Copyright 2012 Michael Offutt. All rights reserved under International and Pan- American Copyright Conventions.
No part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including printing, photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.
This novella is a work of fiction and uses characters featured in the book "SLIPSTREAM" available in ebook or paperback by Double Dragon Publishing and Media Group. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Email: kavrik@hotmail.com Website: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html Twitter: @MichaelOffutt
Author's Note: If you visit my website, there is a picture of Jordan that I drew myself in the gif image at the link above. Please remember that if you enjoy the Nifty Archive, to please make a donation to support this wonderful free service. You can donate here: http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html
Chapter Two
The approach of night was foreshadowed by a band of midnight blue, painted like a single brush stroke, which grew wider by the minute. At twilight's end, Jordan's eagle-eye vision could discern smoldering pinpoints of light that dotted the eastern stretch of road like a string of faux pearls. Kolin pulled off onto the gravel shoulder of the southbound lane, baked and cracked from seventy years of neglect, and handed Jordan and Kathy both a pair of Legend Ultra HD Binoculars. They were slick black military issue with electronic focus on a thumb dial. With the aid of the lenses, he could see the outline of craters on the surface of the moon.
Jordan peered through the lenses, long eyelashes brushing against the smooth finished glass, and saw cradled at the wall of mountains that stopped the world, the mechanical frame of an oil refinery.
Squat metallic spheres, discolored chimneys, and plumes of ash gray smoke diffused amber into fuzzy clouds from flood lights that beaconed into the shadow land. Steam rose from various vents on the complex and a pronounced pillar of yellow fire from a steel chimney stood like a middle finger against the roof of the sky.
He adjusted the image with his thumb and saw human crews hard at work. They wore tattered denim overalls, dirty smocks, shirts that would've been rags anywhere else. He saw metal chains with visible wrist restraints similar to the ones he'd seen in the slipstream back at the gas station on southbound I-15 during their last fill up.
A collection of one story hovels called shanty town stood outside the factory's perimeter. Squatter's paradise and lit with electricity, by night it would be a lawless pit of unkempt refuse with a service industry flush with whores and drug dealers. Anything could be bought and sold in the Waste.
"That's all that's left of the old settlement," Kolin stated. "The actual ruins of the city are still several miles away but for all intent and purpose, this is where we're headed tonight. We've already been spotted by their watchtowers. This may sound a lil' daft, but I want to gander about a bit, and maybe find someone who'll give up anything with regard to the road through Denver and beyond to Kansas City. In order to do that, we'll need to get inside and find a pub."
"Why a pub?" Kathy asked.
"Because that's where the people are. Everything west to east passes through this shite hole. I'd love to get pissed tonight but this isn't at all the place for that, I'm afraid."
"Is there any food?" Jordan asked. "I'm starting to get hungry."
Kolin nodded. "We'll also get some grub but I want to caution you two to not wander off and have a pint just to fit in. You might even end up in a row with some Wally, and we really don't need to call any more attention to ourselves than we already do."
The three of them spun dirt on their black bullet bikes and drove up to the gate of shanty town looking like spooks at home in the darkness. The chain link fence had been topped in concertina wire. Two women patrolled the dirt on the far side, carrying high-powered rifles. They stared them down through mounted, gun-metal gray scopes, and Jordan fidgeted nervously in the cross hairs. Keeping his senses about him, he managed to see that both of these women wore fabric patches attached with Velcro on their arms, the symbol of the Black Hand proudly displayed. However, neither of these two looked like the one that he'd seen in the slipstream vision.
Kolin spoke to one of the women briefly. Once again, Jordan heard the Brit use the strange unearthly compulsion that underlay his voice. A moment later, they waved them through.
Kolin, positively beaming, gave Jordan a sideways wink and directed him and his sister to follow his lead along a gravel road that lay in the shadow of the refinery. People patrolling either side of the road fled the cone of white light that streamed forward from their headlights as if they were vampires dodging the sun. Up ahead, the main drag through the town was strung with outdoor light bulbs that hung from wires that crossed the road. One mundane neon sign in hellish red advertised cold beer and live nude girls. This is where Kolin had them park their rides. A sign out front read "Devil May Dare."
Kathy frowned and looked over silently at Jordan.
"Just stay close to me," Jordan told her and clasped her hand reassuringly.
Jordan followed Kolin inside to a place that reeked of cigarette smoke, alcohol, and perfume. The people in here looked like rejects from a deranged experiment, and they sat wherever they found room. He saw a plain concrete floor, a roof made of tin, and peanut shells littered the ground among spent bullet casings.
Strippers in wrought iron cages provided the flesh. They danced on three sides of the room just above a long bar pitted with knife holes. It stood flush against the eastern wall. Two drinks, moonshine whiskey and beer, filled every glass.
For a brief moment, Jordan entertained the thought of getting water but decided against it when he noted the brown color in someone's glass. The man saw him watching, flashed him yellow teeth, and coughed out breath that stunk of rotten flesh.
