He doesn’t understand why I would be upset about him buying his “dream car.” Uh, how about the fact that it only has 2 seats and there’s 3-4 people that need to be driven around in this family? How about the fact that he’s been driving like a maniac lately and I’m seriously worried he’s going to crash and kill himself in a sports car?
“I don’t want a four-door because they’re ugly.” Well, at least get one with four fucking seats, asshole.
Ugh. I’m angry and I’m upset, but I’m trying to keep it all on the inside. Because it’s his money, we’re living here under his kindness, and he’s going to do what he’s going to do.
And if that includes spending $30,000 on a car when he bitches me out every month for spending more than $300 on groceries, well, that happened. So I’ll ignore the leaky roof, the lack of good indoor heating, the emptiness of the refrigerator, and the fact that he refuses to go to the doctor because it’s too expensive, and pretend some enthusiasm for his new car.
“She always kept herself ready for the end of the world.
“That’s what I remember of my mom.
“She was always prepared.
“Even as we lived the normal suburban lifestyle; quietly she taught me all of the skills I was using in the resistance. Such as camping and lying and getting the most out of people. She taught me how to survive.”
MEMORY: Sitting on a stool in the corner of the kitchen. Watching mother bake and chat with the visiting friends filling the living room. Not a one of them could guess that secretly she didn’t want them in her home.
She was a brilliant liar. She taught him so much. / :MEMORY
Mother could be quite vivacious. She brought energy and positivity to every situation. She had a cold pragmatism to her, but it was wrapped in a layer of silly laughter and a lighthearted intelligence. She charmed everyone that met her, personality shifting like a chameleon.
He loved that only family ever got to see the real her. It taught him to wear different faces in public and at home.
She taught him that family was the most important thing, but that there could also be extended family–*Family* as it were–people to count on and be counted by.
When the government collapsed, all he saw was his family. He kept the people he loved alive, and they fought just as hard to protect him.
And then there were more people and they were a Family.
And other Families appeared and they were Clans.
And there were scuffles and Wars and the Clans, the Companies, the *Nations*–all of them had found their places in the world.
And there was peace for fifty years.
And then the Others came, and even after they were defeated and humanity slipped the bonds of slavery, society still fell into despair and ruin.
There were more baseline humans than ever before and the nanotech factories had long gone silent. All of the technicians were dead.
And he continued to care for his Family, the people that he had gathered together during the rebellion and made his own. They looked to him for guidance, and he made vows to do his best for them.
Which made the discovery of the time machine an intriguing prospect, one that he was unable to turn away from.
Being able to somehow change things and shorten his peoples’ hardships, how could he say no?
He weighed what he knew of the cost and made the choice.
Z Z Z
ASIDE: She lived with a steady sense of urgency. There was something terrible coming in the future. She’d lived long enough to FEEL when the family luck was about to change.
She turned a bunch of toolboxes into survival kits and storage for extra things. Band-Aids at first, then small screw driver sets, rubber mallets [ILLUSTRATION: great for tanning hides and hammering in nails], and first aid kits.
The first survival boxes she made were simple things. Then she began adding changes of clothes and The Friendly Swedes’ magnesium emergency fire starters to the boxes and they evolved into something a bit more complete, with a few days rations, a simple survival pamphlet, and a pencil box of bare necessity supplies in every one.
She didn’t know what was coming, but she wanted to be prepared.
Because she only had to glance into Sean’s eyes to see that he would fight. Whatever the future brought, he would not be content with just surviving. And whatever trouble found him, he would bring it home to her.
A life on the run had no appeal, but she’d done it before. She could teach him all the ways to be small and quiet, unnoticed in crowds of people. She could teach him to blend into the background and wait for chance and opportunity.
But until he became desperate, she despaired of him ever learning subtlety. He was a strutting peacock and she worried for him.
And quietly she prepared. Prepping for her son’s future.
Title: Doggy Style
Author: Sol Crafter
Genre: urban fantasy, magical realim, mm
CHAPTER FOUR
Having his door pounded on at three in the morning would usually have Faraday screaming with rage. But tonight, with his best friend missing and sleep as far from him as the moon, he was up out of the blanket nest he’d made on the couch and running to the front door.
