No Summer This Year, Part 3

Notice:  This story has been rated "R" for adult language, nudity, sexual
content, violence, and explicit smoking.  Some scenes may be too intense for
the unimaginative.

Copyright 1998 by G. M. Sullivan.  All rights reserved.  This story may be
copied and distributed for the uncompensated amusement of others only.

Author's Introduction:  "Submitted for your approval, a little tale I call
'No Summer This Year.'  File this one under 'A Young Girl Starts Smoking...in
the Twilight Zone.'"

Dedication:  For the StogieMon, who understood.


"No Summer This Year," Part Three of Three


Onward to the north, gradually growing farther from home.  She longed to turn
around.  Was the gloom growing deeper?  It was hard to tell.  She had no
watch, no way to tell time.  The length of the days seemed to vary
unpredictably.  She could not, must not, let darkness catch her outside.

Bleeker Street was nearing its end.  It terminated at a "T" intersection with
West Eighth Street, once a center for shopping and dining in the Village.
Now it was a dead street, like so many other dead streets, barren of life or
salvageable goods.

There was some life today, though.  A young man in a dark coat leaned against
an ice-slickened brick wall near the intersection.  As Janie neared him, she
realized he was familiar.  It was Doug.

"Hi, Janie," he said.  The cold did not seem to bother Doug much.  His voice
was almost cheerful.

"Hi," she answered.  Again, the rusty door creaked and stayed mostly shut.
"I bought cigarettes."  She removed the pack to show Doug, and found herself
removing a long, white cylinder.

"Good for you."  He smiled, and from somewhere produced an old lighter, one
that resisted the fierce wind.

Janie leaned forward to catch a light.  She sucked hard,  drawing the
flickering flame to the cigarette's tip.  Smoke filled her mouth, and she
chased it with air before the wind could snatch it from her.  She
straightened and exhaled, watching the voluminous cloud surround her briefly,
only to be quickly dispersed.  Any warmth it lent was too slight to notice
here, outside in the wind.

"Have they helped?" Doug asked.

At first she was unsure what he meant.  "Helped?  I smoke them mostly at
night.  It makes me feel a little warmer."

Doug smiled wider.  Janie was exhaling again, thickly and copiously.  "You
are coming along," he said.  "Why don't you meet me tomorrow night, at
Ashley's?"

Ashley's, she knew, was a once-popular disco on Fifth Avenue.  Surely it was
closed now.  And she could never go out..."At night?"

"Who would go there during the day?" he asked.  "Of course, at night."

Janie puffed on her shrinking cigarette.  "But..." she said.  Having
forgotten to exhale consciously, smoke accompanied the word, surprising her.
"Okay."  More smoke emerged and she blew the rest out uncertainly.

"See you tomorrow then," he said.  "Better head home now.  It's getting
late."  Doug walked away, disappearing around the corner.

She wanted to follow, to maintain the human contact, but she could see he was
right.  The sky was noticeably darker.  She needed to return home, as quickly
as she could.

Taking a last puff on the cigarette, she turned around and headed south.  She
held the smoke in for a long time, trying to believe it was warming her,
carrying her along.  Her eventual exhale was thin but long, sweeping the
street before her with mixed smoke and water vapor.

With the wind mostly at her back in this direction, she made better time on
the return trip.  No unexpected events or encounters delayed her.

There was still some light left in the sky when she entered the brownstone.
She ate some stew and peas, barely thawed by her thin Sterno flame.  In her
bedroom, she smoked two cigarettes, finding that the lingering smell and
ambient smoke comforted her as she slid into bed.  It was funny, she thought,
how quickly even new things became routine when there so few things to start
with.

She closed her eyes.  Sleep soon...first:

================================================================

Janie and her mother had just finished loading the new VW Rabbit when she saw
Carla for the last time.

Seeing Carla's approach, Janie's mother mumbled something and disappeared
back into the house.  Janie was not pleased at being left alone with her
former friend, but it was of little moment.  She would be leaving soon
herself, and for good.

