50,000 words in 30 days. Sounds crazy (and it totally is), but I did it! Whee!
SEVERAL YEARS AGO I made up the stairs with little trouble, but my heart was pounding the whole way. I was sure that at any moment the man from the cell was going to come through the door behind me and that would be it–despite the fact that I had a solid lead up the stairs.
PRESENT DAY If the figure standing there heard the name, he gave no sign. The memories of exactly what Michael had looked like the first time had mostly slipped away, but I had just enough left to be almost sure that I was right–and I have to admit, I wasn’t thrilled with the discovery.
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO In the end, it didn’t take nearly so long to explain things as I would have thought. I guess that’s the way things usually go, you always think that they were so very complicated and would take so long to explain until you actually try to do it. Then it turns out that there’s a simple way to say it.
SEVERAL YEARS AGO “I don’t have any artifacts.” Not only was it the truth, it seemed like it might even be something that he wanted to hear. “Pottery or otherwise.”
He just stared at me, not even so much as a blink in response.
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO At the moment, I was watching John Smith who was in turn watching his brother. No one was watching Mrs. Claire, so it came as a complete surprise to each of us when she suddenly started yelling in some angry kin to Latin. As I turned to look at her, there was a sizzling sound as a ring of some sort of powder in a rough circle around her started to light.
SEVERAL YEARS AGO The tone of the voice completely threw me for a loop. Even worse, I thought that I recognized it from somewhere, although I couldn’t quite place it.
Still, I replied calmly enough. “Oh, well enough I suppose. I took a nice jaunt out into the city, managed to get shot a few times, ended up here. Speaking of which, where is here, after all?” It was really all I could do to keep from screaming at the madness of the whole situation.
PRESENT DAY His response didn’t at all help me believe that this was the actual Lazarus. If he’d really been around for more than two thousand years and if this Cup was the thing that had kept him alive so long, surely he would have kept better track of it. I mean, one would think that after living for two thousand years, one would have amassed some sort of person power.
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO So Alex was a hitchhiker. “What does that mean exactly?”
He grinned. It was that terrifying sort of grin. “It means that when Alex came back, I came along for the ride. So it worked out well for the both of us.”
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO The four of us were standing there in the darkness, with only the pink neon glow of Mrs. Claire’s sign still providing anything in the way of illumination. There was a faint breeze from the outside, providing just enough motion to the curtain between us and the sign to make the darkness even more disconcerting.