Never Forsaken

by Michael Anderle

  I have a degree in Computer Science from NJIT, graduated with honors, et cetera. I like to think I’m a pretty smart guy. Maybe not MIT material (fucking elitist cocksuckers!), but I can hold my own in front of a dual monitor setup. Speaking of which, I work as a game programmer for Hopskotchgames.com. You’ve probably heard of them. You know Jewel Smash? Yep, that was me, baby. That little gem (no pun intended) alone has made the company millions in online revenue. I dare say I got a nice little bonus on that one...emphasis on little. Cheap bastards. But still, I can’t complain, at least not too much. I make more than enough to support my “lavish” lifestyle, I get full benefits, and can work from home pretty much whenever I feel like it. Overall, there are far worse places to be employed. Don't get me wrong, though. The second I win the lottery, those guys can go fuck themselves sideways.

  Anyway, my said lavish lifestyle consists of the top floor apartment of a building in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. I share it with my two aforementioned roomies, Ed and Tom. Ed is my partner in crime over at Hopskotchgames. He does graphical design for them, and we’ve partnered on more than a few of their top downloads. We met in college, and he's the one who got me the interview over there. Ed’s a good guy, if a little odd. He’s got a lot of talent, but is absolutely the least passionate artist I have ever met. Life is one big “Meh!” to him. Some days I think you’d need to set him on fire and cut his balls off with a dull hacksaw to get a reaction out of him, not that I fantasize much about setting him on fire...or his balls, for that matter. But you get the idea.

  As for Tom, he’s my main bud. I’ve known him for almost twenty years. Of everyone I know, I’d vote him the most likely in the next decade or so to wind up in a twenty-room mansion with a hot trophy wife by his side. Tom’s all about the money. He works over in the Manhattan financial district. Right now, he’s little more than a toady to the higher-ups, but he assures me that’s the way things work there. You latch onto some upwardly mobile VP like a remora (in this case, attaching your lips firmly to their ass) and let them drag you up the ranks. He rounds that part out by also being an obsessive collector. His dad got him into it when he was young, and then Tom’s OCD took over and kept it going in overdrive ever since. He’s got a storage bin back in Jersey, where we grew up, filled to the brim with comic books and action figures. That doesn’t even count the stuff he keeps locked in his bedroom. Most of it is worth shit now, and will probably be forever, but he’s got a few nice pieces. Just don’t let him catch you playing with any of them. Dude is a little psycho about it. I once repositioned his He-Man figure to be giving it to Princess Leia doggy-style and you'd have thought I had poisoned his family. Shit, if I ever did poison his family, he'd probably get over it quicker.

  So, that’s me. Not exactly Bruce Wayne, but then again, I’m not a basket case still living at home with Mom and Dad, either. My life is steady if a little dull: get up, get some work done, eat some food, then go back to sleep. Rinse and repeat until the weekend, when it’s more or less collect my paycheck, hang out with my friends, and bitch about the rest of the week. Some day I hope to get married, have a few kids, and then I’ll probably settle into the same routine again. Except then I’ll spend my weekends with my wife, bitching about the rest of the week. You know how it is. My plan is a lot like anyone else's. Maximize my good times, minimize my bad, and leave the larger stuff to people who give more of a shit than I do.

  Or at least that was the plan, but then I had to go and fuck it all up by dying.

  The Day before the Day I Died

  So, let’s get back to my untimely death, all right? Let me start by saying, fuck SoHo! Yeah, that’s what I said. I have never, ever had a good experience there. Every person I know who lives there is a douchebag. Every job interview I’ve ever had there has been conducted by assholes. Every restaurant I’ve ever eaten at there has sucked; and when the food didn’t suck, the service sure as hell did. It is a place where the tragically hip go to die, and people with more fashion sense than brain cells gather like moths to a flame. So, I should have known better than to wind up at a party there. Even more so, I should’ve known that the sweet piece of ass that invited me was far too good to be true.

