Tijuana, Massachusetts

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  How many midnights had they spent stretched out in bed, side by side, ever moving ever touching, breathless Janet, loving Janet...

  Bzeep zeep.

  Patty wrapped her arms around Janet as tight as she could and held on. Janet was like a single branch growing out of the side of a cliff, the only thing keeping Patty from dropping into an endless abyss.

  She saw Janet's face, clear as day, framed by fluttering black curls. Janet's soft red lips parted, her dark eyes closed, and she was going to kiss her. Patty knew she would taste like strawberries.

  And then...

  Bzeep zeep.

  And then, rage leaped onto Janet's features, rage and hate blazing like the merciless sun, burning Patty with their heat.

  And she knew. In a sudden rush she knew she'd lost Janet forever, lost every last bit of her but one. That memory of Janet's hatred was all she had left of the love of her life.

  Bzeep zeep.

  Patty clutched at the lump on her forehead, hot as a burning ember blown up from a bonfire. She staggered around the corner of the alley without watching where she was going.

  Suddenly, she glimpsed a giant black eye, and she ran into something. It lurched forward and threw her back against a rough adobe wall.

  "What the fucking fuck?" The stench of pure shit hit her harder than the actual collision. She threw a hand over her nose, but the stink poured right on through.

  That was when she got a good look at the source of the shit. She saw it staring back at her from the side of its face, animal to animal, taking her measure.

  A donkey. And not just any donkey.

  Its ears jabbed skyward through a tattered straw hat with a rainbow-colored band. Red plastic chili peppers dangled from its bridle and reins.

  And stripes adorned its coat, black stripes over white hair like a zebra. It was a slapdash paint job by a hasty human hand.

  "The fuck?" Patty scowled at the fake zebra in the straw hat, heard and smelled the shit dribbling from its asshole and splattering in the street. It had to be the weirdest thing she'd ever seen on the streets of The Cape. "What the fuck is going on in this fucking town? Now we've got asses shitting in the streets?"

  "Speedy says hello, señora."

  Patty's eyes shot wide open. For a second, she thought the donkey was doing the talking.

  Then, a brown-skinned teenage boy walked out from behind the animal. "You like that name, huh? Speedy?" The boy fingered the spotty little mustache that peppered his upper lip. "Because he not so speedy, is he, a donkey like him?"

  "Where's the...puke-a..." What had the old jeweler called it? "Punk-a..."

  "I take your fotografia with Speedy, señora." The boy ran his hand over his slicked-back brown hair. "Ten dollar solamente."

  "Where's the polka...the poka..." Patty shook her head hard. "Where's Janet?"

  Bzeep zeep.

  Patty frowned. "What did I just say?" she muttered.

  "Okay." The boy grinned. "Seven dollar."

  The donkey squeaked and nodded. It flexed its lips, showing its teeth in a facsimile of a smile. Had the boy done something to make it act that way?

  "Not interested." Glaring, Patty pushed away from the wall. "Get outta my way."

  "Five dollar then." The boy shrugged and smiled. He pulled a beat-up Kodak Instamatic camera from the donkey's saddlebag and gestured for Patty to hop onboard. "Smile and say 'tequila.'"

  "Fucking wetback." Patty swatted the camera from his hand. It clattered to the pavement. "Mind your own fucking business."

  "Hey!" The kid scrambled after the camera. "You owe me two hundred bucks for that!"

  The donkey nuzzled Patty, and she smacked its muzzle away with the back of her hand. "Fucking ass."

  Then she froze. Something about the action slid a tumbler into place. Unlocked a feeling of...

  "Patty, no!" Her f-

  Her fa-

  Her faaa-

  Bzeep zeep.

  The donkey flickered, becoming the familiar old man. The alley became a staircase she knew all too well. None of it was on The Cape or even in Mexico anymore.

  "Please don't, Patty!" That voice. The old man's voice.

  The hairs sprang up on the back of Patty's neck. Her bowels clenched.

  The old man's bloodshot eyes were rimmed with deep, deep lines. They looked dumb as the donkey's eyes to her, dumb as knots in a board.

