Not Very Nice People - Chapter 8/11: Somewhere Around Nowhere free porn video

NOT VERY NICE PEOPLE by Crazy Baron Chapter 8: Somewhere Around Nowhere Synopsis: Mike and his friends do their best to resume their drive towards Bedford and get rid of Dan, but now there is no more denying that something extraordinary is indeed happening to them. Little by little they begin to have serious doubts whether they will ever get to Texas, or even Bedford. ***** "---drive," I completed my unfinished sentence. And then I slammed on the brakes. I was again in my male body and behind the wheel of my car. Jake was sitting next to me. Scott and Charlie were in the back seat with Dan Mancini between them. We were on a road somewhere southwest of Greensville, Chesterton and Bedford, and my car was now standing still near the edge of the pavement after the emergency stop. My brain registered all this in a matter of three seconds, but it took a lot longer for my conscious mind to comprehend it. Looking around, I noticed that all of my friends were in a similar state of shock and stupor, only more severe than mine. They all stared either numbly forward or at each other with their eyes wide and mouths hanging open. Almost half a minute passed before anyone even tried to say a word. "What... what the fuck?" Scott muttered in a low voice. "What just...?" Charlie cupped his chest with his hand, more likely than not to find out whether Cordelia Chase's breasts were still there. Realizing they weren't and that he had forgotten himself for a moment, he quickly put his hand down and let the air out of his lungs through his teeth in a long, quiet hiss. "It's safe to say," Jake uttered slowly, "that something is truly amiss here." "No kidding," Charlie commented. Their reaction spoke volumes and was, to me, the conclusive proof that this time, we had been transported to Sunnydale together. The reality distortion phenomenon that had made my life a virtual hell for several weeks was almost certainly affecting all of us now. "Mike?" Scott spoke up after another pause. "What was that?" "Don't ask me," I said. Playing dumb would have insulted the guys' intelligence, so I did not resort to it despite the temptation. "It has happened to me before but I'll be damned if I know what it is." I briefly rubbed my eyes, took a deep breath to focus and then, after checking the traffic--there was none in sight, apart from us--got the car moving again. Jake, Scott and Charlie were all trying to come to grips with our shared experience and kept silent for a considerable length of time. The brooding mood was interrupted only when Dan stirred, smacked his lips annoyingly loudly and stretched his arms, as if waking from a refreshing sleep. He seemed completely unfazed by the reality shift, if it had indeed involved him at all. "Good morning," he said to us. "Good morning yourself," Scott replied. "I have important things to tell you people," he announced in a pompous and pretentious manner. "Kent Noggin, my bestest pal and hero, told me, or Sparklestar as I am rightly called by him, just now in telekinesis speech that it's not necessary to go to Bedford anymore. He won't be there, but he will be working for the good of this world, and all the other worlds, from his respective place elsewhere." "And where might this other place be?" Jake asked, biting his lip. "He said he'll give us directions later on, that is, Kent Noggin said." "But your cousin Flint is in Bedford, isn't he?" I said. "Yeah." "Then we're going to Bedford," I declared. "Kent can catch up with us there." "I'll have you know that it's not what Kent wants us to do," Dan argued. "Bedford is not important now, and Flint is not either. Flint can wait but Kent Noggin needs us there in his place straightforwardly." "I suggest," Jake growled, "that you save that gobbledygook about your imaginary friends and their plans for someone who actually gives a shit and kindly close your mouth. Otherwise I'll be glad to help you with that. Straightforwardly." "We're going to Bedford," I said, "and that's that. Not negotiable. Sorry, Dan, but I won't be taking orders from a cartoon mouse who speaks to you in your head." "Kent Noggin and his friends won't be happy," he remarked. "They could think they need to intervene and guide us, out and out, onto the right path." "Was that a threat?" Jake asked. While Dan's behavior was admittedly irritating in its own way, I wished that Jake would also tone down his aggressive attitude towards Dan. It was entirely counterproductive under these circumstances. "They only do what they think is necessary, from their respective standpoints," Dan explained. The prospect that the Angronok demon perhaps did exist in some sense and was counted among Kent Noggin's friends made me uneasy, but with a serious mental effort I managed to push the Sunnydale adventure and all the associated nonsensical and unscientific thoughts at least momentarily to the back of my mind. I couldn't allow them to dictate my decisions, no matter how real they felt. "That makes no difference," I said. "Kent and company will just have to deal with the fact that our next stop is Bedford." "Okay," Dan said. "You'll see." To our immense collective relief, Dan went quiet after this (relatively speaking) menacing comment. A minute or so later he was once more snoring lightly, with his head tilted back and his mouth ajar. We, the others, were in a taciturn mood as well, partly because our journey seemed to become more complicated by the minute, but the true elephant in the room was, of course, the recent reality warp and the excursion to the Buffyverse. Nobody wanted to talk about it, and so there existed a conspiracy of absolute silence on that topic; on the other hand, nobody could come up with an alternative subject of discussion without having it appear awkward and forced to the point of being risible. As if to add to the somber atmosphere, the weather was showing signs of rapidly changing for the worse. The sky was becoming overcast with massive dark clouds that promised rain, perhaps even snow. In no time at all the sun was only peeking from the occasional hole in the cloud cover, sending us a few last bright rays, and then even the holes seemed to close and the gloomy ceiling above us was complete. "That's odd," Jake said to himself. "What?" I reacted. "It looks like I've lost the GPS signal. My navigator application blanked out." "Is your battery low?" Scott asked. "Try closing your other apps and see if it helps." "I don't have any others active right now," Jake replied, "and the battery's more than half full. Oh, and by the way, now there's no network either. The signal strength was something like three bars out of five just ten seconds ago." "Turn the phone off and then on again," Charlie suggested. "I don't think that'll work, but I can try." "Hey, Mike," Scott piped up, "stop somewhere for a second so we can get out of the car. Maybe the reception will improve when we're not moving. My cell seems to have gone dead too." "I'd rather not," I said. "This road should take us pretty much straight to Bedford, so we don't really need the navigator anymore. Even if we still have to take a turn or two, there are bound to be some signposts to guide us the rest of the way as we're this close already. It's not like Bedford is a ghost town in the middle of nowhere." "It's not exactly a major metropolis either," Charlie pointed out. "Still nothing," Jake commented, having booted up his phone in the meantime. "No connection to the outside world whatsoever." "I'd feel much better if we got the signal back," Scott insisted. "Just pull up for five minutes so we can see if that helps." "Alright, fine. But we're doing this over my objections, guys." Every one of my instincts, together with my logical side, was warning me against a delay of any