by G. L. Argain
Andrew packed a week’s worth of clothes, expecting to drive into Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and back down into California. In Idaho he would find his parents, who had moved there after they wanted to leave Searles and especially California—too many various laws were being passed in California for their comfort. He would stop there as well as his grandparents’ house in Nevada.
Andrew notified his parents, his grandparents, and his friend Troy—whom Andrew would visit in Searles—that he was on his way. His gas tank was full, his clothes were in the trunk, his wallet and phone were in his pockets, and the granola bars for snacks were in the back seat, so he was all set. The human’s had a few…mishaps about forgetting things for road trips in the past, so this was an accomplishment to be proud of.
Lastly, despite the fact that fast food was going to be an expected means of dietary intake during the trip, Andrew was too self-conscious about his health and appearance—mostly the latter—to leave out specifically-planned times to stop the car and exercise. Didn’t matter to him what temperature it was outside, or whether there was rain and wind; it had to be done.
Once on the road, Andrew was focused first and foremost with getting out of the Los Angeles vicinity. Traffic was heavy, moving at a spectacular speed of ten minutes per mile, but once the human got onto Interstate 15 and through Cajon Pass, everything was smooth sailing. Comparatively. It got boring quick about half an hour past Hesperia, what with it being flat, open desert for the next fifty miles. Plus, after being along that stretch of road many times before, there wasn’t much around to explore.
After three and a half hours of driving, he made it to Searles. It still looked the same as it had always been: there was the factory, the desert heat, the salt pit, and of course the hundreds of people living there that wanted to be elsewhere. No wildflowers at all this time around—not enough rain during the winter.
Andrew drove around town to find the house of his old friend, Troy. There were still dogs running loose in the neighborhoods, kids hanging around by the liquor store, and tough-looking guys smoking cigarettes standing nearby. However, it doesn’t take long for one to get used to the sight.
Troy lived in Searles after all the years he and Andrew knew each other, but Troy was in the military reserves and could be called up on any day. Many teenagers in Searles believed that the military would be a better way to go than working minimum wage at the factory. Troy was average in intelligence but an excellent athlete; he got to participate in the playoffs three out of the four years he was in high school. And yet he never got a scholarship. Andrew wasn’t sure whether Troy would go to college at some point or not, but it seemed he would get through life smoothly enough.
Troy was nice enough to let Andrew stay at his place for the night—for the price of twenty dollars. “Still cheaper than a motel,” Andrew said, “and probably cleaner too, I hope.”
“Yeah, I like to clean the house whenever someone’s dropping by for the night. Unless it’s some drunk guy—they don’t care, I think. Besides, I need the twenty bucks so I can catch up on my bills.” Troy had a well-enough paying job to take care of his bills without having to worry about “catching up.” Andrew had this conversation with Troy the day before so that he didn’t visit without notice and say, “Can I crash here for the night?”
It didn’t occur to Andrew that Troy had a girlfriend living there who might have been displeased having someone she didn’t know staying at the house. Troy was always a ladies’ man—one of those guys who, although perverted, knew how to be a gentleman and managed to hook up easily. He was also a drinker, so there was that to watch out for while staying at the house as well.
After ringing the doorbell and waiting a few seconds, Andrew brought up a smile when he saw Troy.
“Hey! Long time, no see,” Troy answered.
Andrew replied, “Hey,” and walked into the living room with Troy. There was a girl sitting on the couch.
“Hey Leslie, this is Andrew—I told you a couple days ago he’s going to stay with us ‘til tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I heard you mentioning that.” She had a fake smile going on, and then it changed into a slight frown as she said, “Dammit Troy, tonight was supposed to be our special—”
“I know, I know,” said Troy, walking over to Leslie to whisper in her ear. Afterwards, he turned back to Andrew with a trace of guilt in his eyes, but mostly selfishness, saying, “Looks like you’ll have to sleep on the couch out here.”
Andrew looked down onto the couch and said, “Still better than a ratty motel.”
“That reminds me—do you have the twenty bucks?”
Andrew handed a twenty-dollar bill to him as though he handed it to the clerk of a motel lobby.
Troy was six-foot-two, somewhat skinny, had brown hair with icy blue eyes, and pale white skin. During high school, he dressed up like a gangster wannabe that acted cool but never proved it; he had a cap, a jacket, some baggy jeans that hung below his hips, and some sneakers. Three of these four items would have skateboard logos and intricate designs on them—just a trend for teenage clothes during the 90’s and 2000’s, perhaps, but they still had an impact years later. Today he kept the cap and the sneakers, but everything else looked more proper. He smoked a lot of marijuana with his buddies before he joined the military—after that he laid low for a while. He was smart enough to not risk getting caught from some random drug test. Most of all, he had an aura about him that made people guess he got into trouble often; however, he hadn’t been arrested once. Some people are just lucky. Overall, Troy wasn’t much of a bad guy to at least visit for a day; Andrew did wish he had found someone a little better, but he knew it could have been far worse.
Troy was the only person Andrew had kept in recent contact with, thus knowing he still lived in Searles. He couldn’t figure out why Troy stayed, but this human seemed content enough with where he was.
