This here is just a draft, and the only thing that landed into the novel were the characters and the creative fantasy that I'm working on. For inspiration, I took Milla Jocovich and her portrayal in Resident Evil: Extinction for her look and appearance. It was a blast to write this little draft, and the novel itself is doing well. I hope to finish it some time in July! For now, I hope you enjoy this and there is definitely more on the way!
Hot Hands and Cold Feet
Some people drink to remember, some people drink to forget. Joan drank to figure out who, or what for that matter, the fuck she was. She wasn’t a drunk; she just liked the scene of the bar. It was the place outcasts and runaways would find refuge. It would be safe to assume that she was a runaway. From what, not even she was for sure. All she knew is that she was running from something and running towards something else, Away from the questions and towards the answers. Somehow she had travelled from the hustle and bustle of the City and ended up in the “Breadbasket” of America, Kansas. Attica, Kansas to be exact. Small town, small talk. Fate had led Joan to this obscure town for a reason.
For a town that had only six hundred people or so, Joan was surprised the place had a bar, let alone a main street. Being in town for a few days, she grew friendly with some locals and the bartender and gained that “outsider” status few received. Nobody knew where Attica was, or even knew it existed. Joan remembered something her father once said to her little brother Hudson and her, there is a reason behind everything kids. Those words stuck like glue, everything her parents said stuck like glue. Especially now.
“Well Miss, Attica keeps you another day?” The partially balding bartender said as he gave her a tall glass of beer. Late in the afternoon was prime time for people to be walking around this town, and this bar was one of the two places to unwind after a long day.
“It keeps me for something.” Joan replies as she gives a small grin and a crisp bill to the bartender.
“And what’s that?”
“Don’t know yet.” She replied. Her blue eyes roll as she said this.
“You know, that city accent you got is gunna break soon.” The man said as he laughed.
Joan smiled and sipped down her beer. She wasn’t a drunk; she usually had a beer or two and tried to figure it out. She tried figuring everything out. Her parents, her kid brother Hudson, whatever happened to her that made her who she was today. Today seemed different though, today she had a good feeling her time travelling was finally paying off.
“Well hello there.” A much older, and significantly shorter, man said as he plopped down next to Joan at the bar. He wore a worn down brown coat and had all sorts of watches and clocks on him. A homeless person was the last thing Joan needed right now.
“Listen, I ain’t got no money for you pops.” She stopped. “Damn, I am turning into one of these southerners after all.”
“I’m not here for your money, just your time. In a manner of speaking of course.” He said in a very smooth tone. He wasn’t a local, and he wasn’t from the city, Joan was sure of that. He seemed well educated.
“For what? I don’t have time for this.” Joan didn’t like talking much, especially to creeps like this guy. He looked like he collected every watch made in the last century. He ticked and tocked constantly.
“You will. I have a proposal.”
“I’m not in the marrying mood.” She responded immediately.
“No, of course not. Silly of me to say it like that.” He blushed and took a deep breath, either this guy was professional creep or he had something real to tell me.
“Say what?” She took another sip and wondered why she didn’t just walk out of the bar. She remembered that everything had a reason to it and well, this guy had a odd charm to him. Not the romantic charm, it was more like the welcoming charm to it.
“You did a good job of running Joan. It was very hard finding you after that little stint in New York. You started running fast.”
“What are you talking about?” Her mind started to run as fast as her words. What happened in New York was a freak accident. Something she couldn’t control. Part of the reason she was running. She grazed her dark red hair out of habit.
“Oh Joan, it’s not hard to find someone with….the skills you have possess.” He seemed to stress possess. She just seemed stressed.
“What skills? It was a freaking accident.” A freak accident was the most logical explanation for whatever happened. It was a mental cover up so Joan didn’t think about it that often. Partially the reason why she started to drink on occasion.
“If you want to call your unique power an accident, go ahead.”
---
“Hey you, stay here.”
“Get off me Luke.” She pleaded. Her blue eyes focused in on her assailant.
“It’s my birthday.” The man smirked and pinned her against a wall.
“Please-” Joan said as she tried valiantly to resist.
“I just want-” The man went in for a kiss and with one hand tried to get his “present.”
“-STOP.” The red head grabbed the man as a reflex as he tried to unclothe her. She felt angry, she felt hopeless, and she felt rage. She felt herself become hotter, she felt angrier as the seconds passed.
