PROLOGUE

Adam Lambert exhaled a weary sigh as he tossed the monkey wrench to the dirt, followed closely by the car jack. “I knew something like this would happen,” he muttered as the spare tire thudded against the ground.

“Come on, Adam. This is all part of the experience,” Connie said through the open window of their Honda, her tone light despite the sweltering heat.

“It’s hot as fresh dog shit, Mom. Turn the engine back on,” Marcie grumbled from the back seat.

“Marcie, watch your mouth,” Adam shot back, unable to suppress a short laugh.

“It’s true, though,” Marcie sighed, leaning her head against the seat in exasperation.

“Just hang tight. We’ll be out of here soon.” Adam positioned the jack under the car and started cranking it up, sweat dripping down his temple in the unforgiving New Mexico sun.

“Adam, maybe it’s the heat, but I don’t feel very good,” Connie said, her voice tight and strained. Adam barely registered her words; a strange sensation had begun to gnaw at him too.

Within moments, he had the car lifted, and the blown tire was off. When he threw it aside, he blinked in surprise it flew much farther than expected. He reached for the spare and slid it into place, pausing as he half-tightened the first bolt. His eyes flicked back to the old tire that by his estimation was thirty feet from the car, a smirk forming. Impressive, he thought.

As he twisted the second bolt with the wrench, a sudden, loud crack shattered the air. The bolt exploded, and Adam fell backward onto his ass, momentarily startled.

“What was that?” Connie’s voice reached him, sounding distorted, like a radio signal breaking up.

“I don’t know... The bolt just burst,” Adam replied, staring at the damaged spare in disbelief. A hole gaped in the rim where the wrench had torn through.

Marcie leaned out the window, eyes wide with confusion.

Pushing himself up, Adam rushed to the driver’s side, expecting to see Connie’s shared shock. But when he looked at her, the world seemed to tilt. Her skin was slipping, melting like candle wax.

“Connie!” he shouted, panic tightening his chest. He dashed around the car, dust flying as he skidded to her side. His breath caught in his chest, her arm, once draped out the window, now lay limp on the dirt, stretched and warped like warm taffy.

Marcie’s eyes darted to her father, reading the horror in his face. A shiver of dread passed through her. She glanced at her hands, where tiny, flickering flames danced across her fingertips. Her scream pierced the thick air, and in an instant, her body erupted into a searing blaze.

Adam watched, frozen, as Marcie stumbled away from the car before collapsing, rolling in futile attempts to douse the flames. Her screams faded, replaced by a silence that echoed in his ears.

Connie’s voice, a feeble, desperate whisper, reached him. “Help... me...”

How? The question circled in his mind, paralyzing him. With a roar of frustration, he slammed his palm against the hood, leaving a crater-like dent. His eyes locked on Marcie’s lifeless, smoldering form. He moved toward her and dropped to his knees, the heat inexplicably absent as he cradled her head against his chest. As the flames licked his shirt, he felt nothing, only the hollow ache of a world upended.

IN 2028 THE FRACKSTONE GROUP BROKE GROUND IN TIERRA AMARILLO, NEW MEXICO.

IN 2033 THEY FOUND THE UNEXPECTED.

IN 2037 THE WALL BETWEEN MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES BECOMES AN AFTERTHOUGHT.

WITH THE INABILITY TO STABILIZE THE HOT ZONE THE GOVERNMENT ATTEMPTS TO QUARANTINE THE AREA.

THEY ARE UNSUCCESSFUL.

WITH DETERORATION OF THE ENFORCEMENT OF LAW IN TIERRA AMARILLO, THE CITY IS REFERRED TO AS THE NEW WEST.

THE POLITICAL GOAL SHIFTS AS THE FEDERAL ARMY NOW FOCUSES ON RESTRICTING ANYONE FROM ENTERING. AND GOD FORBID SOMETHING SHOULD MAKE IT OUT...

Chapter 1

The black checker was lifted and moved to the opposite side of the board, neatly capturing the last red piece. Patricia King had just beaten her grandfather for the sixth game in a row. She glanced at her watch—half past nine. The sun had set hours ago, and the weariness of the day settled heavily on her.

“Well, I think that about wraps it up for today,” she said, her voice soft as she looked into her grandfather’s misty eyes.

“Hold on, Missy. What’s the score? Who’s ahead?” His voice was raspy but carried a sweetness that had always been difficult for her to describe.

