Month: February 2011

This post is part of the online serial novel “Future Crash” if you are looking for other chapters click here.
For other projects on this website such as metal working click here.
Feedback is greatly appreciated. Future Crash the novel updates Mon/Wed/Fri.

“Are you out of your fuckin mind Rain? You can’t really be thinking about listening to this freak!” Marla’s forked tongue was visible when she screamed.

Rain was already on her way to the door. “Marla, listen I know he sounds like a freak, and I know he is strange but he saved my… he has been right before and well I need to get out of town anyway.” Rain had made up her mind.

“You should leave too.” I gestured towards Marla. It was hard to speak; my jaw had seized up like a rusty gear.

“Quentin, knows things.” Rain was making an awkward attempt to defend me. It made me feel strange.

“Oh really, like how to freak out and start screaming on my couch? Things like that?” Marla was dubious, dubious at best.

“Marla, you know I love you, we have a great time together,” a knowing smile appeared on Marla’s face, “but I am going to do this, and I think you should seriously consider taking a trip west, if only for a couple of days, what could it hurt?” She shrugged and continued to smile at Marla.

Marla smiled back, “Well listen, just take care of yourself, ok.” The look in her eye spoke of lust and love.

Rain already had her bag on her back, pausing briefly to make sure the small package was inside. Thinking of Rain and Marla tangled in a heap of naked tattooed limbs made me blush, I quickly thought of something else.

“You coming?” Rain was at the door.

I stood up and started to walk. I was almost to the door when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“If you hurt her, I will find you and I will cut off your balls and shove them up your ass.” The calm way Marla described the violence left no doubt that she was serious. Marla was the kind of girl that didn’t lie about this sort of thing.

We were several blocks away before I realized that we were walking back towards the T station. I paused momentarily.

Rain seemed to notice my apprehension, “We have to go back to my place, we have to get my bike, and then we have to get you one too.”

“Are you sure? I mean can’t we like steal a bike or something?”

“You don’t steal bikes, it is Karmically impure to even speak of such things.” Rain took bicycle ownership seriously.

“Listen Quentin, you said we need to walk or ride, we sure as shit ain’t walking to Ohio, so we get my wheels.” She looked at me, waiting for an answer.

Did I have a better plan? Not really.

“OK.”

Once again to the T, once again through the sweaty hot underground, more horrible noise, this time up an endless flight of stairs. I surprised myself by making it the whole way back without having to stop. Was I getting stronger, or was it the adrenaline. Were we really going to go back to the place that just this morning had been ransacked by a bunch of angry mobsters?

When we got a couple of blocks away from Rains place she stopped walking.

“Ok listen, not to be mean Quentin, but you’re not exactly in top physical shape right now.” She wasn’t being cruel, zombies had better constitution.

“So here is what we are going to do, you are going to go over to that office building and go up to the top floor.” She pointed several blocks down the road towards a tall glass building.

“I am going to go back to my place, get my bike and some stuff.”

A simple enough plan

“You wait for me on the very top floor. Trust me.”

The strange thing is I did trust her. I don’t know when it had happened but I was starting to think of Rain as my friend.

Rain walked with me towards the tall glass building, going so far as to lead me inside to a bank of elevators. The brass plate that held the floor numbers above the doors had tiny scroll work leaves and vines. The air was cool inside. The carpet felt strange under my feet, like it was made of tiny bits of moss stacked up just right, like you might sink in at any moment.

“Be right back.” She grinned and pressed the button for the top floor in the elevator. The doors shut with a silent motion.

The elevator shot swiftly upwards, producing an uncomfortable feeling in my spine. The increased gravity too much for my fragile bones. The doors opened with a gentle ding and I walked out into a large empty space. The top floor of this building was still under construction. Several saw horses and sheets of drywall sat near one corner, white dust clung to the floor where a recent sheet had been sawed in half. The air smelled like saw dust, and the pungent smell of industrial cleaners.

I walked to the windowed wall and realized that I could see straight down towards Rains apartment. Far below a miniature Rain was walking cautiously towards the back of her place. I could just make out her black skirt pushing out around her body. From this height she looked like a moving doll.

I watched her until she turned the corner and was gone from my view. The time dragged on for what seemed like forever. My arm pits started to get moist with nervous sweat, what was taking her so long?

