by I N Foggarty
Wrong side of the tracks…
A light emanated through a thin wire and white paper shade, painting the small room with a dim, almost eerie glow that failed to effectively reach the corners. Of the things that were illuminated a brown three-seat sofa, a single armchair and a black wooden coffee table were the most predominant. In short, these simple furnishings were hallmarks of any traditional living room layout. Yet in this room, none felt like they really belonged.
The sagging sofa and armchair, for example. A generation ago both may have been considered decent pieces of carpentry. However moths, cigarette ends and beverages had taken their toll and all, including the now long dead moths, had come off better. Add to this the chipped, stained and faded charcoal wooden coffee table and it would become apparent to any observer that none of this miss-matched furniture should ever have been brought together in the same era let alone same living space.
The ugly thin pile brown carpet had come loose of its fittings and began to rumple in places. Around the edge of the room, the skirting had developed cracks and required repainting. The walls were yellowed, with some corners of the paper held up by drawing pins. As for the ceiling, it had fared slightly better, though only because they had been an off mustard colour to begin with.
Yet, surprisingly, not everything in the room was a lost cause or interior design nightmare. At the back, housed in a small alcove that had once been a cupboard, a pair of well cared for guitars rested on their stands; a classic acoustic and an 8-ball black electric. Neither instrument looked as though it had ever heard of nicotine stains or dust, goodness forbid had a spec of the mysterious stuff land on it.
The other dust free and clearly used article of this threadbare collection was a tall stereo system, flanked on either side by a pair of gleaming black speaker cabinets that at this moment in time produced a single sound in stereo. Leaving the cabinets the sound crossed the chaotic room towards its intended destination. Out of the open door, it travelled down a short hallway, past dusty wooden floorboards and peeling smudged paint to a small crowded bathroom cluttered with a metal unit and an avocado coloured sink. Completing the compact set of bathroom facilities was a matching toilet bowl and a curtained fronted plastic shower tray, above which steam billowed forming condensation on the low hanging and slightly cracked mirror.
Below the steam in the centre and directly under a weak spray of warm water, a teenager stood waiting, listening for the travelling sound. Her name was Anna. A moment passed and then it happened. Slowly and precisely the sound of a banjos steel strings being strummed filled her ears… she relaxed, tension dropping from her shoulders like weights.
Allowing the music to wash over her in a similar manner to the water, Anna closed her eyes and forced all prior thought out of her head. Only the sound of the music and the touch of the warm water existed, everything else in life could wait. Twisting her body, she raised her hands and slowly pushed them through a wet mass of bright, crimson hair then brought them together behind her neck. She interlocked her fingers and pressed. A stab of pain flared up in her neck and she winced.
There was only one thing for it. She would have to buy a pillow for her bed. Groaning slightly at this $5 cost realisation and at having such a trivial matter interrupt her state of Zen, she opened her eyes; the music reaching the first of its high points. At least it was free and she could focus on that for now. Plucking a bottle of shampoo from a plastic shelving unit, Anna popped the cap and upended it. Gently squeezing produced a small blob of thick gel, followed quickly by a ‘prrfftt’ noise.
“Oh fan-fucking-tastic,” Anna exclaimed in an exasperated manner, the morning's expenses reaching $8 total in her head. She sighed, allowing the offending empty bottle to fall to the tray with a clatter. “Just what I needed.”
Giving the useless thing a resentful prod out of the way she did her best to lather her slightly longer than shoulder length hair with what little shampoo she had managed to extract. After a few moments of furious rubbing, she gave up, closed her eyes and thrust her head back under the showerhead. The music worked its way through its final high point.
All of a sudden the water turned cold. Shivering, her muscles contracted and she hastily turned the shower off. The last droplets trickled from the small nozzles of the shower head, the pipes wheezed and the music slowly began to fade. Stepping out of the shower, she moved to stand in front of the sink and wiped away some of the fading condensation with the palm of her hand. She observed her features for a moment. Wet hair hung in clumps around her pale face while piercing green eyes stared at her above a petite nose and pale thin lips.
