over again. Sand rolled over him and he was blind for a moment.
“PIN! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!”
Pin tried to answer, but paused at the echoing roar. It sounded like rolling thunder. Or laughter. He turned to see the great monster bearing down upon them, only a few miles away. He carefully pushed himself upright and turned to look for the work crew. He saw them huddled around the last well, Peanut's hulking figure turned toward him.
He glanced once more at the monstrosity. It was a great worm, he saw. It's skin black and ridged. It had many red eyes, each more hateful than the next.
It was in that moment, that Pin felt an unknown call to do something. He turned away from Peanut and began to run.
What the hell is the kid doing? Peanut thought. He watched Pin, the boy's back to them. He was about to radio again, when suddenly Pin began to run, after a fashion, away from them.
Peanut was flabbergasted. Of all the suicidal maniacs to end up with, he thought. He stood up and looked at the hose, thinking he had to go after the kid. He ducked back down after a moment, as the wind buffeted the team again.
I have to get the team back, he thought. He knew this, but his heart went out to Pin. He felt an immense amount of feeling for the boy, but he knew after a moment that he could not save him. He watched as Pin continued to disappear into the ever-growing storm.
Peanut froze and his heart beat in his ears. He thought he saw something else out there with Pin, something enormous. Curry came on.
“What's going on?!”
Peanut shook his head as the scene disappeared.
“We have to leave him. He's gone.”
Curry didn't respond. Peanut breathed out the sadness and fear he felt and called back to the domes.
“This is Peanut. Over.”
“Go ahead Peanut. Over.” This was Tanya.
“We're stuck in a sandstorm. Over.”
“Do you have shelter? Over.”
“No, we are trapped against a well. Over.”
“Alright, time to take Rover for a test drive then. I'm sending Good to get you. Over.”
“Also...we lost Pin...Over.”
“Say again Peanut? Over”
“Pin, Fox's boy, we've lost him...”
Over.
At first, Pin ran towards the beast. His heart, at first terrified beyond reason, began to swell with something new. He felt himself start to lift inwardly.
He stared at the worm, the great monster flashing this way and that. It's great evil eyes staring at him. It seemed to understand the newness of the boy's courage and laughed. It's call filled Pin's ears and his eyes watered. His heart shook with fear, but he pushed himself faster. He sprint through the land ocean and the sand storm, his eyes almost shut with tears. Unknowingly, his hands balled into fists.
He blinked and found himself standing before a great pit. His eyes grew wide and he through his arms out before him. He left his feet and found himself in open air. The pit was only about ten feet across and he groped for the other side.
The last thing he saw, before his helmet struck the side wall, was the worm. But at this last glance, it was no longer a worm, but a wolf, huge and black. It's eyes still glared maliciously and as it disappeared from view, Pin heard its barking laughter.
Charles Fox sat in his office in the East Dome staring at the wall. His eyes were blank and his face was drawn. He unconsciously tapped his hand on the desk. After a moment, his eyes came back to life and he began to outline a new draft of blue prints.
The colony had no schools to speak of, as they were, in some respects, a rural community. If one populated by as many genius' the nations from Earth could stuff inside a spaceship. It was the politicians idea that schools would be relatively unnecessary, as they were scientists on a mission. Charlie's eyes laughed.
The politicians had also stated that the second wave of space colonists would follow the first so closely that there would hardly be time for them to need any formal education system.
Thus, with the advent of couples, and their children (some born en route, others born on Mars), the colonists had fell into a simple, parent-child apprenticeship. Children, including Fox's own, were taught their parents particular skill, as best they could. It was allowed that not every child would be able to intrinsically understand quantum physics or something of the sort, as well as their parents, who were taught in Earth's most renown and prestigious colleges and universities.
But then, there had never been children such as these.
Borne out of adversity; from possible the most promising gene pool possible; taught the ins and outs of everything their parents did from the moment they could speak; these children were astoundingly capable. Some more so than their parents. It was science as the family business, in a place where failure was not an option.
Fox kept this in mind as he drew up the blue prints. Whittling away at the problem as he saw it.
There was a tone from the wall and a voice came on. It was Tanya. One of the Russians, he thought. Not that it had any bearing anymore.
“Mr. Fox?”
He stepped over to the box on the wall and keyed the speaker.
“Yes Tanya?”
“We've just had a radio call from Peanut, he was the one leading the team to the wells this afternoon.”
Charles knew Peanut and liked him very much. It was something about his adventurous spirit.
“It seems he's been trapped out there by a sandstorm.”
“Is the team alright, Tanya?”
“Mostly, sir. One of the members has gone missing.”
Charles sigh and shook his head.
“Which member?”
“It was your son, Pin, sir.”
A man in shining garb stands before Pin, his feet bare in the red dust. He wears a crown and his body glows with some electric light. His arms are crossed and he stares into Pin.
Who are you, Pin thinks. He is bare and red, as before, breathing in the Martian air and standing in the Martian soil. There is no sword in his hand. He wonders where it has gone.
The man holds out the rod in his hand. He points it at a mountain. But it is more than a mountain, growing larger and taller than any other. Its peak skims the top of the atmosphere and possible into the void beyond. A great red testament to the unknown.
Pin looks between the rod and the mountain and doesn't understand. The electric man looks at him and points to the top. Pin shakes his head inside his helmet.
He wakes for a moment and sees the crack. His head is muddy and he sinks back.
The glowing man is still pointing at the mountain, still looking into Pin. Pin is red and strong in the dream, but he knows he his dying. He tries to shake his head again.
He winces at the pain in his neck. The pain brings him back for a moment. He begins to breath and chokes. Pin's head is filled with pain. There's a pressure on his arm.
An electric hand is grabbing him, pulling him back into the dream. Pin's eyes flutter and he sees the glow before him. They flutter again and he sees the darkness of the cave and crack in the plastic.
I'm dying, Pin thinks.
He looks at the man, who seems to smile at him. At his thought. Pin wonders again who the crowned, shining personage is, as a shining hand reaches towards him. The rod is gone. He is holding Pin with both hands now.
Now in the cave.
Now in the desert.
Through the cracked helmet the man glows and the impossible unblinking eyes stare into him.
Pin begins to feel a pressure all over his body. He can feel it over ever inch of his skin. Even his veins, even his cells, all of them are being pushed and pulled, all at once. It grows uncomfortable, it's too much. He looks at the man, but the man is too bright and the pressure is too strong. The man, king, whomever, is pulling him. Pulling him out of his suit, out of his clothes, out of his skin. Pin glances at his feet as the man gives one final tug, removing his soul from his body.
Pt.2
The hatch opens on West Dome. Plenty carefully careens the buggy up into the bay and they shut again. Pressure normalizes. For a moment, there is a peaceful silence. Then bodies rush into the room. Hands help to remove gear. The team is checked for any injuries. Peanut sits off to one side, his great hulking shoulders sagging under what he knows is coming. He facies the wall, but he knows what he'll hear. Suddenly the bustling room grows quiet. It's admiration, he thinks. It's awe. He stands and turns to face Fox. The entire bay watches the two men. Fox nods to Peanut. Peanut returned the gesture and follows him out.
Once out in the hall, they begin the march to East Dome. Fox begins the question, the one he'd been dwelling on all day.
“Peanut.”
Peanut follows through the corridors, behind and to Fox's right. He feels a weight on him, after the mission, after the mishap. Still, with it, he continues to stand straight, his full height almost touching the ceiling. He sighs.
“Yes sir.”
“Peanut, I...I want you to...”
Fox stops and turns to Peanut.
“Peanut, for right now, go home. The satellites have mapped that the storm will last for quite some time yet. I see no point in dragging out a traumatic experience, so we will discuss it tomorrow. When the weather is clear. When there's actually something we can do about it.”
“But sir!”
Fox looked into Peanut's eyes.
“But sir, we could go and look for him. We could take the buggy or...”
“Peanut, we don't have the resources.”
He put his hand on the great shoulder.
“Believe me,” He whispers, “I wish that there was something, anything we could do. But we can't, and you can't. Not in this storm, not now.”
Peanut nodded and looked up and down the halls.
“Has there been any problem with water sir?”
Fox looked surprised.
“Why?”
“The pump on Prancer seems to be acting up. That was as far as we got, but they all may be in jeopardy.”
Fox shrugged.
“Not that I know of, but I'll alert Caleb. He'll see it gets dealt with. For now, go ahead and head home.”
Peanut turned and walked toward North Dome, feeling Fox watch him go.
From a distance, Tanya sees Peanut hulk his way down the corridor. She watches him walk, and even in his sulky mood, she cannot help but feel the the attraction. She shakes her head and follows him down a flight of stars and into the Main Hall. The ceilings here aren't much higher than everywhere else, but they are reinforced almost twice as much as any of the other domes. Tanya knows that this is because they are the main junction between all of the segments and without them, everyone would die. She learned this from her father, one of the men buried in South Dome. He told her about it, even as a child.
“My lovely Tanya, where would each be without the other?” he tried to explain, as he walked around enormous planters, filled with every plant imaginable. She followed him obediently, watching him water each small blossom or twig.
“I do not understand, Papa.”
She watched his back. He turned this way and that, holding a leaf in his hand for a moment. He looked around the greenhouse quickly before calmly plucking the small green appendage.
He turned to her, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles. His small gray mustache brushing over his lips as he spoke softly to her.
“My little one, light of my heart, do you see this leaf? The one I hold here in my hand?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Why is this leaf green?”
“I do not know, Papa.”
“It is strange isn't it? There is a chemical which I will teach you about, it is in this plant and it makes the leaf green. What do you think of that, my daughter?”
“What does the chemical do?”
“It takes light and turns it into food, energy essentially, for the rest of the plant.”
“Oh.”
He bent down to her and held the leaf up so she could better examine it. Her hand unconsciously reached for it. He smiled at the motion and held the leaf out to her. She was hesitant for a moment, but chose to reach out and touch it. Her fingers played over the smooth outside of the plant, touching the forking symmetrical network of veins. Her father saw her eyes moving and her mind moving behind them.
“Now daughter, why do I use this precious organism when I explain our city? What does it have to do with you and me?”
“I do not know, Papa.”
“Think for me little one.”
She looked up at the artificial light, filling each plant with warmth, giving food to them, making them grow.
“We are the leaves.” She said.
“Yes,” he replied, “And isn't it funny that leaves are green no matter where they are grown?”
She smiled and her returned it.
“Come now.” Tanya remembered him saying.
She passed through the Main Hall, still following Peanut. She knew she would need to return to work soon, but for now, she could spend a little time wondering why he wasn't turning to North Dome, but instead striding towards East.
Pin stood up at the bottom of the pit, the shimmering man gone, leaving him alone in the dark cavern. Light came down through the top of the hole at an angle, affording him a view of the sky. He looked up at it for a moment, a feeling of lightness at the empty pinkish hue. A feeling of lightness everywhere, he thought.
He looked at his hands in the light. He clenched them before his eyes, the knuckles turning white.
Where are my gloves, he thought.
He felt the lightness turn. He was sinking, lowering his hands and looking at his body. Funny, he thought, doesn't even look like me.
The face had blood dried over the forehead and cheek. He could see a discoloration when he looked at the skin. It was pale and slightly blue. The eyes were open, each now empty, devoid of the self which now stood before it. Pin ran his hand over the crack in the helmet, not only to test the fracture, but to find if he could feel it without the flesh of his hands. His hand stopped against the smooth glass and he felt the small fissure the fall had opened in his helmet.
For a moment, he was seized with a strange idea. He bent down over his empty frame, his knees resting in the fine dust.
The Wyrm
Pt.1
On Mercury, Hermes stood. He skin was light and dark, shining out in all directions while he pitched the little ball, on which he stood, faster and faster.
The landscape shifted like quiksilver and he watched the planets and spun.
He was smiling at the stars when he heard a flutter of wings behind him. A small cherubic boy stood before him, a parcel tucked under his arm.
Hermes frowned at the child, but watched intently, nonetheless as the child drew a pictograph in the air. As the message began to unfold, Hermes expression waned and even the sun king grew pale.
As it was, no one could remember who arrived on Mars first anymore. It had become one of those useless details which, given the number of newsworthy incidents, had been eclipsed in the grander scheme of things.
All anyone could remember was the race.
Each of Earth's country's had sought to colonize the red planet. Each president and politician drove it's people to new fervors. They talked incessantly about a place they had never been and the wonders that could be found there. It was an El Dorado for the 21st century. It's red carpet led, not to gold, but new scientific discoveries.
Surely, they said, that by knowing more about our neighboring planet, we will be able to ascertain new information about our own!
So it was settled, in all manner of ways.
Each country set off for the new world, brushing their shoulders against the other.
It was risky and rash. Each astronaut, cosmonaut, what-have-you, was pushed to be the first. Pilots made ridiculous decisions, politicians made ridiculous statements; and, as the race went on, it seemed as if everyone was winning, in all directions, and all at once.
Then a rocket exploded, killing twelve men and women. All genius' in their field, all in the best form of their lives.
This, in a twisted way, brought the interstellar aviators back down to Earth.
One captain looked at his crew and broke the silence. Another answered and spoke to another. In a fleet of 9 crafts, each had been flying solo.
One ship was almost out of food.
Another had lost their navigating equipment and had been following the others, line-of-sight, ever since.
On the dark road of space, between home and glory, they became one nation, one people, one cause.
The stress and anxiety dissolved with those twelve.
It was so when they arrived, each man a refugee. The countries of Earth had laughed at their soldiers and scientists, so far away from home. Politicians sipping exotic flavors had told them that they should do what they are told, if they knew what was good for them.
But the new people new what was good for them.
As the settlers to America, so many years in the past, they had no idea.
Pin stood in the desert, breathing deep and looked at the red sand shifting across the horizon. It blew through his hair, painting his face chest. He watched the horizon ripple with the wind. The great ocean of sand, billowing out into infinity.
From the depths of the ocean, there came a call.
It sang across the great distance to him. He listened, but did not understand. The horizon continued to ripple. A shape emerged from the waves.
Pin looked down at the small outcrop of rocks on which he stood, bare but for some shorts. Alive when he shouldn't be. He looked down at his hands. They were blood stained evenly from the tip of his fingernail to his elbow and onto his chest.
He was a martian, he thought.
He heard a deep echoing call and looked out again. Amongst the waves, the shape grew larger and larger still. It was too far off to make out anything more than it's size. It was immense, but moved with incredible finesse through the rolling landscape.
Pin became afraid.
The creature was growing in size, thrusting it's way towards him. It's splashing and jumping were precise and patterned, so that it became a leviathan arrow; flying towards him out of the heart of the great planet.
The echoing began to sound like rolling thunder. Or laughter.
Pin's legs felt weak, but he couldn't sit or fall over. The wind kept him upright and motionless. The painting desert presented him to the creature. The creature would take him, he knew.
It was as the creature finally neared him that he finally felt something cold pressed into his palm. He looked down at the new weight and found a huge jagged sword.
He lifted it up at the howling monster and the dream evaporated around him.
It was on an unknown date, unknown month, unknown year, that Pin awoke in a bunk inside North Dome. He looked around hazily, stopping to look at his skin, which wasn't crimson at all. He sighed and lay back against the bed. He closed his eyes and stretched his arms and legs out.
When his hand came down on the mattress, it struck something cold.
Pin felt a shiver cross him. His fingers felt around the spot for the hard, metallic cold. The came around a round ball, which attached to a filligreed cylinder. The sword.
Pin shivered and felt himself shake all over. He breathed a deep sigh and took his hand from the object.
He opened his eyes, through off the blanket, and calmly ran from his bed.
In the years following their settling of Mars, the newcomers built and made and invented, with a ferocity mankind had never seen. They still hadn't seen, as mankind had turned its back on the explorers upon the space fleets arrival to Mars. Communication was lost, or abandoned, and in the hopelessness of the situation, many died quietly alone in their beds.
It was in this vacuum, that Charles Fox stepped forward and presented them with a future.
He outlined a plan. A plan for survival. A plan for sustainability. He presented them with life.
So they made the domes, dividing them into cardinal points.
They made the houses and bunkers within the domes to keep the sand at bay.
The built labs and workshops, silos and farms.
When they came upon a problem, the collective mind of the colony invented a way around it.
If the ground was too hard, they built a better drill.
It the water was too far and too cold, they built a better aquaduct.
If the people became, fatigued, sickly, or weak; they made and created and worked around or through it.
In those first ten years, only 11 died.
They continued to strive, but to some, it seemed forever hopeless. They could not breathe the air or go outside without a suit. They were foreign contaminants to a planet that did not want them.
It was such that, no matter the level of success in providing food or medicine or safety; they settlers never felt like more than unwelcome guests.
Pin stepped into a shaft of light and climbed the stairs to the Mess. His stomach growled at him and he stepped quickly into the queue of people. He flexed his hand and tried to forget his bed and his dream. Friends smiled at him and he bid them a fine day, but he was lost inside himself. He stepped through the line and received his meal, thanking the service man and receding to a table next to a portculis.
There he was sitting when Plenty arrived.
As the first children were born, the crew turned colonists turned parents, decided to name their children after the things they missed about their old home. Children were called Garden or Tree or Gelato, each to the smiles and sadness of those who could remember their life before the domes and the sand.
This was done in a lighthearted manner in a time when most of the crew members considered dying quietly, alone in their beds. However, with the first child, a strange new emotion climbed into the hearts of the men and women.
For once, they began to see the future as more than a bleak cliff in the red landscape; that they would, at some point or another, topple off, ending all that they had built. Without discussion or consensus they had all come to believe that it was all just Christmas lights on a dead tree.
But, when the first child came, the first human ever born on Mars, those who had felt only abandonment and estrangement, indulged in hope.
“What's new?” she asked.
He looked out the glass, trying to count the inches between himself and the desert.
“Oi!” She tapped at his cup. Without looking over at her, he said:
“Plenty of time to tell.”
She made a noise in her throat and stood up.
He paused for effect and looked over, watching as she carried her bowl to her brother's table. He sighed and turned back to the window.
The horizon seemed to ripple and he felt a moment of euphoria. He turned to his food.
Pin stood in the docks, his bare feet shuffling through the dust colored by iron oxide. Each man in the bay moved quickly. Gathering gear and setting it out for the next expedition. Pin looked and looked about the room, searching for Plenty's brother.
“Pin?” someone said to his left. He turned to find Peanut, a great jovial hulk, looking down at him. He shuffled his feet and turned to the giant.
“Peanut!” He said with a great smile, “Where are you off to today?”
“Same as usual,” said the man with a sigh, “What're you doing down here?”
“Well...” Pin started, looking casually around the room for any alarm, “I was wondering if you had an extra spot open for today's trip?”
Peanut's expression brightened. Since an accident a few weeks back had sucked Pin's second cousin, Noodle, out of his suit, partly; the volunteers for the excursions for water had been wanting.
“Well sure, I think we can figure something out.”
It was almost funny to the settlers. It reminded them of back home, when you saw something one way from far away, but as it came closer, it was the opposite.
They broke ground on the dome as fast as they could, but ran into a number of problems with the wind that whipped around the planet. They had thousands of tons of materials,including their ships, turning over because of it.
Finally, with little recourse, they drilled the dense Martian soil, with the hopes of creating a more solid base for the domes to rest upon.
It was then that they made a fantastic discovery.
After less than a hundred feet, they struck mud. This sent the scientists into frenzies, each with a Nobel Prize in mind. But Fox stepped forward and pointed to the mud that came oozing out of the ground and said one word: water.
Pin was more than halfway into his suit, when a voice called to him. He sagged as Plenty's brother, Good, was pointed to him. He could hear Good siddle up behind him and whisper in his ear.
“What's this about messing with my sister?”
Pin turned quickly around at him, his eyes staring into Good's. Good was taken aback by the gesture and repeated his question.
“I've done nothing to her, mate,” Pin answered.
“Why do you shun her when she clearly thinks the Earth of you?”
He didn't know. He never knew. It was just the way he felt. But how can you say that to her brother, he thought. How can you tell her that, in a place filled with death and survival, you can't bring yourself to enough civility to procreate.
“I..” he started. Good's eyebrows ticked up.
“I'll talked...I'll talk to her about it.”
Good looked at him for a moment, still weary, but unsatisfied. Pin turned from him and continued to prep his suit.
They called the short distance to the wells and pumps “The Opening Measure”, because after that, anything was bound to happen. Peanut stood out near the front of the line, as he was very tall. Each of them wore what looked like a suit of armor, their heads encapsulated in shining metal bubbles. The suits had once been white, Pin had been told, but now each of them were brown and red from long use.
Peanut trudged along quietly for a while, the rest of the procession, a short man named Curry, a lanky boy named Corn and a few others Pin didn't readily remember, walk along in his footsteps.
After a few minutes of it, his intercom switched on. It was Peanut.
“Hey ya Pin.”
“Hi Peanut.”
“So what will it be today?”
Peanut scanned the horizon for a moment and turned the group slightly to the right.
“What's available, Pea?”
“Well we got Curry here checking the electrical on the wells, Bobo is with him while Corn and me check the pumps. You up for checking the line?”
“Sure thing.”
The intercom clicked off.
Curry sped up for a moment and Pin assumed that he was talking with Peanut.
Pin knew that while in the Measure, it was extremely important to focus on the line. The leaders realized that the corroding of the paint on the suit, while detrimental in a small way, made for good camouflage. Not that there were any predators, but they still decided on playing it safe.
But as they were the only life on Mars, Pin had always thought it like hiding from oneself.
Pin understood all of this, but, as it was a clear day of sorts, he indulged himself. He looked around, watching the clouds, great dust devils off in the distance. The mountains (the distance of sight affirming the beauty of the day) were great and hulking in the distance. Their size so much more than imposing. As a child, Pin had asked his father once if he could climb them. His father skipped the rational response in this and told him instead: “Maybe someday”.
Peanut clicked on again, this time as an all call.
“Alright folks, there she is in the distance. You guys know what to do, so let's be quick and get out of here so we can see the look on Station Manager's face at all the oxygen we saved.”
There was no hurray from the men, only the click and the absence of Peanut's voice.
There were six wells. Each was set 50 meters from the one before it. Wires ran between them for the teams to use in transit. The wells were set at staggers depths, but all drew from an enormous underground reservoir known as Fox Deep. Above each well, there were large pumps, each with a reinforced hose leading to the main line. This line was made from incredibly thick pipe, and was buried for it's own safety.
Pin's job, was to check the distance from each hose to the mainline, looking for leaks, abrasions, etc. When they arrived, Curry handed Pin a flashlight and a scanner to accomplish his task. The problem with the hoses was, due to their reinforced nature, no anchoring wires were attached to them. The scientists either didn't want to weaken them or forgot, no one knew.
It was a clear day, the sky a swirling light orange, the martian landscape some semblance of calm. Peanut had a radio in his helmet that with which the domes could reach him. This channel was only used in case of emergency. If they should find themselves stranded or if one of them were hurt, they would radio to base and measures would be taken.
These radio transmissions only occurred three times in the history of Mars.
The first, happened during the building of the wells. A group scientists wanted to try to build at night, such was the fervor for water at the time. When questioned, they outlined addition measures for the protection of themselves and their suits. These, with the radio, they said, would provide them ample security to survive anything the night had to offer. One man, George Mannecart, asked them, at the time, what measures they had to survive an attack (this before they had found that their sector, if not all of Mars, was uninhabited). The scientists proposed that one of them might bring along a tazer and the matter was settled.
That evening, before sunset, the group, radio code Red Eye, the group reached the well construction site and relieved the day crew. A few hours after the sun set on the red planet, the radio transmission was received:
“Help! This is a mayday! SOS! Whatever the bloody hell you want! Over!”
“Lt. Martyr. Come in. What is the problem?”
“We've got a hurricane HQ! Some of the scientists are blathering that it's so large we don't even have a classification for it! There also seem to be a number of tornadoes joined in with the storm! Over!”
“What's your 20? Over.”
“We've taken shelter in as much of the construction site as there is left to offer, but it's tearing the wells and the equipment apart! Over!”
“Okay, we are have paged Dr. Mansard. He'll advise as to survival protocol. Over!”
“This is Mansard. Martyr?”
“Yes sir! Over!”
“We exactly in the site are you? Erm...Over.”
“We have taken shelter in the wells sir! I'm here with Stepan, and Peter and Nikolai are in another! Our positions are temporary, at most! The storm is destroying everything sir! Over.”
Mansard consulted his notes and believed he had found a suitably place for them to survive the storm. He consulted with Fox before issuing the orders.
“Martyr? Over.”
“Yes sir. Here sir. Over.”
“There is an outcropping of rocks just east of the site. Do you have your GPS? Over”
“Yes sir, but the storm, sir...Over”
“Martyr, you can't survive there all night. Now in the rocks, there are some small caves. We haven't properly searched them, but the reconnaissance I have suggests that the four of you can fit. I need you to try and make it to the caves. Wait for a break in the storm. It should be more than a hundred and fifty feet away at most. Over.”
“I'll consult the engineers. Over.”
In the end, they were left with no other choice. After radioing back to the domes, Martyr led the men to the caves. After that, the domes lost contact with the scientists. When the morning came, a search party was sent, consisting of three men, to find the Red Eye. They found the site abandoned, but upon entering the caves found the bodies of the three engineers. Each suit had been ravaged and torn, presumably by the storm. Martyr was no where to be found.
The second transmission was some years after that and was equally enigmatic.
It was led by a naval officer named Bottle Jones (earth born), a uproariously funny man, who engaged himself in the finding of new water sources. His team consisted of two twins, Twist and Shout, both born on Mars. They were young, but he employed their speed and dexterity in quick raid missions into the surrounding waste.
They worked in concentric circles, using underground mapping techniques invented and pioneered by Jones himself. He used them to make a three dimensional map of the ground beneath the wells and the domes. What he found was an inlet, leading to Fox's Deep. This river underground was thought, at first, to pour from the reservoir. It was in following it that Bottle discovered that it was widening the farther it went from Fox's. He conjectured that the river, in actuality, was flowing from some where much larger. With this electric news, he went to Fox for permission to follow it back to it's source. He hoped that, if possible, the river could lead to a mass of water large enough to not only sustain them, but allow them to grow more food and plants. He dreamed of expansion. He told Fox that with that level of comfortable survival, they could begin to search out mineral deposits and begin to refine them.
But Fox was unmoved by Bottles elaborate dreams. The two argued over the project, Fox referring to it as a suicide mission, but in the end, consent was given.
After this, Bottle and the twins worked for two months, making the equipment and resources they'd need. Bottle knew they would have to spend at least one night in the Martian landscape, and thus he made provisions for it. Such was Jones' amiable nature, that the entire colony buzzed with excitement. Many began to dream of buildings and resources beyond their grasp. The dreamed of easy life and hope that they might do more than survive.
The day they left, most of the citizens arrived to send them off with songs and cheering. Bottle flashed his brilliant smile and the twins grinned. There is still a picture of three of them in the computers. They look like heroes.
After that, they were never seen from again.
The only data on their mission comes from transmitters in each of their suits. The colony watched in awe as they traversed the landscape. They had only a few satellites to track them with, so they could only map their terrain for a few hundred miles. Bottle's team never made it that far.
The technician on the radio, a woman named Eartha, received Bottle's last transmission very early in the morning of their second day.
“(A great shout, uncomprehensible)”
“Jones, sir? Over.”
“Whhhhhhhat's yyyooooouuuur name?”
“Jones? Over?”
“Whhhhhhooooo iiiiiisssss thissssss?”
“Bottle Jones, sir! Is that you?”
Eartha was shaken by the voice on the receiver. She sent for her directing officer. Miles (short for Smiles) Breener took over for her after she told him about the transmission.
“Chief Jones. Come in. Over.”
“Jooooonnnnessss?”
Miles looked at Eartha. He wasn't smiling.
“Who is this? Over?”
“Jooooonnnnessss?”
“You are not Chief Jones.”
“Yoooouuu aaaaarrrrre nooooot Eaaaaarrrrrtha.”
At this, Eartha fainted.
The transmission severed soon after that and the GPS on the three men moved irratically and then disappeared off of the map.
No search party was sent, as Fox saw their distance and the irrational nature of the transmission as cause to pronounce Bottle's group MIA. The colony felt the blow and mourned the loss of their friends and dreams.
Peanut's transmission was the third.
Pin made footsteps with horizontal lines in the dirt as he paced away from the work crew. He held the scanner close to the pipes and ran his flashlight over it as he walked. For a moment, he had a feeling nudity; he felt all of the layers over his skin. He stood for a moment and looked again out into the red orange landscape. He watched the dust devils, spinning in an almost magnificent way. It's like dancing, he thought; the great whirlwinds spinning this way and that.
Peanut clicked in.
“You alright there?”
“Yeah, I'm good.”
“You thinkin' about Good's sister or something?”
“Nah.”
“Good, 'cause we are done over here so we are moving on to the next. We'll see you over there alright?”
“Right-o.”
Peanut clicked out and Pin continued to walk. He glanced over at the crew, each clipped to the transit wires, making their way over to the next well. I have to hurry, he thought, and returned to the scanner.
His concentration could only hold out for a few moments, however, as his attention was diverted. From the corner of his eye, he thought he noticed something. When he was first allowed out on these missions, his father told him that the desert can play with your eyes. He called it “Marvin the Martian” syndrome. He had bent down to Pin in a loading bay and looked him in the eyes.
“There's nothing out there.” He said and Pin had nodded his agreement.
There was even a rhyme known to the handful of children raised in the domes.
'Marvin the Martian never lived in the ocean/
Marvin the Martian never did./
If Marvin the Martian doesn't live in the ocean/
Then where does the Martian man live?'
The first few times Pin went out into the land ocean, he would hum the words like a mantra; and although no one ever felt truly relaxed or at home, they all stopped humming after a while. It wasn't a comfort with the surroundings, how could it be? They were aliens here.
Try putting a fish on land and asking if it feels the dirt is hospitable.
But because of the mental training and the frequency of excursions in which Pin was included, Pin had learned that there were no monsters or trapdoor spiders hiding in the red sand.
So when Pin turned, he felt like he had found a sword in his bed.
Peanut marched the men over to the next well, taking care to keep an eye on little Curry. He watched the wire and kept an eye on the horizon. It seemed darker to him somehow.
He knew from experience, that it was sometimes possible to see a storm from hundreds of miles away, especially on a clear day like this. He only worried about it in a casual way, like he did members of his team and their equipment.
He walked the last length of the wire and put his hand on the pump. He felt it thrumming through his glove and was relieved. Another of his worries was damaged machinery, a bigger one was water shortage. He walked around the unit, named Prancer, and bent down to open the diagnostics hatch. He looked again at the sky. It seems brighter, he thought.
Curry stepped in next to him and he and Bobo checked the well.
“Still wet sir.” Curry sang to him.
Peanut nodded and pulled out his diagnostic scanner. He plugged it into the machine and waited. All Peanut had to do was to check if it was green or red on the scanner. The more complex data would be uploaded and returned to the engineers in East Dome for decoding. Peanut was no moron, but the danger of the missions necessitated simplicity.
He looked down at Curry and marveled at the speed of the man's hands. He's done this for so long, he thought.
It was just then that his scanner flashed red and the sky began to darken.
It was just as before.
From out in the ocean of sand, Pin heard the call. It sang across a great distance to him, but he did not understand.
I've left my sword in my bunk, Pin thought.
The creature swam across the horizon, as it had in his dream. It grew in size, ebbing and flowing with the martian tide. It moved, again, with incredible dexterity and purpose; as if it was the only creature that could call Mars a home.
Pin was entranced by it, turning his suit away from the pipes and his crew to marvel.
The dream flashed for a moment in his mind and something felt wrong. Terror slid insidiously into him and he stepped towards the creature.
The beast threw itself about in the land ocean, seemingly chaotic, but drawing nearer. It moved as if insane or in great anguish, casting itself unheeding into rocks and dunes. Pin felt there was something sinister about the creature, but before he could press himself as to what, Peanut came on in a panic.
“This is an ALL CALL! REGROUP AT THE FIRST WELL!”
Pin turned quickly and fell into the dirt. He looked up at the gigantic mast of orange clouds storming down upon them. He tried to stand up, but a gust of wind blew him over again. Sand rolled over him and he was blind for a moment.
“PIN! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!”
Pin tried to answer, but paused at the echoing roar. It sounded like rolling thunder. Or laughter. He turned to see the great monster bearing down upon them, only a few miles away. He carefully pushed himself upright and turned to look for the work crew. He saw them huddled around the last well, Peanut's hulking figure turned toward him.
He glanced once more at the monstrosity. It was a great worm, he saw. It's skin black and ridged. It had many red eyes, each more hateful than the next.
It was in that moment, that Pin felt an unknown call to do something. He turned away from Peanut and began to run.
What the hell is the kid doing? Peanut thought. He watched Pin, the boy's back to them. He was about to radio again, when suddenly Pin began to run, after a fashion, away from them.
Peanut was flabbergasted. Of all the suicidal maniacs to end up with, he thought. He stood up and looked at the hose, thinking he had to go after the kid. He ducked back down after a moment, as the wind buffeted the team again.
I have to get the team back, he thought. He knew this, but his heart went out to Pin. He felt an immense amount of feeling for the boy, but he knew after a moment that he could not save him. He watched as Pin continued to disappear into the ever-growing storm.
Peanut froze and his heart beat in his ears. He thought he saw something else out there with Pin, something enormous. Curry came on.
“What's going on?!”
Peanut shook his head as the scene disappeared.
“We have to leave him. He's gone.”
Curry didn't respond. Peanut breathed out the sadness and fear he felt and called back to the domes.
“This is Peanut. Over.”
“Go ahead Peanut. Over.” This was Tanya.
“We're stuck in a sandstorm. Over.”
“Do you have shelter? Over.”
“No, we are trapped against a well. Over.”
“Alright, time to take Rover for a test drive then. I'm sending Good to get you. Over.”
“Also...we lost Pin...Over.”
“Say again Peanut? Over”
“Pin, Fox's boy, we've lost him...”
Over.
At first, Pin ran towards the beast. His heart, at first terrified beyond reason, began to swell with something new. He felt himself start to lift inwardly.
He stared at the worm, the great monster flashing this way and that. It's great evil eyes staring at him. It seemed to understand the newness of the boy's courage and laughed. It's call filled Pin's ears and his eyes watered. His heart shook with fear, but he pushed himself faster. He sprint through the land ocean and the sand storm, his eyes almost shut with tears. Unknowingly, his hands balled into fists.
He blinked and found himself standing before a great pit. His eyes grew wide and he through his arms out before him. He left his feet and found himself in open air. The pit was only about ten feet across and he groped for the other side.
The last thing he saw, before his helmet struck the side wall, was the worm. But at this last glance, it was no longer a worm, but a wolf, huge and black. It's eyes still glared maliciously and as it disappeared from view, Pin heard its barking laughter.
Charles Fox sat in his office in the East Dome staring at the wall. His eyes were blank and his face was drawn. He unconsciously tapped his hand on the desk. After a moment, his eyes came back to life and he began to outline a new draft of blue prints.
The colony had no schools to speak of, as they were, in some respects, a rural community. If one populated by as many genius' the nations from Earth could stuff inside a spaceship. It was the politicians idea that schools would be relatively unnecessary, as they were scientists on a mission. Charlie's eyes laughed.
The politicians had also stated that the second wave of space colonists would follow the first so closely that there would hardly be time for them to need any formal education system.
Thus, with the advent of couples, and their children (some born en route, others born on Mars), the colonists had fell into a simple, parent-child apprenticeship. Children, including Fox's own, were taught their parents particular skill, as best they could. It was allowed that not every child would be able to intrinsically understand quantum physics or something of the sort, as well as their parents, who were taught in Earth's most renown and prestigious colleges and universities.
But then, there had never been children such as these.
Borne out of adversity; from possible the most promising gene pool possible; taught the ins and outs of everything their parents did from the moment they could speak; these children were astoundingly capable. Some more so than their parents. It was science as the family business, in a place where failure was not an option.
Fox kept this in mind as he drew up the blue prints. Whittling away at the problem as he saw it.
There was a tone from the wall and a voice came on. It was Tanya. One of the Russians, he thought. Not that it had any bearing anymore.
