Edits poll

Hi! So, I've been editing my story a bunch as I read through prior to writing more. The story line has never changed but some details have. Would whoever's reading this story like me to post the revised versions on here? Let's take a poll (please tell me what you'd prefer via comments):

a) don't post revised version at all.

b) post revised version over previously posted version (so old version will no longer be visible, and then anyone who isn't aware new versions have been posted might not see them).

c) post revised version as newer posts (blog might get filled up with copies of chapters that way though).

d) something I haven't thought of (if you choose this, please suggest something).

A Worn Backpack Part 9

The three huddled together, finally falling down onto their knees as they backed into a large solid object. Catherine felt behind her, discerning the ‘object’ as the frame of a bed, and gathering her courage, she pulled out the stolen blade and stood up. The shimmering moonlight danced through the cracks in the blinds and fell onto the blade as both men held their breath.

“Fuck,” breathed Max.

“Shut up. Shut up. She won’t do anything. She can’t. You won’t do anything to us, Cathe-,” Jimmy pleaded through his anxious gasps before being cut off.

“Shhh. Don’t say anything,” Catherine looked not at them but at the opposite wall. She inched towards it carefully, holding out the knife. Finally reaching the hard plaster of the wall, she felt around with her free hand until she reached a piece of plastic jutting out. The room was suddenly illumined! Jimmy and Max breathed sighs of relief as Catherine whipped her head to glare down at them.

“Why the hell do you have a knife?!”

“Ca-calm d-d-down Max, I’m su-sure there’s a reasonable explanation. There’s no way she could be…”

“I only used it to cut my hair. I’m not a killer. I’m not an anything. I’d even forgotten about it until just now.”

The two continued watching her in fright-filled disbelief.

“I’m not lying! Really. But you know, at least we have it here now, you know, just in case…”

The ‘kinda’ brothers didn’t look away, but relaxed their muscles slightly as they stood up and walked towards her.

“Why don’t I hold onto that for now?” Max held out his palm.

“No way! If you keep it then next time Jimmy and I will find ourselves dead rather than stranded!” She clutched the knife closer to her.

“Well, then it’d be ok if I take it, right?”

Max scowled suspiciously at Jimmy, as he now also held out his palm. Slowly, reluctantly she gave it over. Jimmy wrapped it in a napkin that he extracted from some inner folding of his jeans and pocketed the blade.

All danger now averted, Jimmy and Max redirected their attention back to Catherine. Each man grabbed one of Catherine’s wrists and held her between them. She looked nervously between the two, trying to read their minds through their determined expressions.

“It’s time.”

“Fuckin’ right it is.”

The men pulled her across the room, thrust her through a door and swung it shut behind her. She spun back onto the door, leaning against it before realizing where she was. The sole purpose of their side trip to this “mulel” came down to this. They shoved her into the one room where the greatest burden remaining from the past several hours could be removed – the bathroom. Catherine slid down onto the gray tiled floor contemplating possibly courses of action. It seemed nothing remained as a possibility but to follow with their desires. She slid the lock on the door in place and let her dirty clothes fall to her feet.

“What do you think Sophie? Can we do it without her?” a slightly-higher-than-average-pitched voice murmured through a cord.

“I don’t know. I guess we have to now. The fundraiser is tomorrow. Life goes on, even if one piece disappears…” Sophie trailed off at the other end.

“Maybe I can get Johnny or Molly to volunteer to help. I haven’t heard from Molly since that day she and Johnny played video games, but Johnny’s just been sulking around the house the past week. Maybe… maybe I can ask.”

“Sure luc. Go for it. It’d probably be best for all of us too keep busy for now until life falls back to normal.”

The dial tone responded. Sophie hung up the phone and let her hand rest upon the glass of her window. She swung it open and climbed onto the bit of roof by her room. Pulling an old CD player off the ledge, she shut the window and leaned against the brick wall of the house, staring at the starry sky.

“Lucy’s in the sky of diamonds, but where are you Cath?” She grinned and answered her own question, “trying on a hand-me-down wedding dress. Oh, if only it were that.”

“Cath! She stands with a well-intentioned man…” a soft murmur of lyrical words broke beyond a steamy room, past a door, visiting two friends on a bed, conversing.

“Do you think we can really trust her Max?”

Max watched the steaming door intently, “Ya. I believe her.” His eyes flashed as he turned back to Jimmy and added, “Even if she is a fucking lunatic.”