kind, to say nothing of stopping by the wayside just to check if we could get a better cell phone reception. The sense of premonition was magnitudes stronger than it had been when we met Dan or visited Kenny's house. I had to suppress it by force and shove it to the same scrap heap of ostensible rubbish as my memories from the alternate past, Sunnydale and Angronok, if I was to indulge my friends. Only a few minutes later, another old gas station came to view. It was much like the previous one--the stocky main building, somewhat lower but longer workshop and a couple of pumps out in the yard were almost the same, bar perhaps the fact that they seemed even more worn down and that the parking lot was empty. No lights were on anywhere in the buildings or outside them. "We'll check that out," I notified the others. "If they're still selling gas, I'll fill up while you can play with your phones to your hearts' content." The station was on the left with respect to our direction of travel, which meant we had to turn across the road to get to it. We didn't have to stop and wait, though, as this stretch was all but devoid of traffic, even eerily so, I thought as I steered into the station yard and slowed down to crawling speed. As a matter of fact, the environment appeared to be nearly devoid of people and human activity in general, despite the scattered houses in sight. I drove around the station buildings once and then stopped near the fuel pumps. My eyes had caught no movement, the doors seemed to be closed and locked, and my earlier observation of all the lights being out was confirmed, save for a single fluorescent lamp shining in the workshop. Either the owners of the station had forgotten to turn it off or, which was less likely, someone was visiting the shop and maybe working there. "Doesn't look too inviting," Charlie said. "You wanted to stop," I countered, "so here we are. I don't think I'll bother with trying to get any fuel, though. Those pumps must be rusted through." I shut down the engine and unbuckled my seatbelt. Opening the door, I felt a rush of fresh but cool air. The temperature had to have dropped considerably since the caf? episode, I surmised and got my legs out of the confines of the car. We had been traveling for some 40 miles and less than one hour, yet those same legs of mine, now slightly stiff due to all the sitting, had at the same time been getting plenty of exercise in Sunnydale over two nights and a day, if my recollections were anything to go by. Dan also opened his eyes, looked around and clambered out after the rest of us. Jake, Scott and Charlie busied themselves with their smartphones, whereas I simply took the opportunity to stretch my limbs a little. Much as he had done at Kenny's house, Dan stood a few yards away from my friends and the car, staring at the sky with his mouth hanging open. This habit did at least as much to underscore his mental disability as his infantile prattling about Kent Noggin the superhero. Out of desire to make the most of the pause and have my blood circulate a little better, I decided to take a little walk, leaving the others to investigate the communication blackout. At the moment, I didn't pay much heed to it, believing we could simply be too far from the nearest tower. I was more curious about the overall quietness of this locality. I would have expected for at least a single car to pass by the station during any given five minutes during daytime, but the road was and remained utterly deserted. "Any luck?" I called out. "Nothing yet," Scott replied. "We're not getting any kind of signal." "Mike," Jake hollered, "do you by any chance have a dedicated car GPS navigator somewhere? I'd like to find out if that works any better than a phone." "No, I don't. If I did, I wouldn't have needed to ask you for directions, Jake." "In other words, you're too cheap to buy one, huh?" "I can read a map, unlike some people." "What about yesterday? We had no map then." "We did, actually, but it was folded in the glove compartment and I would have had to stop to take it out and read it. Things were simpler this way, that's all." "Yeah, whatever. You're always ready with an excuse when it comes to sticking with antiquated kit." I put my hands in my trouser pockets and trudged slowly towards the buildings. A variety of practical matters--mostly having to do with travel times and fuel and completely unrelated to parallel universes and vampire slaying--preoccupied me, but it was excessively difficult to concentrate on any of them. We had started our journey from Greensville less than 24 hours ago, and yet the better part of a week, spent in three entirely different places and mostly in a female body, had elapsed from my perspective. I tried to calculate how much more gas we would need or when we would have to leave the ranch for home if we managed to drop Dan off before 5 p.m. today and if Scott and Charlie were unable to take more days off from work, but my brain simply couldn't or wouldn't handle the calculations, as easy as they were in principle. The station was plainly not open for business, and in passing I wondered who owned the property as I approached the workshop building and then stood by its two large main doors. In busier days, which were in all likelihood far more than a decade in the past, cars and maybe also tractors of the local farmers had been fixed under that roof. A crusty old wizard of a mechanic had worked here, I imagined, along with one or two young assistants, who learned by doing. Covered in engine oil and grease, they would put together broken components and fabricate metal parts when proper spares weren't available, welding, drilling and cutting, making something out of nothing and keeping the vehicles of the nearby populace running year after year. The inside of the shop and parts of the yard had been semi- permanently littered with seemingly abandoned small tools, nuts, bolts, lengths of electrical cable and half-empty cans. But now all that was gone and the shop closed down, probably for good. Most of the windows in the shop building were high up, to give the working space inside the best possible natural lighting, but on the long side of the shop, around the corner from the facade with the doors, there were two that were low enough for me to peer through. Out of curiosity, I did that, shadowing my eyes from the sides with my palms. The glass was dirty, but I could see that there was a small room, perhaps an office, with a door open to the large workshop hall proper that lay beyond it. The light we had seen was one of the workshop hall ceiling lamps. "What have you got there?" I heard Scott ask. "Nothing much," I said and turned around. "The property seems abandoned, but I was wondering about that light." "Yep, I noticed that too," Scott said and, in his turn, looked inside as well. Abruptly he spoke up, "Mike? What's that?" "What?" "That thing just outside the door. Do you see it?" It took me a while to figure out what he meant. An indistinct shape, distorted by the grime on the window pane and the poor lighting, was barely visible behind the frame of the door leading from the office to the hall. It could have been, and quite likely was, a corner of a large box sitting on the floor right next the door. However, something that reminded me of a human limb was protruding from it and hanging over the side. "Do you see it?" Scott asked me again. "Yeah, I think I do," I said. "It's probably a piece of clothing, work overall pant leg or something like that." "The hell it is," he argued in a tone that signaled his excitement over this as of yet unidentified but (in my view) very likely mundane discovery. "It's skin-colored, and an empty trouser leg wouldn't be that taut. For all we know, it could be someone's actual arm." "What's up, guys?" Jake asked, sauntering to