3rd Sheila chapter

Skipping a few chapters of 'behind the scenes' stuff to bring the 'meaty' bits.

 Sheila had made it to her car before the man had time to exit the building, but he was catching up as she stabbed the drivers side door with her keys.  She was filled with a cocktail 2 parts fear, 1 part confusion, and (like all good cocktails)a heaping helping of alcohol. After 7 or so experiments on the affect of booze on depth-perception, she managed to unlock her door and slam it shut just as the man named "Luck" appeared beside it.
"Sheila, come on" He shouted through the window, "let me explain!"
"Go away or I'll run over your feet." She said
"But think of all the things I can show you! All the questions I can answer!"
"I have nothing to ask you." she said, scrabbling at her dash for the ignition. It was a lie. If anything, all she had were questions, most of which were concerning the sanity of both him and herself.
"We both know that's not true. Maybe we just got off to a bad start. My name is Luck, and-"
"No its not. You're crazy. I am going home now." She finally found the ignition and slammed her key into it, turning it so forcefully she nearly twisted it off. The car did its trademark stutter, then failed to start. The man leaned his back against the car and folded his arms.
"If I have to stand here all night convincing you to come with me, I will." He said
"You can stand there all you want. Stand there forever for all I care. In fact, that would be f****n' optimal." She turned the key again with the same results.
"Car trouble?" He asked. Sheila shot a glance at his back. She couldn't see it, but the smile creeping across his face was wide enough to be felt for miles in any direction.
"did you.." she began, but shook the insane thought from her head. "Fine. no problem." she said "I'll call my boyfriend and he'll come and get me."
She dug through her purse and pulled out her cell phone. It had enough decency to tell her 'low battery' before shutting down completely. Panic was setting in, but Sheila was nothing if not stubborn.
"I'll just go inside and ask Gregory to use his phone."
"There's a good chance he forgot to pay the phone bill this month." Said Luck.
"Then I'll use the pay phone."
"Someone is already using it, I bet. He'll probably be on it for hours. Very important call."
"Then I'll used Mr. Ifet's cell phone."
"He uses a pre-paid. Plum out of minutes too, such a shame."
She didn't ask if any of this was true, or how he knew it if it was. It was simpler this way.
"Then I'll jus-"
"Good God woman, opportunity is pounding at your door and you're treating it like its some kind of solicitor!"
"Opportunity? I thought you were Luck?"
He laughed, and then there was silence. Sheila sat, with her hands gripping the steering wheel and her eyes straight ahead.
"Look, let me give you a ride home. You can ask me anything on the way, or you can stay absolutely silent. If you aren't impressed by what I have to say-"
"You'll drop me off and I never have to see you again?"
"Exactly. and I'll even sweeten the pot. If you come, just for the ride, I'll do something nice for you. Like.. I dunno... how about some 'wishes'? Three wishes, like a genie. Payment for your trust."
"Wishes?"
"yeah you know. I wish I could have 100 billion bucks. Boom. Got it. Only standard rules apply, no infinite wishes, nothing like that."
She thought about it for some time.
"How do I know you aren't some crazy axe murderer or rapist or something? Trying to prey on young, attractive drunk women?"
He rolled his eyes and sat up. He lifted his hand and shot his finger at the car. Suddenly, the car roared to life. The telltale sputters were completely gone. She reached for her keys, which she hadn't even realized were still in her hand.
"Cars huh?" He said. "Always been a bit of a mystery to me, to be honest. I wouldn't drive it now though, you have a few drinks in you. And who knows when the car might die again?" On cue, the car sputtered once more and the ignition cut out.
"Move!" she barked. Luck stepped a few feet from the door and faced her. She climbed out of the car slowly, swinging her purse over her shoulder.
"Okay." She said. "Straight home. And I don't have to talk or anything if I don't want to." She took a deep breath and looked at his face. It was warm and reassuring. Luck, she thought, this is Luck. "But I'm not calling you Luck. That's.. just weird."
"What would you prefer?" He asked as he led her over to his two-door.
"I don't know. Something normal I guess. Just a name."
"Alright, how about Doctor Gammon? I used to use that as a cover name, taught myself to answer to it. Most of my friends call me that too."
"Doctor Gammon?" She asked. Luck shrugged.
