Tin Universe Monthly #1

by Brian C. Williams

  GO!

  GO!

  As they descended the steps from their apartment Sabrena almost broke her ankle with a stumble as she tried to get one arm through a Green Day hoodie which belonged to Ken.

  Ken steadied her unbalanced predicament while also taking the keys from her hands and guiding them both from the apartment steps into the parking lot area.

  They ran across the parking lot to Ken’s truck. Well, it was their truck now but he was the one who bought it, now she’s making payments. It’s complicated and the hostility is the sort of thing that happens when a couple really doesn’t like each other very much but are tied together by circumstances.

  Right now circumstances have them in the middle of a dash.

  He turned to look at Sabrena as they both got into their seats and clicked their safety belts into the locked position, ‘So we’re heading to Florida?’ Ken said without it really being a question.

  Sabrena started to cry as she dropped her head and looked at her hands, ‘Julie’s my only family.’

  Ken got the truck started after a couple of failed tries. Cursing while grinding the gears a little, which is a feat with an automatic, he pulled them out of the parking lot nearly taking out a couple of their hipster stoner neighbors walking over from the complex pool not paying attention.

  Then they nearly hit a cat crossing over to the complex’s tennis courts for a bird snack that was waiting for him but Ken swerved just in time and hit a parked car instead crushing side panels. He raced away as the alarm rang out from the car and a fat old man came out of his apartment screaming profanities in a language unknown to either of them.

  They really didn’t care what happen to get them on their way and on the road. They had been looking for any excuse to leave this place for a long time and a cosmic crisis fits the bill. They didn’t have to say it but the feeling was there, they weren’t coming back here no matter what. It was time to move on.

  Settling down wasn’t for them anyways.

  The fat man a month later would die in an accident involving two horses and a wood chipper.

  Don't ask.

  As they pulled out of the apartment complex Ken reached over and touched Sabrena’s shoulder. She looked up. She looked into his eyes and smiled which made him smile as he raced down the street.

  But twelve minutes after that they were pissed at themselves for giving out those smiles.

  And in a nutshell that explains their relationship.

  Except for the part I’m not going to tell you about yet.

  As his truck was starting to gather speed Sabrena picked up a book that had been on the floor of the truck since she bought it at a library book sale two weeks ago.

  She started flipping through pages not really reading thinking about how when things were straight, and she knew Julie was safe, she was going to try and break up with Ken again. She did not love him and probably never did. No matter the destruction it might bring, no matter how risky it might be to her life she needed to try again.

  But she needed him right now. He was a tool she could not throw away at the moment. The last time they tried to break up it didn’t turn out too good for either of them and also wasn’t great for a block of West Virginia homes.

  They hooked back up to try living in the settled down mode but that wasn’t working either. Ken was perfectly fine with it. Sabrena was getting more and more tired of it and now she’s only fine with it being good for him to be with her for this trip. Then she would try again.

  Chapter Twenty

  Both of them were lucky they didn’t break their necks jumping off the factory roof. It’s not like Lindsey and Julie have come close to doing anything like this before. When it came to foolhardy crazy stupid leaps of faith they saved that for unrestricted sexual encounters and street bought pills.

  Luck or chance didn’t seem to be with anyone on this day.

  Weather forecasts for the future, not so good either.

  Lindsey held Julie as she was bracing them both against a wall outside the factory building, only inches from where they landed, as another wave hit.

  They were on the opposite side from which the waves were coming but they could feel the power and force of each wave hitting nonetheless. Each one pounded with all the fear they had ever felt in their lives all at once.

  There was just something about this storm that told everyone caught in the middle of it that it wasn’t just another big storm.

  Lindsey looked around to see bodies in the parking lot. Most of them were people who had died trying to get to their cars after the first wave hit. Killed trying to get home to their families and loved ones.

  Some of the vehicles in the parking lot had been toppled by the waves. The whole scene looked like God had spit on the place over and over again.

  Lindsey could see other workers who had ran out since the last wave and were trying to help the still alive but injured back into the building. She thought to herself that in the past she had always looked at these people as the worst people she had ever met; the worst humanity had to offer.

  Maybe she had been wrong.

  Another wave crashed down.

  Julie started to slide down the wall beside Lindsey but her girlfriend pulled her back up to her feet by her shoulders and held her face in her hands, ‘We need to get over to the cafeteria door. Julie, we can’t stay out here.’

  ‘But…’ Julie was looking out at the bodies of people who earlier that morning had been working alongside them. Just this morning she had been trash talking with some of those people about how fucked up the company was and how much they hated working there.

  ‘But…’ Julie said again in a low voice.

  ‘We have to try.’ Lindsey told her.

  Julie looked at Lindsey with panicked fear in her eyes, ‘There’s too much shit flying around out here. Nothing will get us here. We’re safe here. We’re behind the building.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean much. Remember they just built this part of the building. Remember all the corners they cut? I don’t think it will hold up to much more of this.’