Kolin stopped at a barred window where a thin Thai woman with caked-on makeup sat on a chair stamping the tops of hands as they entered. Kolin traded a couple of ration packs from his personal food supply, they accepted no other currency in the Waste, and in return, she stamped the skin on the top of his hand. Jordan followed his example and removed a similar freeze-dried ration pack from the backpack he carried and offered one to the woman for him and then one for his sister. The two of them got stamped, and they followed Kolin up to the bar counter.
"I'll take a pint," Kolin said, raising his hand so that he'd get noticed. He passed over another packet of food in exchange for the glass. Jordan almost followed suit when Kathy put her hand on his arm, stopping him.
"Just slow down," she cautioned.
"You're no fun," he objected.
A moment later, the bartender handed Kolin a foggy glass filled with amber colored beer. A giggle erupted from somewhere in the room.
"Any idea where I might find someone who's been east side?" Kolin asked. "Preferably someone who isn't completely plastered."
The bartender squinted at him, eyes surrounded in puffy pink flesh, and pointed to a table off to the right, "Ask her. I think someone mentioned she'd just come out of Denver." Then he swept the packet of food off the bar and moved down to fill another glass. He had a gait to him that suggested lameness in the leg. Jordan leaned over the bar and saw that he had a steel prosthetic below the left knee.
Kolin looked over at where the man had gestured, and his eyes widened with astonishment. "Blimey," he exclaimed.
Jordan traced Kolin's gaze to an attractive red-head who sat alone in a booth upholstered in brown vinyl. The girl had a slim, yet full figure and wore at her side a firearm of some kind in a black leather holster. On her left hip was a twelve inch knife, sheathed, and buckled to a belt. She sat wrapped in a leather body suit that was black and red in places, complete with thigh high boots and shiny chrome buckles; her cleavage was dusted with gold glitter.
Jordan's heart sunk a little bit when he saw how excited Kolin seemed to be at the sight of this girl. But he said nothing.
Kolin nudged his way through the crowd, delicately balancing his beer, and Jordan and Kathy followed in his wake, stepping gingerly in their shoes, with linked hands so as not to be separated. He noted that eyes in the crowd seemed to follow the two of them with some interest, most likely because they were obviously from out of town. They were also the only blonds in the room and stuck out the same as yellow heads would, if they were in the imaginary land of Shinjuku Tokyo.
"Ashley?," Kolin asked. Once he saw a look of recognition from her, he slid into the empty seat across from her, making room for his companions to join him.
The attractive girl pursed her lips and eyed the three of them but her gaze did eventually settle on the Brit's handsome face.
"Kolin Lightfoot," she said. "I couldn't get you to meet me for breakfast after a night of glorious sex, but I come to this shithole in the middle of nowhere and here you are." There was a long pause of awkward silence that made Jordan restless. "The world is full of surprises." She withdrew a cigarette from a pack that was half empty and lit it with a match. "Who're the kiddies?" She asked. In Jordan's mind she barely looked her mid-twenties, the same as Kolin did, and it seemed hypocritical that she'd refer to both he and his sister as kiddies in comparison.
Jordan hated her almost instantly.
"Ah, excuse me a moment while I introduce you to Jordan," he gestured, "and Miss Kathy, his sister. We're headed east-back home, if you will."
"That's a long road," Ashley told him. Like the end of her cigarette, her eyes smoldered. "Well, I can tell you that Denver is a mess. A warlord has set up shop downtown but has managed to get some of the power plants in the area working. You'll see that on the way there some of the tunnels are lit with electricity since the grid from one of the operable plants connects into the interstate that goes through Aspen. However, if you go that way, stay to the interstate and just drive through. Keep a low profile and you might be missed as the majority of his forces are busy moving onto an old military base and the only thing that they value right now is refined gas. If you don't have any of that, you'd be unworthy of their notice unless you start making trouble. However, all things considered, I'd suggest you find another, easier route, maybe through Albuquerque."
"No," Kolin stated, "we don't have that kind of time. I need to get back and report in as I've been missing for years already. Ashley, I've been to the other side."
"The other side? You went across the void to Earth?"
"Yes."
"Lucky you, I never could. But I never got cybernetically augmented like you or some of the others so I'd be available to cross the void using that machine Met constructed. He theorized that only those of pure flesh could bounce between worlds. I suppose it really isn't much of a theory anymore, as it seems he was wrong. So did he send you on a mission? Personally, I think it'd be more fun to have a twin in an alternate universe and to go meet him or her. Has anyone ever established that if one dies in one universe that it may affect another?"
"I think that there's enough evidence to support the contrary-that both lives would live independently of each other."
"I suppose you're right. Otherwise there'd have been a Big Death on Earth like there was here almost seventy years ago. So what were you doing over there? It's been so long that I forgot why you were sent?" She took a puff from her cigarette; Jordan and Kathy choked on gray smoke as it wafted across the table. She must've thought that was cute because she stared at Jordan with eyes ringed in gold paint. If she hadn't been Kolin's friend, he'd have called her a whore.
"I've been monitoring the Lords of the Night and their activity on Earth. At any one time there've been as many as three of the eight on Earth that I could find. They've the ability to change their appearance so tracking them is challenging. As to what they're up to, aside from the usual stuff, i.e., collecting human blood from that side to prolong their stay in the mortal realm here on Avalon, I believe that they're also actively searching for something."
