Ok, everyone, for the past four months, I have been working on this contest thing called Nanowrimo, which means National Novel Writing Month. The website is nanowrimo.org, and the purpose is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Obviously, if I have been working on it for the past four moinths, then I didn't finish it by the deadline, but nevertheless, I am finished, so here is the first three pages. Enjoy. And, just in case you think that I will do the same thing with this that I did with the Sixth Degree, well, I've stopped writing that and it's unfinished, so there's no reason for me to continue posting it. But this is finshed and I really want to show off the ending. So with no further ado, here is Dogs of Wrath, The.
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"Hello, you've reached India Woodard. I'm sorry, but I can't come to the phone right now. Leave a message."
Christopher hung up and pinched the bridge of his nose. Okay, dude. Calm down. So she's not at work. Call her home number. He opened his cell phone again and pressed the buttons, his hand trembling as he dialed. He punched Send and listened to her phone rang.
Someone picked up. "Hello?" said a deep voice. Chris swallowed.
Fuck. I didn't think anyone else would be home. "Yeah, this is Chris. Is India there?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Chris. I told you that already."
"Hold on." Chris listened as the man yelled, "India! For you!"He could barely hear the footsteps, but suddenly, a softer, gentler voice spoke.
"Chris, is that you?"
"Yeah. Look, India-"
"Save it. We both know you were wrong. How could you even . . ."
"India, hear me out. I'm sorry. How many times do you want me to say it?"
"I don't want you to say it. In fact, I don't even want to hear your voice. Please. Just leave me alone. Don't ever try to talk to me again. Goodbye Chris."
These last words were spoken in the voice of someone about to cry. "India, wait," he cried, but she had already hung up.
He looked at the phone in his hands. God. I thought she knew me. Doesn't she know I'm kicking myself over this? I feel almost as bad as she must. It was just meant to be a joke. Fuck. He stood up and walked to his room. You know what? I am going over there, and I am going to get her to forgive me. I don't care. He pulled on his shoes and put his keys in his pocket. But how? That was a douchebag move and she must be practically crying or something. Fuck. He turned on his iPod and set it to shuffle. The Heart of the Matter by India.Arie began playing and he smiled. How appropriate. But whatever. I'm just going to wing it. He locked the door behind him.
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India sat on her bed, wrapped in her sheets and wearing nothing else. She could hear Bruce singing to Bob Marley in the shower. For such a small man, he had a surprisingly deep voice.
She thought about Chris. How he could always make her laugh. How he always seemed unaffected by the suffering of the world, though now she wasn't sure if that was a good thing. How it always seemed brighter when he was nearby and when he smiled, all of her troubles seemed to lessen in importance. How could he say such a thing? He wasn't drunk or anything. He was sober. We were going to a movie. That asshole!
The shower stopped and Bruce walked, no, more strutted into her room with only a towel wrapped around his waist, his skin still glistening from the water. "How you feelin'? You look real down," he said. He sat on the bed next to her.
"Oh, it's just my ex-boyfriend, Chris," she said as she leaned against him.
He wrapped his arm around her. "You want I should mess him up?"
She smiled, but her heart wasn't in it. "No, because then you'd go to jail."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"A'ight. Hey, what do you want to do tonight?"
"Well, you know that new restaurant that just opened? Fish and Chips?"
"Yeah. You want to go there?"
"Yes."
"Okay. I'll call and get us a table. Is it a dinner place?"
"Mm-hm."
"Okay. You want to go see a movie or something until then?"
"That would be wonderful," she said, smiling up at him."
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Chris hopped out of the car and ran up the walkway. Hope she hasn't left yet, he thought. He reached the front door and stopping, he rapped upon the door. No answer. He rapped harder. Why didn't she get her doorbell fixed?
He ran around the house to the back and peered into an empty kitchen. Undaunted, he knocked the back door with such force that it could not have gone unheard anywhere inside of the house. There was no sign of movement inside of the house. Damn, she left. Now what? He sat down on the steps and rested his head in his hands. Ok, you ran over here, and now she's not here. You can't just wait here until she comes back. That could be hours, or days!
He took out his cell phone and dialed a number. "Hey, Ian. Are you doing anything?"
"No," Ian replied.
"Good. You wanna go to the mall?"
"Ok. See you there."
He hung up. I guess I'll come back and see if she's here later.
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"Oh, Mark. I-I never knew that you felt that way about me!"
"Well, I do, Jenny. I love you."
Waves rose in the background as they kissed, the man's collar-length hair waving in the breeze and the woman's long hair blowing out behind her. The sun reached the horizon and shone all sorts of colors, red, purple, green and yellow as the music began to play.
