While Justin was busy running for his life in the twisted maze that was Tranz-D, Max and Bandit lay curled up on their bed.
Seemingly sleeping the sleep of the just, though Shades suspected that his friend’s dreams were at least as haunted as his own, while he sat at the desk in their room. Pen in hand, nothing in mind. Max had a certain innocence about him, and he could sense that something deep inside his friend fought hard to keep it that way in spite of all that happened to him. He hoped someday Max would tell him what happened all those years ago.
All the same, though, he was grateful for Max’s company in this place where he walked alone among many.
So many, and he suspected that none of them were real. Turned into flesh and blood phantoms by the curse, empty shells that gave a whole new definition to facelessness. He had what so many of his peers seemed to want— a ton of money, even cool junk to buy with it— but he lacked the one thing he desired most, the freedom to come and go as he pleased. Trapped in a place that represented everything he had spent the last three years of his high school career trying to escape.
He would gladly trade the Card for a ticket out.
Max may have inadvertently caused a lot of trouble in the little time he was here, but it also had the side effect of shaking Shades out of his growing, numbing sense of complacence. Of almost three weeks of sinking deeper into limbo. And now Max’s misunderstanding with the mailbox had given him an idea.
As far as he could tell, people under the curse couldn’t get in or out of here, but things could. And did, on a regular basis. He had seen things that could only have come from Earth. Had seen identical CD cover art, and heard lyrical matches to songs word-for-word. And movies scene-for-scene.
And none of it was any sort of novelty here. Which meant that it was clearly going on before the Flathead Experiment. Though he and Max were unable to get out on their own, it just might be possible to send an S-O-S of sorts to someone on the outside who was not under the curse.
And again he wondered for a moment why so many things in his life ran on road-trip and seafaring analogies these days. Still, he couldn’t sleep, and this was all he could come up with. Had spent all that time talking Max to sleep, but had calmed his friend at his own expense, and now he couldn’t stop thinking about his own friends.
After a while, he finally put pen to the sheet of hotel stationery:
DEAR AMY,
EVEN AS I WRITE THIS, I’M STILL NOT SURE HOW TO EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED THE OTHER NIGHT, AS I STILL DON’T HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS MYSELF. FIRST OFF, I’M SORRY I WASN’T ABLE TO PICK YOU UP SATURDAY NIGHT, AND I HOPE YOU DON’T HOLD IT AGAINST ME IF WE EVER MEET AGAIN. I’M SURE NEWS OF MY DISAPPEARANCE HAS REACHED YOU BY NOW, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, AND I WISH I COULD TELL YOU WHERE I WENT, BUT I NO LONGER KNOW WHERE I AM. I HOPE I CAN CATCH UP WITH YOU SOMEDAY, BECAUSE I’VE ALWAYS LIKED YOU & WANT TO GET TO KNOW YOU. I’LL NEVER FORGET YOU UNTIL THEN.
-SOMEDAY, Dexter.
By the time he finished writing that, he began to wonder if he shouldn’t have written an apology to Amy’s parents. He supposed a part of himself still wanted to believe she still safely there to apologize to, and he had no clue what to write or how her parents might take it. That, and his growing conviction that she had made a disappearance of her own that night. He was still uncertain how he knew, but for now he felt farther from her than ever. And he had always felt as if he was on the outside looking in, the amazing disappearing boy. He wondered what she would make of his adventurous new lifestyle…
He then added the address she had given him that fateful day. He knew from years of wandering Lakeside roughly whereabouts most of his classmates lived, but still thought it would seem creepy if he already knew where to pick her up. Fortunately, the ink was only slightly smudged from that night’s storm, so now he had a clear mailing address to work with.
