The Tin Cowboy

[MalReynolds]

When we got back to Westing, I made sure she was okay. She headed off to class and I went and left the book on Sam’s keyboard. While inside the room, I helped myself to a newspaper that had been lying across the bed.

I skimmed over the headlines right into the articles, trying to find something about the homeless man who had died the night before, who I had shared a room with less than two days ago.

There was nothing of any great relevance that Liza hadn’t already told me. The vials of Flash he had, his throat was cut, campus security was alerted and the Night Scan would be far less lenient. As if it had been lenient before.

I kept flipping through, thinking that maybe if I was lucky I would see a picture of myself, hand sketched no doubt by some police artist, that said I was missing.

If I could only be so lucky.

With nothing else to do, I set the paper down and walked out to the Quad.

I stood in the back of the women’s dorm and watched people walking around, but I kept glancing at the borders. There were people littered in between the trees and as close to the neighboring buildings as they dared, and they all repeated the same hackneyed ritual. One would reach into their pocket, presumably for money, and high five the other. Then they would shake hands and walk away.

Some of them were more sloppy than others, but it seemed like a universal way to transfer drugs from one person to another.

What kind of high there must have been when you took Flash. I couldn’t even begin to imagine – I had achieved a brief runners high the other day with Liza, but the pure bliss that had to come from Flash was almost tempting in and of itself. There had to be some kind of payoff that I wasn’t seeing, because the laundry list of reasons not to do it were rather compelling. Maybe it was cheap, hell, I don’t know, but it had to provide a good enough high to keep new buyers coming even with the side effects.

From what I had seen myself, there was madness, dulling of the senses, no reception to pain, aggression, lust, loss of mind, and what seemed like a homicidal rage. I couldn’t understand how the police didn’t crack down on the dealers more, but it seemed like they had reached an impasse. Don’t provoke someone whose about to go mad and we won’t mess with your business.

Right as rain.

Yeah, acid rain.

The amount of transactions going on across the Quad was almost sickening, especially considering what Liza had told me – that addiction levels vary, but the end game is always the same, some people just get there ahead of others. And almost every person that was playing Frisbee or laying down on a blanket at one point or another stood up, stretched their legs, and walked to the border.

Hundreds of people.

The word “Epidemic” wasn’t quite enough to really define what was going on.

How hollow their lives must be to have to resort to something like that, something that will kill you, fracture your brain, make you kill – it was giving me a headache thinking about it. I had no choice but to turn and walk away – I had been watching for nary two hours and I had seen more transactions than I cared to.

Where the hell was all that money going? The kids selling sure looked ratty enough, and for every transaction there is an equal and opposite transaction, so the money had to be going somewhere.

And then it dawned on me.

Most likely, the money was going to the police. Helping to prosecute the people who set off the buyers, killing the buyers that went red with rage.

Of course, it was little more than a conspiracy theory. There was nothing factual to back up what my mind was saying, which was fine. I didn’t want to think that corruption ran that deep and that thorough.

My thoughts had taken my feet and I had walked west, away from the school and away from the beach. All the buildings were haunting me, there was nothing warm about Westing in the least. After about an hour and a half, the buildings began to taper and the sun was able to break through. The road, which seemed like such a main road in the city thinned out to two lanes.

And the buildings shrunk. I kept walking until I reached the end, which was punctuated with a church.

I turned and looked at the sprawl. The city, looming in the distance with three or four small buildings like this church inside of it, and it thinned out like the Golden Gate Bridge until it was just flat.

When I turned to look back at the church, I was surprised to see the door open and a small woman standing inside.

“Hello, child.”

I nodded, stuffing my hands into my pockets. The glare off of the buildings was tremendous.

“Why don’t you come inside? It’s bitterly cold out.”

“Oh, no thanks, but thanks. I was about to head back into the city.”

She smiled. “That’s fine. Do you go to school in the city?”

“No, no, but I’m staying there.”

“The church is much nicer to stay in and we don’t charge for guest passes, in case you’re low on money – “

“I’m not homeless –“ I paused. Well, I was. “I’m not poor,” I corrected myself, “And I’m not crazy. I don’t do that Flash stuff, I just needed a place to stay to get my bearings.”

“What better place,” she scoffed, “Than a church?”

“Next time I – Next time I wind up somewhere I’m not supposed to, I’ll consider it.”

I looked at the bulletin board next to the old woman. I walked over and started reading some of them – many uninteresting, but one caught my eye. It was for a bingo night, every Thursday. And above the bulletins in faded gold letters, “Westing Chapel.”

“Oh, I know this place,” I muttered under my breath. “Why would Tyler come all the way out here?”

“You know Sam?” The woman sounded shocked.

“Churchy religious type? Kind of cold, holier than thou art?"

“So do you know Sam? Sam Feldspar?”

I paused and held back a laugh. “Samantha? ... She’s dating Tyler, right?”

“And buying herself a ticket to hell at that.”

“You know Tyler, then.”

She nodded. “I don’t much care for the boy.”

“I can tell. You’re not exactly subtle, miss…”

“Feldspar.”

Naturally.

“It’s his birthday today, Mamma Feldspar,” I managed.

“Oh, and what did my Sam get him? More sin? Another list of things to atone for? Or did she get him a new set of parents to wrench her away from.”

“She got him a book on pool halls.”

Feldspar turned and walked through the door. I sighed and followed her inside. The architecture was amateurish compared to the perfection and sterility I had seen inside the city. This was much more human – the stained glass that sat atop the organ, the geometry was not perfect. It was handmade. The bricks that made up the floor were green with moss and the bricks themselves were uneven.

“It used to be much nicer than this,” Mother Feldspar said. “Back when people came to the church, it was much nicer.”

“Why did they stop?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the walk got too long. Maybe people just stopped believing.”

“I always thought faith was something you grew into, not out of.”

“For some. Not every person is the same. Of course, you don’t need me to tell you that. You know Sam and Tyler. Polar opposites on so many things, and yet – “

“And yet they’re together.”

“I always thought,” she said, “She’d end up with the boy I was pushing her towards, but free will can be such a pain in the A.”

I smiled. Like mother, like daughter.

“I had the perfect boy picked out, too, but he disappeared.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. A good, God fearing man who would take care of my Sam.”

“What happened?”

“I said he disappeared. No one knows much else about it. Sam and Mark grew up together, practically, and I was always pushing for their team. Mark was such a nice boy, such a very nice boy.”

“God fearing.”

“Exactly, and he always treated my Sam right. Always.”

“Well… How long ago did he – “

“It was the day of his eighteenth birthday party. There was a big celebration and he was going to ask Sam out, he told me himself, but as the night waned, I never saw him come out of his room. I went to go check on him, but his room was empty, his things still in tact. We spent the next two weeks looking for him, and we prayed in shifts. This was before – before they put those buildings up, back when this was a community. God, those buildings appeared so fast.

“But we never found him. Sam was heartbroken.”

I could only imagine.

“Well… I mean, she got over it. Shouldn’t you?”

Mother Feldspar looked up at me and sat down in a pew.

“If I give up on Mark, I don’t have much else. I know one day he’ll walk through the doors of the church, maybe to play bingo like he used to. I know holding on isn’t healthy, but it’s all I can do. The church is in disarray, my Sam is not here and to top it all off, she’s galavanting around at college with some atheist.

“I know I shouldn’t hold on to the past like this. I know.”

“Why don’t you get some of the old clergy in here to help you clean it up?”

“Most of the old clergy has long since left. After the Rebirth, they saw the city as a place of sin and low morals, and quite frankly, I can’t blame them. They scattered to the wind and urged the few us that chose to remain behind to flee with them. Of course, we didn’t, but the revival of this church would be such a massive undertaking.”

I nodded. “And you all, you watch the church in shifts?”

It was her turn to nod. “Of course.”

“What’s to stop someone from just ransacking this place?”

“Well, it’s a church. It’s far too cold at night to try and travel down here – you’ll most likely lose yourself to the wind before you even make it half way down here. And people just stopped caring.”

I kicked at the brick at my feet.

“There was a magnificent revival about ten years ago for the church. Highly unorthodox, but – it was brilliant. It was a rebirth of itself, and then as soon as it started, it stopped. We were able to ride that wave for just a little bit before everything fell apart again.

“But I think I’ve figured it out.

“Who needs faith when you have yourself?”

[MalReynolds]

I couldn’t really answer. I myself had no strong feelings at the moment towards God or Darwin; instead, I was more confused. I didn’t register a particular pull towards hatred of the woman or the place I was in, nor did I find myself completely indifferent to the situation. Instead, I felt pity slowly creep over until I realized I was frowning.

The Westing Chapel used to be a happy place. Most of the bulletins outside were for services or weddings or bingo nights, and now, what was it? It was a place that needed to be watched over by old women and men who refused to let go of an antiquated past. The future was a few miles down the road.

“This is the last bastion,” she said, “Against what the world will become.”

Godless, I thought to myself. And at the same time, I didn’t fear how the world would become without God. I only feared for the safety of those that refused to accept change. Do I accept change? Considering my circumstances, I think I accept change better than most people ever will.

Through the window, I could see a few women similarly dressed to Mother Feldspar walking around through the small graveyard outside. Every time a wind kicked up, they would lower their heads but keep walking, keep the conversation going as if it was a kerosene lantern that would protect them from the harsh weather.

Just keep your head down and power through. That’s all you can do sometimes.

I realized I was still kicking the moss on the brick – well, not quite. I had eroded the moss from the brick and was now kicking one of the only red spots on the entire floor. The pew I was seated in was made of knotted wood, which was not exactly comfortable, but at the same time, felt slightly better than the floor I had been sleeping on for the past two nights.

And I still had the tennis bag with me. I was carrying it around like I was getting ready to leave, walking out into the sunset. But the bag held everything I used to be inside of it, even if it wasn’t much. The money, the jeans, the shirts, the notepads, they were all me. The only traces that I could find.

“You looked lost,” Mother Feldspar said.

“Not quite. I just don’t really know where I am.”

Mother Feldspar nodded like she knew what the hell I was talking about. “The sun is going to go down soon. Don’t you need to get back to the dorms?”

I sighed. “Yeah. I probably should.”

“Go in peace.”

“Do you want me to tell Sam anything for you?”

Mother Feldspar sighed. “Tell her I said hello. And tell Tyler I said – Tell him I said happy birthday.”

“Sure thing.”

I opened the door, and the weak voice called again from behind me. “Are you going to be coming back here?”

I paused. “I’m not sure, Momma Feldspar.”

I waited to see if she would say anything, but she remained silent. I stepped out onto the brick path, to the rusty gate and turned. The cross that sat atop the building was crooked and casting a sideways shadow on the ground that I was standing in. The Sisters were still walking in circles through the small graveyard, just as rapt in conversation.

I stepped back onto the unpaved dirt road and began to follow a bicycle track back into the city.

-

It had begun snowing by the time I had arrived back at the Westing dorms, and I was lucky that both the Chapel and the dorms were on the same street – how easy it would have been to have gotten confused or lost in such a uniform place. There was a slight moment of panic when I thought that I had perhaps set off on the wrong road, until I reached the beach, the familiar cul-de-sac, and realized that I had just walked past the dorm.

Tinsley checked my ID and smiled, which was a small shock. I walked upstairs, barley making it to the Guest Dorm when I was grabbed by George and Tyler.

“Happy Birthday, Tyler,” I said as they were dragging me towards the Rec Hall.

“Thanks!” he said enthusiastically.

“I know my way there, you guys don’t have to hook my elbows like that.”

They stopped.

“Dylan said you told him you were just going to crash tonight,” George muttered, coming to a stop.

“Yeah, well, Dylan doesn’t like me. I can walk by myself.” I turned to Tyler. “I told you I would come to your party-shindig-hoe-down-thing.”

“It’s almost ten, so I had a little reason to worry.”

Christ, had I really been gone that long? How long did the incident at the mall take? The sun was barely going down when I left the church. It was possible that I was so lost in thought on the way back to the dorms that I was walking more slowly than usual, but a full two hours to make a walk that took me initially significantly less than that? And it gave Dylan an advantage.

“Well, what the hell,” I thought to myself. “I don’t like Dylan anyway.”

The three of us walked up to the Rec Hall and George tried opening the door. It got stuck a little less than halfway, and I watched as he tried to pull it open before giving up and sliding in between the door and the frame. Tyler pushed the door closed and pulled it open with a jerk, and it swung open almost all the way before the warped wood caught on a familiar scuff on the ground.

There weren’t many more people than I had met the first night. It seemed like they had reached out and invited a few more people hither and thither, though. But only a few. I made the rounds with Tyler as he introduced me to a group of people I had no interest in. Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary and Gary. Cleverly enough, they were known as “The Gary’s.”

And Clarice. She didn’t quite fit in with The Gary’s, mainly because her name was feminine, she was a she, and she had an active look if disdain for the large group of Gary’s. It also did not look like she was interested in the green sweater vests they were all wearing.

“These guys are part of an improve troupe that George used to run with.”

“Oh. Well then. What’s her story,” I said, motioning to Clarice.

“Dylan’s new beau,” Tyler muttered under his breath.

“Oh, good. Now maybe he’ll get off my back.”

“Not likely.”

I sighed and walked over to the pool table which had a large punch-bowl sitting on it. Next to the large punch bowl was a smaller punch bowl.

“The big one has booze in it,” one of the Gary’s shouted.

I made a bee-line for the smaller and fixed myself a glass. I turned and watched the room. The Gary’s were laughing at the joke the Alpha Gary cracked, and George was slowly trying to inch his was over to them. Dylan had pulled Clarice over to a corner and was rapidly gesticulating into her ear and motioning at me, while Sam sat at one of the tables and was flipping through Tyler’s gift. I couldn’t seem to find Liza, although I wasn’t particularly looking.

“Hey, Sam,” I said, pulling up a chair and sitting next to her. “That good?”

She nodded.

“Your Mom says ‘hi.’”

She looked up from the book, her face now pale. “You talked to my mother.”

“I went for a walk today and ended up at the Westing Chapel.”

“She was on guard duty, wasn’t she?”

I nodded and took a sip of punch.

“I’m sorry, she’s such a talker. If she talked you to death, I’m really sorry. She has all these stupid stories she likes to tell to everyone, and I’m really sorry if she bored you or anything.”

“No, she was pretty interesting.”

Tyler walked over and took a seat opposite Sam and next to me.

“Mother Feldspar says, ‘Happy Birthday,’” I said. Tyler, who was sipping on a glass of punch managed to both choke and shoot the red liquid out of his nose at the same time.

“You talked to Sam’s mom?”

“This seems like no one was expecting it. Also, Sam, your last name is pretty classic.”

“Shut it,” she said, blushing and turning back to the book.

“She hates me, you know,” Tyler said, wiping off the table.

“Yeah.”

“Why – “

“I guess because you make Sam happy.”

Sam was rubbing her forehead like she had a strong headache.

“She told you about Mark, didn’t she,” Sam managed after a second.

“Well, yes.”

“Why does she tell everyone that story,” she muttered. “It’s not even interesting. I wasn’t even interested in Mark. Why – that story – sometimes – G D it!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Mother acts like my life would have been so different if Mark hadn’t disappeared, but you know what? It would have been exactly the same. I didn’t love Mark, I didn’t love that I was being forced to interact with him. I would have pushed away and I think,” she paused, looking at Tyler, “That things would have turned out almost the same.”

Tyler smiled. “Well, that’s good, because Mark called me the other day and –“

“Oh, shut up,” Sam said, playfully kicking Tyler under the table.