“Mr. Fox?”
He stepped over to the box on the wall and keyed the speaker.
“Yes Tanya?”
“We've just had a radio call from Peanut, he was the one leading the team to the wells this afternoon.”
Charles knew Peanut and liked him very much. It was something about his adventurous spirit.
“It seems he's been trapped out there by a sandstorm.”
“Is the team alright, Tanya?”
“Mostly, sir. One of the members has gone missing.”
Charles sigh and shook his head.
“Which member?”
“It was your son, Pin, sir.”
A man in shining garb stands before Pin, his feet bare in the red dust. He wears a crown and his body glows with some electric light. His arms are crossed and he stares into Pin.
Who are you, Pin thinks. He is bare and red, as before, breathing in the Martian air and standing in the Martian soil. There is no sword in his hand. He wonders where it has gone.
The man holds out the rod in his hand. He points it at a mountain. But it is more than a mountain, growing larger and taller than any other. Its peak skims the top of the atmosphere and possible into the void beyond. A great red testament to the unknown.
Pin looks between the rod and the mountain and doesn't understand. The electric man looks at him and points to the top. Pin shakes his head inside his helmet.
He wakes for a moment and sees the crack. His head is muddy and he sinks back.
The glowing man is still pointing at the mountain, still looking into Pin. Pin is red and strong in the dream, but he knows he his dying. He tries to shake his head again.
He winces at the pain in his neck. The pain brings him back for a moment. He begins to breath and chokes. Pin's head is filled with pain. There's a pressure on his arm.
An electric hand is grabbing him, pulling him back into the dream. Pin's eyes flutter and he sees the glow before him. They flutter again and he sees the darkness of the cave and crack in the plastic.
I'm dying, Pin thinks.
He looks at the man, who seems to smile at him. At his thought. Pin wonders again who the crowned, shining personage is, as a shining hand reaches towards him. The rod is gone. He is holding Pin with both hands now.
Now in the cave.
Now in the desert.
Through the cracked helmet the man glows and the impossible unblinking eyes stare into him.
Pin begins to feel a pressure all over his body. He can feel it over ever inch of his skin. Even his veins, even his cells, all of them are being pushed and pulled, all at once. It grows uncomfortable, it's too much. He looks at the man, but the man is too bright and the pressure is too strong. The man, king, whomever, is pulling him. Pulling him out of his suit, out of his clothes, out of his skin. Pin glances at his feet as the man gives one final tug, removing his soul from his body.
Pt.2
The hatch opens on West Dome. Plenty carefully careens the buggy up into the bay and they shut again. Pressure normalizes. For a moment, there is a peaceful silence. Then bodies rush into the room. Hands help to remove gear. The team is checked for any injuries. Peanut sits off to one side, his great hulking shoulders sagging under what he knows is coming. He facies the wall, but he knows what he'll hear. Suddenly the bustling room grows quiet. It's admiration, he thinks. It's awe. He stands and turns to face Fox. The entire bay watches the two men. Fox nods to Peanut. Peanut returned the gesture and follows him out.
Once out in the hall, they begin the march to East Dome. Fox begins the question, the one he'd been dwelling on all day.
“Peanut.”
Peanut follows through the corridors, behind and to Fox's right. He feels a weight on him, after the mission, after the mishap. Still, with it, he continues to stand straight, his full height almost touching the ceiling. He sighs.
“Yes sir.”
“Peanut, I...I want you to...”
Fox stops and turns to Peanut.
“Peanut, for right now, go home. The satellites have mapped that the storm will last for quite some time yet. I see no point in dragging out a traumatic experience, so we will discuss it tomorrow. When the weather is clear. When there's actually something we can do about it.”
“But sir!”
Fox looked into Peanut's eyes.
“But sir, we could go and look for him. We could take the buggy or...”
“Peanut, we don't have the resources.”
He put his hand on the great shoulder.
“Believe me,” He whispers, “I wish that there was something, anything we could do. But we can't, and you can't. Not in this storm, not now.”
Peanut nodded and looked up and down the halls.
“Has there been any problem with water sir?”
Fox looked surprised.
“Why?”
“The pump on Prancer seems to be acting up. That was as far as we got, but they all may be in jeopardy.”
Fox shrugged.
“Not that I know of, but I'll alert Caleb. He'll see it gets dealt with. For now, go ahead and head home.”
Peanut turned and walked toward North Dome, feeling Fox watch him go.
From a distance, Tanya sees Peanut hulk his way down the corridor. She watches him walk, and even in his sulky mood, she cannot help but feel the the attraction. She shakes her head and follows him down a flight of stars and into the Main Hall. The ceilings here aren't much higher than everywhere else, but they are reinforced almost twice as much as any of the other domes. Tanya knows that this is because they are the main junction between all of the segments and without them, everyone would die. She learned this from her father, one of the men buried in South Dome. He told her about it, even as a child.
“My lovely Tanya, where would each be without the other?” he tried to explain, as he walked around enormous planters, filled with every plant imaginable. She followed him obediently, watching him water each small blossom or twig.
“I do not understand, Papa.”
She watched his back. He turned this way and that, holding a leaf in his hand for a moment. He looked around the greenhouse quickly before calmly plucking the small green appendage.
He turned to her, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles. His small gray mustache brushing over his lips as he spoke softly to her.
“My little one, light of my heart, do you see this leaf? The one I hold here in my hand?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Why is this leaf green?”
“I do not know, Papa.”
“It is strange isn't it? There is a chemical which I will teach you about, it is in this plant and it makes the leaf green. What do you think of that, my daughter?”
“What does the chemical do?”
“It takes light and turns it into food, energy essentially, for the rest of the plant.”
“Oh.”
He bent down to her and held the leaf up so she could better examine it. Her hand unconsciously reached for it. He smiled at the motion and held the leaf out to her. She was hesitant for a moment, but chose to reach out and touch it. Her fingers played over the smooth outside of the plant, touching the forking symmetrical network of veins. Her father saw her eyes moving and her mind moving behind them.
“Now daughter, why do I use this precious organism when I explain our city? What does it have to do with you and me?”
“I do not know, Papa.”
“Think for me little one.”
She looked up at the artificial light, filling each plant with warmth, giving food to them, making them grow.
“We are the leaves.” She said.
“Yes,” he replied, “And isn't it funny that leaves are green no matter where they are grown?”
She smiled and her returned it.
“Come now.” Tanya remembered him saying.
She passed through the Main Hall, still following Peanut. She knew she would need to return to work soon, but for now, she could spend a little time wondering why he wasn't turning to North Dome, but instead striding towards East.
Pin stood up at the bottom of the pit, the shimmering man gone, leaving him alone in the dark cavern. Light came down through the top of the hole at an angle, affording him a view of the sky. He looked up at it for a moment, a feeling of lightness at the empty pinkish hue. A feeling of lightness everywhere, he thought.
He looked at his hands in the light. He clenched them before his eyes, the knuckles turning white.
Where are my gloves, he thought.
He felt the lightness turn. He was sinking, lowering his hands and looking at his body. Funny, he thought, doesn't even look like me.
The face had blood dried over the forehead and cheek. He could see a discoloration when he looked at the skin. It was pale and slightly blue. The eyes were open, each now empty, devoid of the self which now stood before it. Pin ran his hand over the crack in the helmet, not only to test the fracture, but to find if he could feel it without the flesh of his hands. His hand stopped against the smooth glass and he felt the small fissure the fall had opened in his helmet.
For a moment, he was seized with a strange idea. He bent down over his empty frame, his knees resting in the fine dust.
Sea Monster
It was a moody week in ole SD.
Untitled
Ed Chaney
1
Rip's finger depressed the garage door opener. The motor lurched and began to winch the door up. The landscape was bathed in grays and dark shadows lay like oil; under cars, against walls, even in the small cracks between the sidewalk. The lawn lay in stark contrast, a violent emerald against the concrete.
The thin surfer slunk into the garage. He stood quietly for a moment, appraising the unfamiliar weather. He looked down at his watch, the gloom making the glow-in-the-dark backing show. It read only a few minutes past three in the afternoon, though it seemed much later.
Rip quietly changed into his wetsuit. He zipped it up slightly, but didn't put it over his arms or chest. He stuffed his keys and wallet into his jacket, tossing it about his shoulders. A bitter chill had slid gently into the garage, and Rip expected the same down at the cliffs.
He turned to the back wall and grabbed the surfboard closest to him. It was a Firewire he had bought a few months ago. He looked it over, running his hand over the beaded wax. He zipped the board back into its bag and pulled it out to his truck.
The small gray pickup sat in front of the house, also gray, in the midday light. Rip slid the board carefully under the toolbox attached just under the rear-facing cab window. He lowered it into the bed and pulled bungie cords across it, in case it should bounce.
Rip made a quick trip back inside the garage, claiming a towel and closing garage door. He hopped deftly over the laser beam meant to save a person from being crushed by the small humming motor, and cut across the lawn to the driver's side of the little pickup.
His hand reached underneath the toolbox for a moment. His fingers traced the small black box, which held his spare truck key; before withdrawing to grab the original. He unlocked the door and dropped himself into the seat, the door following behind him.
He started the little truck and put it into gear. The radio clicked on.
“... surf looks to be dangerously high with the storm surge making it's way up from the south. Waves are said to more than double overhead and the beach authority suggests that everyone, even the most seasoned of swimmers, stay out of the water for their own safety. This doesn't, however, seem to have stopped many in San Diego's surfing community from flocking to these abnormally large waves. We have an interview with Samantha Soeour...”
As the little gray beater made its way through the gray communities, clouds began to gather, black and ominous, above.
Rip turned onto the I-8 and shifted quickly through the gears, the trucks rattle growing more pronounced as the dial turned clockwise. His hands drummed on the wheel and dash, following the tune on the radio. He looked up at the clouds gathered overhead and checked the clock again. His eyes told him it was getting close to dark, but the luminescent numbers read otherwise.
“...Every hour, on the hour. I'm your host, Kay Tal, keepin it real. Speakin' of which, recent news in Peru; looks like they had some meteor strikes in the coastal area. Apparently, it wasn't really too disasterous 'cause the asteroids were like teeny tiny when they hit (Thanks atmosphere!); but I guess it was enough to shake up the populace at large. Craziness...Well here's another from our boys in the studio...”
As the 8 came to it's final straightaway, Rip looked out past it to the ocean. It was so dark it seemed a void. The clouds were a lighter gray color here. It made Rip squint, even in the absence of direct sunlight.
The freeway ended and he turned left and headed up towards Point Loma, navigating the turns with ease borne of consistency. He pulled up to the small hut in the median; the guards box for the parking lot. The school it belonged to, Point Loma Nazarene, was not in session on winter break. Thus the box was empty and Rip was spared an awkward conversation about why he was there.
PLNU sits on a chunk of earth, bordered to the west by a set of cliffs. At the bottom of these aforementioned cliffs, there are an equally lovely set of beaches, or coves. Sunset Cliffs was set directly in front of Point Loma Nazarene. This was why Rip was there.
He cruised through the parking lot and down the hill. When he reached the finally circle of asphalt, he parked in an allotted space, facing out towards the water.
He moved quickly, grabbing first his stingray booties from the back of the cab. He slipped them on and unzipped his jacket. His wetsuit stretched over his shoulders just as a breeze wheeled through the parking lot. It became entangled in the opening to the suit, gestating in a shiver.
Rip glanced again at the ocean. He spotted the channel first, it's rift allowing any would-be surfer access past the break. A color caught Rip's eye and he saw a small huddle of three boards off to the right, towards Garbage. His eyes began to squint in the gloom. He thought he saw another small red board off to the left, but it and its rider were soon obscured by a monstrous set that began to pound the rocky break.
Hoots and hollers arose from the small tribe. Rip watched as they all paddled for one of the waves. The first two managed to pop up, riding the smooth rippling body of the wave. The third shouted something obscene and duck dived. Rip smirked as the two rode the wave quickly out of sight.
The board slid from the trunk and seemed light in his hands, as Rip descended the sand stone stair case to the small inlet; his feet kicking up small puffs of cinnamon sugar sand. He stood only once more, at the water's edge; the potential of the moment weighing heavily upon him. A path less traveled stood before him. Seaweed clung to rocks unfurling like ribbons tied to handlebars. In the shallows, the green of the ocean's own brand of moss sparkled wildly, half covering the stones which bore a black resemblance to bones and skulls.
Rip stood in this moment, his eyes closed to these wonders. His ears opened to the ocean in all her majesty and he beseeched her not to take him this day. He asked the powers that be, petitioning that they might find for him, some later day, far beyond that of this, to die. That he might not be spared the safety that lies in danger or the fact that sleeps in fear. That if God surely does exist, that He might see fit to allow Rip the use of His playground, if only for this small winking moment of his existence.
The ocean seemed to roar all the louder in response to this last, and with it Rip's eyes opened. They shone out a pale blue upon his face, lit from behind with a passion that bordered on frenzy.
He ran into the sea.
His feet picked their way carefully amongst the stones. His arms hoisting the board as he went. A moment later, he was up to his waist. He threw the board before him, his arms already pumping their steady rhythm. His feet came up as the board slip across the water, balanced as leaf upon a still pond.
Before him a shadow loomed. Rip gave no notice, but quickly ducked himself down as far as his board would allow. He rose quickly, the volume of the wave ringing out to him even from beneathe.
Rip rose from the water, air filling his lungs. He looked for a moment to find his bearings. He was just past the break and swam for a moment forward as another set rolled beneath him. He turned as it lifted him and looked over the cliffs themselves, seeing his truck watching him. Silently approving of his ascent.
He heard a crashing and terror gripped him for a moment. He looked up to see the curling white beginnings of foam, staring down at him from twelve feet above his head. He threw himself headlong and was quickly out the other side. The terror egged him on, his frenzy all the more fervent.
Rip looked to his right, easily spotting the small group sitting not forty yards away. He turned and looked to port, a small gleam of red peaking out from between the dark tide. Rip made his decision quickly, choosing mystery over the safety of the group. He turned, and paddled toward the red streak, curiosity gripping him. He knew the locals and their boards. He wondered at this oceanic anomaly.
He drew closer, oblivious to the waves growing ever larger in size, moving from one story to two. He heard a small cry and something within him stirred. A woman? He paddled faster.
Over another wave he rose, when he saw her. She turned to him quickly her face oddly pale. Her hand rose and pointed out towards the open sea. She cried out to him but he voice was obscured.
It was her eyes that told him what her mouth could not.
His head turned as the moments reeled themselves into a stilted slow motion.
He saw:
A great gray mass rising from the depths of the ocean, water rushing of in droves. It was a few miles off, at least, but it seemed to him only a matter of yards away. Whatever it was, the skin seemed smooth, but thick, like that of a whale. But it was not a whale itself, its size was to unimaginably great.
The great leviathan continued to rise from the sea. Towering, it grew wider now rather than taller. It began to stretch outward, its berth filling the horizon.
As the water dissipated, great ridges, each enormous mound marking a vertebrae; each larger than three of Rip's pickups stacked atop one another.
As it continued to expand, a peninsula grew out from it toward the surfers; each trying desperately to cling to their boards amidst the torrent provided by the beast's sudden arrival.
The water about Rip grew suddenly shallow and he could almost percieve the rocks below him against the dark gray of the sky. At this, he turned about on his board, paddling madly toward the shore. He turned to shout at the trio of surfers, but they were too far and too transfixed to hear him. He turned to the girl, and found an empty ocean; a mossy rock where she had been. His brow wrinkled and he turned to see the red of her board as she picked her way toward the beach head.
He felt the bump of a rock from beneath and stood to run, when from behind the crowd began to shout.
Behind him, the peninsula had grown, the end of its length not thirty yards from where Rip had been before. As he turned to assess this knew threat, the end began to rise from the water, the surfers screeching with a fear that turned about in the pit of their stomachs. Fear of death. Real death. Not adrenaline pumping or short stay in the hospital. Not a car crash or a stabbing. Nothing that their minds could truly wrap about. No, this was something they had not ever encountered nor imagined. It drained the blood from their faces and minds. Allowing only a calm certainty of the inevitable.
From the water there rose a head. The head of a monster.
It perched for a moment. An eye, the size of windshield and blue in ways only the ocean could ever dream of, scanned the bluffs and surrounding area. It washed the landscape in its ancient gaze.
It stopped for an instant. A second that can barely be said to have occurred at all. It looked at Rip and Rip looked back; one soul recognizing the enigma in the other.
In the future, our children will listen to the sound of explosions. They will nod and say to one another: Music.
A rumble began as the monster began to move. Rip realized this for what it was: movement. Everything until then had been buoyancy and fate. Now the ground shook in tremors, it's volume climbing the cliffs. Alarms, like sleeping children, began to sound in the lot; until they too were eclipsed by the roar.
Rip could not move.
He stood and thought of people walking through a college campus arm in arm, not speaking.
A mountain grew before him, the head towering hundreds of feet above the cliffs. Its shadow eclipsed him in the gray, casting him into night. As if on command, rain began to fall; it's taste, salt and ice from the creature's body.
Blood pounded in Rip's ears. An odd rushing feeling swept through him, a plug pulling at his solarplexis.
Water pelted water and the bones beneath him grew ever dryer in the wake of the leviathan.
A scream arose, shrill and familiar; more a tantrum than a wail.
A tiny tan hand gripped his arm with fingers cut from steel cords. It began to pull him back, over the rocks; stumbling as he stared at the unbelievable gray girth before him.
He turned about. His face filled with soft brown tendrils. They lapped at it in impossible slowness.
A great silence began to rise in his ears. The girl turned with it, looking past Rip, out at the washed black horizon.
The light dimmed still and Rip struggled to map the woman's face. It seemed for a moment vain to do so, but with a likely death approaching, Rip looked into the face. He mapped each line. The curve of the nose. The soft cheekbones; freckles mapping a thin face.
Her brow wrinkled and she gestured and pointed past him. She shouted something to him, but in the dark and the silence, he could not ascertain it's meaning. Her hand grew tighter on his arm.
In his mind's eye, he saw what was coming. Saw the water rushing back; returning after its long absence. A great wave formed behind him, reflecting itself in the girl's eye. Rain on black glass, rippling towards them.
She shouted again, and he did the only manner of thing he thought might comfort her.
His arms drew up about her struggling frame. Her legs moving and pistoning against him, trying to run; to escape. Their wetsuits pressed together as his body hardened about her. She buried her face in his chest and he in her hair. It smelled of apples and sweetbread. He could feel a small sob escape her chest as their two bodies united; his over her's.
Roaring.
Apples.
Roaring.
He opened an eye and saw a small heart tattooed behind her right ear.
Yes, that seems right, he thought.
2
The curtains pulled back to reveal a beach.
The waves crashed in and out and Rip stood upon the shore. The sand was pale white against the sea's blue iris.
The tide came and touched Rip's toes; and he felt nothing.
He stooped at the waist to pick the board from the sand. With it, he rushed into the ocean. Her arms extended to him a motherly touch, pulling him quickly past the break; his board skimming the warm pool around him. It shined and sparkled about him, a sea made of crystal and glass.
Still as a sleep; silent as death.
Rip leaned back on his haunches, sitting upright on the board.
There upon the middle of the board was a single icon: a small red heart.
As he gazed upon it, the light about him dimmed. The opaque surf board became gray before him, the darkness eclipsing the heart.
He heard a cry and looked to look back at the small beach from whence he had come. Upon it a woman stood. She cupped her hands and cried to him, pointing behind him into the distance.
A chill rung out; vibrations of goosebumps lighting his arms.
He turned toward the blackness and saw a wave larger than any he had ever known.
From afar, it swallowed the horizon, but as it drew down, it blotted the out the light which had bathed the seascape.
He looked upon it and knew he could not run from it. No man can outrun the sea, for we are but dust and water and soul.
Rip looked sadly upon the strip of sand, the lady, vanished.
He looked upon his finality and felt very cheated. He frowned up at the disaster and waited for the mountain to drop.
In the midst of life, we are in death, he thought.
Who said that?
God?
3
The universe is a vast and wondrous place. It is huge in ways we cannot comprehend and beautiful in colors our mind can't comprehend. It expands and swirls; exploding and turning like the pocket watch of madman.
The universe, is but a exquisite representation of an ordered chaos scientists have yet to completely understand.
Our universe has an armpit.
It is called East County, San Diego.
“C'mon man! What the fuck!”, Burt shouted.
“Dude, c'mon, grab your crap and let's go.” Reid returned
“I was, like, halfway to the save point, dipshit!”
“Don't care. Bosses orders.”
Burt threw the controller in the vicinity of the television. It's clatter jumbled with the creak from Burt attempting to roll from the chair he had previously occupied.
“Dude, you have beat that game like six times. Last time, you played it on retarded hard fucking mode and beat it in a night. Life will go on.”
“Asshole.”
Reid stood at the doorway while Burt attempted to dress himself, is outfit chosen from the clutter of assorted shirts thrown about the floor. Reid ducked his head as he exited to the hall. His six foot four inch frame navigated the second floor hallway quickly. He moved down two doors and knocked.
“Comin'”, came the grunt from the other side. Mikey.
“Pull the ass out, man. We gotta go.”
Silence was the response.
A series of bumps and obscenities came from behind Reid. Well, at least Burt's ready, he thought.
“Hon?”
Reid looked to the end of the hall. Trish stood in the doorway. She rubbed at her eyes, her platinum hair a single sided hurricane. He walked down towards and gathered her up in his arms.
“Shhh babe. Go back to sleep”, he cooed.
“Wuzz goin' down, hon?” Her face nuzzled against his chest.
“Just some bizness with Boss. Go back to bed sugar.”
“Kay,” she said and turned on heel. He closed the door quietly and heard her body moving in the bed.
Mikey came out of his room and after one glance at Reid, moved huskily through the hall towards the kitchen. His frame bulked in the corridor. He maneuvered his wide shoulders over the threshold and found Burt blowing smoke ring at his flytrap.
“Fucker!” He whispered and grabbed Burt's shoulder.
“Whatthehell!” He screeched.
Mikey turned Burt smoothly and drove his head into the cabinet. It went through the thin paneling and smashed the box of cereal waiting on the other side.
“My fucking flytrap!”
Burt screeched in the cabinet and pressed his hands against the door his skull had encountered.
“Fuck, assbags! We gotta get goin!”, Reid bellowed.
“You two fucktarded monkey boners had better grab your nutsacks so we can fuckin' make the meeting on fuckin' time 'cause I don't wanna hear anymore fuckin' shit from Boss!”
Mikey shrugged and grabbed a granola bar, muttering about his flytrap. Reid shook his head and walked out of the room.
“And Burt get your fucking head OUT of that cabinet DAMNIT!”
At that, Burt began to cackle blood into the cheerios.
A girl stood in the doorway to the hospital waiting room. She wore a red hooded sweatshirt and tight jeans, which ended in scuffed black sneakers. She looked at Rip.
Rip lay in the bed, unconscious, his feet almost hanging off the edge. He was breathing quietly, tubes flowing from his hand and nostrils. His eyes moved under his eyelids.
The girl walked forward, closing the door, and bent over Rip. She withdrew a sowing needle and a small glass bottle. She unscrewed it, and, setting the cap aside, began to work. She picked up his hand and began to jab at it.
She pictured a friend or family member walking into the room and sitting at the edge of his bed. He would wake sluggishly and smile. They would whisper something funny and comforting to him; and he would snort.
No, chuckle, she thought. He'd chuckle.
Then, they would turn, to consult his injuries and find the tattoo.
“What's this?” They would ask.
He would shake his head and take it between his fingers, gently caressing the pain.
Because, she thought, although he would not really know the name, his mind would find her.
When she had finished, she replaced the bottle and looked about the room. She looked back to Rip, her face tender. She bent and kissed his lips, wondering for an instant if it might wake him. She shook her brown hair and left.
“Rip, man, we gotta go!” A voice whispered.
“Yeah, dude, we gotta get outta here!” Another said.
Warm hands touched Rip's shoulder and Rip thought he would scream. His face puckered and no sound came out. He gasped and took a breath.
He opened his eyes and the room swam. He closed them again. Oh God, he thought.
“Duuuuuude!” The first voice whispered.
“Got! To! Go!”
“Rip!”
“C'mon man!”
“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!”
“What?”
“My ma used to always say it when we were getting up for school.”
“You're retarded, you know that?”
Rip opened his eyes again. He was unsurprised to find Chill and Sweeps leaning over him; quietly arguing over the most annoying method with which to wake an injured man.
Rip opened his mouth to speak. 'Shut up' was all he wanted to say. He made a noise and then grunted. They looked down at him, Sweeps eyes bugging 'Roid Rager.
“He He. Rate your pain dude...”
“Yeah, one to ten; one being eight billion, two hundred and fifty four million and ten being the same thing plus ten.”
Untitled
Ed Chaney
1
Rip's finger depressed the garage door opener. The motor lurched and began to winch the door up. The landscape was bathed in grays and dark shadows lay like oil; under cars, against walls, even in the small cracks between the sidewalk. The lawn lay in stark contrast, a violent emerald against the concrete.
The thin surfer slunk into the garage. He stood quietly for a moment, appraising the unfamiliar weather. He looked down at his watch, the gloom making the glow-in-the-dark backing show. It read only a few minutes past three in the afternoon, though it seemed much later.
Rip quietly changed into his wetsuit. He zipped it up slightly, but didn't put it over his arms or chest. He stuffed his keys and wallet into his jacket, tossing it about his shoulders. A bitter chill had slid gently into the garage, and Rip expected the same down at the cliffs.
He turned to the back wall and grabbed the surfboard closest to him. It was a Firewire he had bought a few months ago. He looked it over, running his hand over the beaded wax. He zipped the board back into its bag and pulled it out to his truck.
The small gray pickup sat in front of the house, also gray, in the midday light. Rip slid the board carefully under the toolbox attached just under the rear-facing cab window. He lowered it into the bed and pulled bungie cords across it, in case it should bounce.
Rip made a quick trip back inside the garage, claiming a towel and closing garage door. He hopped deftly over the laser beam meant to save a person from being crushed by the small humming motor, and cut across the lawn to the driver's side of the little pickup.
His hand reached underneath the toolbox for a moment. His fingers traced the small black box, which held his spare truck key; before withdrawing to grab the original. He unlocked the door and dropped himself into the seat, the door following behind him.
He started the little truck and put it into gear. The radio clicked on.
“... surf looks to be dangerously high with the storm surge making it's way up from the south. Waves are said to more than double overhead and the beach authority suggests that everyone, even the most seasoned of swimmers, stay out of the water for their own safety. This doesn't, however, seem to have stopped many in San Diego's surfing community from flocking to these abnormally large waves. We have an interview with Samantha Soeour...”
As the little gray beater made its way through the gray communities, clouds began to gather, black and ominous, above.
Rip turned onto the I-8 and shifted quickly through the gears, the trucks rattle growing more pronounced as the dial turned clockwise. His hands drummed on the wheel and dash, following the tune on the radio. He looked up at the clouds gathered overhead and checked the clock again. His eyes told him it was getting close to dark, but the luminescent numbers read otherwise.
“...Every hour, on the hour. I'm your host, Kay Tal, keepin it real. Speakin' of which, recent news in Peru; looks like they had some meteor strikes in the coastal area. Apparently, it wasn't really too disasterous 'cause the asteroids were like teeny tiny when they hit (Thanks atmosphere!); but I guess it was enough to shake up the populace at large. Craziness...Well here's another from our boys in the studio...”
As the 8 came to it's final straightaway, Rip looked out past it to the ocean. It was so dark it seemed a void. The clouds were a lighter gray color here. It made Rip squint, even in the absence of direct sunlight.
The freeway ended and he turned left and headed up towards Point Loma, navigating the turns with ease borne of consistency. He pulled up to the small hut in the median; the guards box for the parking lot. The school it belonged to, Point Loma Nazarene, was not in session on winter break. Thus the box was empty and Rip was spared an awkward conversation about why he was there.
PLNU sits on a chunk of earth, bordered to the west by a set of cliffs. At the bottom of these aforementioned cliffs, there are an equally lovely set of beaches, or coves. Sunset Cliffs was set directly in front of Point Loma Nazarene. This was why Rip was there.
He cruised through the parking lot and down the hill. When he reached the finally circle of asphalt, he parked in an allotted space, facing out towards the water.
He moved quickly, grabbing first his stingray booties from the back of the cab. He slipped them on and unzipped his jacket. His wetsuit stretched over his shoulders just as a breeze wheeled through the parking lot. It became entangled in the opening to the suit, gestating in a shiver.
Rip glanced again at the ocean. He spotted the channel first, it's rift allowing any would-be surfer access past the break. A color caught Rip's eye and he saw a small huddle of three boards off to the right, towards Garbage. His eyes began to squint in the gloom. He thought he saw another small red board off to the left, but it and its rider were soon obscured by a monstrous set that began to pound the rocky break.
Hoots and hollers arose from the small tribe. Rip watched as they all paddled for one of the waves. The first two managed to pop up, riding the smooth rippling body of the wave. The third shouted something obscene and duck dived. Rip smirked as the two rode the wave quickly out of sight.
The board slid from the trunk and seemed light in his hands, as Rip descended the sand stone stair case to the small inlet; his feet kicking up small puffs of cinnamon sugar sand. He stood only once more, at the water's edge; the potential of the moment weighing heavily upon him. A path less traveled stood before him. Seaweed clung to rocks unfurling like ribbons tied to handlebars. In the shallows, the green of the ocean's own brand of moss sparkled wildly, half covering the stones which bore a black resemblance to bones and skulls.
Rip stood in this moment, his eyes closed to these wonders. His ears opened to the ocean in all her majesty and he beseeched her not to take him this day. He asked the powers that be, petitioning that they might find for him, some later day, far beyond that of this, to die. That he might not be spared the safety that lies in danger or the fact that sleeps in fear. That if God surely does exist, that He might see fit to allow Rip the use of His playground, if only for this small winking moment of his existence.
The ocean seemed to roar all the louder in response to this last, and with it Rip's eyes opened. They shone out a pale blue upon his face, lit from behind with a passion that bordered on frenzy.
He ran into the sea.
His feet picked their way carefully amongst the stones. His arms hoisting the board as he went. A moment later, he was up to his waist. He threw the board before him, his arms already pumping their steady rhythm. His feet came up as the board slip across the water, balanced as leaf upon a still pond.
Before him a shadow loomed. Rip gave no notice, but quickly ducked himself down as far as his board would allow. He rose quickly, the volume of the wave ringing out to him even from beneathe.
Rip rose from the water, air filling his lungs. He looked for a moment to find his bearings. He was just past the break and swam for a moment forward as another set rolled beneath him. He turned as it lifted him and looked over the cliffs themselves, seeing his truck watching him. Silently approving of his ascent.
He heard a crashing and terror gripped him for a moment. He looked up to see the curling white beginnings of foam, staring down at him from twelve feet above his head. He threw himself headlong and was quickly out the other side. The terror egged him on, his frenzy all the more fervent.
Rip looked to his right, easily spotting the small group sitting not forty yards away. He turned and looked to port, a small gleam of red peaking out from between the dark tide. Rip made his decision quickly, choosing mystery over the safety of the group. He turned, and paddled toward the red streak, curiosity gripping him. He knew the locals and their boards. He wondered at this oceanic anomaly.
He drew closer, oblivious to the waves growing ever larger in size, moving from one story to two. He heard a small cry and something within him stirred. A woman? He paddled faster.
Over another wave he rose, when he saw her. She turned to him quickly her face oddly pale. Her hand rose and pointed out towards the open sea. She cried out to him but he voice was obscured.
It was her eyes that told him what her mouth could not.
His head turned as the moments reeled themselves into a stilted slow motion.
He saw:
A great gray mass rising from the depths of the ocean, water rushing of in droves. It was a few miles off, at least, but it seemed to him only a matter of yards away. Whatever it was, the skin seemed smooth, but thick, like that of a whale. But it was not a whale itself, its size was to unimaginably great.
The great leviathan continued to rise from the sea. Towering, it grew wider now rather than taller. It began to stretch outward, its berth filling the horizon.
As the water dissipated, great ridges, each enormous mound marking a vertebrae; each larger than three of Rip's pickups stacked atop one another.
As it continued to expand, a peninsula grew out from it toward the surfers; each trying desperately to cling to their boards amidst the torrent provided by the beast's sudden arrival.
The water about Rip grew suddenly shallow and he could almost percieve the rocks below him against the dark gray of the sky. At this, he turned about on his board, paddling madly toward the shore. He turned to shout at the trio of surfers, but they were too far and too transfixed to hear him. He turned to the girl, and found an empty ocean; a mossy rock where she had been. His brow wrinkled and he turned to see the red of her board as she picked her way toward the beach head.
He felt the bump of a rock from beneath and stood to run, when from behind the crowd began to shout.
Behind him, the peninsula had grown, the end of its length not thirty yards from where Rip had been before. As he turned to assess this knew threat, the end began to rise from the water, the surfers screeching with a fear that turned about in the pit of their stomachs. Fear of death. Real death. Not adrenaline pumping or short stay in the hospital. Not a car crash or a stabbing. Nothing that their minds could truly wrap about. No, this was something they had not ever encountered nor imagined. It drained the blood from their faces and minds. Allowing only a calm certainty of the inevitable.
From the water there rose a head. The head of a monster.
It perched for a moment. An eye, the size of windshield and blue in ways only the ocean could ever dream of, scanned the bluffs and surrounding area. It washed the landscape in its ancient gaze.
It stopped for an instant. A second that can barely be said to have occurred at all. It looked at Rip and Rip looked back; one soul recognizing the enigma in the other.
In the future, our children will listen to the sound of explosions. They will nod and say to one another: Music.
A rumble began as the monster began to move. Rip realized this for what it was: movement. Everything until then had been buoyancy and fate. Now the ground shook in tremors, it's volume climbing the cliffs. Alarms, like sleeping children, began to sound in the lot; until they too were eclipsed by the roar.
Rip could not move.
He stood and thought of people walking through a college campus arm in arm, not speaking.
A mountain grew before him, the head towering hundreds of feet above the cliffs. Its shadow eclipsed him in the gray, casting him into night. As if on command, rain began to fall; it's taste, salt and ice from the creature's body.
Blood pounded in Rip's ears. An odd rushing feeling swept through him, a plug pulling at his solarplexis.
Water pelted water and the bones beneath him grew ever dryer in the wake of the leviathan.
A scream arose, shrill and familiar; more a tantrum than a wail.
A tiny tan hand gripped his arm with fingers cut from steel cords. It began to pull him back, over the rocks; stumbling as he stared at the unbelievable gray girth before him.
He turned about. His face filled with soft brown tendrils. They lapped at it in impossible slowness.
A great silence began to rise in his ears. The girl turned with it, looking past Rip, out at the washed black horizon.
The light dimmed still and Rip struggled to map the woman's face. It seemed for a moment vain to do so, but with a likely death approaching, Rip looked into the face. He mapped each line. The curve of the nose. The soft cheekbones; freckles mapping a thin face.
Her brow wrinkled and she gestured and pointed past him. She shouted something to him, but in the dark and the silence, he could not ascertain it's meaning. Her hand grew tighter on his arm.
In his mind's eye, he saw what was coming. Saw the water rushing back; returning after its long absence. A great wave formed behind him, reflecting itself in the girl's eye. Rain on black glass, rippling towards them.
She shouted again, and he did the only manner of thing he thought might comfort her.
His arms drew up about her struggling frame. Her legs moving and pistoning against him, trying to run; to escape. Their wetsuits pressed together as his body hardened about her. She buried her face in his chest and he in her hair. It smelled of apples and sweetbread. He could feel a small sob escape her chest as their two bodies united; his over her's.
Roaring.
Apples.
Roaring.
He opened an eye and saw a small heart tattooed behind her right ear.
Yes, that seems right, he thought.
2
The curtains pulled back to reveal a beach.
The waves crashed in and out and Rip stood upon the shore. The sand was pale white against the sea's blue iris.
The tide came and touched Rip's toes; and he felt nothing.
He stooped at the waist to pick the board from the sand. With it, he rushed into the ocean. Her arms extended to him a motherly touch, pulling him quickly past the break; his board skimming the warm pool around him. It shined and sparkled about him, a sea made of crystal and glass.
