Chapter 9 "Reality"
It's fact, unquestionable and undeniable. When are certain, we may not be happy with the bits of it that comes at us out of nowhere, whether it's a bad or good thing, it's important that we come to terms with it and then move on.
- Michael Mules, Journal Entry
After the prom ended, the eventful night was still in its beginning stage
On the beach, a condo was enveloped in music and more than a hundred people in their late teens were letting lose in all the ways a school dance wouldn't allow. The night was dark, but there were a few who actually went for a swim, not afraid of the water in a darkness only lit by stars.
A short distance away from the beach house, Michael was walking steadily with a bear foot Wendy on his back. Her arms were circled around his chest - which ached in the sting of her shoes's heels that she was holding. Wendy's head rested on his shoulder and breathed warmly against his neck.
"You're not trying to be heavy on purpose, are you?" he asked.
"You can handle it," she remarked. "You might develop super strength."
"Looks like we're one of the last ones to make it," he said as they neared the beach house.
"I don't really care that we even made it anymore," Wendy said grinning.
Michael managed to make to the side door of the house with Wendy strapped onto him. When she was set down onto the sand, it took a minute to straighten himself and mend his cracking bones.
"I don't plan on getting drunk on anything tonight," he sated as he reached for the doorknob. "Let's just dance and hang out."
"Don't worry, I'm a simple girl, remember."
As she went through the opened door, Wendy gave him a playful-mischievous grin.
The party was in fact filled with the scent of smoke and beer as Michael had predicted, and the music was in competition with the loud conversations between people. They traveled from the living room to the adjacent kitchen where the hostess, Carla Towle was talking with a group of giggling girl on an island filled with trays of various food, some of which neither Michael or Wendy knew of.
When Carla saw them, she began hopping and clapping her hands in delight and ran over them, hugging Wendy and shaking hands with Michael as if they were long time friends.
"I'm glad you both could make it," she said a flushed. "I love your dress - and Michael, looking sharp. Sorry we didn't chat at the prom. At least we're chatting now."
"Great party," Michael said plainly, but as loud as possible so to be heard over the music. "Are you sure nobody's going to call in a complaint on us."
"Oh no, this house is a mile away from the nearest neighbors, we can rock as loud as we can." Carla made a thrusting motion with her hips and nearly knocked a passing girl to the side.
"This should be a wild night," Wendy remarked.
"Well, enjoy yourselves; I'd better get back to my hosting duties." Carla lightly pecked Wendy on the cheeks before adding, "By the way Michael, I didn't tell you at prom, but total black works for you." She gave him a gazing stare before turning back to the island and the group of still giggling girls.
"Now I know I don't want to have any drinks, tonight," Wendy said bluntly.
Michael had his eyebrows raised, still starting at Carla. "I don't think she's drunk. I think that's just her."
As the party went on, Michael and Wendy stayed clear of the obvious dangers that lurked from students who smelled like they were just coming out of a car's fuel exhaust. They wandered into a long hallway where several people were talking and there thankfully, wasn't any otter.
In his mind, Michael sighed when he saw Mark with his date, standing a few feet away against a wall.
"Hey Mark," he said stonily.
"Michael," he replied in the exact same tone.
None of them spoke for a long minute that was one too many. Both young men stood firm with their arms crossed, rocking a bit back and forth.
Finally, mark's date spoke out. "Say, it's Wendy, right? Can you help me with something in the bathroom?"
The girl's darting eyes signaled Wendy of their temporarily needed disappearance. Wendy nodded and kissed Michael on the cheek before following Mark's date down the hallway.
Now the two old friends stood with their same postures, neither one being willing to be the one to speak first.
"So what was up with what you told me yesterday?" Mark eventually decided to blurt out. He had clearly been holding that in.
"Just finally getting the truth out in the open." He shrugged to Mark and put his hands in his pocket.
"What do you mean, 'Getting the truth out'?" he snarled. "You got into a face off over a milk carton."
This time Michael snarled. "What about that time I told off those guys for smoking in the middle of class right under the teacher's nose?"
Mark shook his had, chuckling a bit. "That was stupid, too. You just couldn't stay out of it."
"Well still, do you remember what you told me after those guys threatened to beat me up?" The very memory of that made Michael shake his own head in return. "They didn't do anything, but when they threatened to, you then said 'Nice going there. Good luck'."
When Mark didn't have a response to this, Michael was ready to walk away when all of a sudden, a familiar screech enveloped the inside of his head. He started to squint in pain, and Mark became confused by his sudden state.
