This is an attempt for National Novel Writing Month. It is not perfect. It's probably not even especially good yet. Xen is not going back to revise anything until he is completely done. So, deal with it.
Jasmine wrote a quick note on the refrigerator, telling her parents that she wouldn't be home for dinner but failing to explain why. Then she grabbed her purse and sat on the front porch until Kathleen appeared. She tried to calm herself and mentally account for the lost time, but she found this impossible. She didn't want to be in the house right now, anxious that there would be some black suited creep hiding behind ever door.
She faked composure well enough once in Kathleen's car thanks to starring roles in a few high school plays. In fact, she almost managed to put the reason behind her egress out of her mind, until her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was not Chrys, as she found herself hoping, but instead her mother, who wanted to know who she was with and when she would be home.
"Mother, really, I'm in college. I shouldn't have a curfew," she argued.
"Adults can tell one another where they are going and when they are coming home."
"Fine, I'm going to New Paltz. I'll be back tonight. Not too late," she said then, as an afterthought, added, "Don't... um. I thought I saw some weird guys skulking around when I left, so... just don't answer the door unless you know the person, please?"
"Are you lecturing me about responsibility?" her mother said, voice tinged with humor.
"I'm in the car with someone," Jasmine answered. "I don't want to be rude. Bye!" She hung up and slouched, slightly in her seat. Where was her boring vacation?
"What guys?" Kathleen asked, her voice slightly nasal.
"Oh, just some weird guys in black suits."
Kathleen nodded for a moment, as though accepting this. "Like ninjas?"
"No, no, more like insurance salesmen."
"I didn't see them, so I thought they might be ninjas," Kathleen repeated.
They listened to the radio for ten minutes, Kathleen switching the stations in the middle of songs. "Why're we going to New Paltz?"
"Oh, my sister is there and... it just seemed better than staying in Pine Bush." Jasmine flipped down the visor to check her complexion. She felt like she was all clamminess, but the mirror revealed, at worse, a young woman who would be getting premature wrinkles if she didn't start looking less anxious. "Have you ever seen anything weird in Pine Bush?"
"What?" Kathleen said, startled. "No, about the weirdest thing going there is when I saw Billy Jenkins holding hands with Franklin Ray."
Jasmine laughed, not because she found this funny (was it because of the not-at-all secret fact that the two were barely closeted or because of Kathleen's potential miscegenation?) but simply because she knew that was what etiquette demanded of her in the situation.
When they finally arrived in New Paltz, Jasmine turned into a bundle of raw nerves. All of Kathleen's actions seemed to become laconic as she stared out the window at the passers-by or noted the cute shops she wanted to go into. Jasmine was grateful for the ride and didn't wish to offend the only person who had so far made time to be around her, but she also had loftier goals than haggling over hippy skirts. At the same time, she couldn't very well tell this slightly grating associate that she needed to get to her sister before bizarre government agents could abduct her for clandestine interrogation.
This didn't mean that she couldn't tell some version of the truth, however, and gain Kathleen's compliance. "I was kind of hoping that we could find my sister first and then all get dinner together," Jasmine said. When Kathleen still looked unconvinced, she added, "My treat."
"Sounds like a plan," Kathleen said brightly. "Where is she?"
This was a good question, one Jasmine sought to answer by calling her sister's phone again. And, again, there was no answer. Jasmine knew that this was simply because her sister didn't wish to be bothered while she was with Dylan and reminded herself to tell her parents this when they got home so Chrys would get some second-hand nagging.
As the phone was a dead end, Jasmine tried to visualize where her sister and Dylan would end up in this college town. She doubted they would last long shopping, despite the prevalence of second hand book stores and incense dispensaries. It would have to be fairly cheap and very lazy, like her sister.
A man with dreadlocks sauntered by and Jasmine stopped him. "Where is the nearest coffeehouse?" she asked.
He looked up and the Starbucks sign above their heads. "Dude?"
"No, not the corporate one. Where is the one that would have organic, fair trade, hemp infused, soy chai?"