I was just about to turn and head back for the elevator when I saw a miniature Rain this time on bicycle shoot out from the parking lot behind her building. She went right over the curb like it wasn’t their. She was followed closely by two men in dark clothing. She was already standing up on her bike, pumping her legs, swinging the bike out sideways, sacrificing stability for speed.

The men seemed to realize in unison the futility of chasing her on foot and ran back the way they had came, moments later a large dark car, came rocketing out of the parking lot. It was the kind of car you saw in old movies, wide enough to take up most of the lane, and with little fins on the back. That kind of car that had recently become very expensive to fuel.

They quickly made up the distance Rain had put between them. Her legs pumped like pistons, pushing her tiny bike forward keeping a short distance on the whale of a car coming up behind her. Ahead was a group of cars waiting at a red light.

She didn’t even slow down. She melted through the intersection like water through a sieve. It was dark messenger voodoo, the cars didn’t exist to her she was pure movement. The giant caddie behind her swerved to one side and put two wheels up on the curb, firing both hub caps off like cannons.

The mobsters made it through the intersection into the empty lane ahead. With nothing in their way they would soon overtake their prey. Rain looked behind her and I imagined she smiled when she saw the large car so close behind her. I imagine she smiled because of what she did next.

This post is part of the online serial novel “Future Crash” if you are looking for other chapters click here.
For other projects on this website such as metal working click here.
Feedback is greatly appreciated. Future Crash the novel updates Mon/Wed/Fri.

“That’s strange?” Oh no I was talking to myself again.

I was floating, my vision blurry, like swimming in cotton candy. I had felt this way once when I was a child. As a boy I had been prone to chronic ear infections. My ears had gotten so bad that the doctors had to put tubes into my ears. The tubes would drain my ears, in theory preventing buildup of bacteria, or whatever.

The doctors had explained that they would put me to sleep and that I wouldn’t feel a thing. The black mask was placed over my face and I was told to count backwards from 10, I never made past 8.

When I woke up the world spun like a top every time I opened my eyes. There are tiny hairs inside your ear. These hairs live inside a bath of fluid and keep you balanced. Disrupting the hairs sends incorrect signals to the brain, and your brain tells the rest of you that the world is spinning in a rapid clockwise motion. Human signal processing is a lot like a computer, garbage in garbage out.

I was enjoying this floating, hazy existence when I achieved a sudden clarity. This clarity was accompanied by a sudden and sharp sensation localized in the region of my face.

“Hey, what is that?” Talking to yourself can be a very unrewarding exercise.

Oh, I know what that is…

“Ahhh!” My face was on fire, all my attention focuses intently on the fist that had just slammed into it. My hands came up to ward off future blows, Rain stood above me in a fighter’s stance. Her right hand clenched into a fist. She looked ready to hit me again.

“What did you do that for?” The pain had begun spreading down my neck.

“Sorry, you were screaming your lungs out, and wouldn’t stop, Marla suggested I hit you.” Rain unclenched her hand but stood ready just in case.

“I didn’t tell you to deck him!”

“I only know one way to hit someone. Sorry.” Rain lowered her arms to her sides.

The realization of what had been going on right before my “episode” flooded back to me.

“Rain, we have to get out of this city, and we have to do it right now.” The words flew out of me. I stood and started to move towards the door.

“Hold on there scream boy, what the fuck are you talking about?” Marla stood in front of me blocking my way, she was shorter than me, but in my current state she could have knocked me over with a finger.

My brain was on fire, too many thoughts were firing at once, my words flowed out in a torrent of babble and mumbling. I stopped talking and put my hand to my face in order to rub my jaw. The maneuver reignited a small explosion of pain. Oddly enough the pain seemed to focus my thoughts into crystal clear objectiveness.

“Boston… Boston is not safe, I can’t tell you why, but I know that we have to leave, and we have to go to Ohio, we have to get to my moms house, and then… I don’t know what happens then but I know that much.” I had to squeeze my jaw to keep my mind clear; it brought tears to my eyes.

“Are you talking about, the hurricane. It’s only going to be a category 2, Boston is going to be fine.” Rain put both hands on my shoulders and forcibly sat me down.

“No, it is not going to be a cat 2, it’s going to be something else, and that’s not the only thing, so many people, oh my god…” I was loosing it again. I could feel the screaming welling up inside, I had to fight to keep myself under control. I looked up at Rain, doe eyed.

“I need you to do something for me.” God this was stupid. “I need you to hit me again.” I pleaded with my eyes.