She straightened her back and lost sight of her hair and eyebrows in the low mirror. Her height came in at a decent five foot seven, her limbs had once been well defined, muscular, while her skin like her face held a slightly paler complexion than the city’s climate would normally allow for. She sighed and glanced down the length of the room at a clock that hung on the hall wall opposite. Ten past seven. Perfect, she thought as the acoustic guitar intro of the next track began. Then she froze. She had got in the shower at ten pa…
“OH SHIT!” Anna exclaimed. She had been in the shower since the start of the second track and that had begun over fifteen minutes ago.
Darting towards the door she barely paused for breath as she snatched the corner of a towel from the metal shelving unit, almost toppling it over in her haste. Catching the bathroom light switch on her way out, Anna darted into the hall and headed in the direction of the music. Halfway there and her hands were already haphazardly trying to dry her upper body with the towel. Reaching the end of the short hall she turned to her left towards her bedroom.
She cursed, spun around and dashed back down the hall and into the kitchen. Skidding to an abrupt halt, Anna snatching a bag of white bread from somewhere amongst the cluttered worktop. From its depths, she hauled two slices and thrust them into the awaiting jaws of a cheap, plastic-covered toaster. After condemning the bread to a toasting she turned on her heal and swiftly made her way back to her bedroom.
Yanking the sodden beige towel from around her shoulders she came to some semblance of a stop between an unmade metal-framed double bed and a built-in wardrobe. She really needed to find time to tidy in here she thought, her eyes locating a stack of recently laundered clothes amidst the carnage that was her bedroom.
Resigned to the fact that most of her hair would have to dry on the move, she buried her face into the towel. Staggering blindly she made her way to the far side of the bed towards a single armless chair where the clothes pile resided. A moment later and her left foot took a step too far and collided with one of its spindly metal legs.
“Oww…Bastard,” Anna cursed, taken her rage out on the wet towel by throwing it down to the floor.
Giving her foot a quick shake she ignored the throb of pain and turned her attention to the pile of laundry. From the top, she snatched an un-matching pair of white sports socks, a pair of blue underpants and a black bra. Hurriedly she put on her underwear, ignoring the protests from her left foot when its turn to be shoved into one of the socks came around. Carelessly Anna toppled the other items to the floor and withdrew a pair of loose fitting, not that she had any other type, ripped blue jeans.
She groaned on realising there was no t-shirt or other form of upper body clothing to be found. Just great she thought, eyes once again darting around the room in search of the elusive article of clothing. Finally, they came to rest on a crumpled blue tee only a few feet from where she stood. Practically pouncing on the thing, as though it might try and dart off under the bed, Anna brought it up to her nose, gave it a quick sniff, and then tossed it over her shoulder.
“Damn it,” she cursed, snatching up a black music t-shirt from beneath a pair of jeans that had lain beside the rejected blue.
A quick glance at the digital alarm clock on her bedside table told her that, regardless of smell, this one would have to do. Pulling the wrinkled thing over her head Anna stumbl
ed a few feet to where a pair of world-weary converse had been abandoned the previous night. Stuffing her slender feet inside, she wasted no time in lacing them up. Finally, she tied her hair back with a thin black hair tie and knotted a triangular shaped light-blue bandanna around her left wrist.
Another check of the time and she rushed out of the door. She had barely made it to the kitchen when the smell of burning hit her nostrils.
“OH SHIT!” she yelled on seeing a plume of black smoke rising steadily from the toaster.
Dodging the table corner, Anna slid across the ripped vinyl covered floor, stretched out an arm and caught the eject button on the toasters right-hand side.
“Crap!” She snatching the still smouldering bits of charcoal that had once been her breakfast from the red-hot jaws of the toaster.
In one swift motion, owing to the fact that her fingers were now getting burned, Anna lobbed the blackened bread directly into the centre of a trash can. With no time to lament the loss of her breakfast nor make another attempt, Anna swiftly crossed the short distance to the table. With her right hand, she took a worn black rucksack from the back of a sagging wooden chair, while with her left she snatched an antique cell phone and portable music player from the table-top.