The man’s coat sleeves started to steam, and the man started to winch. He dropped her and fell back in the hall. Joan looked at her hands as they felt extraordinary hot. They started to look hot as well.
“I…I…” She was speechless.
“You bitch.” He hastily stood up and approached her to hit her. She slapped him in a quick move as she stood up. The left side of the man’s face burned instantly. He stayed on the ground. Joan stood motionlessly as she looked at her now glowing hands.
“What the hell is happening to me?” She said aloud. She backed up against the wall. Her instincts had told her this little outing was a bad idea. She felt it, yet something told her to go on.
“Oh Joany girl, I’m going to teach you a lesson. You don’t have your pussy of a brother Hudson to take care of you now.” The man said, and he ran at her.
“I took care of him you dick.” Joan gave a menacing grin and ran towards him, hands up.
---
“I don’t know what to call it. It happened so fast.” She let down her “I’m a bitch, don’t mess with my attitude and slumped in her stool as she faced the bar.
“It’s okay.”
“I…I had to run away. After what I did, I had to get away. I couldn’t let Hudson take the blame. He has enough problems going on. I packed my bags and went and here I am.” She said and then thought about what she just said. She had just let this old man on everything that happened to her in the last few weeks. She was speechless.
“Joan-”
“And how the hell do you know my name?” So many questions, so little room to say them all. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate with everything that happened. Her new “gift”, her fugitive status, her not explaining to her brother what had happened and now this old watch guy who knew more about her than she did. She was running out of time.
“Well Joan. I know more than enough about you. I know about your brother, Hudson. I know about your parents. I know about your ability to “heat things up” if you will. I know that you came here searching for something. And you found it.” The old man said as he smiled and took out one of his older watches.
“Okay, first question. Who the hell are you?” She responded as any fugitive on the run with strange powers asking someone who knew about her would.
“You are going to laugh but. My name is the Watchmaker.” He said proudly.
“The what?” She laughed. His name sounded like something Hudson would read on during his comic convention or something. He was the nerd of the two, she was the fighter.
“You think you are the only one with a gift? Mine well, mine is a bit harder to explain than yours.” He paused as he fiddled with one of his antique pocket watches.
“Try me.”
“These watches, I make them and set them to a certain time. When that time comes, I see part of the future.” He looked at Joan to prove that he wasn’t lying.
‘The future huh? How’s that looking?”
“Not good.”
“No shit, haven’t you seen any of those films about how we are destroying the world?” She said. One of the few channels she had on the television at home was the Discovery Channel. Hudson and her would watch it after work sometimes.
“They had that much right. We do destroy it.”
“Who’s we?” She questioned.
“One of us.”
“Like me or you?”
“No, one of us ‘gifted’” He said sternly, his comical tone seem to disappear quickly.
“Great.”
“And as for you. Well, you have to stop it.”
“Stop what, the end of the world? On my own?”
“No. There are others.”
“And what happens if we don’t stop whatever we are going to do?” She put her drink down on the table and looked at the old man. She began to think of all those terrible comic book heroes with absurd powers. She seemed as serious as he was. The Watchmaker took out a newly crafted watch.
“Why don’t you find out?”
---
She blinked and it was a different place, a different time. She sure wasn’t in Kansas anymore that’s for sure. She was in the smoky ruins of somewhere. The only movement was the wind. She continued walking past old heaps of cars and trucks. Some were military jeeps and she came across a tank, or the remains of a tank. Everything seemed ruined and abandoned. She didn’t find any people. She just walked and pondered on what could have possibly happened here. As far as she could see it was all like this. Everywhere. She found a newspaper with the heading “JUDGEMENT DAY?”
“What happened here?” She said with no response. She continued onward as she held tightly onto the watch.
Joan tripped and fell as she was looking around her at the broken buildings around her. This could be New York she said. It had an eerily feeling about it.
“No….no….” She dropped to her knees and buried her head in her hands. This was, or had been, the city she once lived in.
---
She opened her teary eyes and was back in Kansas. There was movement and sound all around her. No silent wind, no barrenness, no ruins. She looks up at the Watchmaker who was sipping down a cold glass of milk. At this time a few more people entered the bar and gave weird looks toward Joan and the Watchmaker and continued on to their usual boring routine.
