[Untitled]
ANDERS HAD NEVER been especially religious, so he made sure to sleep in the next day. It was a good feeling to wake up at noon to the sun streaming into the room (though he'd taken the liberty of covering his windows with dark paper, he didn't dare cover Dino's, for fear of having to explain everything to him). He stretched and glanced at the clock, then at Dino's bed. Dino was gone. Of course; he'd probably gone to church sometime earlier, and was now with Sid and her fantastic drinks. He smiled to himself, and climbed out of bed.
His back was sore; he winced and stretched again, trying to rub out the ache. Must've slept curled up or something. He wouldn't doubt it.
He got dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and left the room. The hallway was deserted, some of the doors open, some closed, some locked. There were all kinds on campus. Things were rarely stolen, except for some kind of joke. He remembered someone he knew having all of his clothes except the shorts he was wearing stolen and hidden under the couch in the lobby. [Note--I used to pretend to be my characters chatting on audiotape. There was one scenario where character Chernobyl Cat, I believe, was having quite a good time describing how he'd raided Damien's room and had hidden most of his clothes under the couch in the college lobby. In my storylines, Damien and Anders don't really know each other, except maybe through Puck, so I likely just tossed this anecdote in for fun.] And then, though he had never been especially religious, he thanked God that he kept his door locked at night.
Not that it helps much.
He shoved that thought out of his head, surprisingly successfully. He was wondering where Puck might be. He'd also taken the liberty to read over Puck's file, and discovered his dad was a minister; however, Puck too had never been especially religious, so he didn't expect him to be at church either. As he passed Room 419 he knocked; there was no answer. He tried the door, and, to his further surprise, found it unlocked. That puzzled him, because of Puck's laptop; unless Puck had brought it with him. But he'd never seen what else Puck might have to
hide?
lock up to protect from thievery. He cast a glance over his shoulder, then over his other one, and finally went inside, shutting the door behind him softly.
"This is a really bad idea," he said aloud, but started looking around immediately.
The first thing that struck him, after he turned on the light so he could see (Puck had no windows to his room), was that the walls were almost completely bare. Even from wallpaper or a special paint job, as many of the other students on campus had put up to make their quarters more homey. Instead, the walls were painted dull, pale blue, which he could tell Puck had nothing to do with as they were chipped and flaking; it was the base coat for all the room walls in the dorm. But other than that, the wall over the bed was totally bare. [Note--hm; not how I remember imagining Puck's room. I pictured black walls and lots of stuff randomly tacked up. And graffiti. Just because Puck likes vandalizing things. *shrug*]
On the right-hand wall, instead of windows, hung two large wooden shelves. One was stacked with books, the other with tapes and CDs. Anders crept over to look at them. Many of the books were on computers, though none of them were basic. But some of the other ones made Anders wonder: Nostradamus' Predictions For The New Millennium. Tarot: A Guide To The Soul. Black Magic In The Middle Ages. Dr. Faustus. 1984. What Every Survivalist Needs To Know. Conspiracy Theories Through The Years: A Study. Social Psychology Of Subcultures. The Coming Apocalypse. [Note--as far as I know, aside from Dr. Faustus and 1984, I made these all up. The more New Agey ones don't strike me as Puck material, though. Where is something like The Anarchist's Handbook, for example? Did I make that up too? God, I hope I did...]
This guy's dad was a pastor?
That he found difficult to believe. Even more difficult than the fact that Puck's laptop was sitting on the desk right below this shelf. Boy. Puck may have been paranoid, but obviously his distrust lay in something other than college students. [Note--Puck, IMO, doesn't classify as paranoid. Antisocial, yes, but paranoid, no.]
He skipped the music shelf, preferring not to know what music Puck listened to; judging from what books he read, he was sure it was as varied and as cheerful. [Note--recall that Puck is a member of Damien's pop/rock band, Radioactive--but I don't really think that Radioactive's style of music would be Puck's listening style. For some reason I imagine him listening mainly to hard rock/some sort of metal, electronica/dance/trance-type stuff...and classical. Don't ask me where that came from.] No wonder it took several of Sid's cocktails to make Puck smile.