After pondering that for a while, he followed up with:
YO JOHN,
I HOPE YOU FARED BETTER THAN I DID FRIDAY NIGHT. I REALLY WISH WE’D WORKED OUT A BETTER PLAN. I FEEL TERRIBLE FOR EVEN DRAGGING YOU INTO THIS MESS. WHEREVER YOU ARE, I HOPE YOU’RE DOING BETTER THAN I AM. I STILL DON’T KNOW WHERE I ENDED UP, BUT I WILL TRY TO FIND YOU. IF WE EVER MEET AGAIN, I HAVE A NEW FRIEND NAMED MAX. HE HAS A COOL CAT NAMED BANDIT, AND I THINK YOU’D REALLY LIKE THEM. I REALLY HOPE WE MEET AGAIN, AND THAT YOU’RE NOT TOO ANGRY. I HONESTLY HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON THAT NIGHT, AND I’M STILL TRYING TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED.
(OR, IF THIS IS TO MR AND MRS DOE, AGAIN I’M SO SORRY. I HOPE YOUR SON IS OK, AND I WILL DO EVERYTHING I CAN TO FIND HIM. I’M SURE BY NOW YOU’VE HEARD SOMETHING OF THE STRANGE EVENTS OF THE OTHER NIGHT, AND I’M AFRAID WE GOT SEPARATED IN THE STORM.)
-STILL SEARCHING, Shades.
While he had no idea where to even begin explaining anything to Amy’s parents without sounding like he was somehow involved in her possible disappearance that night, he had no choice with John’s. After all, he was the one who dragged their son out into that storm. That made him responsible. Then he added John’s address, which was scribbled among the notes in his wallet.
Even as he wrote, Shades wondered yet again what things would have been like if they hadn’t gotten separated. Would we have escaped the Mall as a team? Or would there now be three of us and a cat in this room? Or perhaps they would have wound up someplace else. And never met Max and Bandit in the first place. A tangled web of possibilities, and even Amy quickly figured into them…
Side-by-side, watching each other’s back, as he and Max now did for each other. It was as if his experience since that night had somehow opened up doors in his mind, or he had found some long-lost key. The certainty that the three of them had gotten mixed up in something that fateful night, something entirely too big for three teenagers to handle on their own.
For a while, he contemplated how to date these letters, finally settling for the increasingly meaningless numbers on his watch readout. Thinking about it, he felt as if time was still frozen on the Morning After back on Earth, and it almost gave him vertigo trying to picture it. As if this limbo-place were a detour in Time itself. Even his destinations were in another dimension, and was pretty sure no outfit on Earth could send packages to other worlds, but something deep inside told him that the 6-D Postal Service could.
Finally, he wrote:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONFUSE:
TRAPPED IN SINISTER MALL IN THE SIXTH DIMENSION WITH NO WAY OUT! REQUESTING RESCUE. FOR ANYONE WILLING TO RISK HELPING US, WE CAN OFTEN BE FOUND AT A PLACE CALLED BANKSHOT. DIRECT ALL QUESTIONS TO DA BOSS DJ, AND WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T TALK TO SECURITY. BEWARE THE CURSE! DON’T EAT THE FOOD! DON’T DRINK THE WATER! DON’T BUY ANYTHING! OR THE EXITS WILL ALL VANISH, AND YOU WILL BE TRAPPED HERE LIKE US. COME AT YOUR OWN RISK, BUT PLEASE GET HELP FOR US, FOR OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED.
-PRISONER
Shades read back his own S-O-S a couple times. It almost made him laugh. He just kept picturing some adventurous would-be Don Quixote finding this and questing for the Mall of the Curse. As much as it made him laugh, it was the most desperate thing he had ever seen written on a piece of paper. Having never read the words Beware NK-525.
Much to his relief, he was glad Max was finally starting to adjust to being back among people, yet he still had a long way to go. In the meantime, the two of them had to stand together. They were both prisoners, and there was no one else to turn to but each other; even were they not friends, it would be an alliance of necessity.
He still had no idea just where he was going to send that last to, but he figured he would think of something. Just writing it was a start, had allowed him to get a lot off his chest. Now that he had stayed up writing that, his eyes felt like they were going to fall out of their sockets.
Putting his letters aside, he decided he was exhausted enough to join Max in unconsciousness.
Author's Chapter Notes:
an S-O-S