join us with Charlie. Dan had tagged along and was standing alone some distance away. "Take a look," my cousin told them, and Jake and Charlie both then tried to peer through the office window. "What do you guys think that thing, that object over there by the door is?" "Strange," Charlie mused. "Could be a leg of a mannequin, methinks." "Why would anyone store disassembled mannequins at an abandoned backwoods gas station?" Jake argued and almost pushed his nose against the glass. "It can't be that." "Don't ask me. How should I know?" "Do you think we ought to go in and investigate?" Scott suggested. "What's the point in getting involved?" Jake retorted. "Who are we, the Scooby Gang?" "Funny you should put it that way," I quipped, but my friends were already worked up to such an extent that they ignored me. "From here it does look like a human limb alright," Charlie added. "Isn't that all the more reason to move on and get the hell away from this place?" Jake said. "We've had our share of weird happenings already on this trip." "I agree," I voiced my own opinion. "Let's just leave and drive on to Bedford." Nearby was a small side door that apparently gave direct access to the office space. Scott walked up to it, grabbed the handle and pressed it. "It's not locked," he reported and pulled the door open. "Fuck this," Jake sighed. "Wait here, guys. I'll go get my flashlight from the car." "Lock it and bring me the keys while you're at it," I instructed him. "I'm not leaving the poor automobile there unguarded." Jake took his time. Scott stood in the doorway, gazing inside but hesitating to cross the threshold alone, whereas Charlie continued to make observations through the window. Dan, who was outwardly completely apathetic and had not opened his mouth for several minutes, paced back and forth a little further off. I tried to come up with a good argument to put an end to the others' unusual eagerness for urban exploration and talk them into resuming our trip but couldn't think of anything besides pointing out that we would be trespassing and were, in any case, better off without inviting any more trouble. Then Jake returned with his Maglite in his hand. In addition, I spotted a curious large lump on his hip, bulging out his trousers and jacket, as he handed me the car keys. "What's that?" I inquired. "The Ruger," he replied. "I got it out and put in a full mag. I'm not going in there unprepared." "Are you sure that's wise?" "You're right--I'd rather take a nine-millimeter or a .45 if I had one of those, but right now it's either this or the shotgun, and I want to be discreet." "What I meant," I clarified and pleaded, "was that in God's name, don't draw the pistol unless somebody actually attacks us. We've got more than enough problems as it is." "Take it easy, man. It doesn't even have a round in the chamber." Our bearded security specialist led the way as we intruded into the workshop building. The flashlight was not immediately required since a fair amount of light came in through the windows. The office space was much as I had expected: a desk and a swiveling chair stood in the corner, with piles of yellowed papers sitting on both, and the otherwise bare light gray walls were adorned by the Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar for the year 1993. The cement floor was covered with dirt and the odd oil stain. A strong, stale smell of sundry industrial chemicals was prominent. The main mystery was cleared up straight away. What had given us the impression of a human limb when viewed through the incredibly dirty window was nothing but a length of plastic pipe. Its color was, however, strangely close to a flesh tone, and it was approximately the right size for a small leg or an arm. With the lighting and glass doing their share to distort the image, our mistake began to seem forgivable. "There's your severed body part," Jake pointed out with a grin and a touch of gloating in his voice. "When did you last have your vision checked?" "I've got 20/12 eyesight, just so you know," Charlie defended himself. "It's almost certainly better than yours even when you've got your glasses on." "And still you can't tell a piece of plastic from a human corpse from ten feet away. Some perfect eyesight." "We were right to ascertain what the thing was," Scott chimed in. "It could have been something pretty nasty that we should have reported to the cops, or even a living person who needed help." "It wasn't exactly likely," Jake countered. "Not that a little make believe doesn't liven up a dull day, though." "You couldn't tell what it was either," Scott remarked. "Alright then, kiddies," Jake said to the three of us with a hearty chuckle. "I'll check the hall to make sure there aren't any big bad bogeymen stalking us. Stay put if you're too scared to come along." "Screw you, fatso," Charlie shot back. Some instinct of mine sounded a quiet alarm at that instant. It would have been infinitely better for Jake not to speak so arrogantly, and surely enough, his confidence was short-lived. He went through the open door into the workshop hall. I turned my attention to the papers on the desk but was startled when he abruptly let out a suppressed yelp of surprise and terror. Charlie and Scott rushed into the hall in front of me, but I could see all the way from the office that his normally ruddy cheeks had gone pale--and in the blink of an eye, the other two men paled as well. When I made it to the hall a second or so later, the source of their shock was revealed to me. The car lifts, around which workshops such as this were usually designed, had been removed, and the shop hall was mostly empty. However, where one of the lifts had once stood were now two long metallic portable coat rails. Hanging from them, neatly placed on their hangers as if they were ordinary clothes, were some two dozen skinsuits. I took the unworldly sight in, likely only marginally less horrified than my friends. The collection was enormous, more than any one person could possibly need; there were both men and women of almost every conceivable skin color, and the personae ranged in maturity from elementary school children to middle-aged adults. Nonetheless, on a quick glance they all seemed beautiful and handsome, people whose looks were better than average, in some cases markedly so. "Holy fucking shit," Charlie whispered. His eyes were wide, just as Scott's and Jake's. "Did we stumble on Buffalo Bill's hideout?" "This is fucked up," Scott added. "This is fucked up beyond all belief. Are those...?" "Suits," I said. "They're like the one Kenny donned yesterday, and like the ones we..." "What?" Jake reacted brusquely. While still slightly ashen, he had gotten over the worst of his shock a bit sooner than the rest of us. "We what?" "Uh, never mind. I'm getting confused here." A large enameled steel bathtub, tucked in the corner of the workshop, was keeping the suits company. It was filled almost to the brim with a dark substance which glistened in the light of the ceiling lamp. The substance had the external appearance of waste oil, but it was almost certainly something totally different and far more sinister. Tool racks had been fixed to the walls near the tub, and a table was also close at hand. There were bottles and beaker cups, together with other small items which we took to be tools, scattered across the table and the racks. With only the slightest effort of imagination, I could see a slimy horror movie monster rise from the tub and lunge at us. Charlie, as if in a hypnosis, drew nearer to the suit rail and raised his arm to touch one of the suits with his fingertips. "Chuck, stop!" I ordered him sharply. "Don't disturb them!" He almost jumped into the air and pulled back at once, shaken out of his trance. As soon as he was again his own master, he looked at me questioningly, as