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I think the name of this page should be MONKEYS, MONKEYS, MONKEYS!; but I promise, just becaus the first two stories feature apes of one kind or another as prominent characters, it doesn't mean that's all I write about.
I promise I write about other things too!
The point of this page is to showcase short stories that I've finished and have been too lazy to try and sell. I'd really like someone to read them though, since - it would suck to spend my life trying to be a writer only to find out 10 years later that I suck at telling stories, so here's a sampling:
Image at right is copyright Mr_Joshua(Josh Nizzi) and used without permission (much like the
characters). I will remove it if necessary. I've only posted it here because it is the
inspiration for this work.First Draft/Stream of Conscious Writing (Sorry I've taken so long to update - will do so more frequently now... New text will in boldface type.
I can't hold this much longer, Zan's thoughts beat into his sister's mind with a manic, frightened rhythm; but they were weakened. He was tired and the renewed fear that she was going to lose her brother caused the Exorian girl's own panic to take hold.
I'm trying, Jayna screamed back at him, telepathically. Tears streaked down her cheeks and she gripped the steering console tightly and tried to pull out of the free-fall.
Behind her, and between them, the G.L.E.E.K. cyborg was howling frantically and trying to maintain the damaged stabilizers manually. Straddling the hole it'd ripped in the floor, it's cable-chord muscles were near bursting against the strain of holding the gyro-mechanism steady. It's elongated tail was wrapped around a support beam directly behind Zan. Organic teeth bared from behind the golden, metallic skull. The Jrxan Cliff-Monkey's howls were high and piercing.
The Jrxan warship - only slightly larger than a single-seat fighter - corkscrewed through the outer atmosphere of the strange planet. It's heat shielding stressed to the limit by the erratic flight path. From his position within the Flesh-Driver, Zan could feel it. Like a sunburn gone horribly wrong, every inch of his skin itched and burned and screamed at him to pull up! The right axial slide thruster was trying to kick in; but something in the stabilizer's damaged computer core was preventing the automated systems from turning over. Zan cried out in pain.
Jayna, his mind lashed out, switching to manual configuration. The pain in his left shoulder was ridiculous. He stretched out with his mind, reaching through the searing nerves for the slide-thruster's system control. Somewhere in the world outside of the Flesh-Drive, Jayna was exercising her voice, screaming something that telepathy apparently could not convey. She was drowned out by the monkey's howling. He reached the axial slide-thruster and fired once. Gleek quit howling for just a moment; and there was a clang as something jerked in the cockpit. The suddenness of Jayna's mental scream almost jolted Zan out of the shock that was slowly spreading through his system.
Both the gyro-stabilizers in the port and starboard engine blocks were kicking out of control, bucking against their housings. Zan could only imagine what the cyborg was dealing with in the primary. In an instant, he learned why no Jrxan pilot in his right mind every let his Exorian Flesh-Driver take manual control of a ship.
All the synapses down the right side of his brain fired at once as the overheat alarms fired on the starboard hull. In the small of his back, 10,000 white-hot needles shot through him as the aft thrust coupling came loose. His left foot melted away into nothingness - surely an alarm that something else was going wrong. He was blind and deaf - completely cut off by the Flesh-Driver's sense enhancers and the raging inferno wrapped around the ship. If he didn't arrest that overheating, the ship would melt before it had a chance to crash.
The numbness in his left foot spread up his leg and was met by the same sensation crawling up his right side. His arms ached when his legs became unable to hold him up any longer. Zan moaned.
"Zarqon," he cursed aloud, then Sis? his thoughts probed through the rawness of his being. The Flesh-Driver pulled at him, and he could feel himself slipping through the grating of the cockpit floor, I'm an idiot, Jayna, he thought at her, I should have thought of this in the first place. Get me out of here. He struggled to free himself from the draining power of the Flesh-Driver.
Jayna abandoned the controls. It was useless, anyway. She rose from her seat and turned to free her brother from the Jrxan device. "Zan," she exclaimed, her hand rising to her gaping mouth.
Zan was struggling to free himself from the Flesh-Driver; but it was useless. He hung from the torturous machine by his arms, his lower body was now almost completely liquefied. It looked as though the blood from his torso was running freely, and turning to water before it hit the grating beneath him and splashed around. Impossibly, the water didn't go anywhere - it just kept flowing out of his body and splashing on the deck. Weakly, Zan looked up and smirked.
Told you, he sent to her and passed out as she unbolted the heavy metal restraints that held him in place. Crying, she tried to hold him up by his armpits; but it was no use. Now that he was free of the device, the liquifaction sped up. His head lolled backwards and he looked up at her. I can do this he thought out loud as his face finally melted away with the rest of him.
At first, she was stunned - unable to come to terms with what was happening. Her purple flight-suit was soaked with what had only moments ago been her twin brother. She couldn't even cry. But the water that was soaked into her clothing dried up almost immediately. When she looked down at it, she saw that it was pulling itself from her flight suit and running in rivulets into the grating beneath her. Zan was running down the drain.
"Zan!" she screamed mentally and physically, "Zan!" She sobbed against the cyborg, Gleek, which had stopped its struggle with the central stabilizers to watch the Exorian turn into a liquid. How could he be gone?
Zan and Jayna were born under what should have been the most auspicious of signs. They were twins - which had been unheard of on their home planet of Exor, since before the Jrxan's invaded and subjugated the planet. In addition, they were born under a Lunar Equinox; and when Wehyr entered the last phase of her birth cycle and showed signs of the changelings she bore, there was talk of rebellion and a return to ancient ways. In the end, however, no one would stand up to the Jrxan regime; and after the tragic death of their parents, the twins languished for years in custody of the state, before being purchased by the slave trader Ovon Kelt.
Centuries before the Jrxan's arrival on Exor, the people were ruled by an Council of nine pairs of twins, each with the ability to shapeshift into a different form - representing the Nine Aspects of Exorian Creation. In the end, however, the people grew distrustful of their leaders; and rose up against them. The Nine Aspects of Creation were put to death in a brutal revolution; and there were no more changelings born on Exor.
With the arrival of the Jrxan Armada - and the subsequent surrender of the people's freedom to Jrxan rule - the minds of the people began to change. Would the Nine Aspects have allowed the Exorians to become willing slaves of an invading force? Would the power of the changelings have been able to stand against the war-like slavers? These were the questions that stirred such curiosity around Wehyr's pregnancy. As the expectant mother's color took on its variable hue; and her body temperature dropped so drastically that doctor's feared for her life - the whispers and rumors of freedom circulated everywhere.
Only the sudden and devastating death of Wehyr and her husband at the hands of their Jrxan Masters quelled the stillborn rebellion. And with such a stigma attached to the twins, no one would take them; and they ended up as wards of the state. ((I know I just repeated myself... deal with it, I'm working it out))
As they grew up, the twins were treated to barrage after barrage of tests and [whatever word it is that I can't think of that implies being poked and prodded by the scientists]. Jrxan biologists kept them on a steady diet of hormones and steroids designed to suppress their still latent abilities; and in the end, they were just two more Exorian slaves. When Ovon Kelt offered such a high price for the pair, the Jrxan Consulate leapt at the sale.
Working for Ovon Kelt, however, they found opportunity to avoid the suppressants they had been fed their whole life. Zan was the first to reclaim his birthright. It began with simple beads of sweat - he would sit under the exhaust manifolds and cause the sweat pouring off of his body to pool in strange places, before absorbing it again. Then he learned to lower the temperature around his chest and torso, then around his hands.
