Episode 1: Hologram City

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“Shoo Fly’zzzzzzzzz!”

The world revolved around Griffin Folklore whether he believed it or not. Not that he cared! His dreams were too peaceful to wake up and smell his coffee brewing, let alone swatting that fly on top of his alarm clock going off. Persistent bugger! Grif shouldn’t have drank so much last night. How he got home without crashing his Kawasaki Ninja was beyond the surprise every driver out there, he was all over the road doing 80 in a 55, 50 in a 30. Griffin lived life to the fullest until he ran out of gas permanently. So far, his tank was full.

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A ball of sweat his body rejected his alcohol content, not the heaviest of drinkers last night was unusual. A belated 21st birthday celebrated late at a club called Zarko’s with a few, if you could call them friends, he put away a couple too many beers. Knowing he had to work in the morning at least he had a cutoff point. Okay, he had lagged behind on that ending drink. Last night being a rarity was fun. It got his mind off of his boring life. Making it home safely he was one step ahead of his future by having his alarm clock preset. Off to LaLa Land the second he undressed and hit the bed. Dreams fueled his slumber like sheep running about, only it was people wandering aimlessly as if uncertain which way to go. Strange dream for certain but in his intoxication, he slept right through questioning his chaotic imagery. Not his first dream like this he often chocked it up to feeling lost in his own dull existence. Still dreaming...

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“ALRIGHT ALREADY! Damn dude!” His eyelids fluttered open to utter darkness, not a ray of sunshine through his windows or the skylight above his bed. Expecting to be blinded he shaded his eyes with his forearm then realized that it was pointless. “Did I set my alarm clock for PM instead of AM? Why’s it dark outside?” Lowering his arm, he stared up at his skylight and noticed it was sealed behind obsidian shutters. “What the heck? When did I get blackout shielding?” Sitting up he shot a glance toward his bedroom window; it too was cloaked by the very same shielding panes. “Okay, what’s going down?”

Crawling from bed in his boxers Griffin shut off his killer bee box then shuffled to the window, looking for a way to remove it. “Mom must have installed this. No other person I know thinks the world’s coming to an end.” Giving up on prying at it he found a digital time release sensor on the top of the thick polymer barrier. “Went off at 3AM ... releases at 8AM. It’s 7:10 now so I’ll just go shower and wake up until it unlocks. Pretty sure if the windows are blocked so, is the front door. I have time, I don’t need to be to work until 9:00. At least Maxwell has my coffee ready like a good butler.” He was used to his mom’s crazy gadgets, so this was obviously just another drill. Crazy bitch! She had to have installed it all while he was out partying. She tended to know his every move with a tracking device in his cell. Doomsday prepper he called her.

A detour to his tiny kitchen he grabs a coffee mug from his dish rack where he usually rinsed it and sat it there to dry. Being a one set of every dish and silverware kind of bachelor he was pretty good about doing dishes. His mug saying, “IQ My Ass.” with cartoon buttocks on it proved he was a smartass in general. Smart enough to use a black sharpie to write an actual letter I on the left cheek, letter Q on the right. Bright boy! Butt of his own joke!

“Mom really outdid herself this time.” He took his cup of Maxwell House coffee for a stroll to look over his front door, it wasn’t like this yesterday. She had even installed sliding shields over his window air conditioning the air was not even circulating through due to the exterior canopy. “At least my fans are working. Wonder why she locked me in like this? I mean I’m too old to be punished for any curfew violation.” At 21 Griffin was his own man, at least when he wasn’t being smothered by his scientist mother Cassiopeia aka Cassie. Technically Griffin knew he could likely bypass these prison doors but shrugged it off. Knowing the time locks would open up his reality in thirty minutes, there was no reason to call her and ask what was going on. If he did, she would just complain about him drinking too much. She always kept an eye on him in one way or another.

