The Gun Still Smokes. (356 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Parlor Trick (View user info) at 2004-10-09 18:32:13 EDT
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The steam was thick like smoke in the room. She leaned her head beneath the stream of water and tried to drown the sound of his voice.
"...those papers at the office and if I still have time.....get that paint for the living room .....if we would start turning off the lights....."
"Rach? Did you hear me?" Jason Beckner asked his wife of five years.
"Yes...yes. Ok" she answered with the automatic affirmative that served to camouflage many of her daydreams. She had adopted a program of indifferent pacifism to replace the battles, her contribution to the peace.
Her mind drifted to thoughts of the evening. Her skin reddened beneath the liquid pulsing fingers.
"Remember - I'm going to see Deana after work ...." she hesitated "...I could be late." She listened for his tone.
"Yeah I remember, " he paused, "Deana should just get a lithium prescription and figure her shit out already, she's too dependent on you. When do you think you'll be home?"
Rachel hadn't spoken to Deana in over four months. "Oh, I don't know, could be late... she can be so....ya'know....anyway...I'll try not to be too late....but....."
"... but I hate you driving so much... remember to take your phone and remember to only use premium gas in that car or you'll fuck up the engine. He slid from the counter and pulled back a corner of the curtain "How come Deana never comes here?"
Painted black hair poured over her shoulders, streams of water played against her skin provoking in him a familiar thirst. He cupped water falling from her breast then let it slip through his fingers, never hearing an answer to his question.
"You better go," she said. Her smile he read as real.
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The clock on the dash read 2:28 am.
"It's fast" Rachel thought, "18 minutes at least, maybe 20. Oh God - It will be 3:30 before I get home - impossible to explain."
In the early morning hours of the night the streets were hushed in darkness. Rachel checked the phone in her pocket - no messages. Good. Jason hadn't called. He must be sleeping, not aware of the hour. She considered calling him and just as quickly rejected the thought. She had to get home.
Left at the first light, left again after the second light, two rights to the expressway and 47 miles to her reality. She had made the trip several times before. But in the early morning hours, her thoughts scattered and running wild, Rachel Beckner was lost.
Searching for something familiar, her eyes scanned the outlined storefronts, closed and locked many hours earlier. She saw smoky figures real and imagined in blackened doorways. She saw the face of her lover beneath her, but she did not see the gas gauge well below ¼ tank.
She turned on the radio, an attempt to create calm.
"What else could I be?
All apologies...
What else should I say?......."
She turned off the radio.
[Ding, Ding, Ding] - The vehicle's gauging system issued a gentle notice that the situation was worsening.
"No! No! No! This can't be happening." She fought back tears staring at the gas gauge "Ok, ok, just relax - find a station, get gas, get directions and get home."
She proceeded towards the hazy intersection light in the distance as the needle dipped deeper into the red. Not far from the crossed roads ahead, the engine of Rachel's car became quiet and the tires rolled to a stop.
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She fought for control. "This can't be happening. Where am I? Where Am I?" The road signs, their backs turned, refused to answer.
Her conscious mind fought between fears - stranded and lost nearly 50 miles in the opposite direction of Deana's house - a smoking gun too large to hide.
"I'll call for help. I just have to figure out where I am - just read signs and call for help," her increasingly panicked mind counseled her.
She looked ahead, to the sides, out the back and ahead again at the nameless signs at the intersection. Everything was still except the pounding in her chest. She grabbed her phone, opened the door and scanned the area again. Nothing changed except the warmth that surrounded her escaped.
She didn't hear their voices until she was almost to the intersection.
"Hey it's fuckin Christmas! Check out our new ride and it comes with a bitch for free!"
Rachel turned, looked back and saw three maybe four men approach her car. For an instant she felt a sense of relief to see other people. An instant is very brief.
"Where ya goin honey? Come back here - we won't hurt you, we're just looking for some company, well take you to dinner - dine and grind you! " chatter and laughter mixed with words under breath.
Rachel froze momentarily and decided to run. They decided to follow.
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Her legs were heavy as in a dream running getting nowhere. A stampede of footfalls was behind her gaining immune to the slow motion that afflicted her and her patent leather three-inch heels.
Around the corner an alley of dark structures formed a path. Crisscrossed wires overhead were pointing in all directions. Quickly, she changed turned the corner eyes searching for safety. She saw discarded boxes, trash and tangled machinery. A stack of wooden pallets shielded a sunken doorway. She made her decision to hide. She crouched low - a rabbit listening for the hunters.
"Come out come out wherever you are" the men, now in the alley, slowed and spread apart looking for their prey.
"Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of ...hey bitch what's your name again? " Muffled laughter followed by the sound of undefined metal scrapping, boots shuffling in her direction. The butt of a cigarette was flung on the ground not far from her. She watched the smoke ribbon snake twist hypnotically before her threatening to strike if she made the slightest movement.
In the hold of fear, a moment of clarity a personal penance. She would end the affair, rewind and erase. She would return to the beginning, reconnect with Jason, establish the truce, remove her armor, lay down her weapons and hope he never notices the smoke. She would hide the evidence outside and in and carry on in a place far far away from the men in the alley.
Her knees to her chin, the buttons on the sides of her boots never noticed before now impossibly bright. She was conscious of her heavy perfume mixing with the stench around her. The fog of her own breath was a traitor to her hiding. She felt for her phone, her link to everything before this moment. Her link to home and to Jason the man she loved. She dared not move or push its buttons.
"Shhhhhh......shut the fuck up! Listen. She'll squeak. I know she's here. I can smell her"
She pressed into the cold concrete willing herself small. Her breath boomed in the space around her. She inhaled slowly and held it in with the fear and the tears and the regret that consumed her. She closed her eyes as the men came closer she saw the shapes of four.
Her mind negotiated, as minds will do in times of trouble. "Just let me go and I'll undo what I have done," Rachel submitted her plea and waited for her judgment.
"Fuck it - let the bitch go, " a back alley acquittal. Rachel exhaled and almost relaxed when the silence cracked and the phone in her pocket rang.
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Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 12:01:00 EST (#)
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