By the time Jayna was learning to make the smallest changes to her anatomy (turning her fingernails into claws, or making her eyes turn black), Zan was hurling snowballs from nowhere and contorting his body to fit through the smallest crevice. He told his sister again and again that, with time, they could become real shape-changers - like the Twins in the history vids. She admitted that what they could do was amazing; but nothing would come of it.
Now, kneeling in the back of a stolen Jrxan warship, completely out of control and about to crash on an unknown planet, Jayna felt completely lost. Nothing would come of it, she'd always said. But now, something had come of it. Now Zan was gone.
Gleek looked up at her questioningly, but his sensors darted in every direction. His cybernetically enhanced brain knew they were about to die; but he wasn't programmed with the necessary information to stop it. The electro-receptors imbedded in his frontal cortex, to allow telepathic reception, fired unexpectedly. He jerked at the sensation. Jayna also looked around.
Calm down, Jayna, Zan's thoughts were distant somehow, disconnected, almost alien. I'm still here, he continued, I'm in the insulation between the Outer and Inner Hull. I'm using the natural cooling tendancy of my liquid form to bring down the inner temperature. Give it a few moments - I'm starting to ice over. Once the thermostat comes down, maybe you can reboot the system with enough time to steady the landing.
Uncertain, Jayna sent her thoughts out around her, Zan, how? When he didn't reply at first, she thought, I can't reboot the system without the Flesh-Driver.
Gleek was already at the front of the ship, shutting everything down. For just a moment, he lost himself to the swirling landscape out the front viewport. That primal part of his mind that still longed for the rocky cliffs of his ancestral home on Jrxa wanted to panic and run to the back of the ship; but his logic override shut that instinct down and he snapped out of his reverie. With all systems shut down, Gleek swung out of the pilot's seat and landed next to the girl.
You're going to have to strap into the Flesh-Driver, Jayna, Zan's thoughts seemed to come from the ship itself. It's horrible, and it's painful, and you won't like it at all, he continued, but all you have to do is reboot the primary systems. The Gleek can reinitialize the secondary program and get you out before any real damage is done.
Gleek was already recalibrating the Flesh-Driver for a female of Jayna's weight. In essence, this warship was his. There was nothing that happened on board this vessel that he wasn't aware of, there was no system that he couldn't operate (or repair with the proper equipment). He'd been a part of the ship's systems since his activation ten years ago. He held open the heavy chest plates and waited for Jayna to take her place.
For her part, Zan's sister hesitated only a moment. Taking a deep breath, she removed her outer jacket and stepped into the device. The cyborg bolted her in and started the initialization sequence.
Jayna had never stood in a Flesh-Driver. She was a secondary pilot, a back-up mechanic when necessary. It was always Zan who had to fuel the Jrxan drive system; but he'd talked about it enough, that she thought she had some idea what to expect. She was wrong.
The sensation of losing her body was almost instantaneous when the microscopic probes pierced her flesh. All at once, she forgot her breathing, forgot the sweat beading up on her forehead, forgot her nerves and her fear and her brother. Both the port and starboard stabilizers were practically shot, the central gyros were almost useless from the cyborg's heavy hands trying in vain to operate them manually. An axial slide-thruster was firing erratically. Primary and secondary ship functions were all shut down. Life-support was barely pumping out the oxygen they needed. The outer hull was so superheated that most of the insulation was burned away, replaced with
Ice?
Zan. How could he? But she couldn't keep the question in her mind. Every sensation, every fact that she knew about this ship came with a subsequent pain somewhere in her body. How could Zan do this again and again?
"Aaarrrggghhh!" She cried out. Someone shut down the life support and then switched it back on again. Communications. Tertiary Electronics. Each system turned on shot an electric lance through her skull.
Jayna, Zan spoke into her mind; and when he did, it centered her. She was aware of him again. He was spread out, a part of the insulating gel and he was creating his own cold. It was miraculous; but she could feel the strain in his thoughts. Just as if he were still in the Flesh-Driver. Jayna, we need those systems back online.
She reached out through the barbaric device and found the main drive pulses. Exerting her will in much the same way as she would her telepathy, she activated first one system, then another. Almost as soon as she activated the last one, she felt the hot sting of the probes as they retracted out of her body. Gleek opened the Flesh-Driver and she collapsed to the floor. The monkey stood there looking at her.
C'mon, sis, Zan's thoughts were urgent, impatient. We're almost on the ground. Then you can rest.
She pulled herself to her knees, then stood. Gleek tried to hand her jacket to her; but she ignored it. Taking her seat at the pilot's station, she monitored the reboot.
Okay, Zan, she responded, here we go.
Placing her hands in the steering console, she didn't even wince as the microprobes pierced her hands. She would never complain about pilot-hands again. Not after what her brother had to go through every time that damn pirate took them into space aboard his precious ship. Not after just 80 seconds in the Flesh-Driver.
With everything she had, she tried to pull the ship out its spin. At first, there was no response. The controls seemed to be locked up, they were so stubborn. Finally, her right hand pulled back just a millimeter. She realized she was holding her breath and let it out. It was something; but it sure wasn't enough. She shut her eyes and pulled again, this time, straining with everything she had.
Gleek was standing near the Flesh-Driver, watching the open machinery in the floor of the cockpit. The gyro-stabilizer he'd been trying to steady was bucking around in its housing wildly and dangerously. Six operating systems deep in his core processing were all screaming at him that he had to stop that gyro before it broke free and tore a hole in the ship; but self-preservation and primary logic were in conflict. No matter how much damage the gyro did to the ship, no matter if he stopped it with his bare hands or it shot free and collapsed the main computer, this ship was doomed. He looked up at the Exorian co-pilot. There was no way she could ever be strong enough to pull a collapsing Firespray out of a 9G spin in the lower atmosphere of a Class 9 planet. Wherever the other had gone. However he'd managed to fit himself into the insulation; they were all done. She could not survive. He was probably dead.
And Gleek.
Gleek's lower functions suddenly took hold of his mind. He squealed once then bolted toward the back of the ship. The reactor housing underneath the G6 panelling. that was the safest place to ride out the crash. It was the most heavily armored section of the ship; and when the impact occurred, the safety foam from the reactor security would trigger and completely fill the whole structure. He might have to make repairs to his extremities; but there was a 87.36% chance of survival. Out here, with the Exorian girl his chances dropped to 42-
His head was turned over his shoulder to catch one last look at the co-pilot. He collapsed, mid-stride and tumbled another meter or so before righting himself. His jaw was slack and his eyes wide - the circuitry of his cranial housing mimicing Jrxan and Exoran emotional response. The Exorian was gone.
The pilot seat was gone. Ripped free of it's place and tossed casually aside by some great beast that had taken the girls place.
A 3-meter tall Exorian Cragmoloid stood over the dashed pilot's chair, it's wide, grey feet planted firmly against the base of the console, it's massive fore-paws straining the limits of the steering column's width. It's heavy, grey body strained and pulled against the unresponsive handles. It's elephantine head thrown back in a growl of anger and determination.
48.7%
Zan, the great beast's thought pattern was easy enough to pick out of the ether. Gleek's logic circuits shut down momentarily. The Cragmoloid was the girl?
54.832%
I'm doing it! she exclaimed mentally. The monkey stood back away from the great, grey beast and watched. It's primitive mouth opened and closed and opened and closed again.
