by T. C. Clover
drawer,” Litz said to the empty hotel room as she looked out upon the Memorial Towers. “Fifteen drawers from floor to ceiling, and over one hundred and fifty rows of drawers per floor. One hundred and sixty floors per tower, and fifty-six towers built since 2033. Not enough storage space in Houston, Ne w Jersey, Los Angeles, and Portland to last until the end of the century.” The haunted woman grew silent and closed her eyes to recollect when it all began.
TWELVE YEARS EARLIER
“I’m scared, mom,” Litz said to her mother Martha as she stared at the floorboards of a gray Chevrolet Corvette. “I don’t understand why this has to happen; we already lost dad and Jimmy. Why can’t that be enough?”
“Sweetheart, I asked you to be strong and try not to think about those things.” Her mother answered with a wink from her left eye. “We have seven months to enjoy the time of our lives and over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Most people never get a chance to experience the things that we’ve done this year. Look, just stay positive today and we’ll talk about sad things later tonight, okay?”
Litz nodded at her mother and forced a smile to emerge from her otherwise mundane face. They had just finished a shopping trip at The Venetian in Las Vegas and were on their way to the attractions of New York-New York. She and her mother had worn identical baby blue T-shirts and stonewashed pink coveralls for a fun display of solidarity.
Martha was an attractive forty-four-year-old woman with dazzling blue eyes and long, dark hair. She drove the powerful sports car with determination and always appeared ladylike, even when shifting gears with the temerity of a professional race car driver. Litz began to giggle as her bum slid back and forth on the black leather seat when the car turned into the casino’s parking structure.
At the age of fifteen, Litz was just beginning to develop into a woman. She had been homeschooled since her mother retired at the age of forty, which is when the two embarked on a grand road trip across the United States. Although the bond she made with her mother was priceless, there were times when Litz longed for friends of the same age. It was also impossible to start meaningful relationships with boys given such a fast-moving lifestyle. The mother and daughter pair had been inseparable since her father Ross had a heart attack while driving home with her little brother Jimmy in the car. This tragic event led to a severe automobile crash from which neither of their loved ones would recover.
It took Litz many years to gain perspective on the loss of her father and brother. She and her mother had grieved in ways that they could never have anticipated. At one point, they found themselves watching The Godfather movie trilogy while eating ice cream. Somehow the onscreen tragedies of the characters and their enduring love of family were oddly soothing. Litz recalled how the ambush of Sonny Corleone in the first film had given her peace after her father’s passing. At that moment, she witnessed how life could get taken from even the most powerful and passionate of souls.
Litz and her mother made their way to the Coney Island section of the New York-New York casino. Martha gestured for Litz to follow her to a game called Drown the Clown. The simple venue consisted of a long row of tacky blue water pistols retrofitted to a stainless steel countertop. There was a squishy red barstool bolted to the floor in front of each water pistol, and the women took their seats at the center of the attraction. Her mother paid an aloof teenage male vendor some cash to get the game started, and grabbed a squirt gun with a glow of excitement.
Litz mimicked her mother’s actions by raising the small blue gun from its holster, noticing a long black rubber hose connected to the base of the unit. She looked at the ghastly row of clowns in the target area. Their heads moved back and forth in a smooth and predictable pattern. Each of them had their mouths open with sickening expressions of joy, all seemingly eager to receive gallons of water from ardent players.
“I used to play this when I was your age,” Martha said with a smile of youthful delight as she twisted in her seat with anticipation.
When the vendor hit the bell for the game to begin, Litz began spraying her female clown in the mouth and watched a green balloon expanding from the top of its head. Her mother was dousing a male clown with forceful accuracy and a dark blue balloon swelled from above his hairline. Although Litz was ahead of her mother from the start, she let off the trigger when the balloon was about to burst. Two seconds later, her mother’s balloon popped and sprayed water all over the rotating heads of the clowns.
