Leaving Montana and Nevada behind.

[Deleted54170User]

Ring, ring!

 

It was cloudy out so the star's and moon light were blocked out. I remembered laying down on a nice comfy bed. I seemed to recall it was a water bed. I don't know where or when that was though. I knew where I was laying when I dreamed that. Something stirred nearby

and I awakened. I saw a bright red glowing dot no bigger then a pin head. In the dream I had, I felt the bed cover's rise quickly as I swung myself around and over the side of the bed. I was falling toward the floor. I think I was prepared to take cover. My thought's cleared and I realized I was in the place with the water bed. I saw the red dot as my eyes drifted away and it was the answering machine, so I felt like a fool knowing the fright that some dream must have given me just before I realized I was safe and sound.

........

Bing! Click! Crunch.

 

The ground came up to meet the bare hand's. The ragged feeling in his throat hurt when he breathed. The hands connected with some dust and the dirt under it was soft as he felt his hand's as his hands started sinking in. Suddenly his body stopped moving down, forcing his shoulders back, his chest continued downward and touched the soft freshly dug up earth. As his body lurched he coughed hard. Dirt flew from his lips. Darkness blurred his eyes as he struggled to breath in more fresh air. He coughed again.

 

Dirt and spittle shot out of his mouth with air he managed to get in. He tried to suck in a little more air. Wheezing sang from his chest. Breathing in through his nose he managed to force more air in, but again lost control of it as his lungs refused the burning sensation. Dirt and nose goop came up as the last bit shattered his safe feeling.

 

He started to loose consciousness and fought it by thinking about rage focused at what ever did this to him. The last bit of dirt that made it into his throat found its way out as he howled like a wild animal, followed by a cough along with the throaty effort.

 

The soft linen which he seemed to recall, and the red dot waking his mind to the alert were gone. All that remained to remind him of any reality were a few bits of dirt grinding between his tongue, teeth, and palate. He worked up some spit and purged them from his mouth.

 

As the remainder of scum left his mouth the world started to wobble and his head felt the shifting sense of a whirl wind picking him up and spinning him around head toward his heel's.

 

All that spinning made him sick to his stomach. All he had in his gut came up and blew out of his mouth like an angry blast from a fire hose out into the dark black space ahead. As he wretched he felt his shoulders burn from the jerking spasms from his chest. Pained, and being wrenched out of their socket's by the force. He sensed they were only held in by

the strong seams of his shirt soaked sleeve's in steaming sweat. As his retching paused he felt his trousers were wet too, but cold, as though he got half way into a rivers stream and stopped himself in time from falling in all the way.

 

He started to wonder what had happened, when, the world spun him around again. The force caused his innards to squeeze what little dribble of moisture he might have had left in there out as the coughing started in again. The coughing caused pain to shoot through his lungs and made his shoulders and head ache incredibly. Although his gut stopped wrenching his head just kept giving him the feeling he was on top of a spinning top, going round and around. The sense of being laid across the top of the top, feet at the one edge and head at the other made his stomach uncomfortable with the tiny rise in the middle pushing his last meal out of his mouth.

 

His arms at the other end opposing his legs felt like they were in the same place as his legs as he fought to gain some semblance of balance, all the while his stomach was in the middle of the top of the top seemingly trying to keep him from gaining anything more.

 

After a few moments of continuous, gut wrenching spinning, it seemed that if he kept spinning around faster and faster his head might catch up with his feet.

 

He felt himself flip and the top effect stopped except in his head as he felt his back hit something hard, where it touched him it was cold as ice, and then a small pain hurt him near his elbow on in his left arm. The pain stopped and his arm started to feel like it was falling off. Just when he was afraid the shoulder was next the world stopped moving, and he fell into darkness.

.....

Ring, Ring, click, Please leave a message after the tone.

.....

I pushed down with my hands and raised my head and shoulder's up, pushing my back against the beds two foot tall soft leather covered head rest and looked on at the red blinking light. The top sheet and a comforter were sailing off onto the floor as I realized I was safe and sound, but scared. "What?! Somebody left me a message?!" Looking at the dial on my wrist watch laying the bed table. "4:30 AM?! Who would call me at this hour?"

 

Pressing the rewind button and waiting for the cassette tape to stop, breathing slow sips of air deeply to relieve the stress, "Click." Pressing the play button down until the sign that said, "play only the last message" blinked on and off several times. The whirring sound of fast forward was almost deafening for some reason, until it clicked and started to play. Static noise, "This isn't possible! But...I am callig on my cellular phone to warn you. Get out of that house. It's a gate to another world. Don't waste time packing! Just move!

I don't know if you are hearing this, but I am calling you from the future. Its May 5, 2011 at 2:00 PM MDT. If you are actually hearing this I am inside a huge building owned by House. I just escaped from a chamber build by the madman who is alive in a tank made to preserve him forever. His robots have taken over, but the last thing I expected to ever happen to me is about to if you don't leave that house. I will become Houses second in command and preserved for as long as 300 years...if not more. I don't want to live like that! Leave the house now! Or we are both going to be worse off then the living dead in the morning! click, click, buzz."

