So I know I've told you all that I've got some other non-BPD things I'm working on. Many of you have been waiting patiently, while others.... not so patiently.
I originally was going to hold off sharing anything of my new project - well, one of two distinct non-BPD projects - until I had something polished. However, in the spirit of sharing (and because I'm beginning to suspect some of you think I'm NEVER going to finish ANYTHING new), I thought I would share the VERY VERY ROUGH work-in-progress writing i've been doing. I'm not sure if it will stay in all-text form like this, or if it will become comics, or illustrated stories (think "Dinotopia"), so the way it's written now may not be how it appears in the final version. This is mostly just me trying to get as much as I can down now. Editing will come later. And oh, there WILL be editing.
This is the first short story I've written like this that I've ever shared. It's rough. It will need editing. While critique is appreciated, please be gentle. ;^_^
Oh, and any names in bold are currently placeholder names. Just in case you're wondering.
She had met him only the
day before. He and his family – his mother, father, and little
sister - were on a cross-country road trip from Minnesota to Florida
to visit relatives. Somewhere along the way they made a wrong turn,
pulled onto I-47 when they should have waited for I-147, backtracked,
retraced steps, and genuinely gotten themselves good and properly
lost. They had driven through most of the night (praising all the
while that they had taken his mother's hybrid Prius instead of their
father's SUV), and were just running on the last few specs of fuel
when they spotted the town on the horizon.
The town wasn't marked on
any of their maps. Or it might have been, they couldn't be sure, as
the town's name had long since worn off the huge and gaudy “Welcome
to Here, Population whatever” sign that all these small country
towns seem to have. At first glance, it was an uninteresting town,
filled with boring homes surrounding a stereotypical main street half
circling an unimpressive lake and a dull forest. But it had a gas
station at least, who's tall illuminated sign stood out as a beacon
of hope as they pushed their car the last few hundred yards into
town.
Maddie had been working
that morning. She wasn't a real employee per say; she didn't really
have any official job anywhere, but she helped out at various places
around town and in return they would give her a few dollars or free
food or whatever. It gave her something to do at least. She had
been surprised to see the family rolling in that day (or rather,
slowly shuffling and shoving in). They didn't get tourists here.
They never got ANYONE here, really. She was so distracted thinking
about when was the last time she had seen anyone like them that she
almost didn't notice the woman standing in front of her, waving a
credit card around.
“Excuse me! HEY!” She
said, practically shoving the blue plastic card in Maddie's face. “I
want gas! What's the matter, you hung over? Or are you asleep? Is
that why you're wearing those sunglasses!? It's 7 in the morning!!”
Maddie jolted back to
reality. “Oh! Yes, of course. But, umm....”
The woman seemed to be
looked past her, disinterested, still waving her card. “Here. I
want to fill up. Should be about $40. That is if you're prices
outside are accurate.”
“We don't take those,
ma'am.”
“What?”
Maddie hesitated and
pointed to the card. “Those, ma'am. We can't take cards here.”
“What do you mean, you
don't take cards!?” The woman shrieked. “This is America!!”
Maddie shook her head.
“I'm sorry, ma'am. No cards. Only cash.”
The woman tensed and
looked like she was about to try to murder Maddie with her eyes when
her husband yawned behind her, “Angie, we've been driving all
night. The kids could use some sleep.”
“But we're in the
middle of nowhere,” Angie protested in a tone that suggested this
really wasn't up for any kind of debate. “It'll take us at least a
day to get back on the right track. We're supposed to be at my
mother's in 3 days, and we don't even know where the hell we are!
Besides, you know what these back-water motels are like. They all
stink of piss and dead rat, and I will NOT force my children to sleep
under those conditions!” She gestured then to her son and
daughter, who had both followed their father in and were now staring
at the girl behind the counter.
The only place for
visitors to stay in town was Mr Ivory's Bed and Breakfast. It
was relatively small, as the town saw relatively few visitors. The
only people that stayed there were family members or friends of
residents visiting from out of town who couldn't stay with those they
were visiting due to a lack of space. Mr Ivory was
excessively hospitable and excessively neat and tidy. Maddie could
guarantee 150% that it would have been impossible for that place to
smell like anything BUT cinnamon and jasmine, and that if there were
any rats at all they were all in better-than-perfect health.
She
didn't bother to say any of this though, as after a brief but intense
argument it became a mute point. They were staying the day to rest,
will continue on the road tomorrow morning, and you're mother in law
is just going to have to wait another day to see her grandchildren.
With
that settled, his parents on their way to Mr Ivory's to reserve a
room with his little sister in tow, the little girl never taking her
wide eyes off Maddie, the boy – Robbie or Ronnie or something,
Maddie couldn't remember now – had stayed around to talk to what he
perceived as the most interesting person he had ever seen in his
entire life. Maddie appreciated the attention, and to be honest she
felt the same way about him (but for entirely different reasons,
which she chose not to disclose to him.) She left a quick scrawled
note for Mr Black her
boss, and locked the door behind her.
