[Slept Through Thursday] Part 4

Photo Credit: TeeMack Photography

Slept Through Thursday is a serial story. To start with the first chapter, please click here. Click here for more chapters!

“How far is it?” I asked, panting for breath as we stopped.

“Another mile,” said Molly. “Geez, you’re really out of shape.” Herman nodded in agreement. It was humiliating to be judged by a pig.

“My major is computer science,” I said, and took in another deep gulp of air. “I don’t get out much.”

“Should we just take a car?” Molly asked. “I’ve always wanted to drive one.”

“Whatever,” I said. And then the insanity of what she was suggesting started to sink in as she picked up a big rock and headed for a parked car on the side of the street. “Wait!” I called, and chased after her. “What are you doing?”

She peered in the window of a Honda Civic parked on the street, holding up the rock as if she were ready to smash the window and break in. “No keys,” she said. “Do you know how to hotwire it?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “That’s something people do in the movies, not real life.”

“Oh,” she said. And then she turned and pointed at another car. “How about that one?”

The car she was pointing to was crashed into the window of a coffee shop — a big yellow Dodge Charger that looked like something out of a 1970s movie. I walked over towards it, with Molly and Herman behind me, and scoped out the area. There was glass everywhere, but the car didn’t seem to have too much damage. The passenger’s side door was open, and there were clawmarks and bloodspots all over the seat. But the keys were still hanging in the ignition.

“It’ll do,” I said, and then looked over at all of the pastries in the display case that were sure to go to waste. “You start it up while I get some breakfast.”

I spent a few minutes wandering around the back counter, stuffing my face and getting out some bags and loading them up with as many pastries and bagels as I could. I was worried about anything out in plain view having glass in it, but the display case items seemed to be unharmed. My stomach must have overridden my brain for a moment, because it didn’t occur to me that Molly might have no idea what she was doing. That became apparent when she turned on the car, started squealing the tires and then lurched forward with the horn blaring. I jumped out of the way as she crashed into the display case. She turned off the car and jumped out.

“Sorry!” she called. “Maybe I should let Herman drive!”

I got up out of the rubble, brushed myself off, and picked up the one bag of food I’d been able to salvage thus far. “I guess I don’t get any coffee,” I said, looking over at the broken espresso maker.

“Sorry, sorry,” Molly said. She walked over towards a cooler full of soft drinks. “Coke OK?” she asked.

“It’ll have to be,” I said. “Grab a bunch and come on.”

I had to move Herman out of the driver’s seat, and he was quite indignant about being put in the back until I threw a piece of coffee cake back there. He sniffed it and nudged it with his snout for a minute before gobbling it up. Molly plopped down beside me after a moment with an armload of sodas. I grabbed one before she dropped them on the floor. As I cracked mine open and took a sip, I noticed her reaching down for a bottle of Dr Pepper.

“Don’t open tha…” I started to say, and braced myself for what was about to come. But it never did; I looked over at Molly and noticed  she was looking back at me like I was an idiot.

There was an awkward, silent pause between us. Finally, I turned on the car, adjusted the mirrors, and slowly backed out of the carnage of the coffee shop.

Once I was on the road, I turned to her and asked, “So, where are we going?”

“The edge of town,” she said.

“Which edge?” I asked.

“It doesn’t really matter,” she said.

“And why wouldn’t it matter?” I probed.

“You’ll see when we get there,” she said. And then she slowly cracked open her bottle, let some of the gas hiss out, and then finished opening it so she could take a sip.

To be continued! Click here for more chapters!

Slept Through Thursday (Part 3)

Photo Credit: n*o*o*r (Flickr.com)

Slept Through Thursday is a serial story. To start with the first chapter, please click here. Click here for more chapters!

Before I realized what was happening, the pig broke free and ran towards me. I tried to turn around and run, but tripped over the bench behind me. The pain of the trip, along with the weight of the pig, knocked me to the ground.