"Searching? Searching for what?"
"I'm not sure but I have an idea it may be the White Tower's twin."
"Interesting, but why would you think that? And wouldn't it be visible? I mean the White Tower itself is enormous, larger than the tallest mountain-even what's left of it."
"You're assuming that it's out in the open. I've thought about this and there are places still on Earth where something huge could lay undiscovered. One of them could be in Antarctica."
"Wait," Jordan said. "I've had dreams of a black tower buried in ice."
Ashley raised a glass to her lips, finished off the draft inside, but continued to watch Jordan carefully. Kolin looked at him intently as well, but didn't say anything. Finally, she spoke up, "Why are these two with you?"
"It's a long story," Kolin stated, "but they're part of our Order in a roundabout kind of way."
She gave him an incredulous look. "You can't be serious."
"Perfectly. These dreams, Jordan, how long have you been having them?"
He shrugged, "It seems like years. They aren't very detailed. I just basically see a black tower someplace where it's cold and wet and I'm climbing down some ancient stone steps. Then the dream shifts to more nightmarish things."
"We're going to discuss this later, when I have a chance," Kolin told him. "So Ash, what exactly brings you out this far West?"
She set her drink down on the table. "A week ago I met with Mr. Lucen, the present Mayor-Elect of Kilvarough City, at Bad Moon Park after the Scorcher's game. He said that the Rastillian Corporation had cut a deal with Wraith. I discovered that they were digging for something under this complex, and it made sense because the prison itself is mostly underground. There are miles of tunnels underneath this place. The reason I'm here now is I was asked to investigate the likelihood of this matter and bring it to the attention of the council."
"What's Wraith?" Kolin asked.
Ashley shrugged. "No one has seen him, but he's the head of the monsters in the ruins of St. Louis. They're growing in numbers. Everyone in the Waste fears Wraith and what he could do."
"I don't fear him," Kolin said.
"You should," Ashley said. The way in which she said it chilled Jordan's blood.
"You didn't say anything about a prison," Kathy stated with an accusatory tone directed at Kolin.
"I didn't know about it," Kolin dismissed with a wave of his hand. "Ashley, so you took a gander, right? Can you tell me what you found?"
"Whatever they're excavating is something of the old world, something ancient and evil. I've heard bits and pieces here and there but people seem to agree that we're speaking of a primordial thing, something that may have existed prior to humans colonizing Avalon."
"Like what?"
"I'm not sure-I'm thinking it's some kind of power source left behind by a mysterious race of travelers."
"Is your work finished here?" Kolin asked.
"No, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm coming with you."
Jordan noted that Ashley's gaze hardened when she said those words and that she extended her hand across the table to grasp Kolin's slender fingers. This wasn't the touch of a friend; it was the touch of a woman in heat.
For the first time, Jordan felt jealousy. Up till now Jordan assumed that Ashley had been able to keep in check the prurient lust that burned in the blood drenched dark behind closed eyelids while she masturbated to Kolin's image. He was wrong.
Now, it burst all over the place, and Kolin didn't seem to mind one bit.
Jordan felt confused and his heart hurt just a little bit.
He wanted to cheer Kolin on, but couldn't bring himself to feel happy about this turn of events at all. As a virgin, Jordan had no sexual experience, and he realized that with these feelings rising up inside him, there might be a reason he never hooked up with girls. He understood that there might have been a secondary motivation to concentrate so hard on hockey in high school. He simply didn't like girls as much as he liked guys.
Jordan bit his lip and said under his breath, "I'm so fucked up."
Kolin shot Jordan a sidewise glance and then turned his attention back to Ashley, "Is there someplace quiet and safe we can shack up for the night? We've been traveling south all day, and we're all basically zonked."
"I'll share my room with you-it's not far. Just a few doors down really. The four of us can stay there. They've even got a shower where we can clean up in the morning making it almost civilized. However, if we're going to go, we should do so soon as this place gets rowdy during the shift change in a few minutes."
"But, I haven't even finished my pint," Kolin stated gingerly. They sat for a few moments in silence while he finished his beer. "Are you sure there isn't time for me to get proper pissed?"
Ashley glowered at him in silence; she most definitely didn't want him drunk tonight.
"All right then, let's move," Kolin said.
When he was done, the four of them got up from the booth and left the bar. However, Jordan noticed that a female in khaki camo slacks followed them carefully with her gaze and then she got up from her table and exited out the back. Jordan was so exhausted that his mind did not draw any kind of connection. He dismissed the suspicious activity to being overcautious in a strange town. The three of them did take a moment to secure their cycles for the night in a storage shed that the bar rented out for just such purposes. They also slipped out of their motorcycle suits that they'd been wearing on the top of their clothes and packed them in a storage compartment under the seat, leaving helmets on the bikes.
Jordan fell-in behind Kolin and followed them back to her rented room, which was as she'd said, inside a building a few spaces down from the pub.
He rolled up his shirt and jeans for a pillow and curled up on the floor with a sheet draped over him.
Chapter Three coming soon :)