If you missed out on Chapter Five click here
Chapter Six
Lissa didn’t take a full breath until she’d turned the corner at the end of the street. Her heart was racing, her hands were clammy and shaking. He never let her use his car. In fact the only time she ever drove it was to take him to the store for more beer when he was trashed enough to worry about getting pulled over. He thought she was getting a pregnancy test, she’d deliberately led him to think that in light of what had happened yesterday which was actually today a day ago….Oh God, holy shit, she felt hysterical laughter bubble up and swallowed it back. What the hell was she doing? Stealing his car? Did it matter? Could she drive halfway across the country and end up back in her bed tomorrow morning, or this morning, or….she yanked the car to the side of the road and stepped on the brake, squeezing the steering wheel. She needed to get a grip, reason this out.
The way she saw it there were only a few possibilities. A: She was in a drug-induced coma. B: She had actually died and this was some kind of purgatory. Or C: She was caught in some kind of time blip like the skipping of a record, and the best she could hope for was some cosmic event to knock it back on track.
Well if she was in a coma then none of this mattered because it wasn’t real. If this was purgatory…she shuddered. She’d get back to that one. But if this was in fact some kind of strange rift in the fabric of reality then the whole thing could end without warning bringing Friday with it, so it might not be the best idea to steal his car. Well not to drive it across the country anyway.
She pulled back onto the road and twenty minutes later pulled into the bus station. It was in a nicer area of Binghamton so she wouldn’t have to worry about crazies assaulting her while she waited to go….where ever she decided to go. Her phone beeped startling her and she groaned, knowing it would be Tyler wondering why she wasn’t back yet. She ignored it for the time being. She’d wait until she was safely on a bus before texting him and telling him where to pick up his car. Then she’d turn the phone off. She felt a bit of her tension loosen with that decision. Baby steps.
She walked into the terminal and sat on a bench, noting that there were only a handful of other people sitting on chairs and benches spread across the large room. Okay, next step…where the hell was she going? She forced herself to think, her brain really wanted to shut down but she was not going to let it. She was always just letting things happen. Okay, I should err on the side of caution and assume that this strange repetition will end tomorrow. In which case she didn’t want to spend too much of her money on a ticket, which would limit her choices. But in case today was going to repeat, did she really want to spend the whole time on a bus? She rubbed her left temple which had become the new target for her pangs. Fuck it, she thought, as she continued rubbing her overtaxed noggin, all day on a bus was fine. Maybe she could use the time to figure out her life. She should probably pick a destination she was actually interested in that way if tomorrow came she wouldn’t be stuck somewhere shitty with a dent in her wallet to show for it. Well, she’d always wanted to go to Colorado, see the Rocky Mountains.
She stood, once again glad that she’d chosen this station. The station downtown was so shady, there was bulletproof glass separating the patrons from the ticket sellers. Here there was a desk where a middle-aged woman with greying, stylish hair and a pleasant smile greeted her as she walked up.
“Can I help you?”
“Uh, yes. I want a one-way ticket to Colorado…” she smiled sheepishly, “not sure exactly where in Colorado, just that I’d like to be on a bus as soon as possible and not spend too much money.”
The woman typed something into the computer. “Well it looks like we are running a number of specials for Aspen since it’s out of season...there’s a bus heading in that direction in 45 minutes but it has a number of lengthy layovers. If you waited until later today...” she stopped as Lissa shook her head, “okay, well the cheapest is ninety-nine dollars plus tax and the arrival time is Saturday at 10:30 a.m.”
“I’ll take it, thank you.”
A few minutes later she went back to the bench and sat, holding her ticket tightly, wondering if the woman would notice her lack of luggage. She was noticing it herself. Wishing she had at least brought a few changes of clothes. Nope, she thought, not going to worry about it.
Less than an hour later she followed two people out of the terminal and onto the bus, making her way toward the back. Fortunately there were plenty of empty seats so she chose one that was just far enough from the bathroom not to smell it, but close enough she could easily reach it. She slid all the way in and took her phone from her pocket. I’m sorry. She typed, I need time to think. Your car as at the bus station uptown. She sent the text and shut the phone off, slipping it into her purse, then leaned her head against the window, looking out at the parking lot without really seeing it. Figure out her life, she thought. Where to even start? She squeezed her eyes shut against the now recurring stab of pain in her temple, wondering if it was a side effect of her predicament, or if it was something being done to her in the hospital bed she could be lying in, which would also be a side effect of her predicament…she sighed loudly.
