“That is a wonderful idea,” Simon said to Penelope’s suggestion that they drive into town. Simon readjusted the driver’s seat and everyone piled into the car. Simon took one last look at the exceedingly slow moving contraption. In the time they had been looking at it, it had moved a few feet.

“I do not think we have to worry about that thing catching us,” Charles said. “It will make a wonderful story when I get back.”

“Make sure you include the death defying run by Simon,” Penelope said. The conversation had grown lighter as Simon pulled the car away from the contraption and into town. “He narrowly escaped death from the slowest moving monster ever created.”

“There are worse things in the world than are dreamed up by your philosophy,” Charles said. Charles had a saying for each and every situation, and this one seemed to fit in perfectly with how Simon felt.

The t-shirt Simon wore under his button-down shirt was drenched with sweat. The sweat was not only from the running but also from the excitement. Simon tried to remember the excitement, but it came back only as a strong taste of fear in his mouth. He knew that when he had seen the huge shadow, he had not been excited. He was anything but excited at the time. But looking back, the fear seemed much more like excitement, and much more exciting. He accelerated his Chevy sedan toward town and thought back on how good it now felt to have survived what could have an attack. He felt alive. This feeling of being alive was so strange. It was not that he felt like a hero—although if he had ever been heroic, he figured it would feel just like this. He was smiling like a small boy. He had survived something. He knew none of it was real, that he had not bested something or overcome an obstacle.

If anything, it felt like all the times he was home alone where he would hear a noise coming from outside his apartment. He would grab his baseball bat and walk the halls, clearing each room until he made it to the front door ensure that all the locks and deadbolts were in their places. Once he did that, a serene sense of relief would overcome him. He knew it was silliness, that he was relieved only because he had been silly in the first place to be scared of a bump in the night. But even knowing this logically did not stop him from being scared. Once he was scared, he needed the routine and the knowledge that there was nothing to be scared of to overcome that fear. Knowing it logically did not help. It was only through the act of actually checking the house that he overcame the fear.

After he did check the locks on those nights, he would have this huge serene sense of happiness, as if he had overcome a huge and dangerous obstacle and could reap the rewards. Simon thought of the people who survived dangerous situations: escaped hostage situations or fell off high places and survived. When faced with death, even if it is only an abstract threat of death, and to overcome the threat of death, you are left with a strong sense of living. It is strange that it is only in the face of death that you can remember to live. But Simon had felt this way many times, and now that he had faced the monster, or contraption as he now knew it, and survived, he was willing to overcome death and live life.

He knew not everything was over. He still worried for his mother and sister. And he had much to learn from the town when he arrived there. He was not sure what if anything he would find. But he was heading in that direction. He approached the last sign before the beginning of town and drove passed it.

The streets were deserted. It was late in the evening, well past midnight, and he was not surprised to find no people on the streets. He was not sure he would be able to find his sister’s house at this time of night and had hoped he would find some late-night partiers in town. The town, while relatively small, did have a small community college. Many children growing up in town spent their first two years of college attending the community college. They did it not because of the price—although it was significantly cheaper—or because of the academic rigor of a four-year college or university—since the students in Fishs Eddy were relatively affluent, and they usually did well on their entrance exams and their grades during their high school years. Instead, most students stayed in town because Fishs Eddy provided something that no other college town could. Nobody was able to truly explain what that something was. People spoke about it as something in the air or in the water. Whatever it was, few people wanted to leave, even to escape their households and live on their own.

Simon drove down the deserted streets. The shops were all gated for the night. The streetlamps over head were dimmed, as if the town tried to save money by lowering the light usage past midnight. Penelope and Charles had opened their respective windows and were gawking at the street.

“It looks like it is a town from the 1960s,” Charles said, humming slightly a tune that Simon could not quite place. It was clearly a television theme song from a much earlier era.

“Is that a diner with a soda fountain,” Penelope exclaimed, looking into a store window where one small red light lit the interior. “Yes! It is. Look at the spinning red counter stools. This place is amazing. It is like Back to the Future.”

“Or, what was the name of that movie?” Charles asked. “The black and white one that turned color as the children began teaching them about the real world.”

“I know exactly what you are talking about,” Penelope said, excited to be playing this game on this strange night. “The one where they are sucked into a television show, an old, 1950s television show that the boy loves more than his messed up real life.”

“If you two are done,” Simon said, interrupting their movie reverie. “I am going to need some help figuring out where to go next. I printed directions from the Internet, but I can’t seem to locate it.”

“Let us explore a bit more,” Penelope said. “I am sure there must be hardware store somewhere around here. An honest to god, real hardware store.”

