Chapter 10

Mark's flight from town when things got bad is coming back to haunt him in this chapter.

E4, Chapter 10

“So, you sank the rustmobile in Mill Road Swamp?” Jeff asked.

Mark thought with regret about the oxidized orange Karmann Ghia that had transported him everywhere since high school and sighed.

“Yeah, she’s gone, man,” Mark told his old friend as they flipped through their menus. “That swamp just ate her up. Thanks for letting me wash up in your shower, by the way. It’s the only option I have since Mom and Dad left town.”

“Oh, no problem,” Jeff said absently.

Mark was worried about his friend’s appearance. Jeff was a couple years older than him, but looked like he had gone forty years without sleep. Perhaps it was the light, but it looked like there were some white specks in Jeff’s black mop of hair. He had put on some weight, too, and was sucking down Menthols like they were being recalled. Mark wasn’t about to tell him about his recent adventures lest it turn his hair color completely.

Jeff had not seemed surprised to see Mark when he knocked on his door. He hadn’t even said much; the two just slipped into their old routine of getting a meal at the Lone Penguin Diner. Mark liked how no matter how long he and Jeff were away from each other, their friendship picked up from where it left off.

There was only one sore spot in their friendship and Mark knew he had to dig for more information on Samantha’s murder at some point. In the meantime, he was more concerned for his living friend.

Jeff folded up his menu and Mark wondered why he even bothered looking. Jeff always ordered the Chicken Parm.

“I thought you might never come home again,” Jeff, said, reclining in his chair. “It’s been three years. What brings you back now?”

Mark folded his arms. “As much as a place changes,” he admitted, glancing out the window, “it’s still home. I mean, Carolina is nice, warm, and the people are...nice.” Mark realized he was staring at his fork and forced himself to look into Jeff’s bloodshot eyes. His friend looked to be patiently disbelieving him.

“The phone call from my mother had nothing to do with it?” asked Jeff.

Mark sighed and lowered his voice. “She said that you’d been really down.”

“She was telling people I was going to drown myself in alcohol,’” Jeff calmly corrected. “And worse.”

Mark frowned. “Alright, she did. But you’ve never been the kind to...I just didn’t believe it. I know she meant well by calling.” Jeff began to retort, but Mark rushed his defense. “I knew you’d be pissed that I was coming back to check on you. And that you were frustrated that I hadn’t visited since the trial. But damn, man, I had to see how you were doing. You tell me nothing over the phone or online, but did you ever, really?” It was true; Mark was only able to have a decent conversation with Jeff in person. “I feel bad,” admitted Mark. “It’s no excuse, but coming home hasn’t been the easiest thing.”

Jeff shrugged. “I know what you mean.”

The waitress, a brunette one, brought water and Mark rested his hand against the condensation on his glass. “We both do,” he muttered after the waitress left. “Things aren’t the same now that she’s gone.” They both were lost into reflection for a few moments.

“So, tell me,” Mark asked in an attempt to change the subject, “What have you been up to?” He took a sip of his water.

Jeff frowned. “I’m still teaching, even if the occasional parent doesn’t want her kid in my class. Other than that, I’m getting by. How was the season?”

Mark shrugged. “For the team, we did okay. They’re talking about giving me some time in the majors, though.”

Jeff raised his eyebrows. “Oh, that’s great. Way to go, Mark.”

Mark politely nodded. “Thank you.” He tapped his fingers against the table and leaned in. “But you know...Remember that game we had back in the summer, years ago, when I batted that tennis ball across the horse field and right through Ms. McCafferey’s shed window? Or the evening we ended up starting a bonfire in the trash barrels and playing on into the night in those abandoned corn fields across the street?”

“Yeah,” said Jeff, thinking back to many nights that were like those and would never come again. He had a rare laugh.

Mark pointed a finger toward the past and sadly grinned, the glint of a jukebox refracting off of his eyes. “It’s nothing like that.”

Jeff nodded. “So, it’s like a job.”

Mark reclined. “Something like that.” He paused, giving himself a mental stab of courage before asking the next question. “Be straight with me, Jeff. Why did your mother call me?”

Jeff recoiled and looked ready to squirm from his chair, but the waitress returned for the save. Mark, annoyed at the break in pace, quickly ordered an omelet. Jeff ordered, to Mark’s hurt surprise, a burger. Things weren’t right.

“I’m just tired and unhappy,” Jeff brusquely explained after she left. “I don’t know what I want. There used to be a plan. Back when Samantha was still…here,” Jeff trailed off.

God, how Mark wanted to tell him that he might be able to change things. Mark decided he had to ask. “Jeff,” he stammered, with a mixture of curtailed enthusiasm and fear to talk, “I know we never talked about the day she died…But if you can tell me anything you might not have said, I might have a way of figuring out what happened to her.”

Jeff shrunk back and Mark realized there was no smooth way of bringing this up with Jeff. He opened his mouth to rephrase the question but noticed a pair of frosty blue eyes glaring at them from a nearby booth. Mark recognized them as belonging to Hugh O’Connor, a fiery, argumentative jerk that he had graduated with. Hugh had been sitting alone, a half-finished plate of roast beef and potatoes in front of him. Maybe Hugh wasn’t a horrible person, but he had once made the mistake of trying to win the love of Jeff’s life away from him. With his dishonest charm, he had almost succeeded.

“Ah, geez,” Mark groaned as he saw Hugh, dressed in denim with a baseball cap covering his red curls, rise from his booth and swagger over to them. “Hugh O’Connor’s coming over here.” Jeff fixed his eyes on the table upon hearing the name and didn’t bother looking behind him.

“Hey, Marcus Vox,” spat Hugh, using his full name, which Mark loathed. “I thought you had split town for good.” Hugh stepped closer and leaned over Jeff.

Mark eyed Hugh defiantly, but decided to remain civil for the moment. With some years between them, he held hope that Hugh had grown up. So far, it wasn’t looking swell. “Hey, Hugh,” said Mark. “I was just telling Jeff I have to come home sometimes. How are you?”

Hugh bit one of his thin lips and disregarded the last question. “What are you doing with the killer?” he asked, pressing a thumb into Jeff’s shoulder. “It’s bad enough you saved his ass on the stand.”

Mark sat up. “Hugh, Jeff was hanging out with me on the night she was killed. I swore to it then and I swear to it now.”

“Nah,” said Hugh, shaking his head. “The evidence led right to him. You missed something. Or were lying.”

Mark wanted to slug Hugh, but maintained his composure. Jeff stayed silent, staring at the table.

“We all miss her,” Mark said. “Jeff didn’t kill Sam.” Mark wanted to believe, and almost did, that Hugh was angry because he missed her, too.

Hugh snickered. “I just want to see this bastard brought to justice. Samantha? Slut had it coming to her.”

Mark’s calm expression snapped, his eyes glazed, and he rose from his seat. He stepped closer and stared down Hugh, not giving one damn that the obnoxious son-of-a-bitch was bigger than he. “What was that?” he hissed.

“Mark,” muttered Jeff, without looking up. “Let it go. I hear it all the time.”

Mark ignored Jeff and felt his rage swelling. Not much set him off, but the slander, the arrogance, was spiraling him into overwhelming anger. His top lip recoiled. “Hugh, not another word.”

Hugh grinned at Mark, mocking him with his expression.

“That’s it,” Mark growled, “you piece of-”

Hugh immediately reacted at Mark’s daring to return his insults. He grabbed a hold of Mark’s baseball shirt and spat words into his face. “You talking about me, punk? Huh?! I’ll kick another hole in your ass right now!”

Mark had enough. His initial blast of anger receding, Mark thought coolly about how to get Hugh to remove his hands and went with his first idea. He swung a free arm at the table, grabbed his fork and plunged it into one of Hugh’s beefy hands. Jeff’s eyes went wide when he saw this. As the fork fell, Hugh grabbed his hand and howled like a coyote whose paw had been run over by a train. Mark shoved him away and pointed a finger at the door. “Get lost, Hugh!”

Hugh, still yelling curses and holding his hand, retreated out of the diner’s main door. Mark looked around at the stunned patrons and waitresses. He had forgotten their existence for a few moments. “Man,” he said to Jeff, running his fingers through his hair. “Do you believe that guy? No one talks about her like that.”

