Driver Pt. 08 Taken
This is a work of fiction. All characters depicted are over the age of 18.
The aircraft hit hard and rolled over. Throwing off his straps as the water surged in, Mack leapt to his feet, then ran down a long concrete stairway at the back of the cab. Barron Shipley appeared, climbing through a ragged hole in the wall, in white jeans and a red shirt, brandishing a huge silver handgun. They fought, Mack's hands around Shipley's neck, thumbs pressing into his windpipe, strangling the life out of him as they thrashed around in the slimy green waters of a disused swimming pool. A white shape undulated past underwater and Wendy surfaced, her eyes like saucers in the gloom. She said, 'We've lost our girls.' Then Mack saw a body burning on an island. Staggering ashore, he found himself embarrassingly naked, the blade of a knife sticking up through his foot. Wendy followed, dripping wet and topless with pre-pubescent breasts. Mack looked down to see a snake on the ground, and another, and another, some coiled in the leaf litter, others slithering through the grass, the whole place seething in a veritable serpentine minefield. Stewie the cat rubbed against his leg, and was getting set to leap into his arms when Wendy shook his shoulder. 'Travis.' she said gently but firmly, like a parent rousing their child, 'Wake up.'
The dreamscape inverted, folded in on itself.
"Yoo hoo, Travis. Wake up!"
"We've got to find the girls." Mack panted.
Fingers snapped. "Travis! For fuck's sake wake up!" A strange, pretty face swam into focus, peering down at him.
"Sally?"
"Finally!"
Mack looked around. He was in bed. In his room. "Sally? What are YOU doing here?
"You know, flyboy, I keep asking myself the very same question."
Pushing up, Mack slung his legs out of bed, reefing a sheet over his lap to spare his visitor a spectacle.
"Would it have killed you to answer your phone?"
Broad shoulders stooped, Mack looked up. "Oh... did you try to call?"
"Countless times. So did Wendy."
"That's funny. I must have left it on stealth mode."
"Retard mode more like it."
Satisfied Mack was at least partly conscious, Sally looked around, hands on hips. Her gaze lit on an empty bourbon bottle on the bedside bureau, no glass, just the bottle, one of several littering the apartment. "What the hell have been doing, Travis Mack?"
"Following orders."
"Whose?"
"Wendy's. She told me to do some soul-searching."
"Funny place to look, in a bottle."
Mack shrugged. "I figured it was as good as place as any."
"Riiiight. Any luck?"
"Not so far. But there's still a few to go."
"Well, no, there's not. Not if you want to keep your job."
"What?"
"I said, not if you want to keep your job."
"Well that's not fair."
"Look, Buster, didn't you read the fine print? Your brain belongs to us, and it's no use if it's been pickled in alcohol."
Focussing, Mack noticed for the first time that Sally was in civvies- well-worn jeans, stylishly torn, conforming to snugly to her slender curves and contours. And a fleece-lined grey hoodie, the open neck revealing her ribbed, shallow cleavage. No bra. Joyful bubbies bouncing and swaying, revelling in their freedom. "Sheesh, Sally. It was just a few drinks."
"Five days, Travis!" Sally admonished, sitting beside him, "Almost a whole week and you haven't left your apartment. Or even ordered in. What have you had to eat?"
Mack gave a wave of dismissal. "Eating's cheating as we used to say. Food's for losers."
"Oh, very funny. What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"Doing how?"
"You KNOW how. Going to ground, turning your back on everyone. Not answering your phone. Making yourself conspicuous by your absence. You know, I half expected to find you dead on the floor. Choked on your vomit or drowned in the bath."
"I don't have a bath."
"Alright then, with your head down the shitter. I don't care. Fact is we're all worried sick. You have no right to be so selfish."
"Selfish? It was just a bit of down time."
"Down time? Is that what you call it? It's not down time, Travis. It's the aftermath of a disaster."
Mack ran his fingers through his unkempt hair. "Do we really have to do this?"
"If you wanna dig yourself out of this hole."
"There's no hole to dig myself out of. I'm done with it Sally, it's all squared away."
Sally looked pointedly at an empty bottle. "Hit me but don't shit me, Travis. You're not."
"I AM Sally, I'm tellin' ya."
"You don't believe that any more than I do. Be honest. You're hiding in here committing slow-motion suicide. Which is why I had to come around. On my day off. To beat some sense into you."
"Now I AM feeling guilty."
"Rightly so." Sally sniffed, getting to her feet and delving into a pocket. "Open your mouth and say 'ahhh.'"
"'Ot hor?" Mack asked, dutifully dropping his jaw. Finger on the plunger, Sally gave Mack a couple of hits from a miniature spritzer. She pulled back while Mack smacked his lips, grimacing. "What the fuck? That shit tastes like week old road kill. What are you trying to do to me?"
"Wait." Sally said, counting down. "Three... two... one!"
Fireworks lit up between Mack's ears, like the Fourth of July in a dumpster, skyrockets and glitter-bombs filling his visual field. "Holy shit!" a voice said from far, far away. HIS voice, deep and resonant, oddly disembodied, "What was that?"
"Aunt Sally's patent elixir." Sally replied, pocketing the 10k-a-vial, elites-only, antidote to a galaxy of recreational intoxicants. "Hello Kitty Hangover-be-gone. How are you feeling?"
"Apart from the taste?"
Sally flipped the top of a Tic Tac dispenser. "Here," she said, shaking half a dozen orange mints onto Mack's sweaty palm, "suck on these."
Mack eyed her breasts, thinking, 'With pleasure.' then crammed the candies in his mouth. For a while he sat, just looking around. The headache was gone and his senses had taken on a razor-edge. He could hear Sally's belly gurgle, sense the rush of air in and out of his lungs. Feel the slow pulse of blood through his veins, the weight of the atmosphere. Looking down, he found his body floating an inch or two off the bed.
"How are you feeling?" Sally asked.
Mack looked at her with a big, shit eating grin. "Fekkin' awesome."
"Thank goodness."
"Why?"
"You're about to undergo a very demanding and physically rigorous rehab."
"Rehab...?"
"Girls!" Sally called, and two little heads appeared around the bedroom door, one above the other. Bicoloured eyes, one blue, one brown. Dark, silky hair hanging down in a shining cascade.
Mack sat blinking at the apparition as valves cycled-open, shunting blood flow from his brain to his lap. Two little voices in unison asked, "Is he still alive?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes. In spite of his best efforts"
The twins walked in. They wore identical summer dresses, with identical pink cardigans over the top, and identical black bows in their lustrous dark hair. They wore identical low-heeled shoes, and one of the girls had a band aid on her knee. Sally stepped back and the girls sat down, either side of Mack on the bed. "Wendy said she's gonna have your guts for gaters." one girl told Mack
"Garters." her sister corrected. "Like you wear round your leg."
The twin to his left picked up his hand and put it in her lap, while the twin to his right lay hers on his thigh. "Wendy said you have to be punished." lefty said.
"For abandoning her." righty confirmed. "She sent us here to do it."
Mack searched their faces for the telltale freckle. The twins were at it again, Viviani hiding her blemish with a dab of foundation. Without the beauty spot, Mack had no way of knowing who was whom or which was which. Sally looked at her smart watch. "One hour girls, and I mean it. Or your dad's gonna have my ass. And not in the nice way either."
"Yeeeess Miiiissssss Kerrr-shaaaw." the twins chorused, like schoolgirls responding to their teacher.
Sally raked her fingers through her short, dark hair. "How the hell did I get sucked into this? Oh... that's right, the same reason as always... cos' I'm a goddam pushover."