Carla, as always, was dressed in a loud manner, but a little less revealingly
than in the past.  No coat concealed her charms in the late-August heat.  As
always, she held a lit Salem in her hand.  Smoke was escaping her nose as she
admired the new car.

"Heading off for college?" Carla asked, unnecessarily.

"Yeah, I start at Hunter in a week," Janie said awkwardly.  "You?"

"I guess I'll be at Burger King forever," Carla replied, inhaling smoke.
"It's a job, until I find someone to take care of me."

As long as she stayed in this town, Janie thought, 19-year-old "Carla the
whore" was unlikely to find anyone to take care of her.

"Look," said Carla, "I know we parted on bad terms.  Then after I dropped
out..."

"Forget it.  I'll always remember you.  I'll write, I'll be in touch."

"I was wondering...do you think if I got a GED..."  Carla laced the
late-summer air with smoke.

"Don't worry about that," said Janie.  Carla was barely literate.  "I'm sure
you'll do fine just as you are."

"If you say so."  Carla took a deep puff and sighed smoke.  "I've always
dreamed about college..."

"College's not for everyone.  Just roll with the flow."

"Okay then.  Good luck, Janie."  Carla walked away, flicking her cigarette
into the gutter.

"Bye."

Janie was soon on her way.  She never thought of calling or writing Carla,
and before long it became a moot point.

Three weeks later, Carla hanged herself.

================================================================

Janie stifled a scream as her eyes snapped open to pitch blackness.  This
time she remembered the brief Review vividly, as if she had just lived it.
Carla, Carla, I should have known, I should have...

Janie's thoughts fragmented in an emotion something like panic.  When she had
first heard of Carla's suicide all her emotions had blanked out.  She had not
attended the funeral and not spoken to anyone about it.  She could not let
herself care in the least.  She knew that with caring would come the thought
that she might be responsible, and that was unbearable, unthinkable.  She
could not face that idea then, and she could not face it now.  If that's
where the Reviews were meant to take her, she would be reduced to gibbering
madness.

Janie burst from the bed almost before she realized the bedroom was still
lightless.  A painfully barked shin brought the fact quickly home.  She
forced herself to be calm, to slow down.

Had she awakened before dawn, or perhaps slept straight through to the next
night?  That had happened in the past, one way or the other.  There was no
way to tell which.  The dead analog-electric on her night-stand always read
2:04.  AM or PM, she often wondered.

When she had awakened in the dark previously, she simply went back to sleep
until light returned.  That would not be possible now.  Her nerves jangled
almost as badly as when she suffered her chest pains.  She was up to stay.

This was going to be difficult.  Stumbling like the blind person she was at
the moment, she felt for  the night-stand.  Yes, there was a stubby candle
remaining from last(?) night.  Her matches were on the dresser beside the
pack of Kents.  It took a long time and a few near-falls to fetch those
items, return to the night-stand, and get the candle lit.  No amount of
acclimation could lessen this darkness in the least.

She held the match-flame long enough to light a cigarette as well.  As she
hoped, deeply-inhaled smoke had a calming effect, one she badly needed.  She
blew smoke near (but not too near) the candle-flame, so she could see it
catch the light as it danced and swirled.  Smoking not only soothed her
nerves, but helped focus her thoughts.  She remembered speaking to Doug.  He
had said he wanted to meet her, at night.

She was totally free of the unseen "puppeteer" at the moment and could
control her own movements.  She took a final puff on the cigarette, letting
exhaled smoke flow slowly into the small pool of light surrounding her seat
on the edge of the bed.  She could not go out at night, of course.  It would
be no easier to see out there, and the hazards were many for the sighted,
much less the blind.

She lit another cigarette, using the candle this time.  She had only two
matches left.  If there were none on her next visit to the Store, things
would get difficult.

She gave her thoughts relatively free reign as she sat, smoking.  They flowed
in no certain directions.  When she discarded the spent cigarette, however,
she began to act.