76.333%
Logic circuits kicked back in. Obviously this was some sort of ruse. Exorian females were not Cragmoloids; and so this Cragmoloid could not be an Exorian female. But whatever it was, it was clearly trained to bring out of control Jrxan warships back under control and land them on strange planets. Q.E.D.
89.784%
The horizon line came into steady focus through the front viewport. Gleek moved to the port side of the ship and locked himself into his docking bay. His golden skull pressed against the plexiglass as he strained to watch the Cragmoloid that was piloting the ship. His logic circuits attempted to shut down again; but he reminded himself that this was clearly impossible and so must not be happening. Perhaps a delirium brought on by the stress of the impending crash.
92.39%
Zan? The Cragmoloid thought, or was it the girl? You'd better evacuate the hull if you can. I've pulled the ship out of its spin but we will be moving much too fast when we strike the ground for it to be considered a safe landing.The sun beat down on the desert floor. Wendy Harris, the petite brunette laying on the hood of the old 87 Buick, shifted underneath its relentless heat. Lifting herself up onto her elbows, she raised her sunglasses over her forehead.
"Marvin," she called after the thin, red-haired teen who was knee deep in the dirt around the burrow he was partially excavating and shoring up. In the partially covered black cage off to his right, the brown and white owl that made the burrow its home had settled down and was watching patiently as Marvin worked. Marvin's dog, a 200 pound great dane that he insisted on calling "Wonderdog," lazed beside the cage, napping.
Both Marvin and Wonderdog looked up at the sound of Wendy's voice. Marvin was covered in dirt, so brushing his hands on his pants only served to move the stuff around a bit. Wendy smiled at her friend and shook her head.
"It's almost four," she said, sliding off the car and wrapping the beach towel around her waist. "Your sunblock's going to run out and I'm bored with sunbathing."
"I'm almost done," Marvin replied, surveying his progress. He was working on making the owl's burrow safe against the wild dogs that lived in the area. It was a project he'd found on the internet and modified to use for his entry in the "Arizona State 'Make a Difference' Environmental Science Competition." Picking up his camera, he snapped another shot. "The foam has to harden and expand. It won't take long."
Climbing up out of the burrow, he picked up his tools and started back toward Wendy and her car. Wonderdog watched him for a moment then stood up to follow. The owl didn't react. Wendy leaned against the car while he brushed off the excess dirt with another towel. Standing beside each other, the diffrences in the pair were emphasized.
Where he was tall and pale; she was short, with a bronze, desert tan. Marvin's red hair was long and unkempt, Wendy's own was short and neat. The layer of dirt covering Marvin only served to exaggerate the matter.
Marvin put the towel on top of the car and reached into the back seat. Wonderdog sidled over to Wendy and leaned gently against her; and the two of them watched as Marvin pulled on the massive gloves.
They covered his arms almost all the way up to the shoulder. The mask he put on made Wendy think of a catcher's mask. She giggled when he turned around. Marvin shrugged and strode over to the partially covered cage.
Wonderdog whuffed and stiffened when Wendy grabbed his green leather collar. She pat his head soothingly as Marvin opened the cage and reached in to release the owl. Smiling, she watched her friend wrestle with the now hyper bird. Wonderdog growled low in short bursts. He pulled against her grip on his collar; but was well trained and kept his place..
Marvin was trying his best to be gentle and forceful at the same time. It would do no good to break the thing's wing, or a leg, or neck; but he didn't want to get an eye poked out. After an eternal struggle, he held the bird in both hands and pulled it from the cage. He was just about to release it (and cower like a little baby, in case it attacked) when all four of them: bird, dog, boy and girl jumped in fright at the rumbling explosion overhead.
The burrow owl scrambled free of Marvins grasp and darted for its now renovated home. Marvin fell back on his seat and looked up, while Wendy and Wonderdog crouched beside the car. Looking up into the sky past Wendy and wonderdog's head, Marvin's jaw gaped. He stammered to get something out; but only succeeded in working his jaw open and closed. With his outstretched hand, he pointed frantically into the air.
Wendy turned to look over her shoulder and froze. Wonderdog, loosed from Wendy's grip, bolted over to his master who only dropped his hand down and sat, staring, dumbfounded, up at the sky.
It had to be a space ship. What else could it be? Certainly, it wasn't a satellite. The thing was massive - the size of a jet plane; but bulky and - well - alien. It was black, with brown and blue markings. It barrelled through the atmosphere in a blanket of cloud and smoke. And as the two friends watched, it turned away from Laconia and shot into the mountains, just a few miles away. The sound was horrendous; but drawn out. It was a crash landing. Coming to their feet simultaneously, Wendy and Marvin both watched the fading sky trail and waited. There was no explosion. Only silence
"We gotta' check it out," Marvin said, ripping his gloves off and racing toward the car. "Oh my god!"
Wendy continued to stare at the low mountains where the thing went down. She was nodding her head, then snapped out of it. "What?" She half-screeched, "No way!"
Marvin was already stripping out of his dirty work-shirt and pulling on one of his many "M" t-shirts. He motioned with one hand for her to hurry up. Panic started to grip Wendy by her throat. What if it was radioactive? What if it still might explode? what if there was someone in it that didn't want them to see it? What if it was some thing? She cast about frantically for an anchor.
"Your cage," she said, finally, indicating the now empty thing.
Marvin just shrugged, "it'll be here when we get back." He tossed the last of his tools and his gloves into the trunk and started wrangling Wonderdog into the back seat. "C'mon, hurry up! Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!"
He closed Wonderdog's door and climbed into the passenger seat. Wendy was still standing there watching him. He sat with his hands in his lap, bouncing slightly, and making that face.
Wendy closed her eyes and looked up through her eyelids at her deceased mother. She always looked to her mother for guidance when Marvin got one of his ridiculous ideas that was probably going to land them both in trouble, definitely going to be dangerous, and usually turned out to be a lot of fun or at least very interesting. She knew she was going to cave in - she always did for Marvin - but she first she needed to close her eyes and refuse, even for a moment. Marvin, she knew, had stopped figiting by now and was comfortable in the knowledge that he was going to get his way. He always got his way. Ever since they were little.
She didn't know if it was the way he gave in to her on almost everything else, or because she was just used to doing it; but right now she didn't care. Right now she was going to drive off into the desert with her best friend and go look at a... what..?
A spaceship, she supposed. And it was probably going to be the last thing she ever got to do in this life; and she was extremely pissed off about it. She gritted her teeth against the anger, and against the comforting mental image of her mother.
Opening her eyes, she sighed deeply and walked around the car to get in. "I better not die, Marvin," she said, turning the ignition. "I'm supposed to go to the movies with Rex Taylor Friday."
Marvin made a dismissive sound, "Whatever," he said. "Sure, Rex is a genius and a phenomenal baseball player, and he's got a car and a swimming pool and his dad is rich; but has Rex Taylor ever taken you to see a space ship?" He rolled down his window tried to make himself look cool, "I don't think so."
Wendy smiled and turned off the dirt track and onto Helvetia Road, which would take them into the mountains and toward what was probably a crashed airplane or a satellite. Neither of those prospects seemed much better or worse to Wendy than a spaceship, however.
"That monkey gives me the creeps."
Chuck stood by the night desk, eating cheese puffs from the vending machine down the hall.
Dave was too engrossed in his game to look up from his PSP, a small handheld video game. "Aw man, leave Chaucer alone," he said, furiously mashing buttons, "he's just smart, that's all."
