Memories Past, Futures Forgotten
Chapter One: Rising to the Top
Alas! you generations of men!
Even while you live you are next to nothing!
Has any man won for himself
More than the shadow of happiness,
A shadow that swiftly fades away?
Oedipus, now as I look on you,
See your ruin, how can I say that
Mortal man can be happy
-Oedipus the King: Sophocles
- James Bond was no better at what he did than Shannon was at what she did. Well, except for the occasional midnight chase. He was probably better at that. -
Shannon had been living in Covington for almost twenty years now, and was currently one of the least recognizable at the grocery store by far. Except by her co-workers, that is. She was the head of the security and 'boss' to almost everyone at the Walker Park Reserve.
She looked up warily as Elliot Garner entered her office. He was a small kid, only 5'7 and couldn't have weighed anymore than Shannon herself even though he was at least 20, probably 25 years old. She knew the instant he stepped in what he was there about. She had been hearing complaints for weeks about sounds in the walled area of the park.
"Elliot, whatever brings you to this neck of the woods?" she said, looking over a few of the new job applications. She knew several of the employees would be dropping their shifts, and inevitably the park, soon because of those noises.
"I wanted to report some strange-" he began.
"El, I'm telling you now, I don't want to hear the words 'noise' and 'woods' coming out of your mouth." She cut him off warningly.
"Okay, I heard sounds coming from the forest that didn't sound like squirrels." He complied childishly.
"Damn it, Elliot, not you too. I told you I didn't want to hear any bull about noises from the woods. I get enough of that crap from the night shifts. Please don't join the ranks of those wusses." She said moving the papers out of her way and giving Elliot her full attention.
"But I'm telling you Blakely, there's something freaky in there. I heard it." He argued.
"Oh yeah? And what exactly did it sound like?" she said, humoring him slightly.
Elliot did a poor imitation of the sound he swore he'd heard.
"It sounds like a dying cow." Shannon stated blankly.
"Well, there you go. Cows aren't native to these woods." Elliot reasoned quite pointlessly.
"Ai…Elliot, cows aren't native to any woods." She pointed out.
"Exactly."
Shannon shook her head at the hopeless kid. "You're not switching shifts with anyone and I know you don't want my shift as it's one of the late shifts. Get. Over. It."
"But what if it's carnivorous?" he tried to reason.
"There's a ten foot wall in between you and the woods. That'd have to be one tall carnivorous dying cow."
Somehow Shannon's words didn't comfort Elliot but he walked out never the less, and more importantly with the same schedule he'd walked in with.
Kevin Lupinski smiled as he walked into Shannon's office. He knew why Elliot Garner had visited her on this lovely day.
"Good morning, Ms. Blakely." He joked.
"Good afternoon, you mean, Mr. Lupinski." She joked back.
"So the boys runnin' the late shifts are chickening out again?" he asked knowingly.
"Of course. Every time we get a new batch. They think something's 'in the woods'. They've read too many Stephen King novels in my opinion." She informed, rolling her eyes. Kevin laughed.
"You were just as interested in the other side of the wall when you first came here too."
"You encouraged it." Shannon defended.
"I only stated that no one really knows what's on the other side."
"And supplied a few interesting theories, if memory serves me. Though we both know it's probably a bunch of trees with roaming wildlife. They're probably doing a hundred-year experiment on natural selection." She stated with a wave of her hand.
"Oh, really? Is that what it is? That's not something I would've guessed." Kevin said, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah? What would you have guessed?" she challenged.
"I don't think you really need to know." He answered nonchalantly.
Shannon paused, examining the slightly older man carefully. "Is there something you know about this place that I don't?" she queried. Kevin outright laughed.
"Well, there's a story that people live in there, surviving in the wilderness as a community of their own, as civilized as any of ours." He said, using the mysterious tone he used for the tales he enjoyed telling Shannon and the little girl who visited her on occasion. Well, not really all that little, as Kevin suspected she was the same age as Shannon, but still, she was younger than him. They were the only people he told all the speculations people came up with, so not to rise suspicion in anyone willing to venture into the woods.
"Uh-huh. I think I liked the werewolf idea from a few years back better. That one's kinda… out there. I mean, who in there right mind would live in the middle of that forest? And never venture out?" she said skeptically.
"I don't make up the stories, I just tell them." Kevin admitted in mock supplication.
"Well, you need to go back and tell who ever told you that to get a better story." She said with a disappointed sigh.
"I'll do that if I ever see them again. You hungry?" he responded.
"Starved, actually." Shannon admitted.
"Do you wanna go catch lunch early? I was thinking maybe you could fix my CV radio on the way back. Someone's been messing with it again when they were giving tours, I think."
"Sure. But I won't promise I can always fix that damn radio."
Shannon hit her palm hard against the horn of her SUV. The traffic in Covington had, apparently, never learned to yield as the freeway was backed up two exits before Shannon's. Her shift started in ten minutes and it was fifteen minutes to the park off her exit, the one with all the traffic blocking it. After about six minutes of delay, the cars started to inch forward and eventually move out of the way enough for Shannon to drive down the outside line of the highway and to her exit, from which she sped like a bat out of Hell to get to her work.
As she pulled through the gates she saw the young man she was relieving and waved him good night. He exited and she got out of the car to close the gates as their car left. Getting back in her car she turned on the radio, some old station, and drove around to make her nightly round.
It had only been a year before she'd arrived that they'd began giving tours of the park of the places not restricted by walls and the event had turned out to be quite profitable in time. They didn't start charging for tours until after the fourth year, and by then Shannon was already a volunteer. She took the job permanently two years later, when she was nineteen. Ever since the tours began the occasional kid would stray into the park and try to jump the fences or simply hang out at a picnic area smoking and drinking.
Shannon smiled as an old Billy Joel song, Piano Man, came on and drowned out the rustling of the trees outside the car. If she didn't know any better, she'd say the boys were making up the noises. As long as she'd worked there, she'd never heard any.
He says, "Son, can you play me a melody?
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes"
Her lips moved unconsciously in tune with the words and she was completely safe in her car, she felt. Even if there was something in the woods… The thought startled Shannon as it crossed her mind. Not that there might be something in the woods, but that she was actually being serious when she entertained the thought. She shook away the notion and continued enjoying the song.
And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone
"What the-?" She began, slamming on her brakes. She could have sworn she just saw two thin figures run across the road and to the wall that was off limits to everyone.
Making sense of what she'd seen, she pulled over where she'd seen the figures and, sure enough, the wall was shaking slightly as though someone had just scaled it as quickly as possible. "Why are they always on my clock?" she mumbled as she crawled out of the car with her cell phone, because no one was there to respond on the CV, and flashlight.
Jumping on the back bumper she found she had parked close enough to the fence that she could stand on top of the car and jump over. From the top of the vehicle, without jumping over she could see the two assailants – a boy and a girl, in their late teens and dressed in jeans and white t-shirts.
This was going to be an easy chase. Or at least, that's what she thought…
A/N: I wanted this to be longer, but hey, what can you do, right? 'The Village' may be appearing in the next chapter, so do stick around. Actually, he'll be appearing in Shannon's flashbacks and he's very amicable in this story.
For those of you wondering, the 'little girl' Kevin is referring to is just one of Shannon's best friends, no one extremely central to the plot. Oh, and the little quote after the Sophocles excerpt is just a little fun thing to read and it gives a hint about the chapter. And if you read the Sophocles quote, try to act as if someone is talking to the elders of the village.