A Split in Time

by Vin Carver

  A SPLIT IN

  TIME

  VIN CARVER

  Published by Dark Swallow Books

  *

  ----------

  A Split in Time

  By Vin Carver

  Copyright © 2017 Vin Carver

  Cover design by eBookLaunch.com

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0-9992183-1-X

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9992183-1-0

  No part of this book may be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

  Published by Dark Swallow Books

  www.darkswallowbooks.com

  Washington, U.S.A.

  ZAR

  Connect with Vin:

  vin@vincarver.com

  Sign up to receive Vin’s newsletter at:

  www.vincarver.com

  ‌

  For Kim.

  Love is forgiveness, and she is love.

  Table of Contents

  Temcor Removal Rules

  Map

  1 Amid Magnificent Cotton Stars

  2 Old Faithful

  3 YOLO

  4 I See You Renner

  5 Napoleon

  6 A Bubblin

  7 Pubescent Rats

  8 Here Hoggy, Hog, Hog

  9 Hoppy's Place

  10 Leave Me Alone

  11 Deathcheaters Never See It Coming

  12 Oh, How He Hated the Rules

  13 Build–A-Bong

  14 Sandal-Wearing, Sports-Loving Hippie

  15 Hawt Rawd

  16 Strangers in March

  17 Peapod Biceps

  18 Tiny, Red Fingers

  19 Mirrors Is So Useless

  20 Murderous Path

  21 The Teaching

  22 A Small, Red and White Packet

  23 Bullfighting on TV

  24 Banana Bread

  25 You A Bad Warthog

  26 A Strong, Square Jaw

  27 The Humming Bee-Buzz

  28 Ala Kazam

  29 Must Be a Rich Thing

  30 Behind a Leafy Salal

  31 A Gaggle of Girl Heads

  32 I Wish My Urn Was Black

  33 An Awkward Bro Hug

  34 An Ornate, Golden Box

  35 Loneliness Like This

  36 A Meth Addict Jonesing for a Fix

  37 The Calm of a Buddhist Monk

  38 You'll Get a Stigma

  39 All Because Of Me

  40 Building a New Set of Tracks

  41 Keep It Simple Stupid

  42 Mi Casa Es Su Casa

  43 Hi Mom

  44 My House Is Your House

  45 Toothpick

  46 Something Soft yet Solid

  47 Scratch–N-Sniff Stickers

  48 In A Relationship

  49 Part of Our Spring Collection

  50 To Impress People

  51 There's Nothing You Can Do

  52 One Long Charade

  53 The Second Silhouette

  54 Run Youngin

  55 The Quintessence of Time

  56 A Black Inkling

  57 On the Edge of Catatonia

  58 Lighting His Chest on Fire

  59 Gold at the End of a Rainbow

  60 The Center of His Being

  61 Tons of Lies

  62 Trapped on a Train

  63 Christmas Ribbons

  64 Bring Him In

  65 My Condolences

  66 Seething to Get Out

  67 Long, White Fingers

  Thank you

  About the Author

  TEMCOR REMOVAL RULES:

  #1 NEVER BE RECOGNIZED.

  #2 MAKE IT LOOK LIKE AN ACCIDENT.

  #3 REMOVE THE TEMCOR AND NO ONE ELSE.

  #4 STAY IN YOUR ASSIGNED TERRITORY.

  #5 CARRY OUT WHAT YOU CARRY IN,

  LEAVE WHAT YOU FIND.

  By the order of Paros

  ‌

  MAP

  CHAPTER ONE

  Amid Magnificent Cotton Stars

  Warren was worried. His parents faced off in the kitchen and yelled at each other.

  Look away, then, walk away.

  He looked away, and nothing changed. He walked away, and the yelling stopped. The Renner family photos hung in the hall above him. Through his tears, he saw the photos blur and blend into a red and black mess of rock-n-roll posters. He flopped onto his bed and pulled his outer space comforter over his head. A lump formed in his throat, and he fought to keep it from exploding into a scream. Keepers of a time forgotten, the posters swirled around his room and stayed blurry until his tears had stopped streaming.