 

I don't know why, but I grabbed my clothes, picked up my boots, stuffed my clean socks into their neck's, and I packed up the only thing more important then my tooth brush and headed

out of the door. I felt like I knew that call was coming. I felt like I had been somewhere else for a long time and the only thing that was important was to get off that property before the Suns light made a single ray across the sky. I even left the pizza in the freezer I had hoped I would be dining on that night.

 

In my T-shirt, boxer shorts, and bare feet I started running for the car, opened the driver door, tossed my clothes in first, and made sure my wallet and keys were safely on the seat, put the key in the ignition, started up the 1984 Gremlin and stomped down hard on the gas peddle. I started to consider all the stuff I had stored in the out building's when something deep inside me warned me not to pause another second. There was such a strong conviction that I did not even want to dream a little again about making that old house and

outbuilding's, I was using for storage, a dream house for someone. I looked in the review mirror about a half mile down the road. The Sun beams came up and fell down on the place like huge sword and before I could stop looking in the mirror the whole place disappeared in

the sunlight.

 

I lifted both feet and stomped down on the wide break peddle. The old Gremlin spun around and stopped facing back toward the old home place. All I could see was wide open prairie. As I sat there staring I felt confusion taking hold. I figured that, that was either the strangest dream I ever had, or I just woke up in my car sitting out on the deserts edge staring at the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen.

 

-----

No Signal!

 

He looked at his cellular phone as it faded like a puff of smoke from his hand. "Nightmare over." He watched as the building that had housed him, on and off for a few year's, began to turned into a view of a thin veil's of smoke. "It worked?! It WORK!" He kicked up his heel's and began to do a dance. He stared down at his boots kicking up the dust. Then it dawned on him. The Lucky 38 was a skyscraper and he was on the Penthouse floor. Dream, or no dream, he realized the height. He had taken for granted he was safe on a solid floor still. Which he could see was now opening into a dark throat of mythical proportions and at his feet was a gaping void.. "Oh! Sh..!"

......

 

Beautiful Sun rise.

-----

 

My last thought was, as the sky revealed by the Sunlight, opened up with the dawning, was I had an impossible dream, and was given a highlight with word's to the status of this, "Was I just dreaming all this?" I looked at my hands still gripping the steering wheel, I could hear something was wrong. Something was making a horrible knocking sound. I began thinkin it was the old engine in the car, but as my ears grew accustomed, and I looked down a little as the thought the engine was knocking loudly occurred to me, I could see it was my bare legged knee's banging together like a couple hammer's. :ohmy:

[LordWushin]

LOL! That is very interesting and funny!

[Maharg67]

Very interesting! Challenging and it took courage to write this, to experiment and then show the results to the forum. I will be needing to reread it at least once to get the all out of it but I found it to be good. Honourary kudos to you. :thumbsup: :yes: Edited April 29, 2011 by Maharg67

[Deleted54170User]

As I sat there peering at the speed with which my knees were moving out and in I got a feeling in my gut that made me swallow hard to try to give it something. As I swallowed it began giving me a sinking empty space. My chin was already pressed down against my chest. The sense of stretching and pushing down further to follow the stomach caused my mental alarm to go off.

 

Suddenly my stomach and face felt like it was slowly and smoothly restored to the correct position. I felt my finger's going numb. As I noted how numb my fingers had gotten from gripping the steering wheel so tight I prepared to release the wheel from my grip. Focusing on giving them attention I began to raise my eye's.

 

As my eyes gave my brain something to focus on my ears picked up the sound of the wind as it began to rush by the car causing the half inch of open space at the top of the driver side window to whistle. As my vision reached the top of the dash board I could see above in my upper peripheral view bits of sand bouncing off the window.

 

Looking a little higher I saw where the sight of the brilliant sun beam, was before, now had dirt beginning to rise up underneath it. The tiny pelting sound on my windshield started to get louder. My eye's seemed to go on auto control and darted quickly to the right.

 

I could see a twelve foot high flat roof on a twenty four foot long by twenty foot wide outbuilding. I saw it standing there. I knew the building as it had driven past it for several years, but now it was, somehow, strange.

 

Narrow beams extending from off the top of the roof that looked sturdy were sticking out toward the road to my right. I realized I had never noticed them before. As I pondered the new attachments to the roof dirt hit the windshield blocking out the sun and right then I realized why. The beams were dirt.

 

Something heavy hit the roof on the hatch back. Miraculously my knees stopped knocking. I forgot about letting go of the steering wheel and stepped down hard on the gas peddle with my right foot while fighting to get my left foot off the brake at the same time. Turning the steering wheel hard to the right the little cars wheels chugged and hopped forward against the wind. Something black appeared in my line of sight and flew in on the passenger side of the windshield. The car swung around from the force of what hit it along with the wind so the left side of the car was taking all the blast. I could feel the car lifting off the ground on my side as the cars rear two wheels pushed forward as the winds force may have left the task of getting moving forward all up to the right rear wheel alone.

 

Light dirt was flooding in through the doors opening on the driver side window and filling the inside of the car. After a second I could not see the dash board except for the a yellow emergency light telling me the driver door was not closed tight. Time seemed to stretch and movement seemed to be slowed down as my mind tried to grasp the feeling on my bare skin and see through the dust.