"It was the 90's. People responded better to doctors. Er... 1890 that is." Sheila glanced at him with a face full of shattered nerves.
"Just a joke! Just a joke. How about just Gammon. Easy to remember, right?" He opened the passenger door for her and she sat with her purse on her lap.
The outside of the car was misleading. While the exterior was old, rusted and dirty, the inside was comfortable and modern. The seats were a leg rest away from being Lazy-boy chairs and the entire interior was bathed in a dark blue light, a significant contrast with the pale amber streetlights outside. The dash was completely free of dust or scuffs, and there was a complicated looking stereo system with the same dark blue colors. Sheila felt relaxed despite herself. It was warm and comfortable in here.
"Okay" she said as He settled into the drivers seat, "Gammon will work."
The car started up with a low rumble. "I was considering giving you the old 'slow-build-up' routine,” Gammon said, “you know, first you notice me across a crowded room, few days later you see me again driving next to you, maybe a few hours later I'm sitting around bowling with some friends, then one day you walk out into traffic and I push you out of the way just in time, and you look at me all agape and with wonder 'Who are you?" and I'll say something cool like 'Lucky I ran in to you.' Works on some people but I didn't figure you for the dramatic sort, acts of god and all that kind of s**t."
The car rolled out onto an empty street and proceeded on. Sheila noted he didn't ask for directions as he passed through the streets, taking the same route home that she did, complete with the hidden shortcuts.
"That would've been the slow build up? Nearly killing me to make an entrance?"
"Oh, so you do have questions then?" He smiled for the hundredth time tonight, and it gave Sheila the inexplicable urge to smash his face into the dash. She sat in despondent silence, fighting with the dichotomy in her head. One side, refusing to acknowledge everything her eyes had seen so far for the sake of cosmic decency, and the other exploding with curiosity. She knew a losing battle when she saw one, so she soothed the curious side of her brain by allowing it to ask questions, while assuring the other side that while she did it, she wasn't going to like it, so it was okay.
She swallowed and began "so-"
"AHA!" Gammon exclaimed. She considered stopping, but her brain pushed her on.
"So what exactly... are you?" She was disappointment with the wording but couldn't focus enough to care.
"You would probably call me a God if you were a literary kind of person, but we've always been partial to 'Embodiment.'"
"A god." She said flatly. "You're a god?"
"Hey , don't look at me, its not my fault you guys made gods the top of your totem poles. No one stopped you from making kings or presidents more important than gods, but you went ahead and did it anyways. Besides, I'm not that kind of God. I'm more of the 'lets get into mischief' kind of god than the 'don't eat carrots every second Thursday' kind. Don't expect any commandments from me, and keep your prayers to yourself. But feel free to write this s**t down, you'd probably have a best selling sci-fi book right there."
"I don't think I'd do the story justice" Sheila said mockingly.
"There you go! Lets get some patter going. We'll be like Fred and the Great Gazoo!*10 Go ahead and ask me something else."
Questions fought for dominance in her mind, and one stood victorious. "So were you like... did you see the beginning of the universe?"
"Of course I did. I wa-"
"How!? How did it happen?" She exclaimed.
"That's an easy one. Ever heard of a thing called ulalakelaeleigh? No? Well basically it means that there is so much nothing going on that it becomes something. See what I mean? Think of nothing sort of like an irradiated rock, a thing gives off this energy. Only nothing is nothing, so the energy its giving off is coming from nothing itself, into nothing. In this energy building up from nothing into exactly nothing, and no space at all is not very much space. There is a big mathematical equation out there that shows how much nothing you need before the energy it creates is enough to hit critical mass, but if I told you your head would implode or the universe would restart or something. Probably."
"Does the energy have a name? Like dark matter or gamma radiation or something?"
"Oh yeah. Yeah, its called boredom."
She stared at his face for a while, daring him to crack a smile or snicker, and after a few minutes she realized she wasn't daring, she was begging.
"Boredom? Boredom created the universe?" She asked, feeling her sanity slip.
"Yep. Hey you grasped that quicker than the others. Most people need a drink after hearing things like that."
"How? How exactly... i don't understand." He opened his mouth to answer but something else popped into Sheila's mind "How do you know this? How can you have seen it if nothing existed?"