  And there was the putrid smell of shit, but not donkey shit splattering in an alleyway. It was green-brown shit running down the old man's legs, winding around his knobby kneecaps, ribboning between the age spots on those rickety, withered sticks.

  And then there was the anger rearing up because he'd soiled himself, and then there was the backhand, thoughtless as a home run by a juiced ballplayer. It caught the old man on the chin and spun him around, spun him backward and down, head against his fucking walker, body folding and twisting...

  Folding

  Twisting

  Snapping

  Snapping

  Her fa-

  Bzeep zeep.

  Her fa- her fa-

  Her father?

  Bzeep zeep.

  No! Not her father at all!

  Janet's father.

  Again, the world flickered, and Janet's face leaped up before her, blazing with rage. She was furious because of what had happened, even though it had been an accident.

  Even though Patty had only meant to hit him, not kill him.

  Bzeep zeep.

  Janet's face became the face of the angry Mexican teen as he threw a punch at Patty. He landed one square in her belly, and she dropped to the pavement like a sack of bones.

  Bzeep zeep.

  Then, to Patty's eyes, the teen looked like Janet again...but he did things Janet hadn't done, kicking Patty again and again. He kicked her with brutal force, wearing Janet's face and form all the while.

  Patty's thoughts spun the way the old man had spun down the stairs. But she loved me! Why couldn't she understand?

  "Gabacha bitch!" The teen who looked like Janet landed his hardest kick yet, plunging his foot deep into Patty's gut.

  "I didn't mean it!" Patty choked out the words. "Oh God, Janet, I didn't mean to kill him...I swear I didn't mean it!"

  Bzeep zeep.

  Suddenly, everything rushed out of Patty's head in a roaring wave. She felt the kid's third and fourth kicks plow into her side. The fifth and sixth were worse.

  Then the nub between her eyes turned scalding hot, and she screamed...screamed so loud and so long that the kid finally left her alone.

  And she didn't stop until the man dressed like a monk came and bundled her up--wrapped her in a robe of scratchy brown sackcloth and carried her down the alley in his arms.

  *****

  She didn't know how much later it was when she woke, but time had passed.

  She lay on a cot in a simple, windowless room with white adobe walls. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling above her, glowing dimly. The room smelled of coffee and antiseptic.

  Patty felt cool for the first time all day. The nub between her eyes was cool, too. There was no buzzing or beeping whatsoever when she tried to think.

  And she was herself.

  At first, when she woke, that fact brought with it simple relief. There was no longer any need to fight and claw for understanding. The terror grinding in the pit of her belly was finally gone.

  But the relief didn't last long. Because Patty clearly remembered hitting the old man and sending him falling down the stairs. She remembered killing him.

  And she remembered what Janet had done because of it. She hadn't insisted that Patty was lying, hadn't pushed the police to investigate. She'd just thrown Patty out and told her never to come back. She'd ended their relationship forever.

  "Hey there. I'm Frank." The man dressed like a monk walked in, wiping his hands on a clean white rag. He was a young man with short blond hair and eyes so pale that Patty couldn't tell what color they were. "All done with your tune-
up, Patty."

  "Tune-up?" Patty frowned and tried to sit up, then felt light-headed and lay back down.

  Frank poked a finger between his eyes. "Your implants. They went on the fritz."

  Patty searched her mind, and she remembered. "They sure did."

  Frank pulled a tablet computer from one of the robe's big pockets and tapped the screen. "Talk about an epic equipment fail. This was the worst malfunction I've ever seen." He flicked his finger over the screen, flipping between pages of whatever he was reading. "The implants were programmed to edit all references to your girlfriend Janet or Cape Cod out of your sensory input and thoughts. If you saw an image of either one, the eye filters were supposed to make it look like something else. If you thought of either one, the brain censor was supposed to scramble the associated neural impulses."

  Because I couldn't live with the memories anymore, thought Patty. The memories of what I'd lost--the woman I loved and our favorite place, where we'd gone every summer.