Upon first impression, Leslie looked like a bitch. Simple as that. One of such girls who looked attractive now, but would look very ugly by the time she was thirty-five. One of such who didn’t care too much about the guy’s personality, just as long as she could have a passionate one night stand. Even if she found a guy she seemed to like—such as Troy—she would call him “the one” for perhaps two weeks, then call him a “dumbass” or “fucktard” or any variety of indecent terms in every succeeding argument. Judging from Andrew’s perspective, this relationship appeared to be in the second week. She had bright, long, wavy blond hair, a face plastered in makeup, shorts that went above the midpoint of her thighs, and a tank top.
“Well, it’s three now,” said Troy, “what d’you wanna do for the rest of the day?” Before Andrew had answered, Troy reached into a brown paper bag that was lying beside the couch but out of Andrew’s sight and said, “Wanna joint?”
“No thanks, man.”
“C’mon, it’s a special occasion, and you’ve got like…the next eighteen hours before you’re driving again. Just one won’t hurt.”
“Yeah, but I really don’t want to take any chances. I’ve heard a lot about the highway officers that sit in the middle of nowhere along a desert road—especially in Nevada—and you would not want to get caught for anything by one of those guys.”
“Aw, well, suit yourself.”
After a few seconds of silence, Andrew changed the subject: “So…anything new?”
“Nothing much. Just hangin’ out here with my girl.”
“How d’you two meet?”
Leslie answered, “We met at a bar two weeks ago.”
Andrew guessed the story instantly, though he stayed silent.
“He was talking with me and he bought me a drink,” she continued. “Kind of like what any guy would do to ‘spend a night,’ but then he opened all the doors for me, and told me afterwards how I was beautiful in so many ways, but the biggest part was that he stayed with me after that night and wanted to have a steady relationship! He’s both sexy and caring…”
Andrew h
ad an urge to rub his forehead, but he knew best not to. Leslie and Troy would notice, thinking that he was insulting them by doing so. Troy wasn’t the type to lie to a girl like that, especially considering they were together in front of Andrew’s eyes, but he was also never the type to have relationships much longer than a matter of weeks. Our human had been through one relationship before, which had lasted for eight good months until his girlfriend had been killed in a car accident. After that, Andrew wasn’t too fond of love—he thought there were better things to focus on in the world.
For the next few hours until midnight, Troy talked about his life after high school, Leslie talked about her life before and after moving to Searles—she definitely sounded like she would enjoy living in Miami, Florida better—and Andrew talked about going to college, getting through his job, and overall life in Pomona. Troy, who had taken in a few beers, addressed Andrew: “You know, you shouldn’t hafta spend yer life bein’ bored an’ miserable all da time. You should do whatcha love, have some fun, an’ if shit happens, hey, shit happens.” Andrew pondered this for a moment, thinking that there was some truth to those words, until Troy finished saying, “You only live once, so live it up.” Now Andrew was sure that Troy was talking about living to the fullest in a different way. A trend popped up when the two guys almost got out of high school, a trend in which the mentioned phrase mostly meant partying, getting drunk, and whatever American culture had conveyed as “YOLO.” He thought that trend had already ended. Leslie just giggled beside Troy with a beer in one hand and Troy’s hand in the other; she appeared to enjoy living by that creed.
Andrew went to bed later than the couple did—he didn’t want to try to sleep through whatever business Troy and Leslie were doing in bed, so he took out his tablet computer, plugged in some headphones, and listened to some loud music for a good forty-five minutes. The loud music worked in a gray area—he could sense the faint humping in the background while the volume of his music took a toll on his hearing. The couple finished for the night, and Andrew fell asleep on the couch with some over-stimulated ears, the faint noise stuck in his mind. Well, fuck, thought Andrew, if this was a motel, then this is definitely as cheap of a stay as twenty dollars. Looks like going to a real inn tomorrow night won’t be such a bad idea after all.
Andrew had the most intense dream to which his memory could perceive. It started off with him swimming in some black space—this void—but he felt as though there was life all around him. Next, he stopped and fell down to red soil, feeling a surge of dread once he landed. It wasn’t hell, but there was blood and chaos everywhere. As he ran, colors ran past him in a blur as if he were in a time warp, but he looked down to his feet and saw he was running at a normal pace on the red soil. Lastly, he saw a demon in the distance that was killing everyone. The moment it turned its head to Andrew, it instantly appeared in front of him. This monster was so grotesque and terrifying that he could never describe it well enough. He witnessed the monster attacking him in a moment, leaving an abstract image of red and black right before the human woke up. His heart was racing and his eyes were wide open, but he was still lying down on the couch.
There was a long silence, with Andrew not talking nor thinking—he was too scared to want to do either. After an estimated three minutes, the first thoughts had risen: Oh, God, that was scary. Where did something like that come from after all these years? And just…why? Was it some warning for the future? Or maybe just some abstract representation of something happening to me now? Andrew was sitting up with his hands pressing down on the cushion to the rear of him, acting like support beams.
I need some water.