  Do they have to fight every night?

  The yelling had stopped, but the fighting had just begun. The lump became small, and Warren swallowed it whole. A warm sensation ran across his chest when the lump repressed. He had succeeded. Allowing the lump to blossom into a scream would have brought a visit from his Dad—raging and ripping posters off the walls—or, something worse.

  Nothing.

  His parents didn’t care. He took a deep breath, held it in, and blew it out. He waited for the footsteps…and the yelling.

  Curled in a ball, wrapped amid magnificent cotton stars, Warren’s muscles relaxed. His stomach grumbled, and he held his eyes scrunched shut until the yelling in his head had stopped. Air flowed into his nostrils and cooled the back of his throat. He sat up, took off his shirt, threw it across the room, and re-wrapped himself in his comforter. March in Tamarack had brought warmer days, but the nights were still frigid. Warren shivered, listened, and heard nothing but silence.

  Maybe they’re done for tonight. Maybe the fighting is ove—

  “I never said it was your fault.” His mom’s voice pierced his bedroom door and split his brain in half.

  “Yes, you did.” His dad’s voice, drunk and tired, beat at the backs of Warren’s eyes. “You said it was my fault the day we gave up.”

  Warren listened for the sound of glass breaking. He listened for the sound of door slamming, and suitcase packing. He listened for his mom’s threats.

  Dogwood Arms. That’s where Warren and I will go if you can’t stop.

  He listened for the foreboding sounds of change he’d heard before, but the sounds didn’t come. Tonight, the yelling was lower, muffled, and sad. Beneath his bedroom door, little shadows—waving hands and cocking heads—danced on the floor. Something was different. Something had changed, and Warren was worried.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Old Faithful

  A small black box with bright red digits blared 106.7FM. “It’s your turn to…to take…to take it to the floor…”

  Warren woke up, hit the button that read ALARM OFF, and fell back to sleep. Five minutes later, Warren’s second alarm—his mother—blared. He wished he could hit her “alarm off” button.

  Knock, knock. “Are you awake honey? May I come in?”

  Warren rolled over, pulled his comforter over his head, and pretended he was dead.

  Knock, knock.

  Warren knew he could wait, and she would eventually go away. She used to come into his room in the mornings, but everything had changed a couple of years ago. Warren’s friend, Tanner, had experienced the same phenomenon, except his mom was less subtle.

  “Knock, knock…Tanner? Are you in there choking the chicken, or can I come in?”

  Later, Tanner had said, “Man, it’s like she thinks all I do i
s jerk off, but I don’t. I do other stuff too.”

  Warren believed Tanner, and he believed Tanner limited the amount of time he spent doing “other stuff.” You only live once.

  “I’m not dressed yet,” Warren said. “Give me a minute.” He wasn’t wearing a shirt, so it was true—he hadn’t dressed yet.

  “I can’t wait, honey. I have to go work. You only have ten minutes before you have to leave for school. I left a bagel for you on the table. Dad is sleeping on the couch, so don’t wake him. Are you sure I can’t come in and give you a hug before I go?”

  “I’m getting dressed. Leave me alone.” Under his comforter, he buttoned his jeans, and this made it true—he was getting dressed. He pulled his comforter tight around his body and rolled away from the door.

  “Okay,” his mom said. “Make sure you wear a coat today. They’re forecasting thunderstorms this afternoon. I don’t want you to get caught in the rain.”

  Her footsteps sounded in the hall, and a moment later, the front door of the house swung shut. Warren lay still until he heard his mom’s tubby four-door start, back out of the drive, and rumble away. Snoring came from the living room, and he tried to ignore it. Fight nights meant someone slept on the couch, and if it was his dad, then it was loud. He focused on ignoring the snoring and drifted over the edge of his bed into a vivid dream.

  He saw a toilet. A redbrick, rubber plunger pressed in, and pulled out of the toilet, harder and harder each time. Water gurgled and splashed. When the plunger pressed in, Warren’s chest tightened until he couldn’t breathe. When the plunger pulled out, his chest sucked air until he couldn't breathe. The plunger morphed into the tip of a tongue and lodged in the back of someone’s throat. It lodged in the back of his throat.

