Nick's Gone

"I'll say it to be proud:
'Won't have my life turned up-side down,'
Says the man with some, with some gold-forged plan
Of life so incomplete
Like weights strapped around my feet.
Tread careful - one step at a time..."




Green Man: Yeeeeaaah... Our house was raided by guys in suits, me and the others were questioned for about a day, Spinner, Weaver, and Cutter weren't there when it happened... and Nick is missing.

This was the general gist of Green Man's call to me on Sunday.


There's a Chinese take-out place on the north side of Philadelphia. Very early on, Nick and I agreed that if one of us needed to disappear for a while, before we did anything else, we would leave a message for the other with the owners of that shop. If there was no message by the time someone noticed we were missing, then something had gone wrong, and the disappearance was not voluntary.

Long story short, there was no message. Something bad has happened.

We went to Nick's apartment afterwards. Michelle and I. Nick's friends Green Man and Forgemaster were both there, the apartment was a mess, presumably from the search, and Weaver, Spinner, and Cutter were still nowhere to be found.

So. The facts.

The suited officials who were not police and wouldn't identify themselves any further than that were very interested in Nick's whereabouts, as well as who has been in contact with him. Naturally, Green Man and Forgemaster kept their traps shut.

Nick is, in fact, missing in action, apparently shortly after he left Kay's house on Friday evening. He did not mention to me where he was going; I just assumed he was going home. His friends also expected him home this weekend. No one can get ahold of him through any means of contact, plus he's normally very good about letting people know if he has to make an unexpected detour, even if he has to call collect on a pay phone. This time, he's been dead silent for over 3 days, and that's not normal.

Nick's buddy Time Lord has a history of rather dickish behavior over the past few months, manipulating people into achieving certain goals for an unknown purpose.

No one's seen much of Time Lord either, aside from the packets of post-it notes he leaves lying around.

Weaver, Spinner, and Cutter are Time Lord's students, but they apparently don't know where he is either. And now they're missing too.

Green Man and Forgemaster thought they saw the trio outside the apartment complex just before the raid, but they aren't certain.

The last time anybody heard from Time Lord was on Saturday, when he called Spencer for a delivery. Spencer also saw a woman being chased by people in suits (presumably the same guys who raided the apartment). This woman may or may not be Weaver, but I'd guess not, since she was apparently alone.

Said delivery that Time Lord ordered and Spencer carried out... was the transportation of a coffin from Philadelphia to Santa Fe. An occupied coffin.

And Nick is missing.

I'm... not gonna make assumptions just yet, but I've got a bad, bad feeling. At least Spence had the presence of mind to remove the nails from the coffin lid, even if he didn't want to look inside.

Just... fuck, Time Lord! What in the fucking fuck was so fucking important that you had to... had to...

...FUCK!


And... just to make a bad day worse, I saw It again. It was in the barrier of trees that always lines the highways in my area, on the way back to my house from Philly. Michelle honed in on It the instant It was visible around the bend, stared right at It as we passed. Damn-near crashed the car. I offered to drive the rest of the way, but she insisted she was fine.

The music thing happened again. This time it was Bohemian Rhapsody playing through my car speakers via iPod adapter. God, I don't even want to go into what kind of nightmare that song turned into, it's already about a frigging murder trial... but the frozen girl was there again, unsure, unmoving... She's afraid to die, but doesn't really want to live either... God, I can't do this right now. I can't.

And the radio got all static-y as we passed... probably the reason Michelle insisted on driving, even though she was shaken too. She thought to turn the radio off just as I thought to take hold of the steering wheel before we crashed into oncoming traffic... What a pair we make, huh?


I've done as much as I can for Kay. And, short of flying down to Santa Fe and/or smacking Time Lord upside the head myself, there's nothing I can do for Nick. Not saying I wouldn't do that under other circumstances, mind... but I have to trust him for now. Trust that he can take care of himself, and trust that Time Lord, as big a dick as he is, wouldn't let him die for whatever "grand master plan" he's got going. I've told Green Man and Forgemaster everything I suspect, so it'll be up to them for now.

Meanwhile, Michelle and I elected not to stop back home. We were going away for a while anyway, but after the little... excursion... we had on our way home, we decided to just go. Got people to see, things to do... I'll try to keep an accurate record while I'm gone.


I am... more stressed than I'd like to admit. Pacing the hotel room when I'm not writing, unable to sleep, haven't really been hungry all day... Is it wrong if I'm just tired of talking about it? Describing each... encounter... each sighting... It's like going through it all over again. I hate that, I really do. I don't want to do it anymore.

And, of all things, I actually got an email from Bay today! The preschool and kindergarten classes will be back to school next week, and he wanted to know if I would join him on his volunteer hours to set everything up - mop the floors, dust the equipment, restock the shelves... I don't think he realized just how much he made me want to throw my netbook into a wall... But it really was just an innocent request, he has no idea what I've been going through over the past few weeks, the images that play in my head along with all my worries... so I settled for just deleting the email. It was not at all cathartic.



...Look at me, rambling just for the sake of avoiding sleep.

See you around, guys.