Chapter 1 (Part 1)

PART I. The Journey Home.

Chapter 1. Clash of Fates.

Old Eagletown, South Dakota.
Saturday, August the 27th, 2007.

1.
Jan Rollins had been driving for nearly eight hours in that dark, lonely highway. He had departed Madison, Wisconsin at around two in the afternoon. He took the 90 Interstate at around three and drove all the way from there to Old Eagletown, South Dakota. He was already in the Mount Rushmore State; he had been for nearly an hour. Old Eagletown could already be seen as a group of randomly strewn lights, not too far away from where he was.
Jan wasn’t alone. His girlfriend, Lisa, was sleeping on the passenger’s seat. He looked at her for a moment and smiled. Lisa was dark eyed, blonde. Her mouth was very small and her lips seemed to be stuck in a perpetual kiss. She drove him crazy, if he looked at her while she slept for more than ten seconds, he’d be urged to wake her and kiss her. He knew that she wouldn’t throw a fit if he did, but he’d rather let her sleep. He knew how much Lisa hated highways, and if she was awake it’d be worse. Besides, they were almost there, he’d have all the time he wanted with her once they had checked in the Old Eagletown Holiday Inn.
Interstate 229 was exceptionally lonely for a Saturday near the end of summer. He hoped Old Eagletown wouldn’t be as desolated or boring as the highway leading to it was. He had lived in Madison for a few years, working as an aspiring filmmaker for Lone Wolf Films, an independent production company. He liked to call himself an aspiring filmmaker, as he knew a lot about movies, names, dates, had studied Film as a side enrollment in High School and actually worked for a production house. Up until one year ago, he had done nothing more than what he called “assist an assistant”, or just do small jobs for everyone on set. Sometimes, the directors who knew Jan had talent would ask him for his opinion on something, or what he would do. They rarely ever listened to what he said, but it was fulfilling enough to help the director of a movie. He was only twenty one, and most directors were much older than him, so he felt like he still had a lot of time to become a director himself.
But before he would do that, his passion was the SFX shop. That’s where he had been working for a year. Since Lone Wolf Films produced mostly horror and sci-fi flicks, it was great fun to work in the special make up effects for the movies they did. During the shoot of “Howl”, a werewolf movie he had worked as Chief SFX Artist and Supervisor, he had designed the prosthetic werewolf costumes and applied some of the make up on the actors. He thought he and his crew had done a great job with the effects, and the movie itself turned out to be great. Joshua Williamson had been nominated for a Saturn Award for his screenplay. He didn’t win, but the merit was there. Jan just wished there was more recognition in the industry for SFX artists.
But three days before, the owner of Lone Wolf Films sent Jan a memo by mail, telling him that they were going to shoot a new thriller called “Quiet Mountain” down in Old Eagletown, South Dakota, and that they needed him there to be the First Assistant Director and again, the Chief Make-up Artist. He was extremely happy with the news. Immediately, he told Lisa that he was going to leave for a few months. She said that she’d go with him, she had just been fired from her old job as an animator for a children’s parties company called Zsu Bling and she had enough money to go with him.
It felt to Jan like heaven, almost. He took both the letter (which he’d continuously re-read) and the address he’d have to report to as soon as he was in Old Eagletown. His plan was to check in the hotel and then drive to the place where he was supposed to go. He couldn’t afford flying, the hotel itself wasn’t paid at 100% by Lone Wolf Films, and it was going to be a great expense. He didn’t think Lisa would want to accompany him to a meeting at 11PM at night, or even later than that.
A huge truck appeared on the distance, its headlights beaming Jan’s face. Jan moved a little to the right to give it space to pass freely, it just looked huge. The truck honked its horn with a loud blast as it passed next to Jan’s 2001 Ford Contour. His heart raced for a moment of fear, he thought he hadn’t moved enough and they were going to collide. They didn’t, however, the truck passed with more than enough space.
“Asshole,” Jan mused to himself, looking at the truck through the rear-view mirror.
Lisa moaned, awoken by the truck’s horn. She slowly opened her eyes, brushed them with her fingers and looked ahead. “Are we there yet?” she asked with an amusing deep voice, courtesy of four straight hours of sleep.
“Almost there. Did the truck wake you up?”
“Mm-hmm,” she said. “How long was I out?”
“Almost four hours.”
Lisa laughed at herself as she did what she could to stretch her arms inside the car. “Man, this is one comfortable car.”
“Well, I do what I can,” he said, smiling at her. He put his hand on her thigh. She was wearing faded jeans and a red blouse, no bra. She said they were way too uncomfortable to wear on highways.