"Look at it like this. The universe was a miracle, right? I mean given what I told you, it had to have been. A miracle. You might even say it was a lucky thing that it happened." He look at her expectantly but received a face so wooden it would make puppets feel silly.
"The universe was the first lucky thing to have happened, as in, a statistical underdog that manifested despite the odds. And so for it to happen I had to be there. I guess all that boredom needed something to act through, and there I was. It created a way it could be used, and I was the thing it made. Pretty sure that's how it went. It was a long time ago, and it was a pretty busy moment."
They drove for a while in silence. Things were moving faster than Sheila's brain could keep up with. She looked over the savanna of her mind and from the throng of stampeding questions, picked out one of the slower, sick ones.
"You said 'others'. You've done this before? Revealing yourself to others, I mean."
"Oh yes." He said, turning down a dark street. "Plenty of times. The most recent ones have been the best, I have to say. People are smarter now than they were a few hundred years ago."
"Who? How often? Why haven't I heard of you if so many people have met you? You'd think it'd be all over the news or something, or maybe a religion would be made to you or.. or... something."
He opened to answer and got as far as "yo-" before an electronic pinging was heard. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone that was probably as old as Sheila's car, and in just about the same condition. It was a flip-phone held together with wire and duct tape and was so covered in scratches it'd be more accurate to call it a series of accidents that could check your email rather than 'cell phone'. He flipped it open carelessly and looked at the screen for a few second. He then jammed it back into his pocket. "do you mind if we make a quick stop on the way? It'll only take a minute or two."
Before she could answer he was already making an unscheduled turn. After a few minutes of more frightened silence, Sheila noticed they were approaching the 'bad' side of town, where law was a bit less strict and was open to suggestion. The businesses and apartment complexes gave way to tenements and liquor stores, the streets less maintained and far darker. Sheila's parents had budged their way into the lower-middle class, so she had always lived on the precipice of 'uptown' and 'the ghetto' in whatever state or city she lived in, which allowed her a sneak peak into both lifestyles. While the uptowners had criminals who preyed on society at large, the 'ghetto' had criminals that preyed on the individual. The crimes of the uptowners always appear to Sheila to be more devious than their counterparts, but she was starting to realize that it probably depended on who you were, or more importantly, where you lived. Evil has a funny way of only affecting those it affects.
They made a final turn down a road that was dark and empty. Sheila felt like there were dozens of eyes watching them in the dark. Gammon pulled next to a curb and killed the ignition. He then lit another one of his thin, white cigarettes and asked Sheila to "be a doll and roll down your window." She did so, hesitantly. She was beginning to think that perhaps the axe murderer question wasn't as inappropriate a question after all, when she heard a sharp clapping sound piercing the darkness and coming from the mouth of the alley they were parked near.

Her brain had developed over 20 different explanations of the noise before it finally revealed itself to be the sound of a pair of 6 inch heels on pavement.

The owner of the offending shoes made its way from the alley to the car, and it took no time at all for Sheila to recognize the woman as someone employed in the oldest profession. Sheila attempted to mumble some sort of warning to Gammon, but the woman was within earshot before she got out even a simple "um".
The stranger steadied herself against the car with both hands on the open window, bending down and giving Sheila a front row seat to a world of cleavage.
"Hello." She said in a sultry, foreign sounding voice. "We don't get many women down this way, but that's no problem."
Her voice was the female equivalent of Gammon's smile. It was capable of doing what three years at the gym, Melon sized breasts, and a well planned visit to the plastic surgeon could do, but at a fraction of the time and cost. Sheila was terrible with accents, but was aware that the woman must've been from Russia. No wait, German. Or maybe...some Eastern European country. Yes, absolutely. Eastern Europe.
"Uh, Gammon?" Sheila began.
"It's me Lily." said Gammon, waving his hand to attract her attention.
"Oh, hello my lucky star. You got here much sooner than I expected. And who is this?" Sheila sat still as a stone, her purse clasped in her hands.
"This is Sheila. You know, the one I told you about. Sheila, this is one of my good friends, Ljilja Mewes."
"You can call me Lily, I know its hard to pronounce." Lily said. She offered Sheila a hand to shake, which Sheila took, warning signals firing off in every direction. Lily turned her attention back to Gammon.