“Okay, it looks like you win Mr. Frog,” the male vendor said as he handed a green stuffed animal to Martha. “If you want to play again, maybe you can win Mr. Rabbit.”
Martha stood up and looked at the awful artwork of the square black pupils painted on the frog’s eyes. She knew that Litz had let her win and presented the stuffed animal to her daughter in a silent display of affection. Litz chuckled when she realized that her mom had busted her and accepted the ugly toy with a rueful smirk.
“Let’s go on the roller coaster,” Martha proposed with a spark of enthusiasm. “It’s not as big as the others we’ve tried, but it should still be fun.”
Litz smiled and nodded when she saw how exhilarated her mother was from this plan. It took them less than two minutes to locate the entrance of the outdoor attraction, and the observant youth watched a group of makeshift yellow taxicabs barreling across the red steel structure. The roller coaster had just over a dozen passengers, but they screamed loud enough to emphasize every curve of the track.
It was a slow Wednesday afternoon at the casino, and the line was short enough to guarantee them a spot in the next turn. After delivering a bumpy ride to its passengers through a scaled-down version of New York City landmarks, the roller coaster came to an abrupt halt using a series of industrial air brakes.
Litz grinned when she saw the heads of the passengers tilt forward in unison and then back upright. They rolled to a slow stop at the beginning of the track, and the ride operator issued instructions through a PA system for them to exit the attraction. When the cars were empty, the operator walked over to the head of the line and opened a small black gate to allow another set of passengers onboard. The petite blonde could not have been more than twenty years old, and she yawned with a blank stare as she opened the gate for her patrons.
Martha and Litz clambered for a position near the back of the roller coaster, but people ahead of them occupied those seats in a hurry. Litz grimaced when she realized that the cars were filling up and that the front seats were their only option. When they got to the head of the unit, Martha shrugged and gestured for her daughter to get in on the left, and then took the seat beside her. Once they were seated, the women secured their seatbelts and pulled down the black, padded overhead bar until it locked in place just above their legs.
The diligent ride operator started at the rear of the unit as she walked from car to car, tugging on all of the safety bars. It took her less than a minute to confirm that everyone was secured in their seats, and she returned to the control booth.
All of the passengers were talking and laughing with anticipation while the ride operator mumbled obligatory safety instructions through a terrible audio system. In fact, the only words Litz remembered understanding were ‘enjoy the ride.’
The roller coaster came to life on the red tracks with a powerful lurch. An industrial-strength chain knocked and hummed underneath the unit like some medieval torture device. Litz reached out and grabbed her mother’s left hand with her right and squeezed it with building anxiety. Everyone in the passenger seats had become silent when the roller coaster reached a forty-five-degree angle. The yellow taxicab designs no longer presented as foolish or innocent when the chain forced the unit upward with incredible might.
All of the passengers seemed to hold their breath as the last few feet of track disappeared beneath them. Litz felt her mot
her let go of her hand, and she turned to her with a smile, realizing that this was a signal to conquer her fears. The teenager froze in her seat, and her gut became tense with panic. Martha was slumped over with her mouth open and eyes closed.
“Mom! Mom! Mom!” Litz shouted as she attempted to rouse her mother awake by gripping her left leg and shaking it violently. “Mom! Mommy…”
Litz began to scream when the roller coaster topped the first hill, and the rush of fear that came with falling was a poisonous jolt to her mind. She continued to grab her mother and tug at various areas of her body, trying to elicit a response, but there was no movement. Her hand darted up to Martha’s nose, but the coaster went into a barrel roll on the track, forcing her hand to drop near the black plastic seat. Litz felt an explosion of grief and wanted to be free from her restraints. She cried out in terror and tugged on the safety bar, but it was locked in place.
When the cars leveled out, she placed her hand in front of her mother’s nose and couldn’t feel any air pressure.
“Help! Help! I need help!” Litz screamed when she realized that her mother wasn’t breathing. “Get me off of this thing! Get us out! We need to