“What the fuck, hit you?”

“Hit me!” I screamed, surprising even myself.

The girl could swing, the hit was fast and hard, knocking my head sideways, my brain immediately became clear as my jaw erupted in a blossom of pain.

“Thanks.” It was hard to talk, my jaw was starting to swell. “Rain, I know you hardly know me, and I know I have been acting like the biggest freak in the world, but you have to trust me. Boston, New York City, Washington DC, all of them are going to get slammed by these storms, but besides that something else is going to happen, something I can’t, ‘see’.” I emphasized the last word. Using the same tone I had used to explain to her why I knew she wanted to jump off the bridge.

“You saw this, like last time.” She looked concerned, and confused.

I nodded, and started to talk again when I was interrupted.

“You two are into some kinky ass shit!” Marla threw her head back and laughed. “I once had a boyfriend who wanted me to spank him, but I ain’t never seen nobody getting their kicks from getting jacked in the face.” Her expression was a mix of ammusment, and arousal, Marla was the kind of girl who was into this sort of thing.

Rain and I looked at her in unison, “We aren’t together, and this isn’t a sex thing Marla!” Rain spat out.

“Quentin has, well let’s just say he was right before.” She paused, thinking. “If we were going to get out of the city how would we do it?” She looked to me.

“We can’t drive, and we can’t take a bus or train or plane.” The pain and clarity was fading, but I didn’t think I could take another hit. “We should walk, or I guess ride bikes.” I felt stupid saying it, who rides their bike to Ohio, but it was what I had seen.

Rain looked down; the straps of her aviatrix helmet fell across both cheeks. She shuffled her feet, causing her black skirt to swish gently back and forth. A small lock of her hair escaped her helmet, she reached up and tucked it behind her ear.

She had her own reasons for getting the hell out of dodge. Did it really matter what kind of crazy I was blurting?

She looked to Marla, and back at me, her eyes reflecting the worry and emotion she felt inside.

“Fuck it. We are going to need some wheels.”

This post is part of the online serial novel “Future Crash” if you are looking for other chapters click here.
For other projects on this website such as metal working click here.
Feedback is greatly appreciated. Future Crash the novel updates Mon/Wed/Fri.

I turned to look at Rain blushing; the door opened a crack stopped by a thick security chain.

“Yea what is it?” Said a pair of dark eyes.

“Marla open this fuckin door, I really need to come in!” Rain screamed, pounding on the door. Had they followed us?

“Shit. Hi Rain. Wait a second; I need to put on some cloths.”

The sound of someone walking around was followed shortly by the soft metal slide of the chain being removed.

Marla opened the door and let us into her small apartment. It was cave like inside, the walls covered with dark tapestries interspersed with Type O Negative, Tool, and VNV Nation posters. The windows had been covered with foil.

Marla stood before us, one hip cocked out, hands on her midsection. She was dressed in an extra large white zombie t-shirt and little else. A cartoon zombie with a large X burned into its head stared back at us. Her bare legs where covered to mid thigh by the long black t-shirt. Her coal black hair, a series of thin dread locks, was pulled back into a single large tendril. Both arms were as covered with tattoos like Rain’s, I noticed several pieces that could have been by the same artist. Marla was the kind of girl that shaved off her eyebrows and drew them back on.

I stood awkwardly to one side as Rain explained why we were there.

“Fuck girl, you in some serious shit. Them Irish guys don’t fuck around when it comes to lending out money, especially now-n-days.” When she talked I could see that she had split her tongue. I had seen that on a website once. The tongue is split down the middle so that the end looks like a snake tongue.

“What the fuck is he staring at?” I looked down quickly, blushing even harder than I had before.

“Marla, Quentin, Quentin this is Marla.” Rain introduced us. “It’s a long story; can we stay at your place for a couple hours till things blow over?”

“Sure honey, you know you’re always welcome here.” She smiled.

Marla was apparently into the color black. Most things in her apartment were black, or a deep blood red. I sat on a black couch trying to stay awake. The stress of our flight from the Irish mob had worn me out.

Marla got us some water; mine came in a tiny mug with Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas on it. His skeletal arm made up the handle. She turned on the Television and handed me the remote. I turned to the local news channel. The main story was the fact that 4 hurricanes were currently in the Atlantic at the same time. They were all expected to hit the east coast in the next couple of days. There was no news about a couple of people forcefully kicking there way into any local apartments.

