Past continuous, p.1
Past Continuous, page 1
CONTENTS
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Also by K. Ryer Breese
About the Author
Copyright
PROLOGUE
In the dream it’s summer.
Days away.
I’m at the beach again. Cherry Creek reservoir.
What do you call déjà vu of your déjà vu?
And there’s a guy whispering in a cell phone at my ear.
He says, “Destroy everything. Leave nothing behind…”
The chemical smell is strong. Reeks, really.
It’s the rubber of the tennis courts. And I home in on it like the million moths that crash through the night to the phosphorus light of the court. Light as bright as the moon.
What’s funny is I haven’t smelled that rubber smell in years.
I haven’t picked up a racket since sixth grade.
But in the dream it’s stronger than ever. The tennis courts must have been repaved. I follow the rise and fall of the water. The dunes. The collapse of the reservoir. The wind in the reeds. The buzz of insects.
I know this place like the back of my hand but haven’t been here since the whole Jimi thing. After changing the future, there really wasn’t a point.
It’s like being back at a battlefield.
And the cell phone glued to my ear hums endlessly with variations on a theme. It’s a mantra. It’s a totem. The guy is chanting, “Destroy everything. Leave nothing.”
He says, “Destroy everything you encounter. Leave no witnesses.”
He says, “Destroy everything. Nothing shall remain…”
I get the point. But I instinctively know that if I hang up, he’ll just call again. I also know that it’s his cell. It’s his minutes he’s wasting.
“Leave nothing behind…”
I get to the court and notice her immediately.
Vauxhall. Beautiful dressed down. Jeans and a black sweater. Her hair up.
She’s not playing tennis but standing in a halo of light and she’s with an older guy. Hair slicked back. Looks like old money. Wears a cardigan.
“Destroy it all…”
I walk onto the court.
Vauxhall turns and looks at me and smiles. But cardigan says, “I don’t think so.”
The cell phone is talking in my pocket.
The voice says, “Nothing left…”
And the cardigan guy steps up to me and raises his hand but doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t need to ’cause I go flying back onto the court as though he punched me.
He smiles. Super proud.
Vauxhall looks down at me sadly.
“Destroy it all…” the guy on the cell says.
I pull myself back up and step closer to Vauxhall. She shakes her head. And then she raises her hands to the sky, to the moon. A shadow falls over the court, something massive moving over us. I don’t bother looking up.
I can hear Vauxhall’s breathing. I want to kiss her but I can’t get close.
Focused in on the love of my life, I say, “You can’t do this.”
“She can and will,” the woman standing near her says. This woman is wearing sunglasses and a hat. It’s hard to tell how old she is but she’s so pale.
The man on the phone says, “… everything. Destroy it all…”
Again the cardigan guy steps over to me and sends me sprawling across the court without even touching me. This time I have trouble breathing but I pull myself up.
Whatever is floating in the sky above us, it makes a humming noise.
The cell phone in my hand buzzes with a saintly voice.
Like a divine cricket kicking out the heavy word of God.
I tell the person on the other end of the line to wait a minute and shove the cell into a pocket. On the phone: “Everything will be destroyed. But before then—”
I walk back onto the court and stand in front of Vauxhall and say, “I love you and I won’t let you do this. No matter what happens next, I’ll get you back again. Even if it takes a thousand years.”
And that’s when I pull a gun from my pocket.
Vauxhall says, “Don’t.”
I pull back the hammer.
The cardigan guy raises his hands and Vauxhall’s face falls, her lips tremble.
I close my eyes and that’s when I wake up shivering. I feel terrible about the dream and decide to erase it from my mind as soon as possible. Screw whatever psychology went into creating it. Forget whatever anxieties led to it.
By mid-afternoon the dream is gone.
I don’t remember any of it.
Wait, what dream?
CHAPTER ONE
ONE
Hey, Heinz—
Awesome seeing you at the swim meet this past weekend. Can’t believe I almost came in third. No doubt that was due to some of the astral plane stuff you’ve been doing. Keep it up, brother! At this rate, what with all the lesser demon saliva and minor devil bones, I’ll make the city B finals this spring.
Anyways, I’m writing to get your advice. I’m in a major bind here.
Let me try and explain it up front, just give you the background, before I get to the actual problem. I’m hoping you’ll be sympathetic. Can’t imagine that most folks who become Satanists didn’t mess around with other forms of antisocial behavior as kids.
There’s this crew. They call themselves the Pandora Crew and really it’s just two dudes. Both of them are total morons. Both of them are like me, gifted, and yet neither of them does anything more than “foment revolution.” That’s their deal: chaos for the sake of chaos. Anyhow, I somehow wound up in Gordon’s and Jeremiah’s orbits. Actually, that’s not true. It wasn’t somehow. These guys used to hang with the LoDo Diviners. They were part of the scene like two years ago. Clean-cut and productive, though I still don’t know what abilities they actually have. Both were kicked out by Gilberto and that’s when I met them at a show at the Blue Bird. We got to talking. One thing led to another. Now I’m a part of the crew. Now I’m doing the most unbelievable stuff and it’s only getting worse. It has only slightly been illegal so far. No one’s gotten hurt, I mean.
