Strange Passage, Book One: Acclimation

*

STRANGE PASSAGE

Book One

ACCLIMATION

Erik J. Avalon

*

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Erik J. Avalon (pen name of M. Erik Strouss)

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This work I hereby dedicate to the following:

Stephen King, China Miéville, and Chuck Palahniuk;

Sue, Becky, Kelly, Smokey, Jeff, and the Furkas family;

Mom, Andrea, and yes, even you, Craig;

and though I knew you not

when the work began,

this book is

still mostly

for you,

Kurt.

*

Remembered Folly

The last thing he could remember was dying.

It had been a Friday night late in the first month of 2007, and that winter's mild norm had brought no snow, just an easily forgettable chill to the air. Business had been busy for most of the night – rush out the door, slow down just enough to carefully place orders levelly in the backseat, speed out of the lot and down Main Street without attracting the attention of any potentially waiting local cops or Sheriffs, hand the food over and collect the money and give back change in less than five seconds and run back to the car to get back to the store to shoulder between cooks and other drivers to get to orders and figure out which ones might go together, then rush out to do it all again – but finally slowed down around nine. At the station next door, gas was still back over two bucks, but Andy held onto the hope that it would dip back down again any day now.

Andy was an evening-shift driver for Pappas Pizza, and though the job had cost him one car and made him borrow money to get another, he still liked the work. He even liked most of his coworkers.

The owners were a Greek couple, related in one way or another to the proprietors of the thirteen other Pappas restaurants in the Greater Cincinnati Area. Gino was the will that drove the employees to do their best day in and day out, though he had a tendency to lose all patience during the busier hours and vent his frustrations on whomever was nearest, whether or not they had made a mistake. Serina had a cooler head and was much better liked by customers and employees alike, but anyone with the misfortune to cross her soon learned who at Pappas Pizza in Batavia was the real one to fear.

Since it was a Friday, both Gino and Serina were present, so even though things had slowed down and the phones were silent, the cooks and drivers were all on edge.

Ohio's smoking ban, contested and obscure as it was, had recently gone into effect. Though it seemed that small businesses could be exempt from the ban, Serina - much to Gino's dismay - had decided to apply it in her establishment anyway.

Thus, this particular night found two cooks and a driver out by the rear public entrance, sitting on the edge of the handicap-accessible ramp, puffing away. The driver, Andy, was trying to quit because he could no longer afford to buy ciggs - thank the demands of his job and curse his inability to maintain a car, say thankya - but the stress of the boss constantly rushing him out the door with deliveries had driven him to bum a smoke.

The sky was a bitterly crisp, cloudy gray that would not deliver on the flurries it seemed to promise. The remains of the second serious snowfall of the season, just a few days past, could still be seen over most of the town, but here in the parking lot shared by Pappas Pizza, the UDF station, and a small bread store set into the building with the convenience store, only the temperature told the season.

Andy sat with Louisa and Frida, long-time friends whose friendship was strained by the fact they could barely stand to work together. The two middle-aged women shared managerial duties, though Gino had been reluctant to proclaim either one officially a manager. Frida was a lioness as ferocious in her way as Gino could be, but her rage was tempered by a common sense the boss man mostly lacked. Louisa was an early grandmother whose children brought endless drama into her life, but Andy respected how strong she was to love and live with them anyway. This had been one of those rare nights Frida and Louisa had gotten along all shift, at least so far, and Andy liked them both far, far more when they were civil and not practically at each other's throats.

Louisa had just crushed out her cigarette when Frida unexpectedly cackled. Andy had been staring up at the crescent moon, absently thinking about bills and what he was currently reading and when his rent was due and how his new car was running and why his best friend - a recent addition to the Pappas pool of drivers - had gotten the day driver to cover for him and when he had last gotten laid and how he hoped to be done with this job inside the year when Frida's sudden, almost hyena-like laugh startled him. He took a quick hit off his own cigarette, then gazed to where Frida was pointing and nearly dropped the smoking stick in his hand.

At first, he just thought that his coworker was pointing out that the short young woman pumping gas into her beat-up old van was smoking at the pump, not only ignoring the signs at every pump advising against smoking there, but also being too stupid to realize the danger she was putting herself in.

Then, Andy realized what else the girl was doing wrong and covered his face, trying not to burst into hysterics. Louisa was speechless, but Frida was babbling on about how her ex-husband would be stupid enough to do something like that.

The pump had clicked off, indicating a full tank, but the pink-haired chick was not getting the message. Though the pump stopped her every two or three cents, she kept pouring gas into her now overfilling tank.

Andy only did not laugh because he had done the same thing just a few days earlier. Not realizing how truly small the gas tank was on his new 1997 Geo Metro, he had prepaid ten dollars and tried to pump the gas as usual. When it stopped pumping around $9.50, he kept going. He had never completely filled the larger tank on his old car, and at that moment was not aware his new tank would not even hold ten gallons of gas. Around $9.75, he had finally realized why the pump kept cutting him off, but by the time he pulled the nozzle out, it was too late. Gas had gushed out all over his shoe, the tire, the side of the car, and the ground.

Now, the same scene played out in UDF's parking lot, and Andy could not help feeling like he was living in a Stephen King novel; coincidence canceled, and all that.

The post-punk girl dropped the nozzle to the ground, stomped her feet in an amusingly childish fashion, and swore under her breath, as if she honestly thought she could still avoid attracting attention to herself.

An attendant had come outside to investigate – gawk, rather – and was standing in the open glass doorway, mouth agape. The woman clearly could not believe the stupidity she was seeing.

Andy and his coworkers – while he was quiet, Frida and Louisa were now having a lively discussion on the subject – thought that was the end of it. The girl would go inside, collect her change if she had prepaid or pay cash now if she had not prepaid, and then drive away, leaving the mess for someone in the gas station to worry about.

Then, Andy's attention zeroed in on the girl's hand and the two-inch long object precariously balanced between two fingers on that hand, which was waving through the air. The young woman seemed willing to rant and rave all night.

She was just not willing to do so there in the tri-business lot.

As the driver, the cooks, and the UDF woman watched, the pink-haired girl got back into the van and tossed her cigarette out the window. The station attendant, unmoving, yelped across the lot. Andy might have thought the girl had not yet paid, but even if that were the case, he doubted that was why the UDF employee was raising her voice at that moment.

As the girl turned the key and screamed in frustration when it would not start, the cigarette landed in the spilt gas. Instantly, the little puddle under the still-open tank port burst into flames.

Frida and Louisa shut up and gasped in unison, but neither they nor the UDF woman moved to do anything about the horror playing out before them.

Incredibly, Andy found himself unfrozen by shock, undeterred by nerves, and already halfway across the lot before he was even aware he meant to stand up.

He was yelling at the girl in the van, who seemed deaf as she kept trying in vain to start her vehicle, but he knew not what he cried. His voice seemed to be