“No he didn’t?” said Wayne hopefully.
“Yeah, he did,” said Blackie.
When they got to the parking lot Blackie noticed the car that wouldn’t pass them on their way up the mountain was parked on the far side of the lot. When they finally passed us, they missed the entrance to the park, he thought.
“It looks like it’s going to storm,” remarked Nita who was looking up at the sky.
“Yes, it does,” agreed Amelia, “Wayne we should hit the road.” They pulled out immediately and although it was late afternoon there was plenty of time to make the return trip. There was plenty of daylight; the sun was a stunning yellow color and the sky was brilliant blue. Wayne pulled off the park road onto the small lane that led back to town, made the first curve to a descending stretch of road and realized something was wrong. He narrowly made the next curve. He was going a little too fast and had to shave the inside of the lane as much as he dared.
“You’re going a little fast Wayne.”
“I know.”
“Could you back off a bit? The girls look a little nervous.”
“I can’t,” he said quietly, “the brakes aren’t working.”
The runaway car swerved around a sharp turn in the road and fishtailed before Wayne could coax the Nomad back into his own lane. Ahead of them in the distance there was a greenish mist, as if someone were pointing a green light through spray from the waterfall.
“Nita, look, right up there,” said Amelia who was looking at the waterfall pouring from the mountain side.
“What is that?” responded Nita. “Blackie, do you….
“I know what that is,” said Blackie.
Wayne started into another turn and suddenly there was something pressing against the driver’s side door. “What the blazes is that?” yelled Wayne.
“That’s a Shade,” said Blackie softly. A Desredeedese Shade was pressed against the cliff side of the Nomad that was kicking up rocks from the edge of the pavement.
“Look at the sky, look at the sky Blackie,” yelled Mark.
The bright sun was brighter, more yellow than normal. The blue sky seemed to be more blue, almost unnaturally blue.
“It looked like this earlier when I thought it was going to storm” said Nita. No sooner had the words left her mouth then everything around them was bathed in the same greenish tint they saw near the waterfall. Wayne took another turn in the road and again the Shade was pressed against the cliff side of the car as if it were helping to keep it on the road.
“Help me find the Jump Starter,” yelled Amelia, “it’s in my brown bag in the back by the tailgate. That’s it quick give me the bag.”
“Hit the button now,” yelled Wayne as the Nomad scraped along the cliff-side railing.
“It’s not working,” yelled Amelia, “it doesn’t work.”
Wayne steered the Nomad into another curve going way too fast and again a Shade was there pressing on the side of the car, seemingly to help keep it from plunging off the road.
“It won’t work,” yelled Blackie over the screeching tires, “it can’t make a safe jump because it can’t select an origin; we’re in a mixing zone; the Jump Starter doesn’t know which universe we’ll end up in so it can’t establish a point of origin and program a jump.”
Blackie was seated behind Wayne. He leaned forward so he could talk to him, trying to speak to his left side so the others couldn’t hear. “Wayne, you can’t keep this wagon on the road much longer even with the help of that Shade. We are going way too fast and the Shades simply aren’t going to be able to help us much longer. We’re in a mixing zone Wayne, just like behind the bar when we first left Earth. Keep this car on the road until the parallel planes diverge and we’ll be out of this mess.” Wayne steered the car through another sharp turn and looked ahead at the descending road that ended in a hair-pin curve around the far side of the mountain.
“We’re not going to make that turn,” said Wayne.
“You see that green area just before the turn?” said Blackie.
“Yeah,” said Wayne, trying to focus on the road and not look at the Desredeedese Shade flying next to the Nomad.
“Aim for that green spot,” said Blackie, “trust me Wayne that’s our only chance. If you miss that green spot we’re guaranteed goners.”
“Are you sure?” yelled Wayne. “That’s over a cliff.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Amelia, we are going airborne on the next curve. If the green disappears before we get there, punch the Jump Starter button.”
Mark overheard Blackie’s comment. “Wait a minute I don’t think airborne is a good idea,” yelled Mark.
“We don’t have any other option,” yelled Blackie,
“Wayne, put us in that mixing zone right now!”
The Shade who had been flying alongside the car veered away from the Nomad just as Wayne launched it over the side of the cliff. As they cleared the ground Wayne noticed the speedometer – ninety-five miles per hour, and then noticed it wasn’t green anymore.
The air around them was so filled with ash and smoke it was hard to make out their surroundings. In the distance a volcano was spewing fire, and ash, and gas and chunks of lava everywhere. The Nomad was falling into a deep, deep abyss, but the bottom would arrive all too soon.