Setting his coffee aside on a tall round dinette table with two stools he headed for the showers. Water ignited he dropped his boxers and jumped right in. Standing at 5’8, 170 with a lightly toned physique he wasn’t any real athlete outside of running track and joining the swim team in High School. Contact sports never suited him, so he chose those that seemed meditative in nature. One he could do for himself not others, peace beneath the water, distance between other runners. He accelerated at both. A few lessons with a Tae Kwon Do instructor proved he could do wonders if he simply tried, quite a fast learner but there was that contact sport thing that bothered him, so he chose old Bruce Lee movies rather than fight on his own.

Waking up beneath the hot water helped clear the alcohol stammer he was still recovering from, he felt lucky not to have a hangover, but again he rarely got sick, and it took a lot to get drunk. Good genetics his mother told him. There were times growing up he was a momma’s boy, never knowing a real father, only fellow colleagues of his mom’s that tried to be there for him. Good people!

Shampooing his shoulder length blond hair, shaving the thin stubble on his chin, the only place where he could even grow facial hair, he turned the hot water off and endured cold just as a final get it together. Powering down he climbed out and dried off before doing the cologne and deodorant thing. He liked to smell good, mainly for his girlfriend Jade but then again, he wouldn’t see her until after he got off work later in the day. Jade being in college and he just living the dream as a Tow Truck Driver. His own personal IQ exceeded the idea of going on to college just to be a free spirit. His choice, mother supported believe it or not. She knew he could always go later if he wanted and excel without effort. Genus WAS within genius! Born to be a bad boy in more ways than one.

Selecting his clothing of the day he simply dressed casually, no need to get too spruced up when you were a tow truck driver for an Autobody Repair Shop called Brubaker’s. Of course, the boss’s daughter Kristi Brubaker was pretty darn sexy in a tattooed biker bitch kind of way. Technically too butch for him even though she was far from that way, her boyfriend Alloy aka Alan Malloy, a lead mechanic proved that when Griffin accidently caught them fucking in an oil pit with a car over them.

She did start acting all flirty with Griffin after that though, but he had the gorgeous Jade Kinney, a girl who his mom’s lab partner introduced him to, the two of them hitting it off like sexually charged bandits. His heart was in the right place. So yeah, blue jeans and a Slipknot concert t-shirt neatly tucked in. He was a rebel! Besides, he had to wear a button-down shirt promoting the Shop once he clocked in. Dry cleaned he always had a fresh shirt each day hanging in wait.

Hearing the time lock disengage in a series of three clicks and a hiss, daylight smothered his loft apartment. Blinded by Sol he went ahead and put on his sunglasses indoors and tied the laces on his plow shoes while seated on a recliner that had seen better days. He was never into anything fancy, not that he could afford it unless he lived off of his mother Cassie. Once she allowed him to move out he made her promise to let him fend for himself in every way. He got a job, his own place to live thanks to Jade’s uncle John renting him his attic loft in an old Victorian style house here in Queens. Everything he owned he bought with his own money. He was damned proud of himself.

Plucking up his cellphone he called his mother, but it went straight to voicemail. Shrugging it off he simply presumed she was too busy on some project, the woman barely slept. His call at least warranted a message, “Hey mom! Just calling to ask why my apartment was wearing Foster Grants when I woke up. Care to enlighten me? Call me later when you have time.” Beeeep!

Opening up his front door after grabbing his crash helmet he began to lock up when he wondered why sirens and car horns were going off in all directions. Even smoke was circulating in more than one area, but distant enough not to worry of his home going up in flames. “Awful lot of horns. We get bombed?” He wasn’t awakened in the middle of the night by any seismic disturbance but again in his intoxicated state he could have slept through a 6.4 magnitude quake. Shrugging off the distant chaos he darted down the weak exterior steps from his loft. Once on ground level he straddled his green and black Kawasaki Ninja 650. Helmet strapped on he fired it up and looked at the driveway. Something did not seem right.

“Wonder why Terri and Onyx are still home? They’re usually gone by 6:00. Did they call off work today?” With only that as a guess Griffin pulled around their cars carefully in the confined yard, the neighbors privacy fence in all reality too close to them. Making it through without a scratch he hit the end of the gravel driveway and looked in both directions. What he saw made his jaw drop. “What the...?”