  Saturday had started off well enough. It was a nice day; clear and just cool enough for a light jacket. Tom headed out to spend the day with his parents and his cute little sister (who, in just another two years, is going to be old enough to jerk off to legally...not that I would. Well, okay, talk to me in two years and we’ll see. Just don’t tell him I said that). As for Ed, he was holed up in his bedroom/home office. He was a little behind on the level design of a new project, and wanted to burn off some weekend hours to get it done. The rest of my local friends were busy, so that left me, myself, and I.

  I grabbed a couple of Egg McMuffins in the A.M. from the McDonalds on 86th street, and then jumped onto the R train to head into the city. I didn’t really have much of a plan. I figured I’d spend a few bucks, grab lunch, and then head back. Maybe I’d see if anyone was up for some bar hopping in the evening. I gotta admit, dying wasn’t on my to-do list. But hey, live and learn, I guess...or is that don’t live and learn?

  Okay, so the first part of my day went pretty much as expected. I popped into the Complete Strategist to grab a few new D&D minis (my current one just wasn’t doing justice to my High-Elf Battlemage) as well as a few new rule supplements that had come out. I plunked down enough cash so that, thanks to me, some executive at Wizards of the Coast could now continue paying their child’s college education. I walked over to midtown and spent a little time at the Apple Store, where for about the hundredth time, I stood around debating the merits of buying myself an iPad, and for the hundredth time, decided that maybe I’d hold off for now. After that, I grabbed a few slices of pizza and then headed down to the subway again. In retrospect, I should have loitered for a while longer. If that had happened, I wouldn’t have met her, and, well...I’d still be alive.

  But you’re not here to catch the story about Bill, the guy who went home, met up with some friends, and then spent the rest of his Saturday night drunkenly arguing over who the hottest chick on Smallville was, are you? No, you’re not. So, as I was saying, I went to grab the train back to Brooklyn. Not really wanting to mingle with the weekend crowd, I wandered to the end of the platform where there were only a few people waiting. That turned out to be a big mistake.

  The train took its sweet time, and I was just starting to tire of the perpetual stench of hobo urine when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Being a city resident, I reacted naturally. That is, I spun around quickly, sure I was about to get mugged - hoping I looked intimidating enough (doubtful) to give my would-be attackers second thoughts.

  “A bit jumpy, aren’t you?” said the petite little thing staring back at me. She was no more than five-three, maybe a hundred and five soaking wet (excuse me while I consider the image of her soaking wet...ah, yes. Quite nice. Now, back to our story...), and totally smoking hot. She had medium-length blonde hair with green highlights, but aside from that little oddity, she looked like she could have just stepped out of a fashion shoot...or a strip club. I’d love to give you something cliché here, like she was dressed all in black, or had an ominous air about her. But the truth is, she was a very good-looking, well-dressed woman. Outside of the fact that she was talking to me, there was nothing about her that was really screaming threat.

  Anyway, before things could stretch out to an awkward silence (or, more importantly, before it became obvious that I was undressing her with my eyes), I answered her. “Sorry about that. You just surprised me.”

  “Whatever,” she said, obviously nonplussed with my answer. “Have a light?”

  “I don’t smoke.” Were people even allowed to do that on the platform anymore?

  “Figures. Then, have you got the time?”

  “That I can do,” I said as I brought my watch up to my face, being careful not to take my eyes off her. I had heard on CNN a few years back that s
ome gang members did this to distract a person so they could slash them with a razor. Okay, she didn’t exactly look like a gang-banger per se, but still, it’s best to be careful. She apparently noticed my paranoia because she smirked in return.

  “About one-thirty,” I answered, feeling overly self-conscious.

  “Thank you.”

  And well, that was it. She stepped back and went into that thousand-yard stare mode that is so common of people waiting for a train. And yet, I couldn't help but feel like she was still giving me the once over out of the corner of her eye. However, I dismissed the feeling as nothing more than wishful thinking. After all, what straight guy doesn't have “yeah, she wants me” thoughts running through his head the second a hot babe like her asks him an innocuous question?

