Heavy Future

“Are you out of your fuckin mind Rain? You can’t really be thinking about listening to this freak!” Marla’s forked tongue was visible when she screamed.

Rain was already on her way to the door. “Marla, listen I know he sounds like a freak, and I know he looks strange but he saved my… he has been right before and well I need to get out of town anyway.” Rain had made up her mind.

“You should leave too.” I gestured towards Marla. It was hard to speak; my jaw had started to seize up like a rusty gear.

“Quentin, knows things.” Rain was making an awkward attempt at defending me. It made me feel strange. Why did she do these things for me?

“Oh really, like how to freak out and start screaming on my couch? Things like that?” Marla was dubious, dubious at best.

“Marla, you know I love you, we have a great time together,” a knowing smile appeared on Marla’s face, “but I am going to do this, and I think you should seriously consider taking a trip west, if only for a couple of days, what could it hurt?” She shrugged and continued to smile at Marla.

Marla smiled back, “Well listen, just take care of yourself, ok.” The look in her eye spoke more of lust than love.

Rain already had he bag on her back, pausing briefly to make sure the small package was inside. Thinking of Rain and Marla tangled in a heap of naked tattooed limbs made me blush, I quickly thought of something else.

“You coming?” Rain was at the door.

I stood up and started to walk. I was almost to the door when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“If you hurt her, I will find you, cut off your balls and shove them up your ass.” The calm way Marla described the violence she would inflict on me left no doubt that she was serious. Marla was the kind of girl that didn’t lie about this sort of thing.

We were several blocks away before I realized that we were walking back towards the T station. I paused momentarily.

Rain seemed to notice my apprehension, “We have to go back to my place, we have to get my bike, and then we have to get you one too.”

“Are you sure? I mean can’t we like steal a bike or something?”

“You don’t steal bikes, it is Karmically impure to even speak of such things.” Rain took bicycle ownership seriously.

“Listen Quentin, you said we need to walk or ride, we sure as shit ain’t walking to Ohio, so we get my wheels.” She looked at me, waiting for an answer.

Did I have a better plan? Not really.

“Ok…”

Once again to the T, once again through the sweaty hot underground, more horrible noise, this time up an endless flight of stairs. I surprised myself by making it the whole way back without having to stop. Was I getting stronger, or was it the adrenaline. Were we really going to go back to the place that just this morning had been ransacked by a bunch of angry mobsters?

When we got a couple of blocks away from Rains place she stopped walking.

“Ok listen, not to be mean or nothing Quentin, but you’re not exactly in top physical shape right now.” Zombies had better agility, she wasn’t being cruel.

“So here is what we are going to do, you are going to go over to that office building and go up to the top floor.” She pointed several blocks down the road towards a tall glass building.

“I am going to go back to my place, get my bike and some bike stuff, and get the fuck out of there.” A simple enough plan “You wait for me on the very top floor, trust me.”

The strange thing is I did trust her. I don’t know when it had happened but I was starting to think of Rain as my friend. It was a strange feeling.

Rain walked with me towards the tall glass building, going so far as to lead me inside to a bank of elevators. The brass plate that held the floor numbers above the doors had tiny leaves and vines carved into it. The air was cool inside and the carpet felt strange under my feet, like it was made of tiny bits of moss stacked up just right, like you might sink in at any moment.

“Be right back.” She grinned and pressed the button for the top floor in the elevator. The doors shut with a silent motion.

The elevator shot swiftly upwards, putting an uncomfortable feeling into my spine. The increased gravity too much for my fragile form. The doors opened with a gentle ding and I walked out into a large empty space. The top floor of this building was still under construction. Several saw horses and sheets of drywall sat near one corner, white dust clung to the floor where a recent sheet had been sawed in half. The air smelled like saw dust, and the pungent smell of industrial cleaners.

I walked to the windowed wall and realized that I could see straight down towards Rains apartment, the bruised reflection of my face laid over the scene like a ghost. Far below a miniature Rain was walking cautiously towards the back of her place. I could just make out her black skirt pushing out around her body. From this height she looked like a moving doll.

I watched her until she turned the corner and was gone from my view. She was gone for what seemed like forever. My arm pits started to get moist with nervous sweat, what was taking her so long? The ghost reflection in the window started to look worried.

I was just about to turn and head back for the elevator when I saw mini-Rain, this time on bicycle, shoot out from behind her building. She went right over the curb like it wasn’t their. She was followed closely by two men in dark clothing. She was already standing up on her bike, pumping her legs, swinging the bike out sideways with every rotation of the pedals, sacrificing stability for speed.

The men seemed to realize in unison the futility of chasing her and both turned to run back the way they had came, moments later a large dark car, came rocketing out of the parking lot. It was the kind of car you saw in old movies, wide enough to take up most of the lane, and with little fins on the back. The kind of car that had recently become very expensive to fuel.

Her pursuers quickly made up the distance Rain had put between them. She was moving very fast. Her legs pumped like pistons, and her tiny bike surged ahead keeping a short distance on the whale of a car coming up behind her. There was a big group of cars waiting at a red light ahead of her.

She didn’t even slow down. She melted through the stopped cars like water through a sieve. Never pausing she rocketed into the intersection, cars coming from both directions. Through some sort of dark messenger voodoo she managed to make it to the other side of the intersection, fading around cars, almost hitting several. The giant caddie behind her swerved to one side and put two wheels up on the curb, a hub cab shot off. It was coming through the intersection the hard way.

The car made it through the intersection, with nothing it its way it would soon overtake her. Rain looked behind her and I imagined she smiled when she saw the large car so close behind her. I imagine she smiled because of what she did next.