“I think he likes you” the woman said, and then gave an inappropriate giggle. Her pig was grunting in my face as he sniffed at me.

“Get him off me,” I groaned. The pig was heavy.

“Herman, come on,” she said. “Let him up.”

The pig looked back at her, and then at me. He snorted in my face and then backed off a bit. I sat up and stared at the woman, who was doubled back in laughter. “It’s you!” she shouted. “Oh, I’m glad it’s you.”

I stared at her for a minute, trying to figure out why she looked so familiar to me. She was in her early 20s, with stringy brown hair filled with what looked like pieces of aluminum foil and red-lensed plastic sunglasses that seemed to have loose pieces of wire hanging off them. She was skinny, but not in an incredibly attractive way; she was lean and gangly, with very little curve to her body. Plus, she was wearing overalls and a plaid flannel shirt. It might have been cute if it hadn’t been so sad. Well, that, and the fact that she was walking around with a pig that was as big as a large dog. That was just plain weird.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“Not yet,” she said. She stuck out her hand, as if she wanted to shake, even though she was standing about eight feet away. “I’m Molly,” she said, and laughed again. It was such an awful sound that I wanted to tear my own eardrums out.

The name and that horrible laugh reminded me why she looked familiar. Mad Molly was one of the local townies who was well-known for her antics out on the quad. We had our fair share of crazy quad preachers coming out to tell us about how Jesus hated anyone who wasn’t straight, white and sober, but Molly had a different message. She believed that religion was just a conspiracy created by an ancient race of space aliens to keep mankind from destroying itself, and that the whole reason the Bible existed was because its words were written in a pattern that wired human brains to be more receptive to the truths the aliens had taught. Or something like that. Molly had often gotten wound up when she’d give her strange sermons, and they didn’t always have a lot of internal consistency.

“What do you mean, ‘not yet’?” I demanded as I stood up.

She looked down at the pig. “It’s him, right?” she asked. The pig stared at me, but seemed to be nodding.

“Are you asking the pig if he recognizes me?” I asked.

“Yep,” Molly said.

“But… ” I held out my hand and pointed at him, as if to protest, “he’s just a pig!”

Herman looked offended, and gave a disgusted snort. Molly shrugged – at me, I realized, not at him. “Pigs are one of the smartest animals on the planet,” she said. “Granted, some of them are pretty dumb. But you really shouldn’t make assumptions about people until you meet them.”

“People?” I said. “Pigs aren’t people! They’re…” I didn’t know what else to say here, so I shouted, “Pigs!”

Molly shook her head and looked down at Herman. He made eye contact with her. “Are you sure it’s him?” she asked. “He was a lot nicer last time.”

“Hold on, hold on,” I said. “I thought you said we’d never met?”

“I said we hadn’t met yet,” she said. “But we have met, now, and we will meet again. What’s so hard to understand about that?”

I started to explain exactly what was wrong with that, but then I realized that I was arguing with Mad Molly and a pig. And somehow, I seemed to be losing. I took a deep breath and tried to regain my composure.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Probably at the south farm,” Molly said. “That was where the animals seemed to be taking them.”

“OK, wait, hold on,” I said. “The animals were taking them there?”

“Yep,” she said. “That’s what I said.”

“Why were the animals doing that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Molly said. “You’d have to ask them.”

I pointed to Herman again. “What about him? He’s an animal. Was he involved in this?”

Herman looked up at me as if he were wounded. Molly gave him a pat on the head.

“Herman loves humans,” she said. “He’d never do anything to hurt them.”

“So these animals … not Herman, but the others,” I said, nodding at the pig, to his seeming approval, “just rounded everyone up, just like that? Why would they do that?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. But I do have a theory,” Molly said. “Have you ever read the book Animal Farm?”

“A long time ago,” I said. I didn’t like where this was going.

“Well, maybe this is like that,” Molly said. “Except this time, instead of running the humans off, the animals are going to farm the humans for a little while. You know, to get their revenge.”