“ - He says he’ll be late for asking you out.”

Despite the serious nature of the joke, both Sam and Tyler seemed to be taking it lightly. They looked, in that moment, very much happy with the circumstances life had given them, quite different from Mother Feldspar.

They looked almost as in love with their lives as they were with each other.

The party progressed and The Gary’s began to do some painfully rehearsed improvisation. The only gem of their act was George, who was painfully trying to keep pace with their quick dialogue as he had been invited up for one of their stage games.

[MalReynolds]

It was both sad and amusing at the same time watching George half-step when they leapt and fall back when they rolled, and I found it hard trying to imagine him acting with them.

The Night Scan reminder was a pleasant enough way to wind down the evening – the only detracting factor what that I had not seen Liza for the entire hour I had been in the Rec Hall. I turned to ask Tyler, but he was already on his way out the door with Sam, George was all the way in the back grabbing his coat, and Dylan was Dylan. He was hidden behind Clarice anyway – I could only assume they were kissing or talking very slowly and quickly, given my vantage point.

I gave a half earnest wave before heading down the stairs back towards the Guest Dorm. I was shocked to find when I stepped inside not a large group of vagrants, rather the Gary’s, who were occupying a fair amount of the beds. They were all talking fervently amongst themselves and gave a bravado filled cheer when I entered the room before offering me one of the beds.

I considered it and even sat down to take my shoes off, but for some reason, the bed felt less comfortable to me than the floor, and so it was on the third night, the first night I was given the opportunity to sleep elevated, on a mattress, that I ultimately declined and chose the floor.

The most annoying thing about the Gary’s, despite their obvious rehearsal of the material, was the high pitched cackle they let out whenever one of them let out their genius idea. They sat in their own little circle, pontificating to no end about things that I doubt they really cared about – moreover, they chose material it was easiest to make jokes over. Most of the material was reminiscent in my mind of other comedians – but their names escaped me. They had tainted the jokes just enough to claim them as their own.

The cackle could most likely be akined to the sound of an old woman laughing or small puppies barking. The sound was a short burst that lasted for all of three seconds before a half a second respite, before launching again. It was tiresome, but they kept it up for the better part of an hour before they started falling asleep.

That would have been haven enough for me, only having four of the five Gary’s awake, but the Alpha Gary did his best to rouse Tired Gary, and the cycle started all over again, encompassing another hour of my night. I closed my eyes and prayed that I would pass out from exhaustion, from shock, from turmoil – it’s not every day I’m shot at and witness another man gunned down.

I had thought about telling Tyler about the ordeal at The Center during his party, but it seemed rather inopportune. I was also not too keen on tipping Sam’s hand, although surely Tyler could tell that she could not afford such an expensive gift by herself. “It might be something to bring up tomorrow,” I thought to myself. “Unless they put it in the papers first.”

More worrying than any of this was the disappearance of Liza. Not only did I feel fear that she might be somewhere else, I could also feel a twinge of jealousy and suspicion. She could have been out with another guy. They could be kissing right now, or worse, and I wouldn’t know about it.

Then again, would I have rather known about it?

So far, Liza is the closest thing to a normal human being I can see in my life. Would I want to ruin the image that she has in my mind? It would be an impossible standard to live up to forever, if I chose to stay, but I wasn’t ready to let her be less than she could be. With that, I forced myself to stop thinking about her.

Immediately, I was drowsy.

I fell asleep that night to the cackle of the Gary’s.

-

I awoke to that identical sound.

God, did they even sleep last night or did they spend the entire eight hours sitting up and laughing?

“Hey, guys,” I said, rolling over and sitting up.

“Hey Tim,” they responded simultaneously.

“How did you all sleep?”

“Super,” they responded as one.

“What time did you all wake up?”

“My watch,” the Alpha Gary said, “Goes off at 5. And all of their watches are synced to mine. It’s so we can get the most out of the day. Try and run some improv, you know.”

“I really don’t.”

The Gary’s laughed. The light was too much – I stared at the Alpha Gary. The only thing that set him apart from the rest was a small scar that ran over his right eye. He wore the same black shirt and black pants as the rest of them, he wore the same muddy boots and has the same buzz-cut hair.

If half of them hadn’t been obese, it would have been very difficult to tell all of them apart.

I decided the instant that I woke up that I would be flying solo today, at least from the Gary’s. I stepped out of the room and sighed as the door shut, cutting off their obnoxious laughter. I turned to head down the hall and watched as George came plodding towards the Guest Dorms.

“Hey man, what’s going on?” He said, biting down on a biscuit and pushing his glasses up.

“Not much. Just trying to get away from them.”

“They’re great, aren’t they?” It was an all new language. English mixed intermittently with the sound buffer of dough. He was speaking English Muffin.

“Yeah, like a hernia is great.”

“Quiet! They might hear you!”

“And what?”

George’s eyes went dead. “I don’t know what their trigger is, man. Why would you risk it?”

I paused. “I didn’t know they used. They don’t exactly advertise, dude…”

“You should just be more careful. You never know who uses.”

“Yeah, and that’s a major problem. What if I told you, ‘Hey, George, chew with your mouth closed.’ Would you go off the handle on me? Would you try and shoot me or beat me to death or pull Flash out of me?”

“No, because I don’t use,” he said making a conscious effort to swallow his biscuit before speaking.

“So everyone should just be as careful as they can be when speaking to someone else.”

He nodded. “I didn’t think it was a great idea to invite them to the party, but once they found out, what was I supposed to do? Tell them no?”

“I don’t – So. People who don’t use Flash are second class citizens, subservient to the fear that whoever they’re with will go bizarro on them?”

“Pretty much. Man, Dylan pulled you down from up North. You should already know this stuff.”

“I grew up in a good area. I have no reason to.”

“Not exactly broadcast anywhere, is it?” George said taking a bite out of his biscuit. “Everyone knows about it and looks the other way.”

“Nothing I can do but be courteous to everyone I meet, I guess.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

“You’re right. Sorry about that.”

“No problem. Anyway, I was coming down here to get you. Dylan wants to have a word with you.”

“Tell him I don’t care.”

“Why don’t you tell me yourself,” Dylan said, opening the door to the main hall.

“I don’t want to talk to you, bud.”

“And why not? What have I done to you?”

There was a pause before the door behind him opened and Clarice stepped through. She looked like she got about as much sleep as I did last night.

“Nothing big,” I said.

“Then why can’t we talk?”

“If I say yes, are you going to say, ‘Cool, oh wait, I have class, lemme go ditch you.’”

“I told you, I was coming back to get you.”

“I don’t have any reason to believe you, now do I? You’ve given me no reason to trust you – every time I’ve given you an inch, you’ve taken a mile. So, yeah, you can talk, but I’m not going to give you the benefit of the doubt anymore.”

Saying that felt good. No, better than good, it felt Godly.

“Whatever. Look, the other guys are alright. Tyler, George, Sam.” He paused. “Liza, they’re okay, but they don’t really like doing much except what’s around campus. I was going to extend an invitation to you, but you’d be wasting one of your Guest Pass days, because it’s an overnight thing. Just you and me, buddy boy, rowing out to Banana Island past curfew.”

“What the hell!” George said, throwing his hands up. “I want to go!”

“You’d complain the entire time,” Dylan said.

“No way. I’ve always wanted to go on one of your trips, man! Why does he get to go,” George whined, motioning towards me.

“Because he and I got off on the wrong foot. I want to make things right between us.”

“What the hell is Banana Island?”

“It’s a lot less flamboyant than it sounds. It’s about half a mile off the coast, near The Kinder. There’s a light house on it, the Island isn’t much bigger than the quad, but they say it’s haunted by the ghost of some ex-hooker. I was reading about it a few nights ago and didn’t really have a second person to invite until you showed up.

“However, I understand if you don’t want to go. It’s going to be cold and you’re going to be out all night. I wouldn’t want to offend your sensibilities or anything – I mean, lord knows, you have to get your beauty sleep for class and everything.”

I winced. What a backhanded invitation. But it felt sincere – I would have been far more suspicious had he decided to be nice to me. This felt right at home.

“Besides, it’ll give us a chance to talk through some stuff that’s been bothering me,” he said with a smirk. “I’ve got class now, but think about it. If you want to go, meet me by my room around seven.”

[MalReynolds]

He didn’t quite storm off; he turned, grabbed Clarice by the arm and made a hasty exit out the door. I stood almost dumbfounded before turning to George.

“What the hell?”

“Dylan, he gets these weird ideas sometimes. Like, he has a list of places stashed in his room somewhere, like small islands and abandoned buildings, and he loves to go exploring them and trying to find ghosts and stuff. But he always takes a second person just in case something goes wrong.

“He’s never picked me. Not even once, and he knows how bad I want to go. I love doing stuff like that. No building is off limits, no window too high for me to scurry up the drain pipe and crack open.”

I stared at him. Maybe he hadn’t looked at himself in a mirror lately, but he didn’t quite seem to be the fastest person his feet.

“I don’t trust it, George.”

“So what are you going to do, then?”

I paused. “Well, go out to dead-hooker island with him, naturally. I know he doesn’t like me because Liza talks to me, but there has to be something else. No person can be that simple and that petty.”

“He just ditched you at breakfast, man. I think you might be reading into this a little too deeply.”

“He invited me to stay here and then skips out on me? To hang out with you – no offense.”

“None taken.”

“Is he this brash and abrasive to everyone?”

“He’s not exactly a kindred spirit to most people, but yeah, I can see where you’re coming from.

“So, you going to do some dectectivery? Get to the bottom of your almost self-created mystery behind Dylan and why he hates you?”

There were bigger mysteries to get to the bottom of, but that one was on my priority list. I doubt I could stay the other six days here without running into him, and even then, the only person who knew me before Westing was Dylan. He was the only thing I had that was even a ghost of a chance of getting my memory back.

It was bad to put all of my eggs into one basket like that, especially such a selfish one, but the situation did not leave me with much of a choice. There’s a chance I could have known Liza, as well, but at the same time, at first she was almost indifferent towards my appearance here, as if she didn’t recognize me. I had impacted Dylan somehow and now he was making it his missive to let me know that I messed up somewhere back there. At least, that’s what I could make of it.

George just stood there while I worked this out in my mind, nodding along to my nods, before smiling, turning, and walking away. I could hear the faint sound of the doorknob turning from the Guest Dorm and quickly followed suit, exiting before The Gary’s could come through and harass me.

Because even if they were ready to be triggered, I sure as hell didn’t want to be pleasant towards them.

-

The Kinder was less frightening the second time. It still wasn’t quite home – I doubt children in cages will ever be described as ‘home by many – but I had a fair appetite by the time I was in the cafeteria. I could have gone through the back door, but I wanted to see if I had grown accustomed to the way of life at Westing. And the answer was “Yes, but not quite.”

The same young kids behind the serving counter, the same plastic trays, only this time I had eggs instead of cereal, with bacon and sausage. The total cost was about the combined cost of the breakfast for Tyler and myself that first day, but it was supremely good. I had forgotten what it was like to actually enjoy food – the entire time I had been at Westing I had done nothing but worry about myself, choosing not to indulge in any kind of simple pleasure such as eating. But here it was, and it was good.

You forget who you are, and all of a sudden you don’t really think about kissing a girl or eating a pancake. You pretty much bounce into what I call ‘apprehensive survival mode.’ Don’t do anything to mess up, don’t do anything to stand out, go with the flow and try to recover as much as you can.

When I finished breakfast, I felt my chest tighten. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pill bottle, tossing one into my mouth. It immediately vaporized when it hit my tongue and slid down into my lungs. It was a pleasant feeling, like I had been iced over on the inside.

And then my chest stopped hurting.

I took the pill bottle and held it up to the light. There were several dozen small, round pills inside, but there were no markings on the bottle except a few places where the label had stuck when I peeled it off. The top to the pharmacy bottle had been replaced with one from a plastic film canister.

I was getting ready to get up and leave when the back door opened and Liza walked in. I paused, half standing half sitting to see if there was anyone walking in behind her, but she was alone, carrying a few books in front of her. She stepped into line and I walked up behind her, trying to come up with something sly or clever to say, something to bounce me out of apprehensive survival mode.

But she noticed me first. Well, that’s not entirely true. She knew someone was standing uncomfortably close to her and took me to be some kind of assailant, perhaps someone who had been Triggered, and she turned, slamming her books against my mid-section and sending me tumbling over the small railing that divided the lunch room from the tray line.

It didn’t hurt. I landed on my tennis bag and I thanked my lucky stars I had ditched the vials of Flash, otherwise this would have been more than a bad situation. She was standing on the other side of the rail, books raised over her head, before she realized just quite who I was.

“God, Tim, I’m sorry – No I’m not. That should teach you for sneaking up on me.”

As angry as she sounded at being had, she extended a hand and helped me up.

“Yeah. My bad. I was actually trying to come up with something coy to say.”

“Next time think of it from across the room, shout it out, or at least try saying it before you reach the person. You sacred the daylights out of me.”

“So I noticed. Can I buy you breakfast?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Please, I insist. It’s quite all right. I do this to everyone I terrify early in the morning.”

She smiled. “Well, that was pretty coy.”

“I know.”

She had fruit salad Jell-o, and I took an orange juice. We sat in silence as she ate, not really knowing what to say.

“Well, Dylan invited me to Banana Island.”

“God, you’re not going are you?”

“Of course I am. Why would I not go?”

“Because Dylan is a possessive, demonizing guy? You don’t know his intentions. He might take you out there and beat the ever living mother out of you, you know?”

“I can take him in a fight, I think,” I said, remembering the brief confrontation with the Triggered hobo. “Besides, this could be a good opportunity to smooth things over between us.”

“No, it’s not going to be. He doesn’t like you for the sole reason that I like you – “

After this, it became a little fuzzy. I was trying fervently in my mind to work out whether or not she meant, “Like you like I like this Jell-o,” or “Like you like I like you without clothing.” I was hoping it was the latter, and yet at the same time I wouldn’t have been totally disappointed had it been the former.

“… and that’s just the type of guy he is,” she said, defiantly spooning Jell-o into her mouth.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve made up my mind.”

She sighed. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you come back with a black eye, don’t expect any sympathy from me.”

“Alright.”

“There’s a library across the street from The Center. Mostly recordings, but they have newspaper archives, in case you’re interested in Banana Island.”

“Why thank you Angel-May. I might hop over there and check it out.” Who was I kidding? What else was I going to do with my day?

“Oh, before you go, why weren’t you at the party last night?”

“Clarice and I don’t get along,” she said carefully.

“Does this have to do with Dylan?”

“No. Personal history between us. She’s my cousin.”

“I never would have guessed.”

“Well, there it is. I have to run,” she said, standing and grabbing her books. “Sorry for flipping you over that railing.”

“Sorry for scaring you.”

“Yeah. If you don’t want to scare me, don’t go to Banana Island.”

I paused. “Sorry for scaring you.”

She frowned before turning and walking out the back door.

It was a new feeling, letting someone down like that. Directly going against their wishes, and it didn’t feel very good. But I had to be an opportunist. Even if it was a setup, even if Dylan was going to smack me silly with a boat-paddle, the pain of not knowing was more than the pain of letting Liza down.

And for that, I was truly sorry.

-

Naturally, the library wasn’t called ‘the library.’ If a shopping mall is called The Center and the gradeschool is called The Kinder, it didn’t surprise me that this library was known as ‘The Archive.’ I’ll hand it to the building planner – the name matched the interior.