Still as a sleep; silent as death.
Rip leaned back on his haunches, sitting upright on the board.
There upon the middle of the board was a single icon: a small red heart.
As he gazed upon it, the light about him dimmed. The opaque surf board became gray before him, the darkness eclipsing the heart.
He heard a cry and looked to look back at the small beach from whence he had come. Upon it a woman stood. She cupped her hands and cried to him, pointing behind him into the distance.
A chill rung out; vibrations of goosebumps lighting his arms.
He turned toward the blackness and saw a wave larger than any he had ever known.
From afar, it swallowed the horizon, but as it drew down, it blotted the out the light which had bathed the seascape.
He looked upon it and knew he could not run from it. No man can outrun the sea, for we are but dust and water and soul.
Rip looked sadly upon the strip of sand, the lady, vanished.
He looked upon his finality and felt very cheated. He frowned up at the disaster and waited for the mountain to drop.
In the midst of life, we are in death, he thought.
Who said that?
God?
3
The universe is a vast and wondrous place. It is huge in ways we cannot comprehend and beautiful in colors our mind can't comprehend. It expands and swirls; exploding and turning like the pocket watch of madman.
The universe, is but a exquisite representation of an ordered chaos scientists have yet to completely understand.
Our universe has an armpit.
It is called East County, San Diego.
“C'mon man! What the fuck!”, Burt shouted.
“Dude, c'mon, grab your crap and let's go.” Reid returned
“I was, like, halfway to the save point, dipshit!”
“Don't care. Bosses orders.”
Burt threw the controller in the vicinity of the television. It's clatter jumbled with the creak from Burt attempting to roll from the chair he had previously occupied.
“Dude, you have beat that game like six times. Last time, you played it on retarded hard fucking mode and beat it in a night. Life will go on.”
“Asshole.”
Reid stood at the doorway while Burt attempted to dress himself, is outfit chosen from the clutter of assorted shirts thrown about the floor. Reid ducked his head as he exited to the hall. His six foot four inch frame navigated the second floor hallway quickly. He moved down two doors and knocked.
“Comin'”, came the grunt from the other side. Mikey.
“Pull the ass out, man. We gotta go.”
Silence was the response.
A series of bumps and obscenities came from behind Reid. Well, at least Burt's ready, he thought.
“Hon?”
Reid looked to the end of the hall. Trish stood in the doorway. She rubbed at her eyes, her platinum hair a single sided hurricane. He walked down towards and gathered her up in his arms.
“Shhh babe. Go back to sleep”, he cooed.
“Wuzz goin' down, hon?” Her face nuzzled against his chest.
“Just some bizness with Boss. Go back to bed sugar.”
“Kay,” she said and turned on heel. He closed the door quietly and heard her body moving in the bed.
Mikey came out of his room and after one glance at Reid, moved huskily through the hall towards the kitchen. His frame bulked in the corridor. He maneuvered his wide shoulders over the threshold and found Burt blowing smoke ring at his flytrap.
“Fucker!” He whispered and grabbed Burt's shoulder.
“Whatthehell!” He screeched.
Mikey turned Burt smoothly and drove his head into the cabinet. It went through the thin paneling and smashed the box of cereal waiting on the other side.
“My fucking flytrap!”
Burt screeched in the cabinet and pressed his hands against the door his skull had encountered.
“Fuck, assbags! We gotta get goin!”, Reid bellowed.
“You two fucktarded monkey boners had better grab your nutsacks so we can fuckin' make the meeting on fuckin' time 'cause I don't wanna hear anymore fuckin' shit from Boss!”
Mikey shrugged and grabbed a granola bar, muttering about his flytrap. Reid shook his head and walked out of the room.
“And Burt get your fucking head OUT of that cabinet DAMNIT!”
At that, Burt began to cackle blood into the cheerios.
A girl stood in the doorway to the hospital waiting room. She wore a red hooded sweatshirt and tight jeans, which ended in scuffed black sneakers. She looked at Rip.
Rip lay in the bed, unconscious, his feet almost hanging off the edge. He was breathing quietly, tubes flowing from his hand and nostrils. His eyes moved under his eyelids.
The girl walked forward, closing the door, and bent over Rip. She withdrew a sowing needle and a small glass bottle. She unscrewed it, and, setting the cap aside, began to work. She picked up his hand and began to jab at it.
She pictured a friend or family member walking into the room and sitting at the edge of his bed. He would wake sluggishly and smile. They would whisper something funny and comforting to him; and he would snort.
No, chuckle, she thought. He'd chuckle.
Then, they would turn, to consult his injuries and find the tattoo.
“What's this?” They would ask.
He would shake his head and take it between his fingers, gently caressing the pain.
Because, she thought, although he would not really know the name, his mind would find her.
When she had finished, she replaced the bottle and looked about the room. She looked back to Rip, her face tender. She bent and kissed his lips, wondering for an instant if it might wake him. She shook her brown hair and left.
“Rip, man, we gotta go!” A voice whispered.
“Yeah, dude, we gotta get outta here!” Another said.
Warm hands touched Rip's shoulder and Rip thought he would scream. His face puckered and no sound came out. He gasped and took a breath.
He opened his eyes and the room swam. He closed them again. Oh God, he thought.
“Duuuuuude!” The first voice whispered.
“Got! To! Go!”
“Rip!”
“C'mon man!”
“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!”
“What?”
“My ma used to always say it when we were getting up for school.”
“You're retarded, you know that?”
Rip opened his eyes again. He was unsurprised to find Chill and Sweeps leaning over him; quietly arguing over the most annoying method with which to wake an injured man.
Rip opened his mouth to speak. 'Shut up' was all he wanted to say. He made a noise and then grunted. They looked down at him, Sweeps eyes bugging 'Roid Rager.
“He He. Rate your pain dude...”
“Yeah, one to ten; one being eight billion, two hundred and fifty four million and ten being the same thing plus ten.”
First novel attempt
I apologize Jordan and Amanda.
Strangers in the Night by Edward Chaney
Strangers in the night/ two lonely people/ we were strangers in the night/ up to the moment/ when we said our first hello/ little did we know/ love was just a glance away/ warm embracing dance away
- Frank Sinatra
A frozen mass
a darkened hollow
three blind mice
in line,
they follow
assuredly as they run
as trees whisper
and beg the sun
that in the air
among the wood
that what does follow
is nothing good
Chapter One
Jordan sat on her bed, in her room, in her parents house. It was Saturday and she was waiting. She lay in her running pants. Blue with a double racing stripe down the side. She lay and she waited, sprawled across the bed, in the most unladylike of fashions. She was face first, ass in the air, her head stuffed into the blankets and pillows.
She had her laptop playing music, Modest Mouse. She listened to the album and drifted in and out of consciousness. She was waiting.
Waiting for
life.
Waiting for
Amanda...
She rolled over and waited staring at her cell phone. It was silver and new, and she hated it. She had liked her old, beat to pieces phone. But sadly, her mom had put that through the wash. She looked at it again and tried to will it to burst to life, with Amanda's caller ID on the front. She sighed and looked over at her computer.
Sitting next to the Mac was her textbooks. Ouch! She had homework to do.
It was community college, but that seemed to be the problem. The college took itself far to seriously and seemed to take every chance it could to pile on as much homework as possible. Much more, she heard from friends, than at a normal four year state program. It was cheaper though. Psychology, Art, English, all of it terrible, she thought. The teachers were alright, but she couldn't help but feel like she was stuck in a rut.
Mostly because Ed enjoyed reminding her of it every fifteen minutes.
She made a grunting moan and rolled the other direction. She looked at her walls.
Her bed was red. The blankets were varying styles and motifs, but mostly red and purple and the such. The sheets where the only ones that she could find, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Sexy, she thought. Somewhere in the world, a nerd fell in love.
She glanced at her pillow. She reached out her hand and turned it over. It was covered with drool stains.
She had no problem sleeping at night, and she thanked the Lord for that, but it seemed that every time she was really zonked out, she drooled. It was a rather unfashionable habit, but what could she do? All those braces and orthopedic surgery, so she could have a dazzling smile. The downside was that if she ever attracted a man, he would have to put up with her constant oral defect.
What can you do?
She looked at her phone again and concentrated.
Riiiiing, she told it, riiiinnng!
It did nothing of the sort.
She was feeling terribly lethargic at this point. The light was coming in dimmer and dimmer through her windows and although the music wasn't mellow, it was turned down so low it was only a hum. A warm buzzing over the back of her skull.
She glanced at her walls.
Bits and pieces of art, posters (Josh Hartnett, OMG!), and family photos. There she was standing by her brothers. Her with the blond highlights over her brown hair. Her brown eyes and big smile. Others with her looking at the camera in a more sarcastic sense, daring it to try and take her picture. Her with friends, her at her high school graduation a year and a half ago. Her myspace shots. The one with her dog and the one in the bath room. She looked back at the phone.
Damn!
She looked at the clock.
4:28
Argh, she thought, very argh.
Her walls were white and that was fine. She could hear her family moving about in the house through them. Her three brothers sounding like they were herding cattle through the front room.
This was only a mild exaggeration. She felt confident that if she reached out and opened her door. They would be pulling or pushing or exploding something through the hall on the way to their rooms and the xbox.
Who knows!
She thought of her mom out in the kitchen making dinner. Jordan had no idea what it might be, but she smelled many different herbs and spices coming under the door. She waited. At any moment, she thought, the smoke alarm will go off and that will be the end of it.
Jordan looked at the clock.
4:32
She thought the alarm clock looked smug about this. Bastard, she thought at it and then at her cell phone.
She rolled on her back. She didn't want to fall asleep.
She should get up and do something, she thought.
She continued to lay there..............................................................................................................
BBBRRRIIIINNNGGGG
Jordan snapped her neck and twisted. She fell completely from the bed into her laundry/magazine covered floor. From there she lay dazed and giggling, until the phone rang again. She jump and slid on her bras and makeup secrets.
What is he thinking ladies?
Finally, inexorably, she snatched up the phone and smiled at Amanda's voice coming through the receiver.
“Hey so your coming?” Amanda giggled.
“Yeah, once I get off the floor,” Jordan laughed loudly.
“I fell!” said Jordan after a short pause.
Amanda giggled to herself.
She stood in the middle of a big dusty space between tents and cabins. She wore flip flops and a tank with capris. She had her cell phone to her ear and continued to giggle as she waved to other counselors passing her by in pairs and groups.
Amanda laughed and threw her dreadlocks back as Jordan recounted her adventures with her bed.
“I was gonna make a salad, should I save you some?” Jordan asked.
“Yeah totally! I'll see you in a bit,” Amanda said cheerfully and hung up.
She looked at her phone.
3 minutes and 46 seconds
She had to be careful with her minutes cause of the phone she was using. Pay as you go, suffer at your own expense. She stuffed the phone into her pocket and started to walk to her room.
She lived in the girls dorm at a Christian Youth Summer Camp, Apache Mountain. She had come over the summer to work the summer internship, but had enjoyed it so much, she had decided stayed for a year as an intern. She was coming up on her third month into the internship, and she was loving it. She was working with the kids, she was smiling and active. Most of all she felt close to God and that was important. She looked at the camp.
It had a wild west, cowboys and Indians theme. One part of the camp was tepees, the other was wagons. The kids came for a week and stayed the first half in tepees and the second in the dusty sheets of the covered wagons. The tepees were alright, but the wagons were ridiculously tight spaces.
The bunks were set up in two rows, two beds long each and two beds high. Then at the end was the counselors bed with one on top of it for one of the kids if you had an extra. Somewhere in the world and interior decorator screamed.
One had to navigate through six inches of aisle space to your bed in the middle of the night and then either your feet were in some kids face or their's were in yours.
You roll with it though,
you grow.
She enjoyed it though and she smiled to herself as she walked up the step and opened the door.
Her friend, Dana, was drying her hair.
“Hey Yeah Yeah,” said Amanda.
This was Dana's camp name, taken from the phrase most often heard and the band she had a special shrine for in her cd collection.
“Sup, Churro,” said Yeah Yeah, twisting the blow dryer in front of the mirror.
Amanda walked by her and to her bunk. She pulled her suit case out from under it and grabbed her running pants and sports bra. She also at a second glance grabbed her Invisalign.
They were these little plastic doo hickey things that she had been wearing to keep her teeth straight. They were all right, she thought, better than braces, that's for sure. She popped them in and grinned at herself in the mirror by her bed. They made her teeth invincible! She could bite into anything she want, hot or cold! She didn't because she wasn't supposed to, but every once and a while a Popsicle met its maker. The only problem she could ever see, in her mind, was taking them out in public. You ended up standing there with a big line of saliva from your mouth to the offending object. It didn't happen often, every once and a while she would sit down with people to dinner and forget. The she would be sitting there and look around at everyone staring at her and her translucent form of modern art.
She threw her stuff into a plastic bag and tied the top.
She was excited for the show tonight.
Chapter Two
Sleeping in sweet release
Hold your thoughts
Hold the leash
Jordan hopped in her Fourunner and checked herself in the rear view mirror. She looked at her nose and around her eyes. She had just washed her face and it tingled from the water and lotion. She looked at her teeth and looked for signs of salad.
Salad!
She clicked the door open and left her key in the ignition.
She ran back into her house, flying over brothers and dashing around her parents questions. She got to the fridge, threw the salad in a bowl, and ran back out to her truck.
He parents made small noises, but she waved her arms wildly as she flung open the door. She wailed her plans for the evening a them as she ducked out.
They heard:
“Manda! Jog! Comedy! Club!” and then
SLAM!
They stood where they had been and just stared at the closed door in front of them.
“What was that?”
“I don't know, looked like a blond tornado”
“hmmm I thought it was just me!”
They looked at the fridge.
“It took our salad!”
“Oh dear...”
Jordan once more positioned herself behind the wheel of her car and set the bowl in he seat next to her. She used the junk that had accumulated in the front seat to cocoon the bowl in a nestle of perfect safety and balance. She then found a piece of clean white paper and placed it over the leaves in the dish.She looked at it gave it a satisfactory nod and checked to make sure she had her change of clothes. She looked about for a bit and then realized that's what the salad cocoon was made of. She smiled and looked in the rear view. She looked a little sweaty from her exertions but other than that fine.
She started her four runner and began the long drive across town to get Amanda.
Ed sat in his room reading. He had Richard Bachman's The Regulators in front of him and he flipped the page casually. He glanced at the clock:
4:40
He looked back down at the book and turned the page.
He looked back up and glanced around his room.
His room was decorated in the most normal style of his age, junk yard, or so his mom called it whenever she saw it. His steel toed boots were on the floor in separate locales. His other shoes similarly separated. He lay on his futon on the floor, with pillows behind him propping him against the wall. He had laptop nearby and it was playing Flogging Molly in a ridiculously loud volume. Ed seemed not to notice. He sat and read and glanced at the clock.
Sometimes he would be really spontaneous and take a gander at his cell phone, which was charging by his leg.
His room was cream colored and most everything else was wood. His dresser, wood. His closet, the doors at least, wood. Cabinets, wood. Yet, he sat on his little futon, in the corner. Woodless, in his entirety.
In the middle of the room was an expansive space filled with rather peculiar clutter. He had a wooden sword, a boken that lay interlaced with the cord to his alarm clock radio. Which sat by his guitar amp. Audio books leaned against this, the Great Gatsby and Dante's Divine Comedy. These sat next to the forty pound weights he lifted from time to time to try and keep in shape. Three guitars lined the wall. An electrice guitar, a stratocaster, which he had carved designs into with his pocket knife. His bass was next to that. It had a purple strap and a ongoing mural Ed had done in the neck.
Lastly against the wall, was an acoustic guitar, given to him by his father, which sat in a case bearing a Napoleon Dynamite sticker. In the far corner, directly across from him, was his dresser. There were few clothes in it, most of them being on the floor or on top.
Sketchbooks and hair dye.
Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy
Open All Night by Bukowski.
Ed sat in the corner and waited for a call. Somewhere in the world, a librarian had an orgasm.
Finally he dog eared the page. A man had just found a doll that looked just like one of their assailants. The main character was baffled in a hail of gunfire.
He'd read more later, he thought, and flipped open his phone.
Amanda lay on her back in her bunk. She felt so long this way. She was a good five eleven and she wondered sometimes if she was intimidating. She didn't think so. She stretched and felt her muscles tense and unwind.
Yeah Yeah came out from in front of the mirror and and went to her bunk.
Yeah Yeah was cool. Amanda only known her over the summer and then into the internship, but when your around a person that much and can still stand them. Well, there's something to be said for that.
Yeah Yeah looked up at Amanda stretched out and moved as if to whack Amanda's stomach.
Amanda clenched up and giggled, and Yeah Yeah stood there looking down hat her and shaking her hair.
“You are so long girl”
“I know...”
Amanda rolled about in bed and flipped one of her olive tanned legs out. She extended her leg and pointed her toes. She kicked her flip flop and it flew off. She kicked the other off and sighed softly as she stretched again.
Yeah Yeah looked at the bag.
“What are you up to tonight, Churro?”
Churro was Amanda's camp name. She got it for her awesome ability to consume the camp churros with gusto that bordered on the suicidal. No one should ever enjoy camp food that much, they said. She just smiled her cinnamon sugar covered smile at them. And thus she was ordained and was Churro from henceforth, known as such.
“Hanging with Jordan ... and some friends.” she said mysteriously.
Yeah Yeah gave Amanda the eyebrow and Amanda smiled up at it. Yeah Yeah was like an Indian sometimes. She looked at you and you thought that she could read your mind just like smoke signals or deer prints or some other stereotype. Her face was a mask of granite and when she gave you the look, the one only girls can give (the one that let's you know that she sees right through you) you understood that you were as see through to her as Amanda's Invisalign.
“What?!”
“Nothin” said Yeah Yeah
and she put on her shoes.
“What are YOU up to?” Amanda said as Yeah Yeah crossed the room and threw on a light blue blouse and black peacoat. Yeah Yeah smiled at Amanda as she got ready.
“I have a date!” she said with a grin.
“What!” Amanda jumped up and walked after Yeah Yeah as she went to apply make up.
“Who!What!When!Where!” Amanda shouted following Yeah Yeah around the bathroom.
“He's a friend...” she said teasingly.
“Who!”
“He's a guy I know, from a church I go to...”
“Who!”
“And,” she said looking at Amanda, feigning condescension, “ he is taking me out to a little restaurant downtown...”
Amanda stood there hands on hips and looked at Yeah Yeah.
“And!” she demanded.
“What?” Yeah Yeah smirked offhandedly.
It was Amanda's turn to raise her eyebrow at Yeah Yeah.
“It's just a date, if it goes WELL, I will be more than happy to tell you about it later. However if it goes BADLY, I think it would be better if only two had to keep the secret, okay?” she smiled
“Yeah, ME and you!”
Yeah Yeah did a small twirl and looked herself once over.
“Well this is me!” she said pulling out her phone as it buzzed, “ wish me luck!”
Amanda stuck out her tongue and smiled.
“Luck!”
Chapter Three
Woods
Smoods
Omen
Smomen
“Hello?!” Jordan said into the wrong end of the phone.
“jrrrrdennnn?”
She looked at the screen and flipped the phone around. She put the phone between her ear and shoulder and shifted into fifth gear as she pushed the car on.
“Jordan? You there? This is Ed” said Ed from his futon.
“Yeah, wassup?”
“Just wonderin what's shakin?”
“Well, huh, I'm on my way to pick up Amanda right now and then we should be at your house.”
“When you think you'll be getting around here?”Ed lived on the other side of town from Amanda. Jordan was somewhere in the middle on the map, so she took it upon herself to go grab Amanda who was vehicle-less at the moment. She had left her car with her parents and flown back to work at the camp, this left her at the mercy of her friends for rides and invitations. Luckily they were the sort who were more than happy to oblige.
She thought about the distance and the road to Ed's.
Ed lived in a sort of super suburbs. He had neighbors and all that, but it was the sort of place were everything was very quiet. Example:
road was paved, but his driveway was not.
There was barely any street lights, she thought. The road wasn't to long, but it winded. She was familiar with it by now so she thought she could cope with the speeds on the turns.
The houses on the road all had large spacious front lawns covered with large low hanging trees. The lawns weren't perfect. It was more country style, than a Stepford community. Lots of space and room, so people didn't bother people.
She glanced at the clock.
4:53
“Let's say 5:30..uh...ish?” Jordan said slowly turning her wheel and down shifting as she turned a corner. Her truck was next to a grassy field fenced in barbed wire.
She watched for a moment out her window as the car drove past. She saw three jackrabbits sitting together in a field. She watched them look at each other and sniff. They hopped about each other in small circles. They looked like they were celebrating something. They all then sat up at once as her truck neared. She watched them as they stared back at her. They were varying shades of gray with small white tails. Their black eyes gleamed with personality as they bent and sniffed the air. They sat and stared at her and didn't see the hawk.
It swooped and snatched one of the three, snapping its neck. She saw the body swoop up in a great arch, the rabbit dangling limply, eyes glassy as it looked at her. The others scattered.
She shrieked, swerving slightly in her lane.
“What?!” Ed said
“What is it? You alright?”Yeah, I guess so, Jordan thought.
“Yeah, I guess so. I'll see you soon kay?” she said aloud. Somewhere in Southern California, a wife lied.
“Alright, drive safe now”
“Yeah I will, bye” she said and ended the call. She put the cell phone into the cup holder and breathed to steady herself. What the hell was that? She closed her eyes quickly and opened them.
She looked through her windshield at the passing landscape and waited, looking for her sign. Not realizing, she had already seen it.
Ed sat back and looked at his phone. He closed it with a snap and put his book aside. He looked at his clock and stood up, lurching slightly from the mattress' unsteady nature. He stepped onto the carpet and looked at his barbells. He walked by them and headed to the kitchen.
His parents were in the living room, they were watching the Shining.
His father looked up at him from his chair, a LA-Z-BOY. They had bought it for him when he had broken his leg four years or so ago. His dad smiled.
“What are you up to tonight?”“Not much, gonna hang with Amanda and Jordan.”
“Okay, what are you guys up to?”Ed looked at the fridge and thought of what he might make himself.
He looked back at his father.
“We're goin for a jog first and then gonna go to a comedy club or meet up with the cast or the such,” Ed said, walking by his father on his way to the kitchen.
His mother was standing over the fridge and looking at it biting her lip. She looked up at him as he walked in through the door.
“You eat too much, you know that? I bought two gallons of milk on Monday, now look!”
He smiled at her.
“That was totally Dad and you know it”
“Yeah that's what he said, he blamed you. Honestly between the two of you, we could feed ...well... we could feed a lot of people!” she said, and smiled at him. A comedian in New Hampshire failed to smile.
“Nice ma...” he said sarcastically. He gave her a quick hug and gently nudged his way in to look at the fridge. She swatted him and headed back into the living room. He wanted a snack but they would be jogging soon so, he settled on OJ.
He pulled it out and unscrewed the lid. He watched the orange flow smoothly into the glass. Watched it fill. When it was half full. He put the cap on, and looked out the window they had over their sink.
He stood there looking into the glass.
He felt a chill and a line of gooseflesh made it's way up his arms to the back of his neck. He stood and looked into the ever encroaching darkness. There were already long dark shadows reaching out from the trees.
He looked towards the street, searching for the headlights he recognized. He watched as a car drove by. It made its way all the way to his mail box, then past. Ed suddenly choked on his juice and felt the goosebumps rise again. He thought he saw a man standing under a tree on his front lawn. The man was leaning against it, and Ed could see the shine of of the man's head in the dying light. It looked to him like a middle aged man in a jumpsuit.
Ed spat the juice out and worked his throat for a bit. He then turned around the island, back into the living room. He head walked through it as the ghostly bartender smiled. Your moneys no good here. He made his way to the doorway, slipped on his shoes, and grabbed a flashlight. He was through it and out as his Dad asked him,
“Where are you going, son?”
Amanda sat up and looked out the window as car lights played across the ceiling in the dormitory. She saw a four runner pull up and park in front of a hitching post. She had already told the staff where she was going and given a number where she might be reached if they needed her, but these things were rather regular. She saw the driver cut the lights and set her book aside.
She had been reading Sex God by Rob Bell and she set it aside and picked up her bag. She slipped her socks on and put her feet into her shoes. She then wiggled them about furiously, sending her dreadlocks into a rain dance. Finally each foot popped into the shoe, like an arm joint only comfy. She looked out the window and saw Jordan standing there staring down at her phone. Amanda gave one last big wiggle for both shoes and walked to the doorway. She glanced at her bed, a mess. No helping it.
She clicked out the light, and was through the door when her cell phone began to ring on her sleeping bag.
“Hey!” Jordan said as Amanda jogged up from a building she had just appeared from.
“Hey yourself, how was the drive?”
“Kinda crazy, actually... How are you?”
“Doin fine, you ready to get goin?”
“Sure thing, let's get to it! So what did you do today?” Jordan said as she hopped back into her truck.
“Not much,” Amanda returned, after Jordan had unlocked the other side, “ how are you after your fall?”
Jordan laughed as she started the truck.
“ I seriously don't know how these things happen! First that and then I almost forgot the salad! Ugh...”
“Salad!” Amanda popped open the Tupperware lid and looked at the greens staring back at her.
“Yeah, I had to run back into the house after it, I totally was going to remember and then I, well, did,” she giggled,” just at the last possible moment.”
Amanda glanced about as she moved the clothes to the back seat. She picked up a few papers and continued to look about.
“You don't have a fork do you?” Amanda asked, looking up at Jordan as she shifted to fourth.
“Ugggghhh...” She raised her hand as if motioning to the sky, “I forgot, my bad.”
“No prob!” said Amanda, and she began to carefully pluck each piece and put it in her mouth.
“ I was seriously so lethargic when I was leaving!”
“No worries” Amanda spoke this, and put more leaves into her mouth.
“ You don't happen to have a napkin do you?”
Jordan looked at Amanda.
In Amanda's voraciousness, she had smeared the dressing across her chin. Amanda smiled at Jordan and they began to laugh as Jordan's truck drove its way around the turns back into town.
Chapter Four
Inconsequential to the point at hand
Ed's father is a very tall man
Inconsequential it seems
Except to the man of our dreams
Ed stepped out onto his front step. His house faced out towards the street which ran perpindicular to his driveway, at the end of which was his mailbox. Ed was scanning this area looking for the man in the jump suit. Where was he? Ed continued to look around.
His house had a large yard with a half a dozen or so trees. Ed was looking at each of these wondering were the man had gone. He watched the underside of one of them, not liking the way that the shadows were lengthening. He felt the flashlight in his hand, tossed it up and down in his palm. He liked the weight of it in his hand, but he felt like he was naked at the knitting group or something of the such. He didn't see the man.
The sky had already darkened in the last few minutes. The shadows were groping the ground for more purchase. Ed walked out towards his mailbox. He wanted to make sure that there wasn't any body lurking around.
Ed thought of what he had seen. A man, middle aged maybe, on the older side he thought. Bald, that much was certain, but he didn't see what he was wearing. It looked yellow or red, all one color. Ed walked through the orchard and glanced this way and that. Searching for the man. He hadn't really seen the man's face. He wondered if the man had been smiling. That gave him chills up his back again. The man standing in the trees and smiling at him. That was grim.
Ed reached his mailbox and looked up and down his street. The street was paved, but narrowed. He looked down to his left and the road forked by a white picket fence. Ed could see the sky as it darkened. He could see the new colors shot into it by the sun's dying rays. Pink and orange and purple shot through the sky. Farther down it turned to purplish blue and the to dark blue, and as Ed turned to his right it finally darkened to black. Ed looked to what was his right and watched as the streetlights came on. He saw the road as it swept down and to the right, the other houses like his that had the large front lawns. The lawns had no sidewalks in front of them, not in this part of town. The streetlights which were coming down where down at the corner and there was a severe scarcity of them elsewhere.
Ed watched the turn and the streetlights flickered and then finally came on. He took another look around, he saw no man. He realized his situation then.
He had seen a man in front of his house staring at him and (maybe) smiling. So he had come out to investigate, armed with only a flashlight, and had walked a good thirty yards from his front door. He was now standing ninety feet from his house, around the area he had seen a likely sociopath, standing there like a lemur in the encroaching darkness. He looked to his left again, scanning the trees and looking at the sky. More purple and blue now, the pink was receding. In a jungle in Brazil, a spider waited by a trapdoor as a mouse walked by.
Ed turned slowly, trying to look calm and collected. He glanced this way and that at the trees as he walked carefully by. He thought about someone walking behind him, looking down at him and waiting. Ed did not turn, he walked faster. He was suddenly running at his front door. He thought he heard a rustling of leaves behind him. Thought he heard breathing in his ear. He reached his front door and flung it open. He looked at his dad in his chair, looking up at him surprised.
Ed sighed and turned looking out at the lawn. He froze when, with a small sound he thought he saw a shadow move. He felt his heartbeat and assured himself that there wasn't anything out there to be afraid of. Shadows always change shape quickly, like a man moving out of sight.
That's what they all say, he thought to himself. Not the time, he thought again. He stood there looking gravely at the shadow accusingly. He finally, carefully, closed his front door.
Jordan and Amanda worked there way through town. The town was a rectangle. Two large roads ran through parallel to each other, Goodwin and Coleman. Between them ten or twelve streets ran between. Between them more. She came to the western street Coleman and stopped at the light. She was on Covlet. Covlet ran straight through, but she would turn down Abrahamsen, the last road before Goodwin turned north east, away from its twin counterpart.
The light changed, and she turned. The sky was growing dark, she checked the cars clock.
6:15
She did a double take. She realized she had forgot to change the clock since daylight savings time. She turned into the closest, leftmost lane as another car turned onto Coleman from Covlet.
“ Was a little freaked for a second that we were like ridiculously late for a second!” Jordan said.
Amanda looked at the clock and she gave a small snort.
“Oh!” she said suddenly “that place has great vegetable pizza!”
They looked at Scaglini's Italian Dining on the corner of Coleman and Kameron. It was a large restaurant with a spacious dining room but intimate atmosphere. It was family owned, so the pizza was good, even if some of it was a bit pricy.
“Dang! I've never been.” Jordan spoke.
“We should go! They bake all the ingredients under the cheese, so the flavor stays in, y'know”
“Super good...” Amanda said longingly as the truck sped by.
They drove on and Jordan turned up the stereo a bit, now that they weren't talking much. It was the Faint. She turned it up a bit more on the song she liked. The dance beat insinuated itself into her movements as she drove on.
Amanda looked out the window. She thought about there discussions as they drove past Keys Lane and the H-E-B. They talked about camp and about the books they had been reading. Jordan read these really strange minimalist fiction books, by Chuck Palahniuk. Jordan told her about the ones she had read and Amanda had looked back at her intrigued. They sounded crazy. Amanda had been reading a sort of crazy book herself. She had just finished the last in the Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe Series, Mostly Harmless. Amanda was raving mad about it.
She talked incessantly about the depressed robot, Marvin, and about the buffalo beasts and timewarps and God's final message to his creation, etc... She could go on for hours about the series. She was a little bit addicted and a little bit in love.
Jordan liked to hear about all of it and Amanda had enjoyed the talk about Haunted, Jordan's last Palahniuk,even if it had made her gag a bit at times. Amanda thought about when they had been younger and had ran around with different boys and gone to the mall. She thought about being in love with Blink 182.
She smiled.
People grow up, she thought.
Jordan turned onto Abrahamsen and past the suburban landscape in a forty plus mile per hour blur. They passed the old persons home on the right, Home of the Helping Hands. Jordan downshifted into first as they pulled to the three way stop on Goodwin. She waited only a moment and turned left out of town towards Ed's, passing the water tower which was on her left in a large grass field.
Amanda leaned over and looked at it.
It had a large eagle painted on it. The eagle was swooping, claws extended. This was for the local high school's football team, the Fighting Eagles.
“Paints a bit faded now,” Amanda said to herself as much as Jordan.
Jordan glanced back in her side mirror.
“Wow, I thought those cheerleaders and ASB types would keep that thing maintained. It's really all going to hell since we left..” Jordan let out a fake sigh and looked at Amanda.
Amanda smiled and pulled a grim face.
“We should really talk to the city council about this, this is a disgrace!” she said, lower lip thrust out.
Jordan pulled a deep frown.
“Really now, kids these days! Why back in my day!”
Amanda and Jordan made a series of grunting noises and wagged there fingers at cars as they past.
The people who saw them wondered what the heck could do that to two people. They looked like trolls or possessed or something.
The girls laughed on, hoping that one of the women they passed was a former cheerleader.
Chapter Five
Let's not mistake
a glance
let's just take
it away
and make
something new and funny
today!
Ed walked back to his room and glanced at the window. It was open and he could see himself reflected in the topmost portion. He walked to it and closed the window. It slid down slowly and closed with a snap. He could feel the air outside. Not too chilly, he thought, but he would wear a hooded sweater just in case. He looked at himself reflected in the mirror.
He was tall, above average at least. A good six feet, not much more. He had dark hair and dark eyes like his father, but his mothers cheekbones and brow. His facial hair came in pretty well at this point. It missed patches and full it was not, but it wasn't bad. Yeah, the ladies love it, he thought.
He threw himself a quick eyebrow and pout. Ladies ladies...? The response was underwhelming.
He was wearing a t-shirt and the jeans he had put on when he got up that morning. He needed to change, he thought.
He gave the room a quick look over, in the mess, he saw bits and pieces of what he needed. A sock here, a shoe here. He began to wander around pulling his clothes on. He thought of where the girls might be. He pulled on his track pants and looked at his clock.
5:23
They have to be arriving pretty soon. He tore his t-shirt of and flung it in the general direction of his laundry basket.
“Where you goin?”
Ed jumped back and fell on his bed with a soft, whumpfff.
He saw his sister standing in the doorway. She was blonde, unlike him, and had blue/green eyes (whose parents did she have?). He looked at her out of breathe.
“What?”
“What are you doin tonight?” she said with a giggle.
“Oh, geez, you scared the crap outta me. I'm goin for a jog when Jordan and Amanda get here and then we're goin to a comedy club.”He said looking about for his sweater.
She was younger than him by five years, so she looked at him quizzically.
“Jogging? That sounds like fun...” She rolled her eyes at him.
He looked at her and flashed a grin.
“Zip it or I'll drop kick your head in!” he snarled.
“Let's see it! Huh!” she giggle some more.
He laughed.
“You seen my sweater?”
“The hoody? Which one?”
“The Blood Brothers one, it's gray with pink writing?”
She cast a eye around for a quick second.
“Nope can't find it!” she announced.
“Thanks...” he said sarcastically.
“You're welcome,” she chipped at him, “ I'm going to the store with Ma, she wants to know if you want anything?”
“Cyanide, a pistol, a dead little sister. Any of those really”
She looked at him and made a loud noise in her throat, rolling her eyes simultaneously.
A person could die doing something like that too much, he thought.
She left and he swung the door closed and cast about for the sweater. He opened a cabinet.
It sat there staring at him in wonder.
Jordan's Four Runner turned the corner at Rice and Goodwin, passing the Freedom Gas Station on the corner. She followed the road down until it hit Wheeler. On the way down, they talked about the last times they had been to the comedy club, Improvisation Nation. They discussed the crowd and the suggestions , recalling certain jokes.
They didn't notice the light growing dimmer and dimmer, as the road wound about. The didn't watch the trees sway along side them as they passed. So many trees, so many shadows. No, they felt safe and sound, cozy in there discussion. Even as the trees loomed and the sun sunk in the sky, they remained unfaded and even happier than they would be alone. This is the human condition.
As living human beings, we react to one another. We grow together and sometimes fall apart. If you have a true friend, however, nothing can truly separate. One can move. One can date a friend. But in the big picture, that doesn't stop anything. Years later, when you bump into them, at a party or a wedding, you will look up at them and smile. Things will fall back into place. Some things never change.
The Four Runner made it's way up to the stop sign and turned right onto Wheeler. It looked for Jack, the next turn that would take them to Ed's house.
The trees continued to sway, even as the Four Runner passed Ed's Mother. The blue Chevy passed the two girls by in a blur, moving at at least twice their speed.
