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Display a printable version Lost Love, Part One
This story is about Carolyn Thompson, a law student at University of Chicago. Hard times have fallen on Carolyn. After being awake for two weeks straight studying for exams, she stumbled upon a fantastic city of living nightmares while on her way home one night. At the very moment she crossed over into this Mad City, she received a call on her cell phone. Carolyn heard her lover Ashley scream for help, a scream of absolute dread, before the phone cut off. It's been three weeks since that phone call. Carolyn is still looking high and low for her beloved, though without any luck so far. She's made friends among the community of the Awake, people who – much like her – found this strange place and even stranger abilities after living without sleep. Let us join Carolyn as she works with a friend to retrieve something precious to him: a piece of his wife.... ***
From across the marble art deco lobby, Carolyn looked back at her comrade. The filthy, rag-covered man grunted as he ripped the giant wind-up key out of the back of the cop. She nodded back before turning her attention back to the wiry, snooty desk clerk, pointing at him with her index finger extended and her thumb straight up – as though her hand was a cocked gun.. The clerk looked down at Carolyn with contempt in his face. "Miss, I will not help you. Kill me if you must." He punctuated the sentiment by straightening himself, putting forward a face of dignity. Carolyn took a breath and felt the fatigue within her. Reaching into herself, she drew the very essence of that fatigue into her lungs. As she did so, her body began to feel almost electrified with raw power. With an irritated grimace, she snatched the clerk's jaw, brought his head down to her face and stared straight into his eyes. She exhaled and demanded, "Give me the key to 1506. I won't ask a third time." Immediately and without any further resistance, he grabbed a key from the board behind him and thrust it nervously at his assailant. Releasing him, she politely took the key and joined Richard in walking to the elevator. From over her shoulder, she said with a bit of remorse in her voice, "Thank you. Now, get out of here while you still can." Richard smacked the button for the 15th floor with the side of his fist as he entered the elevator, inadvertently hitting the button for the 14th floor as well. As the door closed, Carolyn asked, "So, what do we do now?" "We stick to the plan." Richard rubbed his eyes. Carolyn noticed his breathing begin to shift, growing slower and deeper. "Hey, man, you alright?" "Yeah, just give me a minute." Carolyn saw them pass the 7th floor. Without warning, she slapped the raggedy old man across his face. Richard's body jolted into a straight line. His eyes widened with anger and, more importantly, alertness. Without looking at her, he said through gritted teeth, "Thanks." She remained silent for a few seconds before replying without looking back at him, "Don't crash on me, man." "Don't worry about me, kid. I wouldn't give them the privilege." Carolyn sighed with frustration and looked forward, watching the number board count to 14. A few moments later, the door opened to the 14th floor. Richard stepped out. "C'mon, stairs from here." With slight hesitation, Carolyn stepped out just before the door closed. As the two began to make their way up the nearby stairwell, they heard the ding of the elevator as it stopped one floor above. The ding was immediately followed by the sound of several guns firing in hallway above. Richard and Carolyn both stopped in their tracks. "I was afraid of that," whispered Richard. "They saw the stunt you pulled in the lobby. Or someone warned them. Whatever. Spilled milk, now." He resumed climbing the stairs, this time more slowly and quietly. Carolyn followed suit. As they came within a few yards of the door to the 15th floor hallway, it began to open from the other side. By pure reflex, Richard balled up the sheer exhaustion he felt throughout every fiber of his being and channeled it all into his legs. In the blink of an eye, he leapt up the remaining stairs and slammed himself against the door before it opened further. He turned his head back and opened his mouth to shout something, but before he could, he slumped to the ground. Exhaustion had finally taken its toll. Just as Carolyn realized what had happened, she heard a faint but deep sonic boom as the air ripped with a shockwave emanating from her unconscious companion. From what she heard, that meant only one thing: Run. Every nightmare in the city was about to show up looking for a feast. The hallway door began to open again, crushing Richard's body into the corner. Carolyn could see a portly man start to come out of the hallway. He looked a bit like a stereotypical 1930's gangster, but his pinstripe suit seemed to be literally made of money – dollar bills for cloth and quarters for buttons. The lower half of his left arm was a Tommy gun, which was rising up towards her. Her eyes followed upwards to see his face, and they