Jeff turned and stared in silence at the door Hugh had exited.

Hugh suddenly burst back through, enraged. “I’ll take down both of you!” he yelled. “And you, Jeff, just sitting there knowing what a sick fuck you are! Everyone in Tempest knows you killed her! Why don’t you take your ass somewhere else?!”

Mark began to yell at Hugh to lay off, but stopped as a blur erupted from his table and slammed into Hugh. Jeff’s motionless demeanor had cracked. He knocked Hugh to the floor and slammed a fist against his ear. “You never let it go. You never let me be!” Jeff growled. He repeated it into incoherency as he shoved Hugh’s jaw to the floor. Hugh struggled to get Jeff off of his back and kept punching backwards at his ribs, but it had no effect.

The other patrons gathered around, but no one was jumping in to stop the scuffle. Mark, who had been stunned for a moment, overheard one of the waitresses tell another to call the police.

“Hey, hold on!” Mark hollered to the waitress, desperately wanting to keep the police out of this. She paused and he rushed forward, wrapping his arms around Jeff. “Ease off, Jeff, ease off!” he grunted. Jeff struggled to shake him, and was doing pretty well since he was larger. Mark was strong, though, and bodily pulled Jeff away from Hugh.

“Dammit, Mark!” Jeff hissed. Mark lugged Jeff back and dropped him into a booth. Jeff was ready to pounce away, but Mark blocked his friend. “Hey,” he said to Jeff, who was still eyeing Hugh. “I said, ‘Hey,’” repeated Mark. Jeff grudgingly looked at him. “You made your point,” Mark assured him. “Don’t get arrested.”

“Fuckin’ murderer!” shouted Hugh.

Mark angrily turned toward him. “Shut up, Hugh!”

Hugh picked himself off of the floor and brushed off his butt. “I’ll see you two later. Watch your back,” he warned and barged through the diner’s rear exit. Mark made an obscene gesture at Hugh as he left, slamming his right elbow against his left hand.

Jeff was thankfully starting to settle down. Whew, Mark though, disaster averted. Then he heard the same waitress from before whisper to the other one to call the cops.

Mark leapt at the older waitress, waving his hands. She looked petrified. “Wait a minute,” he demanded. “The situation is over; I took care of it. Just let it be at that.”

“No,” stated the waitress, “I think we need to call the police.”

Mark’s expression went dark as he looked into her defiant eyes. “I said there’s no need,” he hissed. “Now get off your god-damned authority trip and go back to carrying trays.” Seeing the worried expression that formed on her face, Mark realized that he needed to calm down and be diplomatic. “Okay,” he apologized, “I’m sorry we disrupted things here. For what it’s worth, Hugh started it.”

The waitress crossed her varicose arms and remained cold. “Just get out, the both of you. Now.”

Mark raised his hands to the side and acquiesced. “Okay,” he agreed, moving back and pointing to Jeff. “Let me just get my friend and we’ll leave.” As the waitress glared, he urged Jeff toward the front entrance and out to the main parking lot.

Outside, Jeff walked away from Mark and stared for a few minutes at a lamppost. Mark stood behind him, frustrated as hell that he didn’t know what to say. “Jeff,” he eventually began, deciding that awkward talk was worse than silence, “they were going to call the police. And Lord knows you don’t need that. I know Hugh has always been an a-hole, but has he been messing with you lately?”

Jeff nodded his head and looked at the gravel driveway of the diner. “It’s not just him. With Samantha’s murder being unsolved, everybody wants to blame somebody. And after I was the strongest suspect, they just assumed that I got away with it. It’s a small town, Mark, with small opinions.”

Mark put his hands in his pockets. “Why don’t you leave, Jeff?”

Jeff turned around, shaking his head with disapproval. “You mean like you did?” Mark frowned. He knew his leaving wasn’t the same, but he wasn’t going to say anything at that moment.

“No, this is my home. I’m not going to run,” stated Jeff. “They’re always going to think I killed her if I leave. I stay and it proves to them that I loved her.”

Mark stepped closer to Jeff. “Sometimes I think you’d be happier elsewhere,” he said, “but I guess I know what you mean. There’s a lot of nostalgia here.” He looked up at the diner, at its aluminum walls and the scarfed penguin on its sign. “Take this place, for example,” he said. Jeff was listening, but Mark couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“Do you remember that blonde waitress, Cassie, that worked here?” he reminisced. “I thought she was the cutest thing but I never had the balls to ask her out for some reason. It didn’t stop you from constantly prodding me, though.” Mark laughed. “Does she still work here?”

“I haven’t seen her in a long time,” Jeff responded.

Mark scratched his ear for a second and thought of telling Jeff about what had been happening over the last few days. “You know, I actually did get a chance to talk with her not so long ago,” he began.

Jeff snorted. “You know, Mark, you keep doing that.”

“Keep doing what?”

“You keep referring to this in the past, to that in the past,” Jeff said, frustrated. “Since you left, everything for you is a fond memory that you want to go back to.” Jeff waved dismissively at the diner. “I’ve been here, Mark. It’s not so great. The reality of all those times we had was that they were in a petty town filled with judgmental people.”

Mark flinched. Whatever happened recently, their youth had been pretty good. “You’ve only felt that way since Samantha died.” He saw Jeff’s eyes flare and Mark immediately regretted saying that.

“That’s why I needed to ask you about her,” Mark desperately began.

“No, no, maybe you’re right,” Jeff hotly stated, bulldozing over Mark’s attempt to ask about Samantha. “Maybe I do need this town behind me. And maybe I should start with you.” He stared at Mark, who was too hurt to know what to say, and stormed off into his gray pick-up truck without a further word. He tossed Mark his bookbag and bat out the window and sped out of the diner parking lot before Mark could even attempt an apology.

Mark rubbed the back of his neck, stared at the ground and hissed. “Damn!” He and Jeff, in all their years of friendship, had never had a confrontation like that. With them being like brothers, the thought of losing Jeff as a friend was unthinkable. Mark sighed and tapped his bat against the lamppost.

Behind him, he heard the diner’s front door open and a man say, “No, there’s no need to call more police, ma’m. I’m enough to take care of it.” Mark groaned as the door closed and the man that had been talking walked up behind him. Mark didn’t realize there had been an officer within the diner. The footsteps halted right behind him and he heard the man issue a snide chuckle.

“That’s women for ya,” said the man. “They’ll come between friends. Even the dead ones.”

Mark turned around angrily and stopped in shock when he saw who was before him - Detective Harry Shot.

Chapter 9

Another short chapter that I probably need to expand, although without revealing too much. I like that it shows another side of Lenara. I'd like to have her think back to her past and do more in this chapter.

E4, Chapter 9

Lenara was a far way from the ice and cold of Russia. Compared to that, Tempest in the fall was feeling pretty balmy to her.

She leaned forward from a pillar of the Antebellum porch she was sitting upon and squirmed her arms out of her white jacket. A calm, brisk gale immediately embraced the flesh of her stomach and arms that her bronze-colored tank-top left exposed. Lenara stretched out her taut arms in front of her and watched the dragon tattoo on her left shoulder dance as she flexed the muscle underneath. It was a temporary fixation. She leaned back against the chipped pillar and dropped her hands between her thighs. Looking up at the starry vacuum above from between the locks on her face, Lenara let out a sigh. She was alone out there and she wasn't sure how it felt. The sky that evening made a formless, blue mesh with the fields around her and it looked vacant. Lenara gently closed her eyes and a faint tune came to her lips, one she hadn't heard hummed in a long time.

"Hey," interjected a teenage voice from behind her. Lenara shot up like a bolt and reprimanded herself for not hearing the girl's approach. Jen was not one to be concerned about, though. In fact, Lenara's expression warmed into a smile at seeing her.

"Did I startle you?" asked the girl. Jen was almost 20, but her petite size and nervous, quiet voice subtracted a few years, perceptionally. She wore her black hair in a ponytail most of the time and had wide, blue eyes. She reminded Lenara of her younger sister. Jen was cautiously toeing the division between the mansion's front doorway and the porch.

"Nah," said Lenara, sleepily and shrugging. "I heard you coming."

Jen laughed as she walked forward and perched herself on the porch next to Lenara. "Oh yeah,” Jen said, “I forgot that you're trained in that kind of thing."