  Okay, I lied about the “that was it” part. It was just “it” for the platform. Turns out “it” started up again when the train pulled in and we got on. The last car was fairly empty, and the few of us there had the luxury of being able to sit, as well as doing so without being too close to each other. Just to be on the safe side, though, I grabbed a corner seat. Should the population inside the train suddenly swell, I could at least take comfort in knowing that I wouldn't wind up the meat in some smelly, weekend commuter sandwich. If you're thinking that I'm next going to tell you how my stripper “friend” (definitely a stripper - a model probably wouldn't have said a word to me had I been on fire) sat down next to me, then give yourself a prize. You, my friend, are either psychic, or at least not a complete idiot.

  Now, just to digress for a moment, I made myself a promise a long time ago. I promised myself that, in my next life, I was going to come back hot. Not just attractive, but Johnny Depp-like (as every woman I have ever known will testify), women's panties will get moist if I even look in their direction hot. Call me shallow, but I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks. The world just has so many more possibilities when you're hot. Case in point: my attractive subway stalker. She sat down next to me, immediately grabbed my shopping bag with no more than a quick, “So whatcha got there?” and started rifling through it. Forget the ugly beasts of the world, if even an average-looking stranger tried that, they'd either get immediately decked, or pointed out to the cops at the next station. But someone hot? They can both get away with it and know that they will. The world is just unfair. On the other hand, I didn't see anyone else in the car with a smokin’ piece sitting next to them, so I figured I'd cut the world some slack...just this once, mind you.

  So, there she was, going through my stuff, while I just sat there doing nothing except tensing up in case she bolted when the doors next opened. Yeah, yeah, I know, but gaming minis aren't cheap. I don't care what you look like - get your own goddamned swordmage.

  Speaking of which, she pulled it out of the bag and gave me a questioning glance. Okay, there went that fantasy of hooking up with the world’s hottest gamer chick.

  “Um. It's for my nephew,” I stupidly blurted out. She, in return, gave another look that told me I had about a zero percent chance of her buying that answer.

  I didn't fail to notice the quick eye-roll she made as she put my new mini back in the bag. She then went back to ignoring the basic rules of “don't touch what isn't yours.” Pulling out my new books, she began thumbing through them with an expression that appeared to be a combination of pity and humor. In a bit of foreshadowing that only happens in the most desperate of stories, she happened to stop on one in particular.

  “Now, this is cute,” she said, handing me the latest revision to the Manual of the Undead.

  “Have to keep up with the rule changes,” I stammered, no doubt continuing my unbroken streak of lowering her initial opinion of me.

  “Sure you do.” Then she got a bit of a far away look in her eye. “Rules are important. We all have them. Even me.”

  “You play...”

  “Not THOSE kind of rules. But rules nevertheless,” she cryptically continued. “There are all sorts of games...some a little more adult than others.”

  Okay... it was time to shift a bit in my seat, as my pants were suddenly feeling a tad too tight.

  She let the uncomfortable silence stretch a moment longer before her mood lightened. Handing back my purchases, she held out her hand. “Sorry for teasing you. I'm Sally.”

  Not quite believing the reality I had somehow stepped into, I mimicked her movement. “No problem. I'm Bill. Bill Ryder,” I said as I shook her hand. (YES! Houston, we have achieved physical contact.)

  “Pleasure to meet you, Bill Ryder.”

  Now, here I will once more meander from my recollection of my days amongst the still living, and just point out that, no, I didn't notice anything odd about the handshake. I'd love to tell you that her hand was overly cold and clammy, or that perhaps she had a grip that would have made a much stronger man wince. But the truth is...well, okay, the truth is that her hand could have been covered in scales and crawling with hornets and I wouldn't have noticed. I was kind of lost in the moment. You always hear reports on the news about people who have just won the lottery, and they always recount with exact detail what they were doing when they found out. Bullshit, I say. When any major Holy Shit moment occurs, we tend to go a bit numb, and then maybe later we'll try to fill in the details as best we can. Well, that was as close as I've come to one of those moments in a long time. Besides, there were far more interesting things than hands in front of me. Oh, well, maybe next time I hook up with an apex predator with killer cleavage, I'll be a little more attentive.