An airplane flew over them, flying low. Jan assumed he was ready to land in the Old Eagletown Airport. It occurred to him that no one-horse-town has a national airport, and that it would be best to call Old Eagletown a city. He suddenly got a wave of sheer excitement. He couldn’t wait to talk to the producers in Old Eagletown, to read the script of “Quiet Mountain” and begin working as soon as he could. He wanted to talk to someone about it, eventhough she knew most people disliked his constant ramblings about how to make a werewolf costume; he just wanted to talk about them. The only one he could talk to was Lisa, but she wouldn’t listen. He though it would be best to hold it in and talk about it to the producers once in Old Eagletown.
“What’re you thinking?” Lisa asked him. He hadn’t noticed, but he had been smiling widely for a while. His smile faded.
“What? Why?”
“You look all happy.”
“Just excited.”
“I’m excited too,” Lisa said. And she was; she loved to travel, especially to places she didn’t know. She would feel bad about herself to live with someone and not work or do anything around, but she knew that Jan wanted her not to worry and that he would rather have her there in Old Eagletown with him than alone in Madison, looking for a job. She didn’t need to feel bad about herself when she had Jan. She tried hard to give to Jan as much as he gave to her. She would like to have a totally symbiotic relationship with him, but she always felt short. Jan gave her gold and she could only give silver back. She would feel bad about not being able to reciprocate, but Jan said that she gave her more than she thought. Lisa did something right, because everything Jan wanted from her was her company, which she was more than willing to give him.
Once in Old Eagletown, she was going to do what Jan suggested, have a quick snack, rent a movie from the hotel’s Pay per View and go to sleep. Jan was going to go to some meeting somewhere, she’d go, but she didn’t think Jan would want her going. Not because she didn’t want her there, but because he knew that Lisa would be bored to tears listening to people talk about some new movie. She didn’t even much like the movies Jan’s company produced (eventhough she had a soft spot for “Howl”, which she thought of as Jan’s big break), but she had watched every one he had been involved in. In the morning, she would take a stroll in the city, to explore the place she’d be in for two, maybe two and a half months. She looked forward to it. She might even get a temp job there, if she could find someone who would hire an outsider for two months.
They finally crossed the Old Eagletown road sign, and entered the brave new world.

They didn’t have any trouble finding the Old Eagletown Holiday Inn. They checked in, went up to the third floor and entered their room. Lisa looked with pleasant surprise that the room was indeed comfortable looking, and that she could stay in there for a couple of months without much trouble. It had one King Size bed, a big enough TV set, a small study-like area, and the bathroom. She walked inside, looked in the bathroom and jumped into the bed.
“Want to go down for a snack?” he asked.
Ten minutes ago, she couldn’t have said no. But the bed just felt fantastic, she didn’t want to get off. She asked him if he was hungry. If he was, she’d be almost forced to go.
“No, thanks, I ate a sandwich an hour ago.”
She reached for the bedspread and removed it, took her shoes off and pushed herself inside. “I can hold until tomorrow. Besides, I bet the restaurant is closed.”
That was something Jan hadn’t considered. It was nearly midnight; there was no way the hotel’s restaurant would be open. He pulled the bags inside the room and closed the door. He looked at Lisa, who was patting the mattress, beckoning him to get in the bed. Any other night, he wouldn’t have hesitated to get in there. But he was too excited about meeting the producers of Quiet Mountain. Maybe it was too late to go there as well. But, they said that the producers, writer and the director were going to be in the address they gave him for three straight days. They also said that he should be there as soon as he arrived in Old Eagletown.
“I’ll be back in an hour, I have my cell phone.”
“Isn’t it too late?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s fine. They told me to be there as soon as possible.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding her head. “I’ll wait for you; I won’t be able to sleep anyway.”
Jan checked his pockets for his wallet, cell phone, car keys and the sheet of paper she had written down the producer’s address in. “See you,” he said, walked over her and pecked her lips.
“Bye,” she said, turning the television on with a remote she found inside a drawer. She smiled one more time before he left the room and closed the door behind him. Half an instant later, she felt alone and unprotected, like she had just been dropped off in a desert. She didn’t think she’d feel this way, but she suddenly needed Jan. She couldn’t be alone in that desert.

Jan took the elevator to the lobby, walked out to the parking lot and got inside his Contour. Old Eagletown was darker and colder than Madison, he noticed immediately. Still, it had a sort of rustic and old fashioned charm Madison didn’t have. The directions said that he should find and follow East 6th Avenue until he found Merrit Park, which was a big fenced forest he wouldn’t have a hard time to recognize. He followed a small narrow street and found East 6th, he took it.