"Yeah," Lenara said guiltily, looking away. "Where's your father?" she asked, changing the subject.

Jen pulled her oversized sweatshirt over her hands and folded her arms in against herself. "The Colonel's in the barn, still trying to fix the Echelon. He's been there for hours."

"Has he made any progress with her?" Lenara inquired.

"If his curses are any judge, I'd say no," Jen said, and they shared a smile.

"She just won't fly," Lenara mused regretfully.

Jen nodded. "So, what were you thinking about out here?"

Lenara averted her gaze. "Nothing."

"Oh," said Jen, turning downcast. Lenara felt bad about Jen's reaction and met her eyes.

"Home, Jen, I was thinking about home," she quietly confided.

Jen nodded with understanding. "You want to go back?"

Lenara cracked a grin. "The funny thing is, not much at all. It's more like a feeling I'm missing."

"Huh?" said Jen, looking apologetic. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"I'm not sure either," Lenara admitted. The two giggled and Lenara thought back again to times with her two sisters, singing childhood nursery songs, long before things became like they were at the present.

Chapter 8

What I want to show through the chapters in the past is that Mark has been reinvigorated by the impossible circumstance he's in, compared to the more sullen Mark from earlier chapters.

E4, Chapter 8

When Mark came to, he was on his knees in the middle of the street. He blinked and stared at the pavement, wondering what in the hell had happened.

His whole mind was suddenly blown by a loud, repeated explosion of noise and he realized after a bit that it was coming from the car stopped directly in front of him.

“Hey,” shouted a gruff voice from the car’s window, “move it or lose it, fella.” The driver honked the horn again.

The barrage of noise sent slivers of prismatic colors creeping back along the corners of Mark’s eyes. He felt like he was glued to the blacktop. His knees were bent tight like they were composed of broken and rusted sprockets but thankfully that feeling was quickly fading. Mark grabbed the car’s bumper and hoisted himself up. He couldn’t make out the driver’s face through the car’s tinted windshield, but he could see that he was tapping thin fingers on the steering wheel. Probably thinks I’m the town drunk, Mark thought. He made a quick “Thanks for not running me over” gesture and stumbled back onto a sidewalk. The car jumped forward as its driver kicked the accelerator and Mark noted as it went that it looked like a modified blue dune buggy. He shook his head and looked around.

The last thing Mark remembered, it was night and he was falling backwards off a bench in front of the Lone Penguin Diner. That was three years before the day he was supposed to be in, chronologically. As opposed to chrono-illogically like things had become.

At the present, Mark was standing in a one-storied, cubic business district on a slate blue afternoon in what was undoubtedly the onset of fall. He recognized the road as Main Street Boulevard in his hometown and he was standing in front of Fabruzzi’s, the worst and only pizza place in Tempest, N.J. The diner was a mile down the road.

“The date, I need the date,” Mark told himself, picking his baseball bat up from where it had rolled against the curb. He touched his right shoulder and felt that his backpack was still on.

Mark turned to Fabruzzi’s, its large windows covered with faded, outdated menus and ads for lost dogs. Mark hoped they were not connected. He marched forward, swung open the door of the greasy pizza place and headed right for the cash register. Absently, he cut in front of the first person in a short line, although he remembered to excuse himself.

“Hey,” Mark asked the tan, mustached guy behind the faux wood counter, “What day is this?”

The man wrinkled his brow and pointed at Mark. “You in line?” he barked.

“No,” Mark said, “I don’t want any pizza.”

“Okay,” said the man gruffly, and hollered, “Next!” The mousey man behind Mark squeezed by him and began to rattle off an order consisting of items from the kids’ menu and cheeseless pizza. The burly man behind the counter began furiously scribbling it on a receipt book and hollered the order in Spanish to the chef behind him.

“Hey, wait,” Mark calmly interrupted. He leaned in towards the man behind the counter and tapped the register. “What day did you say it was? I just need to know-”

“I’m taking order,” warned the man, waving Mark away. “Now quiet!” He pointed to the mousey man and asked, “Anything else?”

“Dude,” Mark pleaded, refusing to budge.

The pizza guy’s face was becoming as red as his tomato sauce. He bent over, grunting, and snatched something from under the counter. As he did this, Mark took notice of the digital clock duct-taped to the lime green paint on the back wall. “Here!” the man shouted, tossing a newspaper at Mark. “Now get out unless you want to order a pie!”

“Hey, thanks,” Mark told the steaming mad pizza guy. He stepped back from the line and examined the paper. When he found the date and day, he smiled.

“Back again,” he muttered happily. “This is all starting to make sense. Sort of.” Mark realized he needed a pen and looked over at the guy behind the counter. He then thought better of asking him for it and stretched his right arm around to the backpack’s outer pocket. Mark undid the zipper so he could pull out a red Sharpie, bit the cap off and began making marks on the newspaper. Crudely, he scribbled a math problem on top of a front page photo of a kid smearing pumpkin pie on his face. He tried not to use his fingers, as he completely sucked at math.

“The difference is once again the same as last time minus about two hours,” he figured out loud, thinking about the time on the clock. Mark had been completely freaked, excited and confused when he had first woken up in another year. A few day’s worth of blipping back and forth between his past and his present had given him a chance to calm down, however, and figure out that there was a pattern to the madness. Each time he appeared in another year, the duration of his time there was cut by two hours. This meant that he had about 20 hours in the present this time before he returned to the past. It seemed to be counting down to something. Mark was pleased that it would give him enough time to take care of what had become his personal mission since he realized he was being given a chance to correct something. He felt there was a purpose to the X-File he was living, and considered it a blessing, no matter the how nor why. Fate was favoring him.

“Very good,” Mark said, satisfied. He absently tossed the newspaper on the floor and left the pizzeria, content to be back where he belonged for a bit. Grand time traveling goals aside, his guiding desire now that his mind had settled down was to finally address the matter of a friend in need. And to take a shower.

Chapter 7

I like how Cassie comes across here. I started the book thinking she was going to be a more shallow or immature character, but she didn't come out that way. She's intended to be the character in the book that's the most grounded in reality.

E4, Chapter 7

Mark anxiously waited for someone to pick up on the other end of the line and almost dropped the pay phone receiver when they did.

“Hey? Hello?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. “Mark?”

“Is Samantha there, Mrs. Cohen?” Mark rushed out.

“No,” said Mrs. Cohen, sounding confused. “She’ll be in Cancun until tomorrow. Didn’t I tell you that yesterday, Mark?” She laughed awkwardly.

“Uh, you might have,” replied Mark. “I’ve got my days a little mixed up. I just needed to talk to her. Sorry, I’ll call back.” Mrs. Cohen said goodbye and Mark set down the phone hard.

“Damn,” he hissed, “I’m running out of time.” Then he looked at his watch and laughed at the irony of that statement.

Cassie Brighton closed the Pelican Diner’s front door and pulled her thin, leather jacket tighter around her. For a summer night, it was breezier than normal.

She walked down the stairs and began heading towards the street, for her apartment was a ten-minute walk away and she really wanted to get home and collapse into bed. Thankfully, yet another long shift was over.

“Hey,” said a voice from behind her.

Cassie slowly turned around, holding tightly to her purse. Marcus Vox was sitting on a bench, his arms hung behind it. Under the low light from the parking lot, his eyes were in shadow and his cheekbones stood out. Underneath was a crooked smile. His normally tanned skin looked pale. Behind Mark, the Pelican Diner’s aluminum exterior had taken on an eerie purple glow from the fluorescent lighting along the establishment’s windows.

Cassie hugged her arms against her. “Were you waiting for me?”

Mark shrugged. “Kind of.” He sat forward and his face looked nicer in fuller light. “But not exactly,” he added.

Cassie thought about leaving, but he made her curious just like earlier in the day. “I thought you got arrested,” she blurted.

Mark shook his head. “The Detective is playing a weird game. He didn’t arrest me. I told you I didn’t do anything.” He sounded somewhat reassuring, but this was the same guy who earlier had told her he was stuck three years in the past. Even if he did leave a 380 percent tip, his behavior was questionable.

Cassie reached into her purse and pulled out the baseball card he had been about to show her before the detective showed up. “You left this.”