Chuck continued watching Chaucer, the pride and joy of the Eastlake Primate Research Facility. The middle-aged chimpanzee was reclining in a corner of his cage, nursing his Strawberry-Banana juice bottle, a treat he received once a week as a reward for a job well done. What unnerved Chuck about the Chimp wasn't his smarts, though.
Chuck and Dave worked the midnight-to-eight shift at the EPRF and from the first moment he walked in tonight, that damn ape hadn't taken its eyes off him. Even now, the thing was staring at him. Watching him.
"I can't take it any more; I'm going out for a smoke. You coming?"
Dave didn't reply for a moment, he just kept working his PSP, his arms raising and lowering in frantic movements to influence whatever was on the screen. Suddenly, he cursed and stood up, turning off the game.
"Yeah, let's smoke."
Chaucer was born in captivity. A part of the EPRF's selective breeding program, he was the only offspring of Gertie and Gonzo - the facility's stars in the late nineties. Aside from good breeding, he was also the beneficiary of some of the program's best chemistry, receiving daily doses of what EPRF hoped to patent as "smart drugs" - substances that were designed to strengthen and quicken the mind.
Chaucer had learned to sign quicker than a bright human child; and by the time he was six, he was starting to read English (demonstrating unbelievable comprehension).
As soon as Chuck and Dave were out the door, Chaucer replaced the cap on his juice bottle and set it aside. He launched at the cage door, sliding his arm through the wire and reaching for the latch. The day shift workers all thought very highly of Chaucer; and often left his cage unlocked because he was so well behaved.
That was all about to change.
He caught the latch and opened it, swinging down to the floor with ease. He bounded over to the desk and opened the top right drawer. There were two sets of keys. One was Chuck's; the other set opened any and every door in the Facility. Chaucer had played with that set quite a few times in the past; but tonight he wanted Chuck's keys.
Standing in the chair, looking down at the open drawer, he fretted for just a moment, unsure which one was the right set. He spied a small golden monkey chained to one of the key rings. Those keys were for the facility - Chaucer remembered sitting under the stairwell in the West Hall for hours, just admiring the little golden chimp. He snatched the other set and looped them around one of his toes.
He picked up the PSP and stared at it a bit, turning it over in his hands. He couldn't decide what about this little black box kept Dave's attention and got him so riled up. He licked it and decided that was no good.
He laid it down in front of him and stared at it, his face inches away from the reflective screen. He knew he had to make it stop working; but he didn't want to break it. Chaucer genuinely liked Dave. He didn't want to ruin his friend's favorite little useless box.
He turned it over and around, studying the shape and the contours. The headache was coming back, but he just pushed it aside. What should he do? He tried prying open the panels on the back, finally getting the little one on the side to open up. A small, blue card popped out; and he decided this would do it. He took the card and closed the panel before placing the PSP back where Dave left it.
Not much time left. He leapt over the desk and hurried into the ladies' toilet room. He put the keys and card into the sanitary napkin dispenser; pushing them far back so they wouldn't be seen at a glance; then went into one of the stalls and sat on the toilet.
He peed, farted, and tried like hell to make. Outside, in the office, the door opened. Here they come.
"Oh crap," he heard Dave say through the door, "where the hell is Chaucer?"
Chuck said something the chimp couldn't understand, and then both humans started calling his name.
Finally, he squeezed some out; he hooted loudly, calling out to them. They came running into the bathroom and pushed open the stall door. Chaucer smiled up at them with a big, toothy grin.
Dave visibly relaxed, "Chaucer, you little turd. You're in the wrong bathroom." He chuckled and unrolled a bit of toilet paper, handing it to the monkey.
"I don't think this is very funny, Dave." This comment only gave Dave another chuckle.
Chaucer had won. He smiled again and held out his paw for more of Dave's soft, butt paper. When he was finished, Dave led him back to his cage. Chaucer turned and sat and stared hard at the human.
Tiny eruptions of pain flared through the chimp's brain. The headache took a stranglehold on the base of his skull, and the blood vessels in his right eye began to swell and redden. In his mind, one thought repeated over and over and over, so loud he might scream it if he kept it up: No lock, no lock, no lock, no lock, no lock.
He could feel the limits of his mind - the fog of distance between him and Dave. The thoughts fading away and dying as they left his own mind and dissipated into the air. Gripping the sides of the cage and baring his teeth against the pain, he forced himself through, straining and reaching until he touched the alien mind of the human. No lock, no lock, no lock, no lock.
Dave went through the motions of locking Chaucer's cage; but he missed the latch by about three inches. Exhausted, the chimp leaned back against his bedding and opened his juice. He drank three or four deep gulps, and laid the bottle on its side by the cage door. He lay his head down and slept for an hour or so.
He slept through Dave's tirade about the missing memory card; and his subsequent decision to go to the lounge and watch TV.
"That monkey's got hell to pay, when he wakes up," he said impotently as he left the office.
Chuck sat and stared at the disturbing ape for a while, then made a decision; he got up and went to the lounge himself.
Dave was watching some sci-fi show about little brown aliens. Chuck stood in the doorway for a minute thinking of the best way to couch his question. Finally, he exhaled and took a step into the lounge.
"Dave, I want to head out for a bit - you know, get away, clear my head-"
"Have sex with your girlfriend," Dave said. "Yeah man, knock yourself out; just be sure you're back before Jonas comes in. I'm not getting fired over your midnight bootie calls."
Chuck shrugged, "All right, man. I'll be back by five."
"Four-thirty."
"Five. Jonas doesn't come in until six; and it won't take us longer than an hour to clean up."
"Fine. See you later. I'm taking a nap, so wake me when you get back."
Chuck agreed; and went back to the office. He hung his lab coat up and opened the drawer for his keys.
"Son of a-" he said, looking up at the sleeping chimp. Oh, that monkey was really starting to get on his nerves. He went back to the lounge; but Dave was already out cold. Chuck sighed and returned to the office.
One or two of the other chimps were looking at him; but not the way Chaucer did. That one always seemed to know something.
He could never tell what it was thinking; but Chuck was sure it had something to do with escaping to the jungle. He was also certain that there was no ape-rule about not killing humans if they cage you up and feed you experimental drugs since before you were born.
"You stupid monkey," he said, slouching into the chair, and picked up the phone. He hung it back up and went into the Ladies' Room. He looked just about everywhere for the hidden keys (and probably the memory card); but didn't see them.
He searched the office, the hall, the Men's Room. He even went down to Chaucer's favorite hiding spot, under the stairs in the West Hall. There was a half-full bottle of Strawberry- Banana Snapple stuffed under the bottom step; but tonight's bottle was still in the monkey's cage. He thought about throwing the stuff away, just to spite Chaucer; but only shrugged. I'm not a monkey, he thought and went to the lounge to watch Dave's stupid sci-fi show.
Chaucer was already dreaming. He was standing in the Ladies' Room and Chuck was looking at him with his hands on his hips. That usually meant that Chuck was not happy.
"I'm not a monkey," he told Chaucer, then stormed out into a field of daisies. Chaucer followed him out and sat next to him. The human knelt down and started combing Chaucer's hair for fleas and ticks, picking them out and crushing them between his teeth.
"I'm not a monkey," he said again, "there's juice under the bottom step of the stairs in the West Hall."
"I know," Chaucer said, though he'd forgotten about hiding it away there last week. He brushed the human's hands away and stood upright. In Chaucer's dreams, he stood upright and spoke English. He stared at the sun; but the sun turned black. The nightmare was starting again.