Jimmy sighed deeply as Max continued, “Jim, you know you can’t keep that. Give it here, I’ll hold onto it til we get to New York.”

“But she doesn’t want you with it. You heard her. I think I should keep it for now.”

“No! Jimmy, you know what fucking hell you make with knives. Let me keep it.”

Jimmy felt the wrapped blade in his outer pant pocket, gazing at the floor. He glanced back at Max. “I won’t do it again. It was a one-time thing!”

“The fuck it was, Jimmy. You know as well as I that your shit was happening before we met up with pop in California. He’s fuckin’ dead now! You can’t undo that! But Jim, you can keep his memory. Don’t make a stupid mistake again. Let me keep the knife.”

Jimmy hesitated, but eventually retrieved the knife from his pocket and planted it in Max’s lap and leaned over his clenched fists, resting on his lap.

“You know it’s the ri-,” Max began.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, I don’t need explanation or a lecture. I know,” he smiled up at Max. “So what do you really think of this girl, Catherine?”

“You know what the fuck I think,” he shifted his eyes over to Jimmy. “She’s a nuisance. The bigger question is…” at this he paused and raised his eyebrows suggestively. “What do you think of her?”

“Me? I-I think nothing of her!” Jimmy stammered. “The sooner we get to New York and get rid of her, the better.” Jimmy tried to hide his red face as Max roughly teased him. Neither noticed the singing stopped.

Catherine stood against the tiled wall of the steamy room and listened, or rather heard, for she knew only the emotionless words as they drifted through the wooden door: “nuisance” “nothing” “the sooner we get rid of her, the better.”

She breathed deeply and swung the door open. The two stopped in mid tumble, now on the floor. Max sat up, completely disheveled, while Jimmy remained lying on the floor, but in a similar state.

“Where the FUCK are your clothes??”

“I-I… I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to wear the same clothes without washing them first. They smell too,” Catherine whispered as she held a towel closer around her.

“He-here!” Jimmy, now turning more red clumsily began taking off his own, also dirty shirt.

“Idiot!” Max stopped him and crawled over to a large duffle bag on the floor by the bedstand. “Wear this, and please, don’t fucking walk out here without wearing any shit again!” He threw a T-shirt and some jeans at her. As she caught them she hurriedly spun back into the bathroom and changed.

She walked out in Max’s black “California” T-shirt and skinny jeans onto a completely different scene than that which she left five minutes earlier. Jimmy was sitting, completely composed, with his usual complexion resumed, looking for something in the afore mentioned duffle bag, carefully folding things as he removed them. Max sat on the neatly made bed reading a partially unfolded map as if it were a newspaper.

“I’m done,” Catherine tried to get their attention. “Ummm… where should I sle- oh! Where’s my backpack?”

“We left all your crap in the car when we went back to get our stuff. Jim, you showering in the morning?”

“Mmm,” Jimmy nodded.

“I’ll go now then.”

Max left the pair as he made his way to his own state of cleanliness. Catherine beamed at Jimmy. “Can I have the car keys?”

“Fuck no!” Max yelled through the bathroom door.

“You heard him,” he glanced at the closed door. “I’ll come with you.”

Jimmy slipped the key off the bed stand and turned the door lock as they left. Catherine led the way as they climbed the steps, turned the corner, and followed the sidewalk to the parking lot.

“While we’re out here and out of earshot, can I have my knife back? I promise I won’t do anything with it, I just feel more comfortable having it since, well, you know, I don’t really know… what we’ll encounter and stuff.”

“Sorry Cath, I can’t,” She looked at him inquisitively. “I… lost it.”

“Oh. I see. So you lost it in the course of 20 minutes somewhere in the room?”

“Uh, ya.”

“And you have no idea where you lost it in the room?” Catherine sidled over to Jimmy and cornered him against the car.

“No. I’m sorry. Not a clue,” he held up the car keys before her face and smiled entreatingly. She snatched them and opened the door.

“And I’m Catherine, not Cath.”

“Oh, right! Sure. Catherine. I just thought because of the song-”

“You heard me singing?”

“The walls are thin.”

“Well, either way, that’s a song. I’m Catherine.”

“Right!” Jimmy grinned with relief as he followed her away from the locked car.

Catherine walked on along the sidewalk, around the corner, and down the steps, holding the car keys in one hand and swinging in the other a sketchbook, a few pencils, an empty water bottle, and an unexpected lightheartedness all crammed into her worn backpack.