“What the hell…..was that?” She summoned up the energy to say. Seeing a vision of a ruined and destroyed world wasn’t exactly what she was looking for. In the midst of all this, she felt like the Watchmaker was exactly what she was looking for.
“Our world, if we don’t stop what is going to happen. It started off as a freak accident and eventually it began a chain reaction that brought the world back to the stone age.”
“How do we stop it?” She couldn’t believe what she was saying. Saving the world? Hudson would love this, him and his comic book obsession. She couldn’t wait to tell him about all of this.
“We will know when it happens. The details are scarce. For now, we must find others like us to help us in the coming days.” He said this like he had a plan or something, like he knew what was going to happen.
“Like us? You have a phone book of people like us that you just search?” She said sarcastically but felt like he didn’t get her tone.
“Well, it’s kind of easy to see things where they go. The apple doesn’t fall fare from the tree.”
“What are you saying?” She questioned even though she knew the answer already.
“Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to your-”
“Don’t. Don’t say it.” She softly said as she watched him finish the sentence.
---
“Lizzie, thank you so much for taking care of the kids. I know its short notice, but something came up.” A middle aged man says as he shuffles a hand in his back pocket. His blue eyes made the man look tired and exhausted.
“No problem, is everything alright?” A young girl with braces says as she stands at the front door. She was young enough not to drink yet old enough to wish she could.
“Yeah....just a minor emergency. We’ll be back in a few hours. Are you sure it’s okay?” The man said calmly. His wife knew that he was not as calm as he looked but he was great at playing it cool. Tonight was a serious night, a night that they would have to be cautious about.
“Of course, anything for you guys.” Lizzie replied as she looked at the two kids in the living room resting on the couch. A woman rushes around the house packing a small bag. The man is dressed in a casual like business suit and gives her a crisp bill.
“Here is a twenty for you. We’ll be back around eleven or so. I’ll drive you home personally alright?” The man said as he looked at his wife. The wife nodded as she finished getting her stuff together.
“I’m ready.” The woman says as she looks at the kids for a moment. Before leaving for the car, she walks over and hugs them both. “I love you both.”
“Take care of Joan and Hudson for us.” The man says as he takes out the keys for their own station wagon.
The pair exchanges solemn looks as they leave the house. Hudson and Joan sit near the window and watch their parents leave in the car. The two adults get into the car and quickly get on the road, obviously in a hurry.
“Don’t worry; your parents will be home soon.”
---
“-parents?” He finished.
Joan looked away. She pushed her glass away and sulked in her stool.
“Your parents were great people Joan. They would be proud of what you and Hudson have become.” He said in a solemn yet understanding tone. Speaking of the dead wasn’t the best of topics to talk about, especially in a bar, in Kansas of all places.
“What would you know? What would you fucking know?” She coldly said as she tried to keep her hands cool and not heat up. She hadn’t practiced using her hands yet and felt a need to use them soon.
“I would know Joan. I was there the day that they passed away. You were too young to understand.”
“Too young to understand? Too fucking young to understand? Try me. Fucking tell me what happened.” She was nearly yelling. The few actual drinkers at the small bar noticed this argument and kept their distance.
“You will get all the answers you need, I promise that. I would rather get your brother too so I don’t have to explain this story twice.” He casually says, with no effort.
“Wait, Hudson is coming too?”
“Of course, your brother has his own special power.” He explains.
“Being a lazy bum?” She mocks as the conversation goes on.
“No, he can read minds. He plays a big part in this. You do too.” He says as he gives a reassuring smile, the kind of smile Joan believes in. She checks her own watch.
“Alright. Let’s go.” She stands up and readies herself.
“We have a long ways in front of us Joan, are you sure you want to do this?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be pleading me to go, making sure I go at any cost?”
“No, the future is bound to happen anyway, if it changes it does. I do with what I have.” He complies as he stands up as well and heads for the door. Joan pauses.
“Wait.”
“What? Got cold feet?” The Watchmaker says as he opens the door from the bar.
Joan stands there and thinks. One moment she was just enjoying a drink in the middle of Kansas and the next she founds out half the answers she was looking for. Then again, her life has been changing the moment she realized it was. One moment her parents were alive, one moment she was normal, one moment she was looking for something. Well, she found it.
“No. Let’s go. Time’s a wasting.” She gives a smirk and pats the Watchmaker on the back as they both leave the bar.