"Oh, dude. Um." He leaned back a little, all of his dreadlocks moving at their own center of gravity. He pointed down the street. "There. 60 Main or the Muddy Cup."
"Which has comfier sofas?" Jasmine asked.
"Totally Muddy Cup. It's more corporate, though. My band's playing there tonight if you two lovely ladies would like to come," the man said, already reaching into his bag for a flyer.
"I really don't think--" Jasmine began.
"I'd love to," Kathleen said. Jasmine noticed the look on her face, how wide her blue eyes had become in this man's presence. "Do you need any, like, help or anything? Setting up or whatever?"
The man, looking out from beneath his dreadlocks, noticed the look as well. "Yeah, that would actually be really good. You want to come too?" he asked Jasmine.
Kathleen squinted her whole face at Jasmine. "No, no, I'll just go find my sister, I think," she said, watching Kathleen's face return to that of a happy mouse. "You two have fun, I'll catch a ride home with her."
"Oh, really? Well, if you're sure," Kathleen said, too quickly for Jasmine argue if she had wanted to. "So do you have an apartment around here?" she asked the man once Jasmine started to walk away.
In different circumstance, that would have annoyed Jasmine, being so obviously ditched for some guy. But she had only been using Kathleen as a means to this end and had no right to complain. This made things considerably easier, as there would be less she needed to explain to someone who was now a near stranger.
Jasmine wandered through The Muddy Cup, a spacious, double floor café on Main Street. There were groups lounging on various articles of disparate furniture, purple velvet that would get ruined by coffee and tan faux leather that would be better suited to a 70s rumpus room. Tracking by scent would be impossible hear, not simply because the wafting coffee obscured most every other stimuli but that, in their unique hippyishness, half the woman here smelled identical to Chrys. Jasmine finally accosted the barista, describing Chrys and Dylan to the best of her ability.
"Did you see them?" she asked.
"I see a lot of people," the barista replied.
"Including them?"
The woman behind the counter thought about this. Jasmine could tell that she was thinking quite hard as the barista's head began to tilt more and more as she played her mental recording back, as though the answer might tip our of her ear at the right angle. "Yeah, actually, I think so."
"Awesome. Do you have any idea where they went?"
"Oh, no, not at all. Why?"
"I'm her sister, I'm looking for her," Jasmine said, slight irritation creeping into her voice. "It's kind of important.
"You don't look like her sister," the barista replied, scrutinizing Jasmine for the first time.
"I get that a lot, recessive genes. Anyway, if you weren't working, what would you be doing in New Paltz right now?"
"Carnival."
This seemed perfect. "Where?"
"Hasbrouck Park. Like, just over there. Cut across the parking lot, go up the hill, and there you are."
Jasmine rushed out without thanking the woman. She ran at full speed, her legs pumping with the certainty of her destination. When she eclipsed the hill, she saw the lights rise into her sight, whites and reds and greens, a foreign encampment landed in this park. Jasmine rushed through, ignoring the catcalls of the carnies who wanted her to try her luck at losing money in their booths.
Jasmine could practically feel Chrys around, but she couldn't see her. She scanned each of the rides until she came to the ferris wheel. At the top, snuggling against Dylan, she saw the fluff of Chrys's hair. She stationed herself at the exit.
Chrys's already wide eyes went somehow wider at the sight of her sister. "Did the 'rents seriously send you here to retrieve me? Or are you doing this out of the kindness of your sisterly heart?" Chrys accused.
"Neither. Did anyone weird talk to you today?" Jasmine asked.
"You."
"Be serious!" Jasmine said.
"No, no one weird talked to me today. You didn't seriously come all this way to ask me that, did you?" Chrys said, hands on her hips.
"I tried calling but you have your phone off," Jasmine replied, catching the momentary guilt on Chrys's face.
"Yeah, I've been having trouble with my phone lately."
"Should I leave you two to talk this out?" Dylan interjected.
Both answered no at the same moment, then Chrys looked her accusation at her sister.
"Okay, I give," Chrys said. "What's up?"
"I need you to come home with me, now. Please?"
"Not a chance, Jazz, I'm having fun. Tell me why."
