Y2K
Special Note: all links within the chapters open up a new browser window. To return to the chapter, simply close the new window!
Another Special Note: In honor of the close of the 20th century, and the last full-blown chapter of Waylaid, please click here to view our collection of Y2K haiku, submitted by our loving and faithful readers!
Well, folks. . .here we go!
Will paced the length of the bunker room, one hand pressed to his mouth and the other clutching his flannel-clad belly.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he mumbled into his knuckles.
Laura sat in a nearby overstuffed chair, demurely sipping a steaming cup of minty herbal tea. “Everything will be fine, Will,” she murmured absently.
She glanced up at the clock mounted on the wall: 4:15 pm.
A quarter past four on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, 1999. If Simon Waterbury could be trusted, in just 45 short minutes the doors of their plush underground prison would spring open, and they could make their dash to the finish line of the Sooner Than Never treasure hunt.
Laura felt oddly relaxed. . .numb, even. She seemed to be watching her life from afar. None of it seemed real. Their week in the underground bunker had been incredibly restorative for them both: a fully stocked wet bar, plush featherbeds with eiderdown comforters, an ample video library with a jumbo widescreen TV, and the materials for a dizzying succession of gourmet meals had soothed her well-jangled nerves to a degree she hadn’t thought possible. They had both looked, and felt, better than they had in over a year. . . until that morning, however, when Will had begun to flip out. Just a tad.
He couldn’t keep any food in his system. His hands and knees shook a mile a minute, and he had run his fingers through his thinning hair so many times that it stood up like a patchy chestnut haystack. Laura suspected that he hadn’t slept all night long.
Thank God, she thought dully, that he’s out of control and I’m fine. We won’t be able to do this if we’re both falling apart at the seams. I must stay centered. I must stay centered.I must--
“Oh, my God,” Will gasped, clutching his chest and momentarily halting his relentless pacing, “I think I’m having a heart attack!”
“You’re not having a heart attack.”
“No! Really! I think I am!”
“Will, just sit down and try to relax.”
He resumed pacing.
“Do you have the knapsack?” he asked suddenly. “The knapsack Simon left for us?”
Laura patted the brown suede bag at her feet. “It’s all right here, Will. With the siren, the cell phone, the jeweled key, and the megaphone. We’re ready to go as soon as we get let out.”
“This is torture!” Will fumed. “After so many madcap chases and breathless escapes, all this waiting is inhumane! I don’t have the constitution for it!”
“Yes, you do.”
He shivered suddenly and gothically. “Ooooh. . .a chill. A dreadful chill. It feels as though someone has walked over my grave.”
“Will--”
“If I should die tonight, promise me that you will write our book about all of this, and that you’ll make them get Joe Fiennes to play me in the movie version.”
“Will, I promise. I also promise that you aren’t going to die tonight.”
“How can you be sure?”
“You’re going to wear yourself out with all that pacing.”
“So we’re dead set on this. We know where we’re going?”
“To the flaming red jewel by the sign of the rooster? Yeah, I think we’re pretty sure.”
He flailed his arms. “Give me the chapter again, Dial. It’ll help pass the time for our remaining minutes in this hell-hole.”
Laura leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. As was her wont, she had committed the tenth and final chapter of Sooner Than Never to memory.
“Sooner Than Never,” she sighed. “Chapter 10.”
“At last, at long last, Violet had reached the top of the granary; the apex of her father’s empire. There, in the center of the room at the very top of his warehouse, stood his secret coffer.
She moved toward it, sobbing. Justice would finally be hers, after so much sadness, and so much pain.
The jeweled key which locked the coffer lay before it. With a trembling hand, she snatched it from the floor.
The time had come. The time was here.
Outside, a cock crowed. The familiar and blessed sound of the cock. Even in this wretched wasteland, the proud cock still greeted the dawn.
At the sound of the cock, by the sign of the cock, she would meet her destiny!”
“I have absolutely no comment on any of this imagery,” Will interrupted her.
Laura continued.
