Category: Writers Block
Chapter 1.
Mark, and Alison.
As afternoon was turning to early evening, a perfectly preserved 1958 Plymouth Fury turned onto Town Rode Number Three on the outskirts of Castle Rock, Maine. It passed the open fields, the ruins of one, or two houses, and finally turned into the Dooryard of what once had been a house of some notoriety in town, although the car's occupants knew nothing of this.
The car's engine was cut, and the driver's side door opened, and the driver, a young man named Mark Rimer, emerged. He walked to the passenger side, opened the door, reached in, and helped his girlfriend, Alison Heartley, out.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" Alison asked, looking around at the some what over grown yard, and the rather large barn at the head of the Dooryard.
"Yep," Mark replied, "Seven Oaks Farm. At least I think this is it. It's the only place that even looks like it could have been a farm at one time."
"I still can't believe we got it so cheep," Alison said.
"Neither can I," Mark answered, "but in our situation, you've got to take what you can get. After all, we couldn't stay in Boston. You know, your shithead Dad?"
"Don't remind me," Alison said.
Mark, and Alison walked to the porch, and Mark produced a key, unlocked the front door, and held it for Alison.
"Lady's first," he said with a smile.
"You'd better be careful," Alison joked, "some idiot from a radical feminist organization might sue you for being too much of a gentleman."
"They wouldn't dare," Mark mock-growled, "I'd drive them crazy by holding every door in town open for them. Then where would they be?"
After they had made a cursory examination of the living room, or what ever they called it in Maine, they returned to the car, and brought in their supply of lawn furniture, wondering as they did, where the movers were.
After a dinner of fast food sandwiches, Mark returned to the car, and brought in a large air mattress, hoping as he did that the power company had turned on the electricity. As it turned out, they had, and the air mattress was inflated in short order.
Mark awoke a few hours later to find that Alison was gone. He rose from the air mattress, and went into the kitchen, where he found her seated at the table.
"What is it?" he asked quietly.
"My damn head's hurting again," Alison replied.
"Oh, shit," Mark said softly, "I sort of expected it, though. After all, how likely is it that you could avoid a headache when you just spent most of a day watching the sun glaring off some car's back deck?"
"Just once," Alison said, almost crying, "I wish the headaches would go, and bother someone else."
"If they ever decided to," Mark said, "I could name at least two people they could target."
"Two?" Alison inquired.
"Yeah," answered Mark, "one of them would only happen to be your no good, drunken, abusive Dad."
"And who's the other?" Alison asked.
"Well," Mark admitted, "I guess there's only one, but there would be two if the other one wasn't currently a permanent resident of the Graveyard Apartments."."
Nearly a year before Mark had met her, Alison had been raped by the man she was then dating. For a time, while they were still living in Boston, they had been awakened at odd hours of the night by the idiot calling them, and making crude remarks, that was until Mark informed him that his place of residence was known, and that he would receive the worst ass kicking of his life if he called so much as one more time. Unfortunately, Mark's warning went unheeded, and the calls had continued, at least until Mark made good on his promise. He never got to put the guy in the hospital, though. when he arrived at the dump the raping sun of a bitch called home, he found the police there, thanks to a call from one of the neighbors, and the resident asshole in hand cuffs.
Mark only found out later that the idiot in question had been threatening his neighbors with arson, and one of them had finally had enough of his shit, and decided to get him off the streets for a while. Said while didn't last that long, however, for the threatening, raping, harassing fuck got himself beaten to death in the prison shower less than a week after he first found himself on the inside of the "Stone Hotel."
Mark, however, didn't mention the offending party by name, so as not to up set Alison. The way he looked at it, she was already in enough physical pain. She didn't need to be reminded of that part of her life on top of that. So let her think it was his crazy Mother he was talking about.
Mark had been born in a small town in Pennsylvania to John, and Amanda Rimer, not that his Father had stayed around that long after conceiving him. He, John Rimer had taken off before he had even discovered that Amanda was pregnant, which was unfortunate for Mark, for Amanda Rimer was as insane as they come, although her insanity took the form of supposed worship of God, and most of what God told her to do involved abusing Mark in every way possible.
Shortly after his fifteenth birthday, rather than kill her, and finish up in prison, Mark ran away from home, finishing up in a small Ohio town, where he got a job at a local gas station as a car washer.
It was during those first months without his Mother, that he discovered that he had a knack for mechanical things in general, and anything that moved on wheels, and had an engine in particular. He began experimenting with the old junkers in the lot across from the gas station during his off time, and soon got very good at repairing automobiles, even some that others said would never run again.
In fact, that was how he had come by the first car he actually owned. It wasn't much to look at. It had started life as an elderly Dodge Charger, vintage 1975, but by the time Mark was through with it, it was more of a Dodge Mut than anything else. Any part he could get to fit onto, or into it, no matter what make, or model of car it had originally come from, was there. Sure, it wasn't much to look at, but the thing purred like a kitten by the time Mark had finished making it what it became.
It was shortly after he began work on his car, that the Ohio state police showed up at his door, thanks to a report given them by some well meaning, but unnecessarily inquisitive member of the local community, that an under age kit was working at the local filling station. At first, Mark thought he was screwed, and that he would be sent back to his Mother, but as it turned out, the Ohio state police had made contact with the police in Mark's old home town, and had discovered that Amanda Rimer was not only as mad as a hatter, but abusive as well. Mark was told that someone from the department would be around once a week to check on him until he turned eighteen, but that was all.
Shortly after his seventeenth birthday, however, his Mother located him. He had been on his way to work, driving what he called "The Mongrel," when he spotted her standing in the gas station's parking lot. Rather than pulling into the lot, and confronting her right there, as she was more than likely to spray him with gas from one of the self service pumps, and set him on fire as punishment for his supposed sins in the eyes of God, he drove past, stopped at the end of the block, wrote a hurried note to his employer, sealed it in an envelope, located a drop box, stopped at a phone booth, informed the local police as to why he was leaving, and said good-bye to Ohio forever.
Damn! What a crazy bitch! This story is getting off to a good start. I like the way you build the characters up starting with their pasts. I try to do that as well, but I always get lost somewhere along the way.
You've got me hooked. I definitly like the way that this is starting out.