It grew no brighter as she moved about the apartment.  The night was still
unbroken when she paused before the front door of the brownstone.  A fresh
candle burned between her mittened hands, and several more were stuffed in a
coat pocket, along with her cigarettes and two remaining matches.  This was
insane, she thought.  The wind will blow out the candle as soon as the door
opens.  Nevertheless, she had to try.

Though the wind whipped as fiercely as ever, the candle somehow stayed lit.
Its flame burned straight and true, utterly unaffected by the gale, though
Janie was punished as brutally as ever.

Her shadow, black as ink, trailed behind her as she walked toward Fifth
Avenue.  The candlelight, though steady, cast its illumination only a few
feet in any direction, mercifully hiding the usual set of depressing
details.  If there were any eyes to see this would make a strange sight, she
thought; a lone woman walking like some penitent in a strange parade, a pool
of light moving through empty streets, her impossible candle clasped before
her in two shrouded hands.

There were eyes to see.  As she neared the corner, one of the things spoke to
her.  She froze, both from startlement and because she had no other choice.

"Janie," it said.  "We must talk."

"Yes, sir," she replied.  It stood beyond candle-range, sparing her any sight
of its forbidding visage.

"Have you been thinking of the things we last spoke of?"

"Yes, sir," Janie said, more definitely than last time.

"Are you happy with your life and how you are living it?"

"No, sir."

"What would you like to do?"

"I would like to be...forgiven, sir."  Was that what she had meant to say?
Yes.

"Very good.  You may go."

She found it spoke the truth.  Her feet were free.

Before she could lose her nerve and return home, she resumed her procession
up Fifth Avenue.  The disco, Ashley's, was on the opposite side of the street
just a short way from Bleeker.  If she could find it at all in the night, it
would be as cold, dark, and empty as it always was during the day.  Then she
would go home, any obligation discharged, and sleep until it got light.

However she was not too surprised when Ashley's became visible long before
she reached it.  Colored lights played across the frozen sidewalk, music
blared from the wide-open doorway.  All that was missing was the line of
colorfully-dressed people waiting to be passed into its room of glamour and
noise.

Once inside, her dwindling candle suddenly went out.  It hardly mattered.
The interior was dimly lit but sun-bright compared to what she was used to.
An illuminated, mirrored ball spun near the ceiling, sending small beams to
every corner of the club.  Indirect, colored spotlights provided random pools
of more intense brightness.  The heavy, repetitious beat of the music echoed
through the room, grabbing and controlling her heartbeat.

There was no one else here.  Tables were bare, chairs empty, the long bars
unattended.  No, not quite empty, she thought.  One table had a lone
occupant, a young man wearing a dark coat.  She moved to a vacant seat at the
table and sat down, uninvited.

"Hi, Janie," said Doug.

"Hi yourself," she replied, inexpressibly proud of her achievement in keeping
this "date."  Did he have any idea of what she had endured to be here?

If he did, he didn't show it.  He only gazed at her as she doffed hat, scarf,
and mittens.  It was still very cold in here, their breathing quite visible,
but the lights lent a sense of warmth, at least.  In no hurry to fill the
conversational void, she removed her pack of cigarettes, placed one between
her lips, and waited.

Doug produced his lighter and lit her cigarette.  She gave him a show puff,
complete with French inhale, smoke rings, and a final, large exhale not
politely directed away from his face.  She felt in control, almost
disrespectful, in a way she had not experienced in a very long time.

Doug asked, "Are you still looking for love?"

That set her back slightly.  "No...yes!  Are you offering some?"  She smiled
coquettishly, pursed her lips, and blew smoke at him playfully.

Doug smiled.  "I am, in a sense.  But that's not what you said to the
Monitor."

The Monitor?  Who was that?  She hid her confusion with banter.  "Do you keep
track of everything I say?"

"Not everything, no."  He paused, regarding the burning cigarette in her
hand.  "Smoking has been significant in your life.  Do you know why, now?"