  Warren woke up and gasped for air. He listened for his dad’s snoring, but the house was quiet. Picturing the tongue lodged in the back of his dad’s throat, Warren jumped out of bed and ran to the living room. His dad lay still on the couch with a closed mouth and a bloated belly. Saliva ran through a forest of gray-blond stubble, making slimy, worm-trail tracks before dropping off an unnatural, double chin and soaking into the couch cushion.

  He’s not breathing. He’s dying.

  Warren wished he’d paid attention to the CPR training last January. He remembered laughing when Coach Chaney had kissed the life-sized Annie doll in gym class. Nurse Espinoza had told Coach Chaney to stop it, but Warren couldn’t remember why. Was it because mouth-to-mouth wasn’t necessary anymore?

  The thought of putting his lips on his dad’s made Warren shudder and want to gag. He put his fingers on his dad’s neck and looked away, but he didn’t wait long enough to feel a pulse. He turned to run away, and the bloated belly deflated. His dad’s mouth flew open, and a spray of yellow phlegm that would have made Old Faithful jealous shot into the air.

  Warren stepped back, closed his eyes, and took a breath. The phlegm hit the floor with a splat.

  In his room, he grabbed his shirt from the day before, his sandals, and his backpack. He ran to the front door and, as quiet as possible, he turned the knob. Watching his dad for any sudden movements, he stepped backward through the doorway. Before closing the door, he caught a glimpse of the fireplace and froze.

  A small, blue urn rested on the mantle. Gold inlay, forged into vines of ivy, grew up from the bottom of the urn and parted the blue ceramic giving most people a feeling of peace everlasting. It gave Warren a pang of emptiness.

  I’ll bring it tomorrow, I promise.

  Warren hated that Tanner had asked him to bring the urn, but Tanner had problems. In third grade, Tanner had fallen off the monkey bars. A lot of kids fall off monkey bars, but Tanner’s fall had been archaeological. Beneath the layers of chipped wood, Tanner’s skull had discovered the only ten-pound piece of granite within forty yards. The stitches in his forehead had created a horizontal, boy-wizard-meets-Frankenstein scar.

  It was hard to tell if Tanner was a wizard, a monster, or just deranged. His first month back at school, the doctors had made him wear a blue motorcycle helmet with sparkles—deranged. But, after the helmet had come off, Tanner started coming up with brilliant ideas—wizard. Then, the kids that didn’t understand Tanner’s ideas began making fun of his scar—monster.

  They had chanted, “Tanner…Scarhead. Dumb as the rock that should’ve made him dead. Tanner…Scarhead. Dumb as the rock that should’ve made him dead.”

  Warren stepped around the end of the couch and took the urn off the mantle. He tiptoed into the kitchen and unzipped the outer pocket of his backpack. Where other kids might put a pack of gum, an eraser, or a bag of weed, he put an urn.

  A bagel lay on the flimsy dinette set table. His mom hadn’t put cream cheese on the bagel, or cut it open.

  Maybe Tanner will want it.

  Warren shoved the bagel into his backpack and turned to leave.

  Without warning, his dad sat up and planted his feet on the floor. He dropped his head between his knees and began rubbing his temples.

  Warren ran for the front door. The bagel flew out of his backpack and rolled to a stop at his dad’s feet.

  With his butt hanging on the edge of the couch, Warren’s dad reached for the bagel and missed. His knees swayed to the left, and he missed again. His knees swayed to the right, straightened out, and swayed back to the left. With his arm fully extended, he caught hold of the bagel and teetered on the edge of the couch—a surfer slipping through a hangover half-pipe.

  Warren shut the front door.

  His dad said, “Thanks for the bagel Cass. I love you. I’m sorry about last night. I miss him too.”

  Across the street, jagged rocks jutted out of the ground between the lodgepole pines that grew on Statler Ridge. Warren walked across the yard, opened the faded white gate, and headed south on Acorn Row. At the top of the hill, the trails of Lake Forest waited for him, and at the old shack, Tanner waited for the urn.