As soon as he turned to the third wall, the one he'd been unable to see from entering, he stopped in his tracks, stunned.
This wall was not blank. Instead it was covered from top to bottom with drawings, drawings of all different sizes--large, small, tiny. Some of them had been cut from some other source, but most of them were original, and bore a tiny MB signature at the bottom. [Note--"Matthew Benteen."]
Puck's obviously been pretty busy lately. [Note--this should be italicized as one of Anders's thoughts. Did the formatting go missing again? That's odd.]
All of the pictures were of aliens and spaceships. All of them had been tacked up haphazardly, wherever there had been space. Many of them overlapped others. They were all from totally different angles, of different views and subjects. Some of them had written captions. Anders stepped forward to examine them. They were all written in Puck's backhanded scrawl, but Anders could read them almost easily; he'd taken several shorthand courses, and though Puck's was different, he could understand what they said. [Note--what the hell does shorthand have to do with lefthandedness??]
He picked out a particularly large ink line drawing of what appeared to be a mothership. It was huge, its belly curving downwards, the view below looking up. It looked very much like the one Anders had dreamed of that night in the woods. It was extremely detailed.
"Dream?" the caption read, obviously puzzled as Anders was. "Field in rain. '94."
Anders frowned. Perhaps he could read what Puck had written, but that didn't mean he could understand it.
Beside this was a drawing of an alien. It was what would be the human equivalent of a three-quarters view, but the lighting in the alien's eyes made it seem as if it were staring at the viewer. Anders shuddered involuntarily. The caption read, "Gray. Descrip.s by literally thousnd.s of people worldwd. You figure."
He tried not to let the wry smile cross his face, but couldn't help it. Puck was just as frustrated as he was.
There was a rough drawing above these two, much bigger. It showed what appeared to be a field, with trees lining it on both sides; the viewer was looking through a thin stand of them, and there was the outline of them on the horizon. Above the field, hovering in the darkened air, was a white glowing sphere. The line strokes of the grass at the very bottom of the picture had been broken to allow the words, "Eastlake '77."
Anders stood up abruptly. 1977? Eastlake was the name of Puck's birthplace, and Puck had been born in 1971, since he was a year older than Anders was. That meant this picture represented something that had happened when he was six years old?
Puck had never told him about that.
He frowned to himself; maybe he'd just better.
He started to turn away, only to stop and tear the picture down--carefully, though, so as not to tear it--then leave the room, turning off the light and shutting the door behind him. He got halfway down the hall, and then stopped dead in his tracks.
There had been something else on the wall. Something under the drawing.
Turning, he jogged back to the room, flung open the door and turned on the light again. He faced the wall, breathless, and read what had been written upon the wall itself, concealed by the drawing:
* * * * *
Anders had no idea of where Puck might be; he figured he'd end up sleeping in too, as the direct result of Sid's cocktails. However, it seemed as if maybe Puck was immune to hangovers. At least, hangovers of the alcoholic sort.
He soon discovered where Puck was, and felt stupid that he hadn't been able to figure it out sooner. Puck delivered the campus newspaper from his bicycle. Today was the Sunday edition, and it was a whopper. So of course there were more than several people walking around campus muttering and rubbing the sides of their smarting heads, carrying the newspaper. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, craning his neck over a game of Frisbee to see a tiny bicycle and rider appear at the end of the Green. It scooped a newspaper out of its basket with its left hand and hurled it through the air, smacking one of the players in the side of the head with a resounding "Whock!" The player immediately dropped the Frisbee and started shouting and cursing and waving his fist, but by then Puck had gone around the Green and was coming up the opposite path, in Anders's direction. Anders waved, and then gasped and ducked when a newspaper flew over his head, crashing through the dormitory window behind him. There was a yelp from inside.