Everywhere he looked he found cars piled up or abandoned in the middle of the road. Some still running, alarms going off, even airbags deployed and still puffy. Cruising slowly like a maze through the clustered street he avoided broken glass and debris from collisions. “Daaamn! I bet I’ll be busy as hell today towing cars.” It had not hit home quite yet just how catastrophic things were, not until he reached the main street and realized there was zero traffic. Again, spying both directions, he stopped cold at the stop sign and lifted his helmets visor. “Hooooly fuck!”

As far as the eye could see there were cars, trucks, city buses, cabs, even an ambulance scattered everywhere, having lost control and careened into yards and businesses alike. “Maybe we did get bombed. Terrorist attack or something.” He dared to cruise down the street stopping at the ambulance which had run into a delivery truck. Shutting his bike off and standing it, Griffin crawled off and removed his helmet. Shades on to protect his eyes he moved from vehicle to vehicle checking on those who might be injured. Not a soul in sight made him tense. Opening the back doors on the ambulance he found uniforms on the metal floor. Clothing on a gurney, defibs dangling as if in use but abandoned. “Whoa!” His inspection of the driver’s seat found another uniform, boots and all, one boot still on the gas pedal, gear in drive but immovable upon impact. “Uhhhh? Rapture?”

First impression!

The longer he checked out other vehicles the more that, pardon the pun, revelation, seemed clearer. “No way!” A cellphone found in a minivan lying amid a dress with a small crucifix atop it, pumps, panties, bra, etc. Griffin swallowed dryly. A closer look in back he found a baby’s car seat with clothing and a pacifier. He was growing numb the more he found personal items left behind. Going on board a city bus confirmed his fears, clothing in nearly every seat made his eyes well up. “I slept through the apocalypse.”

Demon alcohol indeed!

Using the bus CB, he tried calling dispatch but got only static. Abandoning it he did the same from the ambulance, no hospital dispatcher replied either. Haunted in the moment he took out his cell and tried his mom again, voicemail to the rescue. With no answer he called his job expecting Dottie the owner’s wife to answer. Voicemail again on her end. 911 dialed, no operator. Trembling at the residue of insanity around him he climbed back on his bike and left the running vehicles to their early grave.

Dodging car after car, bikes on their sides, basically anything in the road or stopped halfway on curbs Griffin found police cars with the same scenario of uniforms in the car seats, gun belts that he knew would never be left behind. Even handcuffs locked in the back seat proving that someone had been transported lay amid an orange prison jumpsuit. A gold tooth even lay on the floorboard.

Further down the street toward a business district he saw fires raging, a firetruck seemingly the cause of it after driving into the storefront. The horns were driving Griffin mad, he needed something to tune it all out. Resorting to earbuds attached to his cell he played music from his Spotify, thank God that still existed. Music on a loop would never fail.

With Five Finger Death Punch playing Wrong Side of Heaven starting out he got the worst case of chills he had ever felt and quickly skipped the song. While not raised on religion the song none the less hit a raw nerve. Sad, because he loved that song. The next song being The In-Between by In This Moment even traumatized him. “Maybe I need to listen to Country.” Not a fan he kept skipping songs on his playlists until he found music that didn’t identify with the Devil. Old ZZ Top did the trick. Good ole’ Viva Las Vegas!

For miles and miles, he rode the debris field and quickly believed he might just be the last man on Earth. It was then it dawned on him to ride by his job first being just up the road. A quick run inside he called out for any employees that might be in the shop. Not a peep just a radio playing, “There’s my Country.” Turning it off he put his buds back in and explored the front lobby. Behind the counter he found Dottie’s clothing in a pile, an ancient land line phone receiver dangling from its cord resting peacefully. A tear welled up at finding entire wardrobes all around him. Finding the clothes of Kristi Brubaker, the bosses daughter lying on the tile, recognized by her favorite white tank top and tight denim hot pants he paused to pick them up and realized, “Yep! No panties.” He always did suspect her free spirit. No one around he had to collect her scent. “As sweet as I imagined.” Choking up at her loss he placed her clothing back on the floor. “Didn’t mean to grope you.” Close as he had ever gotten.