“You talk about these animals like they’re…” I sighed. “Like they’re smart enough to do something like this.”

Molly shook her head. “Well, ordinarily, they’re not,” she said. “I mean, people don’t give animals enough credit, that’s for sure. But most animals aren’t very good at coordinating things outside their own species.”

“And what about Herman here?” I asked sarcastically. “Could he coordinate an attack?”

“Oh, not at all!” Molly said with a surprised look. “Herman’s a very peaceful pig.” The pig nodded.

“Does that pig really understand what we’re saying?” I asked.

“Most likely,” said Molly. “I mean, he seems to, doesn’t he?”

“How is that even possible?”

Molly pointed to his ear. There was a small, red clip on it. “Probably because he’s a lab pig,” she said. “He’s had a lot more advantage than most animals get. Do you think humans would be smart if they didn’t have other humans to teach them?”

She had me there. “So… is there anyone left besides the two of us?” I asked.

“You’re the first person I’ve seen today,” Molly said.

“And is there any reason why the authorities haven’t descended on us yet and set everyone free?” I asked. “Because I’m going to bet that the animals haven’t built a military effective enough to stand down the Army just yet.”

“That is actually a very interesting question,” Molly said. “Do you mind taking a walk?”

“I’d rather get some breakfast first,” I said. “Why?”

“Because there’s something you need to see,” she said. “And it will explain a lot more of what you want to know.”

To be continued! Click here for more chapters!

Slept Through Thursday (Part 2)

Photo Credit: SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent) (Flickr.com)

Slept Through Thursday is a serial story. To start with the first chapter, please click here. Click here for more chapters!

“Well,” I said, staring at the computer screen, and quite sarcastically, “that explains a lot.”

It wasn’t the information on the computer screen that was helpful. It was the lack of information. The entire campus appeared to be off the Internet. But the campus Intranet was working, and that was where some of the really bizarre stuff could be found, like pictures of gangs of cows running around the streets looking menacing, or message board posts from students talking about hiding from a tiger, or a shaky video someone shot of a herd of cats and dogs working together to yank a janitor down from a tree. I didn’t know what to make of any of this, particularly since the messages all seemed to stop around 3:30 AM. It was as if everyone quietly vanished around that time.

I had to sit and think about all of this for a moment. It occurred to me that our campus had a veterinary facility on it, and it had always been rumored that there was an entire menagerie of exotic animals in the basement. So maybe, somehow, a tiger got loose from there, and some cows followed in his wake. That seemed unlikely, but plausible. But it still left me with that haunting video of the dogs and cats, working together. Maybe the janitor had been really mean to them, but it seemed unlikely that they would rise up together against him. None of this made any sort of sense.

Finally, I found a message board thread titled, “What we know.” Someone named George Lewis had been keeping it updated throughout the day, with its last message dated at 3:17 AM. I studied these postings for a few minutes, trying to make sense of his rambling writing style so I could understand exactly what was going on. Unfortunately, George was a really bad writer who seemed to be oblivious to capital letters and punctuation. Every post was one giant paragraph with no coherent structure. I sighed. Apparently, going to an easy-to-get-into school like Midwestern U meant you didn’t have to be proficient at written communication.

What I could discern was this: at some point on Thursday morning, the entire campus had been shaken by an extremely loud sound. People rushed out of the building and saw this giant, sphere-shaped thing hanging above the campus about a mile up in the sky. There was a tremendous earthquake, and a lot of people ran into buildings and hid. The earthquake lasted for about an hour, tapering off around 11:30 AM. Everything was calm and quiet for about two hours until the animals started pouring out on the streets, acting strangely and chasing people down. The weirdest thing of all was that they didn’t seem interested in killing or mauling the people they caught; they would just herd them off or carry them off towards someplace out near the south farms. No one really knew what was going on there.