"He's up the road there, at that apartment. See the building with the stoop?"
"Yeah I see it." Gammon said, exiting the car.
"Would you like to come, Little Sheila? You may get to see how your new friend works."
Sheila didn't like her options. The idea of entering a strange building with two possible lunatics was frightening, but no more so than staying alone in a car on an unlit, lonely street. She exited the car and jogged a few feet to catch up with the two now dark figures. They walked in relative silence, the only sounds to be heard were cars driving over a nearby but invisible overpass, and the clacking of Lily's heels. They approached a tenement that seemed a few generations past its expiration date*11.
They entered through the front door into a small lobby that was actually just a glorified hallway to a stairwell. In the harsh fluorescent lighting, Sheila got a better look at Lily. She was about a head taller than herself, but this was likely due to the heels. Her hair was a solid, jet black that tickled her shoulders, held together in clumps of long curls, like black corkscrews, similar to the way Sheila's hair fell after a shower. She had dark eyelids that made her look tired and strung out, and Sheila felt a pang of sympathy when she realized the woman would look at home in a poetry house in Paris, or a methadone clinic in California. Judging by her accent, she most likely wasn't French.
She wore a spaghetti strap dress that, Sheila knew first hand, showed a generous amount of cleavage and was cut just a bit above the knees. It was a deep red color, because of course it was. The general effect left little to the imagination, but was just subtle enough to give the woman a more expensive look, one that said 'Escort' over "street-walker'.
"Room 206." Lily said, letting Gammon walk up the flight of stairs first. Sheila regretted not going second, watching her feet closely and to avoid the round, jiggly shape in front of her as they ascended to the second floor.
"Where are we going?" Sheila whispered as they tiptoed down a hallways. The doors on both sides had silver numbers nailed to them, and Gammon was checking each one as they walked.
"Lily has a client she needs some assistance with. It'll only take a moment, then we'll be off" He answered. When they finally came to the door marked '206', Gammon tried the handle, which to no ones surprised was locked.
"Help her through, will you? She doesn't know it yet, but she's going to want to see this." And with that, Gammon disappeared through the door. Sheila tried to make her eyes explain to her brain exactly what she just saw, when Lily turned to her and grabbed her hand. "Close your eyes and hold your breath little Sheila." Lily said, and before she could respond, Lily pulled her forward. Just before she closed her eyes she watched Lily pass through the door, and watched her own hand up to the wrist slip through it as well.
There was a moment of fear, or at least more potent fear, and a rush of cold air like she was walking through a veil of ice, and as quickly as the sensation came, it passed.
"You can open your eyes now, and breathe of course." Lily said, then added with disgust "Though not too deeply, I suggest."
They were now in a dark apartment that made Sheila feel bad about her own, in that they were both small, cramped, sparsely furnished, and smelled faintly of animal droppings. Sheila knew that due to the location, she was probably paying a few hundred more a month in rent. The only source of light came from a open door at the end of a long hallway attached to the living room they were currently standing in. Lily lead her to the room, which turned out to be the bedroom, converted into an office of sorts.
There was a small cot tucked into the far right corner that had a peculiar human-shaped indent in it that made it look only slightly more comfortable than the dirt colored carpet. Most of the floor was the aforementioned dirt color, but placed in the center of a room was a large, elaborate rug that tried to say 'Persian', but actually screamed 'Walmart'. Next to the cot was a desk with a fairly new laptop placed on top of it, easily the most expensive thing in the apartment. Sitting in a metal folding chair in front of the desk was a middle aged man who looked the same as the apartment he lived in; cold, dirty, lonely and desperate. He sat surrounded by smoke, holding his head in his hand and a fresh cigarette between his fingers. Judging by the ash in the ashtray on his desk, he had smoked a full carton of them since the last time he emptied it. Next to that, a large, half-full bottle of whiskey sat comfortably within arms reach, and next to that a small glass of the same*12.
Sheila didn't notice these things at first though, as she was immediately preoccupied with the man in the chair, and Gammon who was rifling through a tall metal filing cabinet, pulling out papers and stuffing them back with reckless abandon.
"This man has written six self published Novels! Six!" Gammon said, as he glanced at a stapled stack of papers as if it gave him a flash of it dirty parts. "It's all romance droggle."