This was directly across from The Center, like Liza had mentioned, but it had taken me a few minutes of aimless strolling to locate, because instead of a small, homely pre-rebirth building, it was one of the metal goliaths. There were a few entrances, and the one on the leftmost side simply read, ‘The Archives.’

But above the gold lettering were a few faded letters that read out, ‘Side Street Library.’ Slightly less modern.

[MalReynolds]

Slightly less modern and I could see that they had to change the sign to accommodate the new style they were aiming for.

The inside of the building was an oddity. The door had been located on the far left side, and several other doors had been spaced out with different signs hanging over top. When I entered The Archives, I noticed that the floor did not cover the entire span of the building, instead it stopped short at a wall. I was faced with a long hallway, three doorways wide, and to the right was a divider between The Archives and whatever location lay on the other side. It was strange after seeing The Center to have something extend so far back and up to avoid crossing over into the territory of another.

There were escalators and elevators that went up and down in the back, and the Dewey Decimal system was still being used, much to my chagrin. The reference desk was against the window, and a small woman sat in a wicker chair, stamping books.

“Hi,” I said. “Are there any newspaper archives I could take a look at?”

“Only for the last sixty years. You might want to specify what you want to look at, young man.”

“Banana Island.”

She lowered her glasses and looked at me over the lenses. “There was a young man in here looking up articles about it the other day.”

“Was his name Dylan?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Could have been. My memory just isn’t what it used to be – All I can remember are books and sometimes faces, but I’m terrible with names.”

“How can you stand it?”

“This is my life. I would rather have this than the ability to remember the name of every snot-nosed kid that came through here. Come on,” she said, stepping out from behind the desk. “It’s up a ways.”

We stepped into an elevator and she pressed one of the buttons. It looked like 3E, which threw me for a loop. I soon realized what the “E” was for as the glass door elevator began to move sideways and backwards through a few narrow hallways before coming to rest in a small room with a desk, a projector, a few shelves and some lamps.

“Hold on while I get the slides,” she said, moving to the shelves and removing a small book. She flipped it open, but instead of a paper page, there was a thick plastic sheet that she began to tap rapidly with the end of a pen. After a few seconds, she took the book and placed it face-down on the table, motioning for me to have a seat. The book moved down into the table and I heard a small mechanical whirring.

I looked under the table and watched the book descend into a small glass cube, still face down. A bright laser began to trace shapes under the glass, coming up from the floor and making sweeping patterns over the book.

I looked up, and the archivist was fiddling with the projector. She kept hitting what I could only assume was the power button, and nothing was happening. Finally, she sighed, picked up the lamp and hit the projector with the bottom of it. The projector, finally having enough, sprang to life and old newspaper articles were splashed against the wall.

“Most of these have the word ‘banana’, ‘island,’ or a combination of the two in there. You can narrow the search field, though,” she said, tapping the desk. A keyboard flipped up and out of a panel in front of me.

“Well, I’ll leave you to your research,” she said, “But I’ll be right outside. Don’t even think about messing with the laser.”

I nodded and she walked through a wooden door at the far end of the room, opposite of the elevator.

I turned my attention to the screen, which featured a story about a banana boat that had run aground on an island due to the lack of a light house.

“While the Island was not particularly banana shaped,” the article read, “It was soon deemed ‘Banana Island,’ by cautious sailors who from then on were very careful to remain clear of the small stretch of East Massachusetts coast which was home to many rocky shores and unidentified islands.”

Massachusetts. And they found me at a party up North.

Canada?

The article rambled on about sailors and superstition to the end, which wasn’t what I was looking for. I kept scanning the newer articles.

“Lighthouse Construction to Begin on Banana Island.”

“Grand Opening Ceremony on Banana Island.”

“Banana Island Lighthouse Good for Economy, Better for Sailors.”

It was a pleasant enough timeline. The article headlines continued on and on like that for a few more papers, before –

“Local Girl Missing – Police Search Banana Island.”

“Police Search Intensifies – Banana Island Lighthouse Closed.”

“Body Found Off Shore of Banana Island.”

“Body Identified as Marlene Gibbons.

“Marlene Gibbons, born and raised in Westing, was found drowned to death off the coast of Banana Island last Friday. After having been missing for several days, the police were shocked to find that it was not a kidnapping, rather a suicide. On her body was a note that simply read, ‘If he does not love me, no one will.’

“Parents are worried that the death of Gibbons will arise thoughts of suicide in the minds of their young children. Marlene, a local dancer at The Burlesque, was a popular dancer among many, -“

The article continued. There was only one other line that caught my interest.

“Although Marlene left a note, police are not ruling out foul play.”

There were a few more articles, but that was the catalyst. Soon after Marlene died, the officials’ shut the lighthouse down; afraid that impressionable youths would imitate her behavior. The lighthouse fell into disarray before being condemned, but local funding for the demolition fell through.

And to this day, the lighthouse stands.

I knocked on the door and asked the old lady to take me to a reference section for local urban legends. It was another ride in the elevator, moving forwards, left, up and down before coming to a stop back on the first floor, but in the rear of the building. She led me to a shelf which had about a dozen books as thick as I was, before pulling a slim one off the shelf.

“That’s all we have.”

I nodded, and moved over to a table, sitting down. I opened the book and was met with a plastic cover like the archivist had dealt with in the newspaper room. There was a table of contents, and a stylus that was attached to the side of the book. I picked it up, and clicked to the next page.

There were a few legends referenced in the book about burned out buildings and haunted parks, and I thought there might be something missing about Banana Island. The last selection, something that ran for one minute and three seconds, was the local legend of the lonely girl of Banana Island.

I clicked it with the stylus and waited for the book to load. Instead of being greeted by a complete text, I was met with keywords and a voice that emanated from inside the covers of the book. It began to warm up as pictures flashed on the left side. The voice was calm, cool, and decidedly British.

[MalReynolds]

“On any day you could row out to Banana Island, given that you can find a boat, but it is only at night that you would have the opportunity to come into contact with ‘The Black Ghost,’ decidedly named as such after living such a sinful life. Although there are no confirmed reports, many people have claimed to see a ghostly figure clothed entirely in white walking around the viewing platform of the lighthouse, where Marlene Gibbons is said to have flung herself. Would you like to hear this article again?”

I tapped ‘No,’ with the stylus and was prompted with another page that offered a few bits of supplemental material that to my surprise, were not narrated. There were a few cross references about Banana Island, mainly having to do with the newspapers I had seen just a few minutes before.

And then there was a brief blurb about The Burlesque and Marlene’s local hangouts. I kept scanning for a few lines before coming across one tiny bit of information – she was part of the church revival that Mother Feldspar had told me about just a few days before her death.

Not knowing what to do with the information, I shut the book and placed it back on the shelf. I turned and jumped, staring into the wrinkled face of the archivist, who had been standing behind me for some time.

“Find everything you need?”

I nodded.

“I couldn’t help but see you were looking up things on Marlene Gibbons.”

“Mainly the Black Ghost,” I said.

The archivist nodded. “That’s one of the best spook stories we have around here. There are a few more places that are supposed to be ‘more haunted’ than that lighthouse, but that one has consistently satisfied curiosity seekers. You planning on going out there?”

“No,” I said, shoving one of my hands into my pockets. “Even if I was, I don’t know where to get a boat around here.”

“Well, it’s all in who you know,” she said, turning. “Is that all the help you’re going to need?”

“I guess so. I’m going to head out.”

She laughed congenially to herself before walking down the floor to the front desk. I followed behind her, not too closely, and exited the building. I sighed as the sun hit my eyes, giving me a brief headache. The air outside burned my lungs, and I took off toward Main Street. I stopped at the Main Street entrance to the board walk, across from The Kinder, and looked out into the ocean, trying to see if I could locate Banana Island or the lighthouse, but there was a gentle haze settling over the bay.

I turned and plodded very carefully down the road, past Westing, and into the outskirts of town. This wasn’t an aimless wander like it had been yesterday, rather with the information I now had, I had a few questions. The outskirts seemed much more unfriendly than the day before, but perhaps that could be attributed to me paying attention. As the buildings thinned out, the spaces between the buildings increased. Many of them were boarded off, but the alleys between the buildings were empty. It wasn’t frightening, rather it was ethereal and ghostly, made more so by the church looming in the distance.

There were no sisters walking in the graveyard today, nor was there a tiny woman waiting for me at the door. I walked up and knocked, and when there was no answer, I let myself in.

A man cried out and charged the door. I stepped out of the way and he slammed against the frame, knocking the door shut with a grunt. I stood there dumbfounded as the large man reeled back and prepared to punch me.

“Wait,” I cried out. My voice was mirrored by another soft female voice coming from the front of the church. Mother Feldspar stood at the altar, staring at the door, and the man lowered his fist.

“I thought you were Mark,” Mother Feldspar said, stepping down. “I thought he was walking in just like we talked about.”

“And so you send this gorilla to attack Mark?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I wasn’t Mark then,” I said, calming down. “Would have hated to mess that up for you.”

She smiled and moved in front of a window, bathed in a pale light. “What brings you back here, son?”

“Nothing much. Looking for excitement.”

I turned to the man, who was wearing priests clothing. His round face was bright red, like a tomato, he huffed.

“Looks, like I found it, too. Who the hell is this guy?”

“That’s my husband.”

Naturally.

“Hello, Father Feldspar,” I said, sitting down.

-

Mother Feldspar had recessed into the back of the church to get refreshments. I had asked her if I could snack on some sacrament, but she didn’t seem to enjoy my light-hearted joke. She emerged with a tray of tea, sugar cubes and biscotti which were harder than the actual body of Christ would have been had it been readily available. After almost breaking my tooth on the biscotti, I used it to stir my tea, which was quite a step up from the stale cracker.

“I’m going out to Banana Island later tonight,” I said, sipping my tea, “Trying to find the Black Ghost with one of my friends from Westing.”

Mother Feldspar sighed and Father Feldspar took a seat next to her, taking her hand.

“Why on Earth would you want to do that?” She finally said.

“Honestly, I have nothing better to do. The friend I’m going with has been showing me some undue animosity as of late, and I’m trying to figure out why. That’s part of it. But then, at the same time, it seems exciting, trying to find a ghost like that.”

“Mother Feldspar knew Marlene Gibbons. Do you know who Marlene Gibbons is?”

“The supposed Black Ghost, yes.”

“Mother Feldspar was part of the church revival. That seems like so long ago, doesn’t it dear?”

She nodded. “Marlene was an exotic dancer. But there was something about her, something so worldly. And she was so charming, I couldn’t help but be taken in by her. She said she reformed, but she died before she could prove it to anyone.”

“That’s a shame,” I said, taking a sip of my tea. “What exactly happened? I read some old articles at The Archive, but they were pretty bare-bones. Nothing but theory. I thought it might help if I could get straight to the thick of it, and you were the only person I knew who was alive during the revival of the church.” I paused. “Well, now I know two people,” I motioned towards Father Feldspar.

“I don’t even know what happened to her,” Mother Feldspar said. “But I know she didn’t kill herself. There’s no way – she was such a sweet person, so strong. I don’t think she could have ever thrown herself from the viewing deck like they said.

“She was intent on getting into heaven. She told me one day, and I believed her conviction. And then three days later, she went missing. I knew something happened. I knew it was too good to be true, to get a reformed sinner like that that was so devoted to their cause.

“Marlene helped both Sam and I out more than I think you could ever fathom,” Mother Feldspar finished.

“Sam knew Marlene?”

“My husband’s name is Sam as well, but yes, she also helped my daughter.”

I nodded. “So do you believe in any of this ghost nonsense? I came here to try and make heads or tails of it.”

“Well,” Father Feldspar began, “Typically a ghost is a remnant of another life.”

I was nodding along like I understood exactly what he was saying.

“While they haven’t documented any real paranormal activity, if she died with great sadness, like the police implied when they say she killed herself, then her ghost may linger. Or if she was angry at circumstances, but it all boils down to what you believe in. Do you believe when you go out there tonight that you’ll see something supernatural, or do you think it’s a load of rubbish?”

“I don’t know.”

“In any case, you’ll probably have much more fun if you go in with an open mind. Every bump and falling rock will make you shiver.”

I paused. “I’m not sure if I want adventure. I’m not sure what I want. I don’t know if I’d like it or if I’d hate it or if I’d wet myself when a ghost pops up. I just don’t feel like I know the type of person I am anymore, if you understand.”

Mother Feldspar shook her head. “Completely. Sometimes things happen in life, we don’t know why or to what purpose. It’s easy to get lost like that, but you still have your humanity.”

I would rather have my memories than my humanity. What a Gift of the Magi it would be if I gave up my humanity to find in my past I was inhumane. I would fit right in.

“You just have to take everything you have and try and make something of it,” Father Feldspar said.

Three days worth of memories wouldn’t serve much, I thought to myself. I have a potentially fatal disease, a girl that makes me uneasy, and I’ve been attacked more times than I care to remember.

Maybe that was the norm, though. Maybe every person runs into a Triggered beast every day, and surviving is an adventure in itself.

I thought about the day at The Center, staring down the barrel of a gun. I had stood, prepared to swing my book bag at his face, but his footsteps had been so misleading. He was further away than I had thought, and all I could do is stand and watch while he reloaded the gun. I had been shaking, my adrenaline had been pumping, and there was a twinge of regret for not being able to protect Liza better.

And if I had helped stave the attack, I would be in prison.

But after, it felt good. The faux sense of bravery that had come across felt good, like it was something I was supposed to be doing. It felt good to be a risk taker.

The homeless man that tried to catch me that night on The Quad, that had tried to drag me down. More adrenaline.

And it felt, for some reason, like a change. When I opened my tennis bag for the first time and knew to skip the bump in the middle, it was like that. It felt like I was doing something I wanted to be doing, surviving in a world where I didn’t quite fit in or understand. Every risk I took was rewarded by my body, mind, and surroundings.

“I think I believe in ghosts, Father,” I said finally.

“Then I think you’ll have a good time,” he said.

“If you do see Marlene, Tim, please tell her we say ‘Thank you for everything.’”

“If I see a ghost and I still retain the ability to speak, I will most certainly pass along the message,” I said.

We sat and talked for a few more minutes, mainly about the decay of the outside of the city. The Feldspars’ seemed to think it was indicative of some kind of interior collapse. Mother Feldspar noted that there were many buildings that were scheduled for destruction, but at the last minute funding was pulled.

That explained the extreme number of hollow shells that littered the path back in to Westing. Father Feldspar said that while not everyone believed in religion, that they had a sense of morality, right and wrong that was indelible. People in the city abandoned all hope when they stepped across the limits, and that was that. They went in to Westing to forget about everything and were handed a whole new set of problems to deal with to help compensate and accommodate their changing lifestyle.

There was truth in his words, and I found myself agreeing whole heartedly. He was an entertaining speaker with a salt and pepper beard that looked like it needed a trimming. When he spoke, it would bounce up and down, and when he furrowed his brow, he looked quite like a pug. He was in stark contrast to Mother Feldspar. The more I looked at her, the more I was angry at myself for not realizing her as Sam’s mother. They looked so incredibly similar, save for one or two small features. The biggest was the sense of sincerity and warmth I received from Mother Feldspar when I first arrived at Westing Chapel as compared to when I first met Sam at Westing College.

Father Feldspar was a portly man who had a bellowing laugh, and Mother Feldspar, while never really laughing, always found a good opportunity to smile.

It was a shame such a nice building and such nice people were wasted by such a heinous society. It wasn’t that long of a walk, and Mother and Father Feldspar were such kind people. The Chapel was a place that felt more like a home than a church, and when I looked back at the city from the open front door, it actually pained me that I would have to leave them behind.