“Punch the button,” yelled Wayne. Amelia pushed the red button on the Jump Starter. The Nomad was falling through so much ash they could barely make out the sides of the gorge, but they knew the bottom was dangerously close. The Nomad was suddenly enveloped in a bright white haze. At the front of the car a glittering golden ring formed, encircled the bumper and moved slowly toward the rear of the car. They heard a wooshing sound as it passed.
“Come on hurry up,” yelled Mark. Another ring formed around the front of the vehicle and glided toward its rear end as the Nomad fell further into the crevasse. Woosh, and a ring glided by, another woosh and another ring. The rings began to form faster woosh, woosh. Joules notice the sides of the gorge were getting closer. The rings formed faster and faster until they were just a blur flying around the car. Woosh, woosh, woosh.
Nita watched as a steady stream of rings rifled by the passenger side rear window. “It’s quite beautiful” she thought.
The white haze began to pulse with silver flashes and everything became slightly transparent. With each pulsation the silver flashes increased in intensity and the haze became more and more transparent, as did the car and everyone in it. Wayne could see the sides of the gorge closing in as the Nomad dropped into the bottom of the gorge, and sensing what was imminent loosened his grip on the steering wheel and shut his eyes. And in that instant, the car, six passengers, and a substantial amount of music equipment and the left-overs from a picnic lunch vanished.
The Nomad dropped a distance of what felt like six inches onto a plain of deep silica sand and slowed to a halt while kicking up a tremendous cloud of dust. “Is everyone okay?” yelled Wayne, whose hands had found the steering wheel again and were gripping it so hard his knuckles were white.
“I’m fine,” said Amelia.
“Me too,” added Nita. “Mark, are you okay?” asked Nita.
“What just happened?” asked Joules.
“I think you just survived another assassination attempt,” said Blackie in a surprisingly calm voice considering he had just been within seconds of being crushed at the bottom of a gorge on some completely barren and forsaken planet.
“What do you mean?” asked Wayne, whose hands had relaxed somewhat and some color was starting to return to his knuckles.
“Remember the car that wouldn’t pass us coming up the mountain?” said Blackie.
“Yeah, the idiot missed the turn-off,” responded Wayne.
“That’s what I thought,” said Blackie, especially when I saw that same car in the parking lot when we left.
“Go on,” said Wayne.
“They tampered with our brakes Wayne,” replied Blackie. “While we were out at the lake they were jimmying
the brakes so we would be killed on the way down the mountain. All of us, including Joules.
“How did we stay on that road?” asked Wayne,” I don’t believe we made it through that alive.”
“I don’t know,” replied Blackie. “Legends say the Desredeedese Shades can bend space and time. Maybe that explains why they were pressed against the side of the Nomad. They don’t have mass as we know it, so they couldn’t really push on the car to keep it on the road. But if they were shifting space,” continued Blackie, “slightly shifting the edge of the cliff when we were in danger of sliding off, it gave us just the margin of error we needed to reach that mixing zone.”
“How is it we just happened on a mixing zone?” asked Mark.
“Prenetian said we’re imprinted,” said Amelia joining the conversation. “He said once you’re imprinted you’re more likely to encounter another mixing zone. Prenetian didn’t explain why,” she finished, knowing that would be the next question.
Mark was staring out the front windshield. The dust kicked up by the Nomad’s landing was settling and he could just begin to make out the landscape. He opened the door and stepped out into the sand. Everyone piled out of the Nomad and joined Mark at the front of the car.
“If those Shades hadn’t helped us stay on the road….,” Wayne trailed off.
“We wouldn’t be here,” said Joules, finishing his thought.
For quite some time no one said a word. A sun was just coming up behind them, and in front, just above the horizon were two purple colored moons so large it seemed like you could reach out and touch them.
“We call those harvest moons back home,” said Blackie to Joules. “Every year about the time of the fall harvest they look spectacular; they’re huge, maybe not that big,” he said nodding toward the horizon, “and back home they’re yellow. Sometimes red or orange,” he continued, “but mostly yellow.”
“Is there a way to get back home,” asked Joules.
“Sure,” said Wayne, “we just have to jump backwards; isn’t that right Amelia. The sun was rising behind them and the giant purple moons were now resting on the edge of the horizon.
“Yes,” she said showing them the front of the Jump Starter that was still in her hand - the red button looked naked protruding out of the front side of the casing all by itself, “If we can find the silver retainer ring.”
*******************************************
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Thanks again,
John David Buchanan
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JUMP STARTING THE
UNIVERSE SERIES
THE EDGE OF NOTHING AND EVERYTHING
By
John David Buchanan
Interior Artwork, sketches
by Ryan Orosz
April 18, 2016
Many thanks to:
Ryan Orosz for his many concept sketches, maquettes and incredible artwork,
My editors: Brittany Koester and Laurie Curry,
My family and friends for their invaluable support,
Pixabay for images,
The incredibly nice employees at Starbucks in Atascocita Plaza where I went for a change of scenery and inspiration,
And to all of you who feel reading is the gateway to adventure.