“The great, red sun began to roll over the horizon, pulsating and shimmering like a flaming red jewel. It was a warming herald of a new day, a new time, a new life.
Violet pushed the key into the coffer.
The cock crowed joyfully in the dawn.
The coffer sprang open. Riches beyond her wildest dreams gushed forth, crushing her past tortures and nightmares and blowing them away on the wind of a new day.
All could now be mended, Violet thought. She moved to the window. The red sun warmed her face, and spilled over her father’s lands, illuminating the crossroads. By the time the red sun sank today, she would be on her way to the East, to the long-sought bosom of her kindly aunt, Dame Lydia Pinkerton.
How good life now was!
How mercurial it could be!
Poor Lady Violet, who had been suffering so wretchedly for so long, was to have a new life. . .a life fit for an angel.
THE END
Will had finally settled down into the twin easy chair across from her. He nervously smiled at her. “So it’s me, you, Simon Waterbury, and Dick Clark. . .for the dawn of a new day--”
“A new life--”
“And a new time.”
“In Times Square.”
“In Times Square.”
*****
“All systems are go, I presume?”
The Bull-Necked Man grimaced into the cell phone. “I guess so. We’re parked on Route 61, across the street from the abandoned mine.”
“Excellent. Excellent.” Simon Waterbury sighed a long, long sigh. “I am going to be . . . indisposed . . . for the rest of the evening. I put my faith in all of you.”
“Mmmm,” the Bull-Neck Man grumbled in response.
“Do not lose sight of them. It is going to be very difficult, I have no doubt, but I want to know where they are every minute from now till midnight.”
“I understand.”
“And use your brains. Above all else, preserve the theatricality of the contest.”
The Bull-Necked Man ground his teeth. “We will, Mr. Waterbury.”
The line went dead. Bull-Neck clicked off the cell phone. “Well, you’ll be happy to know that the Baby New Year wants us to use our brains.”
“Asshole,” breathed the Square-Jawed Man.
Bull-Neck continued, “And above all, we are to--”
“Preserve the theatricality of the contest,” the Man in Armani and the Fair-Haired Man chorused together.
“Right.”
“Well,” Fair-Hair giggled, “it’ll be goddamned theatrical when we snatch the prize away from Gilbert and Dial at the last minute, won’t it?”
“I wonder where the hell they’re going to go,” Square Jaw pondered. “They’ve only got seven hours. If they--”
“Shut up,” Bull-Neck barked, “it’s five minutes to five o’clock.”
*****
Will and Laura stood rooted in the center of the bunker room, clasping each other’s hands, not knowing what to expect nor where to turn. Silent tears coursed down Will’s cheeks as they stared at the second hand gliding around the face of the wall clock.
4:59 and 20 seconds.
4:59 and 35 seconds.
4:59 and 43 seconds.
4:59 and 50 seconds.
“I think I shall faint,” Will whimpered.
The clock’s minute hand snapped forward: 5:00.
The widescreen television clicked on and immediately filled with the broad, beaming face of Simon Waterbury.
“A Happy New Year’s Eve to you, honored guests. You have only one short journey left to reach the end of your Sooner Than Never quest.” He paused as if expecting a response. “I have no doubt you know exactly and precisely where you are going . . . just be certain to wear your seat belts and obey all local traffic regulations. You wouldn’t want to get arrested on this, the most magical of all nights.”
The sound of music began to fill the bunker. It was a recording of a scratchy old phonograph record; the tinny sound and muted horns made Will instantly think of the 1920s.
The song caused both Will and Laura to shiver.
It was “Auld Lang Syne.”
The wall behind the bed which Will had slept in for the past week began to rise from the floor, garage-door style, as the recording grew louder and louder.
The vanishing wall revealed a brilliantly lit, silvery tunnel which stretched away into the distance. At the mouth of the tunnel, a few scant feet away from the head of Will’s bed, stood a brand-new, gleaming, jet-black 1999 Isuzu Trooper.
Laura began dragging Will towards the truck. The sound of “Auld Lang Syne” was now deafening.