Mark nodded. “Yeah. Did you take a good look?”

Cassie frowned. Did he really expect her to have been bedazzled by it? “Yeah,” she said. “Whoever made this did a good job. You went through a lot of trouble to make people believe that story of yours.”

Mark sighed. “I didn’t go through any trouble. It is what it is.” He sat back again and looked away. “It’s all right. I didn’t expect you to believe it. I don’t even know why I told you.”

Cassie felt bad and stepped closer. “Maybe it just seems real to you. Is it possible you’re just interpreting things wrong?”

Mark sneered at her. “I’m not one of your patients, Doctor.” He swung himself fully onto the bench and crossed his legs on one of the armrests. “And the main reason I came back here is because I don’t have a place to go. This bench isn’t half bad to sleep on.”

Cassie looked at him sadly. “You don’t have a place to stay? Do you live near here?”

“Yes, but I can’t go there,” he explained, putting his biceps behind his head.

“Why?”

Mark laughed and glanced at her. “Oh, it only involves another story you wouldn’t believe.” He gave her that enticing gaze again.

Cassie shrugged. Okay, she wanted to know. God help her. “Try me.” She was getting this strong vibe from him, like there might be some truth to what he said, or at least that he believed it.

Mark sat up and rose to his feet. It was hard to see under the available light, but he was pale and faintly sweating like he had the flu. Cassie tried to get a closer look but he stepped back into the shadows slightly when she moved forward.

“Okay,” he said, “I thought about going to my parents’ house. Three years ago, though, or today rather, I was living at home before me senior year of college started. If I were to go home now, I’d run into...uh, myself.”

Cassie raised an eyebrow. “You’re kidding?”

Mark threw up his arms. “Yeah, see, I know you’d think it was nuts.” He paused and rubbed his neck, regarding her with a glimmering smile. “But I’ll prove it to you if you want.”

Cassie raised a hand, because she didn’t think going off with him to his house to look for himself was something she could convince herself to do. “Mark, I’ve got to be heading home.” She just didn’t know what else to say.

Mark shrugged and sat back down. “Hey, whatever.”

Cassie paused and looked at the sidewalk. Patrons came in and told her all kinds of things. The guys often flirted, even the girls sometimes. But this guy, he was cute in a spazzy sort of way that she liked, well, would like if she wasn’t in a relationship. And he was nice and talking with him felt like talking to a friend or a classmate. But...baseball cards from the future? “How do you respond to a story like that, Mark?” she asked without looking up. “Stuff like time travel just doesn’t happen.”

“I didn’t think so either,” Mark admitted. “But there’s a purpose, you see. I’m here in the past and I’ve been given a chance to fix things. Miracles happen, don’t they?” He sounded winded and was trailing off.

Cassie looked at him with concern. The story, likely delusion that it was, was getting deeper and she could see that he was sweating, the white part of his shirt clinging to his defined chest and his red sleeves sagging off his arms. “Are you feeling okay?’’ she asked. “You look like you’re coming down with something.”

Mark brushed it off. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. I have to be.” He braced himself against the bench. “But it is getting time...Maybe you should head home? It’s getting late. I’d offer you a ride, but...”

Cassie almost asked him if he needed somewhere to stay, but logic stepped in. It wouldn’t look good to have another guy staying there and she just didn’t need the argument. And he didn’t seem threatening, but would bringing him home even be safe? “Okay,” she simply said. “Goodnight, Mark. Hey, I’ll see you around.” Mark waved at her and Cassie turned away to walk home. She felt guilty leaving him there. Not only did he look sick but it really did seem he was giving her what he felt was the truth. She was drawn to the honesty.

Behind her, Mark mumbled, “...like my body being pulled softly through my pores...”

Cassie spun around to see what he meant, but Mark was gone.

Chapter 6

The comments I've been receiving have been extremely helpful. However, it makes me want to see where discussion goes on the remaining chapters I already have written before I write more. I think I basically have to start a new draft. I want to fix the major problems that exist before I go forward, in order to have a more solid vision in my mind when I write further chapters. I have been thinking a lot about how I want to redo things, and I feel pretty good about it. But I'm more embarrassed about what I have done, lol. As it is, I feel like the book is more of a mess than I thought it was. Granted, with the way it jumps around and all the different, odd characters, that might be no surprise.

Chapter 6 is one that I'm thinking I might to place later, probably in extended form. As it is, it's more of a vignette and I'm not sure if what it reveals should be revealed so soon. And I want to develop Shot a little better.

E4, Chapter 6

Detective Shot stormed clear across the town of Tempest. He didn’t like small, former farming communities where everything was tra-la-la friendly and all the shops were closed by eight o’clock. Sure, that wretched tin diner was open 24 hours, but that was because the yahoos in Tempest needed their fill of bacon fat and gristle at all hours of the everloving night. And he didn’t like New Jersey. He was from Vegas, baby, where the lights never go out and the hookers never sleep.

There was no going back to Vegas. Shot acknowledged with consternation that it was indeed his own fault that he was in Tempest, New Jersey. He had volunteered for this investigation, after all. You do what you have to.

At least he liked messing with Vox. And he got to march right out of the stinking hellhole for a few blessed minutes to accomplish his current task.

Shot stopped when he reached the edge of a dilapidated weed-field and assessed his surroundings. He was on the highest hill in town, on the corner of a property that housed nothing but a burned-out barn. The trees were sparse. Looking down, Shot saw the road to Tempest winding away. Good. He was as far as he was going to get in reasonable walking distance from the town’s electrical gizmos and powerlines.

Shot slid a gloved hand into the dark insides of his heavy, leather trenchcoat. He tapped around the various pockets, passing over his badge and the heavy metal lump of the sidearm hanging from his right shoulder. His lithe fingers found the object he needed and pulled out a triangular box that had lots of white buttons on its ebony surface and a purple LED screen. Shot rubbed his head through his hat as he tried to remember the code he needed to key in.

The callbox was needlessly complex, - a nice cell phone set-up would have done just fine. Shot typed in the 18 digit code, raised a telescoping antenna from the box’s center and waited impatiently for a response.

“We read you, Shot,” came a firm but warbling male voice over speakers on each side of the device. Shot thought he could detect a hint of sarcasm there from Derringer. Ass.

“Yeah, I’m here. Just calling in with your daily update, my captain,” Shot said with a bastardly inflection. “I’ve talked with Mark Vox. I still believe he’s at the center of this. I had a little chat with him and he was yapping about stopping some murder. I’m going to investigate further to see what exactly he’s talking about. Might be a lead into this insanity. Derringer, respond with any further instructions if you’ve got ‘em.”

Shot clicked a button on the device and waited. And waited. The callbox didn’t quite work on real time and the delays really pissed him off. Derringer might not even respond at all, but he had to wait and see. He tapped his boots against the ground. He tossed the callbox lightly into the air above his hands a few times and caught it. He whistled a tune that he quickly realized was from some bad lounge act he had been dragged to and quickly stopped. Just when he was about to start lighting fires with the weeds and a book of matches from The Century casino, the callbox buzzed and Shot pressed the play button.

“Research Vox but don’t focus solely on him,” Derringer instructed. “Derringer out.”

Shot looked disdainfully at the box in his hands and thought about the message he had been waiting for. “I already knew that, Derringer. I am competent,” he said out loud, though no one would hear him. “Ass.”

Shot shoved the callbox back into his coat and trudged back to Tempest.

Chapter 5

I know I'm posting a lot tonight, so I'll give it a breather after this. I just wanted to start getting up more of what I'm already written to bring things up to the present (funny thing to say when dealing with a time travel story).

Chapter 5 introduces the two of the book's other main characters. This chapter might be a jolt because it skips forward from the previous chapters. Mark also might be going in too many ways motivation-wise because he's showing interest in a living girl and his desire to help Jeff is put on hold, but I tried to address this in the story (next chapter, I think). I think the former issue is just another symptom of Mark's interest in the past, and might display that he does have some desire to move on. Mark does talk a lot in this chapter about wacky things, but I tried to put myself in his shoes. If I found myself in a totally amazing, seemingly impossible situation, I would find it hard to keep it bottled up, as well. I hope that comes across. I also wanted to show a difference between the tired, depressed Mark in the earlier chapters, and his renewed excitement and optimism in this chapter.