“Hold on, hold on, I’m coming,” he called out.
Relief was a cold rush across his face and down his body when he opened the door and found Zack on the other side. Sure, Zack’s hair was an uncombed mess, his glasses were missing, and the clothes he wore were too large and combined with the lack of shoes or socks to give him a waifish air, but he was alive.
“Oh shit.” Faraday grabbed Zack by the arms and pulled him in close for a desperate hug. “You’re alive.”
Part of him wanted to be mad at Zack for frightening him, but he could feel the way Zack trembled in his arms and it quieted his anger. Obviously something had happened to Zack.
He tugged Zack inside and toward the couch, kicking the door shut behind them. “Are you all right? Here, sit down. I’ll get you something to drink. Do you need to eat?”
“I have no idea what’s going on,” Zack said. He gave Faraday a spooked look and didn’t hesitate to grab the afghan off the couch. He wrapped the brightly decorative piece of cloth around himself and made to draw his legs up under it before seeming to remember that his feet were filthy. “I don’t even know what’s real anymore. This seems like it should be somebody else’s life.”
Faraday hurried into the kitchen area to grab a bottle of cran-raspberry juice out of the fridge. He looked indecisively at the cupboards for a moment before going to the oven and taking out a cookie sheet to use as a tray for the juice. He added two glasses half filled with ice, a plastic bowl of baby carrots and cherry tomatoes, and a package of cheese and chive sandwich crackers.
Part of him wanted to make Zack a couple of turkey sandwiches and possibly a bowl of soup, but he didn’t want to leave him alone for too long. He was paranoid at the idea of Zack disappearing when his back was turned. It was just too bad that he didn’t have much in the way of instant food that wasn’t also junk food.
He carried the makeshift tea tray into the living room and set it on the coffee table. He sat down next to Zack and busied himself with pouring the juice and opening the sandwich crackers.
“Here, I got you a little something to eat. Drink this first.” He pressed one of the glasses into Zack’s hands and gestured for him to drink it. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do and I don’t want you to have a dry mouth.”
“Gee, thanks.” Zack sipped at the juice and accepted one of the crackers Faraday offered him. He ate it in two quick bites, then looked surprised, as though he hadn’t realized he was hungry.
Faraday let him swallow before asking, “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been going out of my mind with worry.”
“You’re not going to believe me,” Zack said. “I don’t think that I even believe me.”
“Well?”
“I was a dog. A literal dog, with fur and a tail and four feet and everything.”
“You’re right. I don’t believe you.” Faraday flopped down on the couch. He rubbed his hand across his forehead. “Where were you?”
“I’m serious. Look into my eyes. I was a dog.” Zack shook his head. “I have no idea how it happened, but I experienced a full-body transformation. It was like something off TV.”
Faraday had heard all the stories, though magic was usually something that happened to other people. People that moved through darker circles than he or Zack ever had.
“Did you piss off a witch–or I guess it would have to be some kind of enchantress? What did you do to make someone so mad?” he asked.
The look Zack gave him could have melted steel. “I have not had any run-ins with witches, enchantresses, sorcerers, or even party magicians. I have been working and going home as usual. Turning into a dog has got to be the most unlikely things to ever happen to me. I don’t know why anyone would bother cursing me.”
“Hm.” Faraday thought of all the transformation cases he’d ever heard of. It wasn’t a popular spell anymore, since it was power intensive and was a quick way for a magic user to end up in prison. Still, there were stories. “Maybe it wasn’t intended for you. You were cataloging the new shipment. Maybe you triggered some kind of booby trap.”
“Who would leave something like that hanging around?” Zack looked thoughtful. “We did receive all that stuff from that estate sale. I didn’t see anythng in the paperwork about Mary Nye being a magic user, but it’s not something people usually advertise, is it?”
“This is very serious,” Faraday said. “We’re going to have to final reports with the police and get you Cleansed before it becomes a permanent curse.”
“Maybe we should be a bit careful with that. Can we just go to a Cleanser and not bother with the police?”
Faraday stared at Zack, noticing his deadpan expression and the forthright honesty of his stare.
“What did you do?” he asked. He was experiencing a sense of dread.