  Julie slid down again but Lindsey pulled her up once more this time with more force. She grabbed her hand so tightly Julie jumped at the pain.

  ‘We’re going. Right after the next wave. I’m not losing you now.’

  When the next wave crashed down Lindsey took the first step for them both. The fear was coming again already. It was building, creating itself anew. It was coming to hit again. All they had to do was win this foot race with a big fucking wave. Their future together sort of depended on it.

  Chapter

  Twenty-One

  To be completely honest the truck was a piece of shit. It had been nothing but problems for Ken since his father turned over the payments to him.

  To be fair to the truck, if there is ever a need to be fair to a truck, most of the problems for how it ran were Ken’s own fault.

  The truck was given to him in good shape. Beyond good shape, almost new but see Ken is what is, especially around this part of the world, referred to as a dumbass when it comes to vehicle maintenance.

  This is the guy who once went two years without having to have his oil changed. Well, it wasn’t as much that he didn’t have to have his oil changed as he didn’t have it changed. No forgetting or otherwise busy, just didn’t do it.

  Some people would not even believe it was possible to drive a truck around for two years without changing the oil but I guess Ken proved them wrong.

  The truck has been towed away to many a garage for belts, the alternator, the ignition, the steering column, brakes, and the battery and now it’s sitting on the side of the road not far from where Ken and Sabrena live but far enough away from anywhere else to be in the middle of nowhere.

  The hood was up and Ken’s head was under it looking around for the reason behind the sudden stoppage. Knowing nothing about his truck or any other truck, besides the fact that he had to put gas in it to make it run, the image of him l
ooking under the hood was only another example of a man dancing in the thick refusal to be stupid.

  But Ken just isn’t the normal sort of stupid guy. He’s his own special kind of stupid guy. If you knew him you would understand it was not a matter of ego but of him honestly trying to make things right.

  A quality others liked about him.

  But not the quality you would normally associate with someone who has a secret life where he has robbed a few banks and turned a few profits that rub up against the law.

  And not in the special touch way of rubbing up against the law that gets the law wound up.

  Even if Ken knew he did not have a chance in hell of doing something right he still tried. But it was also just another thing about him that pissed Sabrena off. You can’t wear a Rogues costume while spouting the philosophy of Barry Allen.

  They have been together for all of the “against the law” stuff and his refusal to look at himself for what he is drives her crazy. “This is what we are.” “But we can do things a different way.” “This is our way.”

  Sabrena was sitting in the back of the truck searching the news on her phone looking for information on the disaster in Florida. She wasn’t finding much luck because most of the information was of a speculative fashion coming from outside the disaster area. So much of the area is totally without power and communication in and out isn’t that smooth.

  While doing that she was giving glances through the front window, through the open space between the hood and the truck, watching the movements of someone who is in her life because he’s a tool she needs.

  Whether she gives a shit about that tool or not it’s now attached to her hand.

  A pair of conjoined twins has a better chance of being safely separated than they do.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? You don’t know anything about fixing this thing.’

  She shouted not as much to Ken but to let everyone around, if anyone was around, and there wasn’t anyone around, know how stupid he was.

  Ken once went off about how if the only living thing around was an ant and she saw a chance to make him look bad in front of that ant she would. Criticize magnifying glass holding abilities or something.

  He moved his head around the side of the propped up hood, ‘We’re fucking stuck. What else do you want me to do?’

  Sabrena whispered to herself, ‘Fucking retard. Go retard yourself.’

  Whispering to herself was actually Sabrena being nice; which meant she really was distracted by worrying thoughts about Julie.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Two

  ‘Now!’

  Lindsey pulled again for Julie to run but she resisted because she was so consumed with fear as she had been the first time Lindsey started out.

  ‘Shit Julie!’

  The sudden pull and resistance nearly pulled both of their arms out of their sockets.

  Lindsey was still holding onto Julie’s arm with one hand when she grabbed her by the face with the other very tightly, cuffing her fingers around her ear pulling on it with her fingernails.

  ‘Come on, you stupid bitch!’

  Lindsey pulled Julie this time so hard she caused a mild dislocation of her arm. The pain and the harsh words instantly startled Julie from her fit of fear, a little anger pushed that fear away, and after a few steps she started running on her own without being pulled.

  They dashed across a walkway now almost completed covered with water and mud which had washed over it. It was starting to get hard to see where the sidewalks where at all.

  Both of them skidded like a synchronized ice skating team as they ran across patches of uprooted loose grass.

  Workers from the inside the building saw them racing toward the entrance and quickly un-barricaded a door and opened it for them. They had gotten use to doing it as they’ve rushed out to try and help people between waves.

  Lindsey could see them waving for her and Julie to hurry. She knew they were shouting but she couldn’t hear them. The truth was she could barely hear Julie who had taken a hold of her hand again over the roar coming roaring up from behind them.

  Her quickened heartbeat told her what that roar was.