Charles laughed at the prospect. “I am very glad you brought me on this adventure, Simon,” Charles said. “This town will provide me with many stories for years to come. I can’t wait to tell the boys back home about this place. Maybe we will start a satellite office here. Write the articles by interview real people, that kind of thing.”

“It is like the two of you have never been to a small town,” Simon said with much frustration in his voice. He wanted to get this over and done with. He wanted to find his sister’s house and find out what was going on. He knew this town was weird, and he did not need his friends to remind him as they turned each corner.

Neither Penelope nor Charles responded. They continued to ogle outside the window as Simon in frustration drove circles around the center of town. He stopped at an empty intersection where the traffic light’s red light shone brightly against the pavement. A few blocks away he saw what he was looking for. A man in an overcoat was walking quickly down the street. He walked quickly down the deserted street, leaving what appeared to be a bar or saloon.

“Ah, there we go,” Simon said, pointing to the man. Not waiting for the light to turn green, Simon rolled into the intersection and approached the man. He leaned his head out of the window.

“Sir,” Simon said, raising his voice, although it was unnecessary in the deserted streets where only the rumble of his car’s engine interrupted the absolute silence. “Sir, I hate to disturb you, but we are new to town and we are a bit lost. I was hoping you could help—” Before Simon finished, the man in the overcoat changed directions and walked away from the direction he had been heading, moving away from where Simon was approaching with the car. “I am sorry,” Charles tried again. “I am not sure if you heard me. We are looking for some help, and you are the only person we have seen.”

The man turned to look at Simon. Before he even finished turning back, he put his hand to his head and took off running in toward the nearest street.

“He is running,” Charles said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Since this is such a strange night, I think the next thing we would do is to go after him.”

“I would agree,” Penelope said with a smile in her voice. The two of them seemed to be having a great old time at Simon’s expense.

“Oh, damn,” Simon said. He turned the wheel and made a U-turn and headed in the direction the man had run.

“It does keep getting better,” Charles said.

The wheels squealed as Simon accelerated through the turn and headed down the street the man had ducked down. “Hold on,” Simon said. He finished the turn and accelerated until he had caught up to the man. He turned on to the side walk to block the path the man was running down. He opened the door and jumped out of the car ready to run after the man if he tried to get away.

The man stopped when he saw the hood of the car in front of him. Simon saw his front for the first time. He wore an oversized dull green raincoat. The coat seemed to swallow his entire body. He had long oily hair that framed his face, giving him a gaunt look. His face was not skinny, though. It was full and a bit on the fat side. The rest of his body looked long. Simon stepped out of his car and realized that he was also very short. Much shorter than he looked at first glance. His face was covered with red pimples that the low-light streetlamp brought out as Simon grew closer.

“Why did you run,” Simon asked. He moved a bit closer to the boy, ensuring that if he ran, Simon would only be a few steps behind him.

The boy wheezed as he spoke as if his brief run had knocked the wind out of him. “There are strange things outside these days,” the boy said. His voice was very deep, much deeper than Simon had expected.

“We ran into some of those strange things right outside town,” Simon said. “It was a huge contraption thing. What is going on in this town?”

“You are not from around here, are you?” the boy asked. He took a step closer. “You look familiar, though. Do I know you?”

Simon studied the boy again. He did not recognize him. He tried to picture him with shorter hair and without the silly overcoat, but even with those changes, he did not recognize him. “I doubt you know me,” Simon said. “I lived here a long time ago. Perhaps you know my family. They moved back to Fishs Eddy a few years ago.”

“No,” the boy said in less reassuring tones. “It is not your family I know. It is you.”

Charles started humming the theme to the twilight zone in the car. Simon recognized this one right away and looked into the car to try to signal for him to stop. When he looked back, the boy had taken off running in the opposite direction from where the car was parked. Simon took off after him, but he was too late. The boy had turned the corner. He was faster than he looked. Much faster now that Simon was on foot and not in the car. He had forgotten how much slower he had become over the years he spent on the road selling galactic addresses.

Word count: 2,076

Words total: 26,888

Words remaining: 23,112

Do you notice how I swap “words total” and “total words” each day? Yeah, me neither. The story moves along. I complete one thought or action a day. Thankfully, I drag out that thought or action to the full two thousand words, allowing me to sleep well, safe in the knowledge that all is good with the world because I am on target.

On happier notes, as I was writing, I was installing a Windows Home Server on a new computer I built. For $400 I pieced together a rather nice looking computer from spare parts. It worked on first boot, which is amazing looking back on my last experience putting together a computer. I still have to finish configuring the software, but soon I will be able to watch my DVD collection from my server. I know, it’s the little things that make me happy. The very little things.