Ch. 10: A Brief History
Disclaimer: When Max talks about her visions, keep in mind that in my story the apocalypse didn't happen, so no visions of tornadoes.
AARON WATSON'S POV:
We decided to have a small campfire at the junkyard. Max said that he could stay there until ten o'clock and then head back to campus. Chloe went into the woods to collect branches and dead pine needles for the fire and she left me alone with nothing to. Max and I sat there awkwardly, neither of us were very good at starting conversations. My mind whirred, trying to think of something we could both talk about. When I drew a blank, my eyes wondered down the guitar beside her. Maybe word wouldn't be needed to pass the time.
"So," I spoke up, "can I play your guitar?"
"Um," she was a little unwilling to let me play her guitar, but she gave it to me anyway. When it was out of her hands and in mine, she looked extremely anxious. I could completely understand why. For anyone serious about music, an instrument was an extension of their body. One of their most prized possessions. Sometimes, they held a lot of emotional value. If any significant amount of damage occurred it could totally ruin the instrument, making it unplayable. Decent guitars weren't cheap either.
I examined it thoroughly, and I was careful not to damage my stickers. "Don't worry," I said reassuringly, doing everything I could to ease her worries, "I'll be gentle."
I then proceeded to play the intro to Hotel California. The music was soothing and felt almost mysterious in nature, it seemed that Max was being drawn in, as if the music was a siren's song. I noticed the look on their faces; the expression was halfway between shock and awe. The song itself reminded me of simpler times, when my mother would play for me so I could study her fingers, what frets she used, and what strings she picked. When he was done with the complex intro, I carefully handed her the guitar. The music had worked to pass the time for a bit. Now, we were struck with silence yet again. Somehow, it wasn't quite as awkward as before.
"So," I rubbed the back of my neck, wondering if I should actually bring this topic up. It would be embarrassing for both of us and maybe irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Still, I could not help myself. "Chloe told me that she saw us kiss."
Her face was visibly red, even when she was in the shadows. When she had finally composed herself, she looked at me with hesitant curiosity. "What did she do?" She asked.
I could feel my face heat up as I uttered the next three surreal words, "She kissed me."
"Huh?" She asked clearly not having expected that response at all.
"With tongue," I stated feeling words fail me.
She looked confused, which was better than the unforgiving rage that I was expecting, so I gave her details.
"She said 'I'm not mad, I'm just jealous' and then she French kissed me," I recalled, swallowing hard to wet my suddenly dry throat, "and when she was done she said 'that's for stealing a kiss off my girl. Now we're even.'"
"I see," she stated with clarity, her expression unreadable, "this is a game to her."
"I'm not too sure," I shrugged, "she may actually like me."
"Anything's possible with Chloe," Max confirmed, not looking all too pleased by that realization. Before I had the chance to say anything further, we were interrupted.
"I'm back with twigs," we heard Chloe yell from the edge of the junkyard. Her return marked the end of that short, awkward conversation. Part of me was thankful for it, but the other part wanted to press further. Max hadn't really given anything away in her response about how she actually felt. I suspected that even if I did talk about it more, it wouldn't get me any closer to a definitive answer. There was no point in pushing the topic, so I gave it up.
Later, after we started the fire, we found comfortable places to relax. Max leaned up against a bunch of rusty cars as she played her guitar, Chloe lay in the dirt facing upward with one knee in the air, and I sat in the dirt with my legs crossed.
"So, what do you guys do for fun?" I asked curious to find out more about the two women. They seemed like an odd pair
"I rob banks and Max fights crime," Chloe stated sounding very serious about it for about three seconds before she broke out into a broad grin that betrayed her obvious lie, "beware the might of Super Max." She then whistled the Superman theme song.
"She's an escaped mental patient and I'm her psychiatrist," Max said clearly stifling her own smile. They were clearly enjoying messing with me.
"Please stop," I begged. Maybe I should have expected that kind of response from Chloe. From what I had seen of her, she did enjoy teasing people.
"So," Chloe sat up, given the way she was posed she looked like a model on a magazine cover, "who has a ghost story?"
"Nope," I stated. Me and horror just did not work. Especially in the middle of a spooky, empty junkyard.
"Please don't," Max pleaded mirroring my disapproval for the idea.
She stood up ready to expose every gruesome detail to her unwilling audience, "Long ago in Arcadia Bay…"
"Okay, I'm putting a moratorium on that right now," Max interrupted as she turned toward me. "Aaron, the story she was going to tell made me sleep with a baby blanket until I was seventeen."