"Some of it is actually quite good" Lily said, leaning quietly in a corner with her arms crossed. Gammon scoffed but said nothing.
"Can he.. uhm. not see you? Us?" Sheila asked.
"Nah. One of the bonuses to being an embodiment is that you get all the privacy you want, no questions asked. We're not really here, unless we want to be. It's really just that as gods we... well..." He looked up in a curious way then said "Look, just think of everything you're about to see as a metaphor. Takes some of the fun out of it but it makes it a bit easier to understand for some people."
He reached into the filing cabinet and pull out a plastic bound notebook. "Here, read this. Page 152." He flung the book towards Sheila. There was a brief moment of uncertainty, which ended in an embarrassed Sheila bending over to pick the book up. She flipped the the page in question and began reading.
In the darkness only her silhouette was visible, but even that was enough to send the blood rushing to his loins. As he walked towards her, the faint red light of dusk shimmered through the gaps in the thick, closed blinds, revealing the glistening of bare skin browned by the suns' ever present rays in this tropical paradise. As he reached his arms around her from behind, she gasped softly, but made no attempt to resist. She pushed herself back into his throbbing-"
Sheila slammed the book closed "I don't think this is the time or place for this, thank you." In the back of her head a small voice asked if perhaps the time and place would be coming around any time soon.
Gammon stood in the center of the room, examining the sitting man from behind. He stood with his chin in his hands and after a few moments of intense thought, smiled and rubbed his hands together excitedly.
"Alright alright alright. Now pay attention Sheila, I'm only going to do this once." And with that, he threw himself to the floor. He examined the edges of the poorly designed rug closest to the man, moving his hands in strange angles, seemingly taking measurements. He then ruffled the carpet in certain spots, and then, seemingly satisfied, jumped up and turned his attention to the man and his desk.
The man was now sitting with his arms folded across his chest and his cigarette in his mouth, his eyes focused on the computer screen, completely oblivious to the goings-on around him. Gammon started his examination of the desk, eyeing the desktop discriminately. He grabbed a packet of cigarettes and after removing a few (placing them into his jacket pocket), place it delicately to the left of the bottle of whiskey, making tiny adjustments to its angle and placement. He put his hands on his hips and nodded happily. The writer then unfolded his hands and reached for his glass.
With shocking reflexes, Gammon shot out a hand, grabbed the whiskey bottle, unscrewed the cap and filled the mans glass as it traveled from desk to lips. The writer threw the drink to the back of his throat, then gave a violent start after seemingly misjudging how much he had left in the glass. the Man coughed a bit as he swallowed the potent liquor. Gammon then set the bottle back on the desk with more uncharacteristic exactness, and Sheila noted he had forgotten to replace the cap.
The man placed his glass back on the desk with a drunken, shaking hand. He leaned back and resumed staring at the computer screen, one arm folded in, the other held out akimbo, with the half smoked cigarette dangling between his fingers. Gammon watched silently for a moment, then sighed and checked his wrist in a mock-impatient gesture. He moved to the other side of the man and, with some very careful maneuvers and yoga like bending, placed himself in between the man and his floating arm, moving slowly and deliberately. He puckered his lips and placed them on the writers cigarette, still between his fingers, and took a long, strong draw. The cigarette burned all the way down to its filter. Sheila stifled a laugh as the writer, still completely oblivious, sucked at his newly depleted cigarette, only to get a mouth full of plastic filter smoke. He coughed some more, glanced at his useless stub, and smashed it into the ashtray.
Gammon then jumped back suddenly, and thrust his hand out in front of Sheila as if to prevent her from flying forward. There was a moment of stillness, as if the whole world held its breath.
Then, The dominoes fell.
The writer, eyes still glued to his monitor, reached his shaking hand out for his pack of cigarettes, and as he pulled them towards him, bumped the now open whiskey bottle. It toppled over, pouring its contents all over the desk and computer, the latter shutting down completely *13. The bottle, not content with its technologic destruction, rolled off the desk to the ground and across the floor, spreading its cataclysmic flood across desk, carpet, and rug alike.
As it rolled, the writer shouted at his now defunct device with the rage and despair only obtainable by combining 5 hours of work, a deadline, and a habit of ignoring the save button. He sat staring, possibly considering a murder/suicide pact with his now lost work, and with a sudden ferocity slammed his fists onto his desk.