The credits began to roll. The house lights came on, revealing Bruce's supremely disgusted visage, which he immediately concealed for India's sake. The two exited the theater that had just shown An Exercise in Wish Fulfillment.
"So, how'd you like the movie?" he asked.
"It was so romantic! The way Mark crossed the Sahara to find her, and he dove into the ocean to catch her boat! What did you think?"
It was a load of trash. I'd never do anything like that for a woman. "I thought it was ok." He checked his watch. "Hey, it's almost eight. We should get over to that Fish and Chips place before they give our table away. The guy told me they were booked solid on Fridays."
"Ok." India frowned, unnoticed by Bruce as he nearly ran to the car.
"Traffic's probably going to be hell, too."
"Yeah."
A car pulled into the parking lot, nearly running over Bruce. Is that . . . Chris? India thought. No, it couldn't be. He would never hunt me down like that. But still . . . No, forget it.
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Is that India? Chris thought swerving into the parking lot, nearly flattening a furious short man as he craned to see the woman the man was with. No way. That would be so much of a coincidence, but still. Maybe I should I go around again, just to make sure. But as he circled the parking lot, he saw that the two had vanished. Oh well. I'd better get into the mall before Ian leaves. Why did traffic have to be so bad? He parked and got out of the car.
"Chris? Chris Johnson? Is that you?"
Chris looked over and spotted a man waving at him. "Hey, Robb! I haven't seen you since high school! Where you been?"
Robb walked over and they shook hands. "Oh, here and there. I enlisted right after graduation and they bounced me around for a while, until my tour of duty ended. Then I moved to Washington and got myself a job as campaign manager for a senator, and here I am."
"Cool. Hey, listen, I'm here to see a movie with Ian. Remember him?"
"Of course! Ian Sinaloa! How could I forget? First day of sophomore year, he gave me a swirly and the next day I gave him one back!"
"Yeah, I heard that. Anyway, you want to come?"
"Yeah, why not? I kept in touch with him for a few years, and then we sort of trailed off. It'll be nice to see him after four years."
"Ok then. Hey, you remember Katie Moss?"
"Um . . . oh, yeah. What happened to her?" asked Robb.
And the two friends walked towards the mall, reminiscing about their high school days, days that they still looked back on with longing.
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A car sped down a dark highway. There was not another car anywhere in sight, a fact that worried India as she sat inside the car. She was well aware of the possibility of date rape and had a friend who had been date-raped three years ago. She had consoled this friend and had never forgotten how her friend had said that the man who had raped her was someone she trusted.
Yeah, she trusted Bruce. And she knew, or thought she knew, that he would never do something so horrible. He would never abuse her trust in such a way; never break someone's faith in the world just so he could get some sex. But still, she worried, and she tried to avoid being in situations where he could just abduct her and no one would be the wiser.
She wished that she didn't have to worry about things like that, but it was part and parcel of the world she lived in. Everything was easier; you could connect to almost anyone in no time, but with that gift came a curse: almost anyone could do the same to you. The world had gotten harder, and in order to survive, you had to get harder too.
"Survival of the fittest," she whispered, the shadow of a smile upon her red lips.
Bruce looked over towards her, having heard the first word uttered by either of them in nearly an hour. "What did you say?"
"Oh, nothing," she replied coyly, looking out the window so he couldn't she her face. A thought struck her. "Hey, who are you voting for tomorrow?"
He faced the road again, though in all probability, he could have just lifted his hands off of the wheel, not look out the windshield and not hit anything. "I don't know. I was thinking about that independent, what's his name? . . . Right, Luther Malong. I like his platform, about adding money to education, the environment and defense. He covers issues that the other candidates are afraid to cover because it will wreck their parties, but because he's paying for his own campaign out of pocket, he can do whatever he wants."
"Yeah, I like him too, but I think he's too irrational. That's why I'm for Stephen Carsten. He has similar views, but he's more restrained and controlled, less emotional. But I guess we'll see who wins tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah," affirmed Bruce. "I guess we'll see."
They drove in silence for a while until they reached India's house. She turned to Bruce. "Well, thanks for a lovely evening. I'll see you tomorrow."
"It was a pleasure," he replied. "Good night, India."
She stepped out of the car and walked up the walkway to her house. She swayed her hips more than they usually moved, fully aware that Bruce was watching them.
And he was, but not with the expression of someone who is fascinated. The look on his face would have frightened her had she seen it, but the cardinal rule of hip-swaying is to never look back at the man who is watching you. Even so, as she put her key in the lock, she got a feeling that something was not quite right, but she didn't look back. That was a mistake.
©2009 Malcolm Clarke
