While I normally put in a lot of internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.
Has anyone noticed there isn’t really a title for this NaNoWriMo novel yet? In part that’s because I haven’t really decided on one yet. In part that’s because the titles I’m most likely to use could act as a major spoiler to anyone who’s read my other stuff here.
Assuming there are folks out there (other than The Long Suffering Wife, who has to read it, and possibly my kids) who actually read what I write here, is anyone starting to see where this is headed? As I’ve mentioned, there’s a destination for this story. I mean that in the sense that I really started with the idea of how the novel had to end. (I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to say about that when we get to the end.) From there, it’s all just been details to see if I can get there without a major plot crash or deus ex machina. So far it’s still heading in the right direction. There will be more major “directional signs” coming up in the next couple of days. In the mean time, any guesses?
As for yesterday, I really and truly was this close to just not bothering to write anything at all for the day. But I sat down about 21:30, tired, expecting to just write 500 to 1000 words — two and a half hours later I’m typing like hell to get that last scene finished so that I can post here and update on the NaNoWriMo website before midnight. I posted here at 23:56 and on NaNoWriMo at 23:58, which is cutting it pretty tight.
My other comment would be about the end of Chapter Seventeen. That conversation between Margaret and Jason wasn’t going the way I had expected to, but it was clear as I wrote it that Margaret would be buying Jason’s story, especially after she can’t see the apparition in the picture or on the urn. It wasn’t clear how I was going to keep her involved and get her back into the flow of the story until about two seconds before I wrote that chapter ending. Spooky.
What’s even spookier is writing that scene at about 23:45, on a rainy and windy night, alone with just the cat on my lap (not staring into space over my shoulder, fortunately), just one light on in the room, no music or television, just the clicking of the keyboard and the sound of the weather… And here I am writing a scene that’s seriously creepy and spooky in nature. Let’s say that I was not oblivious to the mood. Based on that small experience, I’m assuming that Steven King writes his stories in broad daylight in a brightly lit room. Because.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Margaret’s schedule was clear the next day so she allowed herself the luxury of sleeping in. Neil was still over at Bobby’s house and Margaret hoped that he would stay there and not find her here. She did not want to have to explain to him what was going on given how much she had doubted and what drastic measures it had taken to break through those doubts.
Cautious to the possibility that her home might be bugged, she spent an hour or so after breakfast “doing housework” while actually looking for anything that might have been tampered with. She found nothing, but given what Jason had told her about what they were up against, that didn’t prove that there wasn’t anything to find.
She followed the instructions that Jason had left on her phone to install his mystic security upgrade to her home network. Once that was done she found a place where she couldn’t imagine any kind of camera behind her to look at the monitor over her shoulder. As soon as she got online, several messages from Jason showed up.
The first one was a copy of the video from the security camera on the roof over the office door at her hanger. Margaret was almost hoping that she would see this invisible monster hanging over her when she looked at the screen, but as with the video from Tom’s house, she saw nothing.
Before she came into view of the camera, nineteen cats came in from out of the darkness. There were tabbies, calicos, a Siamese, and various domestic shorthair breeds. Margaret didn’t recognize any of them. They all came into the light in a matter of seconds, approaching from every direction. In perfect synchronization they jumped up onto her jeep. They spread out across the hood and roof and turned toward the sky just as Margaret came into the upper left of the frame.
The audio from the feed was faint, designed more to trigger the security system in the event of any loud noises. Margaret watched as her video image called Jason. After about thirty seconds, she could hear the sound of the first train whistle, followed by the even more faint sound of the second whistle. With the end of the second blast, the cats all jumped down and vanished into the darkness.
Margaret played the video three times, trying to play with different monitor settings to bring out any detail that she might be missing, but it was futile. There was no doubt in her mind, then or now, that one of Jason and Tom’s apparitions was present, but she couldn’t see any sign of it.
The next file from Jason was a hand drawn sketch of the scene in the security video. It was crude and Margaret guessed that Jason had put some tracing paper over the monitor to make it. In the sketch she could clearly see the giant disk. From the camera’s viewpoint, it almost blocked the view of where she stood and it partially blocked the view of the cats and her jeep. As seen in the other sketch that Jason had sent, the disk seemed to be filled with overlapping rows of teeth.
With that sketch as a guide she went back and watched the video one more time. It didn’t make any difference, she still didn’t see anything unusual other than the cats all acting in a seriously bizarre fashion. It was very frustrating.
The next file from Jason had copies of all of the pictures of the compound and mystery railroad tracks that Tom had taken on the balloon flight. Margaret flipped through them slowly and examined them for anything unusual, but they matched her memory of what they had seen.
The final file she received was filled with notes and comments from Jason. Several pages of notes were from the conversations he and Tom had had over the last few days, but the first page was full of his notes and comments on the event of the previous night. Jason obviously hadn’t gotten much sleep last night.
Jason had already run the video from last night through his analytical software. Again, it had come up negative for any sign of manipulation or special effects. If it was fake in any way, Jason couldn’t prove it at all.
Finally, Jason had a list of suggestions for actions she could take this morning. Margaret didn’t see anything that wasn’t reasonable, although she had a few details that she would change. But in the big picture sense, Jason seemed to have an excellent grasp for tactical thinking and detail management. Margaret wondered what branch of the military he had been in, or if he had been a spook.
Jason had indicated that he would be at work for most of the day and only available for emergencies. Margaret sent a return message with her thoughts on his suggestions. She also added a few questions and suggestions of her own.
In particular, Margaret wanted to know why the computer software analyzing these images could see these objects while she couldn’t. That just didn’t make any sense at all.
Assuming the computer software could see these things, she also suggested to Jason there should be a way to have the security mainframes actively scanning all of the video being processed through it. Had it been an incredible stroke of luck that the object in Tom’s apartment had been seen, or were these things more common than they believed? Some solid data would be really valuable.
Finally, as much as she didn’t want to expose herself to the possibility of being locked up in a rubber room, Margaret knew they needed to bring other people into this investigation. If nothing else, they needed to know if other people could see the disks in the videos. Jason could come up with some cover story, maybe say they were test marketing a new horror film or something, but they needed to know if Margaret was the exception in not seeing the disk, or if Tom and Jason were the oddballs because they could see it.
(Chapter Eighteen to be continued)
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 