Before I left, I promised them that I would return the next day with any report I had, Black Ghost or otherwise, and try and bring Sam along with me. They didn’t seem to agree with the last part.

“If she wants to come, she’ll come,” Mother Feldspar said. “Don’t try and force it.”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” I said. “I’m sure she misses you two, though.”

“Please. You had no idea who I was when you first arrived here, Tim. She doesn’t talk about us much, does she?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve only been here for a few days, and I’ve known Sam for the same amount of time, but I rarely find myself having the time to sit down and chat with her. She’s busy with class, I’m busy with – I keep myself busy, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s –“ Mother Feldspar wanted to say “Good.” There was a crease across her face that said she was glad that she didn’t have to give up on Sam just yet, that there was hope that Sam still talked about her parents. Instead, she said, “Something. Well, that’s something.”

Something good, something bad, something noxious, something poisonous, something deadly, something depressing, something. In the space between her intentions and her words was something. Regret, defeat, hope, love, hate, pain, bliss, something.

I stood, not having any words. I tipped my invisible hat and stepped out the front door, catching a few last words from Father Feldspar as the doors closed. They sounded like, “Nice boy,” but I couldn’t quite be sure.

Mother and Father had nothing but something. And that’s all they had.

-

I walked back into Westing with a sense of commandment overflowing, a newfound sense of authority. Outside of a few obvious and choice moments, I had found something I had in fact liked about my existence, and that was thrill. Not immediately associated with fun or safety, but I had found something to help drive me. Instead of being hollow, I was certain I had found something that I had lost. God, it fit and God, it felt good.

I knocked on Dylan’s door, despite being fifteen minutes early from his taught seven o’clock deadline. When he didn’t answer, I turned my back to the door and walked to the guest dorm, sliding my ear to the door and listening in for any sign of The Gary’s. When I could hear nothing, I let myself in and pried the bed from the left wall, revealing the recess where I had left my bag earlier. I slid it back down and pushed the bed back into place, putting the bolts that should have held the bed to the wall back in just for show.

And then I checked under the far bed. The two vials of Flash were safe underneath. I was surprised, honestly. The amount of vagrants that stayed in this very room and they hadn’t found the drugs yet. It was quickly turning into not only a place to sleep for the upcoming days, but a safe-house of sorts.

Content with the safety of the bag, I left the Guest Dorm and headed back to Dylan’s room, once again knocking.

“Hold on, hold on,” he said through the door. “I’m coming.”

I casually leaned against the adjacent wall and waited. After a few minutes, Dylan opened the door and looked out at me.

“So, you decided on this after all,” he said, hoisting a small backpack.

“Yeah. Not much to lose.”

He nodded. “Well, good. Wouldn’t have gone without you.”

“Really?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I just don’t want to be out there alone. Could be dangerous.”

I sighed. “Well, if you throw me in the line of fire and I live, you’ll have to answer to me.”

“Look at this tough guy,” Dylan said to no one in particular.

“Are you ready or are you going to stand in the hallway mocking me until I die of boredom?”

“Oh, I thought you might have wanted to pack something.”

“Like what? Do I look like I have a coat? Maybe a change of pants in case I get scared? Forget about it. I’m ready.”

Dylan shut the door and reappeared a second later, throwing a denim coat at me.

“Put that on. You’ve gotten some never, sure, but it’s cold out there. I don’t want you freezing to death, especially if we hit a cross wind.”

I stared at him blankly before sliding the coat on. It was a surprisingly tight fit.

“That’s your coat,” he said, stepping out and shutting the door. “You left it that stupid party up north. I took it in case I happened to see you again, so you can keep it.”

“I know it’s my coat, Dylan. I’m not an idiot,” I said, looking at the sleeves. “And you said you didn’t think you would see me again.”

“Caught me. I planned on keeping a ratty denim coat for myself. Oh, I’m a criminal mastermind, just you watch out, Tim Unknown Last Name.”

“Smithson,” I said quickly as if the name actually belonged to me. “Tim Smithson. Your memory is worse than mine.”

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” Dylan said, standing, trying to size me up. He knew something had changed, but wasn’t sure what.

“What, you’re going to turn around now? We’re too far gone to turn around,” I stepped forward in front of his door. “It’s your plan, Tonto, so let’s get it done with.”

He sighed and shifted the bag on his shoulder. “As you wish,” he said, heading towards the stairs. “As you wish,” he repeated under his breath when he thought I was out of earshot.

I watched him jaunt down the stairs, having to slow his pace to adjust his thin glasses. His brown leather coat looked like my wallet, but suited him well, as did his backpack. He had torn all identifying corporate tags off, but they were still visible, lines of dirt and clean patches outlining them perfectly.

He turned and muttered, “Hurry up,” as I was walking down the stairs, before rushing out the front door. I followed, and we disappeared into the night.

[FoJaR]

massachussets *wink*

[MalReynolds]

Dylan was hop-stepping instead of walking down the street, which in turn made me half jog to catch up with him. His book-bag was jumping up and down with every other step he took.

“What do you have in there,” I finally caught up with him.

“Clothes, water bottles, map, baseball bat.”

“A baseball bat?”

“I always carry one around when I do stuff like this. It’s the most intimate sincere form of protection I can think of, outside of a gun. And if you’re caught with a gun by the police, well, you can kiss the rest of your life goodbye.”

I felt very defenseless. After a brief period, we reached the Main Street boardwalk entrance, when Dylan and I vaulted over. He started running down, in the direction of The Kinder, his footfalls echoing off of the petrified wood, slamming against the buildings and reverberating over the serene ocean. I kept my eyes open, staring across the bay trying to catch any glimpse that I could of Banana Island, but the haze had set in very well in the last few hours and completely obscured my view. I did, however, see the outcropping of rocks that jutted from the coast.

Dylan signaled for me to follow him out onto the rocks. I wondered why he didn’t speak, but I saw his face in the failing light. The walk or run or whatever you would call it had taken a lot out of him. His legs were wavering and he was very out of breath, waving for me to step with him.

I didn’t think the water could be too deep as we crossed the spaced rocks, but it was hard to tell in the growing darkness. I reached into my pocket and dropped a coin, but it disappeared from view before I could see the bottom. It was perhaps more treacherous than I had originally thought, and even if the water wasn’t an endless abyss, the cold was sure to take you within seconds of falling in. I pulled my jacket closer against my body and began to step more carefully as the water began to lick hungrily at the sides of the rocks, as if it had sensed the presence of two beings that it would love to have.

When we reached the end of the outcropping, Dylan took his bag off of his shoulder and removed what looked like a small bill. I didn’t understand what he was doing with it until I saw the shape move. There was an old man sitting at the end of the rocks in a black rain coat that was slick with ocean water. His face was cracked and gray, and after he removed his hood, I saw that the majority of his head was covered with burn marks. He grabbed the money from Dylan and I saw he had the same marks along his hands.

There was a small boat tethered to the edge of the outcropping with an even smaller rope. The old man climbed into the boat and motioned for Dylan and I to follow, but I was apprehensive. The boat looked like it had enough trouble sustaining one person, much less three. But Dylan didn’t hesitate. He stepped right into the boat, pushing it a little further out.

Sighing, I too stepped off of the outcropping, my legs forming a bridge between the famished water. I sat in the middle of the boat, between Dylan and the old man.

“Well, what are you waiting for,” the old man spoke. “Row.”

“What? It’s your boat,” Dylan retorted.

“Aye, and you’re renting it. I’m here to make sure I get it back, see? Only thing I have left, see? But my hands, they’re too far gone to grip a paddle or grease an oar lock. We can sit in this boat all night if you want, but you all don’t want that, so row.”

“Where did you find this guy,” I said over my shoulder to Dylan.

“I’m not ‘some guy,’ kid. My name is Wesley, see, and I used to be real famous around here. A real to do.”

“Where did you find Wesley,” I repeated over my shoulder to Dylan.

“I asked around if anyone knew about any boats that could head out to the island past curfew and that old bitty at the archives told me about Wesley.”

“Great,” I thought. Dylan has never met this guy before. It was pure impulse.

I liked it.

I grabbed both oars and pulled them back as Wesley pulled the line in, dropping the wet rope in the boat. Within five strokes, my shoulders ached and my ears hummed, but as the number of pulls grew, the less I seemed to mind the constant strain on my muscles. Dylan was trying his best to give me directions to the Island, and all Wesley could do was laugh at how we were nautically challenged.

Waves started crashing against the side of the boat as the wind picked up. Dylan was wrapping a scarf around his neck, still trying to give directions through the wool. After a few minutes, he pulled out a water bottle and took a swig, before putting it in the bag, not bothering to offer me any.

My face had a thin sheen of sweat covering it and my white shirt was sticking to my body. It was uncomfortable in the cold, like the hands of a sick girlfriend clinging all over my body, but I rowed on. I finally lost the feelings in my arms and we slowed down.

“I’d row,” Dylan said as I let the paddles drop, “But I need to navigate.”

“Yeah. Just let me take a little rest,” I gasped.

“Oh, come on man. We’re losing time here. Every second we spend idling in the ocean is another we won’t get to spend on the Island.”

“Don’t talk to me like I don’t know that, Dylan, it’s difficult.”

“Well –“

“Will you shut up, you pansy!” Wesley yelled before falling back, laughing, and slapping his knee. As he rollicked, the boat tipped back and forth uncomfortably. I only hoped he was talking to Dylan and not me.

“Hey man,” Dylan’s voice was shaky, “Could you not rock the boat, please?”

“Oh, don’t be afraid little man. I know the limits of this vessel, see, I built it myself. Was going to be a present for my wife, see, but things happen. And I know the limits of this vessel, because I built it myself,” he nodded satisfactorily, his voice tapering off before being caught in the wind.

I picked the oars back up much to the dismay of my shoulders and chest. I pushed my feet against the bar at the bottom of the boat and pulled back as hard as I could, trying desperately to find a rhythm to work with, and hoping even more that my arms would go numb again. But there was no such luck for me in store that night. Instead of being overcome with a cool numbness, my arms were breached with a burning fire that roared every time I moved in any direction. After a few minutes of grunting, Wesley reached outside the boat and splashed water on me.

“Cool off, soldier, you don’t have much more to do.”

I laughed. Easy enough for him to say, he was sitting and watching me row. How many times had he made this very trip, though?

“I bet back in the day you were quite the sailor,” I grunted, pulling the oars back. It was all I could do to stop from yelling.

“Oh, never much for me, you know. The wife, she loved it, that’s why I built her this boat, see? We would go out rowing all the time, see, before the Rebirth and it was always fun, see?”

“What happened to your wife,” Dylan piped up from the back. “No one talks about their wife in the past tense like that unless something happened.”

“She died a while ago,” he said. His voice sounded a frown. The sun was completely gone and all I could see was his silhouette on the horizon line.

“How’d she die?” Dylan asked.

“Come on, man,” I muttered under my breath.

“Fire. I tried to save her, but there was no way. I barely made it out myself.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I coughed, pulling the oars back again. “That’s very tragic.”

Wesley perked up, turning his attention in another direction.

“Land ho,” he yelled. I looked in the direction he was gesturing and saw the Island looming in the distance. The shore looked somewhat accessible, but I still could not see the light house through the fog. I dipped my arms in the water before grabbing the oars and pushing us towards shore.

When our boat hit the sand of the beach, I jerked forward, and I dropped myself out of the vessel, rolling out. I could feel the sand sticking to my wet shirt as I lay outstretched, staring at the sky. Wesley stepped out of the boat, standing over me.

“You did good, but don’t be such a baby about it,” he smirked.

“Whatever,” I said turning over and climbing to my feet. The beach gave way to a few dirt paths that were now overgrown. I could only imagine they were used for construction of the light house.

“I’m waiting by the boat,” Wesley said, turning and standing with his feet in the ocean. “But take your time,” he pulled the boat further up shore, stepping inside and sitting in the back, lowering his hood and nodding off.

Dylan and I stepped up to the first trail. I was glad to be on solid land. Not even the shifting sand was enough to satisfy me. It felt good to have something consistent under my feet again. My arms hung dead at my side as we moved forward.

The path moved into a grove of trees that spanned the length of the Island. The Island itself wasn’t too wide. It took less than ten minutes to traverse it from side to side, and once we found there was no way around, but rather through the trees, Dylan began to express regret.

“They’re just trees, man.”

“I want to know if the boat is still there, or if that burned freak took off without me. Without us.”

“I don’t think he’s the type of guy –“

“Whatever, man, I’d just rather be safe than sorry,” he said, checking his watch.

“What time is it?”

“It’s almost nine.”

“Took us two hours to get out here?”

“Round about.”

“So even if we left now, Dylan, you wouldn’t be able to get back into the dorms. Especially given the condition of my arms and the speed at which I would be rowing.”

“You’re right.”

“Better to spend the night out here than back on shore with the crazies,” I said, turning to the trees.

Something was moving in the corner of my eye. I saw something dart into the trees, pushing branches out of the way, but when I turned to see if I could get confirmation, I just found Dylan yawning.

“I thought I saw something run into those trees, Dylan,” I motioned down the line.

“Yeah right. Stop trying to freak me out.”

I rolled my eyes and stepped off of the dirt trail into the woods. I held the obstructing branch for Dylan, and he slowly stepped through.

It was almost cave darkness in the grove of trees. The only light that we had to assist us was from Dylan’s dinky flashlight and the moon, which didn’t find it prudent to break through the branches of the trees except in select spots that were entirely useless to traversing the Island.

[MalReynolds]

The grove was much thicker from the inside than I had thought. The branches seemed to block our path at every turn, grabbing at my back and hair. Soon they stopped feeling like branches and began to feel very much like tiny claws trying to hold us back from progressing any further. I could hear my shirt rip as I tried to step though, and thorns scratching at my leg. The path ahead was impossible to tread given the sheer density of the forest, but Dylan and I persevered, pushing on harder. And just as soon as the branches started grabbing at us, they stopped and the path became easier to tread.

Now the moonlight came down and bathed the grove in a comforting glow. The gnarled and twisted roots that came up out of the ground at the base of the trees cast odd shadows, but were illuminated and glowed white. There was a slight fog by our feet that cleared away with every step we took forward, and through the canopy of trees I could see the stars hanging in the sky above. The branches hung out at odd angles from most of the foliage, and there were odd shrubs here and that that seemed out of place, but this area was much at odds with the one we had just passed through.

Soon, as we continued, there was sound. Frogs started croaking and I could hear birds in the distance, despite not being able to see any nests. There were creatures moving about, most likely squirrels or something else rodent in nature, and as my eyes followed the sound of one that ran under the leaves, my eyes came across the shadow I had seen dash into the grove ahead of us. This time, I did not take my eyes off of it, but the light around it had failed and all I saw was a slight figure. I could not tell if it had seen me or not, but we both stood still. Dylan, unaware, moved ahead.

And as soon as I blinked, the shadow was gone.

Dylan had stopped some feet ahead at the trunk of an overly large tree and was staring at the ground near the roots. He hunkered down and began to paw at something, which garnered my curiosity. Dylan reached into his bag, pulled out a bottle of water, glanced over his shoulder, and tossed it at me. To be honest, I hadn’t been expecting the notion, and the bottle bounced off of my shoulder, tumbling to the ground.

“Come on, slick, take a look at this.”

I moved over next to him and stared at the ground. There was an odd plant that was protruding from the soil, glowing a faint white. As I stared, I watched as the plant seemed to grow, and then expel some of the white fog that had gathered at our feet. And it repeated this motion every few seconds. I fanned my hand back and forth, clearing some of the fog and saw more of these small mushrooms, spaced out every five or so feet, coating the ground in the fog.