 

I felt a lurching sensation. I could not see what was causing it. Then another jerk of the car sent me nearly crashing headlong into the steering wheel. My feet had slipped down onto the floor. I lifted my right foot to put it back on the gas pedal. As I did the dust in the car dropped so I could see and I switched my foot to the break.

 

Through the thinner dust I could see just enough to know the car was in a clear gap. A pocket of air that was still. Then a concrete wall zoomed up into the front of the car. I pressed down hard on the break peddle with both feet. The dust in the car flooded forward blocking my view out. I heard and felt something snap. The car stopped suddenly and slid to the left and hit something hard, sideways, which pressed the car up on something against the drivers door. As the dust settled I looked at both my arms, slowly from the shoulder's to the elbows and on to the forearm's up to my wrist's. I could see no sign's of broken bone's. From experience I knew I was in shock and would not feel much of any new injuries if I got any.

 

The dirt and dust had settled enough I could see out the side window. The car was pressed up against the concrete wall on the outbuilding. I could see out the windshield that the wind was pushing dirt, light lumber, and small rock's by the west end of the building making it look like a solid wall. I turned to look to my right and saw what made the snapping noise. I had a ten inch thick tree branch sticking through the windshield that reached all the way through the car and stuck out through the hatch backs window. I realized it must have been moving fast.

 

As I looked at the damages from the tree branch I recalled having had read a Ripley's Believe it or Not story about how after a hurricane a railroad train engineer found a blade of grass that had pierced through the solid steel railroad track. The tree branch had not broken the windshield out or the hatchback window and seemed as though it was a part of the car all along.

 

After a moment of staring in disbelief at the scene the state of fear I was in, along with the stage of shock, I started to get mental mindfulness of my condition. I realized I was getting a sudden sense of relief. I felt euphoric bliss creeping in, I knew, I was about to black out, because I had not breathed once since everything stopped moving. I took a fast and deep breath, and tried to get another before I felt myself slip out. My mind blasted me, "Big mistake! Breath slowly." I barely felt the world drop out from under me.

 

-----------

 

Whoosh!

 

-----------

[Deleted54170User]

Nevada

----------

It was an incredible feeling having the floor disappear under his feet, but after a few second's he realized his mind was being tricked. Since his days had been given many fearful instances it was clear fear had opened a safety valve giving him the feeling of serene comfort when he thought he was about to plunge to his death.

 

He could feel solid ground under feet. To make sure he stomped his left foot hard on the floor. As he did he felt a little sense of drifting. He stomped down with his other foot and again found something solid in the pitch black space.

 

He felt confident and jumped up into the space and let both feet lift and fall back down. Once he was on the solid footing again he waved both arms around to see what would happen.

 

His fingers found nothing. He reasoned, that the only way it could be as dark as it was would be if he was in a room. He cautiously lifted his right foot up and toed the solid space below several times in different spots before he let him self place his foot down a step. Each time before he took a step he tested ahead with his right foot.

 

Poking, step, and then sliding his left foot up sweeping out a little to see if he could find anything to touch with it. Then he moved along stretching his arm's out to the sides and to the front like a tight rope walker balancing.

 

Ten paces after he started a thought came to him. "Let there be light!" In the darkness he winched, blinked, and shrugged, "That didn't work."

After taking another several paces he had another thought, "Light's!"

 

His right arm shot up to his face, his forearms sleeve covering his eyes, "Dam! That hurt!" After his eyes grew accustomed to the light he looked around. "Where am I?"

 

Looking along a distance wall he could just make out what looked like a desk and chair. "That looks like a good place to start."

 

Walking cautiously he noted the rest of the room was a huge area around him. There were no window's and it seemed like there might be a door near the desk and chair. As he got close to them it became clear he was not in Vegas anymore.

 

The top of the frame of what he thought was a desk he thought it looked more familiar. It was smooth as glass and polished black as well. The thing he thought was a chairs back looked like it was embedded at the bottom of the black surfaces lip. He put a finger on the small object to test it. Poked at it gently a few times. "How'd I get here?"

 

A symbol appeared on the black surface. Another followed. The symbols spelled out, "You are in a temporary stasis as we await your transfer coordinates."

He looked at the screen, "You're sort of like a computer monitor?"

The symbol's appeared, "Yes! You are correct. You will be returned in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five..."

 

He looked at the extraordinary monitor, "Hey! Wait a second! I have got question's."

 

"two, one."

[Deleted54170User]

Montana

------------

"Where the H.. Am I?" Looking to his right he could see the tree branch. Lifting his right hand from his side he reached out to touch it to make sure it was solid. The tips of his fingers sent the brain the resulting feeling of bark and wood. He strained to clear his eye's. As light began to get to his brain the cab of the vehicle dust cleared enough to see inside, and he could see the windshield and the back window, "That could have killed somebody!"

 

Reaching forward with his left hand he twisted the windshield wiper knob. As the blade moved up and to the left on the left drivers side of the vehicle he heard the rod that pushed and pulled the right one pop. The windshield motor stopped. He quickly turned the switch off.

