Bane

February 3, 1998

L.C. sighed, and put his vehicle in neutral. He unbuckled and opened the driver side door, sliding out of his seat and put his shoulder into the door. He refused to slip on the slick, wet asphalt. Despite the flat grade of the road, his truck felt heavier but it moved. "I'm leaving and if you don't let up, I won't come back."

There was a feeling of panic in the pit of his stomach. You do not mean it.

"Oh, yes. I do mean it. You step aside now and I mean right now or you can find yourself someone else to hate."

...making more.

L.C. shook his head. "Good, then do it! Go make more and leave me alone."

Whatever it is, we acted rashly. Return. There will be amends.

"Amends? I'm not sorry and I don't care if you are. Step aside or I don't come back."

The truck rolled with greater ease. L.C. returned to his seat, wet and frustrated. He put the truck in park, closed the driver side door, buckled himself, checked his mirrors and turned the key in the ignition. The engine struggled a moment and then roared to life. Within moments, his favorite AM talk show was coming through loud and clear - loud and clear enough for AM radio - and he was leaving Driftwood.

It didn't cut out quite how he thought it would. 

Instead of being severed from his connection to the city in some dramatic and quite possibly painful fashion, it was more like watching someone grow smaller on the horizon until the distance was so great they were a soundless speck and then too far gone to see or hear.

It was still uncomfortable. 

He could clearly see as the storm rains decreased but the further on he drove L.C. felt in very many ways blind and deaf.

This was how regular people lived? 

How the hell could they cope? 

Living life entirely by chance seemed not only dangerous but stupid. The rest of this trip was going to be a guessing game. Obeying traffic laws. Trying not to hit animals as they crossed the highway. 

Navigating with a map.

"Ugh." L.C. made a disgusted expression, and continued on down the highway. He would spend an absurd portion of his trip looking for interstate eighty and ninety if he wanted to get where he was going without getting lost. 

* * *

"Huh." David stared out the window from the drawing room to the deck outside and watched the wind blowing.

Karen sat near the fireplace, warmed by the fire. She was reading a short work by some obscure author she considered mediocre at best. "...it's like he wrote this in his teens, or something. It's a good story, but gosh. Every other word is 'softly'."

David glanced over his shoulder. "How often do we get gale force winds like this?"

"Not since the seven died at the Heights."

"You should really come see this." David sucked in a deep breath and sighed. "Storm of the century."

Karen huffed a short laugh. "It's been the storm of the century for the the last quarter of a century. It's a wonder we're not under a lake by now. I mean the quarry's full of water but where does the rest of this rain go?"

David glanced over his shoulder. "Wind's pretty strong. Some of the trees are falling over."

"Good. Saves me the trouble. Bart hated the encroachment." Karen turned the page. "Trade paperback sucks. It doesn't fit with the rest of my books."