met a copper Lincoln's head staring back at them. She pointed her finger-gun at the money-clad monster, and just thought about it being dead. Before it could get a clear shot at her, the penny-head exploded and the rest of the body fell to the ground. Footsteps from further inside the hall approached, and Carolyn could also hear a great deal of movement from further up and down the stairwell. As she stood there trying to figure out a plan, two more Money Suits rushed in. Carolyn fired two more thought-shots, and two more explosions echoed against the walls as the suits crumpled to the floor. Behind them was a cop with a wide-eyed, manic grin that looked like it was permanently etched into his face – while the rest of him looked normal (if a bit antiquated), the grin was clearly something Carolyn recognized as inhuman. The entire building began to shake. Creatures of all imaginable shapes and colors poured out into the stairwell from the floors above, below, and from the hall. Every exit was cut off by the ravenous horde. The cop-monster continued its very mechanical movement towards Carolyn just before she reacted by making its head explode. Its body flew back, impaling a giant walking hand with a windup key in its back. A blade-thin man in bloodied surgeon's scrubs, wielding a large scalpel in each hand, jumped from the stairs above. Just a moment before it landed on Carolyn, its body exploded into a shower of razor blades, flying in all directions. One of them grazed against the outside of her right arm. She kept firing at every new creature that stepped into her view, each something different and worse from the one before. With each shot, she was becoming more and more frazzled and jumpy – she shot at every shadow and movement, and her explosions were starting to take out parts of the stairs and walls along with the monsters. Out of one of the newly-formed holes in the stairwell, what looked like a boy folded from origami paper grabbed at Carolyn's ankle. She took aim at, grinning with malice and, maybe, a hint of enjoyment. She balled up all the stress she felt – from failing the person who saved her life twice in the last couple weeks, failing his wife for not being able to get the last piece of her back, failing Ashley for not being able to rescue her yet – and used it to shoot the boy-thing. Everything went blank. *** A bright flash filled the sky, illuminating much of the Mad City for the first time since anyone could remember. The thunder of sonic booms followed, as if making sure that everyone in the city knew what had just happened. Broken glass and tremendous debris fell to earth and filled the streets. Hundreds came running out of their homes to see the aftermath of the explosion – a full city block reduced to rubble and many people, both human and Nightmare, lying in the street injured or dead. A few moments later, a single figure emerged from what used to be the hotel. What followed would serve as a reminder of the threat inside each of the Awake, as Carolyn, completely mindless and detached from sanity, began to blow up everyone she laid her eyes on. *** Carolyn quietly closed the door behind her as she entered the back room of a nearby pub – a hiding place for the powerful insomniacs known as the Awake. In many ways, it was like a home away from home for people like Carolyn and Richard. The only person inside was a young man, maybe in his early twenties, wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt and pair of blue jeans, both immaculately clean. He paced back and forth, unaware of Carolyn entering the room. "Luke, where is everyone else?" Carolyn asked in a hushed tone. Luke snapped his head up. The dim lighting made it hard to identify the person before him, but the voice was familiar enough. "Holy fuck! What happened with you?" His tone was much louder than hers, filled with alarm. Blankly, she looked down at the rain poncho, as she just noticed she was wearing it. She felt completely naked underneath. The chill suddenly hit her senses, and Carolyn began to breathe heavily to suppress a panicked reaction. "Carolyn?" Luke asked, softly this time, while cautiously approaching her. "What happened to me?" Her breathing quickened, though her tone remained calm. He furrowed his brow while darting his eyes back and forth along the floor. "You don't know?" he asked, with puzzlement in his voice. "We were in the hotel that The Bird lead us to. Richard crashed as we got..." Carolyn took a moment to steady her nerves. Looking around, she grabbed a nearby seat and turned it so she could sit on it backwards, then thought better of it and sat down normally. "I vaguely remember walking in the door just now. And, aside, from this poncho, I'm naked." Luke allowed himself a momentary distraction of imagining Carolyn nude. In spite of her being a lesbian and in a relationship – albeit with someone who was kidnapped by the very Nightmares that hunt the Awake – he was developing quite a crush on Carolyn. He couldn't put his finger on why, as a stubborn, chubby brunette wasn't normally his type. Still, it had to be something significant, since