 

Looking out through the gap the one blade managed to clear before the motor drive rod jammed he could see the wind had died down. The dust inside the truck bed had settled enough for him to see the well worn floor mat under his bare feet.

 

Dazed! He looked at them for a moment. He did not recall having bare feet a moment before. He could have sworn he just saw a well polished black shiny wall with words flowing across them. As he thought about it though there was a moment where he felt his body was still a bit out of focus.

 

Then he recalled he was taking a deep breath too fast before passing out.

 

Taking one slowly through his nostrils he raised his head a little lifting it up and leaning back into the trucks seat. Pushing away from the steering wheel he looked in the inside rearview mirror and could see the notches the ridges of the steer wheel left in his forehead. Breathing in slowly again, he raised his right hand to rub the skin on his brow.

 

While massaging the flesh bits and pieces of his memory drifted back. He looked out the windshield, the wind died down enough for another concern, but there was still dust going north on by the concrete buildings wall. At least he could see through it. The less sturdy building's he recalled standing in the area for rental storage were all skeleton's. An urgent sense crossed his mind and looked at the dust all over him. He brushed it off his right thigh.

 

In the dim light he could not quite make out any color change in the skin. He turned to open the glove box where he had stored a hair brush, as he turned his forehead hit the branch. "OW! Oh, yeah! That hurt! Nice tree branch!"

 

Examining the dash closely he fingered the button and found the latch popped open easily and the little door he had broken one hinge on fell off as the other hinge no longer held it either. He foraged around in the stuffed glove box until he found his hair brush and 4 inch wide clothes brush. A moment of amazement crossed his mind. The look on his face reflected back at him in the rear view mirror. He saw the look on his face appeared delighted that he still had that clothes brush.

 

After the excitement wore off and giving the tree branch a stern look he began brushing himself off while wallowing in the flash of realization that in the last hour of his life he just about got killed. As he brushed the dust off of him self he thought out loud, "I wonder who that guy was who called?" Instantly dropping the question he went back to his task like a child playing a game, "No red skin. Good! No blister's. Better! No cut's. Best!"

 

He reached back in the glove box, grabbed his cloth buddy jar, and opened the lid. Pulling on the inside button a piece of cloth wipe came out. He started giving his face a refreshing wipe with the lightly moist cloth. As the Aloe covered cleansing sheet slipped across his forehead cooling his brow a bit he had a sudden urge to ponder the outside.

 

The wind had died down completely. "Whoa!" Looking to make sure the other side door window wasn't open he hit his head on the tree branch again. "Good cover!" He peered around the windshield where the tree branch stopped to see if there were any gaps big enough to let a burn through. Quickly he squeezed his body down on to the floor between the brand and the trucks bench seat to get in so the passenger door was protecting him, "1000, 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, 1005, 1006, 1007, 1008, 1009, 1010." He stopped counting, "That's odd?! No back draft!"

 

He counted another round through to ten. "Nothing." Wiggling back to the seat from under the branch he sat up. He looked at the concrete wall outside the drivers side window and then to the right at the tree branch. "Looks like I am going to have to start er up and move it. I think I will wait just a few more minutes."

 

While he did he reached across the bench seat and grabbed hold of his cloths. He got his shirt first. Put it on. Then his sock's stuck in the top of his boots went on next. Lifting his right leg first followed by his left, up onto the seat, he slipped the trouser legs over his feet. Button them over shirt and boxer shorts. Then the hiking boot's. He looked out the windshield and saw that so much dust had settled he was going to have try the windshield wiper's again. It was obvious the right one wasn't going to work. He turned the key in the ignition. The starter did not make any sound. He put his foot down hard on the floor stomping the clutch peddle to see if the safety block starter switch was loose so it would not start if the truck was in gear without the clutch pressed down. Turned the key again.

 

"Yes!" He flipped the wipers switch on to full power. As luck would have it, since he shut off the wiper before the rod jammed and broke anything, the motor reset to the neutral position so the rod to drive the other blade had freed itself. The left blade was able to move. The first thing he noticed was that the sky was clear.

 

"That was no atomic blast." Scratching his head with his right hands finger's. "Then what was it?" He reached for the automatic shift on the dash, but his hand found nothing but air. "That's funny!" Looking down to the right he saw a stick shift on the floor. "Oh! Yeah! Truck!" His face wrinkled up in confusion for second and then he reached down as he pressed the clutch peddle down and put the transmission into 1st gear. He looked to the right. The tree branch blocked his view. "That's coming out first thing after I get a look around."

 

The truck was up against the concrete wall so close that he had to drive straight along the wall until he got to the corner. As his door window cleared the end he looked to the left. "WOW!"

 

Everything he could see of the neighboring house were nothing but skeleton's. Wood house's with any skeleton left were burning up some remaining two by fours. The newer plastic house's with aluminum girder's that were the replacement for two by fours within wall's were sticking out of strange mangled plastic resembling an ocean wave about to break onto the beach with tiny flames on the ends dripping flaming liquid drop's of plastic down on the ground beneath.