Patricia met his gaze, the familiar pang of guilt rising in her chest. She had spoken this lie to him many times in recent months. “It’s tied up,” she said, the words slipping out easily.

For a moment, her grandfather studied her with a look that suggested he knew the truth. Then, a sly smile crept across his lips. “I think we ought to play one more, don’t ya think? Can't rest on a tie.”

Another glance at her watch told her it was getting late. She had a long day ahead of her, but the gentle pleading in his eyes made it impossible to refuse. Sighing, she reset the board.

Chapter 2

As she drove home, Patricia’s thoughts lingered on her grandfather’s condition. Alzheimer’s was taking him from her piece by piece, and the slow, inevitable mental decline of the only family she had left haunted her.

He had been a strong man in his youth, but life had not been kind. His mother had died giving birth, and his father had taken his own life soon after. His first marriage had ended in heartbreak. After being drafted into World War II, he came home to find his wife gone, unable to withstand the loneliness. The second marriage to Amelia had been no better, though not for lack of love. Darnell Wilson, the local drunk, had recklessly stolen their happiness when he ran a red light, taking Amelia’s life in an instant.

Then there was Patricia, his only granddaughter, a product of rape and raised by a mother who had never stood a chance after the attack. After Patricia’s birth, her mother had been committed, eventually overdosing on painkillers in a desperate end to her own suffering.

Angel’s Arms Convalescence Home had done its best for her grandfather, but Patricia had made a promise to herself: if things didn’t work out with her job in the coming year, she would sacrifice her career, leave it behind and bring him back to her home to care for him, no matter what it cost.

October 15th

You talk in your sleep. Did you know that? Last night it was about the fire again. You never told anyone what really happened in that basement. Don't worry - your secret is safe with me. For now.

I like watching you make coffee in the morning. Two sugars, splash of cream. Always waiting exactly four minutes - watching that timer tick down on your phone like it's some kind of ritual. Like it will keep the memories away. It won't.

You should really fix that bedroom window. The one that sticks when it rains. Sometimes it opens on its own at night. Sometimes I have to close it for you.

October 18th

Your mother called again. You always turn your phone face-down when she calls, like you can make her disappear. But we both know the real reason you won't talk to her. Does she still ask about that summer? About what happened to Claire?

The bruise on your shoulder - the one you think you got from bumping into the door frame? That wasn't the door. You thrash a lot in your sleep now. I have to be more careful when I get close.

I left you a gift today. You haven't found it yet. It's in that shoe box you never open, the one shoved under your bed. The one with the photos you pretend don't exist. I put it right next to them.

October 23rd

I dug up your old diary today. The real one. Six feet deep, right next to Whiskers. Remember how you told everyone he ran away? Such a convincing little liar you were.

Still are.

You wrote about the shadows you used to see in your closet. The ones that moved when you were alone. Smart girl - you knew they were real. You just stopped looking.

We've met before, you know. Many times. You were too young to remember the first time. I made sure of that.

October 24th - 3:17 AM

You're sleeping now. Peaceful, finally. The pills help, don't they? But they can't keep me out.

I'm sitting in that chair in the corner of your room. The one that belonged to your grandmother. Did you know she died in it? The nursing home lied about that too.

I should leave. The sun will be up soon. But first, I need you to understand something: I'm not writing these words to scare you. I'm writing them because soon you'll become exactly like me. It's already starting. Haven't you noticed the gaps in your memory? The hours you can't account for?

Look at your hands when you wake up. Really look at them. That's not dirt under your fingernails.

Soon you won't need to sleep at all.

“Do you ever speak to Jeff?”

Jeff, eugh. What’s there to say about Jeff? Well, first off, I hate him. I’m two-faced, in a British sort of way, and I make friends easily, but in truth I judge people too harshly. Getting my approval isn’t easy. I know it’s bad form but also, in a British sort of way, I am proud and traditional and refuse to change; even to fix one of my biggest flaws.

Jeff joined the group much later than I. He walked into our little safe circle looking dishevelled with a sad, sort of puppy dog look. The nurturers among us immediately fell for him. He was relatively handsome, but I found everything to be somewhat rehearsed. For one thing, having a five o’clock shadow and wearing a loose t-shirt doesn’t make for an alcoholic.

His skin was too perfect, his eyes were bright and wide, he smelled decent, and it took him almost no time to engage in the program. Myself, I was able to hide most of it with careful curation, but the droop in my right eye gave things away. He is too clean. He spends all his time talking to women and seems to have a permanent gaggle following him around. They’re fluttering around him now in the corner, no doubt.