He couldn’t wait to talk to them finally. He hadn’t had a chance to, since it had been such a last minute thing. He drove slowly, checking out the town as he did. Everything was exceptionally empty. He saw a small medical office with the lights turned on, as well as a few houses. But the streets were still empty for a Saturday night. He assumed that he wasn’t in any heavily commercial area of Old Eagletown.
In the distance, Merrit Park appeared. He checked the address one more time; it said that the place he was looking for was numbered “5” on the front door, and nothing else. He also thought that it should be one of the only places with the lights on. He looked at Merrit closer. There was a building right across the street from the park’s entrance, the building was marked with a nickel bathed “3”. Judging from the façade, she thought it was an apartment building. He knew he was close.
He parked the car, locked it and got out. He walked towards the apartment building. He confirmed his theory when he read “Riverside Apartments”, screwed to the wall underneath the “3”. Some of the lights in the apartment building were on. He looked around, the apartment building stretched for the entire block. He hoped he didn’t have to walk the entire walk to find number five. The sound of airplanes could be heard blocks away, he wasn’t too far away from the airport. This made sense, because he wasn’t too far away from the hotel.
He looked at the park and saw a smaller gate on the corner of the park. It was much smaller than the park’s main gate, which was located right next to where he had parked the Contour. He walked towards the smaller gate, looking into the park, trying to find the building it led to. When he got close enough, Jan saw that it led to a church, or what looked like one.
He could clearly see that at least one light was turned on inside the church. The colored plated windows that showed images of Saints shined with an eerie glow. He looked next to the gate and saw with puzzlement a black spray-painted “5”. He looked at the place again. It was one of the creepiest places he had ever seen. Some windows were shattered; a golden cross was hanging from the roof from a wire.
He crumpled the paper in his hand and pocketed it. Jan walked towards the swung it open and walked inside. A couple of rusted springs pushed the gate closed again when he let go. Jan followed a dark path towards the church, wondering why the hell were the producers of Quiet Mountain working inside some old and abandoned looking church. Maybe they just wanted to get in the mood. What the hell was Quiet Mountain about, anyway?
Suddenly, he heard the gate behind him squeak open. He froze. “Hey!” he heard a woman’s voice saying, coming from behind him, and making him jump like a scared kitten. He turned around to face whoever was calling his attention.

2.
Elliot White’s American Airlines flight was about to land. The captain had just announced that they would be landing in Old Eagletown national airport in only matter of minutes. Old Eagletown wasn’t where she was supposed to arrive. She had bought tickets to Boston, but a bad weather in Boston had forced Flight 1901(which departed from Los Angeles, California) to detour to South Dakota. Elly didn’t even want to think about how long she’d have to wait in the crummy airport of some crummy no name town in South Dakota. If it was going to take more than an hour (who was she fooling, of course it would take more than an hour) she’d leave the airport and take a look at the town. It was Saturday and something had to be open, hopefully Starbucks.
She looked out the window once; she could only see the wing’s array beeping lights.
The only thing she really didn’t want was to spend another minute with the guy who was sitting next to her.
Elly was cursed with great looks. She had red hair, fair skin, blue eyes and a virtually perfect face. She had ended a six year old relationship with a man named Logan not more than four months before, and she was not looking for anyone at the moment. But this guy –Jack, he said his name was- was driving her insane. He had been staring at her breasts ever since he sat next to her and every attempt at a conversation he tried to have with her ended in “But really, let’s meet up in Boston.” He’d probably follow her if she left the airport, and that thought creeped her out. Jack wasn’t bad looking at all, she thought. He had a thick neck, chest and big hands. His face was covered in a very short but well grown beard.
If she hadn’t been in such a bad mood, and Jack wasn’t as obnoxious as he was, she’d probably consider meeting up with him in Boston. Maybe not for romantic purposes, but because she was going to be in Boston for an entire week, and she didn’t know anyone there, no one except her sick mother, who had paid for her ticket to Boston. She didn’t look forward to that week in Boston and worst of all; she was going to miss an entire week of college, which was the one thing she really enjoyed in her life. She had enrolled in UCLA, two years before, when she graduated High School. She chose to enroll in Medicine, but after two semesters, she decided to change to Social Politics. Two semesters later, she changed one more time to Art History. For the first time, she was sure she had chosen well. She had only been in Art History for three weeks but she loved it. It felt so much more dynamic than either Medicine or Social Studies. All of her classes –her favorite being Ancient Chinese Art- consisted in nice teachers (or maybe they just seemed nice) showing slides on the projector, and Elly taking notes. The slides were, of course, paintings and faces. Some times, teachers would ask them to doodle the painting in their notebook and those who were using a laptop computer could download the image. They’d have to memorize hundreds of paintings and artists. She was good at memorizing, it didn’t scare her.