 

He turned to look tot the right and hit his forehead on the branch. "Darn, darn, DARN!" Turning in the seat so he could get in a good position he reached up and placed his hands on the wooden branch. With all his might he pulled from the back toward the front. The branch held against his effort as though it was a natural part of the truck. He shinnied his legs out from under the dash and pressed his boots on the side of the branch. Shoving with his feet and pulling from back to front he fought the branch. Wiggling and kicking it he heard the windshield crack, "Oh! Sh..! Wait! What am I worried about? It is already broke." Giving it all his effort the branch moved forward. A couple of hand switching and foot pumping times more it was on the hood of the dark red truck.

 

He started to get out of the truck, decided against it, and decided to drive back to his old place. He got situated behind the steering wheel. Pushed the clutch down and put the shifter into 1st gear, pressed down on the gas pedal until he had reached five miles an hour. He hit the break pedal with is right foot and the momentum sent the tree back back to earth, "Back to earth from whence you game! Poor Friend!"

 

Backing the truck up first he gave the two some distance between each other and then drover around the tree branch.

 

Driving slowly to test the road for signs of goop asphalt tar, so his tires did not get eaten by hot asphalt, he gazed about at the damages in each of the lots where house's used to be. As he neared the road where he last lived, as the truck got close he could see dirt where the asphalt used to be there. A closer look told him there was no asphalt left for almost two city blocks. Pulling the truck up to the front of his old rental, he stopped it, and took the truck out of gear. He measured with his eyes and could see the hole where the house had been was twice the size of the house and several feet deeper. There were no foundation blocks, cinder blocks, bricks, and then he saw it.

 

A flame.

 

It was half way across the five acre lot the house used to be on. The flame was shooting out of a pipe. "There must have been something in that basement, or underneath it, I did not know about." He thought about it being the gas lines fault. "Maybe it started leaking and built up a big pocket before it reached the pilot light on the water heater up stairs?" He did his best Sherlock Holmes face and deduced about it some more, "Maybe! I'll bet that old pipe was leaking. After all these year's. That house and all the pipe's was nearly 80 years old after all. It would sure explain the extraordinary cost for my heating debts."

 

He looked around, "Where is everybody?!" As he realized the distance where he ended up in the vehicle was a mile radius from where he found safety from the fire burn he realized the whole area East and West had been caught in it. "All the neighbors! Sheezus!"

 

He looked up the south hill and could see the devastation even reached the last house on the hill. He look closer and began counting each of the house's remaining when he found something suspicious about the count. "There is one house missing every six along that row and two big house's up the hill are gone. There must have been more lines leaking then just the one."

 

As he sat there with the dread of all the people lost growing on his mind when something caught his ears. "No siren's." He rolled the window down and listened. He waited. He looked in the rear driver side mirror and saw the hill behind blocking his view. He shoved the gear shift forward, stepped on the gas peddle, and spun the truck around.

 

Driving straight north on what was left of the road he took the right turn were some of the road was always a dirt and wheel rutted road. As the truck reached the rise he could see smoke billowing up on the sky line. He hit the breaks before smashing into a burning fallen power pole. His mind stalled as he stretched his view across the over view.

 

5 miles from east to west and 3 mile north to south and everything was in flames. He opened the door and jumped out, raising his hands clenched in fist's to his head, "It's not possible." Raising his right fist and raging at the sky he opened his mouth face up and yelled, "IMPOSSIBLE!"

 

The End

Or is it?

[Deleted54170User]

The Sum of all Reason

Turning his head to the right and looking back over his shoulder he could see, even, the rich folk's house's were skeleton's. "What could have done this?! Not one house of wood, plastic, stucco, brick...Wait a minute! Somebody had a bomb shelter around here. Where was it?"

 

Raising his right hand so its palm acted like a visor so it gave his eyes shade he searched the area for any sign of the ground exposing the outdated shelter. After giving the area's forward, back, right, and left a full view from where he stood high above the rest of the city, his memory served him, "Oh? That's right."

 

He looked in the general direction and could see clear across the land that was once covered in 100 year old to modern day buildings.

 

The eight story hospital he was accustomed to seeing east of where he stood no longer existed. As his mind took in the shock of realization he remembered the older hospital that had been turned into a sport's clinic and rehab center for sport related injuries.

 

He turned to look North. The big six story, two city blocks wide, and four city block long building was leveled. It was six city block's away from where he stood. "What kind of destructive device could do this kind of damage?"

 

The wind began to change speed and he saw it raised clouds of dust which appeared to be rolling toward him. He turned and ran around the side of the truck, jumped in the drivers side and slammed the door beside him.

 

"The window!" Grabbing hold of the backing over the seat he ripped off the protective cover on the back of the seat. He ripped it off the little 'S' shaped hooks quickly and stuffed it into the hole the tree branch had made. "Duct tape, duct tape?" He looked at the glove box gaping open at him with no door. "Ah! Duct tape."

 

Hastily he pulled strips of tape and taped around the bulge of cloth stuck in the hole to keep the dust out, he muttered, "Don't matter! I am dead anyway."

 

Continuing his effort to seal the dust cloud out of the cab. "Why did I say that?!"