Laura advanced to the driver’s side door, and Will, trembling, moved up the passenger side.
They climbed into the truck.
“It’s just like the Batmobile,” Will mumbled. “It’s just like Batman and Robin.”
“I think it’s an abandoned mine.”
Laura’s eyes suddenly teared as she glanced down between the leather bucket seats.
“Will, it’s a stick.”
“What?”
“It’s a standard. . .it’s not automatic.”
“So?”
“I can’t drive standard, Will.”
“Neither can I.” They stared at the offending mechanism. “But I think we’d better learn. Fast.”
*****
Mr. Yemeshigi sat slumped in the back seat of his car, which was parked on the low, ashy knoll before the gates of the Centralia Municipal Cemetery.
The past week had been a torturous ordeal. After trailing Will and Laura to the cemetery, the two had vanished. Completely. He had found their duffel bags and some backpacks on a crumbling cobblestone wall within the cemetery proper, but had seen no sign of either of them since.
Even their car sat abandoned in the town square of Centralia. They couldn’t have left. They had to be nearby. And they had to come out of the hiding place by midnight tonight. Didn’t they?
Suddenly, Yemeshigi heard the squeal of brakes and the hoarse grind of protesting gears. Craning his neck around, he saw a sleek Isuzu Trooper lurching forward down the road which circled the base of the cemetery. He unrolled his window and peered at the shadowy truck.
Though its windows were closed and deeply tinted, the stiff winter wind bore the sound of shrieking, arguing voices to his ears.
There was no doubt about it: Gilbert and Dial were back on the road.
Yemeshigi clambered into the front seat and slid the key into the ignition.
*****
Vesper kneeled ungraciously before the gleaming mauve commode in her spacious bathroom. Several times throughout the past week, she had felt certain that she was go into toss her dainty cookies, but her stomach had merely clenched into an agonizing and constant pain. She wondered vaguely if she had developed an ulcer. Then, she wondered if there were any stray Quaaludes lying about the house.
Takamoto’s hostile takeover of Waterbury Publishing was stalled; she and the other investors currently held 50.70% of all available stock. If the market had not closed early for the holiday, if New Year’s had not fallen on the weekend, if they had only been more aggressive, they most certainly would have succeeded.
If no one won the contest, and she could just hold on till Monday, the Waterbury takeover would be complete by the end of the first business day of the new century. Oh, the irony of it. . .
Her nerves were shot.
There was a light rap on the bathroom door. Shilah poked her bonneted head into the room.
“Miss Shillington?” she piped uncertainly. “The car is here to take you up to Mr. Simon’s billboard.”
Vesper pulled herself to her feet, and Shilah entered the bathroom, brandishing Vesper’s saucy, fur-lined, hot pink parka.
Vesper slid into the proffered coat, then fluffed her platinum locks mechanically.
“You have a Happy New Year, Miss Shillington,” Shilah murmured, looking at the floor and twiddling her little fingers.
Vesper looked at her maid sharply. Where was her usual effervescence? Her cloying ebullience? Her molded plastic “Happy New Year” top hat?
“Happy New Year, Shilah,” Vesper said unenthusiastically as she strode out of the bathroom. The pain in her stomach was like fire.
Shilah stood alone for a few moments, looking after her mistress.
“See you later,” she whispered, to no one but herself.
*****
“Pray with me, Dick. Pray with me.”
Judy Geary knelt beside the bed, her hands laced together and her forehead pressed against them.
Her husband ignored her.
“Dick? We need to pray.”
He stood beside the bed, snapping open the banjo case he had Fed Exed to himself from home.
The high powered rifle lay inside it, in three easy-to-assemble pieces.
Judy’s eyes widened as he lifted the pieces out and began snapping them together.
“Be faithful unto Death and I shall give you the crown of life,” Dick muttered tonelessly, quoting from Revelations.
Judy bowed her head and sobbed.
*****
“And, ladies and gentleman, we have just been informed that Simon Waterbury and Vesper Shillington have arrived at the base of One Times Square and are preparing to be hoisted to the Sooner Than Never billboard.”