  Julie slipped from Lindsey’s grasp but continued on her own towards the cafeteria entrance. Lindsey stopped just in front of the patio outside the cafeteria and turned just in time to get a quick glance of the wave at its greatest height before she ran a few more feet and dove through the door.

  She slid across the slippery floor of the cafeteria and before she could move she was tackled by Julie kissing and hugging her. No one noticed them lying there holding each other not wanting to ever let go, one without clothes and the other half-naked because the remaining survivors in the building were too busy bracing the doorway again as another eight-story wave crashed down onto the building.

  There was a little calm. Lindsey took in a few bits of air during that calm and with each bit she was identifying the people she knew in the room and wondering about the people who she got along with who weren’t in the room. What happen to them?

  The other survivors starting talking to Lindsey and Julie to find out where they had been when it started and how they survived. No one was making up modest stories, the truth just came out, and no one cared that there wasn’t any modest stories given

  I admit using the word modest there might not have been the best choices but it what came out and wouldn’t be replaced.

  After a few minutes everyone went back to bracing the doorway. They were further reinforcing the damage caused by the latest wave. They had no idea how many more were coming and this wave by wave combat was all they had. They knew though somehow with the instinct all human beings have in these moments that this was not over yet.

  Another wave was coming and another and they had to continue to survive. That’s what human beings do pretty well. We tend to be obstinate in that regard.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Three

  Do you want to hear something strange? Sabrena and Kent first met at a protest rally protesting, as protest rallies do, a proposal in the Texas Legislature that would create a prison intended to harbor beyond humans for life if they ever used their powers for any reason against any “regular” humans in the state of Texas.

  This was the first step in America’s series of Beyond Human Laws. It’s one of the most dividing hot bed issues in the country to this day. These laws are also one of the few issues that are a blister boils on the rest of the world as well since a good deal of countries are following the United States lead on this.

  Half of the country thinks it’s the worst things to ever happen to America, another group thinks the laws still haven’t gone far enough, and then you have the ones who are just ignoring what is going on.

  That makes them feel better doing that.

  Then Ken and Sabrena were in that phase most college students go through were you think the world can be shifted with a well worded protest sign. Those are the times you are surprised by hatred and intolerance and get excited to the point of being overwhelmed when someone agrees with something you say.

  At the time when they first met both of them were attending the University of Texas. And at this time the state had become the hotbed of conservative power plays which turned a number of universities into bastions of young liberal thinking.

  Sabrena was majoring in Nursing and Child Health Care. Ken was majoring in English. Those two facts just show how ordinary they started out their academic lives.

  He was also the starting first baseman for the college baseball team. And that’s a pretty big deal starting for the Texas baseball team. Football might be the religion of Texas but the Universities baseball team has taken its bite also.

  Maybe if football is Texas religion then baseball is its poetry.

  Lined up to be a four year starter and a professional prospect Ken was kicked off the baseball team for attending the rally and Sabrena was part of the group who later pushed to get him reinstated.
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  They pushed but failed.

  But all of this was before they discovered their special beyond human connection. Ken and Sabrena might be the argument to some people being destined to be together even if they are the very worst person for the other to be with.

  After the law in Texas passed Sabrena and Ken moved away with a few friends to live out of state. Getting away from the “Mecca of the Right Wing” some would say. That statement alone contains a lot of youthful stupidity.

  For about a year Ken, Sabrena, and their friends all lived together in a small three bedroom house. The house had belonged to someone’s mom or dad or grandma who had abandoned it because it really wasn’t in good enough shape to try and fix up and sale. They were allowed to stay there rent free until it fell down around them.

  Only a few of them worked any sort of job but all of them fucked. These weren’t triangle or V relationships. The lines drawn between all the fucking going on resembled an Etch-A-Sketch in the hands of baby.

  But it was home for Sabrena and Ken and also the nearest thing to a hippie house you would or could ever find in a state like Virginia. Even Texas can have its hippies. Virginia only has freshly run out of state hippies.

  It was during their time living in the house that some might call a commune that they started dating outside of just being fuck buddies as had been the case up to that point.

  Sabrena and Ken, as most of the others in the house, traded sexual partners to the point where everyone had done just about everything with everyone else.

  Bored with this lifestyle Sabrena asked Ken if he wanted to start dating her and just her. Ken went with his heart right there and smiled at her. They had lots of sex that night.

  They also discovered on that night something weird and powerful about their connection.

  The house did fall down around them.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Four

  Luckily they were able to flag down a friendly cop, with a friendly cop being more of a rarity than finding someone at all on the middle of nowhere stretch of road the truck had decided to breakdown on.

  Their biggest fear was that this would be a skilled cop who might somehow recognize them. But that couldn’t possibly be the case because no one has ever even seen their face. They’re a masked couple on many Most Wanted lists. They had been off the job for long enough to make most people forget about them. They’ve even taken them off a few of those lists.