“Whoa! What was that!” Amanda said.
“Probably a cop or something.” Jordan said, as she came up to a sign.
“Jack,” she said as she flung the truck right and down the dusty road. She watched on the left for Ed's house number, 187. She saw the brick mailbox and the gravel driveway and shifted to second as she turned. The car fish-tailed slightly on the gravel, but made it to the end just fine. Jordan shifted into first and looked for a place to park. She saw Ed's Jeep and his parents little Mitsubishi. She turned the car into the empty space next to the rice burner. She turned to Amanda.
“Got your stuff?” she said looking at her.
She watched Amanda dig around a bit, then retrieve the bag. Jordan took the bowl and placed it carefully on the backseat. She grabbed Ed's book, Four Season's by Stephen King. She had borrowed it from him and had read it through. She loved (OMG!) Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. Ugh! She still thought about the ending. She had also found the Breathing Method moving, in a morbid sort of way. She got tingles from the ending with the butler. She had, however, committed a horrible travesty to the book itself.
She had a bad record of this were Ed was concerned. She had borrowed The Keep by F. Paul Wilson from him and had, sadly, spilled tea on the pages. He had, of course, forgiven her of this immediately and had, with a slight waving gesture of his hand, absolved her guilt.
She had reached new heights with her newest accident. It had come from reading the book at home, between classes, and at work on her breaks. She had in fact (sigh) ripped the cover completely off. She did save it though! She also had torn a few pages, but those don't really count because of a cat and her brothers and blah blah blah...
She felt guilty about it so she had brought it back. She knew he wouldn't care but guilt racked her nonetheless.
Amanda got out and looked at Jordan reaching for the book.
She had had dinner already at the camp and had more than a few glasses of pink lemonade. She had started to feel them back by the water tower, when she had thought about the water. It was really catching up with her now and she was about bursting waiting for Jordan. Jordan emerged (finally!) and they both headed for the front door.
Clack!
They both jumped a bit and looked back at the lawn. The trees were dropping acorns. They both sighed and headed for the door. They knocked.
Clack! Clack!
They turned again and looked at the trees. The trees were still. What, they thought, a ghost who throws acorns? Oh know!
They turned as Ed's Dad opened the door. Somewhere in the back of our minds, Jack met the giant on top of the beanstalk.
Chapter Six
The wonder and awe
the gaping of the maw
“Hey girls, he's in the kitchen.” Ed's Father announced upon seeing them on his step. He stepped back and allowed them to enter. It was nearly dark now, and he waited a moment looking out at the road.
“You guys are really jogging at night? “ He said to Ed who had come around the corner when he heard his father answer the door. He smiled at the girls and looked toward his Dad.
“Yep! But we should be alright. We're pretty big wimps so it should be short.”
His Dad laughed.
“That's what they all say, and then some mass murderer hacks them to little pieces when they stop for directions!” His father gestured to the movie that was continuing to its climax.
The girls looked at each other and giggled.
“You guys be careful alright?” his father spoke solemnly.
“Sure thing!”
“Yep”
“Where's the bathroom?”
Amanda spoked up finally. She began to look imploringly into the eyes of the room occupants. She smiled a tight smile and began to hop.
“Down the hall, at the end” he said with a laugh as she walked slowly to the hallway, and then ran when out of sight.
He heard this because of the sudden burst of “thumps” on the hardwood floor.
His father sat down, and Ed invited Jordan to the kitchen for orange juice. She declined, but she did partake in a glass of water. He filled the glass from the jug they kept in the fridge.
“Sweet! Thanks!” she said, taking the glass in her hands.
She handed him his book.
“Sorry!” she smiled and cocked her head.
He looked at her and then down at the book itself.
“What happened?”
“I ripped the cover off...”“I can see that, how'd you do it this time?”She gave him a venomous stare.
“I seriously don't know, I was reading it so often. And then all of a sudden it just falls into my hand. Sorry!”
He smiled at her and set the book down on the counter and picking up his juice.
“No worries. How was the drive?” he hopped backwards onto the counter top.
“ Fine, fine,” she pronounced, then with a sudden jolt of memory she said, “ but it was crazy!”
“I was just driving along like usual, y'know how those roads wind out there...” He nodded.
He'd driven out there a few times, for different ocassions. Visiting Amanda or the wild west show they had every Thursday.
“I was coming around the bend next to the Ambler place, the one with the cows and the big ole' field...”
She made large, expansive gestures with her hands to show if the immensity of the place in question.
He nodded along, understanding the place and cows in question, visualizing the moment.
“And I'm just passing by, looking out at the big grass field, and there are these three little bunnies just looking back at me and at each other, they were kind of ridiculous. Just annoyingly cute little bastards, y'know.”
He laughed.
“Disney?”
“That's them! The freaky wankers!”
Sh smiled and that fell from her face as she considered the next events in her story.
“Then, all of a sudden, a hawk just swoops down and snatches one up!”
Ed's eyebrows shot up behind his glass as he drank.
“I about freaked, swerved and everything. I told Amanda about it, she thought it was crazy. She said it was an omen!”
Jordan looked at him.
He looked back at her and took a sip of his orange juice. He set down the empty glass.
“Well, what did she think it meant?”
Amanda finished her business and stood in front of the mirror, listening to the water circulate in the pipes. All the small rushing sounds, coming from all directions. She looked in the mirror and checked her skin. Other than the wrinkles on her forehead, she was looking good. She looked at her hair, it stood a good two inches of her scalp. She had thought of getting rid of the dreads for a time, but had decided against it, feeling that her reasons were shallow at best.
She pulled her bag off the floor and set it on the counter. She opened it and pulled out her pants and bra.
She thought about the story Jordan had told her on the drive.
“It's an omen!” Amanda had said.
Jordan laughed.
“What does it mean?”
Amanda thought.
“It could mean that one of us is traveling soon, y'know” she hummed,” leeeeavin, on a jetplane/ don't know when I'll be back again!”
Jordan looked at her.
“Maybe! But it seemed pretty clear that the rabbit was very, very dead.”
“Well, I mean, maybe that means someone is leaving there old life behind them?”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Amanda are you?....”
“NO!!! Nnnnoooononnnononono!” she spoke quickly.
“I'm hanging around for a bit, don't worry!”
Amanda contemplated.
“Maybe one of us is going to be hit by a plane? That makes sense right? Hawk, dead bunny, leaving...”
Amanda looked over at Jordan behind the wheel.
“Yeah, these are all depressing. What if means one of us is getting married! Or one of us is pregnant! That's like dying right!?”
Amanda looked at Jordan, mouth open.
“Okay okay, not so much! But maybe it could be good? It doesn't necessarily mean on of us is going to die, right?”
“As long as it's not me, sure!”
“ Nice,” Jordan laughed slyly looking over at Amanda,”But your not?...”
“Leaving?” Ed said frowning.
“I know weird, I'm not going anywhere, are you?” Jordan said as she sipped at her water.
“Not that I know of! Just hangin round here, maybe working on some poems or a book with Kyle...”
He looked at Amanda as she walked through the entry way.
“Your not?...”
“NO! Wait, you were goin to ask if I was leaving, right?”
“Uh huh”
“Oh well, NO!”
She raised her arms up and dropped them at this last part. Her bag with her change of clothes bouncing off her leg. She wore black running pants with a double stripe down the side. She stood in the doorway hands on hips, the plastic bag dangling.
“Is there a place I could put these?” she asked Ed.
“Oh! Yeah, follow me.”
They went through the doorway, Amanda trailing Ed. Jordan slid off the counter and followed them out to the living room. She stopped and watched Shelly Duvall's performance. Ed's empty glass sat on the counter watching her through the open doorway.
Chapter Seven
Push
what have you got to lose?
“So how's camp goin?” Ed asked as they made their way down the hall.
“Good, tiring, kinda crazy, but definitely good.” she said as she watched his feet move across the floorboards. They came to a dark corner. Ed opened the door and flicked on the light switch.
Amanda looked at his room, stared really. There was so much clutter to take in.
Ed watched her expression and followed her gaze to the floor.
“Yeah, I'm getting around to it, but y'know... Busy, busy, busy!”
Amanda looked at him and laughed.
“I'm afraid!” she said.
He held out his hand, she handed him the parcel. He set it gently and carefully on top of a toolbox by the door. He leaned in from the hall comically to do it.
“Good luck with that!” Amanda said, watching him stretch to place the package.
He stepped back.
“You ready to jog?” he said.
“Uhhhh... sure... I guess as ready as a person can be for these type of things.”
He touched her arm and prodded her back in the direction from which they had come. He turned as she began to walk back to the living room. He clicked off the light and shut the door. He was going to say something about not forgetting, but he figured that would be impossible because of how sweaty she would be. Instead he watched her dreadlocks bob and sway their way back to the front door. They turned and Amanda's face came out of it to look at him. They both turned to look at Jordan who stood mesmerized, glass in hand.
“Jordan?” They said
She turned and looked at them.
“You guys weren't really serious about this whole jogging thing were you.” she said smiling and taking her last sip. She set the glass down, but then picked it back up again.
“Should I...?” she said to Ed's father, pointing at the kitchen.
“Just put it on the counter, that'll be fine.”
She hopped quickly to the doorway and placed the cup on the counter with all her mustered grace. It stared at its twin over the island. They both watched Jordan slip out as quick as she was there.
Ed was stretching next to Amanda when she returned. Their legs bent towards and away from their bodies at odd, uncomfortable angles. A boy ran down a hall on the tv screen, turning this way and that. Jordan looked at them.
“Ready?” she said exasperated
They looked at each other in turn. Ed shrugged.
“Let's do it!” Amanda said brightly to Jordan and turned.
Ed opened the door and ushered the girls out into the night scape.
“ See you soon, Dad.”
His father looked up at him from his chair.
“Be safe! Be careful, watch the girls and all that.”
“Will do Dad, Bye”
Ed closed the door and looked out. Amanda and Jordan had gone to the driveway and were standing on the gravel at it's end. He looked at Amanda in her tank and Jordan in her t-shirt, both in matching track pants. He wish he had a camera for the moment.
“Let's go!” Jordan shouted at him, she waved him over. Somewhere in the Bronx, a loner found friends.
He shook his legs and looked at the trees. Nothing there. Never was, he thought to himself. Reassuring
He turned back and jogged over.
They waited for him to get there. They stood looking at each other for a moment and started together at once.
They ran up the driveway, over the gravel. Their legs pounding a rhythm in unison. Ed looked left, down the street when they reached the end. The place he had so recently watched the fading light's rainbow.
“Nobody.”
They turned right up Jack and began to run down the road. They all puffed hard with the newfound exertion in the night air.
They pasted the first house. It was on their left and had a large front lawn with a smattering of trees close to the house. The lights were on in the living room window. They all jogged by, Jordan noticing they were watching Grey's Anatomy.
“Oooo! I'm missing it!”
“Yeah but this is totally worth it right?...” Ed said looking at her.
Her hair flew back from her head in her pony tail. All the strands that had missed the hair tie memo flew back over her head and from the nape of her neck like streamers. Her mouth hung open, the tendon standing out on her neck from glancing this way and that at the street. Amanda's hair did a version of Jordan's, but was much heavier and therefore shook with every steps she made. It looked like large ripples, ocean waves breaking off of her shoulders.
They ran from the light in front of Ed's house and the street was bathed in darkness as the sun finally set. The trees around them moved slightly with small breezes that swept through from time to time, but were, for the most part, still.
It disconcerted Ed. The trees dropped their acorns as they ran by. Ed imagined people, dogs, anything moving around in each person's yard. Gnomes, he thought, or dwarves. Who knows?
He thought of the man on the lawn. He thought of that man standing on other lawns, staring at other people, or worse, watching them as they made their way on. Ed wondered if the man was maybe smiling.
“You hear something?” Amanda said looking at Jordan.
Ed stepped back out of his head.
“Yeah I think its the trees though, the little pops and such that you hear.”
“Oh.” Amanda said looking at the trees intently.
“Wait there's something else though, you hear it?” She was looking at them.
They came around another twist in the road and saw the stop sign for Wheeler, in the distance.
They all craned their heads this way and that, listening for Amanda's phantom.
Jordan found it exceedingly difficult to hear with all of the blood pounding in her ears.
She looked at the road. The trees loomed over it. The stop sign an oasis in the darkness.
A soft “pat”.
“Wait I think I heard something too! Like a little step sound, on the road?”
“We are running.” Ed looked over at Jordan, rolling his eyes for effect. She stuck out her tongue.
She blew a raspberry at him and then gasped for more air.
He laughed, and then started to gasp himself. They continued to jog, Jordan's hair streaming while Amanda's shook.
They ran in a line, spanning the road. The order went:
ED Amanda Jordan
They could see any cars that might turn the corner and hear anything that might come from behind. In this way, they ran on.
They past more houses on either side, each of them tucked back from the road. All of them draped in trees and swathed in darkness. The lawns in front of them seemed expansive in the gloom. Amanda looked at Ed jogging along to her left.
Ed's eyes where wide, looking at the houses they past. A white picket fence here, a horse trailer there. Color had come into his cheeks, but his breathing looked regular and steady. He turned and shot her a grin.
“I could do this all day!” he said with a smirk.
“Yeah sure...” Jordan said from Amanda's right.
“Is that a challenge perhaps? You want a race? Eh?” He ran in front of Amanda and turned, jogging backwards.
“Maybe!” Jordan shouted at him as he smiled.
“Let's see it!”
He turned to Amanda.
“Call it.” he said looking at her eyes directly.
She jogged for a bit and looked at Jordan. Jordan smiled at her as she jogged. Ed slipped between them, beside Jordan. He looked at Amanda.
“Go!” she yelled.
Chapter Eight
They began to run hard, Ed keeping pace with Jordan. He had played lacrosse in high school. He stayed with her as they ran on ahead at breakneck speeds. They went like a shot, straight for the stop sign in the distance. He breathed easy and looked at Jordan. She ran with her teeth bared, arms pumping. Wild woman, he thought.
Amanda continued to jog behind. She was under the quiet gaze of the trees when she heard it.
A soft “pit pat”.
She screwed her head around and looked behind her as she jogged.
Pit pat
She heard it again. It sounded far off, but it was definitely there. She could hear it more clearly now that the others weren't running next to her. Chills ran up her spine and she turned her head about to look up at the light bathed sign. Ed and Jordan stood under it, their mouths open, looking back at her. She began to panic. She looked about herself. Unease insinuated itself into her as she walked along the road.
All the trees hemmed in shadows. Soft noises, rattles in the darkness. A noise on the blackness behind her. She felt very alone in the middle of it. All the night surrounding her.
The noise came louder, closer.
Amanda didn't look back. She didn't even thinking about it. She began to jog, but the feeling of someone watching her grew stronger. She tried not to panic, alone in the sea of blackness.
She didn't think, she just ran; sprinted for the safety of human company. She ran through the darkness and the noises about her. She ran and she heard the sounds coming from behind her, but she didn't look back. She heard it closer, so close she thought. It seemed right behind her. Something right over her shoulder, she thought. Something that wanted her. Wanted to take her, eat her, use her.
She ran and squeezed her eyes closed in panic. She ran and ran.
Tears streamed from under her eyelashes and onto her cheeks.
Whump!
“OW!”
Amanda opened her eyes and looked up at Ed. He had is arms around her and he was grimacing. She stepped back. She had run straight into him, knocking him back. He had hit the stop sign with a shudder. It still shook from the vibration. She looked at Jordan.
Jordan looked into Amanda's frightened eyes, imploring them for answer.
“You alright? 'Manda?”
Ed looked at her too, rubbing the back of his newly dented skull.
She turned around and looked back the way she had come. It all seemed so silly now, standing with them in the light. She couldn't understand what she was afraid of.
Pit pat.
She looked back at them.
They had heard it. They put their hands on her shoulders, and looked past her.
Ed looked down the street towards the sound. For a moment he didn't know what he was seeing. He heard the noise, its constant rhythmic thumping. It sounded like shoes. He looked and searched, but he couldn't see anything outside of the streetlight's illuminated circle.
“Let's go,” he said quietly.
Amanda looked up him, searching his face. Jordan looked up at Ed.
He turned to the both of them and smiled.
“It's probably just another jogger making his rounds,” he assured them with a smile. See this car over here, brand new! the smile seemed to say.
They both seemed to lighten at it though.
“Yeah! Makes sense with the noise,” Jordan agreed.
They both looked at Amanda. She sighed.
“Okay, sorry, let's get going.”
She looked up at them and smiled.
“Just got a little freaked, y'know?” She shrugged.
They nodded back at Amanda. Ed's eyes twinkling to her as the ribbons of Jordan's hair waved in the air about her head.
They turned the corner and began to jog again.
Behind them the noise continued.
They ran up the street, Amanda thinking about how the night can grip you so terribly. She looked at the others as they passed the ring of light around the sign. Her eyes adjusted and she saw the next one two blocks away.
Jordan looked at Amanda and wondered what it was that had scared her. Amanda had run so suddenly into Ed. Her eyes were closed, but her expression was terrible, as if she was being chased. As if they had left her to some beast in the darkness that had tried to run her down.
Jordan heard a small noise as the got farther away from the light. They were about halfway between stop signs. She turned and looked back were they had departed from. She gasped and reached out to Amanda. Amanda turned to Jordan at the sharpness of the steely fingers that gripped her arm. She looked at Jordan's face.
“What is it Jordan?”
At this Ed, who was a few feet further stopped and looked back. He saw Jordan and followed her eyes to the sign. His skin turned over.
Under the light was a man. The man was in a jumpsuit, its color was anonymous in the yellow of the lamp's light. The man was short and tanned. His hair was greased back and seemed to gleam.
The bald man, Ed thought, but considered it. The man seemed shorter.
He stepped forward, between the girls. He looked closer.
The man under the light jerked a step forward also. He brought his hand around.
Jordan screamed.
The man had a large round knife in his right hand. The man's eyes were shadows, but Ed guessed he was looking right at them. Ed looked at the knife.
He didn't have very long to look, however, because the man began to run after them, knife outstretched. Reaching.
Chapter Nine
Violence!
Violence!
Blood!
Violence!
They watched him run at them for only a moment. Once he reached the border between the interior and exterior of the streetlight circle, he seemed to reform as a silhouette. They saw this and realized he would be upon them soon, for it must be them he was after. There wasn't any one else.
They ran, not thinking. Ed turned around to Jordan and Amanda. They in kind turned themselves and began to run. Jordan started at a jog, but Ed put his hand on the space between her shoulders and began to run behind her, pushing her along. She ran herself after a moment. Amanda took off ahead of them.
They could hear the steps of the man as they turned quickly around the corner, screaming for someone.
Why, Ed thought, is there no one ever around when these things happened. He looked back and shuddered. The small man was gaining on them, knife held aloft. He had a strange grin playing at the edge of his mouth. Ed turned back a to the girls, who where crying frantically and yelling. He looked back again, at the knife. He saw it wasn't really a knife. It was a trowel, a gardening tool. The man was a gardener, Ed thought.
Jordan ran with all her might, she could only think that they needed to find people. Where are all the people!. She could see lights farther ahead. The gas station.
“The gas station!” she yelled to the others.
She turned to Amanda who nodded jerkily. Amanda looked back to see what Ed was doing, if he was even still with them. Ed was looking quickly at the ground and the shoulder. He looked up and his eyes blazed.
Ed saw a piece of PBC pipe lying on the shoulder covered in dirt. That was it, he thought. The girls ran on, less than a block from the gas station. Sweat was a watery sheen on their brows. It clung in droplets to Amanda's upper lip. It ran in a small rivelet down Jordan's shoulders. She thanked God for the t-shirt's cotton. They ran, heart's pounding in time, the way some girls have their periods at same time. Jordan and Amanda were keyed into each others panic and it kept them running.
Ed himself was panicked, that can explain some of how a normal enough guy can perform an act of brutal violence, like the one Ed was planning. You could blame the movies he watched. You could say that his music was too loud. All the things the media gets away with because the person is not around to say different. Ed didn't think about it. He only thought of the man and the knife.
He turned out to the left of the pack. He slowed slightly and reached down for the pipe. He threw himself off of balance, but felt reassured as he gripped underneath the pipe. He picked it up and turned. He zeroed down on the trowel wielding troll that ran toward him. He held the pipe like he had his lacrosse pole not so many months ago. The man saw Ed, but it wasn't a normal gaze. The man saw Ed like meat, like a meal. The man ran up to Ed.
Ed readied himself, trying to count down the distance. Trying to brace himself for the poke check he was going to employ on the man's face. Closer the man came. Closer still. Ed heard the man's footsteps as the blood pounded in his ears. He gripped the pole and cocked his arm back.
The man looked into Ed's eyes and laughed.
He was still laughing when he came to a stop a good ten feet away. To far for Ed to swing at him and guarantee a hit. The man laughed on, his face contorting. It pulled itself sideways and inside out. One moment the man seemed to be sobbing. The next he was laughing almost contempuously. Ed stood baffled, looking at the man.
He saw the man wore a blue jumpsuit and must be about 5' 5”. The man looked latino, but he might just have a dark tan from working outside. The man's eyes looked glassy and empty.
Ed unwound a bit and looked at the man. The man stopped laughing almost at once.
He looked at Ed, who looked back.
“Where you going son?”
The man's face changed. It seemed to grow with lines. The man seemed to age before his eyes, but not at all. The man smiled at him. He raised the hand that held the knife like trowel. Ed tensed again.
But the man only laughed and put the sharpened garden tool to his own throat. He looked into Ed's eyes and pulled it across, opening his personal red into the street.
Ed could only look on in horror as the man stood there in front of him, smile in place, as he emptied onto the pavement. Ed stepped back as the blood spurted from the man's neck in great gushes. Finally, inexorably, the man's eyes rolled back into his head. He fell face first into his own dark crimson pool. Ed heard a wet crunch. The man's nose breaking, he thought, and began to vomit. He threw up into the blood covered asphalt, adding a bit of himself the warm cooling stew. If he had looked down he might have thought it was like a morbid sort of cereal. But he didn't look, he turned and he ran after the girls.
Jordan and Amanda reached the gas station and ran quickly to the glass doors that covered the front. They pulled the door open and almost tackled a woman walking out with her groceries.
OOMPH
They plowed into the woman's sizable front. The woman was shorter than the both of them but portly and square. She smiled at the two girls. Her lips were a dull pink and her eyes a gray blue.
“Sorry!” she said to them, her eyes crinkling up with the return of her smile.
Jordan and Amanda didn't know how to react at first. They gasped in front of the woman trying to catch their breath and tell the woman about the man chasing them. Amanda turned about and grabbed Jordan's arm.
“Where's Ed!” she said looking into Jordan's eyes.
Jordan's brow wrinkled and she looked over Amanda's shoulders. The darkness was infinitely deep and impenetrable. The blinding light over the pumps made it all the more difficult to see past the corner and down the street.
“Are you alright?” the small woman asked putting her hands on both the girl's shoulders. Jordan jumped and looked back at the woman. The woman smiled up at her.
“Here come inside out of the cold,” the woman cooed, leading them into the inner foyer of the little Stop-N-Shop.
Amanda and Jordan followed, happy to be being comforted. The woman smiled at them as she let go and walked towards the opposite wall.
“I'll see about getting Pete to give us some water cups and let you use the bathroom,” she said warmly, walking through a small doorway across from the entrance, at the end of the counter.
They stood in the middle of the entrance way looking about at the Quick Mart or what-have-you, that they now occupied. It was packed with candy and chips on short aisles and had the drinks in the freezers covering three of the four walls. The color scheme was a white and and teal. The tiles and walls being white with a large green/blue strip running through all of it. The counter stood behind them ladened with gum and cigarettes. The place was empty and sterile. The woman's car they assumed was the only one parked in front of the doors.
The girls were jacked on the adrenaline surging through their collective blood streams. They waited, tense and on edge for the woman.
Shoomp...
The noise was still and small, coming through the walls. The girls turned toward the doorway the woman had just entered. They watched the door. There seemed a great length of silence behind it, an unending void of the unknown, waiting and watching. They Jordan turned to Amanda. Amanda looked at Jordan and raised her eyebrow in silent question.
What's going on? Amanda's eyebrow begged.
Jordan looked down and looked up and met her eyes.
I don't know, but I'm afraid, the eyes told her friend.
They looked back at the door.
Footsteps.
The person occupying the shoes behind the doorway seemed to pace. The sounded turned over and over, towards and away. They waited. They both seemed to tense and tighten when the steps neared the door. They loosened as the steps became fainter again. It sounded like a tiger in a cage, pacing and grinning at the bars.
They thought of the woman.
Amanda turned to look for Ed outside in the blackness. Jordan's breathe caught. Amanda turned back to the door.
It was propped open slightly, and then gently opened wider.
A man stepped through. He was short like the woman, but thin. He was younger than her, looked to be in his early thirties. He had a receding hairline and chest hair plumed from inside the color of his work shirt. The patch upon the left side of his chest bore the emblem: Peter.
He smiled at them, a wide smile. It showed a missing teeth on the upper right side of his mouth.
“Hi!” He said looking at them each in turn. He held out two water bottles with his left hand. It was wrinkled and calloused, the nails thick and grayish. The girls looked at them. He looked between them.
“Okay, I'll just put them here then,” he said conciliatory, and set them on the counter. The girls continued to stare.
“Where's the woman?” Jordan asked quietly.
“I'm right here!” said a voice in the hallway, behind the man.
The Amanda's eyes widened in surprise.
The man looked at her and turned around.
“Hurry up,” he shouted, then turned to them,” would you like some cookies?” He asked them.
“No thank you,” Amanda murmured.
“Oh, well then...” he reached to a package close by and walked behind the counter.
He split it open along the seems and began to munch at them.
“So what's your story?” He said, crumbs flying out between the words.
SHOOOMPF
He looked at the doorway.
“What are you doing back there?” He yelled.
“Looking for some blankets, they look froze!” the woman yelled back.
Thump, CLANG.
“What the hell Nancy. Why are you destroying my store!”
He got up from his stool and came back around the counter. He headed towards the doorway, and turned and looked over his shoulder at Jordan and Amanda standing there stiffly.
“Would you guys like a chair or something?”
They looked at him, then at each other.
Jordan turned back and nodded.
He nodded back at her and gave her a quick flash of a grin.
He disappeared around the doorway.
They heard him yelling the woman's name. He was shouting and laughing.
Then it was very quiet. The store was bathed in it. The lack of noise washed over the girls as the gardener washed over the ground outside.
The woman came around the corner hold a small woolen blanket in her arms. She smiled at the girls.
“Where's Pete” Amanda spoke into the silence.
The woman smiled at her.
“He went to the can for a bit, don't worry dear!” She chirped sweetly.
Drip.
Amanda and Jordan looked down at the circle of red on the floor and its twin which joined it a moment later. They looked at the woman.
The woman smiled at them. The smile widened and seemed to play at the edges of her mouth. It twitched and squirmed on her face. It sat and fidgeted between her lips and her cheeks. It shifted this way and that.
The blanket fell to the ground softly and with no protest. Jordan and Amanda gasped and stepped back. Tears filled in Jordan's eyes. Why, she thought, why why why why WHY WHY WHYW HWYHWYWHGHW....
They woman's hands were stained crimson and dripped like a child's do after finger painting. The girl that wants to show her mother the painting she did, of which she is proud. In this way the woman stood there, knife in her right hand, drenched up to the elbow in blood.
Pete's blood the girls thought simultaneously. It must be.
Amanda stared. Up to the elbow, she thought. She must have reached inside him, must have dug through him, tore at his organs and muscles. Up to the elbow in such a small man. Holding him like a ventriloquist's dummy as his organ's slipped about your hands.
The woman smiled a moment longer and then began to shriek at them, her face contorting into that of a wolves. Jack Nicholson. Grinning, she stepped towards Amanda and Jordan. Jordan sobbed to herself and shook her head. She stopped and looked up at the woman and screamed at her, out of rage as much as horror. The woman stopped and stared at Jordan.
She stepped forward again and began to walk towards them. Shaking her head, Jordan retreated. The woman lunged at them suddenly. Amanda threw herself down the aisle on her right. The woman, Nancy, ran towards Jordan. Jordan drew herself up and turned.
Ding, door chimed as Ed stepped through the open door. Jordan ran into him, knocking him into the door jam. He dropped the pipe and it rolled away. Jordan slammed through the glass door and disappeared into the night.
Chapter Ten
My face
your face
this close
It's gross
Amanda watched as the woman ran by her aisle. She heard the door chime and open and a soft thud. The door opened again and closed just as quietly. Amanda heard a clang and saw the knife skitter down the aisle.
Ed saw the woman coming, but found himself propped against the door. The woman ran at him, knife outstretched.
Reaching.
He lashed out at her with his leg. He caught her in her left hip. She turned sideways and swung into the counter. She hit the ground hard, but seemed to be up again in an instant. She ran to Ed, who was standing up and looking about for his pipe. He saw it down the aisle on his right. He didn't see Amanda any where. Then the woman was on him.
She had her hands around his throat and was shaking him back and forth. He reached out and grabbed her head, his fingers finding purchase in her hair. He pulled and pulled, but the woman continued to put pressure on his throat.
It was getting hard to breathe, harder to see.
He swung the woman about with all his strength. She turned off balance and her head connected with a soft munching and a squirt of blood. She had hit the steel door jam's edge. Her grip loosened and then redoubled. Ed grabbed her hands and pulled at them. They were like a vice strapped to his neck, slowly squeezing away his air and life. He looked at her. Her face was a an ocean of emotions. Each feature registered differently, each feature told a different story.
He pulled at the fingers. He felt a few of them pop out of their joint, but the grip still held. He was seeing black spots before his eyes. Each breath came shallower than the one before it. He fell over, the woman landing on too of his chest. He couldn't breath any more. Everything was coming in black. Something wet and oddly warm was pressed into his palm. A hilt.
He flipped it around and drove it through the woman's eye. The hands receded from the shore of his neck. Amanda watched the woman fall sideways, the knife giving a small shuddering vibration as she connected to the ground. Amanda was entranced. She watched as the woman's face began to still. Only moving in small twitches now. The woman smiled at Amanda. Amanda shuddered. The smile spoke of stomachs growling in the darkness. Of desire and retribution. The smile said:
You can't run where I can't follow.
Then the woman's face stilled and the life drained from it. She was only a woman now. The jelly from her eye oozing around the knife edge. Blood coming out the woman's nose in a small line to the floor. She heard Ed gasping and knelt by him. He had red lines about his neck and a vein was throbbing in his temple. He blinked and then focused on her.
“What the fuck is going on!?” He said looking up at her as her dreadlocks canopied him from the florescent lights.
A small tear ran down her cheek.
She looked up and glanced about the gas station.
“Where's Jordan?” she breathed into the stillness.
Jordan ran from the light of the entry way. She ran and ran. Her feet slapped at the asphalt at times. At other moments, they seemed to tread in mud or water. Her feet moved of their own accord, taking her away. Away from the man and the knife. Away from the woman and the blood.
Her mind played like a movie.
The camera wound through the foyer of the gas station, the camera turning as if to say:
This is it?
A door. Employees only.
It stands at the other end from the camera, on the far wall. It is tall and black. It bodes of secrets. It speaks ominously to the viewer.
What's behind the door? The people think to themselves as they watch.
The camera moves slowly, it comes closer and closer.
The door opens carefully and slowly, a passageway revealed. Gray concrete and black metal shelves. The hall is filled with a dull yellow light. It falls over everything, making it all seem sick or unhealthy.
The camera moves forward. It pulls back as it comes to the threshold between the sterile and sick. The camera man must smell something, the viewer thinks. A sweet sickness. Decay, rot. Maggots, open wounds. Organs under a dull yellow glow. The stomach broken open, everything spilling onto the floor. It is all brown and green. Angles and fluid are pouring out of the tear. The intestines have nestled themselves underneath the broken bulb. They are strewn about away from the gaping orifice, screaming in protest at the introduction to the open air. The heart itself hangs in its cage, to empty flesh bags hanging about it like grocery bags, their contents spilled. The whole mess, it's yelling, it's screaming to the viewer.
This isn't right! This isn't how it's supposed to be. We see flesh and see blood, but we don't see air. We don't like walls or ceilings! We hate the light, hate the yellow, hate the white under the door.
We want dirt.
We want ground.
We want a soft burial, deep deep down.
Away from the hard light and the poisoned air. Away from the hands and their tearing. The men and women with their mischief. Their games. Trials and contests. Wars and handshakes.
We want to be left alone.
If only we hadn't listened to the brain and the hands in the beginning.
The camera turns back around towards the doorway. Ed is leaning against the wall. His face is down. The camera turns and walks toward the body in the corner. The door quietly shuts and the smell dissipates. The camera walks and turns to look down aisle. It's empty and clean. The floor shines up at the man camera. It turns and Ed is still there, but now Amanda has joined him. Her head sits as Ed's, down and still.
The camera walks toward them. Maybe they're fine, the viewer hopes quietly.
Hopes to herself.
Amanda's head bobs and looks up at the man. It is pristine and it smiles. It smiles up and then then smile dies. It falls and the end of her mouth follow it. She is frowning. She smells something.
The camera turns around and the door is open. The yellow light is off. The door way is a pitch black abyss. It lies open so that those things that occupy it can reach through. They can find there way out and when they do, Ed and Amanda will be there for a snack on their way into the wide wide world. The creatures, the demons, the men, the angels, devils and good intentions. The strangers of the abyss.
Chapter Eleven
Good intentions
I feel them running
Out my lips
They keep coming
I need something to plug
My fist won't fit
I've tried it
Jordan snaps back to reality. She is standing in the middle of the road. The streetlight above her glowing softly. She breathes into the cold night. Her breath materializing in front of her eyes and the unfurling into the air and light. Unraveling.
She looks about. It looks like suburbs. It looks familiar. She looks down to her left. She sees houses and surburbia and a stop sign. She peers into the dark, looking for a street sign. She can't make one out. She turns and looks to her right. She sees Mitchell St half a block down and realizes she's on Abrahamsen. She drove down this way not more than an hour ago. The street is dark, but not terribly so. The streetlights appropriate a good amount of cool clear light to the sidewalks and houses. She looks down and breathes out again. Get it together. She breathes again, slowly calming herself down. Her heart is pounding nonetheless.
You're fine.
Everything is fine.
A little bit of a scare is all.
Jordan looks up again. In front of her is the Home of the Helping Hands. It is brightly lit. At least the nurses station is. Jordan sees a few of them moving about. Standing, taking clipboards, ushering the old folks or mentally disabled. Jordan sees some of the men with walkers making their slow way around to their rooms or to the TV. One of them stops and looks up at her. He is very thin, bald, and seems to have back which is very hunched. The man is wearing brown trousers, belted tightly about his midsection. Over that he has a maroon sweater covering a white shirt. The man wears large thick glasses. He continues to look at her and she at him. The man looks over his shoulder at the nurses. They are all moving about as normal. Picking and moving and ushering. He looks back at her and nods.
She nods back not knowing what else to do. He smiles to himself and looks her in the eye.
She is sitting next to the man on a couch. It is in a small room that is brightly lit. She can smell sweet crisp air coming in through an open window to her left. Through the window are trees and a dark blue winter sky. It must be morning because the man has a cup of dark coffee steaming on the in table next to him.
“You have a problem.”
“Yes.”
Jordan looks at the man. He is many years younger. He looks in his forties or late thirties. He smiles at her. His hair is dark and pulled back on his head. He picks up the coffee and sips it grimacing.
“You have a very big problem.”
“Yes.”
“You need to find out what he wants, or find your friends.”
She looks at him.
“Yes.”
She watches him sip again. She can smell the roast of it. It makes her stomach growl. He smiles at her.
“It's not real, sorry. Force of habit.”
She nods back at him, looking down at her lap.
He turns sharply and then looks back at her. He says:
“You can talk to him,” she smells smoke, “Or you can run.”
He sets the cup down. He looks into her eyes.
“But if you are going to run, you need to go now.”
“Yes, Thank you.”
He smiles up at her. He nods and she begins to walk toward the doorway.
“You need to go out the way you came in dear.”