did Jake and Scott. They were not aware that the skinsuit symbionts could, at the very least in unusual circumstances, move on their own and change their shape into a liquid, flowing mass to catch an unsuspecting human host. I had seen that occur once, and on that occasion I had been the prey. It was prudent to stay well clear of the skins, however innocuous and inert they might appear. All the same, this was something I felt I still could not share with the others outright, definitely not without sounding like a lunatic to them. "How about we go outside?" Scott spoke up. "Seconded," Jake said. We made for the office room and then the side door as quickly as we could. Once outside the building, we rounded the corner at a brisk walking pace (our pride prevented us from running) and gathered at my car, to put some distance between us and the skinsuit collection to ensure a chance at a quick retreat in case of an emergency. Even if the skins themselves didn't threaten us, the owners of the station might arrive unexpectedly. What their reaction to our sneaking around their property would be was entirely unknown and unknowable to us, but to assume they wouldn't take kindly to our uninvited visit was a good starting point for any action plan. Charlie opened the discussion with the rhetoric question: "Just what the hell have we gotten ourselves into? What's going on here?" "Mike," Jake addressed me emphatically. "You know more about this than you're letting on. Start providing the info, if you will." I sighed in mild frustration. "That might be what you believe, but it's not true. All I actually know is that we are or seem to be jumping from one reality to another and then back again. At first, I thought it involved only me, but after what happened... just before we got to this place has convinced me that you three are along for the ride too. My theory is that it could be due to more than random chance, but I can't even guess at the reason for it, to say nothing of how the phenomenon itself works or who is behind it, if we assume that it's being actively caused and controlled. I'd really like to know more, but the only way to learn seems to be to get kicked around by forces you can't comprehend to begin with." "Where do those suits fit in?" Scott asked. Once more, the others clearly expected me to give them the answer. "Beats me. So far, I've only known of one person who makes them--a woman named Elkins. I'm not sure if you have any recollection of her." "The name does ring a bell," Charlie commented, "but with these crazy things cropping up the whole time, I can't be certain that the memory is genuine. I might be thinking of someone entirely different." "The same goes for me too," Scott added. "I'm the odd man out," Jake said for his part. "I've never heard of anyone called Elkins. Do you think she's the one who gave a suit to Kenny?" "Presumably, but it's not that important. Even if she is real and those skins there in the workshop belong to her, I have no idea what it means for us. Maybe this is her base of operations, a place where she makes or at least stores the finished product, and we just discovered it by accident." "'Accident' is the right word," Scott said to this and went on, "We have to decide what to do next. I have a hunch this is a big deal, and if we make the wrong move now, it could come back to bite us later." "Once again," I piped up, "I'm for leaving this shithole post haste and going to Bedford so we can at long last get rid of Dan. I see no reason why we should hang around and poke into things that are not our business." "Nobody is arguing we should stay here for life and enjoy an intellectual conversation with Dan until we kick the bucket," Charlie said, "but I'm thinking Scott has a point. We should find out all we can before we move on and maybe also alert the authorities. This may be a crime scene." "Now there's an idea," Jake scoffed. "Call the cops and ask them to raid the premises! What would we tell them? And while I don't doubt the suit maker might well be the most reprehensible person we'll ever know, what exactly is the crime? Which law and statute is being broken?" "Don't ask me," Charlie responded, "but I'd sure as hell feel better if someone with the authority to do so came around and checked the place out. The lawyers can worry about the paragraphs; we only have a suspicion there is something criminal going on, but that's enough." "What if the local cops are people in skinsuits themselves?" Jake countered this point. "Can we trust anyone but ourselves? Regardless, we are probably up against something that's much too big for some small-time county official." "Do you have a better plan?" "As a matter of fact I do. We should torch the buildings." "What good would that do?" Scott retorted. "Those skinsuits would burn, hopefully along with the materials and tools they are manufactured with. If there's anything we can assume with certainty, it's that the person or people using them are up to no good." "This is getting ridiculous," I tried, to no avail. "Let's just leave before we make any more mistakes." "You said you wanted to know more," Scott reminded me. "It's right here that we should be searching for the answers. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but in my opinion it's not impossible that we were meant to find the suits and the workshop." "What are you saying?" Jake inquired. "Meant by whom?" "I don't know. It's just a gut feeling that I have. Stopping here was an accident, for us, but not a real coincidence. I can't explain it any better than this. Somebody is pulling the strings behind the scenes." "They could be monitoring us right now," Charlie added. "The monitoring part is definitely possible," Jake conceded. "There could be hidden security cameras all over the place. Nevertheless, I say we destroy the skins. There's no way they are intended for an innocent purpose." "While we're at it," Scott said with a grim smile, "I bet you'd like to off Dan and burn his body with the skins and the shop." "Wouldn't you?" Jake responded, apparently more than half seriously. "He doesn't get out in time and falls into the flames; poor dude. A tragedy for a man, a giant blessing for the gene pool." "Where is he, anyway?" Charlie asked. It was only then that we suddenly realized Dan was nowhere in sight. "Oh shit," Jake cursed. "Having to organize a search party for that retard was just what was missing." His consternation was premature. Mere seconds after he had aired it, a human figure appeared from behind the corner of the building. It was a young girl with a thin, small frame, her head topped with a long mane of gently curled dark brown hair. She stood still for a few moments and then began to walk towards us, slowly and her shoulders slightly hunched. We watched her in total silence, apprehensive and unsure of what was going on. Apart from her underwear, a pink, white-trimmed training bra and briefs, she was naked and barefooted. Even though her body movements were demure, nearly timid, she showed no signs of discomfort due to the cold weather or the wet ground. As she came closer, her delicate features--large, moist blue eyes, a tiny nose, rosy lips, round cheeks--revealed her to be even younger than I had at first assumed, definitely not more than twelve years old. Likewise, her body in general was that of a girl who was still at least a year short of the beginning of her puberty. "Who are you?" Jake asked her when she had walked all the way up to us. "I'm Stacy," the girl introduced herself in a child's high-pitched lilt. "Do you think I'm pretty?" "Yes, you are," I said and looked the girl over searchingly. I already suspected that we had found Dan--or, to be more accurate, that he had found us. So as to leave no doubts whatsoever, she promptly confirmed her identity herself. "I