Throwaway People

Changing the Future

Green Acres, Dark Camp: 8:12 PM

The three of them had stopped yelling at each other. Patty sat on the stairs. Feeling sick. Jim was attempting to finish off the bottle of bourbon. Key sat in the chair that Patty usually sat in. Watching Jim drink. On occasion she looked back at the window to see the dog sitting there. She turned back and saw that Patty was gone.

Went up to the apartment. Key thought. She turned to look out the window. It was dark, she didn't see anything outside. Unusually dark. Key turned back to see that Jim had gone too. Leaving a partly empty bottle of bourbon sitting on the desk.

Key grabbed the bottle and took a swig. Key had alcohol before. She felt she deserved a little buzz, if nothing else. Only the bourbon was particularly sharp, with a slightly bitter taste.

Jim had lit a lantern and Key picked it up. She walked through the store room. It was filled with cobwebs. Key knew there were no cobwebs in the building. On the shelves were the old hurricane lamps and oil. Covered with dust.

As Key ascended the stairs they creaked. Key could see that Jim sat in the recliner. She saw the top of his head. She went around the recliner to see a mummified corpse. Key backed away. She recognized the denim shirt and jeans there were rotting on the corpse as Jim's. Part of his head was blown away. On the floor was a revolver.

"Patty!" Key ran into her bedroom and saw it was empty. "Patty!"

Key ran into the Master Bedroom. Patty lay in the bed. Her body covered with the bedspread. Her mummified corpse was not shot. It looked like she just lay down and died. Key went up to the attic. The whole attic was filled with timbers from the roof. The basins on the roof, with their weight had collapsed through a waterlogged roof.

The bathroom was empty. Key ran back down the stairs and into the workshop. There was nothing. Nothing in the utility room either. Patty and Jim were in the house, dead, and Key's body was no where. She ran outside and into a middle-aged woman.

"Do you remember me, Key." She asked. "I used to be called Bobbi Queen."

"What?" Key said.

"It's been thirty years. I came here after you told me you were leaving for Tampa." Bobbi said. "I came here after you told me about the place. I found them that way."

"Why did you come back?" Key asked. "How did you know I'd be here."

"I wanted to see if what I heard about this place was true. That it only showed up every thirty years." Bobbi sighed and turned her back on Key. "Go back. Have Jim call me, I can help."

Key had been day dreaming when she heard Patty fall over onto the storeroom floor.

"Patty!" Key shot up and ran into the storeroom.

Jim whipped the office chair around. He could see Patty laying on the floor through the door. He was up and beside Keyote as they examined Patty. He checked her pulse.

"She's burning up." Jim said. "Help me get her up to the bedroom."

Between them they got Patty up to Jim's bedroom.

"Can you get me some ice." Jim asked Key. "Get it from the tray in the refrigerator."

Key went back to the kitchen. She didn't know why she was helping. They didn't love her. Key no longer loved them. All she had to do was leave. Just walk out now that they were both distracted. The memories of that daydream slammed back into her memory. Key opened the icebox and put ice in a mixing bowl she found in the cabinet.