And that was it. A bizarre, implausible story that sounded like something out of a fanfic sequel for Animal Farm where the animals extract their revenge on the humans. I didn’t know what to make of it. I also couldn’t fathom how I could have slept through all of this if there were earthquakes and loud noises going on. Living in the dorms had taught me to be a heavy sleeper, but this seemed to be a little too much for even me.

After some reflection, I realized it was almost 6AM, and the cafeteria at the dorm down the street, the one with the awesome omelet bar and freshly-baked pastries, was about to open. I decided I’d think better on a full stomach, and left my dorm, hoping that maybe I could find someone along the way. I kept my eyes open for roving gangs of animals, of course, but I didn’t see any at all on my way, aside from a few birds — not even a squirrel.

The door to the cafeteria at the other dorm was still locked when I arrived. I glanced down at the analog hands on my watch and saw that it was 6:05 AM. “Maybe they’re getting a late start today,” I mused, and sat down on the stone bench outside and waited. There was nothing to do, and I realized it was times like this that I really wished I’d taken up smoking, as my friend had suggested, so I’d at least have a cigarette and a lighter to play with while I waited. After a few minutes, I pulled out my phone and started trying to play around with the Internet, but I didn’t seem to be getting a signal. That was hardly a cause for surprise; my phone network’s coverage was terrible in this area, and I’d been thinking about switching to a different carrier all semester. I’d just never gotten around to it.

Finally, around 6:25, I started pounding on the door. There was no answer. That was weird. It occurred to me that during this entire time, I had not seen anyone, which was also weird. I was starting to wonder if those kids from Campus Crusade for Christ had been right when they’d been trying to tell me about their rapture, or whatever it was called, where all the true believers were supposed to disappear and leave all the sinners behind. Apparently, there’d be a lot more Christians on this campus than I’d realized. That, or the devil had decided to rapture away all the sinners as well. But that didn’t make any sense, because I hadn’t been raptured by anyone. Unless… “Maybe I’m the Antichrist,” I said out loud, and laughed. No, there had to be something more to it than that.

“Hello?” I heard a female voice call, accompanied by some loud grunting. That was odd. I turned and looked over my shoulder and saw a girl walking towards me, holding a leash in her hand.

And connected to that leash was a very large pig.

To be continued! Click here for more chapters!

Slept Through Thursday (Part 1)

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Slept Through Thursday is a serial novel. Click here for more chapters!

I woke up around 4 AM. This really bothered me, because I’d crawled into bed around 2:30 AM. But I felt well-rested. I wondered if that time I’d spent napping at work had translated into some sort of sleep efficiency. “It must have,” I said to myself as I got out of bed and climbed down the ladder leading up to my bunk. Honestly, I felt like I’d been sleeping for hours.

My roommate was gone. That didn’t surprise me. His classes were all on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so his weekend began on Wednesday night. He’d been gone when I went to bed, too. I never knew where he went on the weekends, and I wasn’t about to jinx his frequent absences by asking too many questions. I just assumed he went camping. That was good enough for me; I enjoyed having a part-time roommate.

The dorm hallway was pretty quiet, but then, this was the one time of day in which it usually was. The bars closed at 1 AM, and most of the guys got back around 2:30. We had a few who would pull all-nighters in the lounge or who would stay up playing video games, and then a few more who liked to get up at 6AM and head down to the cafeteria the moment it opened.

I only knew this because I was one of the guys who tended to be up during odd hours of the night. Earlier in the year, I’d developed a 11-day week for myself that shortened my days to around 15 hours each and which left me with three extra hours on day 11 to do whatever I wanted to do with myself. That day started at  5:43 on Thursday morning. My three extra hours came between 9:00 PM and midnight. But now, since I was up at 4:00 AM with nothing to do, it was like I’d added a couple of  extra hours to my free time.

As I stopped in the bathroom and emptied my bladder, I reflected on how lucky I really was. Most of the people I knew were slaves to the 24-hour day. When I tried to explain my 15.72 hour-day to them, most got annoyed and said that it was too much math. I’d show them the watch I’d built to help me keep track of which day it was in conventional time (using the analog hands) and Chance-time (using my digital readout). “Stop being an idiot, Chance,” they’d tell me. And often, I’d get a lecture about how when I got out of college, I’d have to live on a 24-hour day just like everyone else.

