When The Changewinds Blow

by Jack L. Chalker

  It was tough to stay awake and kill a whole day without doing much. She browsed a lot, but the fact was that time really crawled and she was feeling just miserable. Worse was seeing all the things she'd like to buy, things she really needed-like more clothes and a jacket at least-but didn't dare pick up. By the time Charley was due she was in pretty bad shape. Still, she spotted the little red Subaru wagon cruise by the entrance slowly, then stop by the curb, and she practically ran to it and jumped in. Charley pulled away almost immediately.

  "Jeez! You look like warmed over shit," her friend commented. Charley was dressed like she was going on a real heavy date-lipstick, makeup, perfume, fake fur jacket, nice satiny blouse and short skirt, even pantihose and heels. She even had her contacts in-at least, Sam hoped she did.

  "This has been one of the worst days of my whole life," Sam responded honestly. "No sleep, cramps, you name it. Glad to see you dressed up for me, though."

  Charley laughed. "I had a couple of days to work this out and some of the gang at school were willing to help out, too."

  Sam had closed her eyes but one opened. "You didn't tell nobody else about me, did you?"

  "No, relax. There's a group going up to Taos to ski this weekend and I just begged my folks to be included, since the weather's been so weird and we have a four-wheel-drive wagon I think they're happy to get me out of town and someplace safe for the weekend. It's not the first time-you know that-and Monday's a school holiday. The cops seem to have given up on you but my folks are still real paranoid about me since you vanished, it was almost World War Three just to go to the bathroom alone after they found out about you yesterday."

  "Yeah? And what's the group gonna say when you don't show up?"

  Charley laughed. "Oh, if necessary they'll cover for me. They think I'm sneaking out this weekend to spend it with a new and secret boyfriend. Remember my reputation at school. I'm a woman of experience, remember. I'll give my folks a call later on tonight and again tomorrow night and lie and that gives me until Monday night before I have to be back."

  Sam leaned back in the seat, too exhausted to even be concerned anymore. "I just need someplace to sleep and get myself together if you know what I mean," she sighed. "A hot bath and a bed."

  "I've got some money for the weekend and I got my own Visa, remember. When the bill comes in next month I'll just kinda tear off the bottom of the form and lose it and stick it in the pile to be paid. We'll get you a motel tonight but tomorrow I think we'll go up to my folks' cabin by the lake. Dad bought it years ago but we hardly ever use it. I think there've been more relatives stay there than us. Nobody'll be up there now and maybe not for miles. I figure it's as good a place as any to start. We got all Saturday to work something out."

  Charley was still a little paranoid from Wednesday night and decided to see if anybody was following. Not that she could do much if they were, but it would give something of an edge. She took a number of turns and spent a good fifteen minutes at it until she felt sure she wasn't being tailed. Then she headed out to the freeway and headed north, out and away from the city. Only then did she look over and see that Sam was out cold, dead to the world. She looked so damned-helpless out like that.

  For Charley, it was just helping out a friend and a little touch of adventure that broke the boredom of day to day routine. She found a small motel off the highway and registered as "Mr. and Mrs. Sam Sharkin." She had to use her last name since it was on the credit card. She didn't know why she put that down instead of passing Sam off as a more credible little brother or something, but it kind of added to the adventure, to the sense of doing something naughty.

  Sam was still out cold and it took some doing just to get her awake enough to get her inside. The room was small but comfortable, with a full bath and a queen-sized bed. Charley went back out to get her suitcase and lock the car, and found that Sam had gotten awake enough to strip and was running a hot bath. She certainly needed it, so Charley took the opportunity to call her parents and lie enthusiastically. They seemed satisfied, relieved that she was out of town and with a group and told her to have a good time. She felt much better afterward, and turned on the TV. She was a woman now, damn it, and a bit too old to be towing her parents' line all the time. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

  Sam was in the tub so long Charley got worried that maybe she'd gone to sleep in there, but then her friend struggled in, dried herself with a towel, and flopped down on the bed. "You bring any tampons?" she asked.

