A continuing story.........

Yes, I caught it! I shall edit my last post to continue the mystery...

Temporary lapse in story due to busy schedules of writers


I shall return next week, refreshed and full of new ideas......until then, be thinking of new plot twists............

Hi, y'all...I'm interested in continuing this story but I've been busier than a one-armed wallpaper hanger. Who is still watching this thread? -rjb-

I am, and I know Lola is. Hiama has been gone for the past week, but just returned. Dys, Diane & Lola (and others) are away at the A2K Western Gathering for the next week, I believe. I've really enjoyed this thread. I hope it will continue. I believe the last chapter was mine...care to continue?

Blossom and Candy sound like a pair of brazen hussies or a latter day Cagney and Lacey.

Cool. Vis, let's continue but maybe we shouldn't let the story race ahead too quickly while Lola et al are partying their brains out at wherever they are.
Oldandknew, welcome. I don't think you have contributed to this site before. Pick a plot-line you would like to play with or some characters you would like to develop. We look forward to hearing from you. -rjb-

Well, OaK, what can I say...Lola thought up those names.

Read back and you'll learn that Candy is Blossom's mother. Candy has a hard life...an elderly mother in a nursing home, an abusive husband, and her oldest daughter, Sylvia, is God-only-knows-where with Nick about now. Blossom, Candy's middle child, is 15. She's been making moves on Richard, the boy next door.

Dyslexia and Hiama have been contributing to the story, too. Come join us!

Oh my Gawd Viz, you mean I got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Or,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,am I in a parralel universe and chaos and confusion rule the roost.
The date is St. Valentines Day, 1929. horror of horrors, and that is the Holiday Inn across from the street, I'm reading the Chicago rail timetable and that's the garage where it all happened.............................
I'd better find the mystical portal and get away from here. Now where would it be ?????????????????
Let me type into Google,,,,,,,, Mystical Portals, now Chicago entrance. It's in Blossom's Diner on the lakeside. How do I find it ?
How do I get there ? Will I get shot or will I get a kiss ??????????

Omigod, a time portal...don't let Dyslexia hear you say that. It's just his kind of plot twist.

Viz, I'll erase it and leap back into cyber reality. It's a good job you understand these things. How come you are watching "Sliders" . You don't fancy the young hero do you ?

"Sliders"? I'm not familiar with that. A TV programme?

Lola asked about Mona. Mona disappeared on page 15 of the previous forum. Nick didn't dump her. Quite the contrary. Mona found someone able to talk intelligently about things she was interested in. Not surprisedly Nick, being Nick, didn't leave the diner alone.
Eventually, though, Mona was alone. She ended up right where she was on page 10.
***
I know this because the happily sad gothboy known as johnboy has continued to drift around the country. He's a scrawny kid with too little exposure to sunlight. I hear from him every once in awhile.
He ends up this past week in Midlothian at the Tom Thumb convenience store. It's 4 am and raining. It's been raining for days.
Mona is working the 11 pm to 7 am shift.
Johnboy has a couple of dollars in his pocket. He will spend them but he's going to waste as much time in here as he can in order to avoid the rain.
He's standing in front of a display. He's mystified by what he sees. Johnboy is naive; as naive as Richard is. Johnboy would like to ask a question, but he can't.
Johnboy finally brings his small purchase to the counter where Mona has been watching him suspiciously for ten minutes.
She looks at Johnboy and says "Where...where did you get that hat?
"I don't know. It could have been in Boston. Some guy named Craven was selling them from a little table for two bucks. Red isn't my color but..."
Mona says, "A2Know. I was there. I could have been somebody but ..."
Mona and johnboy glance into each other's eyes for a second and then look away.
"See ya," says johnboy, heading out into the rain.
"See ya."

It is dawn. The rain has gone, leaving pink and purple streaks across the Texas sky.

Johnboy pulls a crumpled bag of Skittles out of his back pocket and leans against a graffiti-covered wall outside the highway information center. It's not much of a breakfast, he thinks, but it will have to do. It's difficult, drifting around the country without a car.

He'd picked up his last ride in Midlothian, just south of Dallas-Ft. Worth. That ride had let him off at the edge of Amarillo, and johnboy had walked to the rest stop. Not much traffic through these parts in the middle of the night except for the 18-wheelers. Johnboy is afraid of those.

He finds a nice bench outside the information center and, using his backpack for a pillow, settles down to sleep. Too risky for a hitchhiker to sleep at night, he knows. It is early evening when he awakens. Pink and purple streaks are again filling the sky, a blazing sunset on the clear blue horizon.

Johnboy scouts the three cars in the parking lot, looking for a likely ride. One tan SUV with kids' toys in the back...no good. An old blue Plymouth looks like a better bet...until a drunken woman stumbles out of the restroom and heads that way. That leaves only one vehicle...a black Ford pickup.

Johnboy shoulders his backpack and approaches the pickup. The driver, a nondescript middle-aged man, is sitting behind the wheel, talking on a cell phone. When johnboy approaches, he quickly ends his call.

"Whatcha need, boy?" the man says, eyeing the teenager's tattoos and piercings.

"C-c-could you give me a ride, mister?" johnboy asks.

"I guess. Hop in." The man seems friendly enough, so johnboy goes around to the passenger side and climbs in. "Where you goin'?" the man asks.