David Nimoy turned from the camera and glanced at the billboard, which glittered and dazzled just three short blocks away. The red “Stop” button, which Simon Waterbury would push to signal the end of the treasure hunt, throbbed and pulsed like liquid fire.
“Can you get a shot of that, Murphy?” David asked his cameraman, pointing to two barely discernible forms amidst the milling throngs on the streets below. David turned his attention back to the camera.
“Mr. Waterbury and Ms. Shillington may arguably have the best seats in the house for this final New Year’s Eve of the century,” David intoned melodically. “Seated on a narrow catwalk twenty feet long and three feet wide, eleven stories above the street, they will be just 75 feet from the Waterford crystal ball which will begin its descent at 11:59 pm.”
“By order of public safety inspectors, Mr. Waterbury and Ms. Shillington have been ordered to wear bunjee-cord harnesses, similar to those used by window-washers in the City, as a safety precaution. If either of them happens to slip off the catwalk during this evening’s festivities, they will be saved from an eleven story plunge to the sidewalk by the harness, which will jerk them to a halt a heartstopping six feet above the pavement.”
David glanced at his watch. “And we’re just past seven o’clock here in Times Square, ladies and gentleman. There’s less than five hours until the end of the millennium.”
*****
“I can see her! I can see Vesper!” Faye shrieked, sloshing a wee bit of champagne to the floor of their room at the Times Square Double Tree Guest Suites.
“where?” vampyr questioned, joining her at the window.
“There,” Faye pointed. “At the base of that building where the ball drops. She’s that bright smear of pink down there. It looks like they’re tying her up.”
“good. she won’t be able to get away.”
Faye tittered. “I’m sure it’s some sort of safety precaution. . . speaking of which, are you sure that all of our calls from California will be forwarded here?”
“positive.”
Faye’s hand which held the plastic tumbler of champagne trembled ever-so-slightly. “Maybe Will and Laura will call us by the end of the night.”
“maybe.”
“Maybe they still have a chance.”
“maybe.”
“Who knows? Maybe Mike will show up.”
“maybe.”
“Maybe Will and Laura have already won, and Simon has kept them in seclusion until tonight.”
“it’s a distinct possibility.”
A wan smile crossed her champagne-flushed face. “That’s what I love about you. You’re so definite in all your thinking.”
vampyr shrugged and grinned. “i’m glad we came here. i’m glad Mike sent us the plane tickets. it seems only right that we’re here for the bitter end.”
“But what will the end be?” Faye wondered.
*******
Will took one last drag off his Marlboro Light and hurled it out of the window into the gentle snow of the Poconos. His hands fumbled in the dark cab for another.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Laura asked, through gritted teeth. Finally, she had mastered the stick shift, but her former state of calm and placidity were chipped away in the process.
“I’m sorry,” Will moaned, clutching a fresh smoke gently between his teeth, “I’m a basket-case.”
“Where are we?”
“Scrotum.”
“Where?!”
“Scrotum, Pennsylvania.”
“Will, I think the sign said ‘Scotrun.’”
“Whatever. I can’t think clearly anymore. I think my mind is unhinged.” He glanced at the clock. It was nearly eight. A wave of sudden hysteria passed over him. “We’re never going to make it. Never!”
“We have plenty of time, Will,” Laura said as reassuringly as possible.
That was a bald-faced lie.
*****
“The treasure is near Vesper. The treasure is near Vesper. The treasure is near Vesper,” Chad moaned, with his eyes closed, fingering the prodigious gob of lint in his hairless belly button.
Leia Freitag took another gulp of bourbon. She couldn’t wait until New Year’s was over. She just couldn’t cope anymore.
“Yes, but where IS the treasure, sweetie? Where?” she demanded, her voice furred with alcohol.
“Near Vesper.”
Leia brought down her wide hand on Chad’s shiny scalp. She began to sob. “For God’s sake, Chad, it’s almost 8:30! The contest is almost over!” She seized him by the shoulders and began to shake him violently. “Where is it, you bald bastard? Where?”