Leaving the shop, he rode his Ninja toward Jade’s home. Saving his mom for last knowing he would lose his mind if she were gone like everyone else, he chose Jade Kinney’s parents’ home, being closer. Even Jade was going to make him an emotional wreck, but not like losing the woman who gave him the gift of life. A moot point now, wasn’t it? Life that is!

Five miles out in a nice residential neighborhood near a Country Club, Griffin pulled up behind her Jeep and noticed a car in the drive he didn’t recognize. Frowning, he left his helmet on his seat and headed inside. The front door unlocked he walked right in and found no clothing on the floor anywhere, other than a man’s leather jacket on barstool back. Wincing at it he looked from the dining room through a set of French doors to the inground pool out back. Spotting a bikini on the concrete and a man’s trunks beside it he felt his heart stop. “Don’t do this to me Jade.”

Heading out to survey the pool water he found a man’s boots and jeans by a lounge chair. With nobody around, he presumed the worst and cried. For ten minutes he felt lost, finally going to the man’s jeans and finding his wallet. As if a closure he needed to know who she might have been skinny dipping with, if they had even made it into the water. Locating ID, the man was named Quentin Becker. By his address he knew the guy had money. Having seen enough Griffin prepared to leave when he noticed a video camera on a tripod facing the clothing. Swallowing with a parched throat he dared to go and check out any possible footage. The shocks kept on coming!

Rewinding it to the beginning he hit play and stood watching Jade prowling seductively along the pools edge in her hot pink bikini, bright pool lights illuminating her in the darkness. Obviously, this movie was being recorded mid-morning hours. Speaking to the camera she caught Griffin by surprise, “Hi Griffy! I thought I would give you a belated birthday present seeing as I had to be out of town during your big day. Sorry baby!”

A few days back Griffin Folklore turned 21, hearing her made him cry even harder. “Like my new bikini? You can take it off of me this weekend and we can go skinny dipping together. Before you ask, I hired a guy to help make this video. He’s harmless, my cousin Cindy’s boyfriend. He volunteered to help because he’s a party planner. Anyways! I’m going to do something crazy because I adore you so much. Ready?” She points a remote in her fingers to a stereo that began playing dance music. She then points at the Becker guy to stay where he was. She looked serious in her threat.

Swaying to the music led to a mesmerizing, all too seductive dance, hands in her long brunette hair. She was so beautiful he thought. Maybe his suspicions were only based on what it looked like when coming in. Smiling at her birthday present idea he knew one thing; he would have fucked her in that pool on his big day if she hadn’t gone to Atlantic City. Realizing this he cursed under his breath. Just his luck! Cross that fantasy off his fuck it list.

Stripping her bikini off in front of this stranger made Griffin uneasy, friend of family or not he shouldn’t get to see his girlfriend naked. Why was Jade not using better judgment? Continued viewing led her to lay on the concrete and masturbate for Griffin, even moaning his name and committing to her love for him. It helped but Griffin knew there was something bad coming, the guy’s trunks were right next to her bikini. Sure, enough while she was lost in her ecstasy, Quentin Becker made his move. Stealthily hovering over her as her eyes were sealed Quentin dropped his trunks and began jerking off over her.

“Motherfucker!” Griffin hissed as if he could do anything but watch. Quentin made his move dropping down on top of her. Jade screamed loudly for him to get off of her and not to do this to Cindy. Quentin did not care, he raped Jade right on camera and fucked her so hard that she succumbed to his approach. “No no no no! Don’t hold him like he’s your man. FUCK!” He literally observed Quentin’s balls slapping against Jade’s inner thighs the entire video. The fucker even nutted inside Jade. For forty minutes of footage, he watched her being ravaged, even rolling on top of Quentin and riding his cock. Griffin went crazy pacing frantically and asking her why, as if her spirit was here. YOU BITCH!