by Nora Lane
CONTENTS
Copyright
Newsletter
Excerpt
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Newsletter
Review
About the Author
Nora Lane, May 2015
Copyright © 2015 Nora Lane
All rights reserved worldwide
No part of this book may be reproduced, uploaded to the Internet, or copied without permission from the author. The author respectfully asks that you please support artistic expression and help promote anti-piracy efforts by purchasing a copy of this book at the authorized online outlets.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incident either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales, business establishments, or actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older and who are not blood related.
Newsletter
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Excerpt
* * * * *
A chat window popped up on the screen. He just hacked my computer! My fingers flew over the keyboard. I wanted an answer. Now.
CG: Why me, Noah?
REMOTE_USER: You’re special. You’re in a position to understand how precious life is, and what you might be willing to do to keep it.
CG: Cryptic. Vague. Confusing. Partial answer at best.
REMOTE_USER: True. But life is that way. Suffice it to say that you’re uniquely qualified. Besides, you have a great ass.
( o) ( o) - - - - - - (__(__)
Did he just say that?
CG: Is that ASCII art your eyes looking at my butt?
REMOTE_USER: What if it is?
CG: That would be inappropriate, Mr. Sinclair. And it would set a bad tone for the interview. I’ll be there to question you for the people of Earth.
REMOTE_USER: You make it sound like I no longer fall into that category.
CG: Do you?
REMOTE_USER: It’s ninety-eight degrees in there. The mosquitoes are waiting for you to lower your defenses. The “cold” water comes out at eighty degrees. Your bed is a wet mess. You should’ve accepted my offer of lodging.
I flung my arm over my bare chest and crossed my legs. How did he know? Was he watching me? Seeing me naked?
I looked through the blinds, stood up and checked the peephole. Nothing. I sat back down and noticed the camera lens at the top of the screen. Covering my breasts with one arm, I touched the lens. Did he hack into my laptop camera?
CG: Are you watching me?
REMOTE_USER: Yes.
My other arm snapped over my chest. They did the best they could to hold it all in.
CG: That’s totally inappropriate! How?
REMOTE_USER: I’d rather not say.
CG: You hacked my computer camera?
REMOTE_USER: No. But it would be trivial to do. You should cover the lens with black tape.
CG: Don’t hack my computer camera!!!
REMOTE_USER: You have my word.
How else could he be watching me? He was probably bullshitting. He found out where I was and knowing it was hot and infested with mosquitos wasn’t exactly a news flash in Florida. He was messing with me.
CG: If you are watching me, then tell me what I’m wearing.
REMOTE_USER: Isn’t that an inappropriate question, Ms. Gabarro?
CG: Why?
REMOTE_USER: Because you’re naked.
I screamed, jumped into the damp puddle that was my bed and covered myself with sheets. I crept back to the chair, swaddled in clingy fabric.
REMOTE_USER: I apologize. It’s been a long while since I’ve had regular contact with anyone outside my business. It’s entirely possible, even likely, that my compass for socially acceptable behavior is askew.
CG: Stop watching me!
REMOTE_USER: Granted. Now get some sleep. Try sleeping on your side.
CG: I’m quite capable of—
REMOTE_USER: I look forward to your arrival tomorrow. Don’t be late.
( o) ( o) - - - - - - (__(__)
:0
* * * * *
CHAPTER ONE
I lay naked in bed staring at the ceiling. A puddle of sweat pooled in my belly button. Damp sheets stuck to my back like cling wrap never does. The fetid stink of old cigarettes coated the air. I knew I should quit. My doctors said I had a death wish considering my situation.
Coraline, we’re going to fight this. We’re going to give it our best.
Easy for them to say when they’d already lived well passed double my life span, and they’d keep going after I got cut short.
Life gave me death, and hoping it were otherwise wasn’t effective medicine. My desperate wishing hadn’t changed a damn thing. When that failed, I tried bargaining with whichever god might listen. That proved just as effective. As in not in the least. If I wasn’t long for planet Earth, I was going to do what I damn well pleased.
I took a long drag on the cigarette pinched between my fingers. The tip flared and bathed the dark hotel room in a dull orange glow. I smoked low-tar. That was something. My doctors didn’t agree.
I didn’t much care.
The buzz of the oscillating fan on the side table drown out the burning crackle. Hot chemical air filled my lungs and made me feel alive, even as it worked to kill me faster.
Good luck with that.
I leaned over and dropped the smoldering stub into a half-empty soda can. It fizzled with a flash as it hit the bit that got warm before I could drink it.
Soda was delicious. I loved it. But it had to be ice cold. Let one get warmed up and all of a sudden you could taste all the nasty chemicals hidden inside. I didn’t do lukewarm soda.