followed you guys into the warehouse and took one of the suits off the rack," she explained. "She was so beautiful and so delicate I just couldn't resist her." Stacy sounded like a perfectly normal preteen girl, which was a huge improvement. The words came out fluently, with no hint of Dan's dull, emotionless monotone, awkward phrases and jumbled sentences that betrayed the intense and difficult thinking process he had to go through to express himself. "What happened to your clothes?" Jake inquired. "Did you just take them off and leave them there?" "Well, yeah," Stacy said. "They don't fit me anymore, plus they're totally dirty and gritty and smelly. We should, like, burn them or give them away. I don't want them." "Fine, but what are you going to wear?" Scott asked her. "You can't go around in your bra and panties. You'll freeze to death." "It's okay. I'm not cold." "I'm afraid this just won't fly," I told her matter-of-factly. "You have to go back there, take the skinsuit off and get dressed. We're moving out as soon as we can." "Why?" she protested. "I'm happy this way and I feel great. My mind is so clear. It's like there was always this brick wall in my brain that made me stupid, and now it's suddenly gone." "The suits belong to someone, Dan. You can't just take one and run. In addition, it could do strange things to you and change you in ways you don't necessarily understand." "It already has," Stacy said. "For the better. I've never felt this good in my life. Kent Noggin too says it's a good idea and he supports me totally." "Mister Noggin's feelings are one thing," Jake mused, "but I've got to admit she does make a good point there, Mike. I'm thinking I'd travel much rather with her than Dan, if I had to choose." "We can't steal a suit," I insisted, "any more than we can drive around with a middle school girl who has no clothes, no money and no family. We also can't simply dump Stacy on Dan's cousin Flint and tell him to take care of her, with no sensible explanation of what became of Dan Mancini." "But I want to be Stacy!" the girl whined. "If you won't take me with you, leave me here. I'll be alright." "You still have no clothes and nothing to eat," I pointed out. "And when people realize Dan has gone missing, we'll be in trouble because the folks at the Sheriff's office know he is supposed to be with us." "Let's all stay then," she said and smiled. "Come on! Let's go inside and pick girl suits for you. I want you all to share this happiness with me." I hesitated for a brief moment but then gave in. "Okay, Stacy," I said with a quiet chuckle. "You win." "Whee!" she exclaimed and jumped for joy. "You get to be Janice or Brianna, and you, Scott, you will be Heather! Oh wow, this is going to be so much fun!" With that, she took me by the hand and began to lead me back to the building and then through the side door, skipping excitedly. Charlie, Scott and Jake strolled behind us. I was nothing short of amazed at how little the low temperature appeared to bother the newly-minted girl. I was in full outdoor clothing and yet none too warm, whereas she was practically naked and still completely content. The rough asphalt surface of the parking lot and station yard should have been very unpleasant to walk on with her bare little feet, but she took that in literal stride as well, just as she did the cracked and dirty cement floor of the workshop. Even though wearing the Buffy skin unarguably had its perks, it had never bestowed this kind of immunity to the elements on me, I observed. "Okay," Stacy chirped and pointed at the skinsuit racks. "That blond girl is Brianna. Put her on, Mike! I think she's perfect for you. That one's Heather over there. She's my best friend, and she's got---" Stacy's sentence was cut short by an ear-shattering startled screech. Standing right behind her and to her right, I had gripped her wrist and twisted her arm behind her back in one swift motion. A round black spot was clearly visible between her shoulder blades; it was my target. I pressed her index and middle fingers against the spot and kept them in place. I was prepared to use as much force as was necessary to subdue Stacy, but she was too shocked and scared to offer any physical resistance. "No!" she gasped in a desperate tone. "No... Why, Mike? Why are you...?" "What the hell are you doing, man?" Scott exclaimed. I answered neither of them and instead held Stacy still. The transformation began to reverse almost immediately: the black spot became lighter in color and then vanished, and simultaneously Stacy's petite frame started to grow and distend. Her limbs and torso bulged out grotesquely, her head swelled and her facial features distorted until they were all but unrecognizable. Her clothes were torn to shreds. As with Kenny's metamorphosis, I thought I could hear a faint swishing sound, but it might just as well have been a spurious addition by my mind, which was drawing on movie special effects. I couldn't help but be disgusted by what was unfolding before my eyes, and I released the transforming--or deforming--person from my grip. It made no difference, though, since there was no need to restrain him anymore. The reverse transformation was already complete, and the back of the Stacy skin opened up. The skinsuit fell by itself to the ground as an empty husk around the feet of its wearer, revealing a slack-jawed, naked Dan standing where the girl had been less than half a minute ago. "Oh fuck," Charlie blurted out. "I can never unsee that. Oh fuck." "Get dressed, Dan," I ordered sternly. "You've cost us enough time with your stupid antics." "I... I..." he stammered. "Yes, you. Get your fucking clothes on, now. I'm running out of patience with this bullshit." "I want... Stacy!" he suddenly burst out. "I... I want to be---" "Make sure he gets dressed," I said to Jake and the others and turned to leave. "I'll be outside. You have exactly five minutes to bring him to the car." "What if he starts acting up?" Jake asked me. "Just get it done. You can pistol whip him for all I care, as long as he's decent and in the back seat of my car in five minutes." "Copy that, sir." "You're being pretty harsh," Scott remarked to me. "I have to. Kindness doesn't seem to work around here. Soneone has to put things in order." I marched out of the side door and through the yard to my car with my lips pursed together and my jaw clenched. In reality, I was bracing to fight back the inevitable pangs of remorse that were already beginning to make themselves felt. I had never considered myself a cruel person, or one inclined to violence any more than the average human being, and what I had done to Stacy was admittedly disturbing to me. Chances were she was by nature a sweet girl, and Jake was in all likelihood correct in his assumption that she would have made an infinitely more agreeable traveling companion than the delusional and retarded lummox with whom our misfortune had saddled us. To make matters worse, she reminded me of the young version of Dawn I had met in Sunnydale. Even though the two didn't look or sound very much like each other, they definitely had a lot in common when their demeanor was concerned. I had unquestionably hurt Stacy, and somehow that translated to hurting Dawn as well in my thoughts. Regardless, I told myself, I had had no choice. There was no way we could have left Stacy behind to fend for herself, and bringing her along was impossible too. Both courses of action would have been so reckless and irresponsible they would have been essentially criminal, even if the owners of the skinsuit stash had no objections to our taking one suit without permission. The others were either doing nothing or fooling around. Someone had to put a stop to the nonsense and get things straightened out. If I had to play the bad guy to achieve that, then so be