But soon it’s going to cross a line. That line.
I can just tell.
Here’s the thing: The stuff we’re doing, it makes no sense. It’s just destructive and wild and fearless and, honestly, I’m loving every minute of it. It’s liberating and I don’t know why. This isn’t me, Heinz. I’m not this guy. Sure, when I was knocking myself out every other day, crashing cars and diving off roofs, that wasn’t the sanest business either. But I don’t do that anymore. I’m not that person. I’m stable. I’m sophisticated. And when I did that concussion stuff it was for a reason. It was for the future. This? This is just nihilism.
And I kind of like it. My abilities, now they’re boring in a way. Just touch someone and see their future, it sounds totally exciting. It sounds incredible. But it isn’t. Think about the people you know. The guy who checks your bags at the grocery store or the chick who drives your bus. The mall security guard. The ticket guy at the movie theater. None of these people have surprising futures. Bumping into them, the future you see is like spending a weekend watching the Home Shopping Network. Predictable. Dull. I’m longing, really, for a concussion. To see myself back in action and not everyone else.
Thing is: I’ve promised myself I wouldn’t. I promised Vauxhall.
The Buzz is gone so what’s the point, right?
That’s why there’s something about being out with the Pandora Crew that kick-starts my demon. A new Buzz. Something I’m calling the Delirium ’cause that’s honestly the way it feels. You know me; I’m not religious. But the feeling I’m getting when I do something so out of control that it hurts to even think about it is like nothing I’ve felt before.
I think I’m possessed, Heinz.
Seriously.
I need you to help me exorcize myself.
Your pal,
Ade
TWO
I’m having a great evening.
And by great, I mean I’m with Vauxhall.
We have dinner at a steak place downtown.
Nice place. Nicer than kids our age, kids like us, should be allowed in.
That’s because it’s the first of the month.
Date Night.
Tonight, the steak house dinner scene, is Foolish Romance.
We’re both dressed up. Over-dressed up.
Vaux’s wearing this prom gown that she found at a yard sale. Orange and frilled and gaudy and all bejeweled. The story we made up is that this monstrosity was from the late ’70s and was worn by a faded starlet. Maybe her name was Marjorie. Or Babette. To fit the dress, Vaux has her hair curled. She’s also got makeup caked on.
Me, I’m wearing a sky-blue suit. Have my hair all slicked back. Also alligator-skin boots just to knock the look out of the ballpark.
Last Date Night we went to the art museum on a moped. Raced through traffic, screaming and hollering. We decided this particular Date Night should be called Head Over High Heels.
Me in a tux and her in a slinky red dress.
At the museum, on the third floor, we sipped from a flask I snuck in and sat and talked in front of a sculpture of an enormous duck that had a swastika on its side. Modern art, right? More people took cell pictures of the two of us than of the duck.
Month before it was the race to the airport.
We called it Heart of the Party.
Vaux was at the airport, sunglasses on and suitcases packed, and she was in line, ready to buy a ticket, when I came barreling down the concourse in one of those golf carts. I acted all panicked and the guy who was driving it, the employee, he jumped right out and just let me drive. He shouted after me, “Go get her!” And I did.
I drove that cart right up to the line she was standing in and jumped off it and ran over to her and we hugged and kissed like we thought we might both die and everyone around us just burst out into applause.
We ran off hand in hand, all the travelers hooting and hollering.
You see, this summer Vauxhall and I have decided that we’re going to live Hollywood. We’re going to live in a Romantic Comedy World.
She came up with the idea.
She said, “In all those terrible romantic comedies, there’s always this one scene, usually right before the big fight that happens at the eighty-minute mark, where the couple has some amazing, jet-setting date. Like they fly to Paris and sip wine beneath the Eiffel Tower or they go to San Francisco and hang glide to a picnic on a hill in the Mission district. They always look amazing, so happy and in love. That’s the Hollywood moment and you never, ever see it. Right? I mean, you’re never downtown and see one of those couples race past you, all decked out, on a Harley or in a biplane? Well, we’re going to be that couple this summer.”
So far, so good.
You should see the way people look at us on Date Night. It’s like we’ve flown in from another dimension. Like we’ve stepped off of the stage for a life among the audience. Demigods among the mortals. We are the story that people go home and tell. The story they try and finish.
For one night, we are the stars. We are the people no one really knows.
The people who, for the most part, don’t even exist.
Even better, we are the story they’ll tell tomorrow over breakfast.
The one they’ll post online.
The one they’ll sigh about when they’re lonely.
Tonight, Date Night number four, Foolish Romance, is going just swimmingly. Despite the getup, we’ve decided to keep the drama on the low end. Just us being dressed up and being out. Just us happy being in love. And eating.
We finish our crab wonton appetizers when Vauxhall leans forward and puts her hands on mine, smiles, and says, “You weren’t at Jimi’s birthday party this morning. I didn’t say anything to you but did you forget?”
“Shit!” I smack my forehead. Fake. Totally exaggerated but I do feel bad.