he'd waited for her to return when everyone else ran off. Carolyn noticed the prolonged pause after her last words. "That wasn't an invitation." Luke quickly jumped to another topic to hide his embarrassment. "You blew up The Severed Arms, and pretty much everything else around it!" "I did what!?" Carolyn's tone was starting to sound argumentative. "You know, your..." His voice trailed off, and he pointed his right have toward the wall, like a gun. "Pew pew." Carolyn made the same, familiar shape with her hard. As she turned it around, studying it and trying to recall any memory of what happened earlier, she briefly pointed her gun-hand in Luke's direction. Luke immediately and frantically dropped himself to the floor and shielded his head with his arms. Carolyn shook her hand, losing the gun shape. She got up and helped Luke stand. "I'm sorry, I just..." "It's alright. Just watch where you point that thing," Luke said and he dusted himself off. "Richard and I were real close, real close. We almost had the last piece of his wife. But he crashed. I couldn't get to him in time." Carolyn's eye focused on the wall, away from Luke. "So many horrible things swarming in, I couldn't keep them all away." Luke pulled up a chair. "Damn." "Yeah," Carolyn said, looking back at Luke. "And that's where everything goes blank. Then I'm here, wearing this. Do you know what happened?" He rolled his tongue in his mouth, searching for the right words. He figured saying "Well, after you leveled some buildings, you started massacring everyone around you with your crazy, make-people-explode powers. So everyone else ran away because they're afraid of you and of what you pissed off." was probably the wrong thing to say. As he opened his mouth to force himself to say something, a knock came from the door leading further into the pub. An older woman poked her head in. "Tock's men are heading this way." Luke looked back at the woman and nodded as she withdrew, closing the door behind her. "Shit. Okay, we'll talk more about this later, but right now we need to focus." He put his hands squarely on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. "Go home, get a change of clothes, unwind a bit if you can. You might remember better then." "But..." Carolyn began to protest. "Listen," he interrupted with sternness not common in his voice, "there isn't a place here to hide you right now, not after what happened. I'll see what I can find out in the meantime, and we'll meet back here in, say, four hours. Got that?" Luke's confidence began to fade as Carolyn stared back at him. She nodded after a few moments. "Okay, four hours." "Are you ready?" Luke asked, his voice again much softer. "I always hate this part." Carolyn shut her eyes tight and winced. "I'll take that as a yes." Carolyn's stomach knotted up and her head suddenly felt like it was swimming in gelatin. She knelt down to keep her balance and her lunch. As the sensation died off, she felt cold, wet asphalt with her hand and could hear the sounds of passing traffic nearby. She stood up and found herself in an alley, looking out at her familiar Chicago landscape in the middle of the day. She was nearly blinded by the sun, even in the overcast weather, as her eyes grew accustomed to the absence of sunlight in the Mad City. The warmth of the day was surprisingly somewhat stifling. After spending a few minutes adjusting to heat and light, she began walking home. *** Carolyn threw the accumulated mail from the mailbox onto the kitchen counter before stripping off the poncho and heading to the bathroom. She looked at the cut running down the length of her arm from the razor blade monster. It looked a bit red and felt sore, but it was a fairly shallow cut. She looked at her face in the mirror. In the bright bathroom light, she could see the weariness on her face. She looked back at her arm, and then at the bottle of iodine on the counter. Without any hesitation, she took the bottle, opened it and splashed the top of the cut with iodine, letting the excess drip down along the wound. Carolyn looked back at her face in the mirror, looking for some confirmation beyond the immense stinging that she was able to shock some of the fatigue away. "Good," she said to her reflection. The phone rang in the living room. Carolyn grabbed some cotton balls and walked over to see who was calling. The caller ID showed a familiar number – her father back in Phoenix. She momentarily entertained answering the phone, but instead started to clean up her cut with the cotton balls and let the call go to voicemail. The phone ceased after two more rings. Another minute later, it rang again, with the same number on the caller ID. Carolyn picked the phone up. "Hello?" "Hi, honey, it's your dad," answered the voice on the other end. It sounded like her father, but she wasn't yet convinced. The memory of the Nightmares using Ashley's voice to mess with her on that first night was still fresh in her mind. "Hey, uh, Dad?" "I'm been trying to reach you for the last few days. Did you get any of my messages?" Carolyn stood silent for a moment, rolling the man's