“Near Vesper.” God, how he wanted to bitch-slap Leia. “Near Vesper. . .New Year’s Eve. . .Happy New Year. . .”
Leia released Chad and pressed her hands to her temples. Chad opened one eye and peeked at her. The bitch is losing it.
“Three, two, one. . .Happy New Year!” Chad whimpered, writhing on the sofa.
Leia screamed. Hysterically.
“The money is. . .the money is. . .the money is. . . Happy New Year!” Chad bellowed. “Happy New Year! The money must be in Times Square. Near Vesper.”
Leia yelped and leapt to her feet.
“Jesus H. Christ,” she screeched. “Near Vesper. . .in Times Square. . .on New Year’s Eve!”
In two minutes, she had fled the apartment, not even stopping to pull on her coat.
Chad sat up on the sofa. He would never again have to pretend he was hypnotized by that bitch ever again. She was out of his hair, figuratively.
And now, she was the perfect guinea pig. If he and Shilah got to Times Square quickly enough, they would be able to watch her and see precisely what not to do. If nothing else, Leia’s attempt to claim the treasure would set Vesper on edge.
Then, later, he and Shilah could make their move and claim the treasure. Or rather, Chad would claim the treasure. He didn’t much care what happened to Shilah after she got him to Vesper.
He picked up the phone and dialed the hapless maid.
*****
“They’re up there, they’re up there,” Fair-Hair whined, pointing at the shadowy Isuzu a good half mile ahead of them. “They just switched lanes.”
“I see them,” Bull-Neck barked. “I’m not blind.”
“The traffic is getting thicker with every mile,” the Man in Armani observed. “They’re never going to make it.”
*****
Faye stared out the hotel room window at the teeming throngs in Times Square. Thousands of people--no, hundreds of thousands of people--clogged the streets twenty stories below her.
She had never seen so many people in her life. Neatly corralled into gigantic holding pens, with narrow fire lanes running between them, the many people in their festive winter garb looked like an enormous live mosaic.
She shook her head and poured herself another glass of champagne.
*****
“Are you enjoying yourself, Vesper?”
How she longed to slap his fat face!
Vesper stood shivering on the catwalk, her gloved hands clenched to the thigh-high railing. The roar emanating from the crowd below them was deafening.
“I j-j-just don’t understand,” she shivered, “w-w-why we had to g-g-get up here so early, d-d-darling.”
Simon stroked his yellowed beard. “Oh, safety precautions, dearest. This whole city is mad with fear of terrorists and Y2K. It’s wonderful publicity, anyway.”
“I w-w-want to get down.”
“Oh, no, my dear,” his eyes twinkled maliciously. “We’re up here until midnight. There’s no way around that.”
The two-way radio clipped to Simon’s parka crackled and spluttered. “Mr. Waterbury?” It was Jackie, Simon’s overworked Times Square production manager.
Simon pressed the receiver while staring intently at Vesper. “Go ahead, Jackie.”
“There’s a woman here to see Miss Shillington. She says it’s urgent.”
Vesper felt her stomach clench. Oh, God, what could be happening?
Simon grinned at her. “A visitor, Miss Shillington? On our billboard? At such a time?”
Jackie’s voice came up the radio. “I shouldn’t let her climb up the ladder, should I?”
Simon replied sweetly. “Heavens, no. We have much more dramatic means of entrance for any visitors we get this evening.”
Vesper began to shake uncontrollably.
“Pray, who is this visitor, Jackie?”
“Her name is Leia Freitag.”
Simon grinned at Vesper. “Should we let her up, Vesper?”
“I--I don’t think so.”
Simon turned back to his radio. “Tell Miss Freitag that she will have to wait and speak with Miss Shillington later. And tell her ‘close, but no cigar.’” He chortled.
Vesper’s eyes teared. The trap was closing around her.
*****
It was 9:43 pm, and they were going nowhere fast. Laura gnawed on her thumbnail.