She turns back to him. He points and she follows the gesture to the open window. He is looking at her when she turns back.
“Good luck.”
She looks at the man through the door.
He nods again and turns back to his walker. Jordan watches him hobble away. She feels a cold breeze flow through the street. She looks back towards the stop sign and Goodwin. A soft sound comes from the home. One of the nurses is standing and looking through the door. More than that. She's staring at Jordan through the glass. She begins to smile. The tray with the broken dishes lays as a sacrifice in front of her. Jordan turns, resolutely, and begins to run again. She needs light, she needs people.
Amanda pulls Ed up to his feet and they both look out the windowed front of the store at the street. Ed turns around. For a moment, he lingers over the womans body. He is stuck. He is caught by the work of his hands. He thinks he was willing to do this to a man outside, but to actually accomplish this in a woman is too much irony for him. He looks down at her. He had only been here a moment, he had no idea the situation, but he had taken her life anyways. Amanda turned and looked at Ed. She saw something in his eyes. She followed his eyes to the floor.
“We need to go.”
He looked up, but not at Amanda.
“We need a flashlight or something...”
He stepped forward. For a wild moment Amanda thought he was going to walk through the doorway. She began to say something, something to stop just such a thing; when he bent and pulled a package off a rack by the counter. She looked past him to the doorway. He turned and bent over the front of the counter for batteries. The door way stood open from the woman's return. The lights glowed and flickered in the ceiling.
Amanda thought of the man back there. She thought of him maybe getting up and pacing, like he had before. Maybe walking through the open doorway and ...
She shook her head and her dreadlocks batted about her face. She shook the thoughts out of her head and looked at Ed. He stood before her. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. It wasn't a comforting gaze, it was a hard look.
“Are you alright?” He looked down at her.
She looked up at him. Her mouth closed and hardened into a hard line.
“Yes, let's go.”
Ed nodded and handed her the light. He walked down the first aisle and picked up the pipe. She pushed the door open and waited. He walked back and sighed. They walked through it together and began to run, as they had begun so much earlier in the evening.
Where could Jordan be, Amanda thought. Where are you?
Chapter Eleven
Ed's father, Steven, lay asleep in his chair. The television was still on, the menu screen of the DVD playing and replaying over upon itself. He dreamed, there in the chair, alone in his house.
He did not dream of men lying dead in the street.
He did not dream of eyes glazed over under florescent lights.
He did not dream of running or stalking.
No, in his dream he was sitting in his chair watching a movie, just the way he had been. The movie clicked on and the screen flickered to life.
The video was blurry and out of focus and then it came into view, crystal clear.
A man was driving. His car had a vinyl interior and the dash was cracked down the middle. The car had a tape deck/ radio. It looked to be a early nineties model. The digital display was green and the buttons were dimly lit.
It seemed around midday, maybe a little later. The trees blurred by ever slower and the camera came to rest on the man. The man had short blonde hair. He had a deeply unpleasant frown. He drove jerkily, swearing from time to time. The man seemed almost familiar. He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair.
The angle changed and the camera rotated to show the road. The road was paved and relatively clean. There were grassy lawns and clear gray sidewalks in view. The car looked to be a honda or mitsubishi.
Steven sat and watched, shaking off the vague familiarity of the man and the road.
The man in the movie turned the corner and a school came into view.
The shot changed to a close up of the man's face. The face was deeply grooved for such a young man. The lines dug deeper with the frown firmly in place. The man swore again softly to himself.
“Fuckin' kid...” he said forcefully to the camera. His lips spitting the “f” out with a slight pop.
The camera showed the school as the car sat at the stoplight, its left turn blinker flashing. The school was gray concrete with flat rooftops. The front office showed the windows covered with bulletins and colorful drawings. Each classroom had three large windows on their sides. Everywhere there were childrens hand prints. Children's handwriting showed on every crooked “r” and loopy cursive “e”.
The sign over the office said:
Stranton Elementary
The man turned sharply through the unprotected left. He slipped quickly into the parking lot and made his way left along the spaces until he found one empty. He turned the car sharply and was parked in an instant. The man cut the engine and let out a deep sigh. The sigh changed into a shout. The man sat in his seat fuming. The camera changed to a side view. The man had his knuckles driven into his eyes. He was breathing harshly, spittle flying from the lips in dribbles and spurts.
The man sat up and calmed himself. He grunted and breathed. He shook his head and looked at himself in the mirror. He was clean shaven, but he had a haggard look. The man smiled at his reflection. He put a nail to one of his revealed canines and push it up its smooth surface. He closed his mouth and smacked his lips loudly.
The man now turned toward the camera and and looked past it. The shot looked like pure Terry Gilliam. The camera backed away as the man reached over. The lens turned down onto the man's hand. The fingers moved nimbly. The sought into the gloved compartment and withdrew a pack of gum. The man pulled a sliver of foil out and the hand retreated. The camera was outside the car now.
It showed the sun shining down on the car. The interior invisible because of the glare.
The door cracked and the opened slowly. The man stepped out and closed the door. He reached up and placed the gum on his tongue. He tossed the foil onto the ground and pulled his shirt down. The man had on jeans and a white dress shirt. The shirt had thin black and red stripes moving vertically down its wrinkled surface. The man's ensemble was completed by a pair of scuffed black boots. The boots had a zipper on the side and seemed like a flashy Italian brand. The man ran his fingers through his hair again. He started to walk. The camera waited a moment as the wrapper skittered after him on the ground.
The man made his way to the sidewalk. He walked along it, his destination clearly the double doors of the office. He walked slowly and carefully up to the front doors. He looked at the reflection of himself for a moment and the pulled the handle on the right door. A wave of air conditioning washed over him as he walked through the foyer. The wall on his right had a large bulletin board, calendars and events posted in large letters and bright colors.
A woman was sitting behind the desk, her plaque bearing the title: Secretary Mary Spist.
She was an older woman, maybe in her fifties, grayed that far at least. Who could tell, with the toll kids take on your sanity.
She looked up at him and gave him an appraising look.
He smiled down at her.
“Hi ma'am. I'm Mitch Bettern, I'm here to pick up my son,” he said clearly. She nodded at him and brought a clipboard up from the side of her desk. It was a sign-out sheet. He waved the pen about on it and handed it back to her.
“Where's my son?”
Her eyebrow went up.
The camera turned onto the Mitch's face as he looked down at the woman. It turned slightly to show a chair behind him and to the right. In the chair sat a small boy, covered in dirt. The boy's eyes were wide and puffy. He had been crying. He sniffled.
The woman nodded in his direction. Mitch turned and looked behind to the boy. He turned back to the woman, smiled and nodded. He turned back and walked up to the boy.
The boy looked up and him, eyes wider than they had been before. But not whimpering, not sobbing, not afraid.
The man looked down into the insolent eyes.
“Let's go,” The man said, quietly seething.
The boy pushed off of the chair as the Mitch pushed the door open. The door closed and Mitch followed his son out into the afternoon light.
As soon as they were outside the man stopped. The camera showed a scewed side view. Focused on the Mitch's head as Mitch spat the gum out and replaced it with a cigarette. The camera slid silently downward as the boy's face came around from behind Mitch, looking up at his father.
Mitch did not look at him, but began walking.
“What the hell where you thinking,” Mitch said quietly, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Huh?”
The boy looked at the ground as they walked. The man grew louder as they grew farther from the office building.
“Huh? Answer me! What the fuck did you think you were doin'! You need to listen to your teachers and get your act together or so help me I will tan you red,” he growled.
They were reaching the car now. Mitch looked over his shoulder, checking to make sure they were out of sight of the office, if anyone happened to be looking out the doors. He brought the kid around the side of the car. He bent down to the kids face.
“Don't you ever do something so fucking stupid again!” he spat. He looked at the kid.
“Answer me!”
The boy didn't know what to say, so he just looked up at the ma. The man looked down at the boy. He looked around himself for a moment. Looking into the windows. He wasn't stupid.
He unlocked the door and opened it.
He walked around to the driver's side. Unlocking it, he got in and looked down at his son. The camera shone again at the outside of the car, the glare bright on the windshield. There was a muffled pop behind the glass. The camera brought the angle alongside the car showing just the bright afternoon sun reflected on the glass. There was crying in the background. Large, belting sobs and more pops.
The camera shot changed. A woman was standing by a window. She was looking out at the car as it rocked slightly. She turned to the phone on the wall.
She picked it up and dialed the office, as the car rocked once more.
Chapter Twelve
a sleepy sleeper
sleeps some more
and the blues seeps in
and the mirror will show
what we all know
the blood and sloppy gore
Jordan ran down the street. She heard glass break behind her, but didn't turn. She was no more interested in what might or would be happening in the darkness outside the streetlight's cascade, than she was about high school politics. She was above the shake and shiver of the spooks in the night.
If only for the moment, she thought. She turned as she reached Mitchell Street. She stood at the stop sign and looked down it's length. She saw a few restaurants and the movie theater, but none of those suited her needs. A thought came.
Driving along Coleman. They had passed the pizza place and something else.
The H-E-B! She turned and began to run down Mitchell, crossing over quickly to the right side of the road. She ran past the deserted lawns and sidewalks. The closed strip malls on the corner of suburban sprawl. She ran and she thought about the man.
She had been in his head, she thought. She must have. Either that or she was having some fantastic hallucinations.
Maybe all of this is a hallucination. No, she thought. That woman had touched her shoulder. She had jumped from it. Maybe she had hallucinated it, but then the other two must have as well. Three people having similar, if not the exact same hallucination? Yeah, sure, she thought. The next thing, I'll believe it was the swoon theory. The woman had only fainted and fallen in red paint.
She could be crazy, she pondered. I mean, Fight Club, Brazil, Hide and Seek, The Machinist, American Psycho; how many times had she seen the Schizophrenic Opt Out? The screen writer needed a way to explain the sequence of events that had been shaping and changing the characters in the story and there it was. He or she was insane. Seeing people, inventing possibilities. It was all in the character's head. Albeit some of those movies are ranked among the greats, so maybe there was a line of truth written into the storyline. Maybe, there's always a maybe conjoined to the “What if...”.
So maybe she was crazy and she had invented Ed and Amanda as sides to her disjointed personality.
She hoped so.
Otherwise, she thought. There is something bad cooking in this small town. Blue Velvet eat your heart out.
Amanda panted at Ed's side. He looked at her as they ran down the block towards the stop sign. He wondered if Jordan had gone this way. If she had looked up at the water tower, it's eagle bathed in red light from the water tower edges. The lights were meant to ward off planes, but they couldn't help but add a morbid effect to the mural. The eagle was now all reds and gray/blacks. It was more of something, Ed thought. Not menacing, it was an eagle after all. But it exerted a more surreal affect on the traveler.
The closest thing he could think of was the feeling one has when watching an old film. Think Casablanca or The Lady Vanishes. The sort of feeling that things are more than they seem, if only because everything is black, white, and gray. It seemed almost as if that without the color, things were hidden. That even the black and the white didn't tell the truth because they hid things which might otherwise stand out. Yellows become white and dark reds are black. The shine and glimmer of black lips may seem in that way, one makes the assumption of dark red, but what if the color is actually black. That changes everything. Not everything is as it is naturally, it's all forced into this world of black and gray, and presented as normal.
That was it, Ed reasoned. The eagle seemed to be so covered in the red that it was hiding something under it. The black and red covered what was really there.
Amanda continued to pant and breathe hard. All the while, worrying about what Jordan might have found in the night alone. They had already seen two sociopaths, what's to say there weren't more to be found enjoying the night air? She wondered what had happened with the man and the knife.
She looked at Ed, he breathed deeply and often. He looked up and then back down at the path. Amanda looked over her right shoulder. Her eyes ran and climbed their way up the cold steel of the water tower. The reached the top and a shiver ran over her. She saw the eagle and it seemed to represent the night.
The night was red and full of malicious intent.
She saw that and looked down as Ed had a moment ago. She looked forward as they neared the stop sign on the corner of Abrahamsen and Goodwin. They saw lights flashing and between them, their hearts sank so low that the chasm could have been an infinite abyss. They reached the sign and looked past it to the block lying ahead of them. Ambulances and police cars sat against the curb. Patiently empty, their lights swooping through the shadows in rythmic time.
It was then that Ed looked back. Only briefly, but it was enough. He saw the road behind them, long and black. The night sky towering over the trees lining the base of its incomprehensible expanse. He saw a dim light a ways back. His mind played like a bird. It neared the doorway to the stop sign. It rested on the metal bar of the door, seeing the scene of the woman on her side. The door on the far side open and black. It lifted itself off the handle and turned. It moved slowly in the blindingly dark night. It finally landed by a corpse of a small man who lay in a small black puddle. His mind walked down off the neck, flipped over once and pulled in over itself.
And back to Ed looking down at the cops. Ed began to notice the sweat on his upper lip and across the top of his brow. He thought of the cops driving down the pavement to the little gas station store. They might not notice the woman on the ground in the store at first. But anyone at eye level would be able to see her from at least thirty feet away. Her blood trailing out from her head across the linoleum. Then if they went down the street or maybe saw the shine from the blood, they would find the gardener. Maybe in some sort of happy, hallucinatory world, they might not find them until down came. They would find the man surely, and then the woman in due process. And then the questions would come. The neighbors would be questioned for what they heard. Some might mention screaming, some might not have clue. Ed thought of the cars slowing to drive by the scene. He had always been on the other side of the tape. He wondered where he would be at dawn. He looked at the scene and the policemen and wondered what would become of him, Amanda, and Jordan by morning. He shivered at the thought of Jordan being alone someone being attacked my some madman. He turned to Amanda.
Amanda stood very solidly in place. Now that they had stopped, she seemed to be rooted. Fatigue and coming down from the adrenaline induced high had made her feel very tired. She saw the cops and thought that maybe they would be the way out. Maybe she could get home and back into normalcy and safety. She pictured herself walking up to one of the police officers. A wrinkle crossed her brow. She thought of what she would need to get the cop's attention. She could tell him that she couldn't find her friend, but that would probably fall on deaf ears. The only way that she could possibly get the guy's attention, would be to mention more fatalities in the general vicinity. But that would raise too many questions. They would probably just tell her that they would have her friend picked up and then take her in for interrogation. She didn't like the thought of that. She would have to give Ed up as a murderer and then try and explain everything else that had happened previous to that. Not to mention that she hadn't the foggiest what happened to the man and the knife, but if the way he reacted to the woman was any indication...
She shook the thought from her head and looked up.
Ed was looking at her.
“What do you wanna do?”
He looked at her. She looked over at the cops and back Ed.
“We need to find Jordan, I don't think they will be much help,” she said firmly. She looked back at him. He nodded.
“Let's go then,” He looked down at the cops.
“Which way,” he said turning back to her.
“We might as well find out what's up, at least, what's the worst that could happen?”
Chapter 13
Tv and the human mind
Ed's father watched the screen fade to black after the woman's hand punched the numbers on the telephone. The screen flashed and the camera showed a man's back, bent over a desk. The desk was mostly tidy, but with a few minor effects here and there. The largest of these was a television that sat dominating the desks wooden top. It sat lifeless, the screen black, reflecting the man. The man's hand ran through his hair. The hair was short and blond. Mitch, he guessed. At the thought, it seemed, the camera moved slowly forward. When it was right up to Mich's back. The shot cut to the side of Mitch's face which sat calm and demur, if a little cold, with his hands atop the back of his head.
Mitch sat back and looked up at the wall. The wall had a calendar that showed semi nude woman smiling and looking generally seductive (if such a statement is possible where the adult male is concerned). Mitch looked up the wall, at the posters and small pieces of paper with numbers and dates and the such on them.
The scene changed. The camera showed Mitch's back tail lights glowing red as the car rolled backward out of the space. The camera showed the woman as she looked out the window. She put the phone back. She watched the car pull out of the space and turn. It was almost out of the office when the glass doors to the office opened. The principal walked out quickly. The camera showed the man's face. His eyes were squinted against the sun. The looked out at the car as it turned right down the street. The man turned and looked toward the teacher's classroom. She looked back at him and then turned away, sitting behind her desk. She sighed and looked up at the camera. She seemed to say, what now?
The scene was back in the man's basement. He looked up at the clock.
5:27
He looked forward at the TV. He turned to the camcorder sitting next to it. He pulled out a cable from behind the TV and brought it around to the camera. He looked up. This time the camera showed the door. It was closed, Mitch got and turned the lock though. He sat back down. The camera watched his fingers as the pushed the cable input into camera's depths. The man turned the camcorder on, the small green light blinking as it started. The man turned on the TV.
The television showed only static at first. The man reached over and clicked the play button. The screen lit up showing a dark, enclosed room.
The camera now sunk into the screen, changing the scene.
The room was cold and damp. It was very small, but full of people. Men mostly, about ten or so. The stood about, drinking and talking softly. The weren't dressed in black, but they weren't the Mickey Mouse club either. The looked at one and another grimly. They seemed to be expecting something to transpire. They laughed now and then, but it was quick short burst. A young man stood off to one side. He was pretty good looking. He had a big grin, which he was flashing as he sipped slowly. He was doing most of the laughing. He seemed to be strung just as taut as the others, but more cognizant of what to expect. A group stood around him, all of them jerkily asking him different things. He gave short answers to them all. These followed my a small flash of the grin and a wink.
Suddenly a hush fell over the group. They all turned to the man. His smiled flashed them all. They all stood, back to the camera. The man front and center. Smile in place.
Jordan put her hands over her head to breath as she stood in the parking lot of the strip mall adjacent to the grocery store. She was on the asphalt, gasping for air. The glow off the lot's lights seemed so dim compared to the glaringly bright ones farther along. She looked at each of the shops in turn. The first was a sewing machine repair shop, Threads. The sign showed a needle and thread, the words spelled out in stitches. The next two spaces next to it were taken by a 99 cent store called Super Thrifty. Under the sign and in the windows, where a number of signs, specifying its “Everything for 99 cents!” nature. Farther along was a frozen yogurt place and pizza restaurant in turn. The strip ended after them, becoming perpendicular with a small brick wall. The wall was about two feet tall, the H-E-B being on the raised side of the wall. A small ramp led between the two.
Jordan stood and turned to look down the street. She saw blue and red lights flashing against the building on what must be Abrahamsen. She thought of the woman who dropped the tray. She hoped the old man was okay. She had last seen him in front of the door, between her and the woman.
She stood musing at the thought of what might have occurred between the man and the woman after her departure. She did not notice the lights behind her, and indeed all along the strip mall side of the lot, begin to click out. One by one.
Amanda and Ed started from the stop sign and jogged down the street. They stayed on the sidewalk opposite the squad cars. Amanda tried not to look over as they made their calm and impossibly slow way down the road. She could only imagine what impossibly grotesque scene had happened in the old folks home. Maybe it was the night. Maybe everyone was just going nuts tonight. Who knows? Maybe some old lady had tried to bite the throat out of another shut in. Or one of the nurses had started pulling the plugs on the respirators keeping folks going. She could see some maniac woman creeping slowly from room to room. Pressing pillows to people's faces. Opening their throats as they moaned and gagged. Would it surprise her to hear that that was exactly it?
No, not in the slightest. It would be continuing the general theme of the evening.
But when they neared and passed the building, all she saw was a woman weeping, her hands fluttering around her face as paramedics put blankets on her. They comforted her as she sobbed and whimpered. Other than that the only other thing that seemed out of place was a man standing by a window. His eyes seemed void and dark as he looked out. As she looked at her, he winked. His head then turned jerkily back to its original position.
Chapter 14
Ed looked over too, but quickly looked away. He didn't want to think about the cops and what might become of him when they found the man in the street. He jogged a little faster as they passed the ambulance and the two squad cars. He glanced sideways, seeing the cars empty. He registered the shotguns between the seats. What was he thinking? This was the real world, not some sort of horror film. This wasn't the Night of the Living Dead! He wasn't going to just walk away scotch free from what had happened in the gas station mart. He kicked himself. Why had he reacted so forcefully! He shuddered to think of the repercussions of his actions.
He forced the thoughts from his head. He told himself that there was something going on tonight. They needed to find Jordan and figure out what's going on. He felt he had hope that the answer might help. He hoped it would save him. Otherwise, he was a 18 year old serial killer. He shoved his mind into the present and ran on. He felt eyes on the back of his skull. He turned back to the scene. But the lights just flashed and the people just aged.
Jordan stood under one of the street lamps. She closed her eyes. She heard a clicking. She opened them and looked around. She was in a singular pool of lamplight. An island in a midnight sea. She thought of Princess Bride absurdly. She thought of the screeching eels. She shivered and realized hers was the only piece of earth she could see. She might be alone on a small circle, in the center of a precipice.
She shook her head. Her imagination had had too much for one night. But where were the lights.
She heard a cough. She looked up at the light to make sure it was still on. It was, but it didn't do much to comfort her.
She heard steps and a man stepped into her little oasis.
He was a little shorter than her. His hair was short and thin, the front section already receded to reveal a gleaming scalp. His head was lowered, as if he were looking at the ground for answers to all life's questions. He looked up and his eyes gleamed. They twinkled. They shone a malignancy Jordan hadn't ever previously experienced. He looked like a man about to cry to her. He wasn't smiling though.
He wore a jump suit, not unlike the one adorning the knife wielding maniac. It seemed lighter, though in the lamplight, the exactness of her color differentiation was questionable. He looked at her. He seemed to be looking through her skull. He looked like an animal that hadn't been fed in a good long while looking at a meal.
He blinked and looked at her, really this time.
“Jordan,” his voice said. It was cool and a husky. Like a voice that once had been charming, but hadn't been used for such a purpose in a long time. Like an opera singer who shouted too much, turning what was once a gift, to a rasp. A rustle of wet leaves.
She was so caught up in the strange man and his miraculous appearance, that she failed to notice him waiting for her to return the greeting.
He gritted his teeth and spoke up.
“Jordan.”
She looked at him, almost unbelieving at the thought of a conversation.
“Y-yes?” she said shakily.
He looked at her.
“Jordan, you need to focus. I need all of you here right now, alright.”
She shook her head, clearing it. She looked up at him, paying attention now.
“Good,” he turned more towards her now, moving closer and looking at her face and features. He was testing the waters, but she didn't have anywhere to go really. Out of the light? Fogettaboutit.
She squared herself and stood up straight. He was a few inches shorter and this gave her confidence a much needed boost.
“Now, Jordan, I need you to listen very,” he drew out the word carefully, to punctuate its importance, “ carefully to what I have to say right now...”
“Who are you!” she cried.
He looked alarmed and then annoyed. So much for listening carefully.
“We'll get to that, just wait a bit now, kay?”
“No, who are you and what the hell has been going on?”
The man smiled and looked at her, trying to cling to some semblance of patience and tact for the situation.
“I'll explain that in good time, but for now we need to go over one thing. While we can, kay?”
She looked at him speechless. What else can I do? Her look said.
He gritted a bit and looked at her like a bug.
“Good, now I have a small request, a little favor mostly. A proposition at the most!”
He smiled at her. It wasn't vastly pleasant.
“No,” Jordan said clearly.
The man's face twisted and returned.
“What?!” he spat forcefully.
“Whatever it is, NO! I'm not putting up with this shit!” She glared at the man.
“Do you have any idea what kind of evening I've had?” She gestured upwards. Her hand gestured to the angels who most certainly must have seen what had transpired. They got it, the creep didn't.
She mustered within herself, directing her frustration at the balding man.
“And then you! With your enigmatic appearance and fucking favors! A proposition at most!”
She spoke this last bit with vehement cynisism. The man looked calm, his face wasn't flushed or red, but then again you don't get a lot of that with the dead.
Her mouth opened to launch another assault at whatever manhood this short little man could have.
But he smiled again and she stopped. Her mouth hung there, open and staring, like her eyes were.
The man's teeth had been replaced with fangs. His mouth was filled with rows and rows of them. His eyes gleamed at her, and his teeth shone.
“Shut up, bitch,” he said quietly and very clearly, considering the newfound dental equipment.
His face contorted now, but not like his teeth. His flesh seemed to sag and pull down from his face. Turning his smile to a frown as the veins in his neck stood out.
“Shut up and listen!” He said with his jaws closed, the flesh now tearing. She watched in horror as the man's skin and hair pulled apart. The flesh was pink and wet underneath, like new skin. It seemed to be slowly melting off, scolding the flesh underneath as it passed its dribbling way to the ground. It was almost like a candle melting to reveal a newborn baby inside. The thing underneath was pink and hairless. Blood seeped out of its pores as the skin dripped over them. The eyes were dark pits. They reflected a distorted image of herself back at her.
As the skin made its way farther and farther off of the monster's body (for that was surely what it was), Jordan felt the overwhelming urge to flee. To run from the terrible thing. She steeled herself. She knew there was no where to go. They were stranded together on a plateau over a void. If she ran, she would surely be lost to it.
It's skin continued to shed, in its strange sort of fashion. It revealed hands that were a raw pink like the face, with small, claw-like bone protrusions at their ends. She found herself staring at the creature in disgust and pity now. Any genitals it might have had were long burned away, as was much of the skin covering the legs and abdomen. The feet, however, remained. They were scorched raw like the hands and face. They seemed to be bleeding from underneath, as if bits of glass were embedded in them.
She looked back at his face now, staring into the strange, mirrored eyes peering out of a skull that now showed islands of white bone in the sea of charred tissue.
Jordan looked at him, and he at her. He turned and looked over his shoulder, out into the void, the abyss. His head cocked slightly, seeming to listen with ears, she now saw, were melted over. They looked like pink oval condoms attached to the apparitions head.
He continued in that way for thirty seconds. Jordan knew this because she was counting her breathes to try and calm herself down. He turned and sneered at her, or so it seemed. Without lips, his face had no concept of expression.
She heard a small noise. One she had heard before. The memory buzzed at her ear, annoyingly out of reach.
He glared at her a moment longer, while she struggled with her audio deja vu. Then his skin seemed to suck itself back upon itself. He was once again the man in the jumpsuit. His eyes twinkled at her. He stepped back out of the light.
She closed her eyes as the hand clutching at her heart seemed to disappear. The tension drained from the her as quickly as the darkness itself absolved around her. It's funny that you don't know your tense until the moment has passed. People suddenly catch themselves with jaws clenched or hands balled to fists. She dropped to her knees and fell back onto her butt. She sighed out to herself. She heard the small noise once more.
She remembered it faintly. She opened her eyes suddenly.
She thought of the small knife wielding man. It was the soft “pat” that she heard. Except it was more than one. It seemed a cacophony in her ears. She almost passed out right then and there. She saw shadows coming from the far side of the strip mall. But that wasn't what almost affected a fainting spell, it was the relief when Amanda and Ed came around the corner, attached to them.
Chapter 15
The things that grin in the dark
they live very close to our hearts
In a closet sized cell
Very deep within ourselves
Ed's father twitched in his chair as he moved through the dream. He snored loudly to the empty room. Both the glasses in the kitchen sat watching him as he jerked slightly. He had their undivided attention.
Steven sat up in his chair and gazed at the flickering television screen, the men milling about each other. The excited atmosphere seeping out of the screen and infected him. He watched now, rapt in attention, as the man in the middle called for silence. The man nodded to two men. These men guffawed to themselves slightly, but were quickly silenced by a look from the man. They nodded begrudgingly, and made their way up the stairs, that the camera now swiveled to reveal. A man nearby looked back, past the camera. Most likely to the man running the show.
The ring master, Steven thought.
The guy nodded quickly and flicked the light switch nearby. The room was black now. A thin laser of light drew a horizontal line across the walls in the stairwell. Shadows passed in front of the door, chopping the light. Suddenly the door opened and light spilled into and over the camera, wiping the screen in light. Smudgy black blobs filled made wide chasms in the blank white.
Steven heard mutters and moans. He heard dragging and sobbing. His stomach dropped out from under him as the door closed again and the screen went dark. The noises continued for a few moments.
A light clicked on. The camera had piveted back towards the middle of the room, where a single bulb hung illuminating the floor. The scene was covered by the blobs of men in the camera's view. A hand came from thin air to push the grunts apart. There in front of the men, the smiling man behind, was a naked man.
The man sat in a chair, his arms hand cuffed behind him, the metal sparkling, sending dots of light back towards the Ring Master. The camera zoomed on the man's face. The face was pristine. Unblemished by any skin defect, the man wore a gag but seemed otherwise unharmed. The man's face was contorted into wrinkles and canyons with his sobbing. His eyes pinched tightly closed, trying to wake up. Denial of the situation at hand.
The modern man is a strange creature. In some parts, you have men who claim to be strong and courageous, but anytime anything goes wrong call the cops. These men call their parents when they are in trouble. They ask what to do, take a poll, examine public opinion. They are a section of the human race that has gone so far that the survival instinct is diminished to the need to procreate. The man was a perfect model. He wasn't fighting back. He wasn't even making an effort to assess the situation or deal with the idea that he might soon leave this world. He sat naked in a chair, wishing this wasn't real, wishing he was in his bed, or in a hospital in coma, or crazy. He was romanticizing the situation into that of a movie or a soap opera. He expected to be un-gagged and asked to explain something, anything. Then he would give a grand speech, exemplifing his worth and desire to survive or join. He expected a chance to convince the men surrounding him, that this was a mistake. They had grabbed the wrong guy, they should return or they will surely go to prison. Now did they want that! This man dreamed that the police were already looking for him, that they would be arriving shortly to shoot everyone in the room, but him, of course. Well, maybe one in the shoulder or arm. Just so he could show the his wife and kids.
“I survived those bastards!” he'd say, “They had know idea how important I was, well, am really!”
The camera watched this man sit there sobbing quietly. It watched the man look up at the men around him, his eyes widening. They looked back at him. Silently, they assessed him. He heaved his head up and looked around at the men, moaning his pleas. He looked at each in turn. His eyes jumped around the room of the stolid pack. No longer were there any individuals here. It was the pack at hunt. The man's eyes finally came onto that of the camera's. They looked deep into its depths, pleading, tears brimming around the wrinkled creases surrounding the glassy eyes. The camera zoomed out, show in the laughing man directly behind the man. The man stepped forward, past the chair and looked down at the naked sacrifice. The man reached down and pulled the gag off of the face.
“Oh Nate! Sorry we grabbed the wrong guy!”
The group laughed loudly. The smiling man smiled and the naked man's face shrunk inward as a tear cut its way down his cheek.
Jordan sat and looked as her friends made their way toward her. Infinite relief raced through her body, beating out from her heart at the sight before her. She looked at the pole and her surroundings. The thing, man, demon, whatever; it had retreated. She didn't know why, but she was glad of for her reprieve from it's company. The burnt flesh the short temper of it. She wondered if it was a demon or man. It had the personality traits of a sexist man, a bastard of ghost. A spirit that disdained being diprived of what it desires. She sat and watched Ed and Amanda draw closer. It flashed in her memory. She searched for some link as to what it was, what it had wanted, what everything in this cold dark night meant. She wasn't afraid she realized, she was angry, but she wasn't afraid. A ghost she thought as the two other corners in their triangle jogged the last few yards. A ghost, she thought again and then again. A ghost.
Ed's mother and sister had retrieved their groceries. Interesting enough to the plot at hand, their store of choice was that of the H-E-B. Making them very close to the action in the small town warzone. They were on there with their groceries, next in line. They danced the ballet of the supermarket with class of a boxer and the speed of a ADHD kid with a slurpee. Her daughter bopped and weaved in time, following her mother, twisting down the aisles. They danced past the other small-town-a-nites, all smiles. The groceries they had were pretty irrelevant considering the line of thought the book is following so far.
“Hey”
“Hey”
That pretty much covered the introduction.
“So what's new?” Ed looked down and extended his hand.
Jordan grabbed it and pulled herself onto her shaky standing position.
“This is just a shitty night guys!” She said.
Amanda and Ed looked at each other. Nothing really passed between them, it was just reassuring to see each other and not a neon green elephant or a bar full of dinosaurs.
Jordan rubbed at her temples and ran her hands through her hair. It stuck out at even odder angles than it had previously.
“Are you alright?” Ed said this and began to examine her. She looked down at herself, not because she didn't know she wasn't hurt, just to be sure she didn't have tentacles.
She looked at Ed and made a small screeching noise in her throat. Both he and Amanda looked up sharply. She looked at Amanda and pointed at Ed's throat.
“What?!”
Jordan looked to Amanda for help.
“You got a compact?”Amanda shook her dreads.
“What?”
“Well...”
“Well...What!?”
Amanda spoke up with the explanation.
“Well, you remember the woman who attacked you? Of course, she was so easy to forget...hhhha?”
Ed's eyebrow was rising steadily, a gauge of his bullshit tolerance level.
“Well, I don't know if you remember, but she was up to her eye liner in blood and when she grabbed you...an...”
Ed's eyebrow dropped and his eyes bulged suddenly.
“There's blood all over my neck isn't there.” His voice was a low and gravely with the effort he was exerting to not blow chunks. Worship at the porcelain altar. Technicolor yawn.
The girls nodded to each other knowingly. It was as if they had just convinced Ed not to by that truly horrid dark blue paisley shirt. They felt accomplished. He felt sick.
He looked at them and his mind raced.
“Wh-why didn't you say something 'Manda?”
“I didn't notice it...”
“Ugggghhh.” He rolled his eyes and swayed.
“You alright?” The girls asked, reaching out to support him. Careful not to touch his neck, of course.
He looked at the two of them, then directly at Amanda. His eyes dived into hers with wild abandon.
“We jogged by cops.”
She sighed heavily at this. All she could do was shrug.
“Well we didn't know, but now we can do something about it.”
Jordan's eyes bugged now.
“Speak of the devil...”
They followed Jordan's gaze to the road they had run down. The houses were lighting up red and blue.
Ed started to walk toward the H-E-B.
“We need to go! Now!” Panic was a tangy flavor in the pitch and tone of his voice.
He backpedaled and then turned. He looked back and watched the girls begin to run after him. He had a sense of deja vu from the nights beginning. But the panic was different this time. Exclusive. It was just for Ed.
Oh God, Cops, Ed thought. Some where else in the world some one his age probably thought the same thing.
Chapter 16
Steven couldn't pull himself away.
The camera focused on the man's face as the men laughed. It watched the man's relief melt into a deeper more horrid sorrow. Laughter was worse. If the men had stood quietly or had muttered or been serious, he might have survived. But laughter.
Laughter meant that all of this: Basements, kidnapping, gagging, probable torture, and most likely execution; was fun. That these guys were having fun. That this was all a gas. That whatever they were planning on doing or not doing or for God's sake, undoing; they planned on enjoying it.
Where one man plays video games, another beats his wife unconcious.
Where one man collects coins, another collects dead cats.
Where one man goes to the movies, another man makes a grown man scream.
The camera pulled out to include the Ring Master.
The Ring Master stopped laughing and turned to Nate. He smiled.
“So we'll let you go now Nate, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?”
The gagged man nodded vehemently between sobs.
“Or maybe you could join our group? Mmmm?”
The Ring Master cocked an eyebrow at the slab of suburbanite cuffed to a chair. The slab nodded so hard that he rocked the chair slightly.
“Well then, we can begin initiation now, if you like?” He gestured to the group.
“All members are accounted for, right?”
A man called from the back.
“Mark's upstairs on cleanup.”
“Well bring him the fuck down here, man!” The crowd laughed again.
The Ring Master turned back to the man. Somewhere a cat was playing with a wounded bird.
“Let's begin shall we!”
A man in a dark blue hooded sweatshirt came forward now. He handed the smiling Ring Master something. Behind the camera, an engine turned on and a whooshing sound began to come from the something. The Ring Master turned towards the camera and presented the offending item.
It was an air powered nail gun.
The man in the chair squirmed now, moving this way and that, as the air compressor's motor pulsed.
The Ring Master nodded and two men came forward. They were thick men wearing black t-shirts and leather gloves. They grabbed the man's legs and held them down.
Slowly a pair of arms came over the top of the man and held him down. The man made shrieking noises behind his gag as the men tightened him down. Holding his body in place, even as every muscle the man had never used came to life in rebellion.
The man pulsated.
The camera showed what muscles could be seen tense and darken under the strain. The man's perfect skin turned red and veins stood out as he fought against his bonds and captors.