“Yeah, he was bummed.” Vauxhall pulls her hands back from mine.
“I forget a lot of things, Vaux. It’s kind of like my thing. You can’t just expect—”
“He’s your brother.”
“Yeah, exactly. My half-brother. The same half-brother who I didn’t know existed until four months ago. Same exact half-brother who not only stole my childhood but tried to make me kill him so I wouldn’t exist anymore.”
Vauxhall says nothing. She’s so disappointed.
“Look … I’ll give him a call later, okay? I’m sure he’s not sobbing over it or anything, right?”
Vauxhall shrugs. That means that I don’t get it.
I try to change the subject, move us on. “Have you seen Paige this week?”
Vaux nods. “Yeah, of course.”
“Well I haven’t. I don’t know what it is but ever since she started dating, like really dating, it’s like she doesn’t have time for me anymore. Remember how we used to watch our shows and just—”
“No. I wasn’t there, Ade. Remember?”
“Right. Okay.”
Then she gets this serious look. Like a cloud passing over the sun.
“What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. You, you’re different. Ever since you started hanging out with Gordon and Jeremiah. What’s funny is that I’m used to you being forgetful, but this is different. This isn’t you forgetting things, it’s you purposely not remembering.”
“How can you purposely not remember something?”
“Ask yourself.”
I groan. “Why isn’t it okay for me to hang out with other people? I mean—”
“Don’t even. Don’t even start that. I’m not keeping you in a cage, Ade.”
And like that Date Night turns into Fight Night.
This had been happening lately. Neither of us wants to admit it, recognize it, but we’re starting to get all crabby. Me, mostly. It’s like we’re becoming an old married couple. Only in high school. Only when we’re not even eighteen yet.
“I know that, Vaux. It’s not like I really believe that.”
“Then why say it?”
“Ugh. Seriously? Listen, I’m sorry and I won’t ever open my mouth again. Can we just get back to having fun here? Whatever happened to having fun? It’s just—”
My foot-in-my-mouth, making-it-worse non-apology is interrupted by a goofy fool banging on the window at the front of the restaurant. This guy has a weird beard but he’s young. Googly-eyed and probably wasted.
Half the restaurant starts freaking out over the madman.
They drop their forks, make all sorts of kitchen clatter, and whisper and point at the mugging idiot at the window. This isn’t supposed to be happening at a fancy steak place like this one. Dudes like the fool at the window aren’t supposed to be here.
The riffraff is never invited.
Vauxhall, she just looks at me and shakes her head. “I thought this was Date Night.”
I throw my hands up, exasperated.
The moron at the window knocks on the glass, licks it, and laughs.
Problem is, I know the guy.
“You don’t think I invited him here, do you?” I ask.
Vauxhall shrugs.
“You gotta be kidding me.”
The retard outside yells my name. He yells it over and over. So loud.
Vauxhall’s eyes bug out. “Just one night, Ade. Why is that so hard?”
I huff and stand up and throw my napkin on the table all dramatically and walk out of the restaurant. What’s funny is that I’m kind of excited to be out of there. The guy at the window, the cretin, is Jeremiah. One half of the Pandora Crew.
Once I get outside he jumps up on me like a dog in heat.
“Holy shit, Ade! Wait til you see what we have planned for tonight!”
I push him off, look back at Vauxhall through the window.
Slowly I say, “Dude. You’re interrupting my Date Night with Vaux. This isn’t cool. You’re getting me in some major trouble here.”
Jeremiah waves to Vauxhall. Says, “Look across the street.”
Vaux waves back. Disgusted.
Jeremiah says, “Corner of Third and York. Check it, bro.”
I check it. There’s a gnarly van with smoked windows idling at the corner. This van, it has a pastoral scene airbrushed on the side. Waterfalls and lily pads. A unicorn with a rainbow sprouting from its back. The rainbow was in shades of gray. The unicorn, the thing, has fangs.
Jeremiah says, “The Shriek.”
“Nice name,” I say. Looking close at the van I notice the dude behind the wheel is none other than Gordon, the better half of the Pandora Crew. Only he’s rocking a fake mustache and massive mirrored sunglasses.
Jeremiah says, “Kiss Vaux good-bye for the night, player. Wait til you see what’s inside that bad boy.”
Still looking at the van, I say, “No can do. She’d kill me.”
Jeremiah goes, “Please. Don’t be such a pushover. You’re not even eighteen.”
I look back at Vauxhall. She’s paying the check, ignoring me.
Jeremiah says, “Give her a kiss and come out and play.”
I dutifully go inside and walk up to Vaux and kiss her on the forehead. She wipes my kiss away and gives me the finger. She says, “I’m beginning to understand why Paige hates you half the time.”
“Please, baby. I didn’t think this—”
“You never think anymore, Ade. Just forget it and go. Go on.”
And I give her a half smile before I bail.
THREE
This whole Pandora Crew thing all started about three weeks ago.
I met them the way I seem to meet a lot of people: by vision.
I was at the Blue Bird after this one show and bumped into Gordon. Literally bumped into him on the sidewalk outside.
This has happened a whole lot.