it. The others came out a while later. Leaning lightly on the side of the car, I watched as they trod solemnly and quietly up to me, Dan in the middle and my friends around him. He was once more completely apathetic, expressionless and mute, but thankfully dressed in his own clothes. The whole spectacle was not unlike a parody of a head of state attending a ceremony with his bodyguards, or alternatively a funeral procession with the added twist that the deceased was ambling along with the mourners, instead of lying in a coffin. "Did he give you any trouble?" I asked them, opening the rear door of the car for them. "Not much," Jake replied. "He did try to bitch and moan a bit, but then I showed him the Ruger and told him what I'd do with it unless he shut up and followed instructions." "A crude but effective way of motivating people," I observed. "You bet your ass it is." Scott and Charlie settled in the back with Dan seated between them, as before, while Jake returned his sidearm to its travel case in the trunk. I was tempted to let out a sigh of relief at the sound of the engine running again. When Jake had buckled up, I put the vehicle in gear, drove straight across the yard and then turned onto the main road after quickly checking for other traffic. There was none. The road was still completely empty, save for us. As soon as the monotonous landscape and the gray haze hanging in the air had hidden the abandoned gas station with its chilling secret from view, the entire incident began to seem increasingly unreal. It was like a weird dream that was now over. Dan was again snoring in the back seat, and my friends, suffering from intense boredom, were looking out of the car windows. Everything was, outwardly, normal once more. Nonetheless, I had a sensation that even though one dream might have ended, we had only moved into the next instead of waking up. The fairytale-like ambiance was reinforced by a gradually thickening mist that was rising from the ground and rolling in. It came from all around and enveloped us until just a short stretch of the road and its immediate surroundings were clearly visible. Everything beyond a small bubble with us at its center was dim and blurred. If the mist had been any denser, I would have had to slow down, perhaps stop outright, and that I would have been loath to do. I kept glancing at the clock in the center console to estimate how far we still had to go to our destination. The numbers showing the minutes changed sluggishly, but both they and the odometer reading indicated irrefutably that time was not standing still and we were making headway. Even so, the landscape and the road remained the same: low hills, patches of woods here and there, a few houses barely discernible in the foggy distance, fields and the occasional bridge over a tiny creek or a ditch, and the road itself, gently turning and rising and falling. Not a single notable landmark, either natural or man-made, appeared anywhere. While I had forgotten the precise distance figures we had discussed earlier today, we couldn't have been farther than one hour's drive from Bedford when we had stopped at the skinsuit warehouse--and more than three quarters had already elapsed since. "What the heck?" Charlie mumbled to himself. "Tell me," I prompted him, hoping he only wanted to break the tedium by talking about something totally irrelevant and harmless. "That house over there," he said and pointed somewhere off to the right with his finger. "We've passed by it before." "A typical family home," Jake commented offhandedly. "There are plenty of houses just like that around these parts." "No, that's not what I mean," Charlie disagreed. "It's not only similar, it's the same. Hey, look! And there's the speed limit sign again!" A sign advising travelers that the local speed limit was 35 miles per hour appeared out of the mist ahead and to our right, became sharper and then disappeared behind us in a matter of seconds. I saw nothing unusual in it, nor did Jake, but Charlie begged to differ. "What about the sign?" Jake asked. "We've passed by that as well. It was bent a little at the lower left hand corner and had a bullet hole in the upper right hand corner, and it came right after we went past the house. It's the same one!" "You're imagining things. There's no way you can see and compare details like that on traffic signs from a passing car." "I can, and I just did. Sure, the sign wouldn't prove much by itself, but when you take the house into account as well, it's fair to say there's something strange going on." "We can't be going in circles," I said. "We haven't turned off this road after the previous incident, and it hasn't curved so tightly in a single direction anywhere that it could have looped back onto itself. If there was a loop, it would have to be hundreds of miles wide." "How do you know that?" Charlie questioned my reasoning. "The road could be turning so gradually we haven't noticed it." "Who would build a road like that?" Jake asked him back. "And why? What's the use? Or are you suggesting we're actually on a race track somewhere?" "There's the disproof, fellows," I declared. "See? The road is getting narrower in front of us. We haven't been at this point before." "Okay," Charlie said. "Maybe I was wrong, granted, but I still think it's uncanny. This whole place is off somehow." We didn't have much time to enjoy this relief, such as it was. Only a mile or so later the road all of a sudden came to a T-junction, with no way forward. It joined a gravel road, not very much wider than a typical driveway, that weaved across the landscape at right angles to the direction the main road had headed and we were supposed to travel in. No signposts of any kind were in sight, nor was there any other clue as to which way we should turn. I stopped the car at the junction but kept the engine running, trying to weigh the options. "Fantastic," Scott said. "Now what?" "Jake," I asked my navigator, "do you have any idea where we are? Can you call up the map without an Internet connection?" "I'll check," he said and went to work on his phone. "I downloaded some maps in case I had to go offline, so it should... Okay, right. It seems to let me view them. Give me a minute." I drummed the steering wheel with my fingertips and looked in the rear view mirror to see if other vehicles would pass through the junction, but none appeared. Even though I had dismissed Charlie's theory out of hand, I did find it eerie that we hadn't seen anyone else on the road for at least a full hour. Assuming we were in the approximate vicinity of Bedford, there should have been several small towns and other roads nearby, not just a virtual solitude that evidently went on endlessly in every direction. "Here's the deal," Jake spoke up. "I can't be positive about this, because the GPS signal is out and the system doesn't know our coordinates, but I think we could be at that point, there." He showed me the screen of his phone. "The road we're on right now could be that one there; it ends here, and so the gravel road ought to be this one. What I don't understand is how we got here to begin with, as we are more than fifty miles west of where we should be." "It has to have happened where the first gravel road connected with this one," I surmised. "Perhaps I turned the wrong way at that junction, or the one before that. There's no other explanation." "We still had GPS then, so it's not very likely, but I guess it could have happened anyway." "Doesn't anybody live around these parts?" Scott wondered. "It's been ages since we last saw a human being." "You're not counting us or Dan as humans, are you?" Charlie quipped. "Of course not." "There should be a couple of small towns a little to the east," Jake said. "Thomaston is here, and then Baxter. Not huge cities by any means, but we ought to