The smiling man walk to one side now, so the camera could have an unobstructed view. He looked at tow men standing in the foreground and they stepped aside. The camera moved forward now.
The physical thing moved, and the camera zoomed out and then refocused on the man.
Once in place, the Ring Master smiled and put the nail gun to the top of Nate's right knee cap. Nate's eyes squeezed shut at the contact of the cold metal. Every muscle tensed
foomp.
The man shrieked and twisted as the men holding him stepped back. He twisted and shook and spasmed. Blood ran down his knee from the spike standing out of it. His knee cap was pushed forward, out of place. The man's face was red and shining with tears. He seemed to be gagging. Water ran under the gag as he vomited into it.
One of the men pulled the knot loose so he wouldn't drown. Brownish yellow bile streamed onto the man's bare chest.
The Ring Master stood by looking at the camera. He looked around the room.
With a sudden and unexpected quickness, he turned and placed the gun against the front of the scewed knee cap. There was a crack and laughter as and the nail split the bone and drove into the joint.
Nate sputtered and began to scream.
Jordan and Amanda chased after Ed. They ran into the glare of the hallogen lights that blanketed the parking lot in whiteness, gleaming of of parked cars. Ed stopped once he had reached the light and leaned against a light pole for support. He turned back to the girls.
Jordan looked at him and saw that he was afraid. She turned to Amanda.
“What happened?”
Amanda looked at her quietly.
“After you left the mart or whatever, Ed showed up...”
Jordan looked her, fearing the worst.
“The woman attacked him, so he sort of stabbed her.”
Jordan inhaled sharply. She looked at Ed and the line around his neck. He didn't want to get caught by the cops, she thought. He doesn't want to go to jail or prison. She saw the fear in his eyes and it wasn't fear of ghosts or ghoulies or such. He didn't want the rest of his life dictated by a crazy woman. He looked down as the approached. She walked the last few feet.
“What do we do, Ed? What happened?”
He looked at her and looked back down. The gesture spoke of the wordlessness of the situation.
“Is that your Mom's car?” Amanda asked.
Ed turned around and squinted across the parking lot to the blue Chevy Capris parked halfway into the space in front of it. It was definitely his mother's.
He looked back at them.
“Yeah, that's it. You can tell by the terrible parking.”
He let out a small weak laugh. Jordan giggled shallowly. Amanda looked around at the way they had come.
She didn't see anymore lights in the alley. The cars must have passed on their way to the station, which was on the otherside of town. She sighed, letting the air flow slowly out of her. She counted the seconds and breathed again, turning back.
She looked at the group and then the car.
“So where's your mom?”
“I don't know Amanda, it is H-E-B's parking lot...” Ed said blandly.
Amanda stared back at him.
“Well then if you're done being a wuss about running...” She said.
He looked at her.
“You wanna race churro butt?”
She laughed.
“I wouldn't want to hurt your ego!”
He smiled.
“Better knock it off before I punch your first born child...”
This train of thought continued as they made their way to the store.
Somewhere in the dark, something waited for them to come out.
Strangers in the Night by Edward Chaney
Strangers in the night/ two lonely people/ we were strangers in the night/ up to the moment/ when we said our first hello/ little did we know/ love was just a glance away/ warm embracing dance away
- Frank Sinatra
A frozen mass
a darkened hollow
three blind mice
in line,
they follow
assuredly as they run
as trees whisper
and beg the sun
that in the air
among the wood
that what does follow
is nothing good
Chapter One
Jordan sat on her bed, in her room, in her parents house. It was Saturday and she was waiting. She lay in her running pants. Blue with a double racing stripe down the side. She lay and she waited, sprawled across the bed, in the most unladylike of fashions. She was face first, ass in the air, her head stuffed into the blankets and pillows.
She had her laptop playing music, Modest Mouse. She listened to the album and drifted in and out of consciousness. She was waiting.
Waiting for
life.
Waiting for
Amanda...
She rolled over and waited staring at her cell phone. It was silver and new, and she hated it. She had liked her old, beat to pieces phone. But sadly, her mom had put that through the wash. She looked at it again and tried to will it to burst to life, with Amanda's caller ID on the front. She sighed and looked over at her computer.
Sitting next to the Mac was her textbooks. Ouch! She had homework to do.
It was community college, but that seemed to be the problem. The college took itself far to seriously and seemed to take every chance it could to pile on as much homework as possible. Much more, she heard from friends, than at a normal four year state program. It was cheaper though. Psychology, Art, English, all of it terrible, she thought. The teachers were alright, but she couldn't help but feel like she was stuck in a rut.
Mostly because Ed enjoyed reminding her of it every fifteen minutes.
She made a grunting moan and rolled the other direction. She looked at her walls.
Her bed was red. The blankets were varying styles and motifs, but mostly red and purple and the such. The sheets where the only ones that she could find, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Sexy, she thought. Somewhere in the world, a nerd fell in love.
She glanced at her pillow. She reached out her hand and turned it over. It was covered with drool stains.
She had no problem sleeping at night, and she thanked the Lord for that, but it seemed that every time she was really zonked out, she drooled. It was a rather unfashionable habit, but what could she do? All those braces and orthopedic surgery, so she could have a dazzling smile. The downside was that if she ever attracted a man, he would have to put up with her constant oral defect.
What can you do?
She looked at her phone again and concentrated.
Riiiiing, she told it, riiiinnng!
It did nothing of the sort.
She was feeling terribly lethargic at this point. The light was coming in dimmer and dimmer through her windows and although the music wasn't mellow, it was turned down so low it was only a hum. A warm buzzing over the back of her skull.
She glanced at her walls.
Bits and pieces of art, posters (Josh Hartnett, OMG!), and family photos. There she was standing by her brothers. Her with the blond highlights over her brown hair. Her brown eyes and big smile. Others with her looking at the camera in a more sarcastic sense, daring it to try and take her picture. Her with friends, her at her high school graduation a year and a half ago. Her myspace shots. The one with her dog and the one in the bath room. She looked back at the phone.
Damn!
She looked at the clock.
4:28
Argh, she thought, very argh.
Her walls were white and that was fine. She could hear her family moving about in the house through them. Her three brothers sounding like they were herding cattle through the front room.
This was only a mild exaggeration. She felt confident that if she reached out and opened her door. They would be pulling or pushing or exploding something through the hall on the way to their rooms and the xbox.
Who knows!
She thought of her mom out in the kitchen making dinner. Jordan had no idea what it might be, but she smelled many different herbs and spices coming under the door. She waited. At any moment, she thought, the smoke alarm will go off and that will be the end of it.
Jordan looked at the clock.
4:32
She thought the alarm clock looked smug about this. Bastard, she thought at it and then at her cell phone.
She rolled on her back. She didn't want to fall asleep.
She should get up and do something, she thought.
She continued to lay there..............................................................................................................
BBBRRRIIIINNNGGGG
Jordan snapped her neck and twisted. She fell completely from the bed into her laundry/magazine covered floor. From there she lay dazed and giggling, until the phone rang again. She jump and slid on her bras and makeup secrets.
What is he thinking ladies?
Finally, inexorably, she snatched up the phone and smiled at Amanda's voice coming through the receiver.
“Hey so your coming?” Amanda giggled.
“Yeah, once I get off the floor,” Jordan laughed loudly.
“I fell!” said Jordan after a short pause.
Amanda giggled to herself.
She stood in the middle of a big dusty space between tents and cabins. She wore flip flops and a tank with capris. She had her cell phone to her ear and continued to giggle as she waved to other counselors passing her by in pairs and groups.
Amanda laughed and threw her dreadlocks back as Jordan recounted her adventures with her bed.
“I was gonna make a salad, should I save you some?” Jordan asked.
“Yeah totally! I'll see you in a bit,” Amanda said cheerfully and hung up.
She looked at her phone.
3 minutes and 46 seconds
She had to be careful with her minutes cause of the phone she was using. Pay as you go, suffer at your own expense. She stuffed the phone into her pocket and started to walk to her room.
She lived in the girls dorm at a Christian Youth Summer Camp, Apache Mountain. She had come over the summer to work the summer internship, but had enjoyed it so much, she had decided stayed for a year as an intern. She was coming up on her third month into the internship, and she was loving it. She was working with the kids, she was smiling and active. Most of all she felt close to God and that was important. She looked at the camp.
It had a wild west, cowboys and Indians theme. One part of the camp was tepees, the other was wagons. The kids came for a week and stayed the first half in tepees and the second in the dusty sheets of the covered wagons. The tepees were alright, but the wagons were ridiculously tight spaces.
The bunks were set up in two rows, two beds long each and two beds high. Then at the end was the counselors bed with one on top of it for one of the kids if you had an extra. Somewhere in the world and interior decorator screamed.
One had to navigate through six inches of aisle space to your bed in the middle of the night and then either your feet were in some kids face or their's were in yours.
You roll with it though,
you grow.
She enjoyed it though and she smiled to herself as she walked up the step and opened the door.
Her friend, Dana, was drying her hair.
“Hey Yeah Yeah,” said Amanda.
This was Dana's camp name, taken from the phrase most often heard and the band she had a special shrine for in her cd collection.
“Sup, Churro,” said Yeah Yeah, twisting the blow dryer in front of the mirror.
Amanda walked by her and to her bunk. She pulled her suit case out from under it and grabbed her running pants and sports bra. She also at a second glance grabbed her Invisalign.
They were these little plastic doo hickey things that she had been wearing to keep her teeth straight. They were all right, she thought, better than braces, that's for sure. She popped them in and grinned at herself in the mirror by her bed. They made her teeth invincible! She could bite into anything she want, hot or cold! She didn't because she wasn't supposed to, but every once and a while a Popsicle met its maker. The only problem she could ever see, in her mind, was taking them out in public. You ended up standing there with a big line of saliva from your mouth to the offending object. It didn't happen often, every once and a while she would sit down with people to dinner and forget. The she would be sitting there and look around at everyone staring at her and her translucent form of modern art.
She threw her stuff into a plastic bag and tied the top.
She was excited for the show tonight.
Chapter Two
Sleeping in sweet release
Hold your thoughts
Hold the leash
Jordan hopped in her Fourunner and checked herself in the rear view mirror. She looked at her nose and around her eyes. She had just washed her face and it tingled from the water and lotion. She looked at her teeth and looked for signs of salad.
Salad!
She clicked the door open and left her key in the ignition.
She ran back into her house, flying over brothers and dashing around her parents questions. She got to the fridge, threw the salad in a bowl, and ran back out to her truck.
He parents made small noises, but she waved her arms wildly as she flung open the door. She wailed her plans for the evening a them as she ducked out.
They heard:
“Manda! Jog! Comedy! Club!” and then
SLAM!
They stood where they had been and just stared at the closed door in front of them.
“What was that?”
“I don't know, looked like a blond tornado”
“hmmm I thought it was just me!”
They looked at the fridge.
“It took our salad!”
“Oh dear...”
Jordan once more positioned herself behind the wheel of her car and set the bowl in he seat next to her. She used the junk that had accumulated in the front seat to cocoon the bowl in a nestle of perfect safety and balance. She then found a piece of clean white paper and placed it over the leaves in the dish.She looked at it gave it a satisfactory nod and checked to make sure she had her change of clothes. She looked about for a bit and then realized that's what the salad cocoon was made of. She smiled and looked in the rear view. She looked a little sweaty from her exertions but other than that fine.
She started her four runner and began the long drive across town to get Amanda.
Ed sat in his room reading. He had Richard Bachman's The Regulators in front of him and he flipped the page casually. He glanced at the clock:
4:40
He looked back down at the book and turned the page.
He looked back up and glanced around his room.
His room was decorated in the most normal style of his age, junk yard, or so his mom called it whenever she saw it. His steel toed boots were on the floor in separate locales. His other shoes similarly separated. He lay on his futon on the floor, with pillows behind him propping him against the wall. He had laptop nearby and it was playing Flogging Molly in a ridiculously loud volume. Ed seemed not to notice. He sat and read and glanced at the clock.
Sometimes he would be really spontaneous and take a gander at his cell phone, which was charging by his leg.
His room was cream colored and most everything else was wood. His dresser, wood. His closet, the doors at least, wood. Cabinets, wood. Yet, he sat on his little futon, in the corner. Woodless, in his entirety.
In the middle of the room was an expansive space filled with rather peculiar clutter. He had a wooden sword, a boken that lay interlaced with the cord to his alarm clock radio. Which sat by his guitar amp. Audio books leaned against this, the Great Gatsby and Dante's Divine Comedy. These sat next to the forty pound weights he lifted from time to time to try and keep in shape. Three guitars lined the wall. An electrice guitar, a stratocaster, which he had carved designs into with his pocket knife. His bass was next to that. It had a purple strap and a ongoing mural Ed had done in the neck.
Lastly against the wall, was an acoustic guitar, given to him by his father, which sat in a case bearing a Napoleon Dynamite sticker. In the far corner, directly across from him, was his dresser. There were few clothes in it, most of them being on the floor or on top.
Sketchbooks and hair dye.
Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy
Open All Night by Bukowski.
Ed sat in the corner and waited for a call. Somewhere in the world, a librarian had an orgasm.
Finally he dog eared the page. A man had just found a doll that looked just like one of their assailants. The main character was baffled in a hail of gunfire.
He'd read more later, he thought, and flipped open his phone.
Amanda lay on her back in her bunk. She felt so long this way. She was a good five eleven and she wondered sometimes if she was intimidating. She didn't think so. She stretched and felt her muscles tense and unwind.
Yeah Yeah came out from in front of the mirror and and went to her bunk.
Yeah Yeah was cool. Amanda only known her over the summer and then into the internship, but when your around a person that much and can still stand them. Well, there's something to be said for that.
Yeah Yeah looked up at Amanda stretched out and moved as if to whack Amanda's stomach.
Amanda clenched up and giggled, and Yeah Yeah stood there looking down hat her and shaking her hair.
“You are so long girl”
“I know...”
Amanda rolled about in bed and flipped one of her olive tanned legs out. She extended her leg and pointed her toes. She kicked her flip flop and it flew off. She kicked the other off and sighed softly as she stretched again.
Yeah Yeah looked at the bag.
“What are you up to tonight, Churro?”
Churro was Amanda's camp name. She got it for her awesome ability to consume the camp churros with gusto that bordered on the suicidal. No one should ever enjoy camp food that much, they said. She just smiled her cinnamon sugar covered smile at them. And thus she was ordained and was Churro from henceforth, known as such.
“Hanging with Jordan ... and some friends.” she said mysteriously.
Yeah Yeah gave Amanda the eyebrow and Amanda smiled up at it. Yeah Yeah was like an Indian sometimes. She looked at you and you thought that she could read your mind just like smoke signals or deer prints or some other stereotype. Her face was a mask of granite and when she gave you the look, the one only girls can give (the one that let's you know that she sees right through you) you understood that you were as see through to her as Amanda's Invisalign.
“What?!”
“Nothin” said Yeah Yeah
and she put on her shoes.
“What are YOU up to?” Amanda said as Yeah Yeah crossed the room and threw on a light blue blouse and black peacoat. Yeah Yeah smiled at Amanda as she got ready.
“I have a date!” she said with a grin.
“What!” Amanda jumped up and walked after Yeah Yeah as she went to apply make up.
“Who!What!When!Where!” Amanda shouted following Yeah Yeah around the bathroom.
“He's a friend...” she said teasingly.
“Who!”
“He's a guy I know, from a church I go to...”
“Who!”
“And,” she said looking at Amanda, feigning condescension, “ he is taking me out to a little restaurant downtown...”
Amanda stood there hands on hips and looked at Yeah Yeah.
“And!” she demanded.
“What?” Yeah Yeah smirked offhandedly.
It was Amanda's turn to raise her eyebrow at Yeah Yeah.
“It's just a date, if it goes WELL, I will be more than happy to tell you about it later. However if it goes BADLY, I think it would be better if only two had to keep the secret, okay?” she smiled
“Yeah, ME and you!”
Yeah Yeah did a small twirl and looked herself once over.
“Well this is me!” she said pulling out her phone as it buzzed, “ wish me luck!”
Amanda stuck out her tongue and smiled.
“Luck!”
Chapter Three
Woods
Smoods
Omen
Smomen
“Hello?!” Jordan said into the wrong end of the phone.
“jrrrrdennnn?”
She looked at the screen and flipped the phone around. She put the phone between her ear and shoulder and shifted into fifth gear as she pushed the car on.
“Jordan? You there? This is Ed” said Ed from his futon.
“Yeah, wassup?”
“Just wonderin what's shakin?”
“Well, huh, I'm on my way to pick up Amanda right now and then we should be at your house.”
“When you think you'll be getting around here?”Ed lived on the other side of town from Amanda. Jordan was somewhere in the middle on the map, so she took it upon herself to go grab Amanda who was vehicle-less at the moment. She had left her car with her parents and flown back to work at the camp, this left her at the mercy of her friends for rides and invitations. Luckily they were the sort who were more than happy to oblige.
She thought about the distance and the road to Ed's.
Ed lived in a sort of super suburbs. He had neighbors and all that, but it was the sort of place were everything was very quiet. Example:
road was paved, but his driveway was not.
There was barely any street lights, she thought. The road wasn't to long, but it winded. She was familiar with it by now so she thought she could cope with the speeds on the turns.
The houses on the road all had large spacious front lawns covered with large low hanging trees. The lawns weren't perfect. It was more country style, than a Stepford community. Lots of space and room, so people didn't bother people.
She glanced at the clock.
4:53
“Let's say 5:30..uh...ish?” Jordan said slowly turning her wheel and down shifting as she turned a corner. Her truck was next to a grassy field fenced in barbed wire.
She watched for a moment out her window as the car drove past. She saw three jackrabbits sitting together in a field. She watched them look at each other and sniff. They hopped about each other in small circles. They looked like they were celebrating something. They all then sat up at once as her truck neared. She watched them as they stared back at her. They were varying shades of gray with small white tails. Their black eyes gleamed with personality as they bent and sniffed the air. They sat and stared at her and didn't see the hawk.
It swooped and snatched one of the three, snapping its neck. She saw the body swoop up in a great arch, the rabbit dangling limply, eyes glassy as it looked at her. The others scattered.
She shrieked, swerving slightly in her lane.
“What?!” Ed said
“What is it? You alright?”Yeah, I guess so, Jordan thought.
“Yeah, I guess so. I'll see you soon kay?” she said aloud. Somewhere in Southern California, a wife lied.
“Alright, drive safe now”
“Yeah I will, bye” she said and ended the call. She put the cell phone into the cup holder and breathed to steady herself. What the hell was that? She closed her eyes quickly and opened them.
She looked through her windshield at the passing landscape and waited, looking for her sign. Not realizing, she had already seen it.
Ed sat back and looked at his phone. He closed it with a snap and put his book aside. He looked at his clock and stood up, lurching slightly from the mattress' unsteady nature. He stepped onto the carpet and looked at his barbells. He walked by them and headed to the kitchen.
His parents were in the living room, they were watching the Shining.
His father looked up at him from his chair, a LA-Z-BOY. They had bought it for him when he had broken his leg four years or so ago. His dad smiled.
“What are you up to tonight?”“Not much, gonna hang with Amanda and Jordan.”
“Okay, what are you guys up to?”Ed looked at the fridge and thought of what he might make himself.
He looked back at his father.
“We're goin for a jog first and then gonna go to a comedy club or meet up with the cast or the such,” Ed said, walking by his father on his way to the kitchen.
His mother was standing over the fridge and looking at it biting her lip. She looked up at him as he walked in through the door.
“You eat too much, you know that? I bought two gallons of milk on Monday, now look!”
He smiled at her.
“That was totally Dad and you know it”
“Yeah that's what he said, he blamed you. Honestly between the two of you, we could feed ...well... we could feed a lot of people!” she said, and smiled at him. A comedian in New Hampshire failed to smile.
“Nice ma...” he said sarcastically. He gave her a quick hug and gently nudged his way in to look at the fridge. She swatted him and headed back into the living room. He wanted a snack but they would be jogging soon so, he settled on OJ.
He pulled it out and unscrewed the lid. He watched the orange flow smoothly into the glass. Watched it fill. When it was half full. He put the cap on, and looked out the window they had over their sink.
He stood there looking into the glass.
He felt a chill and a line of gooseflesh made it's way up his arms to the back of his neck. He stood and looked into the ever encroaching darkness. There were already long dark shadows reaching out from the trees.
He looked towards the street, searching for the headlights he recognized. He watched as a car drove by. It made its way all the way to his mail box, then past. Ed suddenly choked on his juice and felt the goosebumps rise again. He thought he saw a man standing under a tree on his front lawn. The man was leaning against it, and Ed could see the shine of of the man's head in the dying light. It looked to him like a middle aged man in a jumpsuit.
Ed spat the juice out and worked his throat for a bit. He then turned around the island, back into the living room. He head walked through it as the ghostly bartender smiled. Your moneys no good here. He made his way to the doorway, slipped on his shoes, and grabbed a flashlight. He was through it and out as his Dad asked him,
“Where are you going, son?”
Amanda sat up and looked out the window as car lights played across the ceiling in the dormitory. She saw a four runner pull up and park in front of a hitching post. She had already told the staff where she was going and given a number where she might be reached if they needed her, but these things were rather regular. She saw the driver cut the lights and set her book aside.
She had been reading Sex God by Rob Bell and she set it aside and picked up her bag. She slipped her socks on and put her feet into her shoes. She then wiggled them about furiously, sending her dreadlocks into a rain dance. Finally each foot popped into the shoe, like an arm joint only comfy. She looked out the window and saw Jordan standing there staring down at her phone. Amanda gave one last big wiggle for both shoes and walked to the doorway. She glanced at her bed, a mess. No helping it.
She clicked out the light, and was through the door when her cell phone began to ring on her sleeping bag.
“Hey!” Jordan said as Amanda jogged up from a building she had just appeared from.
“Hey yourself, how was the drive?”
“Kinda crazy, actually... How are you?”
“Doin fine, you ready to get goin?”
“Sure thing, let's get to it! So what did you do today?” Jordan said as she hopped back into her truck.
“Not much,” Amanda returned, after Jordan had unlocked the other side, “ how are you after your fall?”
Jordan laughed as she started the truck.
“ I seriously don't know how these things happen! First that and then I almost forgot the salad! Ugh...”
“Salad!” Amanda popped open the Tupperware lid and looked at the greens staring back at her.
“Yeah, I had to run back into the house after it, I totally was going to remember and then I, well, did,” she giggled,” just at the last possible moment.”
Amanda glanced about as she moved the clothes to the back seat. She picked up a few papers and continued to look about.
“You don't have a fork do you?” Amanda asked, looking up at Jordan as she shifted to fourth.
“Ugggghhh...” She raised her hand as if motioning to the sky, “I forgot, my bad.”
“No prob!” said Amanda, and she began to carefully pluck each piece and put it in her mouth.
“ I was seriously so lethargic when I was leaving!”
“No worries” Amanda spoke this, and put more leaves into her mouth.
“ You don't happen to have a napkin do you?”
Jordan looked at Amanda.
In Amanda's voraciousness, she had smeared the dressing across her chin. Amanda smiled at Jordan and they began to laugh as Jordan's truck drove its way around the turns back into town.
Chapter Four
Inconsequential to the point at hand
Ed's father is a very tall man
Inconsequential it seems
Except to the man of our dreams
Ed stepped out onto his front step. His house faced out towards the street which ran perpindicular to his driveway, at the end of which was his mailbox. Ed was scanning this area looking for the man in the jump suit. Where was he? Ed continued to look around.
His house had a large yard with a half a dozen or so trees. Ed was looking at each of these wondering were the man had gone. He watched the underside of one of them, not liking the way that the shadows were lengthening. He felt the flashlight in his hand, tossed it up and down in his palm. He liked the weight of it in his hand, but he felt like he was naked at the knitting group or something of the such. He didn't see the man.
The sky had already darkened in the last few minutes. The shadows were groping the ground for more purchase. Ed walked out towards his mailbox. He wanted to make sure that there wasn't any body lurking around.
Ed thought of what he had seen. A man, middle aged maybe, on the older side he thought. Bald, that much was certain, but he didn't see what he was wearing. It looked yellow or red, all one color. Ed walked through the orchard and glanced this way and that. Searching for the man. He hadn't really seen the man's face. He wondered if the man had been smiling. That gave him chills up his back again. The man standing in the trees and smiling at him. That was grim.
Ed reached his mailbox and looked up and down his street. The street was paved, but narrowed. He looked down to his left and the road forked by a white picket fence. Ed could see the sky as it darkened. He could see the new colors shot into it by the sun's dying rays. Pink and orange and purple shot through the sky. Farther down it turned to purplish blue and the to dark blue, and as Ed turned to his right it finally darkened to black. Ed looked to what was his right and watched as the streetlights came on. He saw the road as it swept down and to the right, the other houses like his that had the large front lawns. The lawns had no sidewalks in front of them, not in this part of town. The streetlights which were coming down where down at the corner and there was a severe scarcity of them elsewhere.
Ed watched the turn and the streetlights flickered and then finally came on. He took another look around, he saw no man. He realized his situation then.
He had seen a man in front of his house staring at him and (maybe) smiling. So he had come out to investigate, armed with only a flashlight, and had walked a good thirty yards from his front door. He was now standing ninety feet from his house, around the area he had seen a likely sociopath, standing there like a lemur in the encroaching darkness. He looked to his left again, scanning the trees and looking at the sky. More purple and blue now, the pink was receding. In a jungle in Brazil, a spider waited by a trapdoor as a mouse walked by.
Ed turned slowly, trying to look calm and collected. He glanced this way and that at the trees as he walked carefully by. He thought about someone walking behind him, looking down at him and waiting. Ed did not turn, he walked faster. He was suddenly running at his front door. He thought he heard a rustling of leaves behind him. Thought he heard breathing in his ear. He reached his front door and flung it open. He looked at his dad in his chair, looking up at him surprised.
Ed sighed and turned looking out at the lawn. He froze when, with a small sound he thought he saw a shadow move. He felt his heartbeat and assured himself that there wasn't anything out there to be afraid of. Shadows always change shape quickly, like a man moving out of sight.
That's what they all say, he thought to himself. Not the time, he thought again. He stood there looking gravely at the shadow accusingly. He finally, carefully, closed his front door.
Jordan and Amanda worked there way through town. The town was a rectangle. Two large roads ran through parallel to each other, Goodwin and Coleman. Between them ten or twelve streets ran between. Between them more. She came to the western street Coleman and stopped at the light. She was on Covlet. Covlet ran straight through, but she would turn down Abrahamsen, the last road before Goodwin turned north east, away from its twin counterpart.
The light changed, and she turned. The sky was growing dark, she checked the cars clock.
6:15
She did a double take. She realized she had forgot to change the clock since daylight savings time. She turned into the closest, leftmost lane as another car turned onto Coleman from Covlet.
“ Was a little freaked for a second that we were like ridiculously late for a second!” Jordan said.
Amanda looked at the clock and she gave a small snort.
“Oh!” she said suddenly “that place has great vegetable pizza!”
They looked at Scaglini's Italian Dining on the corner of Coleman and Kameron. It was a large restaurant with a spacious dining room but intimate atmosphere. It was family owned, so the pizza was good, even if some of it was a bit pricy.
“Dang! I've never been.” Jordan spoke.
“We should go! They bake all the ingredients under the cheese, so the flavor stays in, y'know”
“Super good...” Amanda said longingly as the truck sped by.
They drove on and Jordan turned up the stereo a bit, now that they weren't talking much. It was the Faint. She turned it up a bit more on the song she liked. The dance beat insinuated itself into her movements as she drove on.
Amanda looked out the window. She thought about there discussions as they drove past Keys Lane and the H-E-B. They talked about camp and about the books they had been reading. Jordan read these really strange minimalist fiction books, by Chuck Palahniuk. Jordan told her about the ones she had read and Amanda had looked back at her intrigued. They sounded crazy. Amanda had been reading a sort of crazy book herself. She had just finished the last in the Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe Series, Mostly Harmless. Amanda was raving mad about it.
She talked incessantly about the depressed robot, Marvin, and about the buffalo beasts and timewarps and God's final message to his creation, etc... She could go on for hours about the series. She was a little bit addicted and a little bit in love.
Jordan liked to hear about all of it and Amanda had enjoyed the talk about Haunted, Jordan's last Palahniuk,even if it had made her gag a bit at times. Amanda thought about when they had been younger and had ran around with different boys and gone to the mall. She thought about being in love with Blink 182.
She smiled.
People grow up, she thought.
Jordan turned onto Abrahamsen and past the suburban landscape in a forty plus mile per hour blur. They passed the old persons home on the right, Home of the Helping Hands. Jordan downshifted into first as they pulled to the three way stop on Goodwin. She waited only a moment and turned left out of town towards Ed's, passing the water tower which was on her left in a large grass field.
Amanda leaned over and looked at it.
It had a large eagle painted on it. The eagle was swooping, claws extended. This was for the local high school's football team, the Fighting Eagles.
“Paints a bit faded now,” Amanda said to herself as much as Jordan.
Jordan glanced back in her side mirror.
“Wow, I thought those cheerleaders and ASB types would keep that thing maintained. It's really all going to hell since we left..” Jordan let out a fake sigh and looked at Amanda.
Amanda smiled and pulled a grim face.
“We should really talk to the city council about this, this is a disgrace!” she said, lower lip thrust out.
Jordan pulled a deep frown.
“Really now, kids these days! Why back in my day!”
Amanda and Jordan made a series of grunting noises and wagged there fingers at cars as they past.
The people who saw them wondered what the heck could do that to two people. They looked like trolls or possessed or something.
The girls laughed on, hoping that one of the women they passed was a former cheerleader.
Chapter Five
Let's not mistake
a glance
let's just take
it away
and make
something new and funny
today!
Ed walked back to his room and glanced at the window. It was open and he could see himself reflected in the topmost portion. He walked to it and closed the window. It slid down slowly and closed with a snap. He could feel the air outside. Not too chilly, he thought, but he would wear a hooded sweater just in case. He looked at himself reflected in the mirror.
He was tall, above average at least. A good six feet, not much more. He had dark hair and dark eyes like his father, but his mothers cheekbones and brow. His facial hair came in pretty well at this point. It missed patches and full it was not, but it wasn't bad. Yeah, the ladies love it, he thought.
He threw himself a quick eyebrow and pout. Ladies ladies...? The response was underwhelming.
He was wearing a t-shirt and the jeans he had put on when he got up that morning. He needed to change, he thought.
He gave the room a quick look over, in the mess, he saw bits and pieces of what he needed. A sock here, a shoe here. He began to wander around pulling his clothes on. He thought of where the girls might be. He pulled on his track pants and looked at his clock.
5:23
They have to be arriving pretty soon. He tore his t-shirt of and flung it in the general direction of his laundry basket.
“Where you goin?”
Ed jumped back and fell on his bed with a soft, whumpfff.
He saw his sister standing in the doorway. She was blonde, unlike him, and had blue/green eyes (whose parents did she have?). He looked at her out of breathe.
“What?”
“What are you doin tonight?” she said with a giggle.
“Oh, geez, you scared the crap outta me. I'm goin for a jog when Jordan and Amanda get here and then we're goin to a comedy club.”He said looking about for his sweater.
She was younger than him by five years, so she looked at him quizzically.
“Jogging? That sounds like fun...” She rolled her eyes at him.
He looked at her and flashed a grin.
“Zip it or I'll drop kick your head in!” he snarled.
“Let's see it! Huh!” she giggle some more.
He laughed.
“You seen my sweater?”
“The hoody? Which one?”
“The Blood Brothers one, it's gray with pink writing?”
She cast a eye around for a quick second.
“Nope can't find it!” she announced.
“Thanks...” he said sarcastically.
“You're welcome,” she chipped at him, “ I'm going to the store with Ma, she wants to know if you want anything?”
“Cyanide, a pistol, a dead little sister. Any of those really”
She looked at him and made a loud noise in her throat, rolling her eyes simultaneously.
A person could die doing something like that too much, he thought.
She left and he swung the door closed and cast about for the sweater. He opened a cabinet.
It sat there staring at him in wonder.
Jordan's Four Runner turned the corner at Rice and Goodwin, passing the Freedom Gas Station on the corner. She followed the road down until it hit Wheeler. On the way down, they talked about the last times they had been to the comedy club, Improvisation Nation. They discussed the crowd and the suggestions , recalling certain jokes.
They didn't notice the light growing dimmer and dimmer, as the road wound about. The didn't watch the trees sway along side them as they passed. So many trees, so many shadows. No, they felt safe and sound, cozy in there discussion. Even as the trees loomed and the sun sunk in the sky, they remained unfaded and even happier than they would be alone. This is the human condition.
As living human beings, we react to one another. We grow together and sometimes fall apart. If you have a true friend, however, nothing can truly separate. One can move. One can date a friend. But in the big picture, that doesn't stop anything. Years later, when you bump into them, at a party or a wedding, you will look up at them and smile. Things will fall back into place. Some things never change.
The Four Runner made it's way up to the stop sign and turned right onto Wheeler. It looked for Jack, the next turn that would take them to Ed's house.
The trees continued to sway, even as the Four Runner passed Ed's Mother. The blue Chevy passed the two girls by in a blur, moving at at least twice their speed.
“Whoa! What was that!” Amanda said.
“Probably a cop or something.” Jordan said, as she came up to a sign.
“Jack,” she said as she flung the truck right and down the dusty road. She watched on the left for Ed's house number, 187. She saw the brick mailbox and the gravel driveway and shifted to second as she turned. The car fish-tailed slightly on the gravel, but made it to the end just fine. Jordan shifted into first and looked for a place to park. She saw Ed's Jeep and his parents little Mitsubishi. She turned the car into the empty space next to the rice burner. She turned to Amanda.
“Got your stuff?” she said looking at her.
She watched Amanda dig around a bit, then retrieve the bag. Jordan took the bowl and placed it carefully on the backseat. She grabbed Ed's book, Four Season's by Stephen King. She had borrowed it from him and had read it through. She loved (OMG!) Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. Ugh! She still thought about the ending. She had also found the Breathing Method moving, in a morbid sort of way. She got tingles from the ending with the butler. She had, however, committed a horrible travesty to the book itself.
She had a bad record of this were Ed was concerned. She had borrowed The Keep by F. Paul Wilson from him and had, sadly, spilled tea on the pages. He had, of course, forgiven her of this immediately and had, with a slight waving gesture of his hand, absolved her guilt.
She had reached new heights with her newest accident. It had come from reading the book at home, between classes, and at work on her breaks. She had in fact (sigh) ripped the cover completely off. She did save it though! She also had torn a few pages, but those don't really count because of a cat and her brothers and blah blah blah...
She felt guilty about it so she had brought it back. She knew he wouldn't care but guilt racked her nonetheless.
Amanda got out and looked at Jordan reaching for the book.
She had had dinner already at the camp and had more than a few glasses of pink lemonade. She had started to feel them back by the water tower, when she had thought about the water. It was really catching up with her now and she was about bursting waiting for Jordan. Jordan emerged (finally!) and they both headed for the front door.
Clack!
They both jumped a bit and looked back at the lawn. The trees were dropping acorns. They both sighed and headed for the door. They knocked.
Clack! Clack!
They turned again and looked at the trees. The trees were still. What, they thought, a ghost who throws acorns? Oh know!
They turned as Ed's Dad opened the door. Somewhere in the back of our minds, Jack met the giant on top of the beanstalk.
Chapter Six
The wonder and awe
the gaping of the maw
“Hey girls, he's in the kitchen.” Ed's Father announced upon seeing them on his step. He stepped back and allowed them to enter. It was nearly dark now, and he waited a moment looking out at the road.
“You guys are really jogging at night? “ He said to Ed who had come around the corner when he heard his father answer the door. He smiled at the girls and looked toward his Dad.
“Yep! But we should be alright. We're pretty big wimps so it should be short.”
His Dad laughed.
“That's what they all say, and then some mass murderer hacks them to little pieces when they stop for directions!” His father gestured to the movie that was continuing to its climax.
The girls looked at each other and giggled.
“You guys be careful alright?” his father spoke solemnly.