Rain and Marla talked about Rain’s problems. Marla didn’t seem to notice or care that when she sat down her black lace underwear showed. Her legs had long stitched tattooed along the outside, like she was a giant doll held together with string. I made sure to keep my attention on the news.

“I can’t go back to work. If they could find me at my place they will know where I work.”

“Maybe you can get out of town, your cousin in Cali?”

“Have you seen the price of a bus ticket? Now that gas is so expensive, I can’t afford that shit.”

“You have your bike”

CNN had stories about the likelihood that hurricane Martha, Ned, Ophelia, and Peter would slam into the entire east coast from Florida, to Maine all at once. They had graphics that looked like a bar graph, with the paths of each storm lined up in nice lines set to run into land in an orderly pattern. I flipped through the channels, Fox news was running a special on the “Terrorists in Our Midst” they were currently highlighting a couple of ELF members that had set a bunch of Hummers on fire in Oregon.

“I left it at the apartment, and besides what am I going to do ride to fuckin California?”

“Shit, girl I seen how you ride, you could do it.”

“Thanks, but there has got to be a way to reason with these people, maybe I could get them some of the money and then they would let me pay the rest back slowly…”

“How long are you overdue?” Marla placed a hand on Rain’s leg.

The home shopping network was selling air filter masks with hello kitty patterns on them. Seems yet another mega-fire was ravaging the west. No reason to look unfashionable when dealing with elevated air particulates.

“They said I had till the end of the month to pay them back, I guess they wanted it early.” Rain said putting her head into her hands.

Discovery was running shark week again. Great whites leaping out of the air with seals in their mouths, the announcer explained that the shark attacked from below and the leaping broke the seals back so that the shark could swallow it easier.

“Well girl you have to do something, don’t worry we will figure it out.” Marla used her other hand to gently rub Rains back.

Click. Soap opera, yes he really was the twin. Click. Commercial for the new 5 dollar menu at Burger King. Only five dollars! What a deal. Click. Trade in your car for a scooter, at Bobs scooter world “stop paying high gas prices, scoot in style at Bob’s.” Click. The Russian rocket powered train was capable of speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Click. Another shooting in Dorchester. Flip. 200 killed in suicide bombing in Iraq. Click. The house debating the water distribution act of 2007 on CSPAN. Click. Click. Click. I couldn’t stop, Marla had over 50 channels and I had to watch them all, preferably at the same time. My thumb had ceased taking order from my brain. All systems were on full autopilot. The familiar itch started in my frontal lobes.

“What’s wrong with him? ADHD?” Marla said looking up.

“I am not sure.” Rain stood and they both looked at me.

Rain placed her hand carefully but firmly onto the remote and pulled it from my hands. My eyes had gone blank and my mouth hung open, my thumb continued to press buttons that were no longer there.

“We have to get out of Boston.” Each word took my entire strength to get out.

That’s when I began to scream.

This post is part of the online serial novel “Future Crash” if you are looking for other chapters click here.
For other projects on this website such as metal working click here.
Feedback is greatly appreciated. Future Crash the novel updates Mon/Wed/Fri.

I had never actually heard a flashbang before, but I had seen enough TV to know what was going on next door. Someone had just unleashed hell on the poor bastards that inhabited the apartment next to Rains, and even through the walls we could tell it was no party.

“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, FUCK!”

She was a whirlwind, grabbing her bag, and then reaching under the couch to grab a small package wrapped in brown paper. It came away with the sound of tearing masking tape.  It was addressed to her, and the from address was a hospital room, it went into her pack which she slung over her shoulder with a practiced flick. She took only a second to secure her aviatrix helmet and goggles and then she looked at me.

She didn’t need for me to speak; the look of terror on my face spoke volumes.

“Back window, run, NOW!” She ordered.

She pried open the one and only window in her apartment and quickly jumped out. The apartment was on the first floor and it was only a couple feet to the ground. The air outside was muggy and warm.

Rain gripped my arm painfully and led me towards a large dumpster behind the apartment complex, a quick glance behind me showed grey smoke pouring out of the window next door.

“I lied on all my paperwork, I just hope they don’t hurt the neighbors” Rain explained quickly as we snuck towards a small alley that led out to the main road.

“Fuck, I didn’t think they would be this interested, or come this soon, fuck!” She hissed under her breath.