“These mushrooms, Tim, they can be harvested, you know? They can make you trip, but the extract, that’s the real killer.”

“What?”

“You get some of these mushrooms and run it through a purifier, you get low grade Flash.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s – How do you know that?”

Dylan sat back on the root of the tree, and opened his bottle of water, taking a swig.

“What’s life without a little mystery?” He finally said.

“Tell me.”

“A few months ago, I was maybe trying to get into the business. I didn’t think it through, didn’t realize how saturated the market actually was. I just wanted something that would help me pay for things, you know, for Liza and stuff, but – There’s no way you can make money with that stuff around here unless you have some major connections.”

“That’s brazen.”

“And stupid. Not a second I don’t regret even thinking about going into sales like that. When you start selling, they make you test your first batch.”

“You’ve never –“

“I’m not stupid.”

“Well, that’s open for debate.”

He chuckled. “Anyway, Liza found out. My trip up North was also to reconnoiter about the whereabouts of some of these, and she caught wind, and then she wouldn’t talk to me after that. That’s why things are weird between her and I. You know about her dad, right?”

“Yeah, she told me.”

“Any hatred she had for that man is superseded by the hatred she has for the drug that resulted in his death.”

“That why you don’t like me?”

“No, I don’t like you because I don’t know you. I don’t like anyone I don’t know. I was drunk when I invited you down here. Hell, I still don’t know anything about you, except that you somehow made fast friends with Tyler, Sam and Liza. That’s a trick in itself.”

“I’m personable.”

Dylan tilted his head back and laughed. “More like eager to please.”

“What’s so wrong with that? Is it wrong that I want people to be happy?”

“No. If you didn’t want people to be happy, you wouldn’t be out here with me, would you?”

I paused. “Not true. I came out here to find out why you were being such a callous bastard to me.”

“Point.”

“Here’s a question. Did you really come back to the room and try to find me?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“Put yourself in my shoes. A complete stranger shows up and takes hold of your hospitality, you don’t know anything about him except he might have a bad family and he carries around a tennis bag. That’s it. And you wanted me to go out to breakfast?”

“You extended the invitation, chief.”

“I wouldn’t if I thought you were going to accept.”

I sighed and looked down at the mushroom, puffing away.

“What’s to stop someone from coming to this island and harvesting these mushrooms?”

“Not enough in here to make any high quality Flash. Not even enough to make a series of low-grade. These mushrooms are too small, probably the sea air stunts their growth. I had no idea about them, though.”

I took a sip of my water. It was warm, but all at once it reminded me of how thirst I really was. I downed the bottle without a second thought and shoved the empty into my pocket.

“Come on,” Dylan said, rising to his feet. “The Island isn’t even that big. I don’t know how we’ve been traipsing around here for the last half an hour.”

We began to move again towards the friendlier portion of the woods. Within a minute, they had began to thin out in front of us, and I could see a moonlit field in the distance through the branches. There were flowers sprouting out of the ground, not enough to totally coat the field, but enough to draw my immediate attention away from the light house.

The light house loomed in the distance, raising three stories out of the ground. The light inside was no longer functioning, but the rotational platform that it stood was still going in circles. With very revelation, there was a loud squeak that shot through my ears. The trees inside the grove had made an excellent buffer against the sound.

We both moved forward without regard for the flowers, keeping our eyes fixed on the white building. There were patches of grey where the paint was peeling off of the bricks, and it began to look like a diseased person the closer we approached. Soon, the grey spots no longer resembled chipped paint, but indentations in a thin coating of skin that had scabbed over.

The railing along the top looked rusted, but it was hard to judge from our vantage point below. The Island tapered off after the light house into a thin point that the waves mercilessly crashed against. Any thoughts I had about rowing around the Island for easier access to the light house were immediately dashed as I saw how choppy and unpredictable the water was.

Dylan moved first around the base, which had a lip of red brick, towards a stair case which led to a damp wooden door. He made me take point as we headed up the stairs, and the door was warm to the touch despite the coldness of our surroundings. I was reserved about touching the handle, but I didn’t need to – the door pushed right open from my touch.

Dylan handed me his flashlight, and I stepped inside. There was a circular staircase that extended upwards, as well as a small one that extended into the ground. I took the smaller staircase first, down to another wooden door hidden in the center of the light house base. With a little encouragement from my elbow, the door opened and I was treated to the site of one old, rusted mattress and a window. I looked out and realized that this was the light house keepers sleeping area, back when it was functional, built right into the base of the light house, surrounded by the red brick. There hadn’t been enough room to build a cabin adjacent to the light house on either side, and putting one behind the light house would have obstructed the keeper’s immediate view of the ocean, which would have put boats at hazard.

The mattress was soaked through and through, and the box-spring it sat upon was rusted beyond all repair. When the beam from the flashlight hit it, I expected it to sound off, as a simple brushing from my passing leg had made the springs sing.

We stepped back into the main room and mounted the circular stairs. Dylan had his hand firmly planted on the smiley rail, the one pieces of metal in this brick monstrosity. We carefully stepped up, one at a time, not daring to put the weight of two people down on any given step. I would progress up three, turn, and provide the light for Dylan to do the same.

At the top, the stairs dead-ended at a wooden ladder that extended at an extreme angle up to the viewing platform. There was a thin trap door that was padlocked shut, but it didn’t take more than a brief touch to make the lock virtually disintegrate into a fine powder. I pushed the trap-door open and realized just how stale it had been inside the main chamber. The sea air hit my face and I was immediately cooled. It surprised me to find how hot I had been inside.

The trap door was almost too small for my frame, and that’s saying something. If George had been the second instead of myself, he would have had to wait on the landing below for Dylan to check the viewing platform. There’s no way he would have fit through such a tight squeeze. I propped myself up on my hands and pushed through the narrow opening, rolling over and climbing onto my knees.

I bent down into the trap door and offered a hand to Dylan, who eagerly took it. The rotational platform was ungodly loud at this distance, and I was taken aback at how it could be functioning with no sign of machinery in the depths of the light house, nor any immediate source of power.

Dylan reached his hand out slowly as the platform rotated, and as soon as his hand made contact, it stopped dead in its tracks. This made both of us jump more than the squeaking could have possibly done.

[MalReynolds]

We both stared at the circle, and I was secretly hoping it would start again. Instead, an eerie silence befell us that not even the breeze coming off of the ocean could shatter.

We stepped out of the interior room onto the observation platform. I stared out across the expanse of the ocean until I could no longer tell the water from the night sky. The stars reflected off of the serene water and down the line, they became one. All at once I was afraid that I would drift up into the sky and I clutched the rusted metal railing.

There were faint footfalls as I realized that Dylan had circled around and was getting a better look at the Island from our vantage point. I turned and followed, and found him staring at the grove. It had felt so much larger than it looked, so much more dangerous. From our spot, it looked less like a forest and more like a thin smattering of trees that had been forgotten on the landscape.

My eyes drifted down to the flowers, the ones I had nonchalantly stepped on and over to get to the light house. It took me a few seconds to try and put together what exactly they looked like. The lilies – or whatever they were, growing in yellow, white and red – had formed an almost light-brite quality picture of a sideways skull that extended across the Island.

On the left side of the observation deck, the drop off went directly into the ocean. There was rope holding the railing together at that point, as if someone had taken the time to remove a stretch of metal.

“Well,” Dylan said, turning to face me, “Camp inside our out here?”

“It’s too damp inside and it’s too cold out here.”

“Pick one. Lesser of two evils and all that.”

I sighed. “Well, inside. In case it starts snowing.”

Dylan nodded and we moved back into the light house, carefully moving down the ladder, but keeping the trap door open to air out the interior as best we could. I leaned against the wall and watched Dylan pull a towel from his backpack, rolling it up tightly, before lying on the floor.

“Forget this,” he said, tossing me the towel. “I’m taking the bed down there.”

“Go right ahead. It’s gross.”

I unrolled the towel on the floor and laid down on top of it as Dylan marched down the stairs to the keeper’s old bedroom. Immediately warm, I removed my shirt, bunched it up, and laid my head down on it as if it was a pillow.

The mattress was making an inordinate amount of noise every time Dylan moved. Each time he so much as twitched, it delayed me from sleep for another few minutes.

“Dylan,” I called out. “What time is it?”

There was a pause, invaded by the mattress’ ambient noise as Dylan lifted his arm.

“Close to three.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I muttered. Time flies and all that.

There were no windows. The only source of light was a haphazard moonbeam that was coming down through the trap door next to me. It was impossible to measure how much time I spent lying there, thinking about sleep, or how long it had actually taken us to get across the Island.

The moon beam moved slowly, very slowly, as the Earth turned. And when it landed on my face, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

-

When I awoke, I regretted removing my shirt. Despite wearing an undershirt, I was cold and shivering from the damp inside of the light house. My over shirt, that I had been using as a pillow, had somehow found its way out from under my head at some point and was now lying across the floor. I was still on the towel, although now I noticed all the pebbles that I had been lying on. My back was alive with pain.

The sun was much brighter inside the light house than the moon had been, and I saw that there were three small windows that punctuated the wall leading up to the observation platform.

Instead of waking Dylan, I headed back up, through the trap door, to the deck. I wanted to look out at the ocean, as it was, separate from the sky. When I set my feet down and finally righted myself, I was stunned to find someone looking out over the left side of the observation deck, where the rope was the railing.

I stepped over carefully, not wanting to startle whoever it was. My mind first flashed to Wesley, the boat-man. Perhaps he had come looking for us in the middle of the night. Then it flashed stupidly to Liza for some reason, as if she could have made her way out here in the dead of the eve.

The frame was slight and almost shivering. Whoever it was, they were far too smartly dressed for the weather. The person was wearing a red blazer and a skirt, with ordinary tennis shoes. From across the deck, I could see she was wearing a friendly white blouse and had a shock of red hair that was blowing in the wind. She had her hands outstretched on either side of the railing, and I saw that the rope was missing.

I walked over, tentatively, and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, and seemed just as startled by my presence as I had been by hers.

She had a pleasant enough smile after she realized I meant her no harm.

“They say a girl jumped from here a while ago,” she said, turning back to the gap in the railing.

“Yeah. Marlene Gibbons, died of a broken heart. And drowning.”

“I don’t believe that one bit, sir,” she said, facing me.

“And why not?”

“I’ve lived in Westing most of my life, and while I never knew Marlene personally – Just look. It’s a perfect setup, isn’t it? The railing right here, missing like that? It had to have been something more than a depressed little girl.”

“Even if it was, I mean, what’s the point? She died so long ago.”

“What are you, new?” She asked, stepping away from the railing and leaning against the glass partition that divided the trap door and the observation deck. The wind stopped bothering her hair now, and it fell lightly around her shoulders. “If her killer is still out there, do you know what a story that’d be? It’d be intense.”

“And why would anyone care?”

“You’d be surprised what people care about, Mr…”

“Smith. Timothy Smith.”

“Josephine Robert.”

“Robert? Or Roberts?”

“Robert.”

“That’s strange.”

“I’ve heard worse.”

“Is that your real name?” I asked.

“It’s the one I’ve used for a long time. At least in my reporting. Is that you’re real name?”

“I’ve used this one for about four days,” I said, smiling. “How long have you been reporting? What paper?”

“Westing Press. It’s local and no one gives a **** about it, but it pays the bills, you know? And about ten years, give or take. Bringing the news to the people who really couldn’t care either way if the news is brought.”

“That’s a quaint way of putting it,” I said, moving next to her.

“What brings you to Banana Island, Tim Smith of four days?”

“I came here with a friend to check out the light house. Maybe to try and find the Black Ghost, if you’d believe it.”

“A sensible guy like you out ghost hunting? With a second person?” She smiled. “First rule of ghost hunting – you have to be alone.”

“Oh. Well, now that I know that, I don’t think I’ll catch the ghost. The Island is far too surreal at night for me to be here by myself, honestly. I don’t think I could stand it.”

“How did you get out here, anyway?”

“Well, there’s a boat-for-hire out there that leaves around nine. Some old codger named Wesley owns it. You know him?”

Without skipping a beat, “Yes.”

“Burns over most of his body. He’s real hard to forget.”

“Wesley and I go back some time. He was the first person to bring me out here, very nice about it. This was before he was burned up, I think. Feels guilty about the death of his wife, doesn’t he?”

“I guess so.”

“The burns he carries, those are like anchors to his legs. He can’t go much anywhere without being reminded of how he let her die.”

“That’s… A bummer, I guess.”

Josephine laughed, reached out and touched my arm. “A bummer. I like that. I haven’t heard someone talk like that in a while.”

I smiled as her hand lingered on my arm for a second. “How did you get out here?”

“I swam,” she said before giggling. “No, no, a friend of mine has a power boat. He works for the paper.”

“What’s his name?”

“It’s a nice boat,” she said, smiling. The wind was picking up again, tossing both her hair and mine.

“Come on,” I said, pulling her inside. “You’ll get blown off if we stay out here much longer.”

[MalReynolds]

We stepped inside and I watched her slight frame disappear into the central chamber. I quickly followed, but by the time I was off the ladder, she was already at the bottom.

“Wait, did you write the article about Marlene? I read one in the archives.”

She nodded. “It’s always been a pet case of mine. Even if I can’t find anything new about it, I come out here at least once a year, around the time she died, to commemorate the loss of a great life – and the birth of a wonderful mystery.”

“Gosh, and I was starting to think you were sentimental,” I said, making my way down the stairs. “Here, you want to meet my – my acquaintance, Dylan?”

“He’s here?”

I nodded. “Yeah. He decided to sleep on the mattress downstairs.”

“That’s odd,” she muttered under her breath. “Are you sure he’s still here?”

“Well,” I started down the stairs to the cabin, “Pretty sure. I don’t think he’d –“ I was going to say ‘ditch me,’ but when I looked in the cabin and found the bed empty, I choked on my words. “He was down here last night.”

“Is he not there now?”

“No.”

“Maybe the Black Ghost got him,” Josephine said from behind me, brushing my neck. Chill bumps rose on my arm and I turned, smiling, despite the situation.

“Oh, shut up. He’s got to be around here somewhere.” The stair well was narrow and I barely had enough room to squeeze by Josephine, but somehow we made full contact. It was pleasantly awkward, and she followed me up the stairs.

“So, where do you think he is?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he went back to the grove, or went to go tell Wesley something. I don’t know.”

“Maybe he left you here,” she chided playfully behind me as I stepped out the front door, down the rock steps, draping my shirt over my head.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I sighed.

As we walked through the field, I noticed that most of the flowers that had been in full bloom the night before had since died off, leaving nothing but frail stems and dried out petals on the ground. They crunched like dead leaves under our feet as we made our way to the grove, which I could see clean through in the sunlight. It had seemed so all encompassing the night before, and now it looked like it took up less space than half of a football field.

“Here, let’s split up. You check the left side of the woods, I’ll check the right,” I offered.

“Okay,” Josephine said. “But I don’t think we’ll find anything.”

“You sound confident.”

“Women’s intuition,” she said, breaking to the left.

As with the flowers, the mushrooms that had been puffing out the white fog were now dead, although not quite in the same state. They seemed to have hardened almost to the point of petrifaction in the time between then and now. I kicked one and it barely broke at the base, but still managed to hurt my foot, before it toppled over. It looked more like stone than a mushroom, like the same artist that had smattered the trees over the landscape had taken all the mushrooms and replaced them with small statuettes.