  "Yeah, sure." Charley got one from her suitcase. "Don't leave home without it. How are you feeling?"

  "Dead. Like a pool of warm shit and my head's poundin' something fierce. Dead-but clean." She said the word like a religious fanatic talking about heaven. "You?"

  "I'm okay. A little tired but not like you. What happened to you? You looked so good on Wednesday." She got up and turned off the TV-nothing much on anyway-and the lights and crawled back into bed. She'd brought pajamas with her but somehow they just didn't seem right.

  Sam sighed. "Just my nuttiness screwin' me up again."

  "Tell me-if you want." It might be easier if she could get it out of her system.

  Slowly, Sam described the previous night in the mall, sparing nothing.

  "You actually walked nude around the mall?" The image .had an erotic kinkiness to it that appealed to her, although she was sure she couldn't have done it.

  "Yeah. It was kinda fun, but then the thunder came and I panicked and then the voices in my head started again and that was the end of that. The worst part was being all alone." She shivered.

  Almost instinctively Charley put her arms around Sam and drew her dose. "Well, Charley's here now. You're not alone tonight."

  Sam clung to her tightly, and Charley, a bit embarrassed, realized that her friend was softly crying.

  It was a small, very dark cloud in the night sky, nearly impossible to see, yet if it could have been seen from the ground it would resemble a swirling, seething mass that pulsed almost as if it were alive. It flowed like an amoeba across the dark sky, jointly pulsing with electrical energy that made it appear almost to have a broad, comic, if still demonicface, the internal flashes of lightning illuminating two small areas almost as if they were eyes.

  It settled first over the mall and remained therefor quite sometime, drifting a bit this way and that as if trying to catch a scent. Then, finally, catching a hint of something, it began to move out, away from the mall, stopping again over a residential neighborhood where it swirled in sudden confusion for almost an hour. Then it seemed to find its direction again and slowly moved northward. lt was tenacious but ponderously slow. It headed northward now, following a road below, but it was no longer going with the prevailing winds and the energy drain was enormous. Even as it moved, it shrank, losing little bits and pieces of itself to the atmosphere. With single-minded determination it ignored this, but the effect was to slow it even more. The fight against the other elements was too great, its dissipation too fast. Even as the scent grew stronger the cloud grew weaker and weaker, until, perhaps just short of its goal, it weakened sufficiently that it could no longer maintain its structural integrity.

  For a brief moment, the swirling mass gone, only two bright, terrible spots of light remained suspended in the air, and then suddenly they were shattered by the prevailing winds.

  Saturday dawned bright if a bit crisp and cool, and the brightness was reflected in Sam's attitude as well. She had slept for eleven straight hours and she felt hung over, but she also felt a tremendous lessening of the tension she'd been under for a week. Charley checked out and then they went over to MacDonalds and had what was essentially a brunch. Charley was never very hungry and nibbled on a cheeseburger and fries, but Sam was ravenous, putting away two quarter-pound burgers, a fish sandwich, fries, and a shake. It was as if she hadn't eaten in a week. Still, by the time they were off again it was almost like the old Sam was back and it was the two of them out for a lark.

  In Amarillo
they found a mall and made good use of Charley's credit card. Sam declared the old denim outfit unfit for further human consumption and hit a western-wear store for a new if similar outfit in a young boy's size, cowboy boots, leather belt with antique copper buckle, and even a Stetson. Considering the season, the addition of an imitation sheepskin jacket was welcome. She also got a small overnight case of fake leather, with a shoulder strap, which looked pretty masculine but could double as a purse, and some boys' underwear. She also hit a barber and got a haircut so short it was called "the military cut" in the style book-very short and flat on top and almost shaved on the sides. She still looked fourteen but, dressed that way and with that cut, just about every outward trace of femininity was erased. In fact, with her cool, tough, male act, Charley thought Sam was kind of cool and cute and sexy, not butch but convincing.