Like a flash, he whirled on Chuck, baring his teeth, "Run you fool! Warn Dave! They're coming!"
He snapped awake and grabbed the empty bottle, raising it like a weapon. Glancing about, he saw that the lights were still on. He relaxed a bit and sat down, still holding the empty bottle. He'd been sure Chuck would try to wake him up to find his keys.
Maybe he was wrong about Dave too. Maybe things were going to be fine after all. He didn't feel very good about that though. He scratched his chin and sat back, staring at the light. At least his headache was gone.
Whatever Dave was watching was absolutely the stupidest thing Chuck had ever been subjected to. He thought about warning Dave that his brain was going to explode out the back of his head if he didn't stop watching stupid crap on television.
He flipped through the channels for a couple of revolutions; but there wasn't anything on except reruns of Sports Center. The only thing Chuck thought was dumber than reruns of Sports Center was that garbage Dave had been watching. He got up and went back into the office. Chaucer was awake.
"Hey monkey," Chuck said from across the room, "what'd you do with my keys?"
Chaucer only looked at him, his eyes crinkled up in what could either be confusion or bemusement. Or maybe he's just a monkey, Chuck thought, and you're giving him emotions that aren't there. In his mind's ear, he heard a guttural version of his own voice say, not a monkey.
"Creepy monkey." He sat down to do a crossword.
He was about halfway through it; and making good headway when the lights went out.
"What now?" It took a minute for the generators to kick in; and Chuck sat still in the dark waiting for the red emergency lights. The monkeys who were awake were getting a little anxious.
When the emergency lighting came on, Chuck started to tell the apes to settle down, but stopped short when he saw Chaucer's empty cage. He looked around for the missing chimp; but the light was too dim. He went to the emergency locker and got out the tranquilizer gun.
From his perch, high up on Gazelle's cage in the corner, Chaucer watched with grim satisfaction. This was good. He had one of his paws stuck through the wire of the cage roof; and Gazelle had her face pressed against it, holding his thumb and little finger with either hand. When Chuck took the tranquilizer into the hall, Chaucer indicated to Gazelle that he needed to go.
She resisted and he focused his gaze on her and pressed into her mind. Ape minds were easier get through. They felt simpler; and less alien than a human mind. Chaucer did not understand how he felt about this. He liked that he could touch the other apes this way - there minds were comfortable, and they reminded him of some far away home place. A the same time, the simplicity saddened him.
Sometimes, he wondered what would happen if he stopped taking his medication and started feeding them to the others. Would he become as simple as they? Would he forget all he had learned? These fears stopped him from trying it out on Gazelle - his favorite. She was nice and soft, but still strong. She did not understand things though; and he pitied her.
Now he coaxed her to sleep, gently stroking her mind with his own. She made an expression that pulled on another part of him - not his mind or his groin; but something deeper that he did not understand. She let go of his hand and lay down.
With his empty bottle in hand, Chaucer crept across the cage tops and leapt down onto the desk. Chuck had left the blue locker open; and, sparing a quick glance at the hall door, Chaucer rushed over too it and found the stun baton. He had seen Jonas use the stun baton on Maximillian, when the old ape had gotten upset at something and went berserk. Maximillian was gone now. Chaucer was not sure, but he thought that maybe the older chimp was dead.
He considered that maybe the stun baton wouldn't work on humans; but then he thought that was probably dumb. He smiled, hearing Chuck's voice in his head, "stupid monkey."
He put the bottle under the desk and took the stun baton into Ladies' Room. He tested it by holding it away from him and pulling the trigger. He was terrified by the crackling snap that it made, remembering vividly what it had done to Maximillian; but he held onto it and braced himself for what was next. He climbed up onto the commode he'd used before.
They hadn't noticed it wasn't flushed. He sat down again and tried to make, realizing he should have eaten more dinner. He squeezed out a little bit, then managed to get the butt paper himself and wiped. He reached into the water and pulled out a handful of the mess he'd made.
Looking at it made him snarl. Somewhere along the line, he'd developed a human's disgust of such things. He held it close to his nose and sniffed it anyway. The smell made him wince and shake his head away; but he held onto it. Then the commotion began.
The outside door slammed open; and Chaucer could hear a pack of humans making all sorts of noises as they rushed in. He was standing up on the toilet seat, a stun baton in one hand, feces and toilet paper in the other. He was breathing hard and fast, bobbing up and down. In his chest, his heart was pounding.
"Free the animals!" he heard one of the strange humans shout; and the other apes were now agitated and crying out, rattling their cages and jumping around. Chaucer could hear the humans opening those cages and letting fellow apes out.
"Where are the workers," another human asked, "fan out." The bathroom door opened and Chaucer heard footsteps. This was it. His fast, heavy breathing stopped as he reared back with his muck covered hand.
"What is that smell," one of the humans said as he opened the stall door. Chaucer hurled the mess in his hand right at the human's face, then leapt forward onto the startled man, who fell back with a thud. He stuck him in the chest with the stun baton.
The pain that shot into his legs was even worse than the headaches he got when he tried to pressure human minds. He cried out and leapt off the dazed, slime covered human. He bolted into a different stall and bounced on his legs for a moment to try them out. He was still okay. Don't touch the humans when you stick them.
"What the hell's going on - Larry!" Another human had come into the bathroom and was rushing over to the unconscious Larry. When he got close enough, the smell and the mess on Larry's face made him recoil. Some of it was lying in the man's mouth; and a string of used toilet paper covered his nose.
Chaucer heard this new human begin to vomit and knew this was his chance. He leapt over the top of the stall and landed hard on the human's shoulders, carrying him to the ground, spraying his sickness everywhere as he went down. He leapt off the man and started to stick him with the gun when he noticed the new human was unconscious too. He knelt down into the man's face and saw where he'd hit his head against the floor. He knelt down close to the vomit covered face, nose wrinkled in disgust.
The man was still breathing; but Chaucer didn't think he was going to be any trouble. He stuck the other man with the stunner again though, and started out into the office.
He pulled the heavy door open just in time to see a human female who was coming in. Looking back over her shoulder, she didn't see him. Chaucer jammed the stun baton into her stomach and pulled the trigger. She lurched back and doubled over; but didn't pass out. Confused, Chaucer hit her with it again. This time, nothing happened. He bared his fangs at her and howled with rage.
The pain behind his eyes was immense - it drove into his skull like a hammer and pierced every nerve in his body. The woman screamed weakly, and her eyes rolled back into her head. She fell to the ground as though a switch had been turned off in her head. Chaucer dropped the stun baton and leapt over her onto the desk. There were still three humans in the office; two females and a man in a red coat. He was the one that was going to kill Dave.
Chaucer bellowed again, and stood up to his full height, banging his chest, banging the desk. He leapt at the human in red and brought both fists down hard on his shoulders. Part of the man broke and he cried out. He was reaching for something in his jacket, and it clattered across the floor.
Both of the other humans were screaming, "oh my god, oh my god!" And when the hall door opened, neither of them saw Chuck and Dave until it was too late. Chuck shot one of the girls with the tranquilizer gun; and Dave wrestled the other one to the ground.
Chaucer walked over to the thing on the floor. It was black and shiny - like Dave's little box; but clunky and heavy. Not smooth. This was the thing he was afraid of in his nightmare. This was how the human in the red coat killed Dave. He sniffed it, tasted it, and carried it over to the unconscious human.