I came out for a smoke break. I can only take so much of being around that many people before I start to spiral and need to step out. I guess the only time I was ever confident in a large group was when I was drunk. The time it takes my social clock to run out drastically falls when Jeff shows up.

“You’re a million miles away. Should I be worried?”

“Huh?” I said, coming around from my stupor. “Oh, sure. I have talked to him.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Should I be worried about you? You’ve been a bit on edge recently.”

“Nah, I am golden. What were you going to say about Jeff?”

“After his relapse a few weeks ago, he has really turned it around. It’s quite impressive really…”

Sandy kept talking, but I knew I had lost her trail immediately. I can’t get this guy out of my head. Just as it seemed that the attention he was getting had begun to die down, he came to the session looking almost identical to the day that he joined. Even his hair was tousled the same way, like he had used something to style it that way. Then a week later, he was back and calling it a momentary lapse in judgement.

I am so sick of this. I don’t believe any of it. He is so obviously trying to vie for attention. I know I can get obsessive, and I know I should probably ignore the compulsion to take this any farther than I already have but something has already snapped in my head. I know that I am going to follow him. I have to.

After the session and after a little small talk, Jeff decides to leave behind his gaggle, declaring that he ‘has to be up for a big meeting tomorrow’. I get into my little red Fiesta and tap her on the dashboard.

“We’re gonna go check him out, girly. Play nice now, ya hear?”

She responds by starting first time; it must be fate. I make sure to leave before he can get to his car. I always park around the corner from the centre, as I don’t want people to know my personal details. It’s probably true that most people who have trust issues have either been hurt or have something to hide. In my case, it’s probably both.

Walking to my car, I start to plan out the steps in my head. Tonight is just to check out where he lives, or where he hangs out. I’ll keep my distance and observe for now. By instinct I reach to the glove box and when I open it to see it empty, void of alcohol, I shake my head and try to refocus myself.

“Come on. Don’t do this, you know it won’t end we—”

Jeff’s car interrupts my thought as it pulls out of the lot and turns away, onto the street. I close the box, strap in, and set my hands to ten and two. I follow behind, but at a distance, taking no risks this early on. I lose some distance at the lights but keep on him halfway across town. I turn my heating on, and Girly does her best, but she is old and the cold night-air drifting in from some unseen hole bites at my feet.

He turns off the street to the backside of a building I don’t recognise. I park up a short distance away and turn my keys, shutting the car down and going into sleuth mode. He steps out of his car and checks himself out in the mirror, smoothing his hair into place and rubbing something into his wrists.

“Where the hell are you going?”

This wasn’t his home, that’s for certain. Has to get up early tomorrow, hm? I watch him get out of his car, then perform a quick scouting look before heading down a dark passageway and through a door. Not wanting to get out of my car, I decide to check out the front of the building by driving around, but as I do, I see a man rolling out a metal keg and placing it behind a dumpster.

“A keg?” I shake my head. “No freaking way. Is this a bar?”

Incredulous and filled with an unreasonable anger, I grab my phone and get out of my Fiesta.

“Wait here, Girly.” I say, patting her roof. As soon as I step out, I can hear the gentle thump thump thump of bass that tells me it’s a lively joint. I traipse over to the back of the building, doing my best to take soothing breaths, but each step slams to the stone in time with the bass fuelling my rage.

I reach the door and am hit in the face by the acrid tang of old beer pooling near the empty kegs and it stops me in my tracks. I am frozen in fear. What am I thinking? I can’t go in there, that would be it for me. This whole idea is stupid. I move to leave but as soon as I turn away; the fury left in me melts into that obnoxious obsessive voice and I am frozen again, caught between two ideas.

I settle for a compromise and walk away from the smell to Jeff’s car. Eugh, Jeff. Even his car is too nice. I lean against the driver-door, facing the door down the dark passageway I saw him go through earlier. My laboured breathing lets out my fury in short, puffy clouds into the cold air of the evening. Time passes and my hands grow cold. I alternate between blowing on them, rubbing them together, and squirreling them away in deep pockets.

The door opens once as a false alarm, when two guys leave. The one man had his arm around the waist of the other, but he quickly shrinks it away as he notices me. They keep their heads down as they go. What was that about? A gay bar? Then why does he spend all his time flirting with the women?