  It was a bit over two hours more on back roads before they reached the cabin. It had been so long since Charley herself had been there that she had to check all sorts of landmarks and even then missed the dirt road tumoff twice. The cabin itself was a single-room log affair about a mile and a half off the main road and sheltered from view by both the land and the trees. Fortunately, it was locked with combination locks the numbers for which were in Dad's address book, so they were able to enter and look around.

  "It's not much," Charley admitted. "It was supposed to be hot shit when we bought it but they never developed the so-called getaway wilderness resort they were selling in the brochures. Some folks camp around here in summer but I think we're the only ones that ever built anything within miles of here. Dad sued the hell out of them and got the cabin in a settlement. This was used as the sales office years ago and it's the only one with a well and septic system. You still gotta pump it up by hand over there, though, and add water to the toilet to flush it. They powered the place in the old days with a generator and they took that with 'em. No electricity."

  There were, however, kerosene lamps, a wood stove built out of a fireplace, a sink with an old-fashioned handle pump where the faucets should be, a bare toilet that once had a curtain around it, some cabinets, pots, pans, and an old and squeaky but serviceable double bed. "Used to be my folks' but it either got too squeaky or too small for 'em so they moved it here," Charley explained.

  Sam looked around. "Real country primitive, that's for sure. Matches the outfit, though. How long's it been since anybody was here?"

  "Oh, a couple of cousins used it like for a week last year, I think-there's wood in the woodpile out there that we can use that I guess is from them. I don't think my folks have been here since the one and only time I was, which was like years ago. The river out back's supposed to have good fish in it, leastwise in the summer .and fall. I don't know why Dad hangs on to it 'cept I guess you can't get much for it. Ain't exactly the great vacation spot of the universe or even Texas. I guess maybe he like figures he fought for it and it cost him, so he's keepin' it on principle or something."

  They took turns trying to make the pump work. It took several minutes to get any water up, all the time screeching like the wail of the dead, and when it did come it was very rusty, but after pumping what seemed to be gallons it cleared enough so neither felt nervous about drinking or using it.

  Charley had prepared for many of the cabin's obvious lacks. They'd stopped at a grocery store and picked up a pretty good assortment of stuff, although very little in the way of meat and nothing frozen since there was no refrigerator. Still, with the kind of stuff you could buy freeze-dried or boil-in-bag these days you could get by pretty good without it for a while.

  They spent the day cleaning up and more or less playing house for real, and it struck Charley after a while that even out here and with the act down they had just sort of naturally assumed sexual roles, with Sam doing the logs and heavy stuff and she doing the cooking and making the bed with the linen she'd brought along. It was almost like they were acting like- well, her mom and dad-and it hadn't been deliberate. It was kind of fun, really; if Sam had really been a boy it might be different, but this was like a pleasant fantasy game and far preferable to making the hard choices ahead.

  Sam came in from the car with a small brown bag which she'd obviously already opened, then pulled out a fifth of vodka. It was open, but still three-fourths full. "And what's this? Lighter fluid?"

  "It's from home. There's so many bottles in the club room they'll never miss it. At the time I kinda figured you might need it, but to tell you the truth I forgot about it. I could'a got some grass from Louisa but I knew you couldn't stand the smell of the stuff."

  Sam sighed. "I never really touched much of any of that. Too scared, I guess. What's it taste like?"

  "Not much of anything, really. You just mix it with juice or pop. It just makes me real silly and it makes you feel good for a while. Too much can make you sick in the morning, though." Sam looked back outside. "Well, we got a nice fire in here, it's hot as hell inside, dark and cold outside; we got no TV, no radio 'less we want to sit in the car, and not much else. Maybe I can stand bein' silly once."