Finally, the seatbelt sign was turned on and the plane began descending. Jack had been quiet for the longest time since she got on the plane (a grand total of ten minutes). Elly locked his table to the seat in front of her, fastened her belt, put the seat in vertical position and looked out the window again. She could only see a string of lights underneath, which were probably a highway. A lonely car drove its way towards Old Eagletown. As the plane lost altitude, she followed the highway until her eyes finally met the city she’d be spending a few hours in. It was much bigger than she thought, and brighter. It was a pleasant surprise that the town –city- didn’t look as dreadfully boring as she had thought it would be.
Without her realizing, she had suddenly forgotten about the dread of spending a couple of hours in this city. But then, it returned. She sat back and closed her eyes as the plane landed.
Elly wasn’t scared of flying, but landings unnerved her. If you looked out the window, you’d be shocked at the speed the plane was moving. If anything crashed against one of the wheels, the plane would spin uncontrollably.
Ding!
The airplane had almost come to a halt.
She didn’t even feel the landing; it must have been bloody perfect. Cheers, captain. That was a great job.
Jack didn’t speak to her again until she was grabbing her back pack from the over head compartment. She had brought her school pack for entertainment purposes, bringing with her a Nintendo Game Boy she had bought when she was in high school, a horror novel, two college art books and a CD Walkman. Elly wasn’t the kind of person who would start a conversation with the person sitting next to her –and Jack obviously was no exception- and she’d rather have something to entertain herself with. But she didn’t use any of the items in her pack. Not because she had been entertained with her flight partner’s conversations, but because she did the stupid move of putting the pack in the overhead compartment in the first place. She had figured that she’d just fetch it when she got bored, but once Jack was next to her, she didn’t want to ask him to move, let alone ask him if she could give her the back pack. For all she knew Jack was going to look through it (and god knew she didn’t want anyone looking at the doodles she had made during Byzantine Art class).
“Let’s get a coffee while we wait, yes?” Jack said.
“No thanks,” Elly replied, getting in the line of people that was forming in the aisle.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
To Elly’s surprise, Jack didn’t say anything else. He had probably gotten the message that she didn’t want to spend another moment with him.
And for some reason, she felt like a bitch.
Elly left the airplane, smiling at the stewardess (flight attendant) that stood next to the airplane’s main door. She walked through the tunnel and arrived in Gate 26 of the Old Eagletown National Airport. She looked back, Jack wasn’t there.
Elly had had this kind of experience before, and she knew that she didn’t need to pick up her luggage in the bands; it would be transferred to the next plane which, according to the AA attendant in this airport, would depart in four hours, at 3:35 AM to Boston. She had four hours to poke her eyes out in boredom. She hoped to God that Old Eagletown was a night city.

Outside the airport, it was cold. She called one of the airport taxis and got in the back seat.
“Where to, ma’am?” The cabbie asked.
“Is there a Starbucks or some coffee shop or restaurant open?”
“Sure, there’s always Leon’s . . . or Cady’s. 24 hour place,” the cabbie said. He had a deep voice and was wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. He was huge; you could land an airplane on his back. But he somehow didn’t seem menacing. He seemed kind, friendly, even.
“That’s a bar?”
“Sports Restaurant, but call it what you want, huh? Not too expensive too.”
“Is it close to the airport?”
“You takin’ another flight tonight?”
“At three in the morning, to Boston.”
“Ouch,” he said and laughed. He wasn’t laughing at Elly, or at least she didn’t think so. It was more like a scoffing laugh, the non patronizing kind. “Well, I hope you enjoy your stay here.”
“Thanks.” And after a brief silence, Elly said: “Is it?”
“What?”
“Is it close to the airport, you didn’t answer.” Elly said this hoping she didn’t come off as a bitch. She didn’t want to sound condescending to such a big man at night. Who knows what stuff he could do to her.
“Oh, sorry.” He laughed again. “This brain’s short-circuitin’. Yes. Cady’s is close to the airport.”