The bluenette sighed and lay back down in the dirt, obviously disappointed at not being able to scare them silly, "Fine, but we have nothing else to talk about."
That was not 100% true. I certainly had a few questions to ask the pair, Max in particular. She was the only person I had come across who was like me. This was as good an opportunity as any to bring up some of the larger questions surrounding her rewind powers. Just how similar were our circumstances?
"So," I spoke up and turned towards Max, "I told you about how my powers came about but I don't really know much about yours."
Chloe turned to the side out of interest in our conversation. On leg was flat against the ground while her other leg was bent with her knee touching the ground in front of her. One of her arms supported her head and the other one was bent in front of her. It was a pose that screamed 'draw me like one of your French girls.'
"Yeah," she rubbed the back of her neck, "I guess I didn't really talk about it much yet. It's…a long story. I suppose it's only fair to tell part of it at least."
"You don't have to force yourself, Max." Chloe added, sounding much more gentle and sympathetic than I had ever heard her. The concern was clear in her voice and on her face. That was when I knew I was about to hear something extremely heavy and intense.
"It's okay, Chloe. I can handle it," Max reassured as persuasively as she could manage. I wondered if she was trying to convince Chloe or herself more.
"If you say so," Chloe muttered, not sounding entirely swayed. Or maybe she had her own reservations about hearing the events again, doubted whether she herself could handle it. She definitely seemed like the type of person to hide her own fears and doubts by passing them of onto others.
After a few moments of silence, Max began to hesitantly relay the circumstances surrounding her power discovery and other events leading up to this point. "Around the beginning of October, I had a vision of a dark room. Only later did I figure out that the dark room was the place where Rachel…"
She briefly paused when she saw the look on Chloe's face, I knew she meant where she died.
"Anyway," she continued, "sometime after my first vision I learned about my time reversal power."
She continued on, she talked about her adventures with Chloe, the arrest of someone named Mark Jefferson, and the discovery of Rachel's body. Most of the details were vague, but others were very descriptive, specifically the fun moments, and they all involved Chloe. They loved each other.
She sighed deeply, a darker atmosphere hanging over us all now, "So, yeah, that's a brief summary."
"I'm…not quite sure what to say," I stuttered, words failed me.
"You don't have to say anything," she stated.
"Well, you guys sure know how to kill the mood…" Chloe spoke up.
Suddenly, we all heard a noise in the distance, the unmistakable howl of a wolf, and it sounded close.
"I think it's time to hit the ol' dusty trail," with that Chloe stood straight up and stretched her arms above her head, joints clicking loudly.
"Agreed," Max and I said at the same time. We turned toward the truck ready to run like hell, but what we saw stopped us dead in our tracks. It was the wolf, but it did not look like a wolf, it was translucent. My knowledge of Oregon's wildlife was admittedly limited, but this was unnatural by every definition of the word.
"I'm not the only one seeing this, right?" I asked, my body freezing in place as this supernatural vision appeared before us. The tips of its pointed fangs protruded slightly from its mouth, but not in a hostile way. Instead, it hung back just watching us. The beast seemed to be looking right at me, predator eyes fixed on mine. In that moment, I felt a strange connection with it. Like it was staring directly into my soul. It felt both frightening and reassuring all at the same time. I had never experienced anything like it before and probably never would again.
"I see the ghost wolf," Max stated sounding unnaturally calm and composed. Had I not been so terrified and confused, I would have questioned her about it. There were, however, other things on my mind.
Chloe could only manage to say, "What the fuck?"
Just as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished. For a few seconds after, thin ghostly blue tendrils remained behind before spiraling upwards to the night sky. The air thrummed with a weird energy, lingering long after its vanishing.
I did a double take, shock reeling in my mind. If it hadn't been for Chloe and Max's reactions, I would have sworn I'd gone mad. Even with the reassurance that someone else other than me had seen the spectral figure, I still questioned my sanity...what was left of it anyway. Maybe we were just having some kind of group hallucination. Or it could have been a trick of the light. Nothing else made sense to me.
A few moments of silence passed between us before Max turned to me solemnly. From the expression on her face and how calmly she was acting in the face of such a weird apparition, she must have seen something like this before. "I'd keep an eye out for that if I were you. It might lead you to answers… or a warning."
Chloe seemed as confused as I did as Max went on ahead of us. I was stunned, lost for words. There was something very strange going on in Arcadia Bay and I began to wonder if I would ever be able to uncover its mysteries. The answer, not likely.
I thank all of you for your support.