“You
sure you won't get in trouble,” said Rory – YES, that was his
name, Rory! - who had never held a job or any kind of real grown-up
responsibility at any point in his 16 years of existence.
“Yeah,
it'll be fine. We won't get anybody coming in till at least noon. I
don't even really work here anyway. More of a favor, really.” She
shrugged. “Just something to do.”
She
had taken him on a tour of the town, or at least to the parts she
liked. She took him by Jackson's Funeral Parlor and Flower shop to
see if Andy was in. He didn't answer, but they could hear Mittens
barking from inside so Maddie just assumed he must be busy working on
something. Rory asked what breed of dog Mittens was, to which Maddie
just looked at him blankly and shrugged. They passed by Mr Ivory's
briefly for food, and inspire of not recognizing half of the names on
the menu (they didn't have much vegetarian & vegan food in his
home town) he gobbled it all down with surprising enthusiasm. They
passed by the shops, many of which were still dark even at this time
in the morning, and Rory wondered why so many of them had what looked
to be halloween-ish decorations and tchotchkes in May.
Rory
couldn't help but feel like something was odd about this place. It
looked mostly normal, sure. But the parts that looked normal – the
buildings, the street lights, the phone boxes, the houses – looked
almost too normal, the kind of normal you'd expect to see in a 50's
movie showing a perfect idealistic country town in the middle of
nowhere. He half expected to turn a corner and find that the
buildings were nothing more than flat facades, held up by a few
hastily-constructed wooden struts, like on a movie set.
And
here and there, there were flashes of things that seemed... off. If
you had asked him he couldn't point out anything specific, but it
kept nagging at the back of his mind. And had he not been a teenage
boy being led around by a mostly attractive, exotic looking girl with
tan skin, green dreadlocks, a pierced lip, RayBan sunglasses, and
clothes that looked older than she was, he might have even had enough
mindshare to be concerned about it.
She
finished her tour by bringing him to the lake. The town was built
around this lake, she said, it's very important. Rory was
underwhelmed. The lake didn't look very big; even through the thin
grey mist that hung over it, he could still just barely make out the
other side. The surface was choked with atomic green algae, so thick
he assumed it would be nearly impossible for anything else to
possibly live inside it. A dense spotting of trees bordered the
opposite bank, far enough away that it was impossible to tell what
kind they were. There was a singular wooden dock that jutted out
into the lake on the near side. It was gray with age, only slightly
darker than the mist, and looked as though it might collapse into
rotten splinters if you tapped it just the wrong way.
“So,
what do you think?”
Rory
looked towards Maddie. She was standing nearby on the center of the
dock, which to his surprise hadn't crumbled under her feet. She
looked proud, like a kid showing mom their new soccer trophy. She was
waiting for something. It took Rory a moment before he realized she
was waiting for his approval.
“Oh,
uh. Yeah, it's cool.”
Maddie
looked at him through her dark glasses. “What's cool?”
Rory
shrugged. “This place, I guess. The lake. It's like, straight out
of a horror movie.” He gestured towards the lake as he walked out
onto the deck to join her.
“Why
do you say that?” She looked like she hadn't ever considered this
before.
“Just
look at it! It's all fogged over and stuff. I half expect there to
be a log cabin or something over there, just waiting for some college
kids to show up and die one by one.”
Maddie
laughs. “You're funny.”
Rory
tried to hide his blushing. He never had good luck getting girls
back home. He wasn't athletic, or funny, or smart, and most of the
time anytime he tried to talk to girls he'd end up saying or doing
something stupid. But here was this girl who was prettier than any
girl he'd ever seen, and way, WAY cooler, and she thought he was
funny. Him! This was amazing, the best feeling in the whole world. He
knew come tomorrow his parents would be back on the road and he might
never see her again, but maybe if he got her phone number, or her
e-mail address, or...
He
hadn't noticed the rumbling until it was right underneath them. It
was a deep, burbling rumble that had enclosed in on them quickly and
without notice. The air around them seemed to grow thicker, and his
skin seemed to freeze and burn and prickle and itch all at the same
time. The fog had grown closer too, and was swirling around them,
and if Rory didn't know better he might say it was whispering.
The
surface of the water broke with a sudden burst of green and black and
mist and wet darkness, and a black form rose glistening and shivering
in the fog. It's eyes – it had eyes, he was sure of it – burned
with a black intensity that seemed to bore inside his head, into his
mind. He froze in fear, his mind trying to see this thing in front of
him, to assess this threat so it would know what to do, but his eyes
wouldn't focus, or perhaps his brain wouldn't let them focus. The
thing screamed, a scream that resonated every cell in his body and
vibrated the air around him, a noise that should have been impossible
for any living thing to conceivably make. It lasted only an instant,
but in Rory's mind the terror lasted an eternity, and he did what any
rational, sane human would do in this situation.