"Yes...I suppose."  This was getting very close to things she didn't want to
think of.  If he mentions Carla I'm leaving, she thought.  Regardless.

He didn't, though.  Instead he said, "come home with me?"

Again, she was taken aback.  This was not going at all as expected.  She took
a last puff on the cigarette and recovered a little.  While expelling smoke,
she said, "Why Doug, this is so sudden!  Shouldn't we have a drink first, at
least...?"

She felt foolish as she made the remark, noticing again the lack of serving
people, the vacant bars, and the empty, lighted shelves behind them.

Speaking quickly to cover her embarrassment, she said, "let's dance, at
least!"  The disco beat continued as backdrop.  She reached a hand to grasp
his and pull him up from the seat.

She recoiled in horror.  His hand was as cold as ice.

"Don't," Doug said mildly.  "It's not time."

He rose from the chair and moved toward the shadows in the rear of the club.
She followed reluctantly, but by her own choice.

Any hesitation was erased by her memory of a comment from another place and
time.  "Wassamatter, frigid?"


Doug's apartment was two stories above the disco.  It was not much different
from her own.  There were no electric lights, but many candles burned on
every available surface.  Otherwise it had the same dead, empty look that
greeted her at home each day.

There was a significant difference, though.  The apartment was warm, very
warm, much too warm for the way she was dressed.  This, more than anything
else could, stimulated her sense of wonder and provided blessed relief as
well.

He helped her remove her coat like any gentleman, and she didn't resist.  She
didn't resist when he removed the rest of her clothes, then took off his
own.  He had the body of a young god.  Smoothly muscled, almost inhumanly
perfect, and unmarred by the signs of malnutrition that afflicted her own.

He led her into the bedroom.  He did not lay a hand on her, but she followed
passively, willingly, just a little embarrassed by their nudity.

The bedroom, also well illuminated by many candles, was similar to hers.  A
double bed was smothered by heavy blankets.  There was a dresser, a mirror, a
night-stand.  Soon she would be sharing his bed, his gentle touch, a pleasure
denied her for so, so long..  Was this her reward, her final...epiphany?

She turned to face his nude form uncertainly.  He stood close, his hands
moving to bracket her shoulders but hovering inches from fleshy contact.

"Few reach this point," he said, and she listened intently.  "One step
remains."

A step she was ready, no, anxious for.  There was a thin trickle of wetness
against her inner thigh.  "I'm ready Doug," she said.  "ready to accept you,
to love you, on any terms you choose."

He smiled wryly, with a look of...regret?  "Not that, Janie."  His head
turned to the bed, and her eyes turned to follow.

Carla, aged 19, was lying upon it, dressed in demure nightclothes.  Her hands
toyed with a thick, knotted rope.

"No!" Janie shouted, almost screaming.  She turned away and moved with three
running steps to the bedroom door, then stopped of her own accord.  She
turned back to Doug and the...person on the bed, who had taken no notice of
the couple's presence.

"Isn't she an old friend of yours?" asked Doug.  "You haven't spoken to her
in a long time.  Would you like to?"

Each step was an agony, fear wringing her pounding heart.  But she approached
the bed, finally sitting on its edge near the younger woman.  Carla looked up
from the rope, noticing her at last.

"Janie!  Long time no see!"  Carla said, then squinted at her.  "Why aren't
you dressed?"

"I come to you unshielded, as I truly am,"  Janie said formally.  What the
hell was that? she thought immediately.  Such a foolish, stilted thing to say
to Carla!   She had spoken automatically, prompted by...?

"Whatever."  Carla giggled.  The rope was gone, but now an angry, red scar
encircled her neck.  "How's college?  I've been waiting for your call."

"Carla, I didn't...I never...why?  For God's sake, why did you do it?"

"Do what?  Oh, this?"  Carla fingered the scar on her neck.  "What else could
I do?  What did I have to look forward to?  A life sentence at Burger King?
That for sure.  Marriage?  Happiness?  Fat chance!"