I walked along the right side, what I assumed was the easterly side, judging by the position of the sun, close to the ocean. I was more elevated in the forest than I thought, and the drop off at the side seemed most treacherous. The ambience was gone – I walked in silence, occasionally stopping and listening for Josephine’s footsteps across the grove, but I could never hear them.

However, we both emerged from the grove at the same time, stepping out into the sunlight. She was a red dot in the distance that grew larger as I approached.

“Any luck?”

“No. I told you I wasn’t going to find anything,” she said, smiling and brushing the hair out of her face.

“Maybe Wesley is still here,” I turned towards the south side of the Island and began a small jog. Josephine managed to keep up, and when we reached the beach, started laughing. The beach, of course, was empty.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Tim, this seems like it sucks.”

“No kidding. Could I get a ride back with you?”

“Sure. If you’re keen on staying here a few more days.”

“What?”

“I am sentimental. I hold a vigil, and then I scour the Island looking for anything I might have missed in the years since the ‘suicide’ occurred. And then I’m picked up on Tuesday.”

“That’s strange.”

“Compared to everyone else,” she gestured off the shore, in the direction of mainland, which was visible in the distance, “Sure. But to me, I’m just sentimental.”

Westing looked so different from the shore of Banana Island. The buildings looked regal in the distance, and despite knowing the state of affairs on the shore, I couldn’t help but feel some kind of swelling pride in the city. The buildings were tall, uniform, exact – they were like some work of forgotten art. Even as the city tapered off to each side, it did so in a uniform fashion, like a graph that has a slight gradient.

“That place,” Josephine said, touching my shoulder, “That place is nothing but greed.”

“Westing?”

“Yes. Nothing good ever came from that place, and any good that was brought was only met with hardship. The Rebirth led to the Riots, the Riots led to the downfall of the children’s education, which gave rise to faux-political agendas and lobbyists, which leads to decrepit buildings. Nothing good ever came from Westing and if you try to bring any good to it, you’ll be met with nothing but adversity.”

“That’s a cynical view of it.”

“That’s how it is. Westing isn’t a city. Westing isn’t a college. Westing is greed personified. Why do you think they don’t have any more teachers at The Kinder? The pay would be all right. But everyone that has a chance gets out of there when they can.”

“And the one teacher that stays behind?”

“You’d have to ask her.”

“I don’t want to ask her. Why do you think she stays behind?”

“For the money. For the fame. The sole teacher in an entire city, charged with educating the undeserving mass of children that the spawn of that place put forth… That’s some good publicity right there.”

“That’s a very cynical view of it.”

“Okay, Tim, then I want you to prove me wrong.”

“Come again?”

She turned and looked at the city. “If it’s not a bad place, if good can come from it, if it’s not just a breeding ground for insecurity, violence, and hate, prove it to me.”

“What? How will I know where to find you, once I have evidence?”

“Simple. I’ll be here, on the Island. Maybe at the light house, maybe in the forest – not so scary during the day, is it – or maybe on the beach waiting for you. I’ll be here all week, but after that you’ll have to track me down.”

“I’ll try my best,” I said, offering a half smile. I wasn’t pleased with having a mission of any kind, much less one given by an acquaintance of under two hours.

I sighed and sat down the beach, looking out over the waves. From this distance, it didn’t look like too bad of a swim. The cold water would be good for my muscles, too, which were still in agony after the row out. It couldn’t be more than two miles to get back to shore. My alternative was waiting for Dylan to show up again – and my other alternative was waiting for Josephine’s boat next week.

“I wouldn’t think about swimming if I were you,” she said, looking down at me.

“Why not?”

“The ocean is a deadly place, mon frere. It takes lives indiscriminately, whether they’re obstinately good or bad, all it takes is one miss-stroke and you’re gone. And then how will you prove to me that Westing isn’t a cess?”

I sighed. “Well how am I going to get back at all, much less to prove something to you?”

“That’s for you to figure out, dear,” she said, extending her arm and helping me to my feet. In the sun, her eyes shone like pieces of Sol itself stolen from the sky. She leaned forward very slowly and kissed me on the cheek before turning.

“I have to get back to the light house, but you’ll come back and see me, won’t you?”

“Of course,” I said, thinking to myself, ‘I won’t have much of a choice, given my circumstances. I might have to live with you.’

I pulled off my over-shirt and tossed it on the sand, turning back to the ocean. I tested the water with my hand – it was cold, but not as cold as it had been the night before. But how quickly things can change once a body is submerged. I got less than fifty feet out before my blue lips chattering together told me it was time to turn around.

The wind picking up did little to help my situation as I sat on the beach, trying to dry. Desperate for a place to dry without wind interference, I headed back towards the northern tip of the Island.

Before I could reach the grove, the shadow moved out from between the trees. The darkness around the figure dissolved as soon as it stepped into the sun, and I realized that it was not a shadow in and of itself, but a man so inclined to stand in the shadows, that standing in the sun looked uncomfortable. He had a brown coat of the trench variety wrapped around his body, pulled up to his face, but I could see his eyes. He was staring at me, and I could do nothing but shiver.

The man approached me and continued to stare in my eyes, still covering his face. After a few seconds, he let out a satisfied grunt and moved away.

“Wait! Who are you?”

He turned back around. “Go away, kid.”

“Go where? Do I look like I have a boat?”

The man sighed, his coat heaving. “No.”

“Do you have a boat?”

He sighed again. “Yes.”

“Then can I come with you?”

“And just where do you think it is I’m going?”

“Sir, I have no idea. I have no idea what-so-ever, but wherever it is, it has to be better than this Island right now.”

“And what if I told you,” he turned, lowering the coat from his face. He couldn’t have been more than five years older than me, but his voice had the sound of age. “That I was going to Hell. What then, would you come with me then, into the gates of Hell?”

“Only if it was warmer than this Island, sir.”

He cracked a smile. “I’m going to Westing. Stop calling me Sir. My name’s Ollie Haines.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his name. It was as if everyone in or around Westing was required to have an odd first name, or an odd last name. Feldspar, Ohm, Haines, Robert. It was a breeding ground for oddity.

“Thank you, Sir. Thank you very much.”

-

His boat had been tethered to the side of the Island that Josephine had searched, obscured in a cove. I asked him if he had been to the Island the night before, and he laughed, before confirming that he had.

“Coming here to vigil for Marlene,” I asked.

“No. I don’t do vigils for dead hookers.”

“Then why were you there?”

“Official police business,” he said smiling and pulling the rip-cord from the motor on the boat.

“Police?”

He nodded.

“What kind of police business do you have on a dead island like that?”

“That, son, is for me to know. Besides, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“Really?”

“No,” he burst out laughing. His laugh was louder than the motor backfiring and the sound of a wrench hitting the on-board. His laugh was louder than the sound of the motor starting, and louder than the sound of the boat breaking the waves as we headed back to the shores of Westing.

[MalReynolds]

The boat bounced up and down over the choppy surface of the water and I found myself holding onto the side of the boat to prevent myself from flying out, due to lack of restraints. Ollie was facing the font, knee propped up in front of him, dead pan look on his face as we jumped over wave after wave. When the boat would hit the water, he would grimace slightly before his face returned to the stone wall posture.

We were about half a mile down from the outcropping of rocks that Dylan and I had found the ferryman. Ollie slowly ran the boat up onto the sand.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t been out there, kid?”

“Probably frozen to death.” I was still shaking, my arms wrapped around myself.

“Why didn’t you bring a jacket or something?”

I thought of my jacket, crumpeled up in the light house, on the floor, next to Dylan’s towel and sighed.

“I did, but I left it behind.”

“We can go back if you want,” Ollie offered, smiling congenially.

“No, it’s no big.”

“Your call, kid.”

Ollie’s eyes looked like they had seen too much. Despite the fact that he couldn’t have been more than six years older than me, his voice was aged and his face drooped. His coat was open, and I had half expected to see an actual police uniform underneath, but that had never really been the way around here. The cops didn’t act like cops, this cop acted like a cop but didn’t dress like a cop, teachers were in it for fame. Everything was backwards.

He was wearing a blue sun t-shirt that was tucked into some khakis. When he stood, the wind caught his coat, and I could see the outline of a pistol beneath his shirt.

“Are you really a cop?”

“You want the truth?”

“Always.”

“Yes,” he said, reaching into his back pocket and removing his wallet. He flipped it open to a badge, which glinted in the sun, before flipping it back and shoving it back in his pocket with one hand motion.

“Looks like I owe you one, Officer Haines.”

“Kid, don’t call me ‘Officer.’ And don’t worry about it. What I did out there was nothing. The way I take favors – the real way favors should be taken, is when someone does something out of the ordinary. You could have made it back if you had a boat, and you would have given me a ride back had I been stuck. No harm, no foul, no favor.”

“Thank you anyways.”

“No problem, kid.”

I stood on the beach and stared at him for a second, and he stared back, unblinking. His eyes were dark, and after a few seconds, they began darting around like he was looking for something.

“Kid, you gotta scram. I have police business that I need to attend to.”

“Yeah, I should get going,” I said.

Ollie turned to walk down the beach. He jogged for a few steps before looking back at me and running between two buildings on the board walk. I heard someone cry out, “Wait,” or something to that effect, and the back of Ollie’s coat disappeared around the corner – with that, he was gone.

The cold air stung my lungs as I sighed and turned, heading back west, in the direction of The Kinder. It had been incredible luck to find someone not only with a boat, but with a motor boat, and on top of it – an officer of the law.

Josephine Robert, reporter esquire, woman extraordinaire. I felt guilty immediately about being kissed on the cheek by such a fantastical woman, almost as if I was betraying Liza. But I didn’t think I had done anything wrong in the least, at least because I had not put forth any of the moves. Josephine, it seemed, knew how to get the best of me, knew exactly what I wanted and what I was thinking. It was also luck running into her at the Island.

With this turn of events, it was not a far jump in logic for me to think that my luck might finally be turning around. Of course, nothing gold can stay and all that good stuff, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when the well of my luck started running south again.

I reached Main Street and began to run down towards Westing. The sun was making its way down, and although it wasn’t terribly late, it was growing colder by the minute. I didn’t have any time to waste if I wanted to get inside before I got severe hypothermia. In fifteen minutes, I reckon the temperature dropped to at least twenty degrees, and by that time, I was sweating lightly and could see the Westing Dorms in the distance. I ran inside and was smacked in the face with a wave of heat that directly contradicted how my body was feeling at the very second, and I could do nothing but succumb to the chills as I showed my guest pass to Tinsley and walked towards the showers.

I stood underneath a hot shower for fifteen minutes before it automatically cut off, before moving down to the next stall and repeating the process. I did this all with clothes on, not because the shower was gross or because I was being prudish, but because I couldn’t bear to remove my arms from my sides.

After spending an hour in alternating showers and watching various people enter, stare at me and exit, I almost felt back to status quo. I walked down to the Guest Dorm and let myself in. There were a few people scattered around the room, but when I entered, I must have been wearing a look on my face that said, “Get the hell out,” because within a minute, they had all gotten the hell out.

I moved over to the left bed and pulled my bag out, removing a change of clothes. I couldn’t feel the new set on my body, but I was sure they were there simply by looking at them. I reached out and tried to touch the bed, but I still couldn’t feel much. It was like I was walking around in an extra set of skin.

The group that had vacated the area to let me in were all standing around outside the room, staring at each other or at the ground or whatever made them comfortable. As soon as I shut the door leading to the main hall, there was a mad dash to get back into the Guest Dorm.

I trundled down the hall, stopping at Dylan’s door, knocking.

No answer.

I moved towards the stairwell and began to slowly climb. I had to actively pick up my feet and drop them, before reaching the Rec Hall landing. I opened the door, and saw the back of his head. He was addressing a small group on one of the sofas, and I could see their eyes widen as I stepped inside.

George in particular looked afraid.

“… And all it took was an extra thirty bucks to get back here,” Dylan said, smiling. “I’ll go back out for him tomorrow and make up some excuse, but that ought to,” Dylan paused when he saw everyone staring.

“Ought to what, Dylan?”

Dylan turned and his eyes opened wide. I must have been wearing a look on my face that said, “I’m going to punch you, you asshole,” because I punched him in the face. He dropped back onto the wooden table, and the legs splayed in every direction. It broke straight down the middle, and the books that had been carefully stacked slid down the incline onto his stomach. He was trying to say something, but the books caught his words. He was going to say something else, but by the time he had composed himself, I had picked up one of the books and thrown it against his chest.

When I was satisfied that he was down, I let my fist unclench just enough to drag him up and sock him in the stomach once more for good measure.

Tyler and Sam were seated on the sofa, staring at me. Sam had a look of shock on her face, and Tyler had a look of admiration.

“Bout damn time you did that,” he said, standing and moving over to me. “He was telling that story like it was the time he won the Super Bowl or something. I was getting ready to come up and get you.”

I was still shaking. “Thanks.”

“It’s alright,” he said. “Calm down.”

“I’m not shaking because I’m angry,” I managed through chattering teeth. “I’m shaking because I tried to swim back.”

Sam let out an audible gasp. “Why would you try to do that?”

“Because I was stranded on a god forsaken Island with no way of escape, that’s why.”

Dylan was on his stomach trying to crawl away. I picked up another book and pegged him squarely in the back with it and he stopped moving.

“How did you get back,” George asked, pushing his glasses up.

I debated telling them about the cop, but decided against it. He had wanted to keep his presence on the Island low key and I didn’t want to ruin that.

“There was a boat in a cove on the side of the Island, but it was so full of holes I spent half the time bailing water out, and it sunk in the bay before I could reach shore.”

“Come on,” Tyler said. He put his hand on my shoulder and we stepped over Dylan, who was trying to moan something in his defense. With Sam in tow, we made our way up one floor, down an identical hallway to Tyler’s room.

All it took was one look at the posters on the wall for me to figure out that Tyler roomed with George. There were posters for video games, movies based on video games, and a DVD rack full of old CD-Rom games. And in the corner, a space heater.

“Sit in front of that. Sam, get him a blanket.”

I sat down and Sam draped a blanket over my shoulders. My teeth chattered as Tyler turned the heater on, and I was gradually warmed. I thought back to the shower and how it had made me feel more normal, but that had been nothing. I was so far gone that even a little bit of normalcy had felt so much better than how cold I was – but I was still near hypothermic.

I nodded off in front of the space heater, not caring if I caught fire or not.

-

I woke up when Sam started shaking me. They were making the Night Scan announcement, and as cozy as I was, even in an extenuating circumstance, they wouldn’t change the rules of the game for me. It was either the Guest Dorm or the street.

I thanked Tyler for his hospitality and offered to walk Sam back to her dorm, but she insisted that I get sleep. She walked me down to the guest dorm and punched the code in for me so I could keep the blanket around my shoulders.

As I turned to wish her a good night, all I could see was her silhouette. She looked like Mother Feldspar as the door shut, and I smiled to myself.

I moved over to two of the beds, which were strangely vacant, and pulled the blankets from them. I moved over to my corner and slid against the wall, piling as much fabric as I could over my body, folding the blankets twice and three times before I could finally get comfortable.

As my body began to sweat lightly, I fell asleep.

I left the room the next morning at an odd hour, drenched in sweat and feeling overly hot. It wasn’t uncomfortable in the least – in fact, it was so much better in stark contrast to how I had felt the night before.

When I got outside the room, and walked into the main hall, I saw Tyler talking excitedly to Sam and Liza. He was making rapid hand gestures, and mimicked the throwing of the book to stop Dylan from crawling. Liza was smiling and had her hands cupped over her face in laughter, and when Tyler saw me, he put his hand out to signify that I was there.

