The man stood in front of the door to his truck lamenting his choices of the day. Just tired after his long work day but of course, it had to add just one more problem to top it off.
His colleague, just had to borrow a tool from him. So like the "nice guy" he was and after maybe five or ten minutes of his colleagues pleading he finally lent him the keys to grab it off the front seat. The problem was after the young man had finished with the tool then returned it to the front seat with the keys and... locked it.
The man wouldn't have had a problem calling for someone except he was the last man at the site, everything was locked up, his cell phone was dead and the closest store or gas station was six miles in ether direction. Just another great day in a great month of a great Year.
"sigh..." he looked at the site of his keys, memory's of how it started with him moving to the desert to work in for double the pay he was getting in Denver only to find out, after moving here and two weeks of work that the pay was embellished and even turned out that it was a decrease in comparison! After almost three days of arguing with the foreman and threat of legal action he got half his promised pay bump, he finally started work. That was just the first month at the beginning of the next, his last relative his uncle pass away.
His uncle was more than half the reason he had taken the job out here. His uncle was a good strong man growing up and comforted him when his parents passed in a car accident. No one to blame just bad weather and ice. His uncle had gotten sick recently and needed care. He just wouldn't accept help but this job that sounded and was too good to be true was just what he needed to get the old man to agree to the financial help. Then the call came. His uncle had passed in his sleep on the first of the month.
He was really alone now. His friends were all family men or women now and they hadn't spoken in years not that he blamed them. He just wasn't good with couples and there activities. After his friends paired up and started there new adventures, he liked to think of it that way, they slowly just drifted apart.
Now he was in the middle of nowhere and looking at keys on the front seat of his truck just sitting and thinking about what got him here.
"well, guess I can start walking" He said to himself in the empty lot next to the job site.
The sun was still just high enough in the sky that is still beat him with ray of heat and somehow still low enough to start turning the sky orange, pink then purple. 'It's pretty.' he thought as he started his march. More than once he thought to himself 'that rock could break the window and I could just drive without a window for a while' but remembered how he was living in a not so well kept part of town and a truck not to different from his was stolen with both windows intact.
He had been walking for a while now, the sun finally sank into the horizon. His thoughts going back to high school and if he should have gone to college to better learn this or how he just felt starting work faster held more benefits than going into debt learning from a book. Then thinking making the connections and getting a certificate saying "I can do the work, commit to it and keep the work to a satisfying level for the entire time was probably what you pay for than the actual learning.
At the end of his thought process he figured that he didn't go and that he was just filling his own head with nonsense to occupy his time walking. The sun was gone now and the sky was now staring to glitter with stars. his thoughts now going in a different direction as he felt his thirst get to him. 'How much further is the station?' feeling like he should be seeing it at least or a glow of lights. !?! He realized that there were no lights anywhere except for the stars.
'Wait! Where am I?'
He began to think that this is to dark for where he was. He should see city lights from here as a glow over the horizon but nothing. he'd seen it before while driving back late form work but now... 'Nothing!'
He looked back the way he came. The street lights he passed wouldn't be to far from here but there was again nothing. It wasn't like he took the wrong road either. There was only one road and it was paved so its not like it was like he was on a beaten path and got distracted walking on the wrong trail.
Then he heard someone which sounded like a women in the distance. He turned to look and but couldn't see where it came from. He stud there waiting for it to sound again... Then he realized something.
'Why can't I hear any crickets? or Coyotes? or wind?'
He looked again around nothing was moving, still and silent. The silents was ironically the loudest to his senses. He could see with starlight, he could smell the desert air, he could even feel the heat still radiate from the road, but there was no noise coming from any where but his own feet when he slid on the pavement trying to be quiet. Still there was nothing around him.
Finally he heard it again! The women's voice! It was closer this time and it was off the road to the side of him. The terrain was somewhat filled with hills and dessert weeds but he saw her, a few hills past she stud there facing him. He couldn't tell what she was wearing but it was black almost shadow like seeming somehow swaying in the wind that he could not feel or hear. It felt wrong. None of it look right to him.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
Before he could understand why, he hear her again. This made it even more wrong because he could hear her clearly but she wasn't yelling even though she was distant it was a whispering voice. Even though he could hear her clearly the words weren't English or any language he could relate it to.
It was a beautiful soft voice that was almost song like. It was fill with emotion that he couldn't tell if it was happy or sad, angry or peaceful but maybe all of them which he felt made it even more wrong. He was stunned while he listened to her go quiet again. He then decided.