"Carla, I...I'm so..."

"So sorry?  Forget it.  What could you do?  The prom queen, hanging out in
public with the class whore?  What a joke!"  Carla giggled, her voice free of
any bitterness or sarcasm.  "Wanna cigarette?"

Janie nodded tearfully, and Carla produced two Salems, using a Bic to light
them both.

"Look, Janie, things haven't been too bad since..."  Carla frowned, as though
she had lost the thought.  "Whenever."  Smoke accompanied her words.  "I
really haven't thought about you in a dog's age.  Sorry if that hurts."

Janie smiled weakly, letting her exhaled smoke cover the blankets.  "It
doesn't hurt.  It was me who did the hurting.  Carla, I'm so, so sorry for
what I did.  There was a lot I could've..."

"...done?" Carla finished.  "Maybe, maybe not.  It's all water under the
bridge.  Forget it!"  Carla showed no sign of the anger Janie had expected.
She couldn't stand it.

"Carla, I can't!" Janie shouted.  "I betrayed you after you helped me!  I
hurt you, rejected you, when you asked ME for help!  I let you die, Carla!
Die!"

There was more.  Janie related every Review, every memory, in painful,
complete detail.  Carla listened quietly, puffing on her Salems.  The
confession continued as Carla finished one, two, then three cigarettes.

Janie paused, finished at last.  Carla said nothing, but again offered her
pack of Salems.  Janie accepted gratefully, and the two girls shared a last
smoke.

"Carla, I've lived a long time in hell," said Janie, exhaling.  "I need your
forgiveness.  If there's anything I can do..."

"Do?" said Carla.  "Not now."  She smiled.  "But for what it's worth, I
forgive you, Janie.  I never hated you or blamed you.  I love you."

The intense joy that filled Janie's breast was interrupted by a pain that
shot her to her feet, filling her chest with fire, jangling her arms with
shock, causing her to drop the cigarette.  Again, so soon?

Carla frowned, seeing Janie's distress.  "What's wrong?  Aren't you past all
that?  Janie!"

"Clear!" someone said.  The pain came again, intense beyond belief, with no
discernible break from the last shock.  The bedroom was lightening, fading.
She was losing Carla.  "I love you too!" Janie called, but her voice was lost
in void and distance.


"We have a heartbeat and a pulse.  Another 300 CC of Epinepherin, nurse.  Use
the long needle."

Janie felt a pinch between her ribs.  Bright lights shown in a fog above
her.  Distorted figures hovered nearby.

"Where is Dr. Malverne?  He's her cardiologist, the one who knows this case.
We need to open her up, stat," said a male voice.

"He's on his way, Doctor.  Five minutes, tops."  This from a woman's voice.
"What a shame...so young."

A short hesitation, then the male voice spoke again.  "Begin surgical prep.
She should last until he gets here.  Remove the patient to Recovery for now,
but continue to monitor her closely."

Janie was lying flat on a padded table which now began to move.  Soon it
stopped in a place where the lights shown less brightly.  The blurred figures
withdrew and she was left alone.  She was warm, so warm!  It was delightful.
There was a beeping noise somewhere in the background, but it faded as she
relaxed, luxuriating in real warmth and comfort for the first time in ages.
She felt a tingling in her fingers and toes, but those feelings soon dwindled
to insensibility.  Her breath, her racing heart, slowed.  She was so
happy...

Janie was not quite alone.  No, someone was leaning over her table and her
vision sharpened in response.  Her heart gave a stumbling lurch within her
and grew irrevocably still...but she did not really notice.  Far away, at the
brink of hearing, the beeping sound became a steady whine.

"Hi, Janie," said Doug.

Hi yourself, she thought.

"It's time now," Doug said, extending his hand.

The blurred figures had returned, scurrying foolishly around Doug, ignoring
him.  She ignored them, and weakly raised a hand from beneath white sheets.
She grasped Doug's fingers tightly in her own.

His hand was still as cold as ice, but this time she did not pull away.

The End

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