"What's wrong with you?"" he asked angrily.
The screeching sound then stopped within a few seconds after beginning. Standing up straight again, he focused his hearing passed all the loud partiers and the full volume music to the outside of the condo, then he concentrated it even farther out on the surrounding area.
What he heard was unexpected, the sound of loud crashing of something large and a girl screaming slammed into his ear. There was trouble, so he had to move.
"Let's just leave this friendship with high school," he told a confused Mark. He rushed out of the hallway, without another word to him. He wouldn't let this stalker get away, again. Michael dodged the numerous people and Carla calling out to him in the living room, dashing out the door.
On the outside, he scanned for some indication of an accident and quickly spotted a cloud of barely visible smoke coming up from a street that lay on a cliff side overlooking the beach.
"Hey!" he yelled to the first person that he spotted and pointed to the smoke. "There's been an accident! Call nine-one-one!"
Michael started running, there was no thought in his mind, except to get to that car and to the whimpering girl that was there.
As he neared the cliff's rocky wall - which he almost didn't see in the dark - his legs pushed off the sand. To Michael's displeasure, the jump didn't take him all the way up the cliff wall. Reaching out with his arms, he grabbed hold of the stone-cold rock.
The rest of his body slammed against the rock; pushing aside the pain, Michael found his footing on a small piece of rock and after several quick breaths he took another jump and made it to the rest of the way.
He landed only a short distance away from the tipped over car and two figures that were inside, seemingly motionless; the car was not just tipped over, but also scorched on it's nose, or rather terribly burned to be more precise.
Michael ran despite his still rumbling body to the passenger's side and checked through the window.
The girl whose scream he had heard was now unconscious like the male driver. Michael swung the door open, unbuckled her seatbelt and eased her into his arms. He ran a hundred feet away and carefully placed her on the side of the road. Michael then started back to the car with more haste, as the car began to catch fire.
The smoke was now much heavier inside when he reached to open the driver's side door, so he took a deep breath before sliding in and reached up to unbuckled the driver's seatbelt., but to no avail He started to pull on the strap with all his might and after some effort, the strap ripped out, releasing the driver.
Getting a good hold of him, Michael crawled back out of the passenger's side door, pulling him along until they were both out of the car that was now head-covered in flames. Michael lifted the driver up onto his arms with more difficulty than the girl and began running as fast as he could.
As he reached the still unconscious girl, the car exploded; Michael felt the force behind him and nearly tripped on himself. When he had his footing again, he carefully laid the boy next to the girl.
Up ahead a car was driving up the road and Michael knew that was his cue to take off. He jumped over the streets safety railing, hopping down the cliff wall twice before landing down on the sand in a loud thump.
I'm going to feel that one tomorrow.
Almost all the people from Carla's party had raced over to the sight of the accident once word got out about it. Michael and Wendy stayed in the crowd on the side of the road as the couple from the accident were carried into separate ambulance trucks that had arrived soon after the accident had been called in.
The police had also arrived and were questioning several of them on what they might have seen regarding the accident.
"I just saw the smoke and yelled for somebody to call nine-one-one," Michal told one of the police officers in as much of a simple manner as he could make himself sound. "Do "ou guys know what caused the accident?"
"As far as we could tell, it wasn't drunk driving," the police officer said. "We'll be in touch with you if we have any further questions."
After saying goodbye, the pair started back to the beach along with the other partiers who were being shooed away by the police.
"I saw the front of the car," Michael explained to Wendy in a whisper. "It was already burned and scorched up before the fire even started."
"And it's not a coincidence that It happens at the same time that you're attacked by that screeching noise, too," she added.
"Those burning marks remind me of the pole from my neighbor's fire." Michael looked around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear him. "I think both those things were sabotage."
"But why would somebody want to do all this on a count of you?" she pondered.
"They're nuts obviously and they haven't left me alone like we had hoped." Paranoia was crawling from all directions onto Michael's nerves, and he looked to the people walking around them as they reached the beach and everyone made their way back towards the condo. He thought maybe the culprit, or culprits would pop out of nowhere, and he would recognize them instantly.
"So that means I'm still in trouble."
When some things are undeniably true, we don't want it to be so. We want to go into our fantasies, or deny these facts that are called the harshness of reality; that things turn bad and difficult, but we can't forget the good things that are real as well.
- Michael Mules, Journal Entry
To Be Continued