'I'm not going to fuck around and find out!'
He began walking back toward the job site. while thinking to him. ' I don't care about this shit, I'll break the damn widow quit the job in the morning and go back to Denver! Then I'll reconnect with my friends I will not be alone anymore! Yeah that sounds just fine to me! I mean I like my alone time but I guess there is a better way to avoid crazy bull like this!' He couldn't help but think it would be a hassle to reconnect but he was ready to just to avoid what he could only think was a situation that wouldn't happen in a group setting.
She spoke again, this time though he did not stop to look back, only to walk a lot faster. He was slightly annoyed and found himself surprised that it wasn't fear he was feeling but a need to avoid a problem that he some how knew was going to make it even more of a bad year. The though kept him from turning around when he heard the voice get louder while still in a whisper.
Still getting louder the woman felt closer to him which only seemed to get more annoying. His walking speed wasn't making her go away and finally the voice shifted from whisper to a talking volume getting louder still speaking in that strange language that he only meant another annoying problem he might have to deal with if he confronted the women.
It has now been ten minutes since he first saw the woman and she was now almost yelling at him.
He had stopped walking so fast and was now at a point where he was considering picking up a rock and throwing at the women. His head was pounding, rage was bubbling that then lead to him finally turning around to yell back at the ghost women. He named or categorized her after the third minute of walking.
"WILL YOU SHUT THE HELL UP!"
There he found her only a few feet from him which made him jump back after his loud curse.
He got a good look at her for the first time as he reorganized himself after the surprise.
She was a silver haired girl, not a mature women he had imagined the voice belonging to. Her black dress was more purple than black he found and had bits of armor on it as if it was sewn into the dress protecting the vital parts of her form. Her face was beautiful and stern with deep green eyes that gave off a jewel likeness. The hair was long and braided on the sides revealing her pointed ears.
Like him she was startled when he turned around and gave an angered yell but unlike him she was unfocused on him as if she were blind but pointed her self in his direction. again she spoke in her original volume the language he had no understanding of.
This time he waited till she was finish with her speech and paused for some reason maybe a reply he thought. He thought for a moment then spoke.
"No..."
The girl silently look in his direction for a moment then repeated what she said earlier.
"No..." He repeated himself
The girl again said the words he did not understand.
"No way..."
She looked at his shoulder as if trying to gauge his position and tilted her head, asking "Why?"
"I don't want to..."
She looked at him this time to the right of his head was and frowned, then took a step closer, as if searching put out her hand. After a moment found his chest, retracting for a second then grabbing on to his work vest.
He was stunned from the sudden action but decided to repeat what he felt was the answer to her possible question.
"N.. Guh!"
The girl pull out a dagger with her other hand and stabbed him in the heart. As if it wasn't the most insane thing to do, she smiled and finally look at his face, she said more words in that tongue of hers then as if everything was just right pulled him in close and kissed him on mouth.
He just stared at her the whole time thinking of the pain in his chest, her soft lips did nothing for him as things finally seemed to click. In one quick motion he grabbed the hand on his vest with one hand with the other made a fist.
The girl's face grew confused for a moment looking down at her hand then back to his face and a moment of shock flashed as his fist collided with her face throwing her from his grip. She landed about five feet from him as he fell to his knees, strength leaving his body as the pain once hot in his chest got cold then colder. His mind was racing trying to figure something out but couldn't slow down or find a problem.
A strange giggle or cry came from the girl her still sounding happy, sad, angry, yet peaceful. He could see her getting up and looking his way, her face was... 'Smiling?... Why?' he had delivered a solid punch to her, but his thoughts got foggy, vision darker, limbs were noodles, and mind now slow. all he could do was stair at the women as she got up and... 'skipping?' to him.
She stopped just standing over him. He could see blood dripping out of her nose and a bloody split lip. but still she grinned even wider than he'd seen her before.
More of her words, his body limper by the second she grabbed his collar and pulled him up.
'Strong' he thought.
Her eyes were still unfocused on him but neither were his. She licked her lips giving her a crazed blood red lipstick. He thought 'That worked to well on the girl.' His mind not catching up to the situation. The girl kissed him again this time he could feel her warmth as he grew colder feeling a little of his breath taken from him and something else.
As the last of his life's blood was leaving him he heard the girl speak in a voice that was closer to a girls then the one before with... mature and aggressive tone emphasized...'Wait!' I understand that!?!
"See you soon handsome!"