Everything felt real. The glass her head was resting on was chilly, the fabric of the seat was soft and slightly worn, and she detected a faint odor of cleaning products. If she were in a coma, would everything feel this real?
She pulled her phone out of her purse thinking she should look it up then huffed out a short laugh. If she was in a coma then looking it up was not going to help because it would be her mind fabricating the information. Plus Tyler would have texted back probably ten times by now which is why she’d turn the thing off to begin with…had she really forgotten that in a matter of minutes? Injured brain didn’t seem so farfetched. It was by far the most plausible of her theories whether she could smell Clorox and lemon or not. They were not new scents, this was not her first time on a bus, it was entirely possible she was trapped inside her head after overdosing. Maybe a lot of dreams were like this, you just couldn’t remember that when you woke up from them. Maybe, could be, might be, shit. She closed her eyes again and this time let her mind wander rather than directing it, hoping it might lead her where she needed to go.
It was three a.m. by the time all three women had fallen asleep from exhaustion, the king-sized motel bed a tangle of legs and tits and ass. Physically Caleb was as wiped out as they were, but mentally he was still alert, wired from the generous lines of coke he’d shoveled up his nose. He pulled himself out from under them and crawled to the edge of the bed, leaning over and grabbing his jeans. He flipped to a sitting position and pulled them on, his eyes flicking to the half a gram sitting on the card table. He should probably wait until he fully came down…he caught himself and smiled wryly. Those were rules for reality, they did not apply to comatose dreams.
As he pulled up a chair and divided the powder into lines he mused that this was exactly like what he would imagine a virtual realm would be someday. He did two in quick succession and shook his head vigorously, barely suppressing the urge to vocalize the rush. He slid a glance at the women who hadn’t stirred, and decided to take his thoughts and his high elsewhere. He used a card to scrape together the remainder of the powder into a pile by the edge then carefully pushed it back into the plastic baggie from whence it came, pulled on his shirt and flip flops, then grabbed his phone and made his exit.
He stood on the sidewalk and pulled out a cigarette, enthralled with the whole process of lighting it and taking his first drag, watching as the smoke plumed from his mouth and floated off into the night sky. Definitely how he’d imagined the future of virtual reality. He brought the cigarette back to his mouth and noted that his hand was jittery from the speed shuttling through his system. Incredible, he thought. It made him question what reality truly was, because it all felt just as real as it ever did. What if his brain hadn’t decided to repeat the day? He wouldn’t know that this wasn’t real. He took another drag and scanned the length of the sidewalk, not a soul in sight. It was after three am on a weekday, it would be a few hours before the street woke up…huh, what will happen if I force myself to stay awake until the afternoon, I wonder? Could that break the routine? Only one way to find out.
He knew of an all-night diner across town that would suit his purpose perfectly, particularly because of the time. He’d probably have the place mostly to himself. Plus it had a single bathroom that locked with a convenient metal shelf under the mirror. And coffee.
He dialed the number for a cab and tapped his foot while he waited, his body filled with a frenetic energy. This was his least favorite part of a cocaine high, he preferred it when he started slowly coming down. His thoughts grew laser-focused without the addition of body energy-as long as he wasn’t drinking.
The cab pulled up and he got in, giving the driver instructions as he shut the door. He stared out the window as they pulled from the curb then jumped backward so forcefully he nearly landed on the other door.
“What is it?” The cabbie asked in alarm, checking his mirrors.
Caleb’s heart was pounding out of his chest but he forced himself to answer,
“Nothing, sorry, just a trick of the light.” Trick of the light, he repeated inside his head. Because instead of a faint impression of his own face in the window, for a split second it had been the face of a girl. It was too quick for him to have taken in detail but that didn’t matter, he knew who it was. Especially since it was his imagination, what other female would he freak himself out with?
By the time they got to the diner he was pissed as hell and still on the up side of the upper. He paid the cabbie and got out of the car, closing the door a little harder than he’d intended, earning a scowl from the man. He mouthed ‘sorry’ and turned in the direction of the diner than changed course just before he reached the door, deciding to walk to the river, burn up the extra energy.
He could always come back.
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