Liza turned around and at a full run crashed into my body, wrapping her arms around my neck. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” she said, whispering in my ear.

“And you beat the crap out of Dylan. Good show,” she said, pulling her arms back and resting her hands on my shoulder. My hands were on the small of her back, and I couldn’t help but smile at her smile. Our eyes locked, and her smile slowly degenerated into a steadfast gaze. I could feel myself moving in, I could feel my eyes close, and I could feel Tyler stepping beside us and clapping me on the back.

“Well, that killed the moment,” I said, turning to Tyler.

“It happens,” he said, grinning.

Liza laughed, stepped up, and kissed me on the cheek. “That’s a place-holder,” she said, smiling, her lips moving back for one more in the exact same place Josephine had kissed me.

“That’s swell,” I said, sliding my arms from her back and resting my elbow on her shoulder.

“So, tell him the good news, Tyler.”

“What good news?”

“Oh, stop acting like you don’t know.”

Tyler was putting up a horrible front. He was still grinning, from ear to ear, and now he was blushing.

“All right, Tim, how comfortable are you with illegal activities?”

-

The four of us had taken a seat in the Rec Hall, and Tyler was nursing a cup of cocoa while he relished the story.

“So, my Civics professor, Mr. Boris, he goes on and on about stuff that doesn’t matter, you know? He started talking about Civic Law, and all that good stuff, and pulled up a list of things that had been outlawed around here since the Riots. You know, you can’t own fire-arms, you can’t have a party of more than forty people, that kind of thing. No alcohol on Sunday, if you’d believe it, although that might just be an old law that they never bothered to repeal.

“And then he started talking about these carnivals he used to go to as a kid, and how he was disgusted to find that they were outlawed too after the Riots.”

[MalReynolds]

Tigers, games, attractions things like that. Generally, a good time, state sponsored. But then state started losing sponsoring for things like that, or maybe they were just buckling to popular demand, but the truth of it is, when you got that many people together in that kind of an environment, other people began to get nervous.

“There was violence at carnivals after a while. Regular people were scared of the people who went to carnivals, and tried shutting them down by force. Fear was the only thing that kept them going, trying to close the doors and the gates or whatever. And to be honest, I don’t even think they knew what they were afraid of. And then it became popular to dislike carnivals, to even carry a hatred for them, circuses, any kind of event like that with free-flowing imagination or fancy.

“After about a year or so, the local government finally put its foot down and banned carnivals and circuses. Probably got a bunch of money from lobbyists to do so, padded their pockets nicely.

“This, I think,” Tyler paused for dramatic effect, “was the beginning of the death of imagination. Of free will – or determinism, what have you – and the start of something mundane.”

“And to think,” I said, “I could be paying out the nose to go to college, and all I need to do is hang out in the Rec Hall after lectures.”

Liza cracked a smile. “Well, Tyler hasn’t gotten to the point yet.”

“Brevity is the soul of wit,” he said. “So, my Civics professor keeps going on about the list of things they’ve outlawed and how when he was a kid, all he ever wanted to do was be a ring-master or a master of ceremonies at a circus. Of course, this law dashed his hopes against the rocks, so he became a teacher trying to spite the system or something. He talks about how he misses the sights, the smells, and everything – he gave a really moving and impassioned speech, most of which I’ve stolen to tell you. It really moved me. So, I went to talk to him after class while he was trying to wind down, and he kept trying to blow me off like I wasn’t his favorite student or something.”

“Mr. Boris hates you, Tyler,” Sam said, giving him a playful shove.

“That’s beside the point. I started asking him what’s got him so uppity, why he’s heading for the door so fast, and that’s when I just throw out the first thing that’s in my head. ‘I liked carnivals too, before they were banned.’ And that got him to stop dead in his tracks. He almost dropped his brief case. Mr. Boris, honest to God, really loved those things. They were his child hood.

“He turned to me and he’s got tears in his eyes, and for a second I thought he was going to hug me, but instead he walks right past me to his desk and pulls out a tiny little brochure, hands it to me, and storms out of the lecture hall.

“At this point, I’m confused beyond all reason, right? I mean, what was I supposed to make of the random behavior of a Civics professor? And then I look down, in my hand, and I see that someone had dropped in his office a small flyer about a traveling carnival. One that’s been going around for ten years, starting with when the law was passed, operating outside of the normalcy. A renegade carnival.

“That’s what got him worked up, I thought. But no, not quite. I mean, I’m sure mentioning a carnival to him wouldn’t make him all misty in the eyes, but then I saw the number to call on the flyer. I called it, and they asked for a code word, which was scribbled on the back, and I gave it to them, and they gave me a location. The renegade carnival,” Tyler said, smiling, “Is just five miles outside the city limits. Nestled in the grove of the Westing woods, just outside of that burned out stretch of land where they tried to build all those factories.

“So now I propose a question, ladies and gentlemen. Class, we can cut without problem. Our professors don’t care. Time is on our side, for we are the youth. We’re young, we’re spry, we have it. The question I ask is simple.

“Would anyone like to go to the carnival?”

I gave the most unenthusiastic, “Hell yeah,” I could muster.

“Cool. Alright, everyone, go get some stuff. Liza, grab water bottles for everyone – It’s going to be a long walk. I’m going to go with Sam and see if we can’t scrounge some money. Tim, go get George. He’s tired of being left out of events all the time.”

I nodded, got up slowly and headed upstairs. I made my way down the hall and knocked on the door to Tyler’s room.

“Who is it?”

“Tim”

The door clicked open and I saw George dash back to his bed, sitting down and picking up the video game controller. He didn’t even look up when I stepped inside. I watched the TV for a few seconds, utterly confused by what I was seeing.

“What is this?”

“It’s part of that game I was telling you about. This part is just a side story to a much bigger picture, you know? And the story is kind of silly – It’s about a cursed cowboy made out of tin that has to collect gold bricks and give them to a gypsy fortune teller so he can get his memory back.”

I didn’t take my eyes off of the screen. I watched the character, which was literally a cowboy made out of what looked like tin foil, dash over a large gold brick, which hovered over its head briefly before disappearing.

“You have to get all the gold bricks if you want the best ending in the game. It’s a pain to find most of them, too, because this guy is so small. But hey, whatever you can do to get your memory back, right?”

That question felt less like a rhetorical and more like a direct inquiry into my state of affairs. But George didn’t know any better. He was just plugging away at that stupid, noisy video game.

“You want to play, Tim?” He offered the controller over.

“I have better things to do than try and get my memory back,” I said, my face flushing.

“Like what?” George asked, looking up at me.

“Oh, right. There’s a renegade carnival outside of town and Tyler, Sam, Liza and myself are going. We were wondering if you’d want to go out with us?”

“How far outside of town?”

“Tyler says five miles, so wear some comfy shoes.”

“Tim,” George frowned, “Do I look like I can even walk five miles? Much less five back? That’d be too intense for me, don’t you think?”

“Okay, here’s the deal George.” The more I watched him sit there, the more I wanted him to get up, to come out with us. If he sat there, there was an excellent chance that he would once again wind doing nothing but wishing he had gone somewhere. “You go with us, walk the five down, and on the way back up, as soon as we hit civilization again, I’ll call a cab and we can ride back into Westing like it was a cheap prom night or something.”

“How can you afford a cab if you’re staying in the Guest Dorm?”

“I never said I didn’t have money.”

“There are apartments renting out up and down the strip.”

“That would imply that I plan on staying here.”

“You’re telling me you don’t?”

I sighed. “Come on, George. Stop stalling. Are you coming with us or not?”

“Sure,” he said, sliding off of the bed. “Lemme just grab my walking shoes.”

I stepped out of the room and leaned against the door frame. Maybe if I was lucky, just maybe, there would go gold bricks at the carnival for me to collect.

-

Dylan had tried to stop me on the way out. He had a small cut on his forehead, but otherwise I wouldn’t even have known I beat the crap out of him the night before.

“Hey, man, I want to –“

“Shut up, Dylan.”

“No, listen I want to –“

“Dylan.”

“Apologize.”

“Screw off, buddy.”

“It was just a prank!”

“Stranding someone on an island two miles off shore after making them row the entire way out there with no possible means of return with the forethought to come back two days later and pick them up is a prank? That’s a prank, Dylan? I’d hate to see who you’d kill for a practical joke.”

“When you say it like that, it doesn’t sound as funny.”

“That’s because it’s not funny. It wasn’t funny. You’re just a jealous inglorious bastard. You don’t know what you want. Go back to Clarice, you’re bugging me.”

“Dude, chill.”

“If you say another word, I’m sure I can find another table to break.”

Dylan slid back to the wall, putting his hands up. His eyes did look remorseful, but that could have been because I had finally gotten the upper hand on him. He moved along the wall, not taking his eyes off of me, and disappeared back into his room.

I turned and left the school, opting to stand outside and wait for George rather than risk talking to Dylan again.

Sorry only means something if there’s meaning behind it. You can mindlessly apologize until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t mean anything to the recipient. And then, who knows, maybe they’ll want to hit you.

-

It took George ten minutes to get his shoes on, during which Liza, Tyler and Sam had made their way to the front of the dorm. I told them my idea about the cab, and they all seemed very enthused by the idea.

Liza for some reason had changed clothes into a sun dress with yellow flowers on it. It looked like something she would wear to a church rather than to a carnival, but that was the rub – it was cathartic. It was like we were going to worship something antiquated, part of a past that wasn’t even allowed to be remembered anymore. I felt very under dressed standing next to Liza.

George was wearing big black combat boots. They looked down right silly on him, mainly because he had his jeans tucked into them. When he stepped outside, Tyler pulled a small piece of paper out of his back pocket and motioned for us to go across the street, to head due east according to the ocean.

We were walking down the gradient of the city graph. It took about fifteen minutes before there were no more buildings and fifteen more after that until the houses started to thin out. Westing looked like an oasis behind us, in the middle of a flat antique desert. A bastion where you could go to get your future on if you were craving it. The grass in the first field we crossed was over-grown, but the second field was ridiculous. The grass came up over our heads and we walked with out hands on each others shoulders so we wouldn’t get lost.

I began to question where we were going. George was behind me, his hand was sweating a print into my back, and Tyler seemed to be just heading in a straight line path. When we were finished crossing the second field, he point out something to our right.

“The factories.”

There were seven or eight buildings that I could see, each gray with age and looking like they were about to fall apart.

“Those were condemned,” he said, “But the funding was pulled.”

“Of course it was. The funding is always pulled on condemned buildings around here,” I responded.

“Well, you count eight of them? There were fifteen just last week. These things are toppling over. Someone undercut the construction. It’s a good thing the factories never took off, the way the buildings are falling.”

Liza sighed. “Captain History,” she said, turning back to look at me, smiling. I felt bad having my hand, which too was beginning to sweat, pressed against her back. I tried to take my hand off, but it was like she knew what I was going to do, and put her free hand overtop mine to keep it there.

The fields gave way, after about a mile, to a set of woods. I half expected them to be coated with glowing mushrooms or statues, but there was nothing but dead leaves on the dirty ground. Twigs were snapping with every step we took, leaves were breaking under foot. The smell was that of nature’s death, the respite that comes to the Earth once a year.

“Wait,” Tyler said, stopping us.

George, who was falling more and more behind with every step, let out a sigh and plopped himself on the ground. “I say – we take – a rest – before I – pass out,” he said. Tyler tossed him a water bottle.

“Now, be quiet,” he said.

It took a few minutes for George’s breathing to regulate again.

“Now, listen.”

At first, I didn’t hear anything. Nothing at all, until –

There were bells in the distance. The sound of happy music, and some yelling. I heard so little else that soon, the noise was promenading around in my ears like a parade. It was so far away, but so loud.

“Can you all hear that,” Tyler said?

“Sounds like a renegade carnival to me,” I laughed.

“Well, we still need to sit and wait a few seconds,” George said. “I don’t want my body to over heat or anything. That could be tragic.”

It took all four of us to get George back on his feet. I volunteered to stay back while they went on ahead and keep pace with George, to make sure that he didn’t pass out or have a heart attack, or lose his nerve.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” he said, frowning.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t fit in a place like this. The only reason Tyler lets me hang out with him is because we’re roommates and he doesn’t want me complaining.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, how do you know? You came out of nowhere and now you’re better friends with everyone than I am, and I’ve known them for a full year longer.”

“Look, it’s nothing. I’m just a likeable person.”

“They think I’m weird.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be a teacher.”

[ShastaTwist]

Omgz, you want to be a teacher?

You fxcking freak.

[MalReynolds]

“Why on earth would you want to be a teacher? It’s not exactly the most noble profession anymore.”

“That’s kind of why. I wanted to bring some levity – get a job at The Kinder. That’s the only reason I even transferred to Westing.”

“You transferred here? To be a teacher?”

He paused and pushed up his glasses. “Well, yeah. I read about The Kinder. Kids in cages – you saw them. That’s no way to educate.”

“And you’re trying to make a difference.”

“That’s another reason I don’t really feel like I fit in. Tyler is majoring in History, Liza is Journalism, Sam is Theology and Dylan even has Psyche. I’m an English major, trying to get a job at a burned out school.”

“That’s really impressive. I’m impressed.”

“Thanks.”

We had reached the end of the woods, and started down the side of the hill, but from our perch, we could see the carnival in the valley below. There were five big red and white tents that looked like the face of a die, with gold flags poking out of the top. Near the back, there was a low-key Ferris Wheel that could only have been three stories tall. Poles stuck out of the ground at odd intervals with speakers, each pole having a series of loose wire leading into a tent. On the far left side, there were several stands open, and I could see children running around.

It was odd to see children like that. Moving freely, like they should. Did they get any education, or did they travel with the renegade carnival? I doubted that any sane child’s parent would let them come all the way out here to such an extravaganza.

Sam, Liza and Tyler were waiting at the bottom of the hill for George and me. They were waving us down like we were the slowest people on Earth. When we hit the bottom, Liza put her arm around my side and we began to walk towards the rows of kiosks. The one closest to us was a basketball stand, although the hoop was makeshift. The net seemed to be made out of some kind of hardened grass – the only thing that really fit was the basketball, and that seemed odd and under inflated.

Past that was a shooting gallery that extended the length of three kiosks. There were people walking back and forth under each row of targets, holding the tongue depressors that were attached to the targets, which looked oddly like puppets I had seen the children in the actual classroom making in The Kinder. There were three people firing small pellets, which usually fell short and tended to hit the gallery operators, but they seemed rather used to it. When they reached one end of the kiosk, they turned around and walked the ducks and cans and horses and cowboys back to the other side. As I was watching, I noticed that they did mind when they were shot – they flinched, but they were wearing multiple layers of clothing to protect themselves, and plexi-glass goggles.

There was a rope-bridge game, where you had to climb on your hands and knees up a vertical ladder made of rope that was attached to both ends of the playing field by a rotational axis. Liza and I just stared as people would reach the middle, the kiosk operator would let go, and the bridge would start wavering with their weight and body movement. We didn’t see a single person make it all the way across, and we couldn’t look when George decided to try his hand at it.

We all heard the fall, though. And the follow up requisite “I’m all right!”

Further along, past the rope bridge scam, were some food kiosks. Boiling oil in cauldrons gave way to funnel cake, minus the powdered sugar but with double the strawberries, and hot dogs. The smell of popcorn wafted through the air, although the kiosk was closed. And the last kiosk was a drink kiosk. By the time we had reached the end of the first pass through, we were very thirsty from the walk down. I opted to purchase everyone a bottle of water before we continued inside, to the first tent.

The first tents flaps were pinned open, making the doorway a pentagon. We stepped through and were met with the smell of animal droppings, before our eyes adjusted to the thin light. In several small cages were white rabbits and black rabbits, brown rabbits and grey rabbits – seemingly one of every color that nature could provide. Further back were aquariums, with fish I had never seen before in them. All of this lined a single pathway, which dead-ended at a large, metal cage.

The cage, of course, housed a lethargic tiger. Its front paw was poking out of the cage, and its head was against the bars. When Liza and I walked up, it didn’t seem to perk or take notice of us. Liza reached out slowly – I tried to grab her to pull her back, but she moved out of the way – and touched the tiger’s paw. It awoke immediately from its drowse, pulling it paw back, but upon seeing Liza, it settled down again, deciding that she was not a threat. It even went so far as to stick its paw back out for Liza to pet – and as she did, the tiger began to nuzzle the bars of the cage.

Naturally, when I tried to pet it, the creature growled and retracted itself completely to the back of the cage, staring at me with fire in its eyes.

“Well, that’s something,” I muttered, embarrassed that the animal hadn’t taken a liking to me. It had gone from a fat, lazy tiger back to its evolutionary roots as a killer. I could feel its eyes burning in the back of my neck as Liza and I left the tent.

Tyler and Sam were waiting outside for us.

“Why didn’t you go inside,” Liza asked.

“Please, we can smell it fine from out here,” Sam said, grimacing. I had to laugh at the face she was making – I could see the pug lines from her father creasing her face as she furrowed her brow.

“Where’s George?” I asked.

“He went back to shoot some of the game operators with that dinky pellet gun. I think he’s trying to win something for that girl he has his eye on. You know, Tyler, the one in his Lit class?”

“The fat one?”

“No, no, the other one.”

“Oh! The acne girl!” Tyler said, clapping his hands. “They’d be so cute together!”

Sam and Tyler began whispering something back and forth to each other. Liza tugged at my arm, pulling me away from them, but there was no need. They were a world gone.

The upper left tent, I thought, might house something that would be interesting, but it was the ‘freak show.’ I wasn’t comfortable going inside, and since there was no smell coming from the inside, I knew I could count on a full report from Sam. Nothing exorcizes superiority like a freak show.

The middle tent had a sign hanging from the outside – it was going to come down for a fire works display in the evening, an event to close the carnival. After the display, they had to pack it up and leave – the fireworks would naturally draw the attention of everyone within hearing distance of an explosion. So pretty much all of Westing.

As we walked to the bottom right tent, the crowd of people grew larger. We had to maneuver more and more to get to our destination – this one was a very popular spot. There was a line formed outside the tent, which was very much smaller than the rest. I walked around to the front, to see what the attraction was, and my heart skipped a beat.

“Fortune Teller.”

What an odd coincidence. There had been no bricks to collect, but here in front of me was one of the most ironic things.

Immediately, I took a place in line. And stood there. Liza didn’t understand what my fixation was, and stood outside the rope kiosk, holding my hand as the line moved. I could only spare occasional glances over – we were far enough apart that I could see all of her, and that made me feel so very jumbled on the inside. Her sun dress was blowing in the wind and she tried her hardest with her free hand to keep her hair out of her eyes. Every time I looked over, she would smile and look away, but it was okay – I was doing it too.

In a few minutes, the line had dwindled. There were still many people behind me, but there was no one left in front. I saw the last man walk out the side exit and I squeezed Liza’s hand as I heard the voice call from inside, “Enter.”

The voice was strong and I was shocked to find it belonged to an old woman. She was hunched over a small table wearing a cloak that obscured most of her figure and face. The table had a red and white checkered cloth covering it like something out of an Italian restaurant, but the light was dim enough to make even that look mystic.

“Sit,” she said, motioning. “And pay.”

I handed over twenty dollars.

“Very well. Do you have any gold bricks for me?”

My heart stopped in my throat.

“How did you know about that?”

“One of two ways – I could be making a logical guess. My business has gone up ever since that stupid video game came out and most people come in here cracking jokes, or I’m the real deal. What do you want to believe?”

I wanted to believe that she was the real deal, that she could see the future and the past.

“You want to believe, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“Well, let me take a look.”

She hovered her hands over her highly traditional crystal ball and began humming something. I closed my eyes and felt regret for paying her any money. The humming increased, and then stopped.

“That’s funny…” She said, before hovering her hands again and humming.

“No, that’s not right.” She had removed the hood from over her face. Her hair was thin and white, only growing in certain areas, but it was long and down over her face. She was missing most of her teeth and her skin was wrinkled so that she no longer looked human. Instead of eyes, she had two black beads set far back in her skull, and the one tooth I saw was jagged, and protruded from her top lip.

“What’s not right?”

“Tell me, tell me son, what do you want to know?”

“About my past. About my future. Why does anyone come to these things? What do they want to know?”

“About your past… I sense much unhappiness. But it is all very, very cloudy. I do not understand what is going on – normally, I see with such clarity. All I can see is unhappiness that is almost unparalleled with the living. Are you alive?”

“Yes.”

“And your future… It is…” She stopped. She stared at me, and held her hand out. “Take your money back.”

“What?”

“Take it back. I cannot read your future.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I cannot. It is far too cloudy. I do not know what is going on. Your past is set in stone, but you – you’re the embodiment of free will. Anything that can happen to you might happen to you, anything that cannot can. I do not understand how your path could be so different from the rest, but you – your future is not set in stone.

“You are your own fate.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Tell everyone outside that I’m closed.”

“What?”

“I’ll see no one else today. I must leave. You must leave, now.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you?”

She stood up, knocking her ball from the table. It fell to the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces, the water inside spilling out all over the floor.

“I am just an old fool. Now go. Leave, now.”

“Okay, I can take a hint,” I said, turning and walking out of the front exit. The line of people had increased in the time I had been inside, and may were staring in the direction of the sound of shattered glass.

“She’s not seeing any more people today,” I said, raising my hands over my head.

There were murmurs of dissent from the back.

“She’s not. I guess I got lucky.”

A group of three people brushed past me and threw the flaps of the tent open. I turned and looked inside. There was no water on the ground, and no glass. There was no table for that matter, and no Italian restaurant checker board cloth. No chairs and the sunlight was streaming in. Most importantly, there was no woman.

[FoJaR]

oooooh

[MalReynolds]

I had a tough time trying to explain to Liza why exactly I had been so dead set on seeing the fortune teller, but she seemed to accept “Natural curiosity,” and my puppy-dog eyes after the third time. We passed by George and Tyler a few times while we walked up and down Kiosk Lane. I tried my hand at the rifle range only to fail miserably and crack one of the gallery runners goggles. I offered to pay him, but he gave a shrug that said, ‘It’s part of the job,’ and then shooed me out of the way for the next customer.

The carnival did a modest and admirable job of recreating something that was taboo in modern society. Even though they lacked the funds, the know how, or the operational skills they still managed to put together something that was worth looking at. It was a rag-tag team of self expression in the middle of a crater, surrounded by forest and dead, crumbling factories.

Liza and I eventually made our way to the Ferris Wheel at the far end of the fair ground. There was a small line, but the rotation on the machine was fast enough so that standing in line wasn’t a big problem. The Wheel was only three stories tall, at the most, I assume so attention wasn’t drawn to the area, but it was tall enough to let you see just over the tops of the trees that surrounded the far side of the carnival.

The seats were small – not cramped, I don’t think you can be cramped when you’re sitting next to someone you care about – but comfortable. They had stuffed the cushions doubly and there was no lap belt. The ride operator was a friendly looking dwarf who had tattoos covering the entirety of his arms, and a beard so long and bushy that he could have been naked and I wouldn’t even have known. He kept an eye on the ride and stopped it when a car would get to the peak – and there were only six cars.

We rose up, stopping every minute or so, getting a glimpse of the different levels of the trees. We could see over the carnival before we could see over the foliage, but all that provided was a glance of the hills that surrounded the land and the obscure shadows of the factories in the distance. I strained my eyes and could barley make out Westing in the distance.

Our car gently rocked when we reached the top position. I stared out to my right, over the trees, into the untouched countryside. There were overgrown fields, spots of forest, and dirt paths carved out by people that didn’t own automobiles. It could have extended forever – there was no sign of any kind of civilization in that direction.

There was a flock of birds that took off from the field beside the trees, and I pointed them out to Liza. But she wouldn’t look up – she refused to break eye contact with me. I leaned in, slowly – perhaps too slowly – when there was a start.

The car we were in was rocking back and forth, and the entire wheel was moving on the track haphazardly. I looked down for the ride operator, but he was gone. There were screams – no longer playful, but fearful – that permeated the air. The people on the ground were running and walking like they were before, only now they were like rats trapped in a maze.

At first, I could hear nothing but the screams. And then I heard the steady chop of blade set some sixteen feet wide. The heavy clunk-clunk-clunk sound they made as they cut the air and the helicopter approached the carnival.

There were police soldiers on foot, coming from the forest next to the Ferris Wheel. They were chasing people down, tackling them, and shoving their heads into red bags. Children were knocked to the ground without regard before being dragged, screaming back into the woods. The force knocked down the kiosks slowly, deliberately, before dumping out the contents of canteens and setting the kiosks alight. The ride operators tried to run – amid the chaos, I swore I heard gun shots.

“Liza,” I said, gripping her arm, “We have to get out of here.”

She nodded. I slid down, out of the seat, gripping the support rail in front of me and trying to balance my feet on another. I held my hand out for Liza, and then we were both in the web of the Wheel, inside the support beams and structure. I moved down slowly, carefully so I didn’t miss-step, and turned to give Liza a hand. Her shoes weren’t conducive to any kind of climbing, so I had to hold out my hand until I was sure she was secure, before climbing down another rung.

When we reached the center of the wheel, someone bumped the lever before running off. Liza let out a scream as the wheel began to rotate, and the people on the ride were scrambling to get off. The couple that reached the top slid out of their seats, falling to the ground, only stopping when they would hit a support. Their bodies hit the ground with a sickening thud, and I was forced to look away.

I had to double my speed, which meant sacrificing sure footing to get Liza down off of the death trap. For every one support I would climb down, we would rise half of another. It was difficult – not only were my hands beginning to sweat, but my legs were shaking, trying to keep myself steady, and we were soon gripping bars that we had gripped before, the sweat accumulating.

“We have to get away from the center,” I called to Liza.

I swung out, going hand over hand, until I was on the outside, and I turned. Liza was shaking her head “No,” that she couldn’t make it. I climbed up to keep level with her and swung back in, and we slowly walked to the outside of the ring. It was lowering us to the ground and the police soldiers were closing in.

“Jump, Liza!”

When I saw that she wouldn’t, I grabbed her hand and pulled her off. We free fell for twenty feet. I hit the ground and rolled on top of Liza, pulling her up to her feet.

I could feel hands on my back pulling me away from her. And I saw the black gloves of the police wrap around her shoulders. Her eyes went dull as the crimson bag came down over her head.

“Liza! LIZA!”

But she was gone. The hands were still gripping at me, and I shook as a bag came down over my head.

No, I wasn’t going to let it end like this.

I turned, my vision obscured by a bright crimson, and swung out. My fist connected with something, and the pressure on the inside of the bag was released. I pulled it off of my head and stared down two officers – I hoped I was staring them down. They were wearing black ski masks that covered their eyes. There was one officer on the ground, clutching the side of his head, presumably where I had struck him.

One of them reached for their gun and the other reached for another bag. I dropped to the ground and shoved the bag I had in hand over the downed cop, pulling the drawstring tight. I pulled him up and took the side arm from him, aiming it directly at the officer, who took a step back.

The gun flew from my hand when the tent beside me erupted in a fireball. The force of the explosion knocked me and the three officers to the ground. They were grabbing at their guns, which had spilled out of their hands haphazardly on the ground. I rose to my feet, quickly, kicking the officers to keep them down and kicking their guns away from them, into the woods.

And then I ran. Straight down through the middle of the carnival, dodging the screaming throngs of people, trying to catch any sight I could of Liza. There were too many people, too many officers running around to get a bead on anything – everything was moving so quickly, there were so many crimson bags.

I saw George standing near the woods like a small child, helpless and utterly lost. And then he was bagged and dragged, kicking and thrashing into the woods. He could have been screaming, but my ears were ringing, on fire after the explosion, a high pitched shriek reverberating through my ears.

I couldn’t stop running. I went into the woods, running up the hill, hearing the clout of their boots behind me. It could have been the ones I held up with the gun, it might not have been, they were all interchangeable. I ran between trees, kicking up leaves whenever I could to try and obscure their view, but it was fruitless. They were faster than I was, and they were gaining. I grabbed a branch from a tree, which snapped off. I threw it to the ground behind me, hoping to impede their travel. I heard one of them curse and fall.

I smiled to myself, continuing up the slope until I was in the over-grown field, cutting my own path through the head-high grass. There were no branches to grab now, no leaves to kick up, only me and my legs to keep me from whatever fate lay on the other side of the crimson bag.

The grass immediately stopped, and so did I. In front of me was a chain link fence and the rubble of a collapsed building. There were eight more that I could count on the other side, but I didn’t have time to process the information. I was too busy scaling the fence and dropping down on the other side, onto the pile of rubble that extended twenty feet into the air. I was gaining altitude, running towards the standing buildings as fast as I could, when I heard the shot ring out behind me. Dust kicked up at my feet and a splinter of concrete grazed my cheek.

Without thinking, I dove face first at the peak of the rubble mountain and began a wild, painful slide down the other side. My chest ached as it was dragged over pieces of jagged concrete, and I tried rolling on my side. That just made me lose any control that I thought I had, and bounced, head over heels until I was at the bottom.

I was in too much pain to move.

But gunshots are a perfect motivator. There were four cops on top of the concrete mountain staring down at me, all four with their weapons drawn. They were saying something, but it was lost to the gunshots, and soon to the wind as I picked myself up and ran.

I passed one of the decrepit buildings and I heard the soldiers sliding down behind me. The doors were all boarded up, the windows had tables in front of them.

And then I saw her.

The small gypsy fortune teller was standing in the door way of one of the factories. I turned to look behind me, to see if they had gained much more, but they were having as much trouble as I was with the descent. When I turned back to say something to the fortune teller, she was gone. I wasn’t surprised.

Instead, I kept my head down and barreled into the building. The windows were broken out on all sides, and whoever had made this their home had done their best to barricade them. Sunlight was streaming through pressurized wood boards that were half heartedly nailed up into the window frames. I passed door after door of offices that were never used, of bathrooms with plumbing that didn’t quite work, until I reached the back door. Or was it the front?

It didn’t matter. It was locked. I could hear the trump of them behind me, their breathing ragged through their ski masks. I broke left, running towards the factory floor as fast as I could, emerging in a non-functioning pressing room. There were conveyer belts everywhere gathering dust, metal presses hanging from the ceiling. The buildings main office was set up in the corner, no full windows, no desks inside either, and the stairwell leading into it had broken in the middle.

I vaulted over the first conveyer belt, ducking under a metal press as the officers entered the room behind me. One of them fired, barely missing me, but I kept going. I slid under the next, and rolled over the third. In their armor and issued outfits, they were having a touch time navigating the hurdles the room provided, giving me ample time to slow down and time my jumps. I hit the other wall and ran along to a closed door, crashing through onto the stairs behind. Without stopping for a beat, I mounted the stairs, two at a time.

[FoJaR]

man it's time for a new page.

[FoJaR]

gonna post until we hit a new page

[FoJaR]

chaccarone