"Oh, anywhere...anywhere..." johnboy says.

"I've got kids your age, boy. Don't you have folks lookin' for you?" the man asks. "It ain't safe to be out here all alone."

Johnboy pulls his A2K cap down over his eyes. "I know," he mutters, hoping the man isn't going to be a talker.

"Well, I'm headin' to Palo Duro Canyon," the man says. "That alright with you?"

"Sure," johnboy replies. His stomach rumbles. He wonders how long he should wait before asking the man for something to eat. He gazes out the window at the bleak landscape. This is going to be a dull ride, he thinks.

But ten miles down the road, the sniper awaits...

Gothboy doesn't object when the man reaches across and rests his hand on his leg, just above his knee. Gothboy has dozed off.
With one hand on the steering wheel and with the speedometer hitting 80, the man begins moving his...
"No, no, dude'" Gothboy says, waking up quickly. Gothboy has been in this situation before. He's too scrawny to fight and, being a goth, he wouldn't know how to anyway.
"You've got 10 seconds to pull over and let me out or I'm going to barf Skittles and Dr Pepper all over the inside of this truck."

Gothboy steps out. The man and the truck take off.

Gothboy decides he needs a rest. After all, the Midlothian where he had run into Mona was in Virginia, where it was raining hard. Now he is in Texas where it is dry and some guy has tried...
Gothboy lopes across the lanes of I-74 to the sanctuary of the median strip .

A couple of miles up the road, Gothboy stumbles over the recent remains of a campfire. Hmmm, he thinks, what kind of psycho would camp out in a place like this? The median strip of an interstate? He continues walking.

The sniper, poised at the top of a nearby overpass, sees Gothboy coming in his direction. Crouching behind the guardrail, the "facilitator" watches as Gothboy crosses the overpass and continues walking along the median, oblivious to the presence of the nearby gunman. Gothboy is involved in a deep inner struggle. Should he spend his last $4 for Dr Pepper or sunscreen? His normally pasty white face is getting very sunburnt.

The sniper breathes a short sigh of relief and returns to watching the roadway below. Only a few vehicles have passed during the last hour. But a moment later, a black Ford pickup approaches in the left lane. The sniper notes the lone driver, then the license tag. Yes, this is the one.

Shouldering the rifle, the sniper quickly fires two rounds. The first hits a rear tire, causing the truck to spin. As the driver's window appears, the second round shatters its glass. The driver slumps over the steering wheel as the truck careens toward the median strip.

Gothboy hears the truck go past him and watches it come to a stop at the edge of some mesquite bushes about a hundred yards ahead of him. Gothboy runs up to the truck and pulls the motionless driver out. Blood is running down the man's jaw and neck. Gothboy checks for a pulse and finds...none. "Oh, God!" he thinks, recognizing the man's face, "It's that same guy that tried to feel me up! And he's dead!" Gothboy is filled with horror and a pleasant sense of tragic irony. Life is good for Gothboy.

He notices the man's wallet beside him on the ground. Gothboy looks around quickly to see if anyone is watching before going through the wallet. $87, a Visa card and American Express. "Excellent!" he thinks, "And another fake ID could come in handy, too." He removes the driver's license and reads the dead man's name: Gerald Flowers. Gothboy stuffs the cash and cards into his pocket and turns to go.

But he is not alone.

Gothboy feels something cold and hard on the back of his neck. He turns his head enough to see the barrel of a rifle before a too-calm voice says, "Keep your eyes on the ground, kid." The sniper tears strips from the bottom of Gothboy's shredded T-shirt, blindfolds the teenager and ties the boy's hands behind his back. "Get in the truck," the voice says, and Gothboy obeys. He is shaking uncontrollably. The sniper locks him in, telling him to stay there and be quiet. The sniper kicks Flowers' body behind a large mesquite bush where it will not be found for weeks. Then the killer proceeds to change the blown-out tire.

Gothboy isn't going anywhere. As he sits in the truck, blindfolded, hands tied, afraid to move, he is sobbing miserably. His favorite black T-shirt is ruined, and what's worse, he's peed in his pants...........

Vis. that was awesome!

Thanks! Your turn...or someone else's...anyone up for it?

Candy and Blossom are sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. Neither of them had planned for this to happen; it just did happen. Like, spontaneously.
Candy said something; Blossom responded and, for the first time in years, Candy and Blossom had a real conversation.
I don't know what they talked about. I'm a guy so I don't know what they would have talked about. But they talked. They talked for a long time. Until...

Officer Jenkins steps out of his police car. He tries to smooth down the wrinkles in his uniform after a very difficult day. He takes a deep breath and walks up the sidewalk.
This is the worst part about being a cop.

Officer Jenkins didn't bother to ring the doorbell. He simply walked inside, saw the two sitting at the table, and opened fire. It was over in seconds. Jenkins holstered his gun and examined the bodies for signs of life. Nothing. They were goners.

Opening the refrigerator he extracted a bottle of beer and sat down at the table to contemplate his next move. He pushed one of the bodies aside so he could stretch his legs out more comfortably.

The beer was delicious. Jenkins examined the label. "Ratzenhofer Brew"
He reminded himself to pick up a six-pack on the way home.

ok, gustavwhatever...welcome...
Killing off characters is pretty routine here. It doesn't take too much cleverness to do that. How about you introduce some new characters?