I didn’t have time for it.
The only major downside of soda and cigs was the aftertaste. Sure, it was the perfect combo going in, but now, after they’d settled in for the stay.
Not so much.
My mouth tasted like wool gym socks. Felt as fuzzy too. No toothpaste conquered it. Gum helped. There weren’t any conclusive studies showing gum’s bad effects on your health.
Yet.
Probably just a matter of time.
Everything was bad for you these days. The air. The water. The food. Most people cared about all that because they expected long and happy lives.
Not me.
My diagnosis made any thought of a future beyond the next cheeseburger and fries pointless. You don’t fall for big dreams when life promises nothing but nightmares.
I blew out a lungful of smoke. It was a non-smoking room. Whatever. The acrid stink of cigarettes wasn’t making much of a dent in the musty smell of boiled feet. The room was a frozen frame of dilapidated disintegration. It was a shock the place hadn’t been condemned.
Count my lucky stars.
I couldn’t afford a room not in danger of demolition.
Too miserable to sleep. Too excited
to care. Or was it the other way around?
Still, I needed sleep. I tired easily lately. They said to expect it. They said to expect a thousand other, far more horrible things so I was pretty okay with just being beat.
Tomorrow wouldn’t be easier exhausted and running on empty. I rolled over and the scratchy sheet rolled with me. I peeled it off my back with a grimace. What I wouldn’t give for a freezer to snuggle.
Bright green LED numbers on the clock radio painted the walls a ghoulish hue. 1:52 AM. The fan on the table struggled to push thick air through the room. It buzzed and creaked and complained like it knew the effort was pointless and resented my insistence on it trying.
Florida in August was inhospitable to life. I assumed all the old people that felt otherwise had high-powered air conditioners.
Small wonder this hotel was dirt cheap and wide open with vacancies. No one stayed a second night. You either drowned in your own sweat, or survived and swore to never insist on saving a few measly bucks again.
A high-pitched buzz zoomed by my ear. I swatted at it and snarled.
Damn mosquito. I hated those things. I was all for God’s creatures and all that. In my apartment, I captured spiders and set them free outside. Roaches too. But mosquitoes? Those little bloodsuckers deserved death. It wasn’t the blood thing so much. Yea, the bites were itchy. And I knew you could catch various diseases. West Nile was making the rounds lately.
Honestly, the mosquito should be more concerned about what it might get from my blood than the other way around.
It was the buzzing. The incessant dive-bomber buzzing. You close your eyes, relax, and float right up to the edge of sleep…
and BZZZZZZZZ. Right in your ear.
I made the mistake of opening the window earlier, thinking the fresh hot air outside would be better than the stale hot air inside. It was. Only it was also an open invitation to all twenty million mosquitoes that festered in the swamp across the highway.
Seriously, what hotel room in Florida doesn’t have screens on the windows? This one. This place was a shambles. Clearly neglected. Way passed its expiration date. You didn’t waste time caring for something destined for imminent destruction.
It was cold logic. It made sense.
I knew more than most.
CHAPTER TWO
That said, mosquitos deserved to die. Especially any foolish enough to invade my personal space. It’d taken an hour to kill off the horde that filled my room. Their smashed, black bodies dotted a white bathroom towel. Their grisly deaths merely added to the existing kaleidoscope of stains.
I thought I got them all. Only you never get them all. One always survives. When the world finally comes to an end, one mosquito will be left. When the last human breathes its last breath and our species vanishes from the pages of history, a mosquito will be there to poke its annoying stinger into the newly deceased body’s pinkie finger. Right on the knuckle.
Guaranteed.
Damp hair stuck to my neck. I scratched it away and wiped the beading sweat off my forehead.
The whine of a mosquito approached. I lay still, trying to hone in on it. Like Luke with the blast helmet on. I clapped the air in triumph. Sure I got it this time.
The buzz continued. It circled my head.
I waited for another strike.
It buzzed louder.
And then went straight inside my ear!
I flew out of bed. Its legs and wings a furious tickle. I slapped my head with the palm of my hand. Deaf shock hit me. I almost fell over. It however was unaffected. An air siren blared in my ear. Louder than any one centimeter monster had a right to be.
I flailed at my ear, trying to stop the tickling, struggling beast. I jammed a pinkie finger in and pumped it in and out until the buzzing died.
In my ear.
Disgusting.
I moved to the bathroom and noticed the bedsheets stuck to my butt, trailing behind like a fairy tale dress. I kicked it to the ground, pinkie still digging in my ear to clear out the remains. The tickling, dead mass of it refused to budge.
I flicked on the bathroom light and waited for it sputter to life. I whipped my pinkie out for examination. A couple of squished legs stuck to the tip. Which meant the rest was still in my ear.