 

He reached around his belt feeling for his multi-tool pouch. He popped the snap loose, pulled out the silver chrome device, and opened it in the butterfly style and picked the knife blade. After cutting a slit in the seat cover he looked at the hole in the window on the back of the cab. Whipping apart the butterfly like tool again, "Scissors. That's more like it." Cutting a square out of the bolt of cloth dangling from the windshield down onto the old worn out pick up trucks seat he had exposed he glanced at the hole a few times to make a good guess at the size he needed.

 

He began to hold up the seat cover frantically as he watched the dust rolling in toward his truck. As he swore under his breath the dust took a westerly direction.

 

"Phew! That was lucky." Immediately he turned his attention back to the cloth and scissors. After mangling the cut so the edges looked like a Halloween pumpkin's teeth he flipped the piece up to the window to see how accurate he cut was. Seeing it was too small he started to return to the large piece again hanging down across the dashboard over onto the seal. "Wait! Duct tape!"

 

Pulling a strip of duct tape until the wheel gave him a few inches of the two inch wide tape he cut it, laid it across the cloths edge on one side. He cut another the same length and laid it across the lip of the first piece of tape so it was three and half inches wide and six inches long. Repeating it again he made enough wider strips on two sides of the cloth that it helped fill the hole and stuck the patch to the plexiglass of the back window. He muttered, "I'm dead!"

 

After stopping to wonder what caused him to say that he stroked his chin, "It is on the east end of 38th street and two blocks from where the first house where I was raised from one and half to five years of age."

 

He did not hear himself talking as he cut some more cloth off the huge chunk hanging in the windshield, and started over, making a piece the correct size to cover the hole there. As soon as he finished he looked down the hood of the truck to see how well he could see through the windshield. That done he peered around to see if there was a clear path he could steer the truck to, to get through the rubble.

 

Starting the trucks engine up he push in the clutch, put the transmission in reverse, and backed up enough to be clear of the power line pole. Turned the steering wheel to the left so the trucks front end pointed to the right from the power poles position and aimed the nose along the dirt road that used to have a real nice couple of house's only a few year's old along side. "Why are there no bodies?"

 

In his confusion the clutch slipped from under his left foot and the truck lurched forward shaking him back to his senses. The dirt road was rough, but still intact for quite a ways. At the left turn in the road where it came to a T that pointed north or south he remembered the ditch on the north direction. Turning to the left he posed the idea that the lawn he could drive over to get around the ditch, that someone dug to keep people out of the area coming from the opposite way would be damaged. He thought for a second that It was someone elses property and the lawn would be ruined by his tire's tearing through it, "What am I thinking?!"

 

After he got his presence of mind, sense of direction, and focused upon his situation the drive across lawn's, over large empty lot's, and through the greater part of the missing city, and its people, was all that remained to be a problem on his mind. He put the two wheel rear drive pickups 4 speed transmission into second gear and started the truck moving along. After driving through a half a dozen place's looking for people, keeping an eye out for good's he could use, and a gas station pump he took a deep breath, "This must be what all those people who drove 4 wheel drives around where enjoying? I just wish that things were different, like before."

 

The usual thirty minute drive east along tenth avenue south ended up taking two hour's. Along the way he found one gas pump that worked, out of all the one's along the road that was still standing. That business added another five minutes to the time after getting it to accept his check debit card. The ground was covered with a bag's of various food. He picked through it for stuff that was good and filled the back of the truck up with all that he found. That took another fifteen minutes. At the end of his journey the, single family of four, bomb shelter was right where he remembered it. As he drove up toward it he saw the neck where the ground would have covered it up to the entrance sticking out like they were just installing it recently and had not finished yet.

 

Aware that if anyone survived they would be here, inside he hoped. He approached cautiously anyway.

 

He looked around and saw a ladder, dragging it up to the towering entrance tube he plopped it up against it. It occurred to him, as he climbed up the sixteen foot extension ladder, that if they were alive, and inside, it was not likely they would have left the welcome mat out and the door unlocked. At the top of the ladder he looked down on the bomb shelter door.

 

His mind filled with the memory of the other children he was raised along with talking about wanting to see inside the bomb shelter. He remembered how they hid by the bushes and waited hoping to slip by and get a peek inside. At the time he was only about four years old and everyone of the other boys was at least two to five years older then he was. He recalled he walked up to the garage and the girl inside, just about his age, asked him if he wanted to see something really neat. As the memories faded he felt a twinge of hope that the girl and her family were inside now.

 

The lever on the lid was a simple one. The symbols said, "Slide to right to open." He got a grip on the handle and started to try and move it to the right. It did not budge. He looked at it in helpless frustration. His emotion's rose up into his throat and tears welled up at the same time blinding him. He blinked several times to clear his eye's.

 

He hammered on the lid a couple time's. Sputtering through tear's, "Anyone home?!" He waited a few second's for a reply. He aimed his fist at what looked like a thinner spot and slammed down on the door twice, "Hello?!" He started to feel frustration and hopelessness welling up in his chest and looked hard at the door. "It's all over but the shouting. Open up and let's talk." As his words died down and went unanswered he looked at the latch again. As he stared at it he realized why he could not move it to open the catch. "It's not closed."