Maddie
had barely registered what had happened before Rory was already gone,
running as fast as his teenage legs could carry him in warm wet
pants, faster than he had ever run before, back the way they had
come. He ran up the short path back to the town proper, down main
street, back to Mr Ivory's, and collapsed into a jabbering, sobbing
mess at the feet of his confused parents. He didn't tell them what
happened, as something blocked him from being able to recall it. No
matter how much his parents begged and pleaded and demanded and
bribed, the most he could do was babble incoherently and stare
through them at something only he seemed to be able to see. They
just piled back into their fully-fueled car (after changing Rory out
of his urine-soaked jeans and tossing them into a trash bag) and got
back onto the road, muttering about how that strange girl must have
given him some of “the drugs”, assured that anywhere else they
would stop would certainly be better than this. Rory would fall
asleep a mile out of town, and then he would wake up 4 hours later
remembering absolutely nothing about the town, the girl with the
green hair, or the nightmare monster he saw emerge from the fog.
Back
at the lake, Maddie stood annoyed, with her hands on her hips.
“You
are a colossal asshole, Lu. You know that?”
She was standing on a
dock, and even through dark sunglasses it was clear that she was
glaring up at the huge, wet, shivering monster in the way a mother
might glare at a child who's been caught with 'daddy's magazines'
stashed under his bed. It looked down back at her slightly sheepish.
“Sorry,” it said.
To say it 'said' this, or
anything for that matter, is really just an approximation. It didn't
really have a mouth, at least that anyone could see, just a mass of
wriggling tentacles jutting out disobediently from the area of it's
head where a mouth really should be on any sensible creature. You
couldn't really hear it's voice either, not in the way that you would
hear most things talk. It spoke with words that drifted like smoke
around you and over you and through you. If asked to describe how it
sounded, you might say it sounded like a rusty nail being dragged
across a blackboard, the diseased gurgling of sewage and bile, the
low rumbling of thunder heard across an endless span of desert, and a
horrific, savage, bestial, guttural roar just beyond the scope of
imagination, all at once. Right now, it had the added flavor of
'sounding' like a wounded puppy.
“Sorry?” Maddie
shrieked, her tiny, angry fists vibrating with rage at her sides,
“Sorry!? That's it? What am I supposed to do with 'Sorry'?”
“I dunno,” Lu said,
drooping it's huge head.
At full height, Lu was
easily as tall as a 3 story building. He was black in the same way
the night sky was black, and as previously mentioned the lower half
of his face would excite some fans of Japanese adult cartoons. It
was hard to see any real details about his appearance. Not because
his dark-as-night skin made it hard to see, or because of anything
having to do with the weather or atmosphere around him, but because
looking at him was like looking at something in a dream. You know
what he looks like because it's what he should look like, but if you
really try to look closely everything sort of shifts and fizzes out
of focus. There may have been a long whiplike tail, thick webbed
fingers, fin-like ears, tiny bat wings, a short and thick tail,
gnarled claws, spines, horns, large eyes or maybe beady eyes, you
couldn't quite be sure. If you tried to REALLY look you could easily
go mad; not insane mind you, just really and truly frustrated.
This was half why the
girl never bothered looking directly at him; the other half was that
she was so upset that she couldn't stand to even if she could. She
was pacing back and forth across the edge of the dock, dreadlocks
tossing about madly with each jerk, and she was ranting all the while
about how unfair her life is and how nice that guy was and why
couldn't anyone just leave her alone?
“It was just a joke,
Maddie” Lu said.
“Jokes are only funny
if everyone laughs,” she snapped. “I'm not laughing.”
“I thought it was
funny. Did you see the look on his face?”
“The one he made before
or after he wet his pants?”
“Before,” Lu said
with confidence.
Maddie opened her mouth
to say something extremely clever in response when a tiny voice said,
in a hissing whisper just above her left ear, “I thought it was
funny too.”
“Shut up,” Maddie
said to the voice.
“I kinda liked him,”
said another voice, this time just below her right jaw.
“You would,” said a
third behind her head.
Suddenly, two of Maddie's
dreadlocks seemed to spring to life and dart for each other, poking
and stabbing at each other in quick, serpent-like jabs. A chorus of
hissing laughter erupted from around Maddie's head as other locks
seemed to perk up and point towards the two fighting. Maddie shook
her head from side to side violently, and her hair calmed.
Maddie
was smirking now in spite of herself. “God, you're such an
asshole.”