“Sure thing!”
“Yep”
“Where's the bathroom?”
Amanda spoked up finally. She began to look imploringly into the eyes of the room occupants. She smiled a tight smile and began to hop.
“Down the hall, at the end” he said with a laugh as she walked slowly to the hallway, and then ran when out of sight.
He heard this because of the sudden burst of “thumps” on the hardwood floor.
His father sat down, and Ed invited Jordan to the kitchen for orange juice. She declined, but she did partake in a glass of water. He filled the glass from the jug they kept in the fridge.
“Sweet! Thanks!” she said, taking the glass in her hands.
She handed him his book.
“Sorry!” she smiled and cocked her head.
He looked at her and then down at the book itself.
“What happened?”
“I ripped the cover off...”“I can see that, how'd you do it this time?”She gave him a venomous stare.
“I seriously don't know, I was reading it so often. And then all of a sudden it just falls into my hand. Sorry!”
He smiled at her and set the book down on the counter and picking up his juice.
“No worries. How was the drive?” he hopped backwards onto the counter top.
“ Fine, fine,” she pronounced, then with a sudden jolt of memory she said, “ but it was crazy!”
“I was just driving along like usual, y'know how those roads wind out there...” He nodded.
He'd driven out there a few times, for different ocassions. Visiting Amanda or the wild west show they had every Thursday.
“I was coming around the bend next to the Ambler place, the one with the cows and the big ole' field...”
She made large, expansive gestures with her hands to show if the immensity of the place in question.
He nodded along, understanding the place and cows in question, visualizing the moment.
“And I'm just passing by, looking out at the big grass field, and there are these three little bunnies just looking back at me and at each other, they were kind of ridiculous. Just annoyingly cute little bastards, y'know.”
He laughed.
“Disney?”
“That's them! The freaky wankers!”
Sh smiled and that fell from her face as she considered the next events in her story.
“Then, all of a sudden, a hawk just swoops down and snatches one up!”
Ed's eyebrows shot up behind his glass as he drank.
“I about freaked, swerved and everything. I told Amanda about it, she thought it was crazy. She said it was an omen!”
Jordan looked at him.
He looked back at her and took a sip of his orange juice. He set down the empty glass.
“Well, what did she think it meant?”
Amanda finished her business and stood in front of the mirror, listening to the water circulate in the pipes. All the small rushing sounds, coming from all directions. She looked in the mirror and checked her skin. Other than the wrinkles on her forehead, she was looking good. She looked at her hair, it stood a good two inches of her scalp. She had thought of getting rid of the dreads for a time, but had decided against it, feeling that her reasons were shallow at best.
She pulled her bag off the floor and set it on the counter. She opened it and pulled out her pants and bra.
She thought about the story Jordan had told her on the drive.
“It's an omen!” Amanda had said.
Jordan laughed.
“What does it mean?”
Amanda thought.
“It could mean that one of us is traveling soon, y'know” she hummed,” leeeeavin, on a jetplane/ don't know when I'll be back again!”
Jordan looked at her.
“Maybe! But it seemed pretty clear that the rabbit was very, very dead.”
“Well, I mean, maybe that means someone is leaving there old life behind them?”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Amanda are you?....”
“NO!!! Nnnnoooononnnononono!” she spoke quickly.
“I'm hanging around for a bit, don't worry!”
Amanda contemplated.
“Maybe one of us is going to be hit by a plane? That makes sense right? Hawk, dead bunny, leaving...”
Amanda looked over at Jordan behind the wheel.
“Yeah, these are all depressing. What if means one of us is getting married! Or one of us is pregnant! That's like dying right!?”
Amanda looked at Jordan, mouth open.
“Okay okay, not so much! But maybe it could be good? It doesn't necessarily mean on of us is going to die, right?”
“As long as it's not me, sure!”
“ Nice,” Jordan laughed slyly looking over at Amanda,”But your not?...”
“Leaving?” Ed said frowning.
“I know weird, I'm not going anywhere, are you?” Jordan said as she sipped at her water.
“Not that I know of! Just hangin round here, maybe working on some poems or a book with Kyle...”
He looked at Amanda as she walked through the entry way.
“Your not?...”
“NO! Wait, you were goin to ask if I was leaving, right?”
“Uh huh”
“Oh well, NO!”
She raised her arms up and dropped them at this last part. Her bag with her change of clothes bouncing off her leg. She wore black running pants with a double stripe down the side. She stood in the doorway hands on hips, the plastic bag dangling.
“Is there a place I could put these?” she asked Ed.
“Oh! Yeah, follow me.”
They went through the doorway, Amanda trailing Ed. Jordan slid off the counter and followed them out to the living room. She stopped and watched Shelly Duvall's performance. Ed's empty glass sat on the counter watching her through the open doorway.
Chapter Seven
Push
what have you got to lose?
“So how's camp goin?” Ed asked as they made their way down the hall.
“Good, tiring, kinda crazy, but definitely good.” she said as she watched his feet move across the floorboards. They came to a dark corner. Ed opened the door and flicked on the light switch.
Amanda looked at his room, stared really. There was so much clutter to take in.
Ed watched her expression and followed her gaze to the floor.
“Yeah, I'm getting around to it, but y'know... Busy, busy, busy!”
Amanda looked at him and laughed.
“I'm afraid!” she said.
He held out his hand, she handed him the parcel. He set it gently and carefully on top of a toolbox by the door. He leaned in from the hall comically to do it.
“Good luck with that!” Amanda said, watching him stretch to place the package.
He stepped back.
“You ready to jog?” he said.
“Uhhhh... sure... I guess as ready as a person can be for these type of things.”
He touched her arm and prodded her back in the direction from which they had come. He turned as she began to walk back to the living room. He clicked off the light and shut the door. He was going to say something about not forgetting, but he figured that would be impossible because of how sweaty she would be. Instead he watched her dreadlocks bob and sway their way back to the front door. They turned and Amanda's face came out of it to look at him. They both turned to look at Jordan who stood mesmerized, glass in hand.
“Jordan?” They said
She turned and looked at them.
“You guys weren't really serious about this whole jogging thing were you.” she said smiling and taking her last sip. She set the glass down, but then picked it back up again.
“Should I...?” she said to Ed's father, pointing at the kitchen.
“Just put it on the counter, that'll be fine.”
She hopped quickly to the doorway and placed the cup on the counter with all her mustered grace. It stared at its twin over the island. They both watched Jordan slip out as quick as she was there.
Ed was stretching next to Amanda when she returned. Their legs bent towards and away from their bodies at odd, uncomfortable angles. A boy ran down a hall on the tv screen, turning this way and that. Jordan looked at them.
“Ready?” she said exasperated
They looked at each other in turn. Ed shrugged.
“Let's do it!” Amanda said brightly to Jordan and turned.
Ed opened the door and ushered the girls out into the night scape.
“ See you soon, Dad.”
His father looked up at him from his chair.
“Be safe! Be careful, watch the girls and all that.”
“Will do Dad, Bye”
Ed closed the door and looked out. Amanda and Jordan had gone to the driveway and were standing on the gravel at it's end. He looked at Amanda in her tank and Jordan in her t-shirt, both in matching track pants. He wish he had a camera for the moment.
“Let's go!” Jordan shouted at him, she waved him over. Somewhere in the Bronx, a loner found friends.
He shook his legs and looked at the trees. Nothing there. Never was, he thought to himself. Reassuring
He turned back and jogged over.
They waited for him to get there. They stood looking at each other for a moment and started together at once.
They ran up the driveway, over the gravel. Their legs pounding a rhythm in unison. Ed looked left, down the street when they reached the end. The place he had so recently watched the fading light's rainbow.
“Nobody.”
They turned right up Jack and began to run down the road. They all puffed hard with the newfound exertion in the night air.
They pasted the first house. It was on their left and had a large front lawn with a smattering of trees close to the house. The lights were on in the living room window. They all jogged by, Jordan noticing they were watching Grey's Anatomy.
“Oooo! I'm missing it!”
“Yeah but this is totally worth it right?...” Ed said looking at her.
Her hair flew back from her head in her pony tail. All the strands that had missed the hair tie memo flew back over her head and from the nape of her neck like streamers. Her mouth hung open, the tendon standing out on her neck from glancing this way and that at the street. Amanda's hair did a version of Jordan's, but was much heavier and therefore shook with every steps she made. It looked like large ripples, ocean waves breaking off of her shoulders.
They ran from the light in front of Ed's house and the street was bathed in darkness as the sun finally set. The trees around them moved slightly with small breezes that swept through from time to time, but were, for the most part, still.
It disconcerted Ed. The trees dropped their acorns as they ran by. Ed imagined people, dogs, anything moving around in each person's yard. Gnomes, he thought, or dwarves. Who knows?
He thought of the man on the lawn. He thought of that man standing on other lawns, staring at other people, or worse, watching them as they made their way on. Ed wondered if the man was maybe smiling.
“You hear something?” Amanda said looking at Jordan.
Ed stepped back out of his head.
“Yeah I think its the trees though, the little pops and such that you hear.”
“Oh.” Amanda said looking at the trees intently.
“Wait there's something else though, you hear it?” She was looking at them.
They came around another twist in the road and saw the stop sign for Wheeler, in the distance.
They all craned their heads this way and that, listening for Amanda's phantom.
Jordan found it exceedingly difficult to hear with all of the blood pounding in her ears.
She looked at the road. The trees loomed over it. The stop sign an oasis in the darkness.
A soft “pat”.
“Wait I think I heard something too! Like a little step sound, on the road?”
“We are running.” Ed looked over at Jordan, rolling his eyes for effect. She stuck out her tongue.
She blew a raspberry at him and then gasped for more air.
He laughed, and then started to gasp himself. They continued to jog, Jordan's hair streaming while Amanda's shook.
They ran in a line, spanning the road. The order went:
ED Amanda Jordan
They could see any cars that might turn the corner and hear anything that might come from behind. In this way, they ran on.
They past more houses on either side, each of them tucked back from the road. All of them draped in trees and swathed in darkness. The lawns in front of them seemed expansive in the gloom. Amanda looked at Ed jogging along to her left.
Ed's eyes where wide, looking at the houses they past. A white picket fence here, a horse trailer there. Color had come into his cheeks, but his breathing looked regular and steady. He turned and shot her a grin.
“I could do this all day!” he said with a smirk.
“Yeah sure...” Jordan said from Amanda's right.
“Is that a challenge perhaps? You want a race? Eh?” He ran in front of Amanda and turned, jogging backwards.
“Maybe!” Jordan shouted at him as he smiled.
“Let's see it!”
He turned to Amanda.
“Call it.” he said looking at her eyes directly.
She jogged for a bit and looked at Jordan. Jordan smiled at her as she jogged. Ed slipped between them, beside Jordan. He looked at Amanda.
“Go!” she yelled.
Chapter Eight
They began to run hard, Ed keeping pace with Jordan. He had played lacrosse in high school. He stayed with her as they ran on ahead at breakneck speeds. They went like a shot, straight for the stop sign in the distance. He breathed easy and looked at Jordan. She ran with her teeth bared, arms pumping. Wild woman, he thought.
Amanda continued to jog behind. She was under the quiet gaze of the trees when she heard it.
A soft “pit pat”.
She screwed her head around and looked behind her as she jogged.
Pit pat
She heard it again. It sounded far off, but it was definitely there. She could hear it more clearly now that the others weren't running next to her. Chills ran up her spine and she turned her head about to look up at the light bathed sign. Ed and Jordan stood under it, their mouths open, looking back at her. She began to panic. She looked about herself. Unease insinuated itself into her as she walked along the road.
All the trees hemmed in shadows. Soft noises, rattles in the darkness. A noise on the blackness behind her. She felt very alone in the middle of it. All the night surrounding her.
The noise came louder, closer.
Amanda didn't look back. She didn't even thinking about it. She began to jog, but the feeling of someone watching her grew stronger. She tried not to panic, alone in the sea of blackness.
She didn't think, she just ran; sprinted for the safety of human company. She ran through the darkness and the noises about her. She ran and she heard the sounds coming from behind her, but she didn't look back. She heard it closer, so close she thought. It seemed right behind her. Something right over her shoulder, she thought. Something that wanted her. Wanted to take her, eat her, use her.
She ran and squeezed her eyes closed in panic. She ran and ran.
Tears streamed from under her eyelashes and onto her cheeks.
Whump!
“OW!”
Amanda opened her eyes and looked up at Ed. He had is arms around her and he was grimacing. She stepped back. She had run straight into him, knocking him back. He had hit the stop sign with a shudder. It still shook from the vibration. She looked at Jordan.
Jordan looked into Amanda's frightened eyes, imploring them for answer.
“You alright? 'Manda?”
Ed looked at her too, rubbing the back of his newly dented skull.
She turned around and looked back the way she had come. It all seemed so silly now, standing with them in the light. She couldn't understand what she was afraid of.
Pit pat.
She looked back at them.
They had heard it. They put their hands on her shoulders, and looked past her.
Ed looked down the street towards the sound. For a moment he didn't know what he was seeing. He heard the noise, its constant rhythmic thumping. It sounded like shoes. He looked and searched, but he couldn't see anything outside of the streetlight's illuminated circle.
“Let's go,” he said quietly.
Amanda looked up him, searching his face. Jordan looked up at Ed.
He turned to the both of them and smiled.
“It's probably just another jogger making his rounds,” he assured them with a smile. See this car over here, brand new! the smile seemed to say.
They both seemed to lighten at it though.
“Yeah! Makes sense with the noise,” Jordan agreed.
They both looked at Amanda. She sighed.
“Okay, sorry, let's get going.”
She looked up at them and smiled.
“Just got a little freaked, y'know?” She shrugged.
They nodded back at Amanda. Ed's eyes twinkling to her as the ribbons of Jordan's hair waved in the air about her head.
They turned the corner and began to jog again.
Behind them the noise continued.
They ran up the street, Amanda thinking about how the night can grip you so terribly. She looked at the others as they passed the ring of light around the sign. Her eyes adjusted and she saw the next one two blocks away.
Jordan looked at Amanda and wondered what it was that had scared her. Amanda had run so suddenly into Ed. Her eyes were closed, but her expression was terrible, as if she was being chased. As if they had left her to some beast in the darkness that had tried to run her down.
Jordan heard a small noise as the got farther away from the light. They were about halfway between stop signs. She turned and looked back were they had departed from. She gasped and reached out to Amanda. Amanda turned to Jordan at the sharpness of the steely fingers that gripped her arm. She looked at Jordan's face.
“What is it Jordan?”
At this Ed, who was a few feet further stopped and looked back. He saw Jordan and followed her eyes to the sign. His skin turned over.
Under the light was a man. The man was in a jumpsuit, its color was anonymous in the yellow of the lamp's light. The man was short and tanned. His hair was greased back and seemed to gleam.
The bald man, Ed thought, but considered it. The man seemed shorter.
He stepped forward, between the girls. He looked closer.
The man under the light jerked a step forward also. He brought his hand around.
Jordan screamed.
The man had a large round knife in his right hand. The man's eyes were shadows, but Ed guessed he was looking right at them. Ed looked at the knife.
He didn't have very long to look, however, because the man began to run after them, knife outstretched. Reaching.
Chapter Nine
Violence!
Violence!
Blood!
Violence!
They watched him run at them for only a moment. Once he reached the border between the interior and exterior of the streetlight circle, he seemed to reform as a silhouette. They saw this and realized he would be upon them soon, for it must be them he was after. There wasn't any one else.
They ran, not thinking. Ed turned around to Jordan and Amanda. They in kind turned themselves and began to run. Jordan started at a jog, but Ed put his hand on the space between her shoulders and began to run behind her, pushing her along. She ran herself after a moment. Amanda took off ahead of them.
They could hear the steps of the man as they turned quickly around the corner, screaming for someone.
Why, Ed thought, is there no one ever around when these things happened. He looked back and shuddered. The small man was gaining on them, knife held aloft. He had a strange grin playing at the edge of his mouth. Ed turned back a to the girls, who where crying frantically and yelling. He looked back again, at the knife. He saw it wasn't really a knife. It was a trowel, a gardening tool. The man was a gardener, Ed thought.
Jordan ran with all her might, she could only think that they needed to find people. Where are all the people!. She could see lights farther ahead. The gas station.
“The gas station!” she yelled to the others.
She turned to Amanda who nodded jerkily. Amanda looked back to see what Ed was doing, if he was even still with them. Ed was looking quickly at the ground and the shoulder. He looked up and his eyes blazed.
Ed saw a piece of PBC pipe lying on the shoulder covered in dirt. That was it, he thought. The girls ran on, less than a block from the gas station. Sweat was a watery sheen on their brows. It clung in droplets to Amanda's upper lip. It ran in a small rivelet down Jordan's shoulders. She thanked God for the t-shirt's cotton. They ran, heart's pounding in time, the way some girls have their periods at same time. Jordan and Amanda were keyed into each others panic and it kept them running.
Ed himself was panicked, that can explain some of how a normal enough guy can perform an act of brutal violence, like the one Ed was planning. You could blame the movies he watched. You could say that his music was too loud. All the things the media gets away with because the person is not around to say different. Ed didn't think about it. He only thought of the man and the knife.
He turned out to the left of the pack. He slowed slightly and reached down for the pipe. He threw himself off of balance, but felt reassured as he gripped underneath the pipe. He picked it up and turned. He zeroed down on the trowel wielding troll that ran toward him. He held the pipe like he had his lacrosse pole not so many months ago. The man saw Ed, but it wasn't a normal gaze. The man saw Ed like meat, like a meal. The man ran up to Ed.
Ed readied himself, trying to count down the distance. Trying to brace himself for the poke check he was going to employ on the man's face. Closer the man came. Closer still. Ed heard the man's footsteps as the blood pounded in his ears. He gripped the pole and cocked his arm back.
The man looked into Ed's eyes and laughed.
He was still laughing when he came to a stop a good ten feet away. To far for Ed to swing at him and guarantee a hit. The man laughed on, his face contorting. It pulled itself sideways and inside out. One moment the man seemed to be sobbing. The next he was laughing almost contempuously. Ed stood baffled, looking at the man.
He saw the man wore a blue jumpsuit and must be about 5' 5”. The man looked latino, but he might just have a dark tan from working outside. The man's eyes looked glassy and empty.
Ed unwound a bit and looked at the man. The man stopped laughing almost at once.
He looked at Ed, who looked back.
“Where you going son?”
The man's face changed. It seemed to grow with lines. The man seemed to age before his eyes, but not at all. The man smiled at him. He raised the hand that held the knife like trowel. Ed tensed again.
But the man only laughed and put the sharpened garden tool to his own throat. He looked into Ed's eyes and pulled it across, opening his personal red into the street.
Ed could only look on in horror as the man stood there in front of him, smile in place, as he emptied onto the pavement. Ed stepped back as the blood spurted from the man's neck in great gushes. Finally, inexorably, the man's eyes rolled back into his head. He fell face first into his own dark crimson pool. Ed heard a wet crunch. The man's nose breaking, he thought, and began to vomit. He threw up into the blood covered asphalt, adding a bit of himself the warm cooling stew. If he had looked down he might have thought it was like a morbid sort of cereal. But he didn't look, he turned and he ran after the girls.
Jordan and Amanda reached the gas station and ran quickly to the glass doors that covered the front. They pulled the door open and almost tackled a woman walking out with her groceries.
OOMPH
They plowed into the woman's sizable front. The woman was shorter than the both of them but portly and square. She smiled at the two girls. Her lips were a dull pink and her eyes a gray blue.
“Sorry!” she said to them, her eyes crinkling up with the return of her smile.
Jordan and Amanda didn't know how to react at first. They gasped in front of the woman trying to catch their breath and tell the woman about the man chasing them. Amanda turned about and grabbed Jordan's arm.
“Where's Ed!” she said looking into Jordan's eyes.
Jordan's brow wrinkled and she looked over Amanda's shoulders. The darkness was infinitely deep and impenetrable. The blinding light over the pumps made it all the more difficult to see past the corner and down the street.
“Are you alright?” the small woman asked putting her hands on both the girl's shoulders. Jordan jumped and looked back at the woman. The woman smiled up at her.
“Here come inside out of the cold,” the woman cooed, leading them into the inner foyer of the little Stop-N-Shop.
Amanda and Jordan followed, happy to be being comforted. The woman smiled at them as she let go and walked towards the opposite wall.
“I'll see about getting Pete to give us some water cups and let you use the bathroom,” she said warmly, walking through a small doorway across from the entrance, at the end of the counter.
They stood in the middle of the entrance way looking about at the Quick Mart or what-have-you, that they now occupied. It was packed with candy and chips on short aisles and had the drinks in the freezers covering three of the four walls. The color scheme was a white and and teal. The tiles and walls being white with a large green/blue strip running through all of it. The counter stood behind them ladened with gum and cigarettes. The place was empty and sterile. The woman's car they assumed was the only one parked in front of the doors.
The girls were jacked on the adrenaline surging through their collective blood streams. They waited, tense and on edge for the woman.
Shoomp...
The noise was still and small, coming through the walls. The girls turned toward the doorway the woman had just entered. They watched the door. There seemed a great length of silence behind it, an unending void of the unknown, waiting and watching. They Jordan turned to Amanda. Amanda looked at Jordan and raised her eyebrow in silent question.
What's going on? Amanda's eyebrow begged.
Jordan looked down and looked up and met her eyes.
I don't know, but I'm afraid, the eyes told her friend.
They looked back at the door.
Footsteps.
The person occupying the shoes behind the doorway seemed to pace. The sounded turned over and over, towards and away. They waited. They both seemed to tense and tighten when the steps neared the door. They loosened as the steps became fainter again. It sounded like a tiger in a cage, pacing and grinning at the bars.
They thought of the woman.
Amanda turned to look for Ed outside in the blackness. Jordan's breathe caught. Amanda turned back to the door.
It was propped open slightly, and then gently opened wider.
A man stepped through. He was short like the woman, but thin. He was younger than her, looked to be in his early thirties. He had a receding hairline and chest hair plumed from inside the color of his work shirt. The patch upon the left side of his chest bore the emblem: Peter.
He smiled at them, a wide smile. It showed a missing teeth on the upper right side of his mouth.
“Hi!” He said looking at them each in turn. He held out two water bottles with his left hand. It was wrinkled and calloused, the nails thick and grayish. The girls looked at them. He looked between them.
“Okay, I'll just put them here then,” he said conciliatory, and set them on the counter. The girls continued to stare.
“Where's the woman?” Jordan asked quietly.
“I'm right here!” said a voice in the hallway, behind the man.
The Amanda's eyes widened in surprise.
The man looked at her and turned around.
“Hurry up,” he shouted, then turned to them,” would you like some cookies?” He asked them.
“No thank you,” Amanda murmured.
“Oh, well then...” he reached to a package close by and walked behind the counter.
He split it open along the seems and began to munch at them.
“So what's your story?” He said, crumbs flying out between the words.
SHOOOMPF
He looked at the doorway.
“What are you doing back there?” He yelled.
“Looking for some blankets, they look froze!” the woman yelled back.
Thump, CLANG.
“What the hell Nancy. Why are you destroying my store!”
He got up from his stool and came back around the counter. He headed towards the doorway, and turned and looked over his shoulder at Jordan and Amanda standing there stiffly.
“Would you guys like a chair or something?”
They looked at him, then at each other.
Jordan turned back and nodded.
He nodded back at her and gave her a quick flash of a grin.
He disappeared around the doorway.
They heard him yelling the woman's name. He was shouting and laughing.
Then it was very quiet. The store was bathed in it. The lack of noise washed over the girls as the gardener washed over the ground outside.
The woman came around the corner hold a small woolen blanket in her arms. She smiled at the girls.
“Where's Pete” Amanda spoke into the silence.
The woman smiled at her.
“He went to the can for a bit, don't worry dear!” She chirped sweetly.
Drip.
Amanda and Jordan looked down at the circle of red on the floor and its twin which joined it a moment later. They looked at the woman.
The woman smiled at them. The smile widened and seemed to play at the edges of her mouth. It twitched and squirmed on her face. It sat and fidgeted between her lips and her cheeks. It shifted this way and that.
The blanket fell to the ground softly and with no protest. Jordan and Amanda gasped and stepped back. Tears filled in Jordan's eyes. Why, she thought, why why why why WHY WHY WHYW HWYHWYWHGHW....
They woman's hands were stained crimson and dripped like a child's do after finger painting. The girl that wants to show her mother the painting she did, of which she is proud. In this way the woman stood there, knife in her right hand, drenched up to the elbow in blood.
Pete's blood the girls thought simultaneously. It must be.
Amanda stared. Up to the elbow, she thought. She must have reached inside him, must have dug through him, tore at his organs and muscles. Up to the elbow in such a small man. Holding him like a ventriloquist's dummy as his organ's slipped about your hands.
The woman smiled a moment longer and then began to shriek at them, her face contorting into that of a wolves. Jack Nicholson. Grinning, she stepped towards Amanda and Jordan. Jordan sobbed to herself and shook her head. She stopped and looked up at the woman and screamed at her, out of rage as much as horror. The woman stopped and stared at Jordan.
She stepped forward again and began to walk towards them. Shaking her head, Jordan retreated. The woman lunged at them suddenly. Amanda threw herself down the aisle on her right. The woman, Nancy, ran towards Jordan. Jordan drew herself up and turned.
Ding, door chimed as Ed stepped through the open door. Jordan ran into him, knocking him into the door jam. He dropped the pipe and it rolled away. Jordan slammed through the glass door and disappeared into the night.
Chapter Ten
My face
your face
this close
It's gross
Amanda watched as the woman ran by her aisle. She heard the door chime and open and a soft thud. The door opened again and closed just as quietly. Amanda heard a clang and saw the knife skitter down the aisle.
Ed saw the woman coming, but found himself propped against the door. The woman ran at him, knife outstretched.
Reaching.
He lashed out at her with his leg. He caught her in her left hip. She turned sideways and swung into the counter. She hit the ground hard, but seemed to be up again in an instant. She ran to Ed, who was standing up and looking about for his pipe. He saw it down the aisle on his right. He didn't see Amanda any where. Then the woman was on him.
She had her hands around his throat and was shaking him back and forth. He reached out and grabbed her head, his fingers finding purchase in her hair. He pulled and pulled, but the woman continued to put pressure on his throat.
It was getting hard to breathe, harder to see.
He swung the woman about with all his strength. She turned off balance and her head connected with a soft munching and a squirt of blood. She had hit the steel door jam's edge. Her grip loosened and then redoubled. Ed grabbed her hands and pulled at them. They were like a vice strapped to his neck, slowly squeezing away his air and life. He looked at her. Her face was a an ocean of emotions. Each feature registered differently, each feature told a different story.
He pulled at the fingers. He felt a few of them pop out of their joint, but the grip still held. He was seeing black spots before his eyes. Each breath came shallower than the one before it. He fell over, the woman landing on too of his chest. He couldn't breath any more. Everything was coming in black. Something wet and oddly warm was pressed into his palm. A hilt.
He flipped it around and drove it through the woman's eye. The hands receded from the shore of his neck. Amanda watched the woman fall sideways, the knife giving a small shuddering vibration as she connected to the ground. Amanda was entranced. She watched as the woman's face began to still. Only moving in small twitches now. The woman smiled at Amanda. Amanda shuddered. The smile spoke of stomachs growling in the darkness. Of desire and retribution. The smile said:
You can't run where I can't follow.
Then the woman's face stilled and the life drained from it. She was only a woman now. The jelly from her eye oozing around the knife edge. Blood coming out the woman's nose in a small line to the floor. She heard Ed gasping and knelt by him. He had red lines about his neck and a vein was throbbing in his temple. He blinked and then focused on her.
“What the fuck is going on!?” He said looking up at her as her dreadlocks canopied him from the florescent lights.
A small tear ran down her cheek.
She looked up and glanced about the gas station.
“Where's Jordan?” she breathed into the stillness.
Jordan ran from the light of the entry way. She ran and ran. Her feet slapped at the asphalt at times. At other moments, they seemed to tread in mud or water. Her feet moved of their own accord, taking her away. Away from the man and the knife. Away from the woman and the blood.
Her mind played like a movie.
The camera wound through the foyer of the gas station, the camera turning as if to say:
This is it?
A door. Employees only.
It stands at the other end from the camera, on the far wall. It is tall and black. It bodes of secrets. It speaks ominously to the viewer.
What's behind the door? The people think to themselves as they watch.
The camera moves slowly, it comes closer and closer.
The door opens carefully and slowly, a passageway revealed. Gray concrete and black metal shelves. The hall is filled with a dull yellow light. It falls over everything, making it all seem sick or unhealthy.
The camera moves forward. It pulls back as it comes to the threshold between the sterile and sick. The camera man must smell something, the viewer thinks. A sweet sickness. Decay, rot. Maggots, open wounds. Organs under a dull yellow glow. The stomach broken open, everything spilling onto the floor. It is all brown and green. Angles and fluid are pouring out of the tear. The intestines have nestled themselves underneath the broken bulb. They are strewn about away from the gaping orifice, screaming in protest at the introduction to the open air. The heart itself hangs in its cage, to empty flesh bags hanging about it like grocery bags, their contents spilled. The whole mess, it's yelling, it's screaming to the viewer.
This isn't right! This isn't how it's supposed to be. We see flesh and see blood, but we don't see air. We don't like walls or ceilings! We hate the light, hate the yellow, hate the white under the door.
We want dirt.
We want ground.
We want a soft burial, deep deep down.
Away from the hard light and the poisoned air. Away from the hands and their tearing. The men and women with their mischief. Their games. Trials and contests. Wars and handshakes.
We want to be left alone.
If only we hadn't listened to the brain and the hands in the beginning.
The camera turns back around towards the doorway. Ed is leaning against the wall. His face is down. The camera turns and walks toward the body in the corner. The door quietly shuts and the smell dissipates. The camera walks and turns to look down aisle. It's empty and clean. The floor shines up at the man camera. It turns and Ed is still there, but now Amanda has joined him. Her head sits as Ed's, down and still.
The camera walks toward them. Maybe they're fine, the viewer hopes quietly.
Hopes to herself.
Amanda's head bobs and looks up at the man. It is pristine and it smiles. It smiles up and then then smile dies. It falls and the end of her mouth follow it. She is frowning. She smells something.
The camera turns around and the door is open. The yellow light is off. The door way is a pitch black abyss. It lies open so that those things that occupy it can reach through. They can find there way out and when they do, Ed and Amanda will be there for a snack on their way into the wide wide world. The creatures, the demons, the men, the angels, devils and good intentions. The strangers of the abyss.
Chapter Eleven
Good intentions
I feel them running
Out my lips
They keep coming
I need something to plug
My fist won't fit
I've tried it
Jordan snaps back to reality. She is standing in the middle of the road. The streetlight above her glowing softly. She breathes into the cold night. Her breath materializing in front of her eyes and the unfurling into the air and light. Unraveling.
She looks about. It looks like suburbs. It looks familiar. She looks down to her left. She sees houses and surburbia and a stop sign. She peers into the dark, looking for a street sign. She can't make one out. She turns and looks to her right. She sees Mitchell St half a block down and realizes she's on Abrahamsen. She drove down this way not more than an hour ago. The street is dark, but not terribly so. The streetlights appropriate a good amount of cool clear light to the sidewalks and houses. She looks down and breathes out again. Get it together. She breathes again, slowly calming herself down. Her heart is pounding nonetheless.
You're fine.
Everything is fine.
A little bit of a scare is all.
Jordan looks up again. In front of her is the Home of the Helping Hands. It is brightly lit. At least the nurses station is. Jordan sees a few of them moving about. Standing, taking clipboards, ushering the old folks or mentally disabled. Jordan sees some of the men with walkers making their slow way around to their rooms or to the TV. One of them stops and looks up at her. He is very thin, bald, and seems to have back which is very hunched. The man is wearing brown trousers, belted tightly about his midsection. Over that he has a maroon sweater covering a white shirt. The man wears large thick glasses. He continues to look at her and she at him. The man looks over his shoulder at the nurses. They are all moving about as normal. Picking and moving and ushering. He looks back at her and nods.
She nods back not knowing what else to do. He smiles to himself and looks her in the eye.
She is sitting next to the man on a couch. It is in a small room that is brightly lit. She can smell sweet crisp air coming in through an open window to her left. Through the window are trees and a dark blue winter sky. It must be morning because the man has a cup of dark coffee steaming on the in table next to him.
“You have a problem.”
“Yes.”
Jordan looks at the man. He is many years younger. He looks in his forties or late thirties. He smiles at her. His hair is dark and pulled back on his head. He picks up the coffee and sips it grimacing.
“You have a very big problem.”
“Yes.”
“You need to find out what he wants, or find your friends.”
She looks at him.
“Yes.”
She watches him sip again. She can smell the roast of it. It makes her stomach growl. He smiles at her.
“It's not real, sorry. Force of habit.”
She nods back at him, looking down at her lap.
He turns sharply and then looks back at her. He says:
“You can talk to him,” she smells smoke, “Or you can run.”
He sets the cup down. He looks into her eyes.
“But if you are going to run, you need to go now.”
“Yes, Thank you.”
He smiles up at her. He nods and she begins to walk toward the doorway.
“You need to go out the way you came in dear.”
She turns back to him. He points and she follows the gesture to the open window. He is looking at her when she turns back.
“Good luck.”
She looks at the man through the door.
He nods again and turns back to his walker. Jordan watches him hobble away. She feels a cold breeze flow through the street. She looks back towards the stop sign and Goodwin. A soft sound comes from the home. One of the nurses is standing and looking through the door. More than that. She's staring at Jordan through the glass. She begins to smile. The tray with the broken dishes lays as a sacrifice in front of her. Jordan turns, resolutely, and begins to run again. She needs light, she needs people.
Amanda pulls Ed up to his feet and they both look out the windowed front of the store at the street. Ed turns around. For a moment, he lingers over the womans body. He is stuck. He is caught by the work of his hands. He thinks he was willing to do this to a man outside, but to actually accomplish this in a woman is too much irony for him. He looks down at her. He had only been here a moment, he had no idea the situation, but he had taken her life anyways. Amanda turned and looked at Ed. She saw something in his eyes. She followed his eyes to the floor.
“We need to go.”
He looked up, but not at Amanda.
“We need a flashlight or something...”
He stepped forward. For a wild moment Amanda thought he was going to walk through the doorway. She began to say something, something to stop just such a thing; when he bent and pulled a package off a rack by the counter. She looked past him to the doorway. He turned and bent over the front of the counter for batteries. The door way stood open from the woman's return. The lights glowed and flickered in the ceiling.
Amanda thought of the man back there. She thought of him maybe getting up and pacing, like he had before. Maybe walking through the open doorway and ...
She shook her head and her dreadlocks batted about her face. She shook the thoughts out of her head and looked at Ed. He stood before her. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. It wasn't a comforting gaze, it was a hard look.
“Are you alright?” He looked down at her.
She looked up at him. Her mouth closed and hardened into a hard line.
“Yes, let's go.”
Ed nodded and handed her the light. He walked down the first aisle and picked up the pipe. She pushed the door open and waited. He walked back and sighed. They walked through it together and began to run, as they had begun so much earlier in the evening.
Where could Jordan be, Amanda thought. Where are you?
Chapter Eleven
Ed's father, Steven, lay asleep in his chair. The television was still on, the menu screen of the DVD playing and replaying over upon itself. He dreamed, there in the chair, alone in his house.
He did not dream of men lying dead in the street.
He did not dream of eyes glazed over under florescent lights.
He did not dream of running or stalking.
No, in his dream he was sitting in his chair watching a movie, just the way he had been. The movie clicked on and the screen flickered to life.
The video was blurry and out of focus and then it came into view, crystal clear.
A man was driving. His car had a vinyl interior and the dash was cracked down the middle. The car had a tape deck/ radio. It looked to be a early nineties model. The digital display was green and the buttons were dimly lit.
It seemed around midday, maybe a little later. The trees blurred by ever slower and the camera came to rest on the man. The man had short blonde hair. He had a deeply unpleasant frown. He drove jerkily, swearing from time to time. The man seemed almost familiar. He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair.
