Blue Skies

Chapter One

Blue Skies 

Chapter One

The crappy thing about cotton was that it gets heavy when wet. Unfortunately for me, I was clad from top to bottom in it when I arrived at the town, in a taxicab with no air-conditioning. 

“Alright Miss, welcome to Blue Skies, California. Say, aren’t you a little young to be living here.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“I mean, around here, sixty-five’s considered middle-aged, and you can hear the ambulances wailing 24/7. But, heck, what do I know, your generation gets kicks out of snorting fancy chemicals and smoking like chimneys.” 

“Right, thanks a lot”, I replied, before sliding over to the door and opening it, surprised that the outside air was actually (slightly) cooler than the metal death casket I’ve been riding in for the past hour or so. 

“Oi girl! You forgetting something?”, the driver yelled out, sticking his hand, fingernails all chewed up and dirty, and rubbing his thumb and index finger together. 

“Just getting my luggage,” handing him a fifty dollar bill. 

“Thank you for choosing Laymen’s Premium Taxicab Services,” snatching the bill out of my hand greedily, before kicking the dilapidated cab out of park. 

“Hey!” I screamed back, running up to the open driver’s window grabbing his large hairy forearm slightly hanging out, you owe me like twenty-five bucks of change!” 

“Oh,” the driver, pretending to give a look of concern, “you mean the twenty-five dollars service charge?” 

“What service charge? The meter says freaking twenty-five dollars and fifteen cents.” 

“The service charge I’m charging for having to clean the leather seat covers which you tainted with you East Coast sweat.” 

“Well, maybe if you actually turned on the damned air conditioning.” 

“You stupid kid, air-conditioning in these old cars gives you cancer.” 

“I’m going to talk to your boss about this!” 

“You’re talking to him right now,” grinning evilly, as he gunned the acceleration pedal, causing me to lunge forward as he wrenched out of my grip in one strong stroke. The force of the cab pulled me facedown into the dirt as I felt the dust cloud produced by the cab blanketing my entire back. 

I quickly leapt up, hoping to have enough time to flip the old man off or maybe even a loud swear, but a police car pulled up before I could do anything. The tinted window rolled down, revealing an emotionless, large-mustached officer. 

“You lost?” 

“Um… no, Sir, just… tripped.” 

The officer nodded, “you’re not from around here, are you?” 

“How can you tell?” wondering if California was actually that different from the rest of the nation.

“Well, we’re in the largest heat wave since the ‘20’s and no one in their right minds would be walking around except for the town drunk and people who didn’t know any better. 

Anyways, I was just pulling over to get a closer look at you. Apparently there’s a woman your age that disappeared about a decade ago after drowning one of her classmates in a pool and cleaving another in half in nearby Tidings about that was recently sighted around here.” 

“So, this lady’s been missing all this time, what has she been living off of?” 

“Probably got a relative in the area or something, but never mind. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”