notice them as we drive through them." "So we need to go east, is that correct?" I inquired. "In other words, turn right at this junction here." "If we're facing north at the moment, then yes." "What kind of a qualification is that, Jake? Are you saying north is not forward right now?" "The thing is, the gravel road is oriented pretty much southeast to northwest on the map, so if this is the junction I think it is, the car is actually pointing a little north of east." "That can't be. We've had the sun on our right the whole morning and it's moved behind us." "I remember us going almost straight towards the sun at one point," Scott offered his observation. "The roads have been twisting and turning so much I can't be sure where the sun was when." "Alright," I declared, anxious to drive on. "Forget the sun. If no better suggestions are forthcoming, we turn right." "Agreed," Charlie said. Scott nodded in approval. The mist thinned somewhat in the new direction, which was very fortunate, since the smaller road required much more attention and concentration from the driver. Its surface was in a fair condition, without deep potholes or ruts, but it was considerably narrower than the blacktop road and it was full of curves. Crashing into an oncoming pickup truck or a tractor would have been a very real potential danger, had the visibility remained as poor as it had been. On the other hand, we had little else to be particularly grateful for. There were absolutely no signs that we might be approaching the towns Jake had mentioned; we were still surrounded by a desolate country, with its alternating patches of woods and wide open fields, isolated little hills and flat land, but no houses anywhere. Mile by mile my doubts and unease increased. They had been very subtle at first, and I had managed to keep them at bay by reiterating to myself that logically we had to be somewhere within a fairly limited geographical area and that we would find a way to a large town and then to Bedford eventually because it was basically inevitable. However, it was not long before I had to admit to myself that Charlie might have been closer to the truth than I was--and then came the ultimate confirmation. The road began to turn tightly to the left and climb at the same time, and I had to slow down in case we were to meet other traffic at this bottleneck. The incline became steeper near the top, but then the road quickly leveled out and we were treated to a stunning sight. To our right, almost parallel to the road, was a tremendously wide river, flowing in a shallow valley. The road continued for some distance before turning towards the river and descending slightly until it crossed the waters via a long covered bridge, which looked like an insanely stretched out surrealistic wooden barn, with red walls and a steeply sloping tall roof, built over the river. Far away in the distance in front of us I thought I could just barely discern a tall and massive waterfall shrouded in fog. "What the hell?" I burst out and stopped the car. "What is this place? Jake?" "No idea," he said, equally surprised. "Nothing like this is on the map." "You can say that again," Scott joined in. "It must be a full mile to the other side," Charlie estimated, "if not more. Are there even rivers that big in this state?" "Not that I recall," I said, "and not too many on the whole continent. Unless we're well and truly lost and looking at the Mississippi or the Ohio, I have no explanation." "There also seems to be an insanely huge waterfall way over there," Charlie pointed out, supporting my observation. "And I mean something like the size of Niagara, unless I misjudge the distance really, really badly. Does that fit in?" "No, it doesn't," I replied. "Neither does that ridiculous bridge." A chill ran through me as a troubling idea forced itself into my consciousness: perhaps none of this was real and we had entered an imaginary land, or more likely a collective, shared psychosis. "What do we do now?" Scott asked. No one said anything for almost a minute. We had no GPS signal, the available maps were of no use to us and our sense of direction had failed us completely. Assuming a path existed that would lead us to Bedford and we could choose it, there might only be more trouble. No matter what we did, some inexplicable event always occurred and derailed our every plan. "We've got two options," I spoke up finally. "We either turn back or drive on, cross the bridge and see what lies beyond. We can't stay here and wait for the fuel to run out." "What's your call?" Jake asked me. "Isn't that for all four of us to decide?" I asked back. "This is not the military and I'm not your commanding officer." "But it's your car," Scott said. "We are lost, regardless of whether we go this way or that," Charlie added. "I think we've got an equally good or equally bad chance of finding help in either direction." "So, your call," Jake repeated and looked at me. "Alright," I said and exhaled. "This is what we do. We go forward until we find a house. Then we'll stop there and ask for directions." "Sounds like a pretty good idea," Jake said. "Let's do it." I had some misgivings about using the bridge, but it appeared solidly built and sturdy for a structure of its kind, and so I drove onto it after slowing down appropriately. The inside was dimly lit, with just daylight falling in from the openings near the ceiling, and the wooden walls amplified the noise of the engine and the wheels rolling on the deck planking. Only then did I fully appreciate the immense length of the bridge; it was as if it went on forever. "Crossing the Rubicon," Charlie mused. "I wonder what's out there on the other side." "At least we're not going over to march on the capital and start a civil war," Jake commented. "Who knows what happens once we're there?" "I don't care," I said, slowly growing more and more frustrated with the overall situation. "We'll get directions from somebody and then we take Dan to Bedford. After that, we get the hell out of there too. Even if we're attacked by an army of eyeless blue gnomes on the way, we're going to get it done." "To be honest," Scott remarked, "I wouldn't be surprised if we actually faced an army of gnomes, eyeless or otherwise. The way things have been going, there could very well be a black hole in the ground in Bedford, swallowing up the whole goddamn planet." "If there is, we throw Dan in and leave." "You know," Charlie said, "I'm just a regular, totally unscientific average fellow who used to skip class in high school and smoke a small joint with the artsy crowd every once in a while to try to look cool. Even though I honestly think science is fantastic, I don't really understand the first thing about the various theories and principles and math and all that, except maybe that rocks tend to fall down and not up, and that if you stick your hand into fire you'll get burned. But I've been thinking about this. What we've seen doesn't make much sense if you consider it from a rational point of view, am I right?" "You're absolutely right," I concurred. "We can't explain the skinsuits and transformations unless we accept that magic or something similar exists." "That's what I'm getting at. Maybe we're not in the normal physical world at all anymore. We are most likely not traveling between Location A and Location B in the United States of America in the sense that you normally might because that would be a distance you can measure in miles or meters or light years or whatever unit you want to use and because then none of the freaky stuff would happen. We'd leave the point of departure and arrive at the destination, and that would be it. But what if we're actually traveling inside somebody's mind? Perhaps we're driving through their thoughts and going ever deeper into their subconscious as we speak. Am I