The angle changed and the camera rotated to show the road. The road was paved and relatively clean. There were grassy lawns and clear gray sidewalks in view. The car looked to be a honda or mitsubishi.
Steven sat and watched, shaking off the vague familiarity of the man and the road.
The man in the movie turned the corner and a school came into view.
The shot changed to a close up of the man's face. The face was deeply grooved for such a young man. The lines dug deeper with the frown firmly in place. The man swore again softly to himself.
“Fuckin' kid...” he said forcefully to the camera. His lips spitting the “f” out with a slight pop.
The camera showed the school as the car sat at the stoplight, its left turn blinker flashing. The school was gray concrete with flat rooftops. The front office showed the windows covered with bulletins and colorful drawings. Each classroom had three large windows on their sides. Everywhere there were childrens hand prints. Children's handwriting showed on every crooked “r” and loopy cursive “e”.
The sign over the office said:
Stranton Elementary
The man turned sharply through the unprotected left. He slipped quickly into the parking lot and made his way left along the spaces until he found one empty. He turned the car sharply and was parked in an instant. The man cut the engine and let out a deep sigh. The sigh changed into a shout. The man sat in his seat fuming. The camera changed to a side view. The man had his knuckles driven into his eyes. He was breathing harshly, spittle flying from the lips in dribbles and spurts.
The man sat up and calmed himself. He grunted and breathed. He shook his head and looked at himself in the mirror. He was clean shaven, but he had a haggard look. The man smiled at his reflection. He put a nail to one of his revealed canines and push it up its smooth surface. He closed his mouth and smacked his lips loudly.
The man now turned toward the camera and and looked past it. The shot looked like pure Terry Gilliam. The camera backed away as the man reached over. The lens turned down onto the man's hand. The fingers moved nimbly. The sought into the gloved compartment and withdrew a pack of gum. The man pulled a sliver of foil out and the hand retreated. The camera was outside the car now.
It showed the sun shining down on the car. The interior invisible because of the glare.
The door cracked and the opened slowly. The man stepped out and closed the door. He reached up and placed the gum on his tongue. He tossed the foil onto the ground and pulled his shirt down. The man had on jeans and a white dress shirt. The shirt had thin black and red stripes moving vertically down its wrinkled surface. The man's ensemble was completed by a pair of scuffed black boots. The boots had a zipper on the side and seemed like a flashy Italian brand. The man ran his fingers through his hair again. He started to walk. The camera waited a moment as the wrapper skittered after him on the ground.
The man made his way to the sidewalk. He walked along it, his destination clearly the double doors of the office. He walked slowly and carefully up to the front doors. He looked at the reflection of himself for a moment and the pulled the handle on the right door. A wave of air conditioning washed over him as he walked through the foyer. The wall on his right had a large bulletin board, calendars and events posted in large letters and bright colors.
A woman was sitting behind the desk, her plaque bearing the title: Secretary Mary Spist.
She was an older woman, maybe in her fifties, grayed that far at least. Who could tell, with the toll kids take on your sanity.
She looked up at him and gave him an appraising look.
He smiled down at her.
“Hi ma'am. I'm Mitch Bettern, I'm here to pick up my son,” he said clearly. She nodded at him and brought a clipboard up from the side of her desk. It was a sign-out sheet. He waved the pen about on it and handed it back to her.
“Where's my son?”
Her eyebrow went up.
The camera turned onto the Mitch's face as he looked down at the woman. It turned slightly to show a chair behind him and to the right. In the chair sat a small boy, covered in dirt. The boy's eyes were wide and puffy. He had been crying. He sniffled.
The woman nodded in his direction. Mitch turned and looked behind to the boy. He turned back to the woman, smiled and nodded. He turned back and walked up to the boy.
The boy looked up and him, eyes wider than they had been before. But not whimpering, not sobbing, not afraid.
The man looked down into the insolent eyes.
“Let's go,” The man said, quietly seething.
The boy pushed off of the chair as the Mitch pushed the door open. The door closed and Mitch followed his son out into the afternoon light.
As soon as they were outside the man stopped. The camera showed a scewed side view. Focused on the Mitch's head as Mitch spat the gum out and replaced it with a cigarette. The camera slid silently downward as the boy's face came around from behind Mitch, looking up at his father.
Mitch did not look at him, but began walking.
“What the hell where you thinking,” Mitch said quietly, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Huh?”
The boy looked at the ground as they walked. The man grew louder as they grew farther from the office building.
“Huh? Answer me! What the fuck did you think you were doin'! You need to listen to your teachers and get your act together or so help me I will tan you red,” he growled.
They were reaching the car now. Mitch looked over his shoulder, checking to make sure they were out of sight of the office, if anyone happened to be looking out the doors. He brought the kid around the side of the car. He bent down to the kids face.
“Don't you ever do something so fucking stupid again!” he spat. He looked at the kid.
“Answer me!”
The boy didn't know what to say, so he just looked up at the ma. The man looked down at the boy. He looked around himself for a moment. Looking into the windows. He wasn't stupid.
He unlocked the door and opened it.
He walked around to the driver's side. Unlocking it, he got in and looked down at his son. The camera shone again at the outside of the car, the glare bright on the windshield. There was a muffled pop behind the glass. The camera brought the angle alongside the car showing just the bright afternoon sun reflected on the glass. There was crying in the background. Large, belting sobs and more pops.
The camera shot changed. A woman was standing by a window. She was looking out at the car as it rocked slightly. She turned to the phone on the wall.
She picked it up and dialed the office, as the car rocked once more.
Chapter Twelve
a sleepy sleeper
sleeps some more
and the blues seeps in
and the mirror will show
what we all know
the blood and sloppy gore
Jordan ran down the street. She heard glass break behind her, but didn't turn. She was no more interested in what might or would be happening in the darkness outside the streetlight's cascade, than she was about high school politics. She was above the shake and shiver of the spooks in the night.
If only for the moment, she thought. She turned as she reached Mitchell Street. She stood at the stop sign and looked down it's length. She saw a few restaurants and the movie theater, but none of those suited her needs. A thought came.
Driving along Coleman. They had passed the pizza place and something else.
The H-E-B! She turned and began to run down Mitchell, crossing over quickly to the right side of the road. She ran past the deserted lawns and sidewalks. The closed strip malls on the corner of suburban sprawl. She ran and she thought about the man.
She had been in his head, she thought. She must have. Either that or she was having some fantastic hallucinations.
Maybe all of this is a hallucination. No, she thought. That woman had touched her shoulder. She had jumped from it. Maybe she had hallucinated it, but then the other two must have as well. Three people having similar, if not the exact same hallucination? Yeah, sure, she thought. The next thing, I'll believe it was the swoon theory. The woman had only fainted and fallen in red paint.
She could be crazy, she pondered. I mean, Fight Club, Brazil, Hide and Seek, The Machinist, American Psycho; how many times had she seen the Schizophrenic Opt Out? The screen writer needed a way to explain the sequence of events that had been shaping and changing the characters in the story and there it was. He or she was insane. Seeing people, inventing possibilities. It was all in the character's head. Albeit some of those movies are ranked among the greats, so maybe there was a line of truth written into the storyline. Maybe, there's always a maybe conjoined to the “What if...”.
So maybe she was crazy and she had invented Ed and Amanda as sides to her disjointed personality.
She hoped so.
Otherwise, she thought. There is something bad cooking in this small town. Blue Velvet eat your heart out.
Amanda panted at Ed's side. He looked at her as they ran down the block towards the stop sign. He wondered if Jordan had gone this way. If she had looked up at the water tower, it's eagle bathed in red light from the water tower edges. The lights were meant to ward off planes, but they couldn't help but add a morbid effect to the mural. The eagle was now all reds and gray/blacks. It was more of something, Ed thought. Not menacing, it was an eagle after all. But it exerted a more surreal affect on the traveler.
The closest thing he could think of was the feeling one has when watching an old film. Think Casablanca or The Lady Vanishes. The sort of feeling that things are more than they seem, if only because everything is black, white, and gray. It seemed almost as if that without the color, things were hidden. That even the black and the white didn't tell the truth because they hid things which might otherwise stand out. Yellows become white and dark reds are black. The shine and glimmer of black lips may seem in that way, one makes the assumption of dark red, but what if the color is actually black. That changes everything. Not everything is as it is naturally, it's all forced into this world of black and gray, and presented as normal.
That was it, Ed reasoned. The eagle seemed to be so covered in the red that it was hiding something under it. The black and red covered what was really there.
Amanda continued to pant and breathe hard. All the while, worrying about what Jordan might have found in the night alone. They had already seen two sociopaths, what's to say there weren't more to be found enjoying the night air? She wondered what had happened with the man and the knife.
She looked at Ed, he breathed deeply and often. He looked up and then back down at the path. Amanda looked over her right shoulder. Her eyes ran and climbed their way up the cold steel of the water tower. The reached the top and a shiver ran over her. She saw the eagle and it seemed to represent the night.
The night was red and full of malicious intent.
She saw that and looked down as Ed had a moment ago. She looked forward as they neared the stop sign on the corner of Abrahamsen and Goodwin. They saw lights flashing and between them, their hearts sank so low that the chasm could have been an infinite abyss. They reached the sign and looked past it to the block lying ahead of them. Ambulances and police cars sat against the curb. Patiently empty, their lights swooping through the shadows in rythmic time.
It was then that Ed looked back. Only briefly, but it was enough. He saw the road behind them, long and black. The night sky towering over the trees lining the base of its incomprehensible expanse. He saw a dim light a ways back. His mind played like a bird. It neared the doorway to the stop sign. It rested on the metal bar of the door, seeing the scene of the woman on her side. The door on the far side open and black. It lifted itself off the handle and turned. It moved slowly in the blindingly dark night. It finally landed by a corpse of a small man who lay in a small black puddle. His mind walked down off the neck, flipped over once and pulled in over itself.
And back to Ed looking down at the cops. Ed began to notice the sweat on his upper lip and across the top of his brow. He thought of the cops driving down the pavement to the little gas station store. They might not notice the woman on the ground in the store at first. But anyone at eye level would be able to see her from at least thirty feet away. Her blood trailing out from her head across the linoleum. Then if they went down the street or maybe saw the shine from the blood, they would find the gardener. Maybe in some sort of happy, hallucinatory world, they might not find them until down came. They would find the man surely, and then the woman in due process. And then the questions would come. The neighbors would be questioned for what they heard. Some might mention screaming, some might not have clue. Ed thought of the cars slowing to drive by the scene. He had always been on the other side of the tape. He wondered where he would be at dawn. He looked at the scene and the policemen and wondered what would become of him, Amanda, and Jordan by morning. He shivered at the thought of Jordan being alone someone being attacked my some madman. He turned to Amanda.
Amanda stood very solidly in place. Now that they had stopped, she seemed to be rooted. Fatigue and coming down from the adrenaline induced high had made her feel very tired. She saw the cops and thought that maybe they would be the way out. Maybe she could get home and back into normalcy and safety. She pictured herself walking up to one of the police officers. A wrinkle crossed her brow. She thought of what she would need to get the cop's attention. She could tell him that she couldn't find her friend, but that would probably fall on deaf ears. The only way that she could possibly get the guy's attention, would be to mention more fatalities in the general vicinity. But that would raise too many questions. They would probably just tell her that they would have her friend picked up and then take her in for interrogation. She didn't like the thought of that. She would have to give Ed up as a murderer and then try and explain everything else that had happened previous to that. Not to mention that she hadn't the foggiest what happened to the man and the knife, but if the way he reacted to the woman was any indication...
She shook the thought from her head and looked up.
Ed was looking at her.
“What do you wanna do?”
He looked at her. She looked over at the cops and back Ed.
“We need to find Jordan, I don't think they will be much help,” she said firmly. She looked back at him. He nodded.
“Let's go then,” He looked down at the cops.
“Which way,” he said turning back to her.
“We might as well find out what's up, at least, what's the worst that could happen?”
Chapter 13
Tv and the human mind
Ed's father watched the screen fade to black after the woman's hand punched the numbers on the telephone. The screen flashed and the camera showed a man's back, bent over a desk. The desk was mostly tidy, but with a few minor effects here and there. The largest of these was a television that sat dominating the desks wooden top. It sat lifeless, the screen black, reflecting the man. The man's hand ran through his hair. The hair was short and blond. Mitch, he guessed. At the thought, it seemed, the camera moved slowly forward. When it was right up to Mich's back. The shot cut to the side of Mitch's face which sat calm and demur, if a little cold, with his hands atop the back of his head.
Mitch sat back and looked up at the wall. The wall had a calendar that showed semi nude woman smiling and looking generally seductive (if such a statement is possible where the adult male is concerned). Mitch looked up the wall, at the posters and small pieces of paper with numbers and dates and the such on them.
The scene changed. The camera showed Mitch's back tail lights glowing red as the car rolled backward out of the space. The camera showed the woman as she looked out the window. She put the phone back. She watched the car pull out of the space and turn. It was almost out of the office when the glass doors to the office opened. The principal walked out quickly. The camera showed the man's face. His eyes were squinted against the sun. The looked out at the car as it turned right down the street. The man turned and looked toward the teacher's classroom. She looked back at him and then turned away, sitting behind her desk. She sighed and looked up at the camera. She seemed to say, what now?
The scene was back in the man's basement. He looked up at the clock.
5:27
He looked forward at the TV. He turned to the camcorder sitting next to it. He pulled out a cable from behind the TV and brought it around to the camera. He looked up. This time the camera showed the door. It was closed, Mitch got and turned the lock though. He sat back down. The camera watched his fingers as the pushed the cable input into camera's depths. The man turned the camcorder on, the small green light blinking as it started. The man turned on the TV.
The television showed only static at first. The man reached over and clicked the play button. The screen lit up showing a dark, enclosed room.
The camera now sunk into the screen, changing the scene.
The room was cold and damp. It was very small, but full of people. Men mostly, about ten or so. The stood about, drinking and talking softly. The weren't dressed in black, but they weren't the Mickey Mouse club either. The looked at one and another grimly. They seemed to be expecting something to transpire. They laughed now and then, but it was quick short burst. A young man stood off to one side. He was pretty good looking. He had a big grin, which he was flashing as he sipped slowly. He was doing most of the laughing. He seemed to be strung just as taut as the others, but more cognizant of what to expect. A group stood around him, all of them jerkily asking him different things. He gave short answers to them all. These followed my a small flash of the grin and a wink.
Suddenly a hush fell over the group. They all turned to the man. His smiled flashed them all. They all stood, back to the camera. The man front and center. Smile in place.
Jordan put her hands over her head to breath as she stood in the parking lot of the strip mall adjacent to the grocery store. She was on the asphalt, gasping for air. The glow off the lot's lights seemed so dim compared to the glaringly bright ones farther along. She looked at each of the shops in turn. The first was a sewing machine repair shop, Threads. The sign showed a needle and thread, the words spelled out in stitches. The next two spaces next to it were taken by a 99 cent store called Super Thrifty. Under the sign and in the windows, where a number of signs, specifying its “Everything for 99 cents!” nature. Farther along was a frozen yogurt place and pizza restaurant in turn. The strip ended after them, becoming perpendicular with a small brick wall. The wall was about two feet tall, the H-E-B being on the raised side of the wall. A small ramp led between the two.
Jordan stood and turned to look down the street. She saw blue and red lights flashing against the building on what must be Abrahamsen. She thought of the woman who dropped the tray. She hoped the old man was okay. She had last seen him in front of the door, between her and the woman.
She stood musing at the thought of what might have occurred between the man and the woman after her departure. She did not notice the lights behind her, and indeed all along the strip mall side of the lot, begin to click out. One by one.
Amanda and Ed started from the stop sign and jogged down the street. They stayed on the sidewalk opposite the squad cars. Amanda tried not to look over as they made their calm and impossibly slow way down the road. She could only imagine what impossibly grotesque scene had happened in the old folks home. Maybe it was the night. Maybe everyone was just going nuts tonight. Who knows? Maybe some old lady had tried to bite the throat out of another shut in. Or one of the nurses had started pulling the plugs on the respirators keeping folks going. She could see some maniac woman creeping slowly from room to room. Pressing pillows to people's faces. Opening their throats as they moaned and gagged. Would it surprise her to hear that that was exactly it?
No, not in the slightest. It would be continuing the general theme of the evening.
But when they neared and passed the building, all she saw was a woman weeping, her hands fluttering around her face as paramedics put blankets on her. They comforted her as she sobbed and whimpered. Other than that the only other thing that seemed out of place was a man standing by a window. His eyes seemed void and dark as he looked out. As she looked at her, he winked. His head then turned jerkily back to its original position.
Chapter 14
Ed looked over too, but quickly looked away. He didn't want to think about the cops and what might become of him when they found the man in the street. He jogged a little faster as they passed the ambulance and the two squad cars. He glanced sideways, seeing the cars empty. He registered the shotguns between the seats. What was he thinking? This was the real world, not some sort of horror film. This wasn't the Night of the Living Dead! He wasn't going to just walk away scotch free from what had happened in the gas station mart. He kicked himself. Why had he reacted so forcefully! He shuddered to think of the repercussions of his actions.
He forced the thoughts from his head. He told himself that there was something going on tonight. They needed to find Jordan and figure out what's going on. He felt he had hope that the answer might help. He hoped it would save him. Otherwise, he was a 18 year old serial killer. He shoved his mind into the present and ran on. He felt eyes on the back of his skull. He turned back to the scene. But the lights just flashed and the people just aged.
Jordan stood under one of the street lamps. She closed her eyes. She heard a clicking. She opened them and looked around. She was in a singular pool of lamplight. An island in a midnight sea. She thought of Princess Bride absurdly. She thought of the screeching eels. She shivered and realized hers was the only piece of earth she could see. She might be alone on a small circle, in the center of a precipice.
She shook her head. Her imagination had had too much for one night. But where were the lights.
She heard a cough. She looked up at the light to make sure it was still on. It was, but it didn't do much to comfort her.
She heard steps and a man stepped into her little oasis.
He was a little shorter than her. His hair was short and thin, the front section already receded to reveal a gleaming scalp. His head was lowered, as if he were looking at the ground for answers to all life's questions. He looked up and his eyes gleamed. They twinkled. They shone a malignancy Jordan hadn't ever previously experienced. He looked like a man about to cry to her. He wasn't smiling though.
He wore a jump suit, not unlike the one adorning the knife wielding maniac. It seemed lighter, though in the lamplight, the exactness of her color differentiation was questionable. He looked at her. He seemed to be looking through her skull. He looked like an animal that hadn't been fed in a good long while looking at a meal.
He blinked and looked at her, really this time.
“Jordan,” his voice said. It was cool and a husky. Like a voice that once had been charming, but hadn't been used for such a purpose in a long time. Like an opera singer who shouted too much, turning what was once a gift, to a rasp. A rustle of wet leaves.
She was so caught up in the strange man and his miraculous appearance, that she failed to notice him waiting for her to return the greeting.
He gritted his teeth and spoke up.
“Jordan.”
She looked at him, almost unbelieving at the thought of a conversation.
“Y-yes?” she said shakily.
He looked at her.
“Jordan, you need to focus. I need all of you here right now, alright.”
She shook her head, clearing it. She looked up at him, paying attention now.
“Good,” he turned more towards her now, moving closer and looking at her face and features. He was testing the waters, but she didn't have anywhere to go really. Out of the light? Fogettaboutit.
She squared herself and stood up straight. He was a few inches shorter and this gave her confidence a much needed boost.
“Now, Jordan, I need you to listen very,” he drew out the word carefully, to punctuate its importance, “ carefully to what I have to say right now...”
“Who are you!” she cried.
He looked alarmed and then annoyed. So much for listening carefully.
“We'll get to that, just wait a bit now, kay?”
“No, who are you and what the hell has been going on?”
The man smiled and looked at her, trying to cling to some semblance of patience and tact for the situation.
“I'll explain that in good time, but for now we need to go over one thing. While we can, kay?”
She looked at him speechless. What else can I do? Her look said.
He gritted a bit and looked at her like a bug.
“Good, now I have a small request, a little favor mostly. A proposition at the most!”
He smiled at her. It wasn't vastly pleasant.
“No,” Jordan said clearly.
The man's face twisted and returned.
“What?!” he spat forcefully.
“Whatever it is, NO! I'm not putting up with this shit!” She glared at the man.
“Do you have any idea what kind of evening I've had?” She gestured upwards. Her hand gestured to the angels who most certainly must have seen what had transpired. They got it, the creep didn't.
She mustered within herself, directing her frustration at the balding man.
“And then you! With your enigmatic appearance and fucking favors! A proposition at most!”
She spoke this last bit with vehement cynisism. The man looked calm, his face wasn't flushed or red, but then again you don't get a lot of that with the dead.
Her mouth opened to launch another assault at whatever manhood this short little man could have.
But he smiled again and she stopped. Her mouth hung there, open and staring, like her eyes were.
The man's teeth had been replaced with fangs. His mouth was filled with rows and rows of them. His eyes gleamed at her, and his teeth shone.
“Shut up, bitch,” he said quietly and very clearly, considering the newfound dental equipment.
His face contorted now, but not like his teeth. His flesh seemed to sag and pull down from his face. Turning his smile to a frown as the veins in his neck stood out.
“Shut up and listen!” He said with his jaws closed, the flesh now tearing. She watched in horror as the man's skin and hair pulled apart. The flesh was pink and wet underneath, like new skin. It seemed to be slowly melting off, scolding the flesh underneath as it passed its dribbling way to the ground. It was almost like a candle melting to reveal a newborn baby inside. The thing underneath was pink and hairless. Blood seeped out of its pores as the skin dripped over them. The eyes were dark pits. They reflected a distorted image of herself back at her.
As the skin made its way farther and farther off of the monster's body (for that was surely what it was), Jordan felt the overwhelming urge to flee. To run from the terrible thing. She steeled herself. She knew there was no where to go. They were stranded together on a plateau over a void. If she ran, she would surely be lost to it.
It's skin continued to shed, in its strange sort of fashion. It revealed hands that were a raw pink like the face, with small, claw-like bone protrusions at their ends. She found herself staring at the creature in disgust and pity now. Any genitals it might have had were long burned away, as was much of the skin covering the legs and abdomen. The feet, however, remained. They were scorched raw like the hands and face. They seemed to be bleeding from underneath, as if bits of glass were embedded in them.
She looked back at his face now, staring into the strange, mirrored eyes peering out of a skull that now showed islands of white bone in the sea of charred tissue.
Jordan looked at him, and he at her. He turned and looked over his shoulder, out into the void, the abyss. His head cocked slightly, seeming to listen with ears, she now saw, were melted over. They looked like pink oval condoms attached to the apparitions head.
He continued in that way for thirty seconds. Jordan knew this because she was counting her breathes to try and calm herself down. He turned and sneered at her, or so it seemed. Without lips, his face had no concept of expression.
She heard a small noise. One she had heard before. The memory buzzed at her ear, annoyingly out of reach.
He glared at her a moment longer, while she struggled with her audio deja vu. Then his skin seemed to suck itself back upon itself. He was once again the man in the jumpsuit. His eyes twinkled at her. He stepped back out of the light.
She closed her eyes as the hand clutching at her heart seemed to disappear. The tension drained from the her as quickly as the darkness itself absolved around her. It's funny that you don't know your tense until the moment has passed. People suddenly catch themselves with jaws clenched or hands balled to fists. She dropped to her knees and fell back onto her butt. She sighed out to herself. She heard the small noise once more.
She remembered it faintly. She opened her eyes suddenly.
She thought of the small knife wielding man. It was the soft “pat” that she heard. Except it was more than one. It seemed a cacophony in her ears. She almost passed out right then and there. She saw shadows coming from the far side of the strip mall. But that wasn't what almost affected a fainting spell, it was the relief when Amanda and Ed came around the corner, attached to them.
Chapter 15
The things that grin in the dark
they live very close to our hearts
In a closet sized cell
Very deep within ourselves
Ed's father twitched in his chair as he moved through the dream. He snored loudly to the empty room. Both the glasses in the kitchen sat watching him as he jerked slightly. He had their undivided attention.
Steven sat up in his chair and gazed at the flickering television screen, the men milling about each other. The excited atmosphere seeping out of the screen and infected him. He watched now, rapt in attention, as the man in the middle called for silence. The man nodded to two men. These men guffawed to themselves slightly, but were quickly silenced by a look from the man. They nodded begrudgingly, and made their way up the stairs, that the camera now swiveled to reveal. A man nearby looked back, past the camera. Most likely to the man running the show.
The ring master, Steven thought.
The guy nodded quickly and flicked the light switch nearby. The room was black now. A thin laser of light drew a horizontal line across the walls in the stairwell. Shadows passed in front of the door, chopping the light. Suddenly the door opened and light spilled into and over the camera, wiping the screen in light. Smudgy black blobs filled made wide chasms in the blank white.
Steven heard mutters and moans. He heard dragging and sobbing. His stomach dropped out from under him as the door closed again and the screen went dark. The noises continued for a few moments.
A light clicked on. The camera had piveted back towards the middle of the room, where a single bulb hung illuminating the floor. The scene was covered by the blobs of men in the camera's view. A hand came from thin air to push the grunts apart. There in front of the men, the smiling man behind, was a naked man.
The man sat in a chair, his arms hand cuffed behind him, the metal sparkling, sending dots of light back towards the Ring Master. The camera zoomed on the man's face. The face was pristine. Unblemished by any skin defect, the man wore a gag but seemed otherwise unharmed. The man's face was contorted into wrinkles and canyons with his sobbing. His eyes pinched tightly closed, trying to wake up. Denial of the situation at hand.
The modern man is a strange creature. In some parts, you have men who claim to be strong and courageous, but anytime anything goes wrong call the cops. These men call their parents when they are in trouble. They ask what to do, take a poll, examine public opinion. They are a section of the human race that has gone so far that the survival instinct is diminished to the need to procreate. The man was a perfect model. He wasn't fighting back. He wasn't even making an effort to assess the situation or deal with the idea that he might soon leave this world. He sat naked in a chair, wishing this wasn't real, wishing he was in his bed, or in a hospital in coma, or crazy. He was romanticizing the situation into that of a movie or a soap opera. He expected to be un-gagged and asked to explain something, anything. Then he would give a grand speech, exemplifing his worth and desire to survive or join. He expected a chance to convince the men surrounding him, that this was a mistake. They had grabbed the wrong guy, they should return or they will surely go to prison. Now did they want that! This man dreamed that the police were already looking for him, that they would be arriving shortly to shoot everyone in the room, but him, of course. Well, maybe one in the shoulder or arm. Just so he could show the his wife and kids.
“I survived those bastards!” he'd say, “They had know idea how important I was, well, am really!”
The camera watched this man sit there sobbing quietly. It watched the man look up at the men around him, his eyes widening. They looked back at him. Silently, they assessed him. He heaved his head up and looked around at the men, moaning his pleas. He looked at each in turn. His eyes jumped around the room of the stolid pack. No longer were there any individuals here. It was the pack at hunt. The man's eyes finally came onto that of the camera's. They looked deep into its depths, pleading, tears brimming around the wrinkled creases surrounding the glassy eyes. The camera zoomed out, show in the laughing man directly behind the man. The man stepped forward, past the chair and looked down at the naked sacrifice. The man reached down and pulled the gag off of the face.
“Oh Nate! Sorry we grabbed the wrong guy!”
The group laughed loudly. The smiling man smiled and the naked man's face shrunk inward as a tear cut its way down his cheek.
Jordan sat and looked as her friends made their way toward her. Infinite relief raced through her body, beating out from her heart at the sight before her. She looked at the pole and her surroundings. The thing, man, demon, whatever; it had retreated. She didn't know why, but she was glad of for her reprieve from it's company. The burnt flesh the short temper of it. She wondered if it was a demon or man. It had the personality traits of a sexist man, a bastard of ghost. A spirit that disdained being diprived of what it desires. She sat and watched Ed and Amanda draw closer. It flashed in her memory. She searched for some link as to what it was, what it had wanted, what everything in this cold dark night meant. She wasn't afraid she realized, she was angry, but she wasn't afraid. A ghost she thought as the two other corners in their triangle jogged the last few yards. A ghost, she thought again and then again. A ghost.
Ed's mother and sister had retrieved their groceries. Interesting enough to the plot at hand, their store of choice was that of the H-E-B. Making them very close to the action in the small town warzone. They were on there with their groceries, next in line. They danced the ballet of the supermarket with class of a boxer and the speed of a ADHD kid with a slurpee. Her daughter bopped and weaved in time, following her mother, twisting down the aisles. They danced past the other small-town-a-nites, all smiles. The groceries they had were pretty irrelevant considering the line of thought the book is following so far.
“Hey”
“Hey”
That pretty much covered the introduction.
“So what's new?” Ed looked down and extended his hand.
Jordan grabbed it and pulled herself onto her shaky standing position.
“This is just a shitty night guys!” She said.
Amanda and Ed looked at each other. Nothing really passed between them, it was just reassuring to see each other and not a neon green elephant or a bar full of dinosaurs.
Jordan rubbed at her temples and ran her hands through her hair. It stuck out at even odder angles than it had previously.
“Are you alright?” Ed said this and began to examine her. She looked down at herself, not because she didn't know she wasn't hurt, just to be sure she didn't have tentacles.
She looked at Ed and made a small screeching noise in her throat. Both he and Amanda looked up sharply. She looked at Amanda and pointed at Ed's throat.
“What?!”
Jordan looked to Amanda for help.
“You got a compact?”Amanda shook her dreads.
“What?”
“Well...”
“Well...What!?”
Amanda spoke up with the explanation.
“Well, you remember the woman who attacked you? Of course, she was so easy to forget...hhhha?”
Ed's eyebrow was rising steadily, a gauge of his bullshit tolerance level.
“Well, I don't know if you remember, but she was up to her eye liner in blood and when she grabbed you...an...”
Ed's eyebrow dropped and his eyes bulged suddenly.
“There's blood all over my neck isn't there.” His voice was a low and gravely with the effort he was exerting to not blow chunks. Worship at the porcelain altar. Technicolor yawn.
The girls nodded to each other knowingly. It was as if they had just convinced Ed not to by that truly horrid dark blue paisley shirt. They felt accomplished. He felt sick.
He looked at them and his mind raced.
“Wh-why didn't you say something 'Manda?”
“I didn't notice it...”
“Ugggghhh.” He rolled his eyes and swayed.
“You alright?” The girls asked, reaching out to support him. Careful not to touch his neck, of course.
He looked at the two of them, then directly at Amanda. His eyes dived into hers with wild abandon.
“We jogged by cops.”
She sighed heavily at this. All she could do was shrug.
“Well we didn't know, but now we can do something about it.”
Jordan's eyes bugged now.
“Speak of the devil...”
They followed Jordan's gaze to the road they had run down. The houses were lighting up red and blue.
Ed started to walk toward the H-E-B.
“We need to go! Now!” Panic was a tangy flavor in the pitch and tone of his voice.
He backpedaled and then turned. He looked back and watched the girls begin to run after him. He had a sense of deja vu from the nights beginning. But the panic was different this time. Exclusive. It was just for Ed.
Oh God, Cops, Ed thought. Some where else in the world some one his age probably thought the same thing.
Chapter 16
Steven couldn't pull himself away.
The camera focused on the man's face as the men laughed. It watched the man's relief melt into a deeper more horrid sorrow. Laughter was worse. If the men had stood quietly or had muttered or been serious, he might have survived. But laughter.
Laughter meant that all of this: Basements, kidnapping, gagging, probable torture, and most likely execution; was fun. That these guys were having fun. That this was all a gas. That whatever they were planning on doing or not doing or for God's sake, undoing; they planned on enjoying it.
Where one man plays video games, another beats his wife unconcious.
Where one man collects coins, another collects dead cats.
Where one man goes to the movies, another man makes a grown man scream.
The camera pulled out to include the Ring Master.
The Ring Master stopped laughing and turned to Nate. He smiled.
“So we'll let you go now Nate, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?”
The gagged man nodded vehemently between sobs.
“Or maybe you could join our group? Mmmm?”
The Ring Master cocked an eyebrow at the slab of suburbanite cuffed to a chair. The slab nodded so hard that he rocked the chair slightly.
“Well then, we can begin initiation now, if you like?” He gestured to the group.
“All members are accounted for, right?”
A man called from the back.
“Mark's upstairs on cleanup.”
“Well bring him the fuck down here, man!” The crowd laughed again.
The Ring Master turned back to the man. Somewhere a cat was playing with a wounded bird.
“Let's begin shall we!”
A man in a dark blue hooded sweatshirt came forward now. He handed the smiling Ring Master something. Behind the camera, an engine turned on and a whooshing sound began to come from the something. The Ring Master turned towards the camera and presented the offending item.
It was an air powered nail gun.
The man in the chair squirmed now, moving this way and that, as the air compressor's motor pulsed.
The Ring Master nodded and two men came forward. They were thick men wearing black t-shirts and leather gloves. They grabbed the man's legs and held them down.
Slowly a pair of arms came over the top of the man and held him down. The man made shrieking noises behind his gag as the men tightened him down. Holding his body in place, even as every muscle the man had never used came to life in rebellion.
The man pulsated.
The camera showed what muscles could be seen tense and darken under the strain. The man's perfect skin turned red and veins stood out as he fought against his bonds and captors.
The smiling man walk to one side now, so the camera could have an unobstructed view. He looked at tow men standing in the foreground and they stepped aside. The camera moved forward now.
The physical thing moved, and the camera zoomed out and then refocused on the man.
Once in place, the Ring Master smiled and put the nail gun to the top of Nate's right knee cap. Nate's eyes squeezed shut at the contact of the cold metal. Every muscle tensed
foomp.
The man shrieked and twisted as the men holding him stepped back. He twisted and shook and spasmed. Blood ran down his knee from the spike standing out of it. His knee cap was pushed forward, out of place. The man's face was red and shining with tears. He seemed to be gagging. Water ran under the gag as he vomited into it.
One of the men pulled the knot loose so he wouldn't drown. Brownish yellow bile streamed onto the man's bare chest.
The Ring Master stood by looking at the camera. He looked around the room.
With a sudden and unexpected quickness, he turned and placed the gun against the front of the scewed knee cap. There was a crack and laughter as and the nail split the bone and drove into the joint.
Nate sputtered and began to scream.
Jordan and Amanda chased after Ed. They ran into the glare of the hallogen lights that blanketed the parking lot in whiteness, gleaming of of parked cars. Ed stopped once he had reached the light and leaned against a light pole for support. He turned back to the girls.
Jordan looked at him and saw that he was afraid. She turned to Amanda.
“What happened?”
Amanda looked at her quietly.
“After you left the mart or whatever, Ed showed up...”
Jordan looked her, fearing the worst.
“The woman attacked him, so he sort of stabbed her.”
Jordan inhaled sharply. She looked at Ed and the line around his neck. He didn't want to get caught by the cops, she thought. He doesn't want to go to jail or prison. She saw the fear in his eyes and it wasn't fear of ghosts or ghoulies or such. He didn't want the rest of his life dictated by a crazy woman. He looked down as the approached. She walked the last few feet.
“What do we do, Ed? What happened?”
He looked at her and looked back down. The gesture spoke of the wordlessness of the situation.
“Is that your Mom's car?” Amanda asked.
Ed turned around and squinted across the parking lot to the blue Chevy Capris parked halfway into the space in front of it. It was definitely his mother's.
He looked back at them.
“Yeah, that's it. You can tell by the terrible parking.”
He let out a small weak laugh. Jordan giggled shallowly. Amanda looked around at the way they had come.
She didn't see anymore lights in the alley. The cars must have passed on their way to the station, which was on the otherside of town. She sighed, letting the air flow slowly out of her. She counted the seconds and breathed again, turning back.
She looked at the group and then the car.
“So where's your mom?”
“I don't know Amanda, it is H-E-B's parking lot...” Ed said blandly.
Amanda stared back at him.
“Well then if you're done being a wuss about running...” She said.
He looked at her.
“You wanna race churro butt?”
She laughed.
“I wouldn't want to hurt your ego!”
He smiled.
“Better knock it off before I punch your first born child...”
This train of thought continued as they made their way to the store.
Somewhere in the dark, something waited for them to come out.
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