  Frank looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Everything did what it was supposed to until a week ago, when it started breaking down." Frank read some more on the screen and shook his head. "The eye filters broke first and started doing the opposite of what you wanted." He flicked his finger over the screen and clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Instead of editing out Cape Cod imagery, they made it pop up all over the place. The brain censor kept doing its job for a while, but then the mental stress of the undesirable visions fried the core. All the bad memories came rushing back to you, more powerful than ever after being repressed."

  "Shit." Patty rubbed her eyes.

  "You're just lucky the implants have GPS tracking," said Frank. "And the company provides a monitoring system plus onsite tech support in case of catastrophic failure under warranty. Otherwise you'd still be wandering around Tijuana in a daze." He lowered the tablet and grinned. "Good thing you bought the extended coverage, Patty."

  She frowned at him. "So how the hell did I end up in Tijuana, anyway?"

  "One hell of a brain fart, I guess." Frank chuckled. "You wandered across on foot from San Diego. A Mexican border guard hassled you until you threw all your money at him."

  "I paid to get into Mexico?" said Patty. "Why the hell would I do that?"

  Frank shrugged. "The implants must have put you in a kind of lucid fugue state for a while. Like sleepwalking."

  "Oh my God." Patty shook her head. "I can't believe this."

  "Well, it's over now." Frank raised the tablet and tapped the screen. "I've repaired the eye and brain implants and restored their original programming. From now on, you'll get the service you paid for. No more thoughts or visions of Janet Olsen or Cape Cod, Massachusetts."

  Patty stared up at the light bulb above her, which was flickering--but not because of faulty implants in her eyes and brain. "I won't see or think of them again?"

  "Never again," said Frank. "You could be standing in the middle of the actual town of Cape Cod with Janet staring you in the face, and you still wouldn't see them."

  "Huh." Patty felt an ache in her belly.

  Over a year ago, wallowing in guilt and regret, she'd gotten the implants. Since she could never have Janet or share The Cape with her again, she'd decided it was better to block them out of her mind and life forever. But now...

  She'd forgotten one thing. When she'd gone through with the implants, she'd forgotten one thing.

  "Wait." She sat up suddenly and grabbed Frank's arm. "Can you change the programming again?"

  He frowned at her. "Change it how?"

  "Can you reverse it?" Patty knew she sounded desperate and didn't care. "So all I ever see is Janet and The Cape? So they're all I ever think about?"

  Frank thought it over. "Yeah, but are you sure that's what you..."

  "Just do it." Tears welled up in Patty's eyes and trickled down her cheeks. "Please, just do it."

  That was what she'd forgotten: how much she missed Janet. Even the memory of her.

  Or the illusion.

  *****

  Special Preview: Day 9

  A Science Fiction Thriller

  By Robert T. Jeschonek

  Now On Sale

  *****

  Chapter One

  Near Los Angeles, California - Today

  Three...two...one.

  The church exploded in a tremendous blast of fire and smoke. Rubble rocketed in all directions as an ear-splitting boom cascaded across the valley. Flaming debris crashed down on car hoods and bounded over the pavement. A church bell hurtled into the cab of a garbage truck, smashing through the windshield with a loud, discordant bong.

  An enormous, blazing crucifix plunged on the roof of a car speeding away from the blast, sending it spinning in circles. Tires squealed as the car swept around and around, finally slamming into the pump in front of a gas station, which then exploded.

  A plume of fire shot skyward from the pump, blowing the car end-over-end across the street. The gas station windows shattered inward, and every car on the block bounced from the force of the blast. Power lines snapped and whipped like cobras, spraying showers of sparks through the air.

  Then, suddenly, someone yelled, "Cut!" And the whole movie crew erupted in wild applause at once. Everyone behind the cameras clapped and hooted and whistled at the spectacular display of carnage.

  Dunne Sullivan clapped, too, though he felt as dazed as he was excited. The mayhem had left him in a state of shock; he wasn't part of the crew and wasn't used to spending time around high intensity action scenes during filming.

  It was true Dunne made his living off movies and TV shows, but he did so by writing tie-in novels based on them. Till today, the closest he'd been to a movie set or location shoot was the TV screen in his apartment.