Pocketing the two devices she made her way out of the kitchen, turned left and reached the apartment door within a few steps. The slip of a chain, the turn of a key, and one very harsh and forceful yank later, the stiff and heavy door to the apartment opened inward groaning loudly on its hinges.
Gingerly stepping outside Anna glanced around carefully before turning back to pull the door shut. She struggled with it for a moment before the wooden monstrosity slammed shut. She locked it twice and checked the mailbox on the wall beside her door. Bill…bill…she flipped through the handful of manila paper then stuffed them back into the box to deal with later. Across the hall her neighbour’s box overflowed with notices that screamed final demand indicating two things, he hadn’t been back to his apartment recently, which didn’t really concern her and secondly, she was not the only one with problems. She popped her headphones into her ears and headed down the cold concrete stairs two at a time using the bannister for support.
The bullets fly
An empty expanse of grass lay before the figure as he ran. On either side, two sheer faces of rock ran parallel up the valley; giving him nowhere to go but forward. Weaving tactically from side to side, he hurriedly made his way between the crags of rock. From cliff-top to cliff-top, his eyes darted, desperately scanning, searching for any potential assailants or would-be assassins who had elected to camp out. Cautiously he manoeuvred his way, each step pounding the long dry grass into the mud all the while cursing the weight of his equipment. In his right hand, he clenched a small handgun in an iron grip. Truth be told he would have dropped the damn thing in a heartbeat in order to help lighten his load had it not been his only current method of defence. His primary weapon slung uselessly on his back, devoid of ammunition.
A loud bang echoed through the canyon and he froze, a bullet embedding itself in the ground only a few inches in front of his left boot. “Shit” he exclaimed, darting to his right to avoid any further attack.
Based on the direction of the sound and the angle at which the bullet had impacted the earth he knew exactly where the shot had originated from. Sharply he turned his head to face the left-hand cliff. In one fluid motion, he raised his firearm and rapidly began squeezing the trigger. He knew he would be lucky if one of the shots landed within a few yards of its intended target. However, the effort might just be enough to make the sniper take cover thus buying him some precious time. Seconds later and a low click sounded from the hunk of metal in his hands and he cursed again. Fumbling to reload the weapon on the fly another bullet, this time from somewhere behind, came whizzing past his ear.
Now it was a race. His feet against the hand-eye coordination of the collective snipers and he would be damned if they were going to beat him. Tossing the empty weapon aside he focused solely on the rocky outcrop that had just materialised in front of him. Heart hammering he willed himself to move faster as to his left and rear two more shots narrowly missed his head.
“Come on, come on,” he cursed under his breath, urging himself onward.
A moment later and the grass abruptly ended and his feet came into contact with packed dirt. Spying the lowest rock in the cluster he darted for it. With less than a foot between himself and the craggy boulder, he prepared to vault it when another blast rang out from behind him and forward he stumbled.
Blood oozed from his right calf as he threw himself on top of the small rock, staining it a macabre colour. Agonisingly he forced himself to roll over and off the other side to safety. His heart skipping a beat as a bullet scraped the tip of the boulder in the exact spot his head had been less than a second prior.
A split second to catch his breath and take in his surroundings proved fruitful. “Oh baby you are my saviour!” he exclaimed when he saw his prize.
Expertly he heaved himself up and slung the gun from his back into his hands. Diving on top of a small cylindrical metal container he wrenched open the ammunition compartment of the weapon and thrust it directly inside. Like a savage wolf, he let out a monstrous snarl which reverberated through the weapon in his hand as he cracked the two halves back together and clamped his finger on the trigger. Slowly the six barrels of the gun began to rotate as each was filled. This….this was it he thought, the barrel coming round to the final chamber, the last stand, all or nothing.