Text copyright © 2016 by John David Buchanan
Cover art copyright © 2016 by Ryan Orosz
All Rights Reserved.
Published by John David Buchanan
INTRODUCTION
BACK TO THE BEGINNING
Blackie sat on the ground a safe distance away and watched his brother Mark tighten the motor mounts on his 1958 Chevy. It is still a mystery to him how his skull didn’t get crushed the day before, when Mark’s handmade a-frame failed and came crashing down into the Chevy’s windshield, narrowly missing his cranium.
It is more of a mystery how his legs weren’t broken or crushed in multiple places when the engine, a monster 348 cubic inch behemoth originally intended for use in trucks, coupled to a four-speed transmission, was dropped into the engine compartment – the one where his legs were. He thought his job was to guide the engine and transmission into position over their mounts (Mark assumed Blackie knew what that meant).
Blackie didn’t realize it might involve the engine and transmission playing pinball in the front of the car with his legs as stoppers. That significant piece of ignorance in and of itself should have indicated Blackie’s overwhelming lack of auto repair knowledge and the attendant hazards of backyard, shade tree mechanics. Actually, he didn’t remember any shade at all in the little piece of backyard that became Mark’s de facto auto shop, so maybe that made a difference somehow. He’s still searching for clarity on the shade/no-shade issue but his current thought is the lack of shade (thereby nullifying its consideration as shade tree mechanics) had nothing to do with his legs not being mangled.
Some people say the number three is significant, even magical, and Blackie is inclined to believe it since it is also a mystery to his how Mark managed to nudge that engine and transmission with a piece of 2 by 4 lumber, just enough to not break his legs, but exactly enough to drop the engine smack dab on its motor mounts. The alignment was so perfect all Mark had to do was climb under the car and begin bolting the engine and transmission in place, as if he had planned the whole thing.
Now that Blackie thought about it maybe he did plan the whole thing. He should ask him, but then what purpose would that serve except to verify that being around Mark might be dangerous, and he had already figured that out by age eight. The stress level generated by completely unanticipated and life-threatening dangers is what made spending time around Mark interesting. Blackie never got tired of it, and he survived to be relatively unmangled.
Fortunately, their Mom and Dad were oblivious to Mark and Blackie’s life-threatening car mechanic shenanigans and rightfully so; can you imagine the stress of knowing exactly what two young men were doing out there in the backyard all by themselves? Their Mom and Dad were great. General knowledge of what the boys might be doing was stressful enough for them and that was all they needed – details are rubbish. Besides, their Dad had retired the leather strap; it was wearing pretty thin, and in its absence, he hadn’t identified exactly how to interface with Mark and Blackie when there were 'issues'.
Mark said Dad’s arm gave out. That could be, but Blackie thought he missed Mark’s high and low ahhh sounds and was working on a non-arm-and-leather-strap method of coaxing them out of him. He also thought Mark worried about that exact same thing and wondered if his finely-honed frequency response method would trigger the off switch on Dad’s newly devised father/son interface.
Blackie wondered if Mark’s frequency response method had ever worked in the first place, but he used it so often he must have believed in it. He never witnessed it making a difference, but He had to admit that each time the leather strap was getting intimately reacquainted with Mark, he tried to be in-absentia.
Inexplicably, Mark and Blackie both grew into healthy adults with all their appendages intact, although Blackie was sure even to this day Mark subconsciously looks for ways to put his at risk; the old Oldsmobile car renovation project is coming along just fine, thank you. He hasn’t asked Blackie to help, and Blackie spent most of the following years avoiding home car repairs except when absolutely necessary, and if they were necessary, completed them in the bright sunshine (just in case that shade tree mechanics thing does have an effect).
Blackie is still very happy to report he still has all his fingers. You may see this as insufficient evidence to support his 'backyard auto mechanics are safer when conducted in the sun' theory but honestly, the occurrence of five phalanges on each of his hands has him thoroughly convinced of its merits. Occasionally, when they’re sitting around the fire pit playing guitars, Blackie checks out Mark’s hands to see if any parts are missing; so far so good.
The root beer tinted paint on the Nomad did something the '58 Chevy’s blue paint simply couldn’t do – shine. That was partly Blackie’s fault, although he held Mark completely responsible. He asked Blackie to help him compound the paint on the Chevy to remove the grime, and he agreed. At least that’s the way Blackie remembers the story and he’s sticking to it. Of course, he doesn’t mean to insinuate that his recollection of those events is entirely accurate, only that that is the way he has conveniently chosen to remember them.
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