  But according to Thad Glissando, producer extraordinaire for Halcyon Studios, he'd be spending a lot more time there from now on. "Hey now, hero!" Thad clapped Dunne on the back, jolting him forward. "Think we got enough bang for our buck here?"

  Dunne nodded and grinned. "I want toys like that for my movie."

  Thad laughed. "Don't worry!" He ran a tanned hand over his slicked-back blonde hair. "Weeping Willows The Movie will have twice the budget of this picture."

  Dunne got a shiver of excitement just hearing the title. He was going from lowly tie-in writer to Hollywood screenwriter just like that. All thanks to a bestselling novel he'd written about the cult classic 70s cop show Weeping Willows, a kickass hit breaking big just as Thad was gearing up for a Willows movie.

  So Dunne was about to write a major motion picture. Meeting on location with Thad would seal the deal, and then Dunne, at age 25, would finally get his shit together.

  At least as much as he could ever get his shit together after what he'd done to his family.

  "Ready to start writing?" Deep crescent dimples set off Thad's mile-wide smile like parentheses. "Does this get the creative juices flowing?" He spread his arms wide to take in the smoky set, hissing with the spray of fire hoses putting out flaming debris from the shoot. The afternoon sun flared on the sleeves of his tailored white suit, giving him a radiant, angelic glow.

  "Are you kidding?" said Dunne. "When do you want the first pages?"

  Thad threw an arm around Dunne's shoulders and gave him a squeeze. "Actually, you need to do some preproduction first." Thad nodded and raised his blonde eyebrows. "Some research."

  "Research?" Dunne frowned. "What kind of research?"

  "On location." Thad turned Dunne from the set and pulled him along as he started walking. "Expenses paid, of course. And you'll have a partner."

  "Partner?" Dunne kept frowning. Thad was guiding him in the direction of a white limousine parked alongside a trailer twenty yards away. "A writing partner?"

  "More like a hunting partner," said Thad. "And inspiration."

  Suddenly, Thad jammed two fingers in his mouth and let loose a shrill whistle in the direction of the limo. "Time for your close-up, Hannahlee!"

&nbs
p; The back door of the limo swung open, propelled by a slender arm. A woman's arm in a long, black sleeve.

  As Dunne watched, the woman's arm withdrew. After a moment's pause, her foot slid out, wearing an ivory pump. It was followed by a shapely leg in pale white hose. A black skirt with white piped trim rippled just below the knee.

  Thad elbowed Dunne in the ribs. "Take a deep breath, kid. This is what they call a life-changing experience."

  Thad's warning did no good. Dunne still wasn't ready for what he saw. For whom he saw.

  When the first foot touched the pavement, the second one swung out beside it. Dunne saw more of the dress: gathered waist, wide white belt, white buttons. Understated, businesslike, crisp. As the woman braced herself against the seat, he saw white piping running from cuff to shoulder along her sleeve.

  Squinting into the shadows of the limo, Dunne strained to glimpse her face. For a moment, all he could make out was a faint, gauzy shape, like a veil concealing her features. Like a ghost.

  Then, suddenly, she emerged. She pushed up from the seat and stood straight, revealed all at once before him in bright daylight.

  Which was exactly when Dunne gasped.

  He could not believe his eyes. Not even a little. She couldn't be.

  Thad laughed beside him. "I was wrong, wasn't I?" He shook Dunne's shoulders. "Life-changing experience is putting it mildly."

  Dunne nodded and stared.

  She was striking. The woman at the limo was in her late fifties or early sixties, at least. She was dressed conservatively, and the red color in her shoulder-length hair must have been dye.

  But she was still striking. And not just because of who she was. Not just because she'd been the biggest star of the Weeping Willows TV show. Not just because Dunne had worshipped her from afar and written book after book starring her character.

  She was most striking because of the way she carried herself. The way she stood there, tall and regal in the late afternoon southern California sun. Thirty years past her Weeping Willows glory days, twenty years since she'd dropped out of the public eye...and still somehow resplendent, impressive, luminous. Still the star of all she surveyed.