  CHAPTER THREE

  YOLO

  Warren stopped at the top of the hill where Acorn Row intersected with Meadow Lark Street and turned around. His dad’s white wagon sat in the driveway where it might stay for the day given last night’s bender. The disfigured wagon had tears and black marks instead of dents and scratches because the body panels were made out of plastic. Warren believed his dad had chosen this car in hopes of hiding any drunken driving mishaps. It hadn’t worked.

  Warren frowned at his little gray house behind the car. He frowned at the entire neighborhood. The neighborhood was named Stibnite after a gold mining ghost town in the mountains, but there was no gold here. Like the ghost town, there was nothing here.

  From the top of the hill, Warren could see the streets of Stibnite sprawling north and east, forming a crossword puzzle of ugliness in the middle of a pinewood paradise. He lived on the letter ‘A’ because his street was named Acorn Row. The next street began with a B—Beechnut Row—and ran parallel to Acorn Row. These were followed by Chestnut Row, Dogwood Row, and so on. The alphabetic, nut-and-tree names ended several blocks away at Jackson Boulevard. Other than Jackson Boulevard, the street names didn’t make any sense. Tamarack didn’t have any trees with nuts on them.

  Warren walked away from Stibnite and stepped off the road onto a narrow trail. After a few more steps, and he disappeared from civilization into Lake Forest. Aspens and pines towered above him. The sudden seclusion he found in the shadows surrounded him in safety. Dark and firm, the ground reminded him of a hippopotamus he’d seen on TV. If he ran away from home, he would miss TV, but it would be worth it. In these shadows, no one could see him. He wished he could stay here forever—no homework, no gym class, no yelling, and no death threats.

  Warren loved the trails in Lake Forest. He knew every twist and turn. When he was little, he’d pretended that Indians wearing buckskins and headdresses were chasing him. When he’d gotten a little older, government spies wearing black suits and hidden microphones had wanted him for treason. Warren had used the trails to escape the
se threats and more, and this made Lake Forest the safest place in the world. It made Lake Forest his sanctuary.

  Unlike the streets of Stibnite, Warren had given every trail a name that made sense. He walked down Triple Root Trail and turned right onto Little Dip. After the dip, he turned left onto Rotted Wood and crossed over the old pine that had fallen across the trail. Rotted Wood Trail forked and ended at a big rock. He tipped the rock over and scooped up a crumpled wad of cash. Forty dollars—not enough to live on, but a start. He put the money under the rock and took a deep breath. The vanilla scent of the pines made him hungry, and he wished he’d eaten the bagel.

  He emerged from the shadows and came to the edge of a dirt road. On his left, Melody Lane slithered through the forest and passed an old shack on it’s way to Tanner’s house. Tanner lived in a massive, two-story log home framed by two gigantic ponderosa pine trees—a Sphinx guarding the catacombs of a forgotten pharaoh. It had too many rooms and an over-sized hot tub. All the cars in the driveway had flawless paint jobs and were less than three years old. Warren hated it. He had refused to keep meeting Tanner for school there and would go only as far as the old shack. Tanner hadn’t asked him why.

  Dust jumped into the air behind Warren’s feet as he came to the old shack. Thick blades of grass hid the bottom edges of the shack’s walls. Faded and worn, the gray walls glinted silver in the sunlight. Lichen climbed the walls, filling every weather worn crevice. Warren pulled off a wad of lichen and rolled it between his fingers.

  Tanner appeared from behind the shack and smiled when he saw Warren. He bounced. “Did you bring it, man? Did you bring it?”

  Warren swung his backpack around and patted the outer pocket. “Yeah, I brought it. I still don’t think it will make a difference, and if I get caught—”

  Tanner raised his hand. “Stop. You’re not going to get caught, and it’s going to make a difference. Man, the first time you smoke pot you have to do something special so you can remember it. What’s more special than smoking pot out of an urn?”

  “Who says we have to make it special? Couldn’t we just smoke a joint or something?”