It had a trigger like the stun baton, and Chaucer thought he could use it. Dave would be safe forever if this other human was dead. He held it over his head and howled at the human; but as he did so, the thing jerked in his hand. A loud, obnoxious report sounded through the room; and Chaucer heard Chuck scream, "Jesus!"
The pain in Chaucer's hand made him throw the weapon across the room. Crying out, he retreated into his still open cage. He sucked at his hand and then just sat there, looking at the aftermath of so much commotion.
Chuck walked over and picked up the pistol. He looked up at the hole in the ceiling and shook his head.
"What just happened?" Dave asked. He was still pinning the last girl against the floor. She spit in his face.
"We're liberating these poor creatures from your cruelty and oppression!"
Chuck walked over to them and pointed the weapon at her, staring through the revolver's sights.
"Looks to me like you're lying on the floor with your ass kicked." He chuckled, tried to stifled his laughter, then just let it go. He was howling. "You got your asses kicked by a monkey you were trying to set free!"
He picked up the phone and called 9-1-1. When he was sure the cops were coming, he and Dave locked the two girls in the Ladies' Room with their unconscious companions. They didn't want to move the guy in the red coat; but he was lying against the door; so they carefully inched him over into the middle of the floor.
He put the pistol on the desk; and they quickly rounded up the other apes. When they were done, Chuck stood in front of Chaucer's open cage. The ape still sitting there, staring at him.
"Well, creepoid," Chuck laughed, "you did a good job here." Chaucer climbed out of the cage and into Chuck's unsuspecting arms. He patted the human on the back as he hugged him. Chuck was smiling.
Dave walked over and pet the ape's head. "I can't believe you did all this, Chaucer." He shook his head and looked around the room, "uh, thanks."
Chaucer looked at Dave; but his grin turned to bare fangs and a roar of anger.
Behind Dave, the injured man had the revolver. He said, "sons of bitches," and fired.
Chaucer was already scrambling out of Chuck's arms, his powerful legs knocking the man against the cages. He threw Dave to the ground just in time to intercept the redcoat's bullet.
It caught him in chest, just below the collar bone, and whirled him in the air like a puppet cut loose of its strings. He let out a pained yelp and hit the floor with a thud.
"Motherfucker," Dave screamed, lunging for the pistol. Holding the gun with one hand, he punched the man with the other, and then brought his fist down against his neck. The activist's collarbone was already broken when Chaucer hit him; and Dave was sickened when his fist went in a little too far. The man screamed and let go of the gun. Dave stood up and kicked him in the groin. He spit on the man and turned around.
Chaucer was lying on his back, weakly pawing at Chuck, who was already by his side.
The ape whimpered a little. Chuck put his hand on the side of Chaucer's face and looked him in the eye, "You're going to be okay."
The monkey's right eye seemed to get redder, blood vessels filled and strained to burst. Chaucer cringed at something and Chuck let go of him and sat back hard.
"Oh my god," he said. His hands were up at his temple, rubbing back and forth as he stared at the once again very creepy monkey.
Dave was kneeling down with the first aid kit, "what?"
"He," Chuck was stammering, "He just... No. He couldn't..."
Dave put pressure on the bullet wound and Chaucer cried out, teeth bared, his immense grip wrapped around Dave's arm. The human winced at the pain and leaned in.
"It's okay, buddy. You're going to be all right, but we have to stop the bleeding." Chaucer held onto Dave's wrist. His teeth gritted in agony.
The slightest trickle of blood escaped his left nostril, and Dave's world changed forever. In his mind's eye, he could see Chaucer sitting up, blood pouring out of his wound in impossible gallons, the ape looked up at him, "Stop the bleeding?"
Dave went pale and stared at the ape, whose grip slackened on his arm. He was shaking when he too, called on God. He was crying.
"Th-that's right, Chaucer," he said, "just hang on." He looked up at Chuck, who was just as dumbfounded.
"What did he say?"
Dave motioned Chuck over to help, "he said he understands. Oh my god, Chuck, what do we do?"
They started bandaging Chaucer's wound. While they worked, Chuck realized that Chaucer had hidden his keys in the tampon dispenser in the Ladies' Room, with Dave's memory card. At some point, either Dave or Chuck (neither could recall which) asked the ape how he did all this. In response, Chaucer showed them his nightmare.
It was a field of daisies. Dave was sitting at the desk playing with his PSP; and Chuck was driving away in his car. Suddenly, the sun was blocked out and the man in the red coat came up with a gun and shot Dave. The first bullet shattered through the PSP and pierced his heart. The second exploded out the back of his skull. He lay on the floor bleeding and dead and the vision stopped.
When the police arrived, the two workers did their best to explain the situation. They avoided telling anyone just how Chaucer had helped; only saying that he'd injured a couple of the activists when they gotten violent.
Chaucer was taken to the animal hospital and patched up nicely. He was tested to see how his behavior had changed after attacking humans so viciously; but found to be in perfect mental health (and smarter than ever).
Noting how difficult it was for the little chimp to use his telepathic ability, Chuck and Dave decided not to tell anyone. If the scientists haven't figured it out yet, then maybe Chaucer didn't want them too.
They spent most of their nights after that hanging out with him; watching Dave's crappy sci-fi or teaching him how to play with the PSP. They even took him on field trips every once in a while - to late night restaurants (which wouldn't let them in) and all night arcades. Chaucer's favorite trips were to the city part.
Roughly a week after the hero ape returned to EPRF, his mental abilities stopped advancing. He was already the smartest primate any of the staff had ever encountered, so this was not considered a failure, or even a set-back. They continued giving him his dose; it just stopped increasing his faculties.
The scientists and workers on the day shift, however, were becoming more and more disturbed by the calm nature that seemed to be spreading among all the primates. More than one would regularly complain about the way they all just seemed to sit there and stare.
This one's a little graphic. Even moreso than Chaucer... So if you've got a weak stomach and an active imagination, you might want to skip it.
Jed
It�s the smell that really gets me. I take that last step over the low hill behind Marten�s farm; and before I see the twisted and burning alien wreckage. Before the inhuman screams of otherworldly beings reach my ears and scar me forever, I smell that awful smell and I wretch.
It is like flesh burning � or more closely, the smell of garbage burning. This is a smell that will haunt me to the end of my days. It is every meat I have ever overcooked, every fire that has ever burned. It is sulfur and rotten wood and the smoldering remains of witches burned at the stake.
When my stomach cannot give any more, I look up. I am on my hands and knees and the heat of the fire warms me, I am so close. That warmth is driven back by the cries. Like the howls of an injured rabbit, they echo up the hill and land on my skin as raw gooseflesh.
�Aliens,� I manage to say through the stench and the horrific cries.
I stumble down closer, but Marten screams after me, �No Jed, get back up here! There could be radiation!� I don�t have the heart to tell him that any radiation from this wreck has already contaminated everything from here to Milburn and back. Probably going to grow a couple of extra limbs and a new brain or two, might as well check things out.
The heat is intense; but I think I can get closer until the alien screams get worse. They know I�m trying to help them; and each one is calling after me in a higher and higher voice. And then I can hear the other cries.
It starts as a thought. I have to help these poor space people, but the closer I get, the more it changes. Help us, I think. And, We will reward you if can just save our lives. I may be a poor, dumb redneck; but I did go to college. Thought I might be a doctor there for a while. I can be a little slow on the uptake; but I know these thoughts aren�t my own. Please come save me first, I think. Only it�s not me. It�s this tiny little grey-green alien bent over at a wrong angle because his lower half has been crushed by a twisted wall of metal that bent in when they struck earth.