"You're going to get in big trouble for that," he called as Puck came up, skidding to a halt in front of him. He was panting, obviously having been at it for some time already; he was wearing bicycle goggles and a bicycle helmet emblazoned with the word CAPRICE. [Note--remember that? From The Scorpio Murders?] Anders recognized his Internet name from his e-mail address, taped to the front of Sunny--that was what Puck had named his computer--down in the Hub. He was beginning to think he knew why he'd taken that name. [Note--Puck is a Capricorn. Caprice/Capricorn--get it? Supposedly the same root word.]
Puck smiled at him, still panting. He wiped his brow with the back of his bicycle glove. "Good afternoon. I was starting to wonder if you'd ever see the light of day."
"Yeah, I could do without it for once. How you feeling today?"
Puck shrugged. "Fine, I guess. Why? You feelin' weird?" His eyes looked yellow behind the goggles, and he frowned at Anders.
Anders shook his head. "No, I'm okay. I just thought maybe you'd have a hangover or something. Seemed you were partaking of Sid's cocktails a little too much last night."
Puck laughed. "Oh, that. Don't worry. They're not very potent. And I only had two. I guess it must be the sugar. Oh, hey. Did anybody pass out last night?"
"Only the people that fell over, Puck."
"Too bad. I've been keeping records of who passes out the most, and at the end of the semester I'm going to post it on the Net for everybody to see. I only need two more points to get Ted Neff on the list." [Note--recall Ted Neff, AKA that jackass from Luck O' The Irish.] He chuckled evilly, and again Anders wondered about his true parentage.
"Uh, Puck..." he started uneasily, and Puck looked back up at him, his eyes glinting yellow behind the amber goggles. He raised his eyebrows questioningly. At least he's in a good mood--so far, Anders thought. He took a breath. "Do you always leave your door unlocked when you leave your laptop there?"
Puck shrugged again. "If it gets stolen, I know who took it and how to get it back." He pulled a book of matches from his back pocket and grinned evilly again; when Anders looked appalled he sighed and put them back. "For goodness' sakes [sic], Anders, it's a joke. But ritual dismemberment isn't."
"But aren't you afraid somebody might take your stuff?"
"Not really. Like I said, I know the people here, and who would take what. I know where everybody lives. After all, I've got them all on file." He laughed again; suddenly Conspiracy Theories didn't seem like such an unlikely title for him to read after all. "Oh, by the way, how'd you enjoy my little gallery?"
Anders started; Puck pointed blithely to the drawing he was still holding, flapping in the breeze, behind his back. He smiled gamely and Anders flushed.
"Uh--" he started, embarrassed. "I was just--wondering where you were, you know--"
"Cut it, Anders. I mean, you're practically standing red-handed [sic] there. Like I said, what'd you think?"
"Oh. Uh, good. I mean, interesting. You know."
"Yeah, I guess. Which one is that?"
Anders held it out, and Puck took it. He glanced at it, then handed it back. Anders took it, not quite sure just what to do with it. When he continued looking uncomfortable, Puck recited, as if from a paper, "Eastlake 1977. Age six. A dream I had. At least, I thought it was." He smiled and shrugged again.
"Really?" was all Anders could get out, and he immediately felt stupid. He shook his head abruptly to try to snap out of it. But apparently Puck understood what he meant.
"That's what I told Jacob," he said, and Anders looked up at him again. "In Eastlake, near Manistee. Lower Michigan. I had this dream one night that I looked out the window and saw this ball of light across the field. Every time I looked out the window it kept getting closer, until finally it just rose up right in front of the window. I woke up screaming like crazy."
"That's it?"
"Pretty much. Except I had a bad earache for a couple weeks after that. My parents had to take me to the doctor the next day to get some kind of medication." He made a face. "I remember that too clearly. Two kinds. One tasted like bubblegum, the other like rancid grapes. I couldn't eat any dairy products, so I had to eat my toast dry." [Note--this description is from an incident I myself suffered in early childhood. I got a bad earache and was taken to the hospital late at night. Loved that bubblegum medicine, hated the grape! And considering that I adored toast back then, the dietary restriction really pissed me off.] He stuck out his tongue. "Can you imagine, toast, dry?"
"Yeah, pretty bad.
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