(A sample from Crawlspace.)
© 2009 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
Tomorrow
3:22 AM
The Interstate
OVER THE INTERSTATE the first streaks of dawn shone through bands of clouds.
Miss Quinn’s Spyder shot down the lanes.
The wind cascaded through Miss Quinn’s hair. She squirmed with pleasure on the leather seat. She threw her glasses out the window.
Tommy was dressed again in his usual clothes. He wore only a few bandages. For the rest he looked almost whole again.
‘I’m almost healed,’ he said, looking at his hands.
Miss Quinn laughed. ‘You have a lot of fun ahead of you,’ she said, ‘finding out everything that makes you different.’
Tommy and Agnes were sharing the passenger seat again but it wasn’t like the day they met. Now he cradled Agnes in his arms and she lay there curled up and half asleep. ‘You okay?’
Agnes opened her eyes. She reached up and weakly drew his face down and kissed him. ‘I’m better now. Yeah.’
‘You sound drunk.’
‘Drunk on you.’
‘Try to sleep.’
‘Sleep, mmm, sleep with you…’
She kissed and nibbled his cheek and neck.
Tommy drew back suddenly. He remembered. ‘God – Papers – what did I do?’
‘You found out who you are,’ Miss Quinn said.
‘It’s horrible.’
‘No, Tommy,’ Agnes said. ‘You had to do it. They hurt you, Tommy. They did awful things to you.’
‘I don’t know…’
Miss Quinn laughed. She licked Jelly off her inner wrist. ‘Don’t be a wimp. Enjoy it!’
She banged the Spyder up a gear.
In Tommy’s arms Agnes nestled and closed her eyes. She fell asleep.
Tommy bent his head and kissed her hair. He let his face rest in the crook of her neck. He closed his eyes and dreamed.
BACK AT BRIGGSVILLE the day was fair and bright. A few cars were standing in the parking lot of the Bright Dayz Motel.
There were no cars outside rooms eight through ten. But the door to Room No. 9 was hanging partly open.
Inside the room it was dark. Clothes, sheets, blankets and suitcases were strewn about. At the back the door to the bathroom was shut.
INSIDE THE BATHROOM, the Kid was crouching in the bathtub. He was holding the sliding glass panel shut. He looked frightened and tired and worn-out. His eyes were full of tears and he snuffled snot.
He was sliding the glass panel open a crack and looking out.
The bathroom door was still shut.
The Kid crawled out of the bathtub and knelt by the door. He listened at the crack.
From the outer room came sounds. A car was pulling up outside. A knock sounded at the outer door. Voices came through.
The Kid unlocked the bathroom door and opened it a crack and looked out.
The outer door hung from its hinges. Dark figures stood in the doorway.
‘Don’t shoot!’ he squeaked.
The lead man put up his Burner. ‘Why, hello, Eddie. Is that you? Where’s everybody else?’
The Kid’s face relaxed in recognition. ‘Commander?’
SUDDENLY it went dark. For a second he didn’t know who he was or where. Was he the Kid in the motel room? Was he the man with the Burner?
Then something came to him – a word – a name: Tommy. That sounded right. Tommy. His name was Tommy.
And with that knowledge, Tommy lost the dream of the Kid and the Commander. It slipped off a cliff in the cold, wide dark, and tumbled like a bright window onto another place, smaller and down far away till it was gone.
It felt like he was sitting somewhere. The seat under him was firm. There was something warm and heavy in his lap. He knew the scent of it but nothing more than that.
It was cold here. He smelled the mucky rotten smells of a riverbank.
I’ll open my eyes in a second, he thought. I’ll wake up and look around and find out where I am.
