It was bright and early in the morning. Birds were singing. Kids were walking to school. And the warmth of the sun blanketed everything in a gentle glow. Everything was as it should be, except for the fact that Thomas' van broke down in the middle of the road. Again.
"Fuck, not again?!" Thomas yelled, getting out of the car and slamming the door behind him.
"When are you gonna let this piece of junk die?" Anthony said with a smirk.
"Never. I once gave a famous guy a ride in here. One of these days, I'm gonna sell it for real big bucks!" Thomas said, opening up the hood and brushing aside the smoke.
"Yeah. Sure you will…" Anthony laughed, "Honestly, you should just sell it now. I'm sure someone would buy the parts."
"Ya know, I could take you home and it would just be Me, Mathew and Andrew. Does that sound good to you? Besides, Marcus loved this van. He even used to decorate the ceiling in the back. This trip is our tribute to him, so no bashing this van that he liked so much!" Thomas shouted.
"… Are you talking about the gum that he used to stick on the ceiling?"
"Potato. Tomato." Thomas said, slamming the hood down after finishing his routine maintenance.
Andrew was running extremely late. He was forced to pack for the upcoming trip in a frenzy. He received plenty of notice, of course, it's just that he had a hard time working up the nerve to go. Especially since Anthony was coming along. He slapped on some clothes, chucked a few things in a suitcase, and rushed outside.
When he came out, everyone was standing around outside waiting for him. Luckily nobody seemed too bothered. Barring Anthony, of course.
"Andrew! This is your place?!" Thomas shouted ecstatically.
"Well, sort of. It's a rental." Andrew replied with a soft smile.
"Can we come in and take a look?" Mathew said.
"Sure, why not?" Andrew said before escorting Mathew, Anthony, and Thomas inside.
Andrew's friends looked around the house and eventually decided to stop and check out the couch in the living room.
"This shit is so comfy. It's like your body just melts into it." Thomas said, seemingly reaching nirvana.
"My grandma has one like that. They're terrible for your back." Anthony said, sitting in a wooden rocking chair in the corner of the room.
"Can't be any worse for you than your PC posture." Thomas said, imitating Anthony's famously bad hunch.
"How much do you pay for rent?" Mathew spoke up.
"Like seven hundred." Andrew replied.
"God… who'd you have to kill to get away with that?" Mathew joked.
After a few laughs, the room was filled with an eerie silence.
"Ha. Ha. Nobody. No. It's just that the Landlord is an old family friend." Andrew said awkwardly.
The crew squeezed themselves into Thomas's van. The half-working vehicle was packed with all sorts of miscellaneous knick knacks that "might come in handy someday". It was a long trip to Ponfield. Not literally, of course. It was only about an hour away. But with how tightly Andrew and Anthony were squeezed together, it might as well have been ten hours away. Thomas and Mathew occupied the front seats, and Andrew and Anthony the back two. Andrew and Anthony also, of course, had to share the back with a large collection of duct tape.
Ponfield was the town where Marcus's father used to live. He would always be bouncing back and forth between his Mom's place and his Dad's and it wasn't at all uncommon for Marcus's friends to come out to Ponfield too.
The whole way there Andrew and Anthony didn't speak once. Andrew considered opening his mouth briefly, but quickly decided that it might not be very wise.
Finally, they had reached Ponfield. As soon as they entered city limits they were greeted by a bridge about forty feet across. Before they went on the bridge, Thomas parked the van on the side of the road. It had been years since the five of them were here together. Now the four friends that remained stepped out of the vehicle and walked onto the hiking path on the side of the bridge. This was where they learned how to fish.
"Hey, Thomas! You wouldn't happen to have a fishing rod or two in the shithole you call a car, would you?" Mathew asked.
"No. Sorry. Unless you wanna use a broken one!" Thomas laughed.
Anthony quietly looked over the waters as the others bickered and teased back and forth, watching the still blue water that seemed to go on for miles.
"Hey, Something botherin' ya?" Thomas asked.
"Sorta? I guess. Last time we were here, I threw Marcus over the railing into the lake. He told me he could swim. So I thought it would be funny. Everything turned out fine cuz his dad dived in after him, but I still feel really bad. I don't even remember if I ever apologized. I really don't think I did…" Anthony said, stirring over it all in his mind.
"Hey, I remember you used to ask him to throw you over the side all the time after that so that you'd be even. I'm sure he knows how sorry you were." Mathew said.
"Yeah, you're right." Anthony said.
The group of friends took their seats in the van and went on their way into town. They visited various places they used to hang out throughout town like the library, the park, and even the old abandoned mall. After all that it was starting to get dark. It was about eight P.M. and the sun was setting. They had one last place left on their list.
"The arcade!" Thomas said as he burst through the door with a big smile on his face, "it's just how it was back then!"
The four of them walked into the arcade and played various games. But one caught Anthony's eyes in particular, a fighting game by the name of "immortal fight". He matched up against a person he had just met and played against him. And he won. And then he matched up against another. And he won again. And so on and so on. Nobody could win. Anthony had always been unbeatable as far as this game was concerned. After a hefty winning streak, Anthony got bored. His enthusiasm for the game had been robbed. And he felt nothing but a void where the warm hug of nostalgia used to be. Anthony got up and walked over to the other side of the arcade. The bar side.