E4 Chapter 5

“I’ve got the most terrible problem,” Mark told the cute waitress at the Lone Penguin Diner. A few minutes later, he was arrested.

Before all that happened, Mark had begun to spill to her a bunch of stuff he knew he shouldn’t have in what started with a moment of courageous stupidity.

“Hey, you know,” Mark had told the waitress, “I used to have a thing for you when I started coming in here years ago.”

Cassie had blushed, a red fog on her pale skin that she had tried to hide by curling a strand of blonde hair over her face.

Mark had been unable to grab back the words as they flew out of his mouth, so he was left waiting for the probable embarrassment that was coming his way. Why mention that, he had thought? A side trip into unrequited lust was not his purpose for being there.

Cassie had dropped the curl to reveal a nice smile, and Mark had stuffed away his regret in place of delighted surprise. Then, her face had become lost in apparently strenuous thought.

“What?” he had asked with concern.

The girl had raised a lithe finger to her nose and tapped it. “Wait,” she had said, her eyebrows arched, “Did you say years?”

“Um...,” Mark had said, pausing to run a hand through the spikes of his black hair, “Noo....”

“Yeah, you did,” Cassie had corrected him. She had rested the order pad on one of her curved hips.

“Well, I...” Mark had begun to backpedal. He rubbed the base of his thumb along the sharp features of his face.

“You know, I’ve only been here ten months.” She had looked down at her tarnished nametag and mumbled, “It might seem like years.”

“I’ll take the pancakes,” Mark had said, staring intently at his menu.

Cassie had snapped her fingers. “Wait, wait. I remember you. You came in on Sundays. I always work Sundays.”

“You remember that?” Mark had said, glancing at the wall.

“It was always you and that Spanish guy,” Cassie had recalled.

“Jeff,” offered Mark.

“It’s been like, what, a month since you’ve been here?”

Mark had needed to consider his answer for a moment. “Maybe. I guess so.”

Cassie had put a pen to her order pad and giggled as she wrote down his order. “What, you lose track of time easily or something?”

Mark had laughed, a kind of troubled laugh. “I’m sorry, Cassie, I’m just a little mixed up.”

Cassie had lowered the pad a moment and grinned up at him. He had just been able to make out her blue eyes peering out from below her aqua-dusted eyelids. “Were you mixed up when you said you had a thing for me?”

Mark had met her sheepishly seductive gaze and it somehow relaxed him.

“Not at all,” he had admitted.

“That’s sweet,” Cassie had said quietly, letting her hair fall over her face as she looked down at the pad. “But I’m seeing someone.”

A-ha, of course, story of his friggin’- “Aren’t most of the good ones?” he had said in his best “que sera sera” tone of voice.

They both had shrugged and Mark had seen something in her face that elicited the desire to tell her anything he wanted to. Compassion bled from her like an open wound on Christ. Mark had a need for release. He hadn’t told anyone, not one soul, about what had happened to him and here Cassie was being all friendly.

“Hey,” he had said, opening that bad door, the one that led to the room in his head where he kept crazy stories akin to chairs shaped like giant hands - that personal pride in owning something unique, but damn if people wouldn’t think you’re nuts for buying it. He wanted to talk, pop off some off the excitement that he had contained for about a week. Who would believe him? Seeing someone familiar, yet not too familiar, that was a part of his past, Mark felt a connection. “Wanna hear a strange story about being mixed up?”

Mark’s eyes were unfathomable brown and refracted shards of light when he squinted. They had a way of dazzling people that Mark was aware of but didn’t understand. When he looked at Cassie like that, smiling, it had seemed to ensnare her attention and trust.

She had stood there uneasily for a second and looked over her shoulder to see that her superiors weren’t around. Cassie had then dropped into the booth across from Mark and said “Sure” with a piqued curiosity.

“Alright,” Mark had said softly as he leaned in across the faux marble table. “Cassie, I know you don’t really know me but you’re the one person I’ve come across that I feel I can talk to. I’ve had to tell somebody about this. But you have to promise to hear the whole thing and try to believe I’m not crazy.”

Cassie had raised a thin eyebrow, but nodded when she saw Mark’s questioning gaze. “Okay,” she had said sweetly, folding her hands in front of her. “Promise.”

Mark had been satisfied wither her sincerity. “I was away playing baseball,” he began. He had ignored the questionable wisdom of telling the story at the time, and out it came.

“Really?” Cassie had interrupted. “What team?”

“The Knights,” Mark had told her, and recognized her look of un-recognition. “They’re a minor league team.”

“Oh,” she had said. “Do you like it?”

Mark had been unprepared for the question but remembered another woman recently asking him the same thing. “It pays decently. And I’m good at it,” was all he had chosen to respond to Cassie. “Anyway,” he had continued, “I was playing ball for a few years and decided to come home for a visit.”

“Did you miss everybody?” she had asked.

Mark was not annoyed by Cassie’s interruptions, most likely because she was as cute as a button on a teddy bear’s vest. He had just grinned, but looked distant. “Yeah, of course. But I was coming back here to check on somebody.”

Cassie had nodded.

“So, I rolled into town,” Mark had told her, “and decided to cut down Mill Road.”

Cassie had snapped her fingers. “Oh yeah, that’s the rural road where the fairgrounds are. I’ve been meaning to go to the carnival this year.”

“I wouldn’t put it off too long,” Mark had advised her. He had seen her confusion and abandoned the tangent. “Anyway, I’m driving back there when out of the...haze, I guess, comes this big, purple Duesenberg chugging right at me. You know that car? It’s gigantic, like from the 1920s or something and built like a tanker. I didn’t even see it coming and I’m puttering along in my little Volkswagen. I reacted fast and went swerving out of the way. Right into a swamp.” Mark had dropped his hand to the table in a sinking motion. Cassie, he had noticed, was watching him intently. “So, I’m half-embedded in this swamp muck,” Mark had said. “The front of the car’s stuck and I can’t budge it. I ended up grabbing a bag of my stuff from the car, my baseball bat, and bailed. I had to change my clothes because the swamp water was ripe. So, I started walking to town in the dark. Part of the way there, I feel this wave of...I’m not sure how to describe it...It was like I was being pulled out of my body softly through my pores.” He had paused, uncertain if the words did the sensation justice. “I nearly passed out,” he continued.

“Did it feel like you were breathing through coffee stirrers?” asked Cassie.

“No...”

“Did you experience a cold sweat?”

“Huh? Why?” Mark had inquired.

“I’m studying to be a nurse,” Cassie had explained, blushing. “Sorry, I’m always trying to diagnose.”

Mark had smiled. “That’s okay. So, you know what to do if someone orders the godawful scrapple and starts to choke.” Cassie had absently nodded, and Mark could see she had never tried the Pelican Diner’s scrapple. “So,” he had continued, “whatever it was, it passed and I kept on moving. I ended up crashing for the night on a bench outside the VFW.”

“Was there anyone you could have called?” she had asked.

Mark had shrugged. “My parents moved out of town. And it was like two in the morning; it was too late to bother anybody. I just woke up with the sun. It was a lot warmer than the previous day, I remember, and it seemed like I had slept for months. I called AAA and when we went back for my car, it was gone.”

“Someone stole it?” the waitress had surmised.

Mark had held in a laugh. “You haven’t seen my car. I don’t think anyone would want that. But it didn’t look like it had sunk. It was just gone.” Mark had made a ‘poof” gesture with his hands.

“Huh,” Cassie had uttered.

“That’s not the weird part,” Mark had told her, lowering his voice. “When the driver brought me back to town, I decided to grab a paper and get some breakfast while I figured out what to do about a car. You know what the date was on the paper?”

Cassie was looking into his eyes, hardly blinking. “When?”

“It was three days ago,” said Mark, leaning back in the booth and smiling. He had shrugged, as if that was the end of the story.

Cassie had flopped back against the booth. “That’s it?” she had asked, rolling her eyes.

“That’s not it,” Mark had calmly interjected. “Want to know when my car sunk into the swamp?” Cassie had waited for an answer.

“It was three years from now,” Mark had told her with emphasis. He had then taken a nonchalant sip of his orange juice.