words around in her head. "No, we're having some problems with the phone," she lied as she eyed the message light on the base station. The voice on the other end sighed. "Is this a bad time?" Carolyn relaxed enough to sit down. "No, no. Why do you ask?" "You don't sound like yourself." "It's been a pretty trying day, Dad." She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder, freeing her arms to continue cleaning up the cut. "You're on break from school, right?" her father asked. "Is everything alright with you and Ashley?" Carolyn winced audible from the iodine. "Things aren't perfect, but they're okay." While he didn't reply, Carolyn could hear her father's labored breathing, likely from his chronic allergies. Her eyes caught a photo of the wall of her and Ashley – of them making silly faces while sunbathing on a sandy beach. Ashley loved that photo so much, she had begged Carolyn's father for a print. He broke the silence. "I was thinking about taking a trip to see you." "Dad, this isn't a great..." Her father interrupted, "and when you didn't return my calls, I went ahead and booked a flight. I'll be there Saturday afternoon." She groaned and opened her mouth to protest. Then she thought about her dad arguing with her, and decided to give in – putting up a fight felt like much more effort than she wanted to spare. Last month, she wouldn't have given an argument a second thought, but now she had to pick her battles and converse her energy. "Saturday?" Carolyn got up and walked to her computer. The date/time display told her it was Wednesday. "Say, is Ashley there right now?" "No, she's...out." "Alright then, kiddo. How about you tell me what's really going on? You know the saying..." "'Don't bullshit a bullshitter.' Okay, Dad, but give me a moment." "Sure." Carolyn put the phone down and walked into the bedroom. A couple minutes later, she came back wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt with a cartoon kitten smoking and scowling on the front, and a pair of loose-fitting black jeans. Then she sat back down on the couch and proceeded to lie to her father about everything that happened in the last few weeks. *** Carolyn made her way back into the Mad City and walked into the pub's back room to see Luke gulp down steaming coffee straight from the pot. "You're gearing up for something," she snickered. "You will too after you read this." He tossed a newspaper over a newspaper. She dropped the soda in her hand when she read the headline. "Exploding woman killed in police standoff." Newspapers in the Mad City often detail events in the near future with an eerie habit of being accurate. Carolyn had every reason to be afraid. Luke put his finger near a line on the second paragraph. "Here's the important part." Carolyn noticed a smudge of blood on the paper after Luke removed his finger. She grabbed his arm for a better look. It was completely covered in hundreds, if not thousands, of paper cuts. She quickly let go when Luke shouted, but by then her hands were already covered in his blood. "It's worse than it looks, thanks to Shep. A couple of us are going to see if we can put a lid on the story before it circulates any further. But read it; it sounds like a lead." Carolyn read the beginning of the article. It described her lifeless body in detail, including the shirt and jeans she'd put on back home. Along with that was a description of Ashley's body and where they were both found. "This is..." Carolyn dropped silent in mid-sentence. "A lead? Yeah, and probably a trap. But it's the closest thing you've had to a break since you've arrived, right?" Carolyn just looked at him, her eyes demanding that he vocalize his thoughts. "Tonight's been a real pile of shit, worse than most nights are around here. So, if one good thing can come from it, hey, I'm willing to try." Carolyn felt guilty. She could tell Luke had a thing for her, and while she wasn't trying to use that against him intentionally, she didn't like him rationalizing a suicide run on her behalf. "Luke, you can't go up against all of the Paper Boys. Look what happened to you just getting this." He shook his head. "Don't worry about me. Folks'll have my back. If I can save one person from what they did to Sam, hey, it's worth it." "Luke," Carolyn started to say in a sterner tone. "You don't really have a choice here," Luke interrupted with a mischievous grin. With that, he vanished. Carolyn let out an irritated groan. Then she grabbed the paper and ran out the door. *** What horrors await Carolyn? Will she be able to save Ashley, or will they die together as the newspaper story predicts? This much I know – before Carolyn's tale is over, she will have to answer for horrible acts she doesn't even remember doing. Take care, friends, until next month. I look forward to joining you as we continue our sojourn.
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| Last updated on 4/14/2008 9:49:48 PM by Jennifer Brozek |
| Return to the Library. Go to Sojourns 2008. |
Richard wiped the blood from his hands as another frozen-faced cop fell to the ground. "That's the last of them. For now."