Twenty minutes ago, when they had rounded the bend on Route 80, and the brilliant skyline of Manhattan came into view, Will had let loose a wild chorus of whoops and hollers.
Now, as they sat in the motionless traffic on the George Washington Bridge, which would take them into the City, Will kneaded his forehead with his knuckles.
“Drive, Miss Tessmocher, drive,” he said lamely.
Laura ripped off a good-sized portion of her nail with her teeth. That really hurt, she thought dully.
The radio had informed them that Manhattan was in a state of total gridlock. Concerns about security in Times Square had closed half of the city’s streets and made parking illegal in a 60 block radius of the ball drop.
A car behind them honked angrily. Laura viciously lowered her window and stuck her arm out, middle finger raised.
“Careful,” Will cautioned, leaning back against the headrest, “Beware of road rage.”
Laura stared at him blankly for a moment, then reached a fumbling hand into the back seat. “Come on,” she suddenly barked, “We’re going.”
She swung open the door of the truck.
Will stared at her incredulously. “Are you serious? We’re leaving the car?”
“I am so serious it hurts.”
“But we’re miles away from Times Square!”
“Will, we’ll be able to walk there faster than driving. Maybe we can take the subway to the finish line.” She strapped on the knapsack from the underground bunker.
A sudden surge of adrenaline shot through Will. His face broke into a wide grin. “Let’s not just walk . . . let’s run!”
He threw open the door and they ran into the chilly night.
******
Leia Freitag screamed uncontrollably as the barrel-chested police officer snapped the cuffs onto her wrists.
“You can’t do this!” she wailed. “Vesper Shillington murdered Simon Waterbury’s wife!”
“Sure, lady,” the cop grunted.
Leia turned beseechingly toward a group of horrified merrymakers nearby. “Someone help me! All that money! The prize money! It’s all up there!”
The officer began to lead her away to a paddy wagon parked at the corner of 43rd Street and Broadway. They had kept the side streets empty for purposes such as this.
“Listen!” Leia shrieked, in a desperate, final attempt for freedom, “Vesper Shillington is really a man!”
The cop tightened his grip on her upper arm. “Yeah, lady. . .and he’s my long-lost father, too. Let’s go.”
*****
Tina Quigley and her daughter Lindsay stepped out of the Hotel Olcott on West 81st Street. The sting of the wintry night crinkled the insides of their noses.
“Where do you want to go, pumpkin?” Tina had convinced herself that the lateness of their flight getting into LaGuardia was not going to ruin her New Year’s Eve.
“I wanna go to the top of the Empire State Building! I do!”
Tina had seen the crowds in Times Square on the hotel room TV. “We’re gonna have to wait for that one, sweetie. I don’t even think they’re open this late.”
“Let’s go ride on one of the ponies we saw when we were in the taxi.”
Tina smiled. “All right, baby.” That wouldn’t be bad, Tina thought happily. There were worse places she could be at the turn of the century than riding in a carriage through Central Park. Besides, she could go out bar-hopping later, after the kid was in bed.
They turned their steps toward the Park.
Tina sighed, holding Lindsay’s mittened hand. This trip was going to work for her. Her divorce from Derek had been finalized on Christmas Eve; this trip to New York was a special victory treat for her and Lindsay.
Tina glanced down at her daughter. She was so proud of her. Lindsay had even enjoyed Christmas this year, which was a major coup. Tina had feared permanent trauma last Christmas, when the Santa Claus upon whose knee her daughter sat had suffered a massive heart attack in a Las Vegas casino.
*****
The Bull-Necked Man cursed softly at the traffic surrounding them on the George Washington Bridge.
“We’re never gonna make it,” Square-Jaw lamented.
“It doesn’t matter,” Bull-Neck grunted. “He’ll share the prize money if he gets it.”
“He damn well better.”
“He won’t be able to run in those shoes,” Fair-Hair commented, glancing down at the empty space beside him which the Man in Armani had formerly occupied.
*****
Too much text for one file! Click here to read more!
Get your own Free Home Page