It was the summer of Chuck. The nickname stuck, along with it tall boys, and everyone's first foray into cooking. For some reason everyone had gotten serious about it. They'd try to one up each other. Taking out cook books from the library, or lifting some random utensils from the...

Howard touched his table. It was a sort of fake linoleum. He checked underneath, compressed board with just some lino on top. Hideous. He thought. He remembered his friend Charlie's. There he had a real table. Wood, light like pine. He said he had made it just on his own. ...

It became a sort of test. If he could get through these he'd be alright. He wouldn't be that old he thought. If he could get through these there would still be life in him. 

But the cans were hard. The first one was good, but the second hard. The...

There was an old guy with rickety bones, who was across the street while the ambulance came. 

Poor girl he thought. 

When they back up like that, its never a good sign. The ambulance. They want to get someone in and out faster he thought. 

Poor girl he thought. 

He...

Johnny had tip toed up to the peephole, and looked out.
He motioned with his hand for Max not to move. Johnny's ability to move so silently scared Max a little. Like Johnny knew every place not to step. After some time, Johnny turned to him.

"I Knew it." Johnny said.

"That creepy...

He was drawn to it, but it felt like he couldn’t do it with Johnny there. Everything was too soon. 

He opened the fridge instead grabbed a tallboy.  PBR what they used to drink back in the day, but this one felt different. 

With death surrounding them he was thankful...

"They said they had people watching you?"

"Yeah but not here, he said not on earth, but above."

"Hmm." Johnny said. "I remember this weird like blog thing, this women posted it. I don't know, I don't remember her name. You remember I think I sent you that podcast. She had a...

The man was tall serious. With dark brown hair. He had a thick almost broom like moustache and spoke slow and serious. Deliberating every word. 

“You called earlier about the car.”

The man said. He spoke as a statement, something Max thought should ought to be a question. 

“Yes, uh yeah...

This seemed to him like a riddle. An old game he played as a kid was full of them. Always every character you met had a riddle a question and an answer. Sometimes they’d have stolen something sometimes they would give you something. 

“Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”


“The car? Who took...

“We have to leave. You know get out of here.”

Suddenly Max realised his car hand been there for two nights three days. They had been everywhere. The hospital the police station the morgue. She didn’t have much family, Johnny had said. So they tried some numbers in her phone. But...