Elly laughed with him. “It’s okay. Take me to Cady’s.” She licked her lips. After she looked at the cabbie, her glance moved to the window, inspecting the city. It was mostly empty and mostly dark. Hopefully, she could spend the time she had in Cady’s. She’d probably get herself something to drink with her food. Rum and coke suddenly sounded great. She thanked herself for bringing her photo ID and not leaving it in her Samsonite bag, which was probably waiting to be transferred from one plane to the next. Elly had just gotten it; she had just turned twenty one a few months back.
“We’re here,” he said and stopped in front of a modern looking restaurant with the words CADY’S SPORTS RESTAURANT put over the door. The letters were metallic, very slick looking. It looked nice enough. She was half expecting a depressing bar full of sad drunks drowning despair with booze. This looked more like her kind of place to hang around. If only her friends from UCLA were here.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Comes to three dollars and forty cents.”
She fished her wallet from her back pack and gave him a five. “Keep the change, thank you very much.” She closed the door as the cabbie thanked her. After the cab disappeared in the distance, she looked across the street from Cady’s and saw what looked like a park. A black plate had the words “Merrit Park” carved into it. She turned around walked inside Cady’s.
A good looking guy and a pretty girl, who was most likely his girlfriend, were walking out of the restaurant when she walked in. The girl looked at her as they crossed paths, almost inspecting her. Elly ignored her and sat down at the counter.
Only fifteen minutes had passed when she decided that she didn’t want to eat anything in the Cady’s counter menu. Sandwiches looked disgusting and she wasn’t in the mood for a big full meal. She ordered a Beefeater martini (fuck rum and coke) and paid the man eleven dollars. She drank the martini looking at a TV in the corner, which was showing a football game. She wasn’t a fan of the sport, but she liked watching it, mostly because she had a thing for football players. Jake Edwards, the guy she shared six years of her life with was a football player in Junior High and of course in High School. He wasn’t a particularly big guy, in fact, a lot of the other players thought he was pretty skinny for a football player. But damn, that guy could run, that was why he played football in the first place. Get the pig skin in his hands and that thing will see a touch down.
She missed Jake. She had gotten over him –or she liked to think so- but she did miss him. She would never be bored if she had Jake and Elly was easily bored. Every time she was with him, every time they had sex was just an adventure. Every second felt like something new with him. And now she was alone and bored. God, she missed Jake.
A few moments later, Elly had sipped the entire martini. She had fantastic alcohol tolerance, too. A martini would do almost nothing to her unless she mixed it with something else (she had learned never to mix gin and vodka when she was in high school). She didn’t have the mood or stomach for anything else. She decided to go back to the airport. She could stroll around the gates and get something to eat there. What a boring place, Cady’s. But at least no one had tried to hit on her.
She grabbed her back pack she had hung from the chair’s armrest and walked outside.
Once outside, she sank in the realization that she didn’t know how the hell she’d go back to the airport. She had her cell phone but god knew what the number was for the nearest taxi site. She returned to Cady’s and asked the woman who operated the cashier. She gladly called her a cab and said that it was going to arrive in five minutes.
“Thank you,” Elly said again and walked outside to wait for the cab.
She reached for her wallet again and looked inside. Her stomach pitted when she came to notice that she only had a dollar and a few pennies. She didn’t have enough to pay for the cab. If only she hadn’t wasted eleven dollars on a fucking martini she didn’t even enjoy.
Her only option was to ask someone if she could borrow a couple of bucks. She was going to go back inside the bar, but stopped halfway through. Why the hell would the cashier just give her money? Hi, I don’t have money; could you give me some from your tip jar? Can I take back the tip I gave you?
Yeah, right.
A car passed on the street, slowly. It was East 6th Street, as she saw from one of the post signs on the street’s corner. The car stopped in front of a building across the street from the park. A guy who looked roughly her age walked out of the car and closed the door. He looked around and slowly walked around, looking for something.
“Hey!” she yelled at him, but he didn’t answer. Elly hesitated if she should walk to where he was. Maybe he was dangerous. But she didn’t seem to have much of a choice. She walked to where he was. He turned around and walked through a gate that went in the park. “Hey!” she yelled again, louder this time. The man didn’t react.
She ran to where he was, the back pack bouncing on her back. She stopped in front of the gate he walked into and looked at where it led. It was a church. She opened the gate and yelled: “Hey!” the man threw a startled jump turned around. He looked scared, but when he focused and saw her more clearly, he puffed breath, as if relieved to see that she was just a girl.
“Stop! Don’t go in there!” she heard a voice say behind her. Both Elly and the guy turned to see who it was. Elly immediately recognized her as the girl who had walked out of Cady’s with the good looking boyfriend.