Cassie had gone from shock to laughter. “What?! Three years in the future?”

Mark had nervously half-smiled. “Just remember, you promised not to assume I was crazy.”

“Maybe you hit your head in the accident,” she had suggested.

“Oh, thanks, Doctor,” Mark had replied.

She had blustered. “I didn’t mean...”

Mark had waved a hand and pulled his wallet from the front pocket of his jeans. “Don’t sweat it. Let me show you something, though.” He had slid out a sliver of cardboard from the wallet and was about to give it to Cassie when a gloved hand smacked down on the table between them. Mark and Cassie had looked up to see that its owner was a black man outfitted in a large trenchcoat, sharp fedora and wrap-around sunglasses. He was leering at Mark, and Mark had briefly recalled seeing the hat in the booth behind his.

“Marcus Vox,” said the man in a voice that had jabbing inflection. “I’ve been looking for you. Yup.”

Mark had scowled as he looked at the man. “Why?”

The man had stood back, chewing on what seemed to be an imaginary piece of gum, and produced a slick leather case from an inner jacket pocket. Despite looking like he had a lot of bulk under the coat, Mark had noted that the man had a sleek and arrogant way of moving. The man had opened the case to reveal a shiny gold badge. “Shot, Detective Harry Shot,” he said. “I’ve come here to arrest you.” The Detective had sported a big grin as he said that.

Mark had stood up, raising his empty hands to the side. “Detective, I haven’t done anything. What are you talking about? What--?”

“Ut!” said the Detective, lifting a finger, “up and at ‘em, let’s go. Don’t want to cause a scene in here, do ya?” Shot had looked around at the patrons and snickered.

Mark had raised an eyebrow at Shot and then looked around the tin-styled diner. Everyone had stopped eating - they were watching - and Cassie had looked betrayed. It was certainly not how Mark had seen his hitting on Cassie the times he had imagined it in the past. Opening up with a tale that belonged in Amazing Stories and then getting arrested in front of her had not been a part of those fantasies. It had felt good to tell her, though, like popping the cork on a champagne bottle. Well, maybe she likes bad boys, he had thought with amusement. Shot had put a hand on Vox’s elbow and urged him from the booth.

“Okay, okay” Mark had acquiesced. “We can take this outside. But hold on, I have to pay.” He had taken his wallet and left enough money for his juice and a generous tip for Cassie.

“Look,” he had told the waitress, who had been watching him speechlessly. “I didn’t commit any crime. But, hey, I’ll see you around.” Wow, lame, Mark had thought. He had then picked up his bookbag and steel baseball bat from under the table and handed the latter to the Detective’s waiting hand. Shot had laid the bat over his own shoulder and pointed a thumb at the door.

“C’mon,” Shot had urged, practically pulling Mark from the booth with his free hand.

Mark had needed to contain his anger at seeing Shot so casually taking away the bat. It was an Easton Triple 7, made of stronger steel than any other bat Mark had ever seen. He couldn’t legally use it at home plate, but had kept the bat since Samantha had given it to him in college. It was his and felt right in his hand.

Mark shot a last, awkward smile at Cassie and headed for the diner’s front door, the Detective close behind.

***

Cassie jumped up from the table and began furiously wiping it off with a napkin. No, she hadn’t just heard that story and been sitting with a possible convict.

She paused to take the money and saw the card Mark had been about to show her underneath it. Cassie cautiously picked it up and saw that it was a baseball card of Marcus Vox, designated hitter. At least he really was a ballplayer. She flipped it over to the back and saw a bunch of statistics that she didn’t understand. There were two seasons’ worth of them, though, and Cassie realized with a heart-beating wrench that they were for two years that hadn’t happened yet.

***

Outside, Shot was repeatedly poking Mark between the shoulders with the bat as they walked down the diner’s concrete stairs.

As Mark got to the pavement, he spun around and grabbed the end of the bat. “Will you cut that out?” he snapped. “Give me that back!”

Shot grew a toothy grin and yanked the bat from Mark’s grasp. Mark was no weakling and was frustrated that Shot was successfully pushing him around. Shot sat the tip of the bat down in front of him, crossing his hands over the handle like it was a walking stick. “Is that how you speak to an officer of the law?” he asked with a tiger-like drawl.

“You haven’t even told me what I’m under arrest for,” Mark reminded him. He tried to show a glimmer of respect in his voice, at least a notion in the back of his head told him to, but it wasn’t happening. The summer sun was beating the back of his baseball shirt like about six thousand steam irons, though. It felt good and kind of relaxed him.

The Detective shrugged and looked off somewhere through his sunglasses. “You’re not actually under arrest, Vox. I just needed to speak with you in private.”

“What?!” Mark shouted. “I was talking with that waitress!”

Shot cackled. “You mean hitting on her? Or at least a poor attempt? You should have just hit her with the bat. Hey baby, I finds you attractive...”

“Yeah, well,” said Mark, scowling, “now she and everyone in there probably thinks I’m a scumbag.”

Shot stared up at the sun and the glare off his ski-goggle-sized glasses almost blinded Mark. “You’ll learn not to care about what people think of you,” Shot said, suddenly sounding like a prophet.

“I don’t so much,” Mark started, then sighed. “You could have just asked me to talk, you know.” Now, he was just frustrated.

Shot hopped off the last concrete step, swinging the bat behind him and almost hitting an elderly woman that was creeping out of the diner. He leaned in towards Mark and whispered in a sneer. “You weren’t just ‘talking’ with that waitress. I heard you. You were spinning that hoodad story of yours. Ooh, I’m traveling through time in my Volkswagen. I’ve traveled from three years in the future to sleep on your park benches and hit on your waitresses.”

Mark wasn’t sure he had ever heard the word ‘hoodad’ before. And he was going to ignore Shot’s twisted version of his story. “So, you were eavesdropping,” Mark stated. “What does anything I said matter to you?”

Shot tensed up underneath his thick coat - Jesus, how hot must it be in there? - and prodded a finger into Mark’s broad chest. “Think about what you’re telling people,” he said emphatically. “Sure, it’s true. It’s something you’d like to get off your pecs, but what are they” - Shot paused and smirked at his upcoming contradiction- “going to think?”

Mark squinted into the Detective’s glasses. Shot didn’t seem phased at all by the story Mark had spun. “Are you saying you believe me?” he asked. For Mark, it was too surreal a moment. The detective suddenly seemed very out of place.

Shot simply shrugged and flipped the bat up, offering it back to its rightful owner. “Just watch what you say and who you say it to. That’s my very stern advice. In fact, it’s my intention and my job to make sure you stay in line.”

Mark snatched the bat. “Your job? Keep me in line?”

Shot laughed and stepped back a few paces on the sidewalk. He wasn’t intimidated, for sure, just letting Vox know he wasn’t going to offer any more. “I’ll be around, Vox,” he said casually as he poked a knuckle against his glasses. “Remember that.”

Mark rubbed a hand across his chin, which was starting to bristle. “Fine,” he told the Detective sternly. “Whatever you want. Keep an eye on me, just don’t get in my way.” He clenched his hands around the bat and pressed it into his shoulder.

Shot looked caught off guard. “Get in your way of what? I thought you were just enjoying your chance to flirt with the waitresses of yesteryear.”

Mark’s expression was resolute. “Temporary diversion. I have to stop a murder.”

“Hmm,” said Shot. He placed a hand on the brim of his hat and looked down as if he was scanning his thoughts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who gets snuffed?”

Mark sneered, but couldn’t help cracking a smile at Shot’s ignorance. He arched his shoulders and turned to walk off. “None of your business, Detective.”

“We’ll see about that,” Shot warned.

Mark looked back and saw the detective stalking away towards the Lone Pelican’s side parking lot. Mark watched Shot until the detective disappeared around the diner and then Mark slipped the bat between his back and the pack on his shoulders. The truth, which he had told completely to Cassie as best as he knew it, was getting more complex.

Chapter 4

This is a very short chapter. I might end up adding some of Chapter 1 into it. Both Chapter 1 and this one introduce the idea that Samantha might be haunting Mark rather than just being a figment of his mind. The problem with deleting Chapter 1 entirely is that Mark's visions of Sam become more twisted as time goes on, and in the first chapter his vision of her is mostly sunny and warm. Maybe I can work that first dream into the start of the last chapter...