I am contemplating leaving, realising I am delving into things I have no business knowing, but torn between that, the betrayal of trust, and my obsessive impulses driving me to probe further. I am about to retreat when the door opens and stood in the passageway is Jeff.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He calls out, stomping over to me.

“Me? What the hell are you doing here, Mister Momentary Lapse?”

“You followed me? What are you, some kind of stalker?”

“You know there are other, non-alcohol driven ways to pick up guys?”

I pull out my flip phone.

“What is this? Are you going to take a picture? Did someone hire you?”

“Hire me? What are you talking about? This doesn’t even take pictures, it’s just some crumby burner phone I use for meetings.”

“So, what is this? Are you obsessed? Stalking?”

“You?!” I fake a laugh. “You’re not my type.”

His demeanour changes and he slumps his shoulders and moves to lean against his car with that sad puppy dog look in his eyes again.

“So, who else knows?”

“Nobody. I just knew there was something off about you.” I turn away from him to walk towards my car. “I am going to tell Jackson, though. Not about the gay-part, I couldn’t give a damn, but he should know if someone is trying to cheat the program. It’ll be better that way.”

I feel a touch of sympathy for his situation and hear him shift behind me. “You know, you don’t need to lie to anyone here about th—” I turn back to see Jeff, a calm empty expression on his face as he swings some kind of piping in a wide arch towards my head. There is no time to realise what happened, or even feel the impact. Everything just… goes black.

It's true. I am a patchwork of everyone I've ever loved. I am green in some places, blue in others. I got my insecurities from A, my first love; my self-doubt and self-loathing from F, my second. From my third, I received a perpetual sadness, and from my fourth, a burning rage that will protect me from love for at least 3-6 years. But I'm also sunny-yellow with the joy and glee that my mother gave me; happy and calm thanks to my father's teal. I am red because of S my best friend who is now just a distant memory, floating somewhere at the back of my mind. And I am purple because of M, whose free spirit and sparkling ambition I yearn to embody. I am pieces of all those I have loved, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The day I found an ounce of self-respect, something that had been lost, sequestered in the junk drawer of my soul, was when I knew it was time to be free from my dependency.

This year I vow to shed my lifelong addiction to Thanksgiving leftovers. I can do it by myself and without a prolonged delay. So, on November 29th, I’m gonna quit…cold turkey.

The day I found an expiration date (written in flat moles) on my head when my male pattern baldness revealed it, I demanded to know why they didn't tell me. My parents with their dreadful secret! My parents had a beautiful baby with an expiration date! And on his head! No wonder they kept my hair long as a kid.

Perhaps a comb-over is prudent.

They say that the best thing to happen to you in life hasn't happened yet. I don't have a retirement plan. Did you know that oysters are still alive when you eat them? I cut the woman in line, smiled grimly at her, and told her to keep my change, because nothing I have adds up anyway.

I write and words come out. I don't have a rhyme, or reason to any of this. Nietzsche said, "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane..."

"...by those who could not hear the music." No one hears it but me - a lone, sad melody. I'm like one of those dogs that responds to a whistle no human can hear. I wonder if in a parallel universe, I'm famous, and this life I'm living on earth is a kind of reprieve from that mayhem.

Be grateful, they say.

Be humble, they say.

I try to be a better person, every day. I recently started taking Prozac. I'm like that Simpsons episode, you know how they're always predicting the future. The grandfather takes the orange pills and is sedated. He knows this. It's the joke, the entire point of the moment. But let me tell you something - those orange pills? They keep me from rocketing into the atmosphere, or digging a hole underground that fits my body perfectly.

I drove too fast on the highway, passed a car that had been going 40 in the fast lane. It's a woman, she's my age. Applying mascara, some kind of bottle in between her legs. A balancing act, deserving of praise. I only had respect, and drove away.

I knew a girl with anorexia so bad that she gave herself Osteoporosis. When I looked that up to spell check it, "Ozempic" came up instead. How ironic. I'm grateful people are getting the help they need with that medicine. But I'm also pretty certain that they are hearing the music of the masses, screaming to be skinny, everyone hearing it. Everyone slowly dying from the message.

I'll tell you something: read a book. Go the park and watch the geese. Throw bread crumbs at them and cast a spell, make up a song and sing at the top of your lungs.

And just maybe, that will trigger something, the best day of your life happening right before your eyes, a song that only you can hear and appreciate because you sat down and wrote the damn thing, a writer that sings and expects nothing.