Thank you, Florida.
I turned on the cold water—what a misnomer—and splashed it into my ear. Eventually, the soaked carcass fell out and stuck to the side of the sink. Thank god I saw it. I seriously required evidence of its evacuation. Sleep was hard enough without having to wonder if the little bloodsucker was rotting away inside me.
It could end up locked in ear wax. Forever preserved like scientists find those ones in amber. Maybe amber was dinosaur ear wax. Like an archaeologist, some med student would find it someday as they dissected my body.
A fascinating and rare case. Not the dead, stuck-in-earwax mosquito. That would be the cherry on top. I knew my condition was going to make some soulless med student’s semester.
Someday. Someday sooner than was fair.
I’d have to officially donate my body first. My license still didn’t have that box ticked. I kept meaning to. Considering my situation, it felt like surrender. My body had surrendered before the fight could even begin. Procrastinating on signing the donation form was my final token resistance. My hopeless refusal to accept reality.
Maybe if I survived the heat and hoards of mosquitos. Then I’d sign it.
Of course, if I didn’t make it safely back to Earth, mosquitos and med students would have to find another victim anyway.
CHAPTER THREE
I splashed tepid water on my face. One hour in the hot Florida sun made my face look like I’d been slapped by an angry lover. My normally pale skin was bright pink. I’d probably peel. Even my breasts were blushed. That was probably the heat. I didn’t do topless beaches. Not gonna catch me baring it all to the world.
I liked my breasts. It wasn’t that. They were curvy and deserving of far more attention than they ever got. My belly was generally still flat thanks to a high school swim career. Pizza and college were changing things though.
I missed swimming. The thought of swimming naked in the ocean sounded pretty awesome. The outside of my body wasn’t the problem. The problem was on the inside.
My insides had transformed my life into one ginormous peep show. The thought of voluntarily attracting more attention was repulsive. About as appealing as having a mosquito stuck in your ear.
Less.
I stared into the hazed-over mirror. The finish worn to metal in patches. Like a car painted fifty years ago. It didn’t look all that clean either. People staying in this dump must not want to get a clear look at themselves.
I couldn’t blame them for willful ignorance. Wished I had more myself.
I scrubbed at the film and scoured away a more reflective patch. I stared into the revealed reflection. Red veins crept through the white of my green eyes. I moved to reveal an angry red bump on my chin. I touched it and wondered what the dull ache meant.
It could mean nothing. It could mean everything.
Why did a twenty-two-year-old have to fear it being anything more than a pimple?
I wished for the millionth time that somebody would tell me. God. Nostradamus. My doctors. Any random person that sounded convincing.
Anyone.
It was probably a pimple. No reason to be morbid. Just an ill-timed imperfection. My skin rebelled against the humid heat. I normally had an immaculate complexion.
False advertising to the world.
I pinched the skin around it. Poked and prodded the bump hoping it would erupt like a dormant volcano.
I had a serious bodily fluids fascination. Show me a pimple and I’d show you twenty minutes of disgusted compulsion. Picking, pinching, squeezing. The whole revolting side show. I couldn’t help it.
It was partly because I had to stay on it. A painful bump for me could be a far more deadly sign. Or it could just be a sign of departing adolescence.<
br />
I gave up after a long while of protracted badgering, and still the little bugger refused to pop. Maybe it was a mosquito bite. It was redder and angrier than ever.
Please God, let it be a stubborn pimple or an irritated mosquito bite.
It was hard not to let your brain spiral. Especially late at night.
I splashed more water on my neck and chest. I stepped back into the bedroom and stood in front of the fan.
Better.
I shivered as the warm breeze cooled my wet skin. Glorious cool, if only for the minute it took for the water to evaporate. My nipples hardened as the chill washed across my breasts. I looked at the bed. At the hot, wet cocoon that no sane person would consider a fit place to sleep.
Not happening.
I threw the towel over the chair by the bed, thought better of it, and threw my pants down instead. I didn’t want mosquitoes guts stuck to my butt.
I grabbed my laptop and flipped up the screen. I’d go over the questions. Get my mind on something productive.
This was my big break.
Could be.
If I didn’t blow it. If I didn’t blow up. If I didn’t blow out. There were a lot of ifs.
You don’t get the chance to interview the most famous, most reclusive man on the planet every day. In fact, no one had ever gotten the chance. And he didn’t even live on the planet. He lived above the planet. In a space station twice as big as its only neighbor, the International Space Station. That made it bigger than a twelve bedroom house.
Sure, down on earth, that was nothing for your average billionaire to crow about. But 300 miles above the surface of the earth was another matter. Space was purchased at a premium. The ISS was built and shared by the most powerful countries on the planet. It cost 150 billion dollars. The best the world could afford.
