This is DAY NINE of my "Temporary Anne" Blog tour -- I've been writing a story as we go along based on YOUR suggestions, and here is the latest installment. But first, a plug for the book:
I stare around at The Bearded Man, at Betty White holding a lightsaber, at the millions of rapidly-growing baby spiders and I begin to realize...
"There's no time for that," Betty White tells me.
KRZAEAEIAEIXCCCCH and her light saber slices down right at me, coming at my head, at my face, at me and I want to shout NO YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING but I can't, because I know that she knows exactly what she's doing.
After all: I created her.
The lightsaber slices right through me, and I am untouched.
"So you were right," The Bearded Man says.
"Of course I was right. Am right. Will always be right. Have you gotten any others?"
I start to answer but I realize that she's not talking to me. The Bearded Man, too, doesn't answer -- he's fiddling with his Kindle and the bagpipes.
She's talking to the spiders.
notyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetthey'reontheirwaythey'rreontheirewaythey'reontheirwayalmostherenotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetnotyetthey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwaythey'reontheirwayalmostherealmostherealmostherealmostheralmostherealmostheralmostherealmostheralmostherealmosther
Keeps echoing around us.
"I'll say this," The Bearded Man says. "He's pretty smart."
"How so?" Betty asks.
"Who is?" I ask -- but I know and I mostly just want to confirm.
"Using the spiders that way? Everyone knows he hates spiders. So it would never suspect."
"It's always possible to surprise someone by reversing course, throwing in some stupid twist, or sop to pop culture." Betty snorts.
The Bearded Man just looks at her, flatly.
"You know what I mean," she says.
herecomesanotherherecomesanotherherecomesanotherherecomesanotherherecomesanotherherecomesanotherherecomesanotherheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomeheretheycomemakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakewaymakeway
The spiders are chattering.
"Just one more?" Betty asks. She looks at The Bearded Man. "Will three be enough?"
The Bearded Man shrugs. "Don't ask me. I don't even know why I'm here in the first place."
wehavefourothersbuttheyarefarawaythey'reallovertheworldwefoundmanyofthembutwearenotthatquickanwehavefourothersbuttheyarefarawaythey'reallovertheworldwefoundmanyofthembutwearenotthatquickandsomearemorepowerfulthanotherswegotwhatwecouldwehavefourothersbuttheyarefarawaythey'reallovertheworldwefoundmanyofthembutwearenotthatquickandsomearemorepowerfulthanotherswegotwhatwecouldwehavefourothersbuttheyarefarawaythey'reallovertheworldwefoundmanyofthembutwearenotthatquickandsomearemorepowerfulthanotherswegotwhatwecouldwehavefourothersbuttheyarefarawaythey'reallovertheworldwefoundmanyofthembutwearenotthatquickandsomearemorepowerfulthanotherswegotwhatwecoulddsomearemorepowerfulthanotherswegotwhatwecould
"Four other what," I say. It's not really a question. I know what they found. I'd really, actually, just like someone to say that I'm wrong.
As I watch, though, another group of spiders appears, a rolling writhing, tumbling mass of too many legs and too many eyes and too many fangs, they burst into the dark bubble we inhabit, where I am still held by The Beast, its arms clutching me against its beaked mouth, and I shudder back away from it even though I know it's hopeless. I feel the sharp beak of The Beast in my back, and The Bearded Man and Betty turn towards me. The only glow is the lightsaber -- of COURSE it had to be a lightsaber, I'm such a sucker for Star Wars-- and while I make a token effort to avoid it I know that I can't and the spiders -- most of them still growing, most of them now half the size of a man -- break open their crawling ball of disgust and I see...
...me, staring back at me, wide-eyed.
putthemtogetherputthemtogetherdon'tlethimgetawaynotimetowasteputthemtogetherputthemtogetherputthemtogetherdon'tlethimgetawaynotimetowasteputthemtogetherputthemtogetherputthemtogetherdon'tlethimgetawaynotimetowasteputthemtogetherputthemtogetherputthemtogetherdon'tlethimgetawaynotimetowasteputthemtogetherputthemtogetherputthemtogetherdon'tlethimgetawaynotimetowasteputthemtogether
The man -- ME -- starts screaming now because he doesn't know and so to him he has been kidnapped by spiders and brought to a pit where strangers are holding a clone of himself tight by wrapping a Beast's tentacles around it.
I can see where that would be frightening.
Me? I'm just numb to it because I know.
And he is pressed forward and pressed into me and there is a sharp SMACK! of power binding and I feel my cells breaking and bending and pulling, and his too, and suddenly we are compressing into each other
He sees me getting the prize
I see him sitting on a beach
He sees me falling into the pit
I see him getting off an airplane
He sees me getting attacked by the spider
My god has your/my/our life been that short?
I see him getting on to a plane
He sees me falling through the webs
I see him splitting off from another me at the side of the road just outside an airport.
He sees me seeing him seeing me joining together.
And I am gasping, we are gasping, I am him now he is me The Beast lets me go, no it can't hold me, I'm becoming less substantial still.
"Here..." a voice, The Bearded Man, says, and something is being shoved at my face. "While you still can, this will help," and I bite down...
caramel
nuts
chocolate
I swallow.
"A Snickers?" I gasp. I look up. My eyes would fill with tears but they are ghost eyes now, almost, only the substance of fog. I can feel the Snickers bar melting away into the real world even as I am becoming less substantial and pulling back from that same place.
I am a ghost now -- almost! I am vapor! I am three of me, but less than three of me: every person they have added has made me less substantial, LESS of this world.
"Is that enough?" The Bearded Man asks.
I should thank him for the Snickers. I should thank him for that last taste of the real world -- the world I now know I no longer inhabit.
I am vapor.
The spiders swarm around me, over me, through me. The Beast tries to pat me, consolingly, on the shoulder. I don't feel it.
I am vapor.
I am a ghost.
I am... dead.
"Yes, you are," Betty White tells me. "But that doesn't make you any less dangerous."
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So... what should happen in the end? Leave your comments and help Lara choose, and then watch for the grand finale on
PT Dilloway's blog later this week!
And...
Get the book, "Temporary Anne," FOR FREE today. If you haven't already picked it up, check out this story of a woman too evil to stay out of Hell, but too evil to go there, either!
CLICK HERE TO GET IT FREE.
PLUS a bonus free book! Today only, get
Up So Down: Follow a brother and sister through a year in their lives, as Sarah's fiance drowns under mysterious circumstances, causing Sarah to pull back from life while her brother, Dylan, uses the experience as an excuse to broaden his horizons. Beautiful, sad, uplifting, and engrossing, "
Up So Down" is a book for everyone who knows someone.
While you're at it, check out my blogs:
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