The Lost Days (3 page)

Nitzer

Cabbage

Had just walked outside and snapped a picture of the building when a police officer tapped
me on the shoulder and wrote me out the stupid $37 ticket. And then he didn’t even ask me for the picture. So here it is.

McFreely

UGH. Will continue my search for entertainment somewhere else.

Later

Have entertained myself somewhat by drawing a little map of the town. I do mean little. Would never have bothered if it weren’t such a pitifully little town. (Not sure it even deserved two pages, but I turned the next page to start anyway.)

The town logo.

Also, here’s the town logo:

I’m finding it very peculiar
that the town is named Blackrock and even uses this silly logo of a tall mountainous black rock, a rock that has got to be imaginary, since the town seems to be in the middle of flatlands that just go on and on. No mountain or black rock in sight. I mean, Blackrock is actually sitting in a kind of dust bowl. Dust platter. Dust serving tray. Whatever. And not black dust, either, but beige and beiger, like all of the buildings.

And as if it needed to be any flatter here, that one tree at the minipark seems to be the only tree in Blackrock. Plenty of dead stumps, though. Seriously weird. Did the townspeople go on some kind of tree-killing, beige-painting spree, or what?

Later

Have just seen the shows of medicine, dolls, and guns. Mostly for lack of anything better to do. Was not expecting to find a major clue to my amnesia. Here’s what happened. I was sitting in the back row of benches in the big tent where they were holding the demonstration of psychic powers. And this young kid, a little boy, was the psychic. I mean, of course I’m not saying he was actually psychic; those things are all a con. But anyway, he had the audience going. Bunch of rubes. He did some cheap parlor tricks like “Guess My Card” and “Where’s My Snake?” And then his assistant, one of Ümlaut’s fashionable crew, started walking around the audience so they could ask the kid questions about their love lives and “Am I gonna get sick?” and stuff.

I was just getting up to go when the assistant stuck the mic in my face. I didn’t even say anything, just kept on going. And the next thing I knew, the kid was saying, “You can’t remember a thing past two days ago, can you?”

Well, I got out of there quick. It was kind of scary. I haven’t told ANYONE about having amnesia, so how else would he know, other than that…HE KNOWS?

Maybe he saw something happen to me.

Believe you me, I’m going to find out.

Am hiding out under the counter at the El Dungeon waiting to see if Ümlaut and his crew show up. Then I’ll go look for the kid.

Later

Have talked to the kid. I found him in his trailer playing video games. His name is Jakey and he goes by the Moon Child of the Valley of the Knowing. (!!!) He is nine years old and has been on the road all his life reading minds. He claims that he never saw me before today and that he is really psychic. I
told him I didn’t believe him but he told me the names I gave the cats earlier. Told him I wasn’t convinced and he said that’s cool, he had some high scores to beat, and could I close the trailer door softly so as not to disturb his parrot.

So much for that lead.

Really. Late. Can’t. Sleep.

It just occurred to me that I don’t know where Raven sleeps, or if she sleeps, because she’s always behind the counter of the El Dungeon. Will investigate later and report back.

Even Later

Really couldn’t sleep so I got out and roamed around Blackrock by night. I like it much better than Blackrock by day. Everything looks less beige by moonlight. Also very important: no people. Had those four black cats following me the whole way, except when I was following them, over fences and down alleys and such. They’re not easy to see in the night. I guess neither am I.

I’m not sure, but at one point I thought the cats might be leading me somewhere on purpose. We had been walking around this kind of grim, antiseptic warehouse, just looking in windows and doing nothing in particular, and suddenly they all just darted under this fence, and I went after them and squeezed under, and they led me down this little service road, behind this other building to the left, and under this other fence, and while I was
creeping under THAT fence, something got caught in my hair:

Then off we went running down this narrow walkway—and suddenly the cat in the lead, McFreely, the old lady with the starry eye, gave this killer hiss, and all the cats scattered just as the security officer stepped out in front of me. Even a few fake tears didn’t get me out of that one, and I now owe the town $68 for After-hours Loitering.

Guess I need to learn that cat’s warning hiss.

By the time I got back to the lean-to, it was so late it was early. Black cat posse was waiting for me, so I piled in with them nice and cozy. They all milled about for a bit, stepping on me and one another and muscling for their favorite spots (McFreely by my head; Cabbage on my feet; Wily and Nitzer in a complicated matrix across my stomach and arms), and of course it wasn’t until everyone was finally settled that I remembered the cat collar still in my hair. Pulled it out and showed it to them. “Anyone here know Miles?” I asked. Well, what do you know? The half-blind guy, the
one I was calling Wily, stepped right up and meowed nice and clear. The collar fits him pretty well, too.