Andrew’s nightmare still appeared fresh and vivid in his mind as he went to the cabinet for a glass. The dreams that scare or please us are the ones that tend to stay in our memories for a long time. Sometimes it’s also the dreams where you want to distinguish between dream and reality. After an hour of being awake, an hour of minimal movement while sitting upright, he decided to go back to sleep, and this time there were no dreams at all.
Chapter 7
Andrew wakes up at ten-thirty in the morning to Troy rolling him off of the couch. Troy and Leslie laughed at the spectacle while Andrew regained consciousness with a side effect of instant irritation.
“Ugh, seriously?”
“Oh, c’mon! It was funny! Besides, it’s like, past ten now,” said Leslie.
“What? Aw, dammit!” Andrew pushed himself quickly up to his feet, although his eyes had yet to adjust to the sunlight shining in. “Why didn’t either of you tell me earlier?”
“’Cause we just woke up too! Damn, why are you freaking out so much?” said Troy.
Andrew accepted the fact that he was late, but he still stressed himself about leaving so that he wouldn’t waste any more time. “I just wanted to wake up earlier so I could leave at eight o’clock. I was planning to get to Ely before nightfall.” The human did set an alarm, but little to his knowledge it was mistakenly set for 7 p.m. instead.
“Well, sorry dude, but at least you can get ready and back on the road quickly, right?”
“Well, I’ve got to eat breakfast, brush my teeth, take a shower, call my parents and grandparents—”
“Alright, alright, I get it. There’s some cereal in the top left cabinet over there.”
“Okay,” said Andrew as he nodded his head.
As Andrew wolfed down a bowl of Cheerios, Troy asked, “So how’d you sleep last night? Me and Leslie sure had a good night’s sleep.” Leslie smirked in the background.
Andrew didn’t want to say anything about the dream at the moment, thinking that Troy wouldn’t know much more than he did, so as soon as he swallowed the food in his mouth, he replied, “I woke up in the middle of the night and got a glass of water, but other than that, I slept fine.”
“Okay, cool.”
The dream still bothered Andrew beyond comfort, thus in a matter of seconds he decided that he should at least talk about it.
“Actually, I did have this one nightmare last night. I fell down from this darkness—or void, or whatever, and I found myself in some…giant catastrophe, where everyone was yelling and screaming and running for their lives. It ended when this giant, black, horrifying monster attacked me. I can’t describe much more than that.”
Troy’s eyebrows rose up. “Sounds like a bad trip.”
“The thing is though, it wasn’t a trip…it was just a dream, yet at the same time it was so vivid. I don’t really know what it means.”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything, it could just be a dream, that’s all.”
There was that possibility. Andrew often thought that dreams were abstract ways of communicating what we really want—sometimes even visions of the future, also there was no way for him to prove that. If anything, this nightmare was a way for his subconscious to randomly scream out loud, with or without reason.
As Andrew packed his suitcase of clothes back into his car, Troy and Leslie went out with him to say goodbye.
Troy said, “Hey, thanks for visiting, Andy. Are you coming back here on the way down?”
“Sorry, but I’m heading along the coast on my way down. We may see each other in another couple years, though.”
“Alright, well, keep in touch.”
“Hey, Andy,” began Leslie, “you seem like the kind of guy that could get some decent girls, so why aren’t you? Are ya really afraid of another girl getting killed?” Andrew did say last evening how he had one girlfriend and that she died in a car crash.
Troy had answered for him: “He never had much luck with girls—besides, he’s all for personality, not looks.”
Andrew added, “It’s more complicated than that, but yeah, he’s right. Anyway, thanks for letting me stay at your place.” For a fraction of a second, Andrew thought about saying something funny and clever, yet this came out of his mouth: “Don’t get into any fights now!”
While Troy froze out of terror and disbelief, Leslie responded with a
question made of half denial, half suspicion: “What d’ya mean by that?”
Andrew knew instantly what he had done wrong, but he couldn’t patch up a mess as easily as he could make one. “I…you two are actually a good couple.”
“…Okay, if you think that bullshit’s actually gonna work on me, then you’re more retarded than I thought—”
“Babe, he’s telling the truth,” said Troy, trying to keep down unnecessary conflict for everyone involved. “He’s a nice guy. He wouldn’t say bullshit unless he was kidding and we knew it. Can’t you tell?”
“Well, if that’s true, then do you really love me or were you kidding this entire time?”
“…What?”
Andrew was itching to leave for several reasons, so he started up the car and said, “I can’t get into this, I really have to go already.”
“Fine, whatever,” said Leslie, all of her focus aimed at Troy.
“See you later, Troy! Thanks for letting me stay!” And so he drove away. Andrew felt guilty and selfish, but in the end he really didn’t want to get caught into the crossfire.
“So, what do you think of me? Do you think we could have a long-lasting relationship like Andy did?” Leslie had her arms crossed and her stare fixed onto Troy in order to look for any subtleties. “After all, he said we were a good couple.”
“Well, he wanted a really nice girl and nothing more, while we…um…” Troy had a hard time trying to find a safe way to respond, but he already made the mistake of hesitating.
“What?”
“Hey, at least it’s not like your dead, right?” Troy chuckled pitifully.