E4 Chapter 4

Baseball season was over and cool wisps of fall had carried Mark home. His steel practice bat was tucked tightly between the passenger seat and door of his Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and his minor league jersey was tossed haphazardly in the back.

Mark hadn’t been back to Tempest, New Jersey in the three years since he started playing ball after college. The first place he headed after leaving Mekong’s Bar was Mill Road. It was a country drag on the outside of town; desolate, winding and covered by trees that were shedding. There was little off the cracked blacktop besides overgrown driveways and the wrecks of abandoned homes set back into the woods. Mark eased his foot on the car’s gas pedal, his bug-like, orange Ghia dropping down to a crawl. Mark felt the dry electricity of the place rush warm blood down the back of his neck. The spikes of his dark hair bristled.

Mark brought the car to a slow halt and let the headlights illuminate the eerie woods around him. He didn’t know exactly where it had happened but it was along this road. A flick of a knife. The quickening, then release of a feminine pulse. Mark’s world was deader without her.

Mark closed his eyes and the same vision that had been stalking his dreams over recent months formed on the back of his eyelids. Samantha, her soft features lost in a blaze of sun, leaned on his car door and her fingers ruffled his hair like the wind. Mark squinted, in his mind, and flashed to her face. Drained skin, mouth wired to stay shut, sunken eyes. Mark reflexively turned away. Samantha pleaded with him not to think of that. Her death was not a curse to taint the memory of her life. Mark relaxed and finally saw her eyes, bright as neon. It was all he could make out of her besides her outline in the sunny haze.

Mark asked, through thought rather than spoken words, why she had been visiting him. He didn’t mind; he wished he could stay with her there in the perfect sunny field she brought with her. Was it just because of Jeff’s troubles that she was there, though? He felt her touch, an invisible ghost on his cheek. Her hand cast soft tendrils through his memories. Remember me, she said, everything. How she never let her skin veer far from a tan. How she gave him rides to work every single of the many times his car broke down. The years remained in him, scrolling past like the grainy footage of an old video reel. The recollections were jumbled and assembled into a past that had become fragile and distant. Wet bathing suits and infectious laughter and closet desperation. Mark knew at that moment that talking with him was but a bonus to her ghostly mission.

Remember me, she whispered, but don’t forget the vow. Mark blinked, her words jarring him into both into the further past and present. A vow the three of them had made when they were in the fourth grade. To always look out for one another.

Mark remembered it and Samantha said that’s good, he needs to. Because Jeff is in trouble. She said she couldn’t help Jeff, in fact she was the reason he was shattered, grinding down in the big machine. Shattered, Mark told her, described them all. He felt her touch again, comforting and pleading. You know I got it, he told her, and saw the thanks, the sorrow, in her eyes.

Her words, wherever they came from to enter his mind at night, had talked to him repetitively, growing louder every time. When Jeff’s mother had called and repeated Samantha’s plea, Mark had stopped writing off the dreams as passionate delusions. Home, though. It forced him to revisit those thoughts of Samantha and what had happened to her. Mark’s temples tightened and he was stabbed by the memory. It passed by him as much as it could; it never really went away. She then sunk into his memory and Mark opened his eyes, returning to the darkened woods around him.

Mark had a friend, a living one that needed his help. He sunk the accelerator pedal down and focused on how to enter back into people’s lives after a three-year hiatus. He didn’t have long to consider it.

Mark felt a large rush of static electricity, prevalent in the air, and heard a faint hum along the wind. It was somehow calming. Then, around a bend in the wooded road, another car came barreling at him.

Mark was stunned, unable to immediately react. The car that had just roared out of the ether was a purple Duesenberg, a classic from the early half of the twentieth century. He had once seen one in a Las Vegas museum.

When it hit him how large the steel auto was and how badly it would plow into him at its current speed, Mark spun the steering wheel hard. His car swerved out of the Duesenberg’s path, its rear bumper close to being torn off as it narrowly escaped. The woods were a pinwheel of dying colors in his car’s headlights. Mark slammed the brake pedal but the car twisted out of his control. He held tighter to the wheel as the Ghia shunned his efforts and twirled off of the road into the woods.

Chapter 3, Unedited

Okay, the full version of this chapter brings us up to speed. As I noted before, the conversation between Mark and Lenara needs some work, but there are some things I like in this chapter. I am considering that this chapter might need to be become a flashback, which might be clear when you read the next chapter. I don't know. I like this chapter being the first glimpse of Mark as he's... not quite right... when next seen. Another problem I have is that Lenara mostly disappears for awhile after this chapter, only to come back strongly and in an important way later. Since she's featured so much early in the book, I think I need to work her in more throughout the book. Well, there's always the next draft, lol.

E4, Chapter 3

The tires of Mark’s rusty Karmann Ghia trundled down the gravel driveway beside the Montiero household. He had stopped to sleep and to grab a couple of meals along the way back to New Jersey but, once back in the slow-moving town of Tempest, he had appeared as a rusty, orange fireball soaring across the roads of his hometown. There were things he wanted to see again in Tempest, sure. But Mark’s heart had thumped anxiously the moment he got into town, scared of but excited about his approaching reunion. He imagined and dreaded the difficult, awkward conversation he was sure to have with Jeff. There was something else, though; the feeling of a mission.

Mark grinded the Ghia to a stop in front of the beat-up farmhouse, swung open the car door and flung himself at the rustic porch. There was no time to think, just knock, knock, knock. He did so. And waited. And waited a bit more.

Mark’s stomach fell as he realized no one was home…or answering the door, at least. He peered around the porch, past the uncut bush at its side, and saw that there were no other cars in the driveway besides his. No, no one was home.

Mark stepped back into the driveway and squinted helplessly at the roof of the house. “Now what?” he asked out loud. Now he was going to have to lose and re-find his resolve one again. Mark turned back to his car and paused. For the first time since getting back to Tempest, he noticed that it was getting cold.

***

Any den of ineptitude, any dive, Lenara Quesal was at home. Now, she wasn’t insulting her own character by admitting that. She was royal blood; there was no room for low self-image. Rather, she prided herself on being a chameleon. She could stride into a meeting place that appealed to commoners or even those of a haughty high station and converse with any chosen individual, even steal the party if she sought to. If they were exposed to only one side of her personality, even be it a side that left her with some form of personal disdain, she could live with it. As long as her job got done. There was usually money or other wealth involved in her work and tonight was no different. Of course, if the job she was there to do tonight was profitable, why was she feeling a prickly pang of guilt?

Lenara folded away her inner queries into the Sometime Quite Later File and pulled her face into a delightfully seductive stare. The one that came naturally to her when she let it. Cheshire smile, auburn hair teased over the edges of her tan cheeks and both her green eye and her blue eye aglow.

This was Mekong’s before her, a little bar on the fringe edge of a rural-ish town called Tempest, New Jersey. A dive. The walls were cracked stucco and illuminated beer signs beckoned from the cloudy windows. The wooden door muffled throbbing rock music. Quaint. Lenara straightened her white jacket, white like the rest of her outfit, and pushed open the door.

The smoke hit her like a brick. And though hazy, the situation inside became obvious. All men. All looking at her, gawking at her lithe assets. All but one. He was leaning on the bar, the tip of his forehead touching the bottle he hunched in his hands, as if willing the liquid directly into his brain. He was mid-20s, maybe a little younger than her although that admission would stay in her mouth. He had a farmer’s tan, the lighter sections of his football-like biceps visible under his rolled-up sleeves. His hair was black and spiked like a little porcupine. Lenara caught a giggle in her throat. His face was angular and severe but his expression was soft, something damaged. Cute, she assessed. Maybe the kind of guy who would lap up her advanced like a porcupine lapping up milk. Hmmm, she thought, do porcupines drink milk?

Lenara strutted past the other guys, most of them already starting their wicked glances and preparing their opening lines. She blatantly ignored them and took a barstool next to the guy not paying any attention to her.

His eyes were closed. She drew her hips across the stool and propped her forearms on the bar so she was in his sight. His personal space punctured, he sensed her and glanced up at her somewhat irritably but his expression switched to shock, his brown eyes blaring as if flicked on by a light switch. It was quick and he drew a hand across his face.