  Anyway, continuing my streak of witty banter, I then asked, “So, come here often?” Yeah, I know, it's amazing I don't get laid every night, isn't it?

  Another eye-roll (jeez, did I really sound that pathetic?) and she responded with a banal, “Only when I need to get somewhere.”

  Okay, it was time to dig deep down and try to find that little bit of adult dialogue, which I knew was hiding somewhere inside of me. “Sorry, that was kinda lame. What I meant to ask is whether you hang out in Manhattan often?”

  “Much better,” she acknowledged with a smile, “And the answer is ‘yes.’ I actually live not too far from here. I have a little place in SoHo. You?”

  “Brooklyn, myself. I was just doing a little shopping today.”

  “I can tell.” She gestured down at the bags through which she had just finished rifling.

  “You?”

  “Me what?”

  “What are you up to?” I asked.

  “Well, besides talking to a very nervous-sounding (and here I thought I was being so smooth) guy on the train, I was just out enjoying the day. Since the nervous-sounding guy I'm talking to also sounds like a fairly decent fellow (bonus!), I'd say it’s going pretty well,” she replied, her tone friendly. Damn, she had a nice smile...amongst other awesome parts.

  Sensing an opening, I pounced...figuratively. “There's still plenty of day left.”

  “That there is,” she agreed...hot damn, I was a playa.

  “Well, it's pretty nice outside. I don't suppose you'd maybe like to take a quick walk through the park? Maybe we could grab a coffee at one of those sidewalk cafes.”

  She frowned a bit at that (oh crap, we're losing the patient). “Sorry, I can't.”

  I've been there before, so I knew the drill to try to save a little bit of my crushed ego. “No. I didn't mean it like that, I...”

  But she cut me off before I could finish. “It's not you, silly. I'm not really up for a bit of sun right now (aha! There's that bit of foreshadowing I should have been paying attention to). Besides, we're almost at my stop. I have some stuff to get done before tonight.”

  Okay, the deal wasn't dead yet. The door was still hanging open, so I put my foot in it.

  “What's tonight?” I asked.

  “A couple of my friends are coming over. I'm throwing a little party.”

  “That's cool.” Yeah, I was back to being lame.

  “It's nothing big.”

  “A little
get together with close friends is always fun.”

  “You think so?” she turned to look me dead in the eye. “I don't suppose you'd want to come?” she continued, her tone changing, almost becoming shy. “I mean, I know we just met. I don't want to come across as too aggressive.”

  Too aggressive? Christ, she could’ve thrown me down and raped me right there on the subway and I still wouldn't have considered that too aggressive. Note to self: remember that little fantasy for later on when I'm alone.

  “No, no, it's cool,” I said, trying to reassure her. “I'm not really too busy tonight (an understatement if ever there was one). I could pop by.”

  “Really? Are you sure?” She brightened at my answer, sitting straight up - her chest jiggling slightly from the sudden movement. I tried and probably failed to pretend I hadn’t noticed.

  “Why wouldn't I be?” I asked, attempting not to sound too desperately excited.

  “Well, you seem like a sweet guy, and I'm just warning you now, my friends can get a little rowdy.”

  “I can handle rowdy. They raise us tough in Brooklyn,” I fibbed.

  “All right then, it's a date.”

  A date? As in a “be somewhere together, maybe hold hands, maybe maybe make out, and if things go really well...wake up together” type of date? Hell, yeah! Damn, as soon as I told someone about this, my cred amongst my buddies would automatically shoot up by about ten thousand percent.

  “Sounds good,” I casually replied, managing to stifle the part of my brain that wanted instead to shout, “OH YEAH, BABY! MAKE ME YOUR PLAYTHING!”