The chamber loaded, a figure leapt over the rocks and the gun went off. Everything seemed to slow down then happened in half a heartbeat. In mid-air, the figure collided with the volley of rockets. The sound of the explosion echoed through the canyon, ripping through the air like Death’s scythe through a soul and was soon joined by the splatter of blood and various surviving body parts like a gruesome rain. From somewhere above an ethereal voice boomed out “VICTORY ACHIEVED!!” before everything slowly faded to black.
The sound of heavy breathing penetrated the silence before the figure spoke, “Close but not close enough Bigboy twenty-two. Once again you and your team of wet-eared newbie babies have been crushed by the Dylanator and his crew of bloodthirsty behemoths!”
The speaker who in the real world simply went by the name Dylan, sat back in his chair with a triumphant grin spread across his face, his fingers toying with the slightly slick mouse in his right hand.
“And just for the record folks, in case any of you had overlooked…” he paused for a moment, his grin managing to somehow widen “…or if you’re Bigboy twenty-two and can’t count that high. That makes eleven straight wins for us over your babies in a row.”
Before Dylan could continue his victory rant a loud bang followed by an equally loud, shrill voice sounded from somewhere behind him. “DYLAN MONTAGUE RODGERS, IF YOU DON’T GET DOWN THOSE STAIRS IN THE NEXT THIRTY SECONDS I’M TURNING THE ELECTRICITY OFF!”
Dylan cringed as the threat filled his left ear; his other spared the rant due to the expensive headset he wore. Ignoring it for the moment he turned his attention back to the large monitor in front of him. “Ok, so the old battle axe is trying to batter down the door again folks. Let’s make this last one a quick first to ten, everyman for himself. That way Bigboy can’t complain when his own teammates shoot him in the back.”
A general murmur of agreement mixed with a couple of moans, and one furious declaration of war, sounded through Dylan’s earpiece as he went about setting up the next game. There were barely a few moments before the sound of gunfire filled the room once more. Dylan expertly moved his character through the virtual world; blowing up anyone that he came across.
He chuckled under his breath as a split second later another hapless player crossed his path and soon found themselves in multiple pieces. “Come on folks you’re all making this far too easy.” After only a few short minutes in which a lot of things exploded, imploded, were electrocuted, cu
t down, crushed and just in general brutally slaughtered, Dylan stood up from behind his desk and felt the warm fibres of a soft cream carpet slip through the gaps between his toes. He stretched, revelling in the feeling, the tension easing from him.
“So after only five minutes and ten straight kills, all of which by gruesome dismemberment I might add, it transpires that the Dylanator is still the undisputed champion of Deathmatch. Thank you and good morning.”
Uninterested in any counterclaim to his supremacy Dylan pulled the headset from behind his ear and casually tossed it down beside the computer. Turning to face the expanse of his well-ordered room the boy slowly began to rub his eyes as they struggled to come to terms with the non-virtual world.
The room itself was a large rectangle with copious amounts of unoccupied floor space towards the centre. Like the floor, the walls were cream in colour though at first glance far more difficult to detect. From top to bottom posters had been tacked in almost every available space with most depicting various female fictional characters along with a few that were not so… fictional, yet still very much the stuff of fantasy.
His eyes finally adjusted, Dylan found himself staring up at a particularly large image of a girl with pale pink hair, a stoic expression, and a futuristic-looking sword. Winking up at her in a manner that indicated that he had every intention of seeing her and giving her much more attention later, Dylan made his way across the large open space between his desk and a white wood door that led into an en-suite bathroom. Lazily he made full use of the facilities before moving to stand in front of a large mirror mounted above a white porcelain sink. Picking up a comb from a small glass shelf the boy stared intently at his reflection, the slightly off centre set to his nose claiming his attention and for a second he rubbed the bridge before trying to get his hair to sit right.
He was of average height with a thin waistline and narrow shoulders. Up top, he had a head of messy hair that time had turned a light brown from its original dull blonde and a pair of dull brown eyes that contained the subtlest hint of green. Though Dylan may have been lacking in body mass and muscle, or as his more athletic friends often put it, devoid of any muscle not required to operate a gamepad, he more than made up for it in the good looks department.