This had 2 effects. First, his forgotten packet of cigarettes had now become a forgotten packet of crushed and loose tobacco, and second, the hand without the luxury of a tobacco based cushion rebounded violently off the sheet-metal desk. The man then rose from his computer, clutching at his stricken hand, shouting obscenities. He took a drunken step forward and found a few seconds too late that his foot was caught under the ornate rug. He fell forwards like a stone slab, his face at the forefront. There was a deep, hollow thump as he hit the ground, his face meeting with the now emptied bottle that had rolled away. The man lay there for a few seconds groaning and cursing. As he began to rise, Sheila had just enough time to recognize what would happen next, and she shut her eyes tight as the man swung himself up and brought the back of his head against the open drawer of the filing cabinet Gammon had just finished rifling through. The man fell once again and this time laid completely still and silent.
Sheila had begun to believe the man was dead, and had opened her mouth to say so, just as the man rolled over onto his back. He stared blank-faced at the ceiling silently, smelling of whiskey, stale cigarettes and newest of the scents, piss, but Sheila hoped she was imagining the last one. Lily, who had that time remained silent and watched the proceedings with vague interest, stepped out from her corner and approached the concussed writer. With the skill of someone who had lots of experience climbing onto drunk men, she did so. Sheila adverted her eyes, not wanting to know what kind of perverse thing she was about to see, but was surprised to hear only a faint whispering before Lily was up again, leaving the man to stare at the ceiling once more. At first the man showed no signs of acknowledging Lily's whispers, but then a smile grew across his face.
He reached a hand up and rubbed his bruised brow and began to chuckle. It grew louder as the man lifted himself to his knees and crawled his way to his desk. He reached into one of the drawers and pulled from its depths a pad of paper with a blue pen clipped to its edge. He wrote something onto the pad and then sat leaning against the desk, laughing loud and hard, legs sprawled over the whiskey-soaked floor. Wordlessly, Lily left the room, and Gammon moved to follow her, guiding Sheila out. She took one last look at the man, who was scribbling furiously, laughing like a madman. His laughter followed them out into the hall.
It was only a few minutes later when they were outside, making their way to Gammon's car. Sheila's curiosity gripped hold of her thoughts.
"What was that? What did I just see?" She asked.
"How 'bout you go ahead and guess? I'll tell you if you get close." said Gammon.
"It looked like a one man three-stooges tribute. The only thing missing was a rake and some wisecracking. But the door thing. How did we do that?" Gammon opened his mouth to speak, but Sheila interrupted him. "Yeah, okay, gods and all that. But Lily pulled me through, not you, so that means Lily is a god as well?"
Gammon clapped his hands as Lily gave a barely perceptible nod. "And what is she the god of? Can you guess?"
Sheila thought for a short while as they came nearer to the car. Her brow drew in as she thought, then it hit her. "Mewes? Lily Mewes? You're a god of inspiration and you have a pun for a name?"
Gammon laughed. "Come now Sheila, we mustn't take up any more of Ms. Mewes' time. She's a very busy woman." He said, pulling open the drivers side door and stepping in. Lily turned towards Sheila and gave her a tired smile.
"Do not be too harsh with me, little Sheila. I have had many names, and not all can be winners, as they say." She took a few steps towards Sheila and stood in front of her, staring down the length of her nose at her. She brushed a tangle of hair out from Sheila's face and tucked it behind her ear. She then slid her scarlet finger nail down and grasped the back of Sheila's neck, pulling her closer. Their bodies pressed together as Sheila struggled to get from her grip, but was stunned for a moment as Lily's heavily accented voice whispered into her ear.
"You pray for a life with more meaning than the one you live, yet you float wherever the tides take you. Even now, when the very gods themselves reach out to you, you considering pushing them away for the sake of comfort." She gave sheila some slack, but only enough to look her in the eyes as she continued. "You were not chosen by chance, Young Sheila. When it comes to Him, everything is by design. You are the Anomaly. Your life has led up to this moment, you must not let your purpose go unfulfilled." She released Sheila, who had ceased resisting, and waved to Gammon, clacking her way back down the long, dark alley she came from. Sheila thought she could her her final words echoing off the alley walls, even as she climbed into the car and they sped away.