I passed by the sinks on my way back to my room and took a look at myself in the mirror as I washed my hands and face. My face actually had what I’d often heard described as a 5 o’clock shadow on it. I grinned at the irony of this — 5 AM was coming up, after all — but I was also troubled by it. I’d never had to shave more than once every week, and I’d just shaved on Day 2 — sometime on Friday night on the conventional calendar. I should have had a couple of days in Chance-time left. Was my body starting to age rapidly now that I was 21 years old?

“That’s what you get for being an Underdweller,” I grumbled. Underdweller — the name we’d proudly inherited for living in the dorm basement. It was all guys. The floors above us were all co-ed, but the girls didn’t want to live in the basement, even if we had the best access to the laundry rooms and the cafeteria, and even if we could escape out our windows if someone was waiting for us outside the door. It seemed like an ideal situation to me.

Still grumbling, I skulked out of the bathroom and back into my dorm room, where I grabbed a soda out of my mini-fridge and plopped down at my computer to check up on the world online. For whatever reason the, Internet was down. I grumbled again. It’d been out a few times over the last month, mainly due to one of the guys who used to live on the floor flooding the traffic with his botnet as a prank to another guy who still lived here. It meant they’d shut the whole floor down until the botnet attack was over. It’d been funny the first couple of times, and it could potentially be funny again once it’d happened too often. But right now, it was firmly in the realm of annoying.

I thought about playing some video games, or maybe (I grinned at the thought) studying, but I decided instead to wander upstairs to the courtyard to see if I could bum a smoke off someone. I’d never actually smoked before; it was on my bucket list of things to try. A friend of mine who did smoke had told me how he’d started just to be social, and how he never paid for cigarettes now. He’d just find some lonely-looking smoker, bum a smoke and then keep them company while they got their fix. “The secret to smoking is not to do it too often,” he said. “That way, you don’t get very addicted, and it’s a lot easier for you to quit when you want to.”

It sounded like sage advice to me. And besides, this particular friend had used smoking to develop an entire network of smoking buddies on campus — male and female. He’d even hooked up with a few of the girls. It was amazing how you could get people to trust you and like you just because you both shared a common vice.

Unfortunately, there was no one in the courtyard, nor did there seem to be anyone anywhere upstairs. That was sort of strange. Normally, there was at least one person walking around doing something, even if it was just something dull like visiting the poor sap who had to sit at the front desk or watching the foreign news on the giant TV in the lounge. The place seemed completely deserted.

The free campus paper was already out on the rack, so I checked to make sure it was Thursday’s and picked up a copy. It seemed like there were a lot fewer papers on the rack then normal, but it occurred to me that maybe they were just trying to cut costs. The paper had been getting thin lately and – bastion of journalism that it already was – the stories had been getting increasingly more sensational and crazy. It was like watching an old uncle actually go crazy during an attempt to pretend he was crazy just so he could get some more meds. I never missed an issue, especially now that the Student Senate had appointed a Student Dictator who had used his power and popular support to shut down the Student Government and assume its powers. You really couldn’t make up stories like those.

I sat down in one of the plush chairs in the lounge and read for a few minutes. But I found myself increasingly getting anxious at how peaceful and quiet everything was around me. I’d never known my dorm to be so tranquil; generally, there was at least something going on. I decided to stop in the computer lab to see if they had their Internet up, and saw something I’d never witnessed before.

The place was entirely empty.

Quickly, I ran over to a computer, logged in, and checked the online news. And in doing so, I quickly discovered two things that put my entire experience into context.

First of all, it was Friday, not Thursday. I’d slept through an entire 24-hour day without even realizing it.

Second, while I’d been sleeping, something very, very bad had happened to the world around me.

On to Chapter 2!