Jasmine began to speak, but then looked at the crowds wandering around. "Could we go somewhere a little more private, maybe?"
Chrys looked to Dylan, who answered, "I have an apartment off Joalyn, we could go there."
The three piled into his car, though it was only a car in the most literal sense. In a figurative sense, one might better describe it as a lemon, rust bucket, or pile of crap. But it ran well enough to take them all of a quarter mile to Dylan's cramped apartment.
Jasmine sat on a wheeled chair, as it seemed to be one of the only surfaces in the room at resembled cleanliness in a distant way. Chrys and Dylan opted for the edge of the bed, watching her expectantly for her story to begin.
"I know this sounds crazy, but..." and she told as much of the story as she could, not leaving out any of the details that might, indeed, suggest that she happened to be crazy.
Chrys looked, if anything, mortified when Jasmine finished her tale. "I swear," she said to Dylan, "mental illness does not run in my family."
"I'm not crazy," Jasmine said, sniffing. Away from Pine Bush, this statement didn't seem as confident as she had hoped.
"Just how much of the book I left did you read?" Dylan asked.
"That UFO book? None, I threw it on Chrys's bed. That was for me?" Jasmine asked.
"I thought it might answer some of your questions about what you saw last night," he said, leaning back on his bed. "It's all about the alien phenomena in Pine Bush."
"Well, I didn't read any of it, why?"
"I'm trying to see how biased you are. What do you know about the MIB?"
"Mib? I have no idea what the mib is."
"Men in Black," Dylan said.
"The Will Smith movie? I saw it once, when it came out. Are you saying the government guys were from a stupid sci-fi comedy?"
"No," Dylan replied. "I'm saying that the premise of that stupid sci-fi movie came from a supposedly true occurrence UFO experiencers report. Men--it's almost always men--dresses all in black appear and tell the person not to report the UFO to anyone and to turn over all evidence they may have."
"But I didn't report it to anyone and I don't have any evidence," she replied. "It would make no sense to harass me. And Chrys didn't even see it, right?"
Chrys again widened her eyes and shook her head. "Course not."
"That's also typical of them. They just come, sometimes. It's not even every sighting, or most of them. No one can really track them down."
"But I have their names!" Jasmine said.
"Admiral and ensign are naval ranks. I don't think the Navy would be too concerned about UFOs, unless they were unidentified floating objects."
Jasmine felt a little woozy. "Of course that would be a lie too. But how did they know about Chrys?"
Dylan shrugged. "I would think they would just be bluffing. I guess they can do weird things to people's minds, like know things and make time behave differently. You answered their questions, right? That's probably not normal for you."
"It's not," Chrys answered for her. "Jasmine wouldn't answer a straight question from a stranger, especially a strange man, if her life depends on it."
"I don't think is does," Dylan said. "I've read some about MIBs and I don't think they've ever actually made good on their threats. The evidence sometimes goes missing after they've left and they'll strand you if you go somewhere with them. Some people report getting phone calls from people who sound just like their friends, only to find that they friend has no idea about the phone calls. That's about it, though."
"So, if they weren't from the government, who were they?" Jasmine asked. "Are they more UFO cultists like you?"
"No one knows who they are," Dylan said, ignoring the insult. "But I wouldn't worry. The UFO people in Pine Bush are harmless"
"That's because they aren't after you and your sister," Jasmine said.
"Look, if it makes you feel better, there is a meeting of the United Friends Observers Society this Wednesday. Chrys and I were going to go and you'd be more than welcomed there, if it will make you feel better to hear that other people are going through this, too. And, if one of them came to your house, you can identify him."
Pine Bush is a serialized novel being written by Xen. It didn't happen to you, your best friend, or his cousin. Why? Because it didn't happen. All persons, living, dead, undead, or unliving are purely coincidental. Any real persons are used fictiously. What you are about to read is not a news broadcast. No portion of this book may be distributed without the expressed written consent of Xen. Feel free to rope your friends into reading it, though. Do it or I start shooting PuppyOrphans.
He is syndicated throughout the internet and will write for you if you pay him.