  And they did get silly, partly because they had no real way to measure the stuff and partly because the early attempts caused no real effect quickly and by the time they had enough to really feel it it was pretty cumulative. They sang and they danced to the songs they sang and they laughed at really stupid things and Charley got up on the table and did a silly strip tease and just like the last time she'd gotten drunk she got real turned on. She had no inhibitions at all and it was all impulse, all feel, now, not thinking. Sam, too, seemed real vacant and giggly and pretty unsteady.

  They were both pretty giddy and helped each other to blow out the lamps and make it to bed. Charley snuggled up close to Sam and started gently rubbing the other. She sensed Sam stiffen. "What's wrong?"

  "I-I dunno. I have these funny feelings inside and I'm all mixed up. It's all-wrong."

  "You want me to stop?"

  "That's just it-I don't want you to stop. I-I had other dreams, not just the bad ones. Ones I never told about. You dream about boys. I know you do. Mine had you and me in bed, like this, only in my dreams I was a boy and you was you and that made it all right. . . ."

  In any other circumstances Charley would have reacted differently, but she was high as a kite and horny as hell. "Okay, just for tonight, then, let's do a fantasy. You're the boy and I'm the girl and we're here all alone. Jus' relax and pretend and ol' Charley'll show you just what to do."

  It wasn't clear how long it went in the darkness before they both passed out from the booze, but it was day when Charley awoke with a splitting headache to the sounds of Sam throwing up into the toilet. Charley didn't feel that sick, but her head was throbbing and the room was slightly spinning and she could do nothing but lie there and try not to move.

  She didn't remember much about the night but she remembered-enough, and it started her thinking and worrying. She was slightly troubled about herself, wondering if this was anything much inside her head or not. She sure as hell fantasized about boys, but she'd gotten turned on by looking at a girl or two and it hadn't bothered her much. Hell, when she'd been fourteen she'd had a real, if short, adolescent crush on Mrs. Santiago, her English teacher at the time. Months later Mrs. Santiago had been replaced with Mr. Horvath. Sam, though-she was such a damned straight arrow it must be killing her inside, or would when she stopped being sick and really sobered up. She and Sam were physically only a month apart in age, but emotionally Sam was closer to fourteen than seventeen going on eighteen, and she'd had that split home and since being separated so long and so far from her dad Sam had turned him into almost Superman in her mind so no boy could ever compare or measure up.

  Boy, Dr. Joan Henvitz-she was the phone-in psychologist on the radio-had lots of cases like this. Sam got a crush on Charley but it went against everything her straight arrow upbringing and church groups believed. So she couldn't handle it, and finally invented this weird fantasy world and dark mysterious ghosts and talking thunder
storms. Man! These were heavy thoughts! Sam was running, all right, but not from the darker dreams and fantasies but rather to them. The solution startled Charley but it also cheered her. It explained everything! The trouble was, would Sam buy it now and deal with it? It was Sunday. There was only one day left.

  Still, they had to survive a rough morning first. Charley had one of those awful problems-she desperately needed to take some industrial-strength Tylenol she had with her but to do so involved pumping some water and the screeching of the pump was unendurable. It was also very cold in the cabin; Sam was covered with goosebumps but first things came first and upchucking had a way of forcing itself to the head of the line. Even so, once her stomach was empty she felt much better if dizzy and lightheaded. Still, she had enough sense to know that building a fire was essential and she managed to throw some wood in the stove, light some paper with a cheap lighter, and toss it in. It would take a few minutes but at least things would be livable.

  She found an unopened bottle of orange juice that was slightly cold because of the cabin's temperature and got the pills from Charley's purse and brought them to her. It was only then that they both discovered that Sam, the bed, and even' Charley were something of a bloody mess and Sam felt bruised and scratched up inside. It confused her. "Jeez-my period's pretty well over and I never had flow like that."

  Charley had to laugh even though it hurt to do so. "Long fingernails," she muttered. "Sam, I popped your cherry last night. Don't worry-it'll never happen again. Hurt a little inside?"

  "Uh-huh."