 

He grabbed the lift handles, pulling up, he felt the seal's release easily, and air pressure puffed up into his face. Looking down he could see the lights were on. "Emergency power is working."

 

He waited hopefully, half expecting to see the little girl he met to show up at the bottom of the inside ladder and wave to him to follow her inside. After a long pause he took a deep breath, "Anyone home?!"

 

He was shaken so bad by the empty sense in his mind that he almost fell off the ladder. He grabbed the side of the bomb shelter doors lip and straightened the ladder he was standing on up against the edge. Even so his legs and arms were giving him tremor's so bad he had a difficult time of climbing up and over, and then down into the belly of the shelter. As silence continued and seemed all that was awaiting him as he climbed down the sense of being a whole stable human being began to slip away more. When it did it took his remaining strength with it and his hand's finger's lost their grip. The fall was only a few feet and as the sadness reached his mind he rolled backward into the hall leading to the belly of the shelter. Loneliness got to him as the lid on the top automatically shut after his back tripped the doors inside lever.

 

Tear's streaming down his cheeks, he blubbered like a child who had gotten too far away from his Mother or Father for safeties sake. Feeling lost and alone he shouted, "WHERE IS EVERYONE."

[Deleted54170User]

The lights are on, but nobody is home

 

As he lay on his back sobbing, his mind grasp the void that was behind and above him. The sense's which were holding him together lost their hold and realization got its last toll. He roared at life, he yelled at god's hoping one of them would hear him, and he called out for all the friend's by name one by one of those he could remember. "Somebody?!"

 

He was beginning to lose consciousness. He knew it. It was just like the last time when he took a deep breath too fast and it knocked him cold. He tried to be brave, but fear grew instead as the seconds ticked away. He swallowed hard one last time.

 

 

The Return to the Bride

The sun rose over the stone keep east of his position. He wanted to see the cell on the tower where he knew they had her locked up. He held up the short staff the wizard gave him and put the small end up close to his right eye. As though he thought he had to cast a spell to make the long telescoping staff work he whispered, "The innards make all that is far seem close."

As he looked at the gray stones and raised the staffs other end up to find the high window he reflected on what the wizard told him, "All that was not visible to the naked eye would be."

 

He looked at Darrandor, "This is real magic!"

The young wizard looked up from his work bench, piled with bunches of little items strewn around, "Yes! Real magic! The sight is on this end." Pointing his finger at the small end of the staff. "And this will make it so you can see from a safe distant without being spotted by the wall guards."

 

He stared at Darrandor, "What makes you think I want to be unseen by the guards?"

Without batting an eye Darrandor stood and walked across the room. Talking as he went, "You will have a terrible time trying to jump or climb up tall wall's without my special levitating device."

 

"What?" he bumbled with his thoughts then thought better of his thinking, "Levitating device?! There is no such thing!"

 

Darrandor looked up at an object above his head and reached up. Taking a hold of what looked like a log until his finger's pinched the outer cover. "Do you think the seeing staff only works for you?" Lifting up and unhinging what was hidden under the cloth. "This, on the other hand, is one of two and I am only showing it to you as it will not likely work." Darrandor looked hopefully from under his guise, eyelid's hovering half open, waiting for the spark of temptation to blink from his unknown customer eyes.

As expected he saw the strangers eyes glow with the desire to find a way to get something that might aide him in, in his time of need.

 

Darrandor dropped his head as though to examine the sheath as he pulled it off the special cross bow so it would be out in plain sight and smiled to himself. A whisper left his lips, "Gotcha!"

 

The young man looked on with a disappointed glare, "It's just a cross bow!"

 

Darrandor looked him in the eye, "Oh! This is just a cross bow." Turning the bow so it could be seen from the side, "This is a pulley and it has a handle." Pointing as he described it, "See?!" Reaching under the belly of the crossbow and this, now, this is a very special arrow and it, I say it, might not work as I have not had a chance to try it."

 

The stranger looked on, "Go on!"

 

Darrandor knew he had him, "The arrow has a ring attached to its underside, the crossbow is made so a rope can be attached to it. The rope would be most heavy and drag the arrow down except when this arrow leaves the lurch it opens up wings." Pulling the arrow out so the light from the work bench window over head made it visible, "Watch."

 

As he pulled the arrow out of the crossbows special hold the wings spread out several inches, and again Darrandor realized he had the strangers will under his control. "It may actually give the dart a greater distance to do what it was designed to. Only I don't know as I haven't anyone to try it."

 

The stranger looked at it, "What's it for? I thought you called it a levitating device. How does it do anything to levitate anything?!"