“Um, hello?” he greeted her.

Lenara looked him up and down and nodded. “Hey,” she said, seductively soft, “I give you a fright?”

He looked down at the drink cupped in his hands. “No. Just startled me. You reminded me of someone. For a second, anyway. Like there was something similar in spirit.”

“So,” Lenara said, changing the subject, “What’s your name?”

“Mark,” he offered, saluting her with his drink. He had gone from frustration with her presence to a sort of cautious fascination.

“Lenara,” she said. “Tempest here is kind of out of the way. You live here?”

“Yeah. No, not anymore,” he said. “I’ve been living in North Carolina. Came back to help a friend.”

“Help him move to a new house?”

Mark looked at the bar with nebulous guilt. “Not exactly.”

Lenara leaned into him and pressed his arm. “You’re built well. What do you do?” Mark didn’t respond to her touch but he didn’t move away, either. He clutched his drink tighter and shot her a pointed stare.

“What do you do?” he asked.

Lenara smiled and flipped a lock of hair that was hanging over her face. “Well…I’m in exports,” she said. “It’s not very exciting.” She looked up at him bashfully and they both chuckled.

“I’m a ballplayer,” Mark gently offered.

“Ahh,” she said impishly. “I was gonna guess that.”

“Oh, yeah?” Mark said.

“Really,” she said. “It’s the shirt.”

“My shirt?”

“Yeah,” she said, lightly tugging on his sleeve. “The kind with the white center and the blue sleeves. Don’t basesball players wear those?”

“Baseball, you mean?”

“Exactly,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “I guess we do.”

“Do you like it?” she asked. “Not the shirt, the game.”

Mark halted and looked into his drink, his mouth stalling on an answer. He finally said, “Well, I’m good at it. I might get some time in the majors in a season or two.”

Lenara leaned back on the bar and looked at him with concern. “You don’t look happy about it. What you do for a living should make you happy,” she stated with an exaggerated nod.

Mark sheepishly grinned. “I play ball. Not to much to complain about when you’re talking to a guy who works in a factory, y’know?”

Lenara tapped her fingers on the bar and paused to make him a proposition. “Would you like a different job, Mark?”

Mark looked quizzically up at her. “What do you mean?”

“A new profession,” she said in a clipped, hushed voice and catching his eyes with an enticing stare. “Maybe something you’re more sure you’ll like. All I can tell you at this point, and, I quote my employer, is, ‘It’s a chance to make a difference.’”

Mark ran his knuckles over the bar’s smooth but cloudy wooden surface. “It would depend. I’m not even sure why you’re asking me this.”

It seemed, Lenara observed, that the matter of fulfillment had piqued his interest.

Lenara exhaled and stared absently at the far wall. “Who did I remind you of, Mark?”

Mark’s head sunk and Lenara thought that he had closed her out. Drat, she should have kept being sensitive. But then he talked.

“Her name was Sam,” he quietly explained, looking into the fluid before him. “A few years ago, she was murdered.”

Lenara looked over and saw that he was mentally somewhere else.

“I remember when we found out,” he continued. “My friend Jeff and I, we were at this bar, sitting right where the two of us are sitting now. Jeff was dating her at the time. When the television gave the news, he fell to the ground, crushed.” Mark took a long sip of his drink, then ran a hand along his face. “I just remember going numb, feeling all youth and passion bleed away.”

“Then what?” Lenara asked.

“Then, eventually,” Mark said, “I moved. Left everyone.” He went quiet and looked away.

“You would welcome an opportunity to alleviate past regrets?” she asked matter-of-factly.

Mark regarded her and she could see he was confused and suspicious. “What are you aiming at?” he said. “You didn’t hit a few bars before here, did you?”

“It’s tied into my offer,” she said sternly. “I will tell you more. But for right now, I need to know if you’re open to some adventure.”

“Mark rolled it around in his head for a few seconds and then shrugged, exasperated. “I have no idea what you’re talking about but why the hell not?”

“Very good,” Lenara commended, rubbing his arm. She stood up from her barstool and dropped money on the counter to pay for his drink. “I’ll be in touch, dear.” She saw he was perplexed. “Don’t look so down,” she said, “I think you’re going to like this. I do.”

Mark rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “Well…ah…I’ll be at the motel on Davenport.”

“Are you headed there now?” she inquired. “Or perhaps you’ll see some of the old sites of town first?” The way she asked it was more of a strong suggestion.

Mark squinted at her, then shrugged. “I’ll take a drive by the site of the old Tempest Fair. It’s been awhile, though. Maybe once I’m okay to drive.”

Lenara raised an eyebrow and leaned over to get a better look at his drink. “Aren’t you drinking mineral water?” she asked.

Mark issued a dry laugh. “I’m not much of a drinker. I just need some time.”

“As you wish,” she said. Lenara touched his chin, feeling his short stubble. His look was questioning, curious. Perfect. He was intrigued but not too spooked. “I’ll be in touch,” she repeated, giving him a glimmering smile. The she turned and strode away, once again avoiding the come-ons of the other bar patrons. Well, half of them, anyway. The others were staring jealously at Mark.

***

Mark watched Lenara exit the bar and turned slowly back to his water. “This town gets weirder every day,” he mumbled. Mark didn’t know what kind of job she was offering but she knew how to press the right buttons, like she knew him and he had forgotten her. The notion of job fulfillment, though, was not going to whitewash the furor of the past that emanated from Tempest and that he carried everywhere with him inside his skull.

***

Lenara looked all around as she exited Mekong’s and was relieved to see that no prying eyes were prowling the parking lot. She dropped into the evening shadows behind the bar and the trees, looking once again behind her to make sure she hadn’t been followed by some relentless drunk. Satisfied, Lenara walked behind the large dumpster to where she had hidden the car. Even in low light, the car’s purple paint was glimmering. If the odd color didn’t attract attention, the fact that it was a classic Duesenberg touring car tended to. It was a mammoth of an automobile, long and elegant with curved rims and brass fittings galore. It’s orb-like headlights and nose poked out from behind the dumpster, as did it’s rear, giving the appearance of a lion naively thinking it had found a wonderful hiding place behind a toaster. It was beautiful, no doubt, but was also a natural draw to attention and Lenara needed to have a private conversation with someone.

He was standing on the Duesenberg’s roof, an apparition that was barely there besides a faint outline in the night air. Whatever kind of outfit he was wearing gave the appearance of some sort of armor. His head was helmeted as always and Lenara thought she could make out pointed teeth on it but it was like squinting under muddy water, trying to see. His arms, though, she could tell they were not like human arms. They looked more like tentacles, long and rippling as he stood there. This all put Lenara on edge but it was nothing compared to his voice, an echoing, sneering tone that seemed to come from behind you when he was right there in front of you. “Did you ask him?” he demanded.

“I did,” she said, “but how did you know he would be there? Or that he would be going down Mill Road to where the Tempest Fair used to be? How did you anticipate such detail?”

“Because I know him well,” he explained, not offering anymore. Lenara knew better than to press an employer too much. “What did he say?” the apparition’s disembodied voice asked.

“I think he’s interested,” Lenara said, grinning. “He wasn’t terribly enthusiastic and was confused but I could see in his eyes that the offer intrigued him.”

“Perfect,” the voice said. “Then we shall proceed.”

“But it’s not like he even knew what he was agreeing to,” Lenara interjected. “It was more tentative.”

“The details are unimportant. If you had said everything, he’d have written you off,” the voice said. “I needed to know that the desire was within him when presented with the possibility of change. He needed to have a choice. From what you’re saying, it was.”

“Yes, that could be said,” Lenara admitted, not completely satisfied. The vague trappings of this job were bothering her and she wasn’t used to second-guessing herself where work was involved. She knew the gist of what she was being paid to set up but she had not been told the reasons behind it.

“Excellent,” the voice said, the apparition on the car not budging at all. “Then we move forward. I hope you will continue to honor my wish to not tell your boss, Colonel Brixton, about our business.”

“I’ve got tight lips,” she assured him.

“I trust you do,” the voice said, sounding confident. Lenara saw the apparition fade from its place atop the car, leaving only the dark shadows of the trees above. Her neck bristled when the voice returned despite that.

“Now, go,” it said. “You have an accident to stage.”