"Hey, did you see where Anthony went?" Thomas asked Mathew and Andrew as they played a Three player game about hunting deer.
"Yeah, he went over to barside like half an hour ago." Mathew replied.
"He went over to the bar side?" Thomas said, confused.
"Bar side? But Anthony hates alcohol?" Andrew said.
"Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Maybe this is all too much for him…" Thomas said.
"I wouldn't be surprised. Could you go talk to him?" Andrew asked.
"Me?" Thomas said.
"Yeah… Me and Anthony aren't on the best terms right now." Andrew replied.
"Gotcha. Yeah, I'll go talk to him. I'll be right back." Thomas said.
"Thanks, man." Andrew replied.
Thomas stood up and made his way over to the bar side. There he found his old friend Anthony, in a state that could only really be referred to as shit faced.
"Damn." Thomas said, taking a seat next to Anthony, "Could I ask why you're five drinks deep?"
"Just leave me alone…" Anthony grumbled.
"If I do that I'm afraid you'll drink yourself to death." Thomas said, taking Anthony's drink before he could take another sip.
"Ya know, I thought it would be fun working up a winning streak tonight… but it wasn't. Not since Marcus… " Anthony said.
"Right. You used to play that game with Marcus all the time… Hey, you could at least still play against me and Andrew. I'm that-"
"Andrew?" Anthony scoffed, "He can go fuck himself!"
"I know you're upset with him but I know he still cares about you…" Thomas said.
"Sure he does…" Anthony said unapprovingly.
"I'm serious! I could tell he really wanted to come back here to try to talk to you himself. But he told me you were on bad terms so I think he was just afraid he'd make it worse."
"He made a good call…" Anthony said, "but…I appreciate the thought."
Anthony stood and put his coat on.
"I think I'm ready to head to the hotel…" Anthony said.
"Sounds good." Thomas said.
The group checked into a nearby hotel. The building had four stories of luxury suites and most importantly: a swimming pool.
Everyone funneled in through the door and tossed their jackets and shoes about, ready to settle in for the night.
"Hey, I'll be back. I'm gonna go head off to a gas station to get something to eat. Any of you guys want anything?" Andrew asked.
"Nah, I'm good." Mathew replied.
"I'm fine." Thomas said.
"No." Anthony glared.
"'Kay. See ya!"
Andrew walked along by himself in the cold quiet night. He wasn't going to go for something to eat. Or rather not just for something to eat. He failed to take someone's life during this thirteen day cycle, so now he was going to pick a prostitute in Ponfield. He would've gone back to the "Good Night" but the sight of the place made Andrew want to hurl. So now he was setting his sights somewhere else.
Andrew walked into a small dimly lit entryway in a back alley. He waited there for a moment before a man of about fifty or so came and gave him a water bottle that had the label torn off. That is, after some payment of course.
"What's this for?" Andrew asked.
"A urine sample. So we can test you for diseases." The man grumbled.
"Umm… okay."
Andrew went to the bathroom and pissed in the bottle. After he came out, he handed it back to the man who gave it to him. Without saying a word he left the room and slammed the door behind him. Twenty minutes later the man came back and told Andrew he could come in further. He took him to the basement. The basement was adorned with beautiful lights and greenery. You never would think that there were prostitutes here, if they weren't lined up in the lobby for Andrew's viewing pleasure. Some of them were smiling. Others were not. The sight of it made Andrew uncomfortable. Andrew chose which girl he would be having sex with. He would be having intercourse with Laura. A woman with large plastic breasts, a little bit shorter than him.
They entered room fifteen, the one designated for him. Andrew slowly entered the room and took a look around. There were porno magazines on the bedside table and avant garde paintings of people in the nude adorning the walls. Andrew felt even more uncomfortable now. He took a seat on the bed and the woman called Laura closed the door and sat on the bed with him.
"You got me for thirty minutes. Where do you wanna start?" Laura said with a glowing smile.
Laura made Andrew reconsider a few things. She had a very warm and kind presence to her. Almost motherly in nature. Andrew didn't know her personally, but somehow he just knew that she was a good person. Andrew looked into her eyes and became lost in thought, before snapping back into it.
"Umm… could you just…like…suck on it?" Andrew asked.
"Yeah! Of course!" The woman said.
She lurched downward, positioning her head directly above Andrew's crotch. She placed one hand on his left leg and began to unzip the zipper of his pants in a slow and sensual manner. Andrew was filled with disgust. Not at the woman in front of him, but rather at himself. She continued to unzip his pants slowly. Time seemed to slow down for Andrew. Every agonizing second felt like an entire decade. Andrew felt something rising within him. It was vomit.
Andrew held his mouth shut tightly and pushed Laura to the side. He ran as fast as he could. He booked it out the door and vomited all over the inside of a nearby trash can in the alley.
"That's rough, buddy!" A woman taking her break outside laughed, "you okay?"