making any sense?" "You might have something there," Jake said with a thoughtful chuckle. "Dan could be dreaming up our adventures, and we're stuck inside his dream with him." "No, seriously," Charlie argued. "What if he is? Should we make him stop? Or should we let this thing play out?" "How do you make him stop?" Scott asked. "Wake him up? And even if you do that and it works, what happens when he falls asleep again?" "I have a feeling that probably won't work in the first place. He was awake when Kenny transformed into his wife and also just now at the gas station, so that suggests he doesn't have to be sleeping for the craziness to occur." "There's always one way of making 110 per cent sure he won't be causing any trouble," Jake said ominously. "I know you've been giving thought to that idea for a while," I said to him, making no secret of my own increasing tenseness, "but I'm not countenancing anything of the kind. We are taking him to Bedford and that's fucking final. Are we clear?" "Assuming we ever get there," Jake snorted. "And assuming there's a Bedford for us to get to," Scott added. The bridge ended, and to my relief we were soon once more under open sky and on firm ground. The road climbed up the river valley slope, again fairly steeply and in a couple of tight curves, and then it straightened out. It began to cross a vast flat plain of grassland and fallow fields. Wooded mountains surrounded the open space on the horizon, but they seemed to be at the very least tens of miles away. At first, my heart sank at the sight and I seriously considered turning around, but just then I spotted a farmhouse which stood alone some distance ahead of us on a little hill, surrounded by a patch of woods. The road either led to the house or passed very close to it. "That's our next stop," I said. "Let's hope that someone lives there and that he's in good enough a mood not to shoot at us the second he sees us." The farmhouse appeared to mirror the bridge in both shape and color. It was a long and low, single-story, rectangular building with red-painted wooden walls and a steep corrugated metal roof. The windows were adorned with decorated white wooden frames and shutters; the door, flanked by a porch, was situated in the middle of the long side of the house, facing the road. The premises as a whole consisted of a few outbuildings, a yard and a garden with various tall trees and a neatly trimmed hedgerow surrounding the property. Two large square-edged stones formed a gate that gave access to the house from the road via a short driveway. Slightly apprehensive to arrive at the house unannounced, I pulled up outside the gate, making sure I would neither block the driveway nor have any great trouble turning the car rapidly around and towards the direction we had come from, should the need arise. Our experiences on this trip had already driven home the importance of keeping a fast and easy escape route available at all times. I was going to suggest that only two of us go to the door, but as it happened, everyone got out of the car at once, including Dan. Jake wasted no time in rebuking him: "Hey, Danny, stay where you are. This party's only for people with a normal set of chromosomes!" However, true to form, Dan was completely oblivious to both the instruction and the insult. We were also spared the trouble of finding out for ourselves if anyone was at home and willing to help us. "Hello there, intrepid travelers!" a female voice called out so suddenly that it startled all of us. A middle-aged woman walked briskly up to us through the gate. "What be your names?" "Uh, nice to meet you," I said and cleared my throat, more than slightly caught off guard. The lady was standing right next to me, with a wide, friendly smile on her narrow face, whose most striking features, aside from a pair of bright hazel eyes, were high cheekbones and a prominent nose. She was wearing a long green loose-fitting dress, a collection of assorted necklaces and bracelets and a rainbow-colored scarf on her head. Her brown hair was long and wavy, with the longest strands reaching her waist. To round out my initial observations, I noticed that she had nothing but a pair of sandals on her feet. "Likewise," she said and shook my hand. "And you are...?" "Oh, sorry. I'm Michael Caldwell," I hurried to introduce myself. "These folks here are Scott, Jake, Charlie and... Dan." "My name is Daniel Sparklestar Mancini," the latter pointed out, "when it's given in full, thusly." "Groovy," the woman said with another contagious smile. "My name's Cinnamon, and these are my little digs. What brings you here, if I may ask?" "Truth be told," I explained, "I'm afraid we're lost and thought we would stop at the first house to ask for directions." "Well, you aren't lost anymore," she said. "You just found me and the Kids. What do you say you stop for a while and we mellow out together for a bit? Looks to me like you've been through some rough times, friends." "The Kids?" Jake asked. "Oh, we're living on this farm, me and the girls," Cinnamon explained. "We've got this little collective where we work together, share and live off the land in total harmony with Mother Nature, you dig, do our own thing. It's pretty far out." "Okay, I see," I said. "Sounds great. Anyway, I was wondering if you could tell us where we are. Dan here needs to get to Bedford, where his cousin is waiting for him, and we---" "You're where it's at," she laughed. "Don't sweat over Bedford, Michael. You'll get there in good time. Now, let's go in and relax. You can crash at our place tonight." I cudgeled my brains for a polite way of refusing her invitation and looked at the others for support, but Cinnamon simply let out another sparkling laugh, took Scott by the hand and began to lead him to the door. We had no alternative but to follow. Two teen girls, dressed in similar hippie garb as Cinnamon, had been observing us from the porch, obviously curious. They quickly disappeared into the house as we approached, climbed the steps and then entered the hallway in Cinnamon's wake. "That's Daisy and Alana," Cinnamon said, referring to the two girls. "They're intrigued to see new people and eager to groove on them." While the building may have had the external appearance of a typical farmhouse, the interior was, to put my impression in words that Cinnamon might have used, something other than else. Immediately at the threshold we were greeted by a strong scent of incense. The small hall and apparently also the rooms were relatively dimly lit, with the ceiling lights either set to low power (if they were adjustable) or the lamps deliberately chosen to give out only a modest amount of light so as to maintain a mysterious atmosphere. Colorful rugs and tapestries hung from the walls, and the textiles covering the floor were in keeping with the same theme. Another girl, who in slightly more conventional circumstances would have been about half way through elementary school, passed us by, carrying a pile of freshly washed and folded linen. Like her older commune mates, she cast a long and inquisitive look at us. In all likelihood, Cinnamon seldom entertained guests, and it was almost equally likely that the locals, assuming they represented roughly the average demographic makeup for this part of the country, usually tended to avoid the place. A disquieting thought, a development of the idea that had bothered me ever since we had seen the river and the long covered bridge, was nagging in my mind. The incident with the Taylors and the skinsuit warehouse, perhaps even the horse fetishist sighting, had been precisely like traps laid out for us. Something, or someone, was deliberately distorting reality and doing everything in its power to prevent us from reaching our destination-- and now it probably had succeeded. (To be continued...)