Run: Day 6

Word Count: 36,062

Summary of Events:

DaNiel was feeling tired, having driven for over eight hours, so he pulled off the Interstate to have a nap at a motel in Columbus. While DaNiel napped Ty decided to go find some food and actually found a shopping centre, where he killed a few hours. DaNiel was woken up later; in fact, far later than he'd wanted to be, by Ty telling him that there were police outside of the motel and they needed to get out before they were discovered . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“And we’re going to be able to get out of here?” DaNiel asked.

“Yes,” Ty replied.

“I sure hope so,” DaNiel swore, stalking toward the door.

Ty opened it and hurried over to the car like he was darting to another hiding spot.

DaNiel walked more calmly, even though he was inwardly seething that it was half past eight at night and they were still here; he’d meant to be out of Ohio by now.

“That’s the wrong car,” he hissed, seeing the license plate.

“No it isn’t,” Ty hissed.

“We had plates, what was wrong with them?” DaNiel asked.

“These ones put us further away from Virginia,” Ty hissed.

“Have they figured them out?” DaNiel asked.

“No,” Ty replied.

“Not that you’re supposed to be doing illegal stuff like this,” DaNiel warned, getting in and finding the interior of the car proved Ty was right that it was the same car, even if it now bore Ohio plates instead of Virginia ones.

“Just get going,” Ