The Tin Cowboy

[FoJaR]

half and half maybe some WHOOPS

[FoJaR]

smellington welles

[FoJaR]

ray smuckles

[FoJaR]

bensington butters

[FoJaR]

roast beef

[FoJaR]

the great outdoor fight

[FoJaR]

damn it quick reply made those posts look like they were on page two.

[MalReynolds]

I was wondering what the hell you're doing.

[MalReynolds]

The landing and subsequent hallways had several pieces missing from the floor. The officers were below me, staring up through the patchy wood with their guns drawn. I zigged and zagged down the hallway, narrowly avoiding the bullets that punctuated the ceiling. They were doing an admirable job keeping up with me and firing their guns at the same time, but their hallway dead ended while mine broke right.

There was one door near the end that I shoulder checked open after finding it locked. I was in a series of small cubicles, dodging in and out of them when I heard the back door open and the familiar sound of their boots. How many of them were there? They were so fast. Having little time to react, I turned and kicked one cubicle as hard as I could, sending one of the walls tumbling over, which dominoed and slammed the back door shut. I could see one of the officers’ arms sticking out of the door and heard the cries of pain coming from behind it.

“I think it’s broken, I think it’s broken!”

“Go around!”

“Roger.”

I ran towards the other door, which opened at both the top and the bottom, when the top portion opened. There was one officer who had flanked the room standing, with his gun drawn. I jumped onto one of the slanted cubicle walls and slid down into the bottom half of the door, sending it open and sending the officer head over heels behind me. Without so much as a backwards glance, I kicked both parts of the door shut and slammed the lock down.

The echo of the lock entering its home shot down the hall.

And that’s when the building began to shake. Lightly at first, but growing with each passing second until it was an intense cacophony of destructive sound. There was no time to waste. I bolted down the hall, towards the stairs, running down six and jumping down the remaining seven. I rolled when I hit the ground, and dashed towards the first hallway I had run through. It was the only exit I had seen in the entire building, outside of the windows.

The T hallway I had first entered was now strewn with clutter – tables and chairs that spilled out of the now unlocked offices, shaken open with the building. One more officer rounded the corner, gun drawn, and walked towards me slowly. I put my hands up. This was it.

I backed against a table, and the officer grabbed me by the shirt. I lost my balance and tumbeled backwards over the hardwood table and hit the ground. The soldier lowered his gun to the table, and I raised up, knocking the table completely over onto his feet. I rose up when he shouted and pushed him backwards – I could hear something in his feet break as the table held them in place as he fell.

I stepped on his chest as I ran for the front door. The walls behind me were crumbling down, falling onto each other. Every step I took, every breath I took, more dust was fillinig the air and entering into my lungs. I began coughing as the wood from the covered windows began shaking and imploding inwards. I was hit with splinters and falling plaster as I hit the front door, spilling out into the sunlight and onto the shoddily paved road.

I turned back to the building, a dust cloud shooting out of the front door, and I saw the shapes of the remaining police inside, running towards the door. On the ground, I backed up as fast as I could, hand over hand, before turning over and scrambling to my feet.

I didn’t see the building collapse, but I was caught in the debris. Cinderblock, dust, wood and other assorted goodies clouded the air as I made my way to the concrete mountain. When I reached the peak, I turned and saw that a twin mountain had formed two hundred feet away.

I stood on top of the hill until the dust settled and I was sure they weren’t coming out of the rubble. When I was positive, I ran again. I ran past the buildings, back into the woods, back into the fields, until I knew they wouldn’t find me.

The sun was beginning its descent. I didn’t know if Sam or Tyler made it out okay or if they were captured, too. For all I knew, I was the only person that made it out without – I looked down at my shirt. It was covered with small scratches that were seeping blood onto my shirt. There was a long gash along my arm and there was a thin rivulet of red that coursed down my arm, off the tips of my fingers like a tiny creek.

I fell down in a field of tall grass, shaking, holding my arm and trying to catch my breath. The muscles in my legs weren’t responding any more and my lungs felt as if they were on fire. I began coughing, trying to reach my Aeroids just in case, but my arms wouldn’t listen to me either. My body shut down in the field, surrounded by grass that I couldn’t see the top of over itself, and I began to shake as I passed out.

-

The moon was full when my body decided it was time to get moving. I was shivering – the temperature was no longer carnival material. An Eskimo would have felt more at home. And judging by the position of the moon in the sky, I had missed my opportunity to sit in the Guest Dorms… But all things considered, I didn’t want to be around that college in the least.

I stood, carefully, trying not to tempt fate or anger my legs or lungs, and popped an Aeroid. It didn’t do much – I was still coughing dust out of my lungs as I began cutting a swath across the field. I hoped I was heading in the right direction. I had been so disoriented by the chase that I had no idea just where I was going, until the field tapered off into a series of small roads.

I walked along the roads for the better part of an hour, trying to regain my bearings. My arm wound had closed, but ached, and I hoped it wasn’t infected. I moved slowly, limping – sliding into the two part door had hurt me something fierce, and my chest was on fire with all the cuts from the tumble down the concrete mountain. I took it slow, and walked at about half of my normal speed, ducking down whenever I would see headlights, in case it was the police again.

I was on the outskirts of Westing City, on the west end of town. I regained my bearings when I saw the Chapel.

I threw myself against the doors, banging as loud as I could with my good arm, crying out. Not words, but a long, anguished scream that stripped my vocal chords, and I dropped to the ground.

The door opened, I felt an arm on my shoulder, and I was pulled inside.

Father Feldspar sat me down in a pew, wearing a garish robe. He called out to Mother, who turned the corner, and ran to my side. They were both fretting over me, but my ears were still ringing. I couldn’t make out any sound until Mother brought me some tea. It cleared my throat and made my ears pop.

Before they could ask any questions, I told them.

I told them everything. From the beginning, from showing up at Westing, to the carnival. How I just went with the flow, trying to fit in. Not disagreeing with any proposed plans, no matter how stupid they seemed, trying to figure out just who I was. I told them about Liza and Ohm and Dylan, and Josephine, I told them about Sam and how I thought she was cute when I first met her and how I thought Tyler was stupid. I told them about the church, the Island, and Officer Haines, the one man who decided to help me, putting me before himself.

I told them about the chase through the factory, and how I had left the officers in the building to die.

Before I knew what was happening, I was crying. I wasn’t crying, I was sobbing. Everything that happened to me, no one knew. It felt better than a shower to get it out, it felt better than a kiss on the cheek and better than punching Dylan. It was cathartic to point of pain.

And I sobbed. I cried until nothing came out anymore.

Mother and Father went and got bandages. They treated my arm with an ointment, and got me a new shirt. They took me to a back room and sat me down, and told me that it was all right, that I did everything I could.

I told them that Liza had saved my life when I met her, saving me from the cold and from an advanced Asthma attack, and there had been nothing I could do to save her. I let George get pulled into the woods by those monsters, and that was the end of it. I didn’t even know if Sam was alive.

“How can you – how can you take me in when I couldn’t save your daughter?”

They looked at each other. “There was nothing you could do. Not everything is in your control,” Mother said, placing her hand on my shoulder. “You tried. We know you did. It was a miracle that you made it out of there with your own life, and that is all that you’re responsible for.”

“I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I’ve done. I could be responsible. I could have brought this on all of them.”

“And if you did, it’s a blessing that you don’t remember. It happened for a reason. Whoever you used to be does not matter – be it good or evil – because you are yourself now. That is what counts,” Mother said.

They stood and left the small room. My back ached as I laid my head against the pillow on the bed, and I turned, blowing out the candle.

No matter what they said, I was responsible.

And I would make it up to them.

No matter what, I would save them.
















Chapter 7




I left the Chapel the next morning, carefully waking Mother and Father. They offered me breakfast, but I declined. I had to get back to Westing and see if Sam and Tyler had made it out of the carnival. They gave me a fresh shirt and changed my bandages. The shirt was a nice fit and looked good on me – it was white, with gold trim around the collar. Three black buttons down the neck, and sleeves that flourished out at the end. They told me to come back any time I needed anything.

“Anything,” Father said. “Tell us if Sam is all right.”

“I will,” I said, walking to the door and letting myself out.

I limped back into the city, looking around nervously at any loud noises or sound. I didn’t know whether the cops had made me or not, or even if they had a picture circulating for my capture at this point. Despite my paranoia, I was able to walk in to Westing and into the dorms with no trouble at all.

I walked up to Tyler’s room and knocked on the door. There was no answer, so I made my way down to the Rec Hall, which was devoid of any person I was looking for. Finally, I stalked across the Quad, keeping my eyes to the ground but feeling dirty because of my surroundings, and entered the Women’s Dorm. I made my way up stairs after nodding at the desk person and walked down to Liza and Sam’s room. I knocked on the door.

“Who is it?”

“Tim.”

I heard the bolt slide out, and the door opened as much as the chain would allow.

“Tim – Thank God, we thought you were grabbed.” Sam was staring through the crack and Tyler was behind her, nursing a bruise on his arm.

“No, I’m fine.”

“What about Liza, did you see her?”

My words caught in my throat. I nodded.

“Well, where is she?” Sam sounded anxious.

“Can I come in?”

Sam turned and looked at Tyler, who was nodding. I sat down in the computer chair as Sam bolted and locked the door.

“That’s a nice shirt,” she said, staring at me.

“Your parents gave it to me. I spent the night at the Chapel.”

“Oh.”

“They’re worried about you, you know. I told them about yesterday.”

Tyler stood up. “Was it worth it?”

“You tell me, Tyler. Liza was nabbed.”

He sat back down, a look of defeat flashing across his face. “Really?”

“Yeah.” I told him about the Ferris Wheel and how we had foolishly decided to get off when it started moving, about the climb down that almost ended both of our lives, and how we were almost both grabbed as soon as we hit the ground. I led them, to the best of my recollection, through the factory chase in my mind, to my collapsing in the field. I spared them the sordid details of my breakdown at the Chapel or my truth spree, but they seemed to get the idea.

“So George is gone, too?”

I shook my head. “What happens when people get grabbed?”

“Anything. I’ve never been grabbed,” Tyler said, “But I’ve heard things before. I don’t know if any of it’s true.”

“Well, tell me what you know.”

Sam sat down on the bed next to Tyler.

“Torture. Beatings. Executions, that kind of thing. The absolute power they wield is outside of the law, but who wants to challenge them? Who knows, maybe a nice person grabbed them. Maybe they’re on their way home right now.”

I stayed silent, staring at them.

“We have to get them back.”

“And what exactly do you propose, Tim? Are you going to storm into the police station and break them out yourself? You’re not invincible, you look like hell. You need to rest, Tim. You’re sick – you have a disease and you’ve done nothing these past days but run around. Sleep. Get strength,” Sam said, on the verge of tears.

My strength was in a police station right now. “No. I’ll sleep when I’m dead. I’ll sleep when I fix this.”

“What do you know that we don’t?” Tyler asked.

“Nothing. I just need to do this. If it were you in there, Tyler, I’d be the same way, or you, Sam. Hell, even Dylan. You all are all I’ve got right now and I don’t mind risking it for your safety.”

“You hardly know us, Tim.”

“Like that matters.”

I stood, and turned to the door. “Besides, I have a plan,” I said behind me. Before they could ask, I was in the hall, making my way to the street.

-

I walked through the city and out to the outcropping of rocks. There was no boat, but I sat on the shore and I waited. I didn’t move a muscle for an hour until I saw the motor boat skipping across the water. When it ran up on the sand, I knew who it was. I knew it was who I was looking for.

I ran out, my legs kicking up water, until I was at the boat.

“Haines!”

He was busy walking away.

“Haines!”

His head ****ed to the side.

“HAINES!”

That got his attention. He turned around and stood on the beach for a second, his face covered. It had been two days and it didn’t look like he recognized me. He shook his head and turned around again.

“Officer Ollie Haines!”

Sand kicked up as he began running at me. I stood, unmoving, until he was almost upon me, and then he stopped. He pulled his jacket down.

“Kid, I told you not to call me Officer.”

“I need your help.”

“Look, if you want to get back out to that god forsaken rock, forget it.”

“It’s something else. Something that involves your line of work.”

This piqued his interest. “What is it? Something challenging, I hope, kid because otherwise you would be wasting my time, and that it not something that should go to waste.”

I told him about the carnival and how Liza and George had been bagged. I gave him first name, last name, what dorm they lived in, what they looked like, everything I could think of that might get them out of wherever they were alive.

“I can’t promise anything, kid.”

“I didn’t think so. The police here are – they’re more monsters than anything else, aren’t they?”

Ollie nodded. “The badge distorts who they really are, or who they used to be. They traded their God for an opportunity to dance with power. Nothing is sacred anymore.”

“Why are you – what makes you different?”

“If I get them out, if I try… Remember what I said about favors, kid?”

“Yeah. You only take favors if it’s something on one else can do. Like busting my friends out of a police station. What kind of favor are you talking about?”

“It’s big. But it’ll answer some of your questions.

“To begin at the beginning,” he said, spreading his coat out and sitting on a rock. “This is how things used to be around here. Westing wasn’t always like this. There was a time when it rivaled New York City itself, when Westing would have given Tokyo a run for its money. It was a beautiful place to live, kid, where you could keep your individuality and still be part of a swarm of people. All that, yours. Living expenses were down, education was up. Life was good.

“Westing was founded by Dutch settlers in the 1750’s, I think. They were looking for religious freedom. And they thrived for three months – it looked like they would make it on their own. But one day, without warning, a cartographer walked into town and found all the houses, buildings, churches – they were all empty. Every single person in Westing had disappeared. It was labeled a ghost town, the ground was no longer sacred.

“And on that same ground swept clean, the British came. They founded a colony in the exact same place, ten years later. Said they were looking for religious freedom, too. They began a noble trade with the Indians, kept up a good cover. They weren’t here for the religion – they were hardly persecuted back in London. A drunk old man was telling tales in some British pub about Westing, the town that time forgot, and how there was a rich gold vein running along in the hills just north of town. He says that’s where everyone ended up. Everyone ended up in that godforsaken mine and was killed in a cave in. Women, children, men, animals – he said it didn’t matter, they all ended up dead anyway. And that’s why no one could find them.

“This piqued the interest of a few privateers here and there. They got a ship together of settlers, claimed religious persecution, and set sail, looking to strike it rich under the guise of God. No one knows if they found any gold or not, but they flourished. It was the British that re-founded Westing, and the British that made it prosper.

“Of course, legends began to circulate. Ghosts of the Dutch in the hills, all that. They said the land took one great blood sacrifice and that’s why everyone is being left alone now, if you can even call it that. Being left alone by the Earth, maybe.

“Now, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe it one bit, but I do believe that Westing functions and thrives on one thing that isn’t in short demand – Greed. The Dutch were killed looking for freedom and the British prospered looking for gold. God knows how many Indians they ended up killing looking for the vein in the hills, or how many people they tossed over-board on the trip across or return trips for supplies.

“Cannibalism was big, although there’s no real proof of that. They were savages looking for gold, and that’s where this place came from.”

I nodded. “You sound like Josephine,” I said.

“Robert? The reporter? I forgot you were staying at Westing. Yeah, she walks around campus sometimes in between lectures.”

“I saw her on the Island. She was having a vigil for Marlene Gibbons.”

“So that’s why you asked me about the vigil,” Ollie said.

“Yeah.”

“Makes sense. Anyways, now that we’ve established that this place is inherently… Not good, let’s continue the story. Imagine you’re a college student, and imagine you don’t have a lot of money. Not too hard to do. As prosperous as people were in Westing fifty years ago, there were still the poor that held the rich on their shoulders above the muddy water. This college student, Graham Davis, was poor. He was in Westing College on a scholarship, but he had no money.

“So, he turned to something he knew a little about. Underground trade of illicit substances. He got the hang of it, began to learn the ropes. Started hanging out with Boris Faust, one of the biggest dealers around Westing, and got his hands dirty. Became an enforcer for the guy, and when it came right down to it, he started tweaking the recipes for drugs.

“He stumbled across a formula that combined the bliss you get from heroin and cocaine with the hallucinogens from mushrooms. But when he called people to test it, it didn’t work. They took it in through the mouth, and they didn’t trip. All it did was make them throw up. They thought Graham was wasting their time – so much so that they went as far as to kill Boris. When they were about to kill Graham, he knocked over a vial onto one of the lackeys, and it when into his tear-duct.

“And he started to trip. Hard. The concentration was far too high, but it was obvious that for the amount of money he spent, he was onto something. Graham Davis created Flash in a lab under one of the Westing buildings.

“No one knew what it would do, though, how addicting it would become. No one knew that it so numbed your pain receptors that you were practically invulnerable after a period. No one knew that it clogged your anger receptors so much that one wrong move would release all the pent up rage you’ve held in since you started using. No one could have seen that coming. All they saw was economy. A cheap drug, a great high.

“At first, when people started triggering, no one associated it with Flash. They said it had to do with the media, violence in video games, that kind of thing. Flash, despite being overused, was still under ground. It started spreading across the country, even up North to Canada, some lower provinces. But it always did well in Westing.

“Finally, the police put two and two together, figured out that triggering was a result of those nifty little lightning bolt bottles and tried to crack down on it all. Tried to shut it down as best they could, but every time they would close one lab, another would open. Every time they would try arrest a manufacturer, two more would pop up and be even more successful. It was an unwinnable game.

“The government had no choice but to look away at what was happening. They stopped their Anti-Flash campaign and people eventually forgot about it. At least, the point where it could be comfortably ignored. When Westing tried to outlaw Flash – well, you’ve heard about the riots. One of the largest contributing factors.

“Everyone knew Flash was the future.

“I’ve seen a lot around, but I’ve never seen a higher percentage use in any city outside of Westing.

“I’m only twenty five,” Ollie said, sighing, “But there’s a reason I have my job. No other undercover narcotics agent has lasted as long. They get found out, they get killed trying to play the game. And that’s the end of it. I go down, they send another and try to shut down as much as they can.

“But here’s the kicker. Sometimes, I can’t shut it down. Not because I don’t try, but because it’s impossible. Because the ring leader is so protected, or keeps such a clean appearance, that it’d be outside of my power to bust him – or her. I’m twenty five, but I’ve got the face of a thirty year old for all I’ve seen. Which is why I need your help.

“The Dean of Students at Westing is the head of the Westing College ring. He puts so much into circulation, pays off the police, buys himself a new car. His accounting statements should be enough alone to bust him – he’s pulling in way more money than any Dean of Students before him. But he launders it quickly and efficiently. There’s no way to catch him.”

“Unless…” I said.

“Unless you agree to help me. You won’t exactly be working within the constraints of the law, Tim, but neither will I to get your friends out.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“The ball is in your park. The Dean needs to be brought down – cut off the head of the snake, the body dies. I’ve been busting punks down here, but they’re nothing but tail pieces. Whatever you can do to get the Dean out of the picture. Get… creative, but he has to be alive. Otherwise, I would have taken care of it,” he said.

“I’ll try. No promises, but I’ll do what I can,” I said. My heart was pounding in my chest. The details were so vague – I had no idea what exactly I was signing myself up for.

“I’ll do what I can to get Liza and George out of the station. But no promises. We have a deal?”

“Deal.”

“If you get caught, if you say my name, if my cover is gone – that’s it. I don’t know you, but if you end up in a ditch somewhere – I’ve made my life disappearing, kid, I’ll do it again.”

“And if you get caught – “ I was trying to find a suitable threat, but could come up with nothing.

“Yeah, kid. Just play it safe,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’ll keep my eye on the news and see if you’ve made any waves. You’ll know if I’ve gotten your friends out because your friends will be around. Strictly ballroom, kid.

“Oh, and kid – Nice shirt,” he said, walking down the beach into the haze of the morning.

[MalReynolds]

I messed up a few of the details that were important to the story at the beginning of Chapter 7, so I edited the corrections in as well as the new material.

[FoJaR]

fun

[MalReynolds]

Without so much as a second glance, I took off down the stretch of beach back towards Westing College. There was planning to do if I was going to make good on what I had promised, and I didn’t intend to become a liar with this deal. As much as I disliked the though of setting up someone I didn’t know, I disliked the person even more for pumping drugs into the school and propagating the very situation that I had come to hate.

The Westing Library was smaller than the archives, but it gave me a place to sit down and think things out in the quiet of my own head. There were ways to do it, to be sure – I could just put in a tip to the police. But what if the Dean didn’t have anything on him? That’d just be a bust, and if the tip got back to me, it’d be curtains for sure. I could rough him up and tell him to get the hell out of dodge, but that seemed – that seemed not only unlike me, but a situation where he would be unlikely to listen. I needed to talk to the Dean of Students face to face, but there’s no way he would talk to me. After all, what am I besides a vagrant just passing through and using his facilities?

The more I thought about it, the more difficult I realized it was going to be. There was no concrete solution and no answer that would prove one hundred percent of my safety. Every situation I could come up with could end very, very badly for me. It was Occam’s Razor – I had to choose the situation that was most simple, but with the least amount of danger not for me, but for my friends.

Sitting in the musty library at a table in the back, all I could do was start to feel guilty about the events that were about to transpire. Had I known then what I knew now, I’m sure some of this could have been avoided, if not all… But hindsight is a beautiful thing. The overhanging light was covered in dust, which made the corner of the library I was in look yellow more than anything else. There were few books on the shelves, making it easy to see anyone who walked in or out of the front door. There was a straight line path between my seat and the door with enough books missing so that I could see the door open and shut with each passing person.

I swear, every person at Westing that checked ID’s had to be related. The librarian looked like the sister of Tinsley, and the Women’s Dorm ID lady also resembled her a large amount.

There was a second floor, but it was roped off. The flooring on the second floor was grated, and I stared up through to the empty shelves as I tried to think.

After coming up with few viable options, I walked out of the library and ran almost smack into George. There was a feeling of relief in my chest, followed by a small panic. Now I would have to make good on my promise – Ollie had done the impossible. Ollie was mighty.

The panic subsided for a moment when I looked over across the Quad and saw Liza. Her sun dress was ripped up the side and she was holding her arm like I had been holding mine after the chase. Both she and George looked more lost than anything else. When she saw me, she didn’t perk up – instead, she walked over and placed her head against my chest. I pulled her in close.

“What happened?” I asked George.

“They let us go, obviously.”

“I know, but…” It was delicate. I didn’t know if they knew of the deal or not.

“I told them Liza was my girlfriend and that in an effort to lose weight, I had started hiking. I found a trail, and she came with. They pulled us both near the woods, so they figured, I guess, that it was all right to let us go.”

I couldn’t believe that George had believed himself. It was such a flimsy lie, one that could be seen through so easily, but to him, it was the only explanation. The only way he could have gotten out of the police station was if he had talked them down himself. I could see a twinkle of pride in his eye as he told the story.

“The only problem now,” he said, coughing, “Is if the student council will keep me on with an arrest on my record.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Oh, you know how it goes,” he said, half heartedly waving. “They wouldn’t let us sleep. They made us stand up the entire time. I’m so tired,” he said.

“What about you, Liza?” I asked. But she was already asleep on her feet, leaning against me.

-

George and I walked her back to her room and put her under a blanket. After we left, I had to help George back to his room myself. Tyler and Sam were still inside, and when the door opened again, they seemed very relieved that George was back – doubly so when I told them that Liza was safe in her own bed.

“How’d they get out,” Tyler asked.

George looked at me, as if he expected me to repeat the story.

“No, man. You tell it. It’s your victory.”

He told the same story, verbatim. Tyler and Sam both looked at him and started laughing.

“That’s fantastic, George! You talked your way out of one of their nests – Damn, that’s impressive,” Tyler said, rising to his feet.

Then George told him that he didn’t get to sleep or sit. Tyler immediately lowered his voice, looking over at Sam and then me.

“Hey, Sam,” I asked, walking out of the room with them, “Did you tell your mother you’re okay yet?”

She didn’t answer. “I was afraid to leave the room. Even more afraid to go back to the church.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t be such a baby,” I said, giving her a shove. “We’ll go back together. I want to see the look on your parents face when they see that you’re alive, well, and free from police custody.”

She looked over at Tyler, who was nodding approving manner. “Go on, Sam. Let em’ know that you’re okay.”

We both walked east towards the chapel. Tyler had opted to stay behind, stating that the parents probably still hated him for corrupting their innocent daughter, so it was just Sam and me. She walked slower than what I was used to. Her hands were clasped in front of her, and she kept rubbing them together nervously.

“Tim, I don’t want to do this.”

“Why not? They’re your parents. They’re important, aren’t they?”

She stopped. We were on the outskirts of town, with the rough looking skin-heads in the alley ways, and she picked there of all places to stop.

“No, no stopping here. We keep moving. You have any kind of revelation, you tell me out of earshot of those monkeys,” I said, motioning to the buildings around us.

Now, she walked even slower. I wouldn’t even call it a walk. I would call it a mope – she moped even slower down the road until it turned into loose rocks.

“I love Mark,” she said.

“What?”

“I love Mark. Or loved Mark – I don’t know if I still do. When I think about him, I feel – I think I still love Mark.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you were annoyed by him?”

“I can’t tell Tyler that I have feelings for some dead boy. I have the same feelings for Tyler. They may be stronger still, but I still have feelings for Mark. I didn’t leave my room for five days after he disappeared. Mother and Father brought me soup. They prayed in shifts not only that Mark would come back, but that I would be able to be myself again.

“I used to run around. Can you imagine, me, running around? In fields, with flowers. I would go for walks in the woods with Mark. I’m not the same person anymore. I’m a shroud of what I used to be, a walking pill of bitterness at an unrelenting past. I used to be happy, Tim. And now, look at me. It would be different if I only knew he were dead, but the thought that he might still be out there somewhere… It bothers me to try and think of why he would leave like that.

“I was a shrew when I met Tyler. I’m still a shrew. But he saw past that. Tyler was the first person to see that I was a person underneath everything you see. The dark clothes, the hair pulled back and bookish glasses, the bible I almost constantly carry at my side as a defense against modern man – He saw through that and saw what I could be. That’s – That’s why I love Tyler.

“But Mark was the first person I ever connected with on that level. Tyler would be devastated if he knew this, so he can’t know. This is between you and me, Tim. I just needed to tell someone – you’re the only one I could tell. You’re a kind person. Please don’t tell Tyler.”

I was personally floored. The display at Tyler’s birthday party had thrown me for a loop, but I realized it was all that she could do to protect herself from old feelings renewed. She was embarrassed to feel that way, and it made me sad to see her so.

“Everyone can get like that sometimes,” I said. “There’s no limit on love. There’s no guarantee, either, otherwise it’d be one love to one person, and that’s it. Finito, done deal, you only get one shot don’t screw it up. I’m sorry that Mark disappeared, I really am, but I’m also happy that you found someone that you could find solace in.”

She sighed. “That shirt you’re wearing belonged to Mark. It’s a good fit on you,” she touched the shoulder. “I didn’t think I would see anyone wear it again, but it does look nice on you.”

I smiled at her. “Come on, we have to make better time than this if we’re going to get back to Westing in time for – for anything, really.”

Sam no longer moped. She kept a good pace with me, sometimes even running ahead and slowing down. How long the secret had weighed her down and how free she must have felt, if only for those moments. We reached the Chapel and I knocked on the door, forcing Sam to stand behind me. When Father opened it, I nodded, and she stepped out. I was surprised to see the surprise on his face. She was sheepishly looking at the ground, kicking an invisible rock, unable to make eye contact.

As soon as she looked up, Father started yelling something back into the Chapel. Mother came out of the back door and wavered, as if she was about to pitch forward, but steadied herself on the door.

“The prodigal daughter,” Father said, grinning. “Come inside, both of you.”

-

Mother had once again fixed a set of tea. I was sitting in the pew, my legs dangling into the main walkway, leaning back on my elbows. Sam was talking to her mother very rapidly in the corner. Occasionally, they would look at me, before talking amongst themselves again.

“Thank you for bringing her back to us, Tim,” Father said. “They’re like old friends again, chatting away like they used to.”

“I wanted you to see for yourself that she was okay,” I said, taking a sip of tea.

“You’ve given us no reason to doubt you. You’ve given us absolute honesty, which is more than we could have asked for.”

I nodded. “Talking to you two is a great relief. You’re the only ones that know about… my lack of –“

Father nodded. “It’s no problem. We’ve dealt with many, many confessions before.”

"I've got one more for you," I said, fully sitting up. "I hope you're ready."

[FoJaR]

buttery ritz crackers!

[MalReynolds]

As Sam and Mother were chatting in the corner, I told Father about what I had to do. He nodded along until I reached the end – the end, really being the beginning as I had no idea how to proceed.

“So that’s that, then? The Dean has to go down?” He asked.

“Yes. I gave my word to Ollie. And anything I can do to… The drug isn’t a drug. Liza was right. It’s an epidemic.”

“How are you going to do it?”

I leaned back on my elbows and blew the hair out of my eyes. “I honestly have no idea how to even get close to the man. A figure like that, he’d be protected, right? I don’t even know how I’m going to get him out of the picture. All I know is that I need to.”

“When I was a student, ages ago, the Dean of Students interviewed most of the potential candidates for attendance. That was a long time ago, back when Westing was nothing more than a small college. It’s grown since then, and I have no idea if they’ve saved that archaic ritual or if they have some kind of automated system. But I’m just thinking out loud, Tim. I don’t want to give you any suggestions.

“In fact, I don’t want you to do this at all. Think of the danger involved with what you’re trying to do. The man is a king pin, apparently. Don’t you think there’d be some kind of retribution for sending him away? There’s no way you could get out without getting hurt. I’m urging you not to go through with this. Your friends,” he looked over at Sam, “They need you more than that.”

I sighed. “I may or may not have been a man of principle before Westing, but I’d like to think that I am now. I’m keeping my word, Father, and I’m sorry if that disappoints you, but this is one trial I have to pass.”

“I didn’t think you’d say anything different. I just thought I’d warn you against doing something like that. But you’re young, you’re head strong. I just hope that you still have the rest of your life ahead of you when you finish with this.”

He stood, and moved over to the corner, talking to Mother. Sam started laughing, before walking over and taking a seat next to me.

“What’d you talk to Dad about, Tim?”

“School stuff, I guess.”

“School stuff? You don’t go to school, do you?”

“Nothing’s ever as simple as it is when it’s said, you know.”

“Are you thinking about enrolling in Westing?”

“Father seemed to think it was a pertinent idea. A way to accomplish my goals, if you will, however lofty they are.”

“Tim, George is going to be so excited.”

I sat up. “Why is George going to be excited?”

“He’s been talking to Tyler about trying to get you enrolled. George thinks it’d be good for you. George also thinks your life doesn’t have much direction, currently, and thinks enrolling in Westing would be the best thing to get you back on your feet.”

“Yeah, well, George also thinks hanging around Dylan is hanging around good company.”

“Just talk to George about it. It doesn’t have to be today – Lord knows he’s had enough for a week, but talk to him about it. It’d cheer him up.”

I didn’t think I had a week. Ollie never specified what exactly would happen if I didn’t try to make good, and he didn’t give me a time frame… But if I blew his cover, I was a goner. I didn’t want to think of what would happen if I had made such an egregious mistake as overestimating my time frame.

“I’ll ask George as soon as we get back to Westing,” I said. “You said he’s been through enough, but this should be all that it takes to cheer him up, don’t you think?”

Sam sat for a second, before smiling and nodding.

Sam was an entirely different person when she was smiling. The lines on her face, smoothed by years of defeat, grew back. There were smile marks around her mouth, and she had a gorgeous set of teeth that always remained obscure behind her lips. And there was a sparkle in her eye now.

It amazed me how much a secret could weigh down a person like that. I wondered if Sam could tell that I was hiding something, hiding something not just from Sam, but from everyone. Did I look like her, every day, eyes weak with conceit and paranoia that my secret might some how slip out? Or was I better at masking what was going on underneath. I know it felt good to tell Mother and Father about my memory problem, but it didn’t change the fact that I was lying to the rest of the people that I had come to care about over the last few days.

And I could see it in Sam’s eyes, when we reached Westing again, that she would not be able to be truly happy until everyone knew. She changed from Happy Sam back to the Sam I met that first night, hands almost clenched at her side. The only time she would change back was when she would look at me, and she seemed half alive when she was next to Tyler again.

I was her safe harbor for her secret.

George, I found out from Tyler, had slept through most of the day. It was near nine o’clock when he got up, and that was to use the restroom. I followed him and stood outside the door until he came back out. It seemed like he hadn’t even noticed that I had been following him from his room to the bathroom.

“Hey man.”

“Hey George. Listen, I have to talk to you.”

He put his hands up in a defensive position. “I know I told the police I was dating Liza, but I don’t even – I don’t like her like that,” he said, raising his hands in front of his face.

“What? No. Not about that. I applaud your ingenuity,” I said, putting his hands down. “No, listen, you’re on the Student Council, right?”

He nodded. “I assume I still am. I don’t know how they’ll react to my arrest.”

“They’ll probably think you’re some kind of God for getting out of the police nest alive. But listen, let’s say that if I were to want to perhaps attend an academy such as Westing, would I talk to the admissions office or what?”

George perked up. The sleep was gone from his eyes now, and he pushed his glasses almost completely to his eyes.

“You want to enroll in Westing?”

“I’ve been giving it some thought. I have the money –“ I paused, “- And I think I have good enough old grades to get in here. I was just wondering…” I trailed off. I hoped he would take the bait, because as it stood, I couldn’t even begin to apply. I had no form of ID, I had no old school records. I was but a ghost in this.

“No, no, no, don’t worry about anything like this. I’m friends with a lot of the higher up people, you know, so just come and talk to me and I’ll get you an interview with the Dean of Admissions. We’ll try and set you up – it’s unorthodox, but everyone like, owes me favors and stuff – so you’re as good as in. We can probably set you up with a dorm for next semester – rolling admissions and stuff like that – so you’ll be golden. Even if you’re SAT scores are rock bottom and you failed out of high school, I think – Westing is a tough school to get into, but it’s all in who you know when you get right down to it.” He finally stopped. Saying all of that had been the mental equivalent of his running a mile, and he looked it, immediately tired again.

“The Dean of Admissions, George, is that the same as the Dean of Students?”

He paused. “No. Dean of Admissions is Terry Branch. Dean of Students is Eric Larson, and he’s kind of a jerk. Why would you even want to bother with him? I’ve only talked to him one or two times, but he’s never been exactly more than courteous to me.”

George, the remora. Eric could probably sense it – George looking for another slip-stream to ride it. Dylan was the alpha male among the friends, and George took to him like a sick puppy. He knew most of the faculty, and probably rode in their wake as well.

“Well, I think it’d be better – you know, for me – if I could talk to the Dean of Students first. I’d really like to hear from him about some of the schools policies and things like that. Drug policy, payments, how we’re expected to act. I’ve been here as a guest. I think it’d be a tremendous idea to understand how I’d be expected to act as a student.”

“That’s good and everything, but I’m not even sure I’d be able to get you a meeting with the guy. He’s not a very public person at all.”

“Oh,” I said, turning. “Well, don’t worry about it. When I head back North I’ll look into some of the colleges up there.”

“What?! No, no, don’t worry about it. I’ll see what I can do. You’re as good as in, all right? You just gotta trust me on this one. I’ll help you out, man,” he said, pushing his glasses up again. “But I’m beat. Talk to me tomorrow after 12 and I’ll tell you if I got the meeting or not.”

“You’re a life saver, bud,” I clapped him on the shoulder. “Get some sleep. You’ve had a long couple of days.”

“No kidding,” he muttered under his breath as he trundled back down the hallway, into his room.

I didn’t understand why he was willing to go through so much just to help me. And I think, standing in that dinky hallway, it was the first time I ever thought that something good could come out of Westing. George was the good – a teacher, a selfless individual. Josephine said they didn’t exist anymore, that everyone was self serving, but he was certainly self sacrificing.

The next time I had a few free hours I’d track down Wesley and go talk to Josephine about what I’d found.

Even though I wanted to shove my moral victory in her face, that wasn’t my entire reason for wanting to see her. She had been standing firmly in my mind atop the light house observation deck, dress blowing in the wind, staring at me. Her eyes were burned in my brain, bright blue, exquisite. I didn’t love her by any means, but I certainly couldn’t stop thinking about her – and as I did, my cheek began to burn where she had kissed me. Perhaps I was just blushing, but it felt hot – not quite to the touch. When I reached up and brushed the area, it was clammy, much like the rest of my face. I had broken into a cold sweat, and my throat was locking up.

I reached into my pocket and removed the Aeroids, popping one as the Night Scan announcement blared. I sighed, and moved downstairs, past Dylan’s room to the double doors that housed the Guest Dorm. I punched the number in and sauntered over to my corner, removing my bag from behind the bed as the rest of the vagrants began to file in. I sat, head buried in hands, thinking. I could get a meeting with the Dean – George had been fairly certain of this – but what was I going to do to get him out of here, short of packing a pistol and shooting him myself?

But Ollie had even said no killing him.

I slid down the wall and laid my head against the bag, closing my eyes.

And then it hit me.

I opened my eyes and looked past the legs of the beds, the tangled forest of metal, and stared at the two lightning bolts that graced the vials of Flash that I had brought with me into Westing.

As I began to drift off, I realized – it was the oddest things that made me sleep.

[FoJaR]

i bet ollie is really superman and the dean is really lex luthor!

[mead1]

Originally Posted by FoJaR

i bet ollie is really superman and the dean is really lex luthor!

you are very perceptive sir

This is still an excellent read. Keep it up Mal.

[MalReynolds]

The room was almost empty when I woke up the next morning. The lights were on full blast, and all other times I had awoken, they were dimmed. I rolled over, smacking my head against the floor and rolling my eyes. A sharp pain shot through my head like a small dart, spreading out like ink in water and I sighed. Oh, yes, wonderful way to wake up. I might as well have a breakfast of champions that consisted of dirt and weeds.

I realized soon that the reason the lights were up was because I had slept in far later than usual. The wall clock outside the Guest Dorm read 11:20, and I was normally out and about Westing by 8:30 at the very latest. The hallway was deadly silent as most students were now in class, not concerned with getting breakfast or hitting the shower before everyone else. The hallway looked far more pale than I had been used to seeing, as if it were somewhere between haunted and pure – the light was a thin yellow that bathed the hall in a dusty color, and my small head injury made the room tilt at odd angles. Or maybe it wasn’t the injury, maybe it was the ghosts of Westing coming home to roost.

I walked down the hall towards the bathroom and knocked. There was no one inside, and I opened the door. The floor was slimy, green – I hadn’t noticed it before when I was wearing bath shoes, but it was hard to miss now. I looked over at the shower heads and sighed, moving back to the Guest Dorm and wrapping my feet in two thin t-shirts that sheltered my feet as much as tissue paper. I couldn’t help but gag as I walked over to the faucets and turned them on. I wished I could remove them from the wall and scrub the floor off, but they were bolted in. So such was life.

After the shower, I hardly felt clean. I rubbed my feet off with a towel I found in the corner of the Guest Dorm and air-dried as I sat on one of the beds, staring at my tennis bag. There was little time for reflection. The cause for the shower was the cause for the exoneration of George and Liza. I wanted to look presentable to George, otherwise he might stop me from seeing the Dean of Students. I threw on a clean white shirt and a fresh pair of jeans, tucking the shirt down and putting on my dress shoes. I looked like a regular trust-fund baby, with my hair slicked back and easy going choice of outfit. Hell, I fit in with so many of the people I had seen around Westing, I could have passed for a student if it weren’t for the garish Guest Pass I had to carry with me.

As I stood, my stomach rumbled. George had mentioned talking to him after 12, which meant I had limited time to get food in me. I couldn’t run all the way down to the Kinder. Even The Center was out of reach. I would have to make do with whatever hock they were selling up at the Rec Hall, as garish as the food in that place looked. And so I traveled up the rickety stairs and through the stuck door into the Hall, expecting to see a few people scattered around. To my surprise and enjoyment, the only person in the room was Liza and some surly lunch lady standing at the back of the line. She had her face buried in a book – I could not tell if she was awake or asleep.

I made my way over to the lunch line. Most of the food they had prepared looked awful, and for a good reason. This was not the main dining area of Westing, because there were no kitchen doors. Any food they sold had to be brought up here from somewhere else, where it would sit under a heat lamp until it started to smell funny, before finding a new home to sit and sprout hair in a trash bin. There wasn’t a lot of food to choose from, either, but that had to be to low sales. They probably only brought up one tray of food and hoped to sell that off, and if they didn’t – well, it looked and smelled like leftovers anyway.

I opted for a bag of potato chips instead. They promised that they were lower in fat than those other potato chips, and that they were baked instead of fried, like their competitors. But when you eat chips for breakfast, they all taste the same. And who was I kidding? I wasn’t even eating a breakfast of chips. I was eating a brunch of salted, baked potato slices. This had to be a high point of my rebirth. The first actual teenager thing I had managed – eating potato chips for breakfast. I felt young.

I took a seat across from Liza, who I found was not reading the book at all. Rather, she was asleep, her nose pressed against the crease. I opened the bag, ate a chip, and kicked her under the table. She jumped up, with a quick, “Whowhat,” before rubbing her eyes and trying to lay her head back down on the table. I kicked her again, and she looked over at me.

“Oh, hey there stranger. I didn’t see you much yesterday.”

“You were pretty passed out for most of it,” I said, eating a chip.

She yawned, raising her arms over her head and moaning as she stretched. “Yeah. I was tired. They wouldn’t let us sit down at the station. Not even lean,” she paused, staring at me. “I didn’t like it much.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Yeah, well… For a little while, I was really only angry at Tyler, you know, for dragging us all the way out there. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he didn’t put a gun to my head. I decided to go there myself. But before they put the bag on – George didn’t tell you, did he?”

“No.”

She pulled up her shirt, revealing two small burn marks on her side, side by side looking like a mechanical snake bite.

“They tazed me.”

“Wow. That’s harsh.”

“They didn’t taze you?”

I looked down at my bag of chips. “No, they didn’t. They bagged me, but I managed to get away.”

“What? How did you manage that?”

Half of me wanted to tell her the whole thing. The whole chase through the factory, the mountain of rubble, the explosion of the fire-works tent that I had been standing next to, but the other half didn’t want her to know that I was responsible for the death of at least four people. Hardly innocent, but people none the less. I know she would understand the situation – it was run or be killed – but I felt so wrong about watching the building fall around them while I stood safely outside.

I was even worse for feeling relieved when no one moved under the rubble. I had been relieved that people had died, which disturbed me to a degree.

So, instead, I chose to lie to her. Why not? All of my friendships up to this point were built on lies, why not this one? I had told Tyler and Sam about the factory, but I didn’t tell them that I had been followed. I omitted the detail, telling them that I had gone into the factory to hide when it started to collapse and the police soldiers probably presumed I was dead, but I ducked out of a back door.

At least I was good at keeping secrets. Sam’s love for Mark, what I couldn’t remember, the death of a few people here or there. I was a regular nobleman.

“Yeah, I hid out in a factory – one of those burned out ones that Tyler pointed out, after out-running the cops. The factory began to shake, and I made it out a back door. I guess they thought I was dead, because they didn’t follow me after that. I had to tread carefully, though, just in case they were behind me.”

Liza shrugged. “All right, you don’t have to tell me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s not what happened. Your eyes are all shifty – you can’t look at me. I don’t want to call you a liar, but…”

“How do you know –“

“Every time you have to fudge the truth, or you get mad or flustered, your eyes start to shake a little bit. I don’t think it’s anything you can control, but it makes you a terrible liar. Most of the time, I either think you’re lying to me, or you’re… Flustered by me.”

“I don’t like lying. I think you just fluster me, that’s all.”

“So tell me what really happened.”

“It’s not that interesting.”

“Now I am calling you a liar. Come on, I want to know.”

“What if I killed the police that were chasing me? Would you want to know that?”

She paused and shut her book. “Did you?”

“Maybe. I don’t know what your definition of ‘kill’ is, but… Yeah, I ran into the factory. And they chased me, but the building started to fall while we were all inside of it. But I was the only one to make it out. I pushed a table on top of some guy and ran over him so I could get to the door, and almost as soon as I was out, it all collapsed.”

“How many were there?”

“Had to have been at least five. So… That’s what happened. You’re the only one that knows… Besides Mother and Father Feldspar.”

She leaned back, arms folded across her chest. “And how does this make you feel?”

“Come off of it, Freud.”

“No, no, answer me. How does it make you feel?”

I leaned forward, growing slightly angry. “It makes me feel like I killed people, that’s how it makes me feel. What, do you think I was laughing the entire time? No, I was running for my life. I was relieved when the building fell, but then I started thinking about them – if they were still alive, if they were still under the rubble trying to get out, or just how many people had been in that building. It doesn’t feel good at all. It makes me hate myself. That’s the truth.”

She leaned forward. My face was red and I was beginning to sweat. My hair that had been so carefully slicked back was now falling over my face. Liza reached across the table and put her hand on top of my clenched fist.

“You’re only human, Tim. It was either you or them.”

“It’s not so black and white, Liza.”

“I’m glad it was you, Tim. Any time you think that it’s bad, or how they died chasing you – If they had caught you, you would be dead. I’m glad your alive. If you hadn’t gotten out, I just don’t think I would be here.”

“What?”

“Well, a guy came in to the station and pulled our arresting officer out of the room. Talked to him and then asked George what had happened, what we were doing out there. The guy offered us an out. And when George and I walked away from the room, the man was standing there – he even winked at me. George, bless him, but he had no clue. Who was that man, Tim?”

“That’s Ollie Haines. He’s a police officer, and I asked him to help you two out.”

“And if you had gotten killed in that factory, I would be dead right now. George would be dead right now.”

The conversion for the lives of two innocent people was five over-zealous corrupt cops in Westing. I should have jotted that down, in case I needed some kind of chart in the future, in case I needed to put things in such simple terms as one good human life is equal to two-point-five bad or misled human lives. Liza, for all she is, was an idealist. It was lovely and naïve at the same time. As much as I was drawn to her, her outlook was a beautiful mess.

Be that as it may, what she said next made me less angry at myself. She leaned across the table and whispered something in my ear, running her fingers down my cheek and staring me in the eye.

“I would give myself up to find you too, Tim,” is what she had said. She kissed me on the fore head and leaned back.

A class ending siren signaled and people began to file into the Rec Hall. She smiled, stood, and walked out of the room.

[Ice wolf]

This is a really engrossing story.


You have a large vocabulary too.

[FoJaR]

a lil too much "garish" in that last section.

[ShastaTwist]

Originally Posted by FoJaR

a lil too much "garish" in that last section.

There were only two, but they were so close together.