We had only gone about a block when walking started to feel like drowning, I was not ready for anything more than sitting, eating and sleeping.

“Rain, not to be a downer, but I am not going to be able to go much further.” I managed to wheeze.

Looking left and right she once again grabbed my arm and started leading me down the street. We entered a small building that had a large T painted on it. The sickly warm air of the Boston T hit my face and nose causing me to cough. A stream of people pushed up and out of the subway, happy to be entering the relative cool of the air above.

Rain reached into her bag and handed me a small white card that had a small cartoon man on it. She then found one for herself, we pressed the tiny RFID tag in the card up against a reader and with a “boop” the doors slid open.

We were adrift in a sea of people, Rain held my hand, some of her tattoos spilled out onto the back of her hands. She herded me into a train with a red stripe down the side, the outbound to Braintree.

“I know a person we can stay with till this blows over.” We sat down in the blessedly air conditioned train, a strange smirk on her face.

“What exactly is ‘this’?” I asked trying not to sound too ungrateful towards the woman who had recently saved my life.

She looked at me, her face changing abruptly to a mask of confusion and fear. “I uhh, borrowed some money from these guys. Only a couple thousand, you know, with all the economic bullshit going on I needed it to help someone out of a jam.”

My brain suddenly felt, itchy, like a small rodent was crawling around inside my head. “That’s why you were going to jump off the bridge, because she died, and you couldn’t help her.” The words ran out of me.

“How the fuck do you know that!” She spat, tears welling up in her eyes, “Are you some kind of fuckin weirdo stalker?” She pulled away from me, I could see it in her eyes, she wanted to hurt me, she could have too, years of carrying heavy bags, and riding hard through Boston traffic had made her strong. She was getting ready to fight or flee.

“Wait! I am not a weirdo I promise.” People were starting to look at us. It is not every day a skinny corpse and a punk rock prep schooler get in a fight on the T. I leaned in closer and spoke quietly. “I promise, it’s just something I can do, if you give me enough data points, I can calculate a prime projection based on optimal probability.”

“What the fuck does that mean in English.” Unaware and uncaring about the stares of the other passengers.

“I am not sure how it works, but if I get enough information about something, I can ‘know’ stuff about it. Like you, I didn’t know enough about you to know all the pieces, but when you said that it gave me enough information, and well, it just shoots out of me, I can’t always control it.” I was trying to whisper. It wasn’t working.

I placed my hand on hers; she jerked a little but didn’t make me move it. “I am glad you didn’t jump, I would be dead right now if you hadn’t”

The trains started to slow, which was accompanied by a horrific squealing noise as the brakes hungrily gummed the wheels. A sound like steal fingernail running along the worlds largest chalk board, god I hated the T.

“This is our stop.” She stood up, letting my hand go. I couldn’t tell if she was pissed off or just mulling over what I had told her. We quickly exited the train into the sweltering North Quincy T Stop. People moved swiftly towards the exits to escape the oppressive dead air underground.

The escalator was broken and so we had to climb several flights of stairs. It was slow and grueling. When we reached the top I had to take a break. We sat in silence.

How had I known her mother had died in the hospital, unable to get the medicine she needed to fight her cancer? My thoughts wandered, I started to wonder about what had happened at her apartment. What kind of people go through all the trouble of doing a full on ninja assault on an apartment just to get money back from a bike messenger? How much money was ‘a couple thousand’?

After I had rested, we walked north slowly. We crossed over a bridge and I could see the train bridge we had just rode over to my right, some daring kid had crawled out and scrawled his tag 7 feet high with shiny silver paint. That ledge had to be just a couple feet wide, and the water was a long way down. That’s some commitment to your art.

We rested again at a small gas station at the base of the bridge, Rain bought me a Gatorade and I drank it slowly. We had walked about a mile, and I was absolutely exhausted. I sat sweating in the warm winter sun. Dead weeds grew up between my feet, seems I wasn’t the only one hating this heat.

We walked behind the gas station to a small apartment; Rain stopped and looked at me.

“I am sorry I called you are weirdo stalker on the T. I was just a little freaked out that you, could like read my mind and shit.” She paused, looked down at her feet then back at me. I could tell this was not the end of this conversation.

“One more thing, this girl we are about to meet, she is umm a little strange.”

“Strange?”

She knocked on the door, then turned back to me.

“Well let’s just say she marches to her own drummer. Oh, and we have sex once in a while.”