 

Darrandor could see he was loosing the strangers attention and switched his focus on the real reason for the device. "Think of a long rope which a person, or maybe two people, could use to get across a gorge safely where there is no bridge." Darrandor paused for effect. "The pulley here..." Pointing again at the side of the crossbow. "...it lets you use it to glide across the rope so the bridge master can sink a staff and post on the other side. Instead of sending someone down into the gorge and climbing up the other side this would save the bridge master a whole day, as a person as light as yourself, could hook this belt around your waist." Demonstrating as he talked he looked up to check his fascinated new friend's attention, "Hook this line to the back pulley on the cross bow, hook this line on the front and turn this crank to safely glide across the gorge on the rope. Of course! If you were at a high tower with the rope going across to a lower ridge across from the tower you could glide safely down the rope with..." Secreting his look to check to see if his stranger friend was getting more interested. "...a person almost as light as you along with you with this belt to hold them."

 

The stranger nearly grabbed the crossbow from Darrandors hands. "The arrow?!"

Darrandor had reloaded the arrow and was ready for the rush of the stranger and pointed it at him. The stranger stopped in his place, eyes wide with fear. Darrandor moved to the right and pointed the crossbow at the wall of stone in his shop and fired it. Darrandor knew what might happen, but he thought better of it and figured it was time to test his new toy, and this stranger seemed the right height, weight, and was traveling with a purse full of gold.

The arrow climbed only a foot above the mark where he aimed in the short space, "Go and try to pull the arrow out."

 

The strangers face turned to relief and then confused reasoning appeared on his wrinkled forehead. He felt his knees straighten as the fear of being killed left him. Having had his own crossbow, once, he knew no arrow was strong enough to nick stone, "Sure!"

As he turned to look where the deadly device had gone he could see it was stuck in the wall. "What magic is this?!"

 

Darrandor looked at the stranger and pointed at it, "Care to test my magic? Then go test it and see for yourself."

 

The stranger felt a twinge of a challenge and a bit of fear. He lifted his trousers leather harness and tightened the belt to aid him in retaining his strength. Walking slowly he eyed the back of the arrow and followed along its shaft to where it disappeared into the stone. He could see where it appeared to have scarred the stone exposing a fresh wound. He grabbed the rings on the arrow and pulled. He pulled harder. He put one foot up placing the sole flat against the wall and pulled again.

 

Darrandor watched and held his glee as he felt the ticklish affect occur upon his mind. The arrow's would hold such a man as he and this stranger from falling. He prepared his next spell to capture the strangers attention and hold him to do tasks to test the device further.

 

Ether fade and light's change sight, now that you have gathered in, out you go and far to win.

 

Darrandor had him under his spell, and for the next week he would train him to use the gorge bridge tools and see if the rogue fellow, possibly a rich adventurer, survived long enough to give another show to the bridge master. A show that would win Darrandor praise and assure his highness would find favor in his other experiment's, and supporting him in the future more readily.

 

As the stranger aimed the crossbow at the towers wall above the window where he had seen the woman pass before the window of her prison he remembered how well Darrandors potion for putting guards to sleep worked on Darrandor. Feeling self assured from the week of tests where he only had one rope break and nearly dash him against the wall of rocks below, he fired the arrow. It sailed up and at the wall. The strangers aim proved luck guided it too as it found the seam between two stones.

 

As darkness welled up around the castle he worked the crank until he was up at the windows ledge. He whispered, "My queen! Come to the window!"

 

Inside the queen bolted upright and sat there awakened by the shock of hearing a familiar voice.

He whispered again, "My queen! Come to the window!" He laid the belt hooks and ropes down on the ledge. She turned and almost spoke, but thought better of it as she felt it was a dream. She could see her husband sitting on the ledge of her prison window holding up a belt. It reminded her of a puppet she played with. She thought a moment thinking that as dreams go she felt assured it would fade soon.

 

Her husband gestured, his voice whispered, "Grab your cloak, come to me, and put this on around your waist." He held the baggage belt for the poles in his hands. Four times he had carried more than ten of the poles so he felt assured it would easily carry them.

 

He could see in the candlelight she was about to speak, "Hush! Come hither! Do as I say! We can talk later." As she complied he tested the belt and ropes. She was standing next him on the ledge, and as if he read her thoughts, "Just hold on to me, we'll be fine.

 

He smiled at her and the thought of Darrandors wondrous gift too made that smile even warm her more. As they glided like two love birds across the sky she smiled at him. He grasped her tight. As their feet touched down she felt a surge of joy. He unhitched them tossed the line rope freeing them up and took her to the horse. As they rode casually along in the starlight he told her the tale of how a fine young king and a young wizard met and worked together. At the last, as the sun began to rise, and the road ahead was clear of any followers or road warriors, they came to the shore of the ocean and stopped where their own knight's gave them hurrah's then proceeded to block the road behind them. They took to their room and bathed in peace in hot water to remove the pain's of his labor's, of her aches of having been locked away, and prepare for their safe journey home.

 

The king looked at his happy young queen, as they were sitting in the tub aboard ship, soaking in the heated water, "Soon if Darrandor the Wise, If he be wise, awakes he begin packing and moving to a far away land. Otherwise he might be explaining to the young prince how he had the King, whose queen they had, in his grasp and how the captured queen being held hostage for ransom escaped with the use of Darrandors own magic crossbow."

 

Laughter echoed softly from inside the finely crafted room aboard their ship as it sailed along the beam of sunlight as though it was there to guide their ship home across the ocean.

 

 

[Deleted54170User]

Another Ending