Even if manage to save him, he�s probably not going to survive afterward. I look first to see if there�s an easier save. I will help this one if I can; if he is still alive when I come back out of the wreckage, I will carry him on my shoulders to the hospital, if I have to. But these doctors here can barely treat a compound fracture, much less an alien with both legs crushed flat. I curse myself for leaving the little guy to die, promising that vengeance will come; and oh will I be sorry.
The telepathy � I think that�s the word � is really getting to me; and once I step inside the ship, it gets worse. It�s almost like the ship is amplifying everything in my mind � my thoughts and theirs. I start to black out; but manage to steady myself against the wall. I am dizzy and tired and I think I am likely going to die. I vomit again and there is some blood.
I black out again only I manage to brace myself on a low counter. I am in a laboratory of some kind. At least that�s what it looks like. There�s an access panel on the counter and it is sliding open. Inside I can see these strange, blue metal instruments. They look like medical instruments. One in particular looks like the epidural syringe they used on Nancy when she gave birth to the twins. Twins, I think. I�m going to die without ever seeing my twins again. Or Nancy.
I spit up more blood. There�s nothing else in my system; but I spend a good 5 or 6 minutes dry heaving on the smooth, metal floor. I try to stand, but my hand is in the mess I have made and I slip. I black out again. This time I am out cold.
I come to with my face in the dirt. I�m holding the epidural syringe in my right hand; and I think I broke my nose when I fell; but I�m out of the ship. I try to get up to my knees; but it hurts so much. I think I�m crying.
My skin burns; and sloughs off the meat when I try to rub it. I stop rubbing it. I am definitely going to die. Marten comes down closer to me. I try to wave him off; but I just fall back into the dirt. I look up and Marten is standing over me. He holds out his hand; and I give him the syringe. I don�t let go of it.
C�mon, Marten, old pal. You want the syringe; you�ve got to take me. I�ve got to see my Nancy again. Marten puts his boot in my face and my nose peels away, exposing the broken cartilage. I let go of the syringe and collapse. I don�t have the strength to cry anymore.
Marten
It�s not smell that eats at me � I�ve definitely smelled worse than burning alien skin; but when Jed comes up out of that ship � I ain�t never seen anything like that. Not ever.
It�s like his flesh is peeling off the bone; and for a second there, I think, I told him so. But that�s selfish and stupid; and now my friend is dying.
I�d better save that metal thing, I think. It looks pretty important; and Jed did just sacrifice his life to get it. I�m leery of getting any closer to that space ship; but Jed needs me. I start to ease my way down.
Jed�s on a steep dirt incline. Probably made by the ship crashing here (I�ve certainly never seen it before). I get close enough to Jed to help him; before I realize there is no helping him. He is doomed, I think. Damnit, Jed.
I can still save the metal thingummie. I hold out my hand for it. You risked an awful lot for that thing, Jed. Give it to me and I�ll make sure it stays safe. I�ll deliver it where it goes.
He puts it in my hand, but he won�t let go of it. He�s trying to say something and all I can think is that he�s killing me with his toxic bullshit. I�ve helped him save the metal thing and here he�s risking my life by being so damn selfish. Kick him, I think to myself, put that pointy boot of yours right square in his face.
Seems reasonable to me. I haul back and let the selfish bastard have it. Right in the nose with my size 11s. I have to stop and vomit though. Poor bastard�s nose came off. He reminds me of the stories of the lepers back in Sunday school. That gives me a spook; and I hightail it back up the hill. Anyway, I got to get this syringe thingie where it belongs.
Nancy
The screeching sound of twisting metal and explosions was bad enough; but when Marten comes running up the road from his farm, he�s screaming like one of them loonies up at Hillcrest. It�s an awful, awful sound. I don�t know if I can listen to it for very long. You can�t, I think to myself. What an awful thing to think.
Out of guilt, or friendship or what have you, I meet Marten at the mailbox. He�s out of shape and he looks about 30 years older than he did this morning. He�s holding a giant epidural needle in his hand. His skin is sunburned and blistering.
�What happened, Marten,� I ask him, suddenly I am very cold inside. �Where�s Jed?�
Marten punches me. I have never been struck in my life (except by my pa when I was a little girl and tended to do bad things). He hits me right in the jaw; and it hurts. But it hurts him too. He screams out at the same time I do.
I fall back against the sidewalk and strike my head on the hard concrete. It stings worse than Marten�s punch; and there are black and white spots in my vision. Marten is holding his hand and crying. There�s something on my face where he hit me; and I brush it off. It is the skin and some muscle from his fingers. It is clammy and there is blood. There is also blood on Marten�s hand. It is coming out pretty fast now.
He must realize this; because he stops crying about his hand and looks at me. He walks over and kicks me in the stomach. I cry out; but there�s nothing I can do. Even falling apart like this,
My god, Marten, what happened down there?
I am no match for him. He keeps hitting me with those raw fists of his. There is raw bone connecting with the soft and hard parts of my body. I cannot fight back; and I collapse. He drags me inside by my arm. I try to help him because I know he is going to carry me inside and I know that I have a duty to fulfill. It is a great honor, I think.
Dick catches himself looking at the clock and sighs. He wants desperately to just work and let the time go by. No. That's not right. Dick wants to yank that damn clock off the wall and chuck it right out the window.
It's 2:37. In just under two-and-a-half hours, Dick gets to see his little girl again. He wants to hold her, to see her smile. But he is so scared that she won't smile. It has been a year. Will she remember him? He thinks she will. Then the darker fear creeps into his skull. Will she forgive him? He has no answer for this question and it bothers him; keeps him from working. He looks up at the clock.
It's 2:40.
At 4:40, he can't take it anymore. He'd filed his unfinished reports two hours ago. Ten minutes after that, he'd quit playing solitaire and turned off the computer. It had taken him exactly 8 minutes to clean his cubicle. He has sat staring at the clock on the wall for almost two hours. He'd tried telekinesis, or maybe it's called chronokinesis, moving to hands of the clock with his willpower alone. Of course he'd failed miserably. After nearly three hours of deep concentration it was 3:30.
Now he just stands up and walks out. Jackson is looking at him from his office. The look on the old man's face says Dick is free to go, but there'll be hell to pay come Monday. Dick could care less. He fights every instinct to jog, or run down to the car park, and he manages to get stopped by every red light between work and the Child Services Office.
As he gets closer, his throat begins to swell; and cold fear grips his spine and wraps him in a blanket of ice. Deep down, Dick knows, all of this is his fault. He was shallow and self-centered, obsessed with his job, with appearances, with the Joneses. He'd wanted to have the American Dream; and he'd come close.
He'd found himself a good job, a beautiful wife (who could cook the best damn bratwurst Dick had ever tasted, please, don't tell mom), just enough "toys" to make him look successful and happy. And there was Nell. Nell with her chestnut hair the color of his mother's, with Jane's lopsided smile and bright blue eyes. Nell who called him Dada even at the end when she was six and he could have been Daddy or even Dad.
Then it all fell apart. He took it apart. Jane put on some weight during her pregnancy with Nell; and afterward, when she tried to lose the weight, she just got bigger. Then she got even bigger. He was ashamed for it; but Dick lost interest in his wife. He would think of the trim, sexy woman she had been; and when he'd looked at what she'd become, he would feel ill. He'd only tried to make love to her once after that.
He'd kept his eyes closed and tried to think of what she'd looked like before, of Pamela Anderson, or Brooke Burke, Heidi Klum or Leslie down in receiving; but he couldn't finish. She just didn't turn him on. He realized he didn't really love her and never had.
He began to resent her for that; and soon, she hated him too.
He never struck her, but that was small comfort. The abuse he heaped onto his wife - verbal, emotional, full of hate and disgust - drove her into alcohol, into the drugs and the arms of other men. She broke down once, in a daze of alcohol and remorse, crying about "the way we were;" and confessing all her sins. Dick only smiled, told her it was going to be alright. Told her to get some sleep. Told her it would all be better tomorrow.
He packed his bags and moved out of the house with their daughter before Jane woke the next morning. The divorce was final by the end of the month, when Dick started to pay for the hell he'd put Jane through.
First there was the stalking. Dick filed for sole custody of Nell, and got it; but Jane would have none of it. She would pick their daughter up from daycare. She'd drive to the house when Dick was out, leaving toys and letters and notes for both of them. Usually these were kind, motherly things for Nell; but the worst of them were venom-filled tirades about how evil Dick had become. Dick's letters were always either pleas for reconciliation, tied to promises of change; or threats of violence and hints of what powerful friends she was making, and how sorry he would be if he didn't let her have Nell.
She tried more than once to coach Nell into saying things about her father that weren't true. To her credit, Nell played along with her mother, and then returned home sobbing to confess everything to her heartbroken Dada.
After the restraining order, things got worse. She would hide near the house for hours, spending time just standing in a dark window and staring at the two of them. Only a phantom in the corner of their eyes; gone so quickly they were never sure someone had been there.
But Dick was cautious. He had his ex-wife arrested a half-dozen times in the course of the next two years. She always got out though. She always came back.
Last year she'd snapped. She drove to Keystone Elementary, where Nell was a first-grader. The staff had been warned, however, and with the presence of a security guard, even one as old and unimposing as Gus had been, they were better prepared to turn Jane away. Fuming, and spitting language that had no business on an elementary school campus, she stormed off to her car.
She came right back with a gun in her hand. She shot poor Gus in the shoulder and again in the stomach before grabbing a screaming Nell by the arm and rushing out the door. They were missing for the longest three weeks of Dick's life. Longer even than this last year of legal struggle to prove that he was a fit parent. Longer than the last four hours at work.
Dick pulls his sedan into the Child Services parking lot and kills the engine. He doesn't get out of the car though. He just sits there, gripping the steering wheel. He hopes and wishes and (briefly) prays to a God he often doubts. Please let my little girl still want me. He knows what went on in that ridiculous little shack during those three weeks - he read the depositions and the reports, saw the pictures, remembers vividly seeing his daughter in the hospital, lying broken and bruised and looking for all the world like a dying angel.
He's fighting back the tears. She didn't die. She was strong. She is strong. And if he will stand up and go inside to see her. He will get to hold her. He will hug her and take her home. He starts to grab the teddy bear he'd bought, but thinks it's probably a stupid gift and leaves it in the seat. He goes inside, trying hard to see the future; but lost in the too-vivid details of the past.
The 9-1-1 call had come from Jane, "oh God, oh God," she'd said. "I think she isn't breathing!"
Nell had spent the entire three weeks locked in a small room with only a bed and a few toys. She'd cried and screamed and pleaded with her mommy to let her see Dada; but this just infuriated Jane, who preached to her daughter about what a bastard Dada was and how he was probably a molester, an abusive father, a monster who didn't deserve a pretty girl like Nell.
Jane got so wasted the third night they were there, she knocked Nell against a wall and bloodied her nose. The night she made the call to 9-1-1, she'd beaten her daughter so severely she'd broken her arm and two ribs. In the shock and horror and the pain of it, Nell had just collapsed.
The paramedics and the police came. They took Nell to the hospital and Jane went to jail. By the time Dick got to the hospital, his daughter was stable and going to be okay. The trial that followed was a media circus that ended with Jane locked up at Riverside Mental Health Clinic instead of the Florida State Pen. At one point during the trial (Dick suspected as much for the media attention as for any real emotion on her part) Jane had jumped up out of her seat and launched herself at her ex-husband.
Dick didn't hesitate. As soon as she was in striking distance, he swung with everything he had, as though he was hitting a prize-fighter rather than the woman he'd once promised to love and cherish until he was cold in the ground. He connected with her face; something inside her mouth broke with an audible crunch. She landed, screaming on the floor at his feet. He kicked her once, before the bailiffs managed to pull him back, and he came to his senses.
Of course, Channel 6 caught the entire thing on tape. They even ran the footage of his realization at what he'd done, the revulsion and fear as the adrenaline drained out of him, the embarrassment of yakking all over the bailiff who was trying to help him calm down.
He paid a fine for his behavior, and went to anger management. He spoke to a councilor, and after a year he was going to take his little girl home again. god-willing, she still wanted to see him.
Of course she wants to see him again. Now that he is walking, he is starting to feel better. Each step is a reassurance that things are going to be all right. He is smiling when he mounts the steps and reaches for the door. But the word almost breaks him.
He opens the heavy wooden door, with the small, cloudy window set into it, and steps inside, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Before they do, a little girl's voice echoes down the halls; followed by running footsteps that through him like bullets.
"Dada!"
Dick is prepared for just about everything but this. Nell leaps into his arms and he explodes in tears and wracking sobs of joy and relief and love. He holds her like that for a while before Mrs. Callahan comes up the hall and stands nearby with a smile on her face. They fill out the paperwork and say their goodbyes and he carries his daughter with one arm; and her suitcase with the other. He can't stop himself from beaming all the way back to the car. She loves the teddy bear she finds in her seat, telling him immediately that his name is Mr. Fuzzy.
They stop at Dairy Queen on the way home and eat ice cream cones sitting on the hood of Dick's sedan. She tells him all about the past year at school, and about what nice people the Peterson's had been. Dick tells her she should think about writing her foster parent's a letter telling them how she enjoyed staying with them. She agrees; and they walk together to a stationary store just up the block.
When they get back into the car, there is news piece on the radio about some sort of riot at a mental health hospital; but Dick is engrossed in the story Nell is telling him about the Peterson's Jack Russell Terrier, Spot. He turns off the radio and they drive home, telling each other stories and asking questions.
When they arrive, Dick drags his daughter's suitcase out of the trunk. Now that he is growing accustomed to having her again, it seems heavier; but it is a weight he will gladly bear. He looks up at the house, and pauses. There was something.
Before he can put his finger on it, Nell is standing in front of him, looking up with a funny expression on her face. They chuckle and start up the stairs. He sets her suitcase on the porch and reaches for the keys when the smell hits him.
It is like a raw chemical smell, mixed with meat and vegetable and spices. it is the smell of the best tasting bratwurst he has ever eaten. That cold chill wraps around him again and his heart stops beating - coiling up in his chest and trying to hide. There was a riot at a local mental health clinic. Police are still looking for three escaped patients, at least one of whom is believed to be extremely dangerous.
As quietly as he can, Dick turns to his daughter, who has picked up that there is something wrong; but hasn't figured out what. With his mouth shut, he takes her hand and leads her down the stairs. They've only got six feet to go when the front door of the house opens behind them. He shuts his eyes tight when he hears her voice.
"Welcome home, Dick."
Nell just screams.