A Worn Backpack part 8

A dull pain crept up, through her spine, slowly emerging in her shoulders and neck, as consciousness come to Catherine’s drowsy mind. Confusion settled itself in the back of her thoughts as memory replaced it. She was in a car, with two complete strangers, one of which surely hated her, driving off into an abyss in the middle of the night, three days since she left her un-beloved home.

“Ji-” a hand forced itself over her mouth before a single word slipped out.

“I think he’s getting better, but you should still keep it down, just in case,” the owner of the hand whispered, carefully watching the front seat. The quiet of the past four hours rang through the car with the wavering echo of those silent words said.

“Fuckin’ idiots. As if I can’t hear them,” Max muttered, but his words were not heard. The three remained in this odd awkwardness for an infinite time span, as they seemed to be immersed in a time warp when surrounded by the vast darkness. Reality returned as the car stopped. Jimmy and Catherine turned to each other, both too fearful to ask.

Max grunted, “I’m tired. Jim, you up for driving?”

Reassured by his slightly calmer voice, Jimmy replied, “What the hell are you doing? We’re in the middle of the road, you can’t just stop here!”

“Chill, it’s fine. It’s 3 a.m. and we’re in the middle of [insert state here]. There’s not a single car out here.”

“That doesn’t mean we should stop here!”

“Well I’ve been driving all the damn day. I’m tired and I think,” Max paused and began sniffing the heavy, cool air. “What’s that fuckin’ smell?!”

Jimmy joined him, checking every object in the car that could present a distinct odor as disturbing as the one in the air, until they both laid their eyes on Catherine.

“How long has it been since you fucking showered?”

Catherine looked shamefully down at herself, attempting to hide the dirt and grime that overtook her person too much to be hidden.

“Max, it’s been a while since we took a break, how about we stop at a hotel for the night? We can still afford it and I think it’d be worth it.”

Max looked crossly back at Jimmy, and with a grunt and a sigh, “Fine, I guess it’s better than continuing in this state.”

The engine groaned and started again, moving with the car for fifteen minutes as all eyes watched the signs along the road, searching for the one they needed. They trio pulled over in a near-empty parking lot by a dirty sign with half it’s bulbs still lit, reading “Mulel”. They walked through a glass door with stained circles left over from a failed attempt at any sort of cleanliness, up to a man fully asleep at a desk, bare except for a bell.

“Should I ring the bell?” the three alternated glances at each other and the sleeping attendant.

“I’m awake! You sss--,” the attendant slowly lifted his head from the desk, stopping himself from insulting the only customers for several days. “How can I be of assistance?”

“We need a room.”

The man turned around and took a ring off a knob on the wall, handing it to Jimmy, as he took a card as exchange. Jimmy held the key on the ring between his fingers, reading carefully the room number: 4.

The three looked around, noticing the room had no doors besides the one they walked in through. A small table with two chairs stood in a corner, by a window with broken, off-white shades. The room was lit by a dull lamp, flickering and fading repeatedly, only to return to its half-lit full strength again.

The attendant handed Jimmy a paper with handwriting on it and the card. As Jimmy stretched his hand out to receive his card and receipt, the attendant added his sales pitch, “A great, warm breakfast can be served at 8 am for another $5.”

Meeting the attendant’s eager eyes, Jimmy grumbled and pulled five crumpled dollar bills from his pocket and placed it on the desk. The attendant took the receipt back, wrote on it again, and handed it to Jimmy.

“So how do we get to room 4 from here?” Jimmy asked.

“Out the door, to your left, around the corner, down the steps,” the attendant said as he counted and smoothed the bills on his desk.

Max walked out, followed by Catherine and then Jimmy, who still watched the attendant behind him as he exited. The three made their way around the building and down several steps onto a walk with a railing on one side, separating them from dried up grass and hardened dirt, and rooms on the other. The numbers continued in descending order, starting from [#] down to four. The numbers continued, although they didn’t. As they approached the yellowed door with a black “4” nailed on, Jimmy pressed the key beneath the doorknob and turned.

“I watched this movie once where a guy was staying in a motel, just like this one. Every room was full and slowly, one by one, each person was killed, according to room number,” Catherine whispered.

The door gave easily and the three walked in, as a chilled breeze broke the nighttime humidity and swept across their backs. Max jumped and pushed the other two into the room, slamming the door as he entered himself.

The room was dark, illuminated only by a glimmer of moonlight escaping in through a small window towards the top of the wall. The three backed up into a huddle. Catherine clutched her bag, noticing as she felt the fabric an outline of a cold and forgotten blade. She clutched closer to her a sketchbook, a few pencils, an empty water bottle, a no longer forgotten blade, and a million fears that should never have existed all crammed in her worn backpack.

A Worn Backpack Part 7

“How long did you say we’d be waiting before he came back?”

“Don’t worry, he’ll come back. I know him. He’ll definitely come back.”

The hours passed as the two sat silently below the blazing southwestern sun. With the hours waning by, neither said a word, made a movement. Like two beings waiting patiently for their end, with nothing but faulty, naïve hope holding them to life, they remained on that step in front of the dirty glass door - the only civilization, if you could call it that, for 100 miles. The sun creeped slowly to the western direction, dusk eased itself over their forms.

While the two sat before the convenience store, a subtle creak was present behind them, as a shadowy figure appeared.

“I’m closing up. You two kids got a place to stay?” the old man stared at them. “Sure’s as heell, yuh aint staying here the night.” He continued staring.

“Our friend’s coming back for us soon. Don’t worry, we won’t be here for long,” Jimmy answered.

The old man stared a few more moments, turned around, and walked to the back of the gas station. Catherine buried the situation in her memories, and watched the sun set over the horizon. Jimmy watched her for a minute, waiting for a reaction, and receiving none, joined her. They heard the sound of an engine start and fade away, as the old man drove down the road. As the sun crept over the edge of land, the two were left in complete darkness.

“So now what? We camp out here? Jimmy face it, he’s not coming back. We’re stuck here, and now we can’t go anywhere, we can’t stay anywhere, we’re-”

The reaction that she finally let out was interrupted, as if on cue, by the sound of wheels on pavement. A car approached, and they both turned heads. An all too familiar, beat-up, no longer white sedan drove into a parking space to their left. The door opened. Max stepped out, looked at them, and leaned against the car, arms crossed, waiting.

“Please. Does he really expect us to go without a word?” Catherine whispered to Jimmy, suddenly surprised by his rising movement.

“You said it yourself mere moments ago, we’ve got nowhere else to go,” Jimmy replied as he walked over to Max.

Catherine sat still for a moment, perfect awe falling across her face. Max rolled his eyes, and began to turn, preparing to leave her behind. She stood and let all her anger flow as she marched over to him.

“What the heck is wrong with you!? You left us here nearly the whole day, basking in the hot sun, with absolutely nothing, and you expect us to just follow you back? To say nothing? Are we your puppets, ready for your control at any moment? Are we just toys to be played with? Well, you have something else coming because-”

“Shhh. Catherine, you don’t know what you’re getting into,” Jimmy tried to stop her, but he was left unheard as she continued to let her rage out.

Max, now sitting in the front seat of the car, watched her intently as she spoke, but before she could finish, he grabbed her arm and pulled her into the car. His fury-filled face mere inches from hers, he began.

“Now look here, you followed us all this way. If it wasn’t for your stupid fucking questions, you would’ve never been left in this shithole, you got that? You already decided you were coming. It’s either all in, or all out. You can’t go back, and I aint letting you out. Now get the fuck out of my sight, and sit still ‘till the morning. Got it?”

Catherine gulped. Now in full fear of what Max was actually capable of, she crawled through the car, into the back seat, and wedged herself by the seat where she left her backpack earlier.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” the door slammed, and Max sped off across the highway.

Five minutes into the ride, Jimmy, also in the backseat this time, didn’t take his eyes off Catherine. Finally, he pulled her backpack out of her hands, and pulled the sketchbook out. Catherine contested, but knowing she couldn’t say anything without Max getting angry again, she sat still, glaring at Jimmy, now opening her sketchbook, and beginning to write. He handed it back to her.

I told you not to get into this. What were you thinking? You should’ve just listened to me.

Catherine scribbled something down, and passed the sketchbook back.

It’s not my fault. You know as well as I that he’s the only one to blame here. How do you put up with this?

The last message of the night:

I’m telling you, you have no idea what you’re getting into. Just try to stay on his good side, ok? He can do a lot more to you than you’d think. Trust me, you don’t want him to get that angry. Just let it go, and try not to make him mad anymore.

She looked up at Jimmy after reading the message, finally realizing what she had gotten herself into. Facing forward, she bent over. Without noticing, but with no power to stop it, she cried. Tears of fear and regret drenched her backpack, hugged between her face and legs, now filled with a sketchbook, a few pencils, an empty water bottle, and her first desire to be home, since she left.

A Worn Backpack Part 6

Jimmy and Catherine sat in silence for a few minutes, until Catherine finally decided the conversation ended with that question. Jimmy slouched back into his earlier position and sighed.

“That really is none of your business. I’m sorry. It’s just going a little too far.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Catherine whispered.

The car suddenly pulled over to the side of the road, and stopped. The front door opened, and slammed shut, followed by the click of the back door opening.

“You‘re fucking joking me,” Max grumbled as he leaned forward towards Jimmy, grabbing onto his shirt. With a tug, Jimmy stumbled onto the hard dusty floor outside the car. The back door slammed, isolating Catherine from the animated life taking place around her.

A murmur of dialogue was still heard through the heavy metal doors: “What the hell is wrong with you? Your fucking precious love life is too much to tell but the minute she asks about our family crap you spill everything!” “That’s different and you know it is.” “The fuck it is!”

Both reentered the car, slamming doors behind them. The car slowly pulled back onto the road, rolling down the humid highway with an overbearing silence weighing down onto the car and its inhabitants. After a seemingly never ending ten minutes, the car slid to the side of the road again, this time onto an exit leading off the beaten path to another ubiquitous ‘only gas station for 100 miles’.

Max pulled the car into a parking space and leaned over the back of his seat, “get out.”

“This is my car as much as yours. You have no right to kick me out,” Jimmy answered.

“We need gas. Take Catherine and go to the convenience store over there. Might as well by her a fucking lunch.”

Catherine stared at Jimmy, unsure what to do now, until he finally caved into Max’s desires. The two left the car and walked to the dusty glass door, halting for a moment before going in. Jimmy turned around and watched Max drive the car over to a pump, get out, and begin extracting blackened, dirty fuel as an only sustenance for the car. They both entered the convenience store then. An old man, too gray and drunk to comprehend a customer’s entrance at this time of the scorching day, sat at the counter, watching intently the shelves of food items sitting idly opposite him.

Noticing the frighteningly quiet old man, Catherine nudged Jimmy, “It’s really ok, I’m not hungry at all. Why don’t we go back outside?”

“It’s pointless now. He just wants to be alone. He’ll let us know when he’s ready to see people again.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. Can’t we just leave him alone and go back to Max and the car?”

Jimmy looked at her curiously, just then noticing the old man. “I was talking about Max.”

Catherine continued to watch the old man, when they heard an uncomfortable sound: a car starting. The moment was followed by the whirr of hot tire speeding across pavement. Jimmy ran out, followed closely by Catherine. They both stood in front of the dirty glass door, still ajar. Max had driven away, leaving the two stranded in the middle of desolate highway life, ‘the only gas station for 100 miles’.

“What now?” Catherine’s tone lacked the anxiety any other person left stranded would exhibit.

“He’ll come back. Don’t worry.”

“What if he doesn’t come back? Do you really want to stay here forever? Why don’t we start going somewhere ourselves?”

“You mean walk somewhere? I don’t think so. We’d die from exposure, if not worse. He’ll come back. We just have to wait it out.”

The two sat down on the hard, paved rock in front of the convenience store, and waited. After five minutes, Catherine lied down, stretching her arms behind her head, and began to stare at the sun. Jimmy knelt his head onto arms folded across his knees, waiting patiently, like anyone who has ever put trust into someone who didn’t deserve it. Lying in front of the murky glass door, Catherine wondered how it could be, the first time she was strained into such an immobile position, she truly had nothing. Miles away, a few pencils, an empty water bottle, a sketchbook, and all her freedom and independence in movement were being driven further from her than her underestimated, flimsy legs could carry her. Everything, including the unusual calm that passed over her being as she came to grips with the reality of her current situation, was crammed into a worn backpack, still resting on the back seat of Max’s car.

Jimmy, Max, and Catherine (short hair)

(from left to right) Jimmy, Max, and Catherine (with short hair now), for anyone who's interested in what they look like. I know the pictures aren't perfect, but for rough sketches, they'll do to give any readers an idea of physical appearances, for those interested.

Catherine-long hair.

I don't know if anyone would actually be interested in what Catherine looks like, but if you are, here's a rough sketch of her (before the haircut, clearly).