Sometimes I write fiction. And by write fiction, I mean I get about 2 pages into a novel that I never pick-up again. Instead of just letting them molder on my hard-drive, I’ve decided to start a feature on Dang Dude, What the Heck? where I occasionally publish these beginnings. In doing so I’m offering them up to the public. Feel free to use them to start writing your own stories. Take whatever part of them you like, if any, and use it as your own. I won’t tell. Or just read them and take them for what they are. Here’s the third one, The Long Dark Walk
The sound of an oncoming train startled me out of my dream. I felt my forehead. Sweat stuck to my fingers, heat emanating from my brow. Goosebumps pimpled my arms. The dream had started to escape me. I scrambled for a pen and paper. My still slick hands left marks across the lined sheets. Wetting the tip of my pen with my tongue, a disgusting grade school habit I hadn’t yet got around to dropping, I started writing. Island town, decrepit. Sun in the dark, The Floral King. Beware the bringer of the red. I looked down at my work, the rest of the dream slipping from my grasp. A bellringer of a dream. A nasty little thing creeping around my head like that. Didn’t need anything else in there, cramped as it was.
I reached down into my pants pocket and withdrew the sterling silver watch nestled there. Its hands, their smooth curves glinting in the sun, pointed out 2:35 pm. I checked the time again. I had fallen asleep at 1:23pm, and no way that dream had lasted for more than an hour. Two, three minutes at most. The after images still buzzed in front of my eyes, lines of red and silver and gold. A series of images flashing before me, feelings more than anything. I shook my head. The heat had started to mess with my cognition.
“No matter,” I muttered to myself. I placed the watch back in my pocket. It weighed no more than a few ounces, but its presence, its feel, did much to relieve my mood. Marcy had given me that watch. Some kind of unspecificed heirloom. I looked around the train. No one had gotten on since the last stop in Minot, North Dakota. Peter, the grad student at the University of Chicago, still had his nose buried in a book, Discrepancies in, well something. I couldn’t get a good look at the title. Maude and Hammond had picked up their never-ending game of spades. Maude had the lead in this hand, as she had in every other hand. Charlotte, beautiful Charlotte, stared at the window. I thought about waving to her, but decided I had better things to do. Good thing too, I realized. I had drooled during that dream. Wouldn’t want Charlotte to catch me with drool all over my face. The train’s interior, a shadow of its former self, had remained as uninteresting as ever.
“Good nap Sam?”
“Huh? Oh hey Fiona. Decent nap. Came out of it with this. Take a look.”
I handed Fiona my scribbled notes.
“Make any sense to you?”
“The Floral King? The bringer of red? No, seems like a bunch of fantasy lang gibberish.”
I nodded.
“Didn’t get my hopes up. Probably meaningless.”
“Whatever you say, boss. I just stopped by to let you know I’m going to the bar car. Need anything?”
“Not about to pay $15 for a warm Bud Light.”
“Your loss.”
Fiona left, making sure to give me back my notes. She knew how particular I was about that. No need for anyone to know what I dreamed. Or what my handwriting looked like for that matter.
I took out my watch again and checked the time. Should make it to Whitefish, Montana in about four hours. My fingers ran over the inscription carved into the timepiece’s side. ritten out in a gothic script like any good Latin engraving. SED ULTIMA MORTIS HORA EST. Marcy had once told me that meant “Time is but the final death”. Marcy had gone in for deep-sounding stuff like that. Not anymore, but she had. I pushed her out of my mind. I’d had to do that a lot recently. Heat must have muddled my brain.
Hammond wanted to know if I’d play a hand for him. I needed a way to pass the time so I did. Even won a hand. Maude looked a little pissed. So I told her the one about the nun and the fishmarket. Don’t think she laughed, but at least it changed the subject.
The rest of the trip I looked out the window, watching the scenery. It flickered by at sixty miles an hour. The dark green of the thick forests soon blended together. My eyelids started to fall again. I tried to keep them open, but the forests seem to have a soporific effect on me. I thought I saw something moving along with us in the woods. I wrenched my eyes away before I started hallucinating. I switched to watching Charlotte. A researcher on vacation, we had chatted over dinner the night before. She had even laughed at a few of my stories. I had fallen in love. It happens. Even on a train. I specialize in unrequited love however, and we had just pulled into Whitefish Montana. Goodbye forever Charlotte. Fiona had come back to get me. If she had drunk more than one drink I couldn’t tell. We grabbed our bags. Mine, a beat-up leather carry-all. Fiona had a canvas pack with a litany of patches sewn on. We traveled light. In our line of work it helped.
The train pulled into the station and Fiona and I got off. I looked back at the train, and saw Charlotte get off as well. She ran up to and hugged a guy. Didn’t get a good look at him. Probably Brad Pitt. I laughed. Good for her.
Fiona and I looked around the Whitefish station. We needed to find the bus that would take us to Missoula. A quick two and half hour drive south. Quick by Montana standards at least. Mountain lined the background, several still snowcapped. The July heat hadn’t reached their rarified heights I guess. Trees filled in every gap not taken by a road or telephone poles. Lush, thick , verdant trees. Lodgepole pines? I’m a detective not an arborist.
Fiona had found the old Greyhound bus and we made our way to the back. She pulled out the sheaf of papers that represented everything we knew about the case. It wasn’t a lot.
“I’m still not sure about this Sam.”
“Me either. But I’ve never been to Montana.”
“And you need the money.”
“And I need the money.”
I went over the information again, just to make sure I had it straight in my head. College-aged kid found dead in the woods just outside of town. No identifying marks, no record, no next of kin as far as anyone could tell. A total John Doe. Town gives up on it. Then two days later four more kids, two boys, two girls, found dead in the same woods. Jane and John Does to the last. All had the same mark on their right-hand. The papers didn’t know that one. Police had kept it secret to try and identify any copycats. City in a panic, but cops can’t do anything. No leads, no clues. Just blood type, height, weight and hair and eye color. Eventually it just sort of dies down. Then I get this packet of info in the mail. And two sleeper cabin train tickets to Whitefish. The dreams started right after that.