Category: Writers Block
At this development, Mark began to laugh.
"did you see him?" he asked the woman as he pulled out into traffic, a little to enthusiastically, thanks to his laughter, causing the two-dozen eggs in the trunk to go flying out of the grocery bag in which they had been placed, and to smash all through the inside of the trunk, "d-d-d-did you s-s-s-see?"
"It's your friendly neighborhood garbage man," Alison said, and began to laugh herself.
This caused Mark to laugh even harder, for a picture had sneaked into his head of King Shithead in a costume, and mask, weaving his way through the darkened streets of some comic book city, or other, and doing his best to find that all important can of beer, or bottle of cheap whiskey, whilst sporting a tell-tale odor of trash, which he used to advertise his presence, and warn all sober people to stay out of his way. Tears squirted from the corners of his eyes, and he pulled the Fury over to the curb, and howled, pounding his fists against his legs.
After he had calmed down a little, he asked her where she lived, and if the idiot he had just gotten the best of was the one she lived with. As it turned out, she didn't live with King Shithead, but unfortunately, he knew where she lived, and had, thanks to that, become a regular problem for her.
From that night on, Mark, and Alison had been inseparable. A couple days after their first meeting, he asked her if she wanted to move in with him, but just as room mates. She agreed, but it wasn't that long before they were together as a couple.
Over the next year, she told him everything, including the fact that her Father regularly used her to obtain money for him, although she didn't say how, and Mark didn't press the issue.
Then, three months ago, the news had come about the closure of the garage in which Mark had been working, and at the same time, King Shithead, as Mark would always call Carl Heartley, had begun causing trouble. He had begun by discovering where they lived, and coming around at various times, and banging on the door, and yelling fit to wake the dead, at least until Mark chased him off with a wrench. He then began making harassing phone calls in the middle of the night, at least until Mark sought him out in one of his favorite bars, and informed him that if there was so much as one more call from him, he would finish up in jail.
"And there's no beer in there," he finished, "so if you want to keep wetting your goddamn whistle, and getting plastered out of your mind, you'll stop calling us. Alison does not, and I repeat does not want to hear from you."
The trouble grew worse shortly before the two of them had decided that Boston had no future for them. They had awakened one night to the smell of smoke, and discovered that King Shithead had attempted to burn them alive.
As a result, Mark began making calls to various places in New England, attempting to find him, and Alison a new place to live, and as it turned out, he found one almost right away. Final arrangements for the move had been made the previous week, and the previous day, Mark turned in the keys to the house, and had begun the actual move, which had ended with Alison being awakened in the middle of the night, in a strange house, in a strange town, with one of her deluxe skull-pounders. Said skull pounders seemed to be completely unaffected by any type of pain killer, unless they wanted to be, and more often than not, they decided they didn't, but this wasn't to be one of those times. After taking a couple of pills from a bottle she had marked "Emergency Supplies," the pain appeared to lessen.
"I wonder if she's hooked on that shit yet," Mark thought, "If she is, though, addiction's just another side effect." He wondered, not for the first time, what the hell King Shithead had done to her when she was younger, but now, as at all the other times, he didn't ask. When she was ready, she would tell him.
"Hun," Alison said, breaking the silence, "what's the temperature outside. It seems a little hot."
Mark got up from the table, went into what was presumably the living room, opened one of the suitcases, got out a portable radio, came back to the kitchen, plugged it in, and began searching through the local stations, both on the A.M., and F.M. bands. On the A.M. band, he got nothing but the usual night time radio traffic jam of stations stepping all over each other like overeager fans at a Metallica concert. On the F.M. band, however, he found what appeared to be a local rock, and roll station.
After The Eagles finished telling everyone currently awake in the Castle Rock area that there was "A New Kid In Town," a D.J., who sounded as if he were wishing he were anywhere but where he was, began, with a sort of sadistic joy, telling his listening audience, that temperatures were currently in the mid 70s, and were expected to climb into the low, to mid 90s by mid afternoon. The relative humidity accompanying these hot temperatures was, according to Mr. D.J., supposed to be somewhere in the range of 80, to 90 percent. After that, as if to add to the torture he had begun inflicting on his listeners with the weather forecast, he decided, for some reason known only to tired, cranky D.J.s, that the next song he would play, contained no actual singing. Instead, the so-called artist began screaming into the microphone, accompanied by guitar riffs, that sounded as if they had been composed by someone with a bad temper, worse taste, and no talent.
"I hope the movers get here early," Alison said, as Mark switched the radio off, "sounds like we're really going to need those air conditioners."
"So do I," Mark replied, "but I wish now that I'd bought a gun of some sort."
"Why?" Alison asked with some surprise.
"So I can seek out the, um, artist who did that song I shut off, and eliminate him from the human race," answered Mark.
"Are you sure he, or she's even human," Alison asked, "whoever they were, they sounded more like some sort of screaming monster."
"In that case," Mark said with a smile, "I guess bullets wouldn't have any effect."
"Probably not," Alison agreed.
"Now, there's an original horror movie idea," Mark said as he put an arm around Alison's shoulders, "Night of the Screaming, shrieking, nonartist."
As Mark was talking to Alison inside the house, something moved outside. If anyone had been on the old Camber property at the time, they would have seen only a pair of eyes, that glowed with murderous intent. From somewhere in the night, a low growl shook the very air.
Mark was cleaning up the breakfast dishes, said job consisted of him throwing two paper plates into a garbage bag, and Alison was seated at the portable picnic table they were using as a temporary all-purpose table until the movers arrived, when two large trucks pulled into the dooryard.
"Did we have enough furniture to need two trucks?" Alison asked.
"Not that I know of," answered Mark, "I think I might need to ask someone what the second truck is doing here."
As it turned out, he didn't have to. While the first truck pulled up as close to the house as it could, the second pulled into the old barn. Mark watched as the driver of the second truck, and his passenger got out, and began to unload piece, after piece of automobile repair equipment.
"wo," he said, opening the door, "what's all that doing here?"
"Your old boss in Boston wanted you to have this stuff, Mr. Rimer," replied the second truck's driver, "he said that you were the best person to give it to. He also said he was sorry for fucking up your job, and that he hopes this will make up for it."
The next two, or so hours were spent arranging the furniture in the various rooms of the house, and the equipment in the barn.