Greetings! I hope you enjoy my latest offering. There's no sex in this opening chapter, just implied sex. I will make sure there's more sexiness and debauchery in the next installment. As always, comments with constructive criticism are welcome, but vulgarity and abuse will be deleted with no warning. Enjoy!
As he laid on the dirt hardpan, thoughts began to swirl in his mind- questioning thoughts bounced back and forth. And one certainty:
I'm dying.
Partial clarity flittered back to him, and he saw through squinting eyes that he was sprawled on what appeared to be a desert surface, baked mercilessly by the ever-present blazing sun. His mouth tasted of the grit constantly swirling about him, mixed even with the copperish taste of his own blood. He struggled to get to his knees then collapsed again on the sandy scorched earth, clutching his right side as if someone had slipped a knife between his ribs.
Someone kicked me,
his mind barked as he lay on the ground, the sweat beginning to pour from his brow from a combination of pain and climate. He gingerly rolled on to his back and yelped once from the resurgence of pain in his torso. His eyes slammed shut at the glaring of the intense sunlight and he raised his left hand to shield the rays. Looking to his left, he saw the outline of mountains- massive mountains! It was then he realized that he was far from home. He mused that the only mountains in Michigan, if they could truly be called mountains, were the Porcupine Mountains. But those were over five hundred miles northwest of where he lived in Gravel City. No, these mountains, combined with the arid atmosphere,
(Hot!)
made him reason that he was quite a distance from his home state.
Events of the past came flooding back to him as he once more struggled to his knees, this time completing the miniscule journey with a slight scream as his side once again let him know he was not uninjured.
Someone kicked me,
he repeated in his mind as he sucked in air and more grit into lungs that felt like they were running at half capacity. Sweat from his brow spattered on the inhospitable surface in tiny droplets and quickly evaporated in the roasting heat. He put a hand to his head to wipe the moisture away and felt a series of lumps and contusions, one in particular that caused his hair and scalp to fold back. Blood covered his fingertips when he pulled his hand away from the gaping wound.
It was Erickson!
He stated in his head as more memories came to him. He could remember the last day he saw home. It was Sunday afternoon, the Lions had just lost
(again!)
, and he was walking to his car to get... something. There was something he was going to get from...
(the store?)
He could not remember what it was he was going to buy, but he did remember the sharp pain on the back of his head as he fell into the driver's side door of his GMC Terrain. He had placed his hand on the door to steady himself and remembered a black cowboy boot slamming down on the back of his palm causing him to fall to the cement driveway. That was when he felt the kick to his right side and a sharp prick to the back of his neck. Then... nothing...blackness... until he regained consciousness a few minutes ago in his new barren surroundings.
The sounds of the desert plain began to creep into his ears. The wind, as infinitesimal as it was, whistled slightly as it crossed the hardscrabble, every so often gusting enough to create a tiny whirling dust devil. A noise in the not too far distance alerted him to another creature. He assumed it was the rattle of a Western Diamondback, then confirmed the creature's existence as he spotted the lengthy reptile no less than twenty yards from his position. He endeavored to get to his feet and get moving before an encounter with the venomous serpent. He reasoned that a bite from the rattlesnake would certainly finish him off in his current state.
More pain cascaded through his body as he finally stood up from the sizzling ground and stood upright. Holding his injured side, he took in the landscape around him. He thought it would be quite beautiful under different circumstances. The sightline looked to him like a landscape painting as the mountains carved a purple and tan outline in the horizon. He spared himself one more second of gazing before shuffling his feet aimlessly across the desert floor in search of help. He was sure his attackers had assumed he was dead and left his corpse to be picked over by scavenging buzzards and other scant life forms.
The sun was directly overhead and was of no use to him trying to get his bearings on a general direction. He looked again to his right to keep a wary eye on the rattlesnake and saw that the slithering serpent had left its spot, but he could still hear the incessant rattle, now seemingly closer to him. When he turned his head back forward, he saw the offending animal not three steps in front of him, coiled and poised to strike. Fear washed over him as he tried to slowly back away from the deadly reptile, but with every step back he took, the snake uncoiled and matched his backward progress to keep pace with him.
He took a few more steps back and watched as the serpent moved with him, as if stalking him for the inevitable kill. He took two more steps backward then felt his heel hit something behind him. He tripped and landed hard on his buttocks, sending more sharp pains through his ribcage and he now coughed up a generous amount of blood. His eyes slammed shut for a moment and when he opened them to slits again, he saw the snake at his feet, its rattle waving in a blur behind its coiled legless body.
Just do it...
he thought as he closed his eyes again, waiting for the inevitable puncture in his skin that would deliver the viper's toxic serum. He waited for what seemed like an eternity for the unwanted injection into his body, but still nothing came. As he prepared to open his eyes, expecting to see the snake's vertical pupils peering into his own dilated blackness, he felt the sun's rays on his face instantly cease and a coldness wash over him.
Here it comes,
he thought.
Death.
He opened his eyes and saw a full moon nestled in a black sky with more stars than he had ever seen. The Milky Way was in full prominence, and he could even make out a faint nebula whose name escaped his overwrought brain. The snake had disappeared, in its place was a man. A man! He was dark skinned, as black as the immediate night sky minus the stars, and his white teeth sparkled in the moonlight as he smiled at the amazed form looking up at him. The man was dressed to the nines in a white tuxedo, complete with a black shirt, red bowtie and white bowler with a band that matched his tie's shade. A blood-red carnation poked from the pocket of the man's jacket, and he crooked his neck down to give the flower a quick sniff. A single petal fell from the carnation's bloom as the man's nose touched it and it fell silently to the cracked desert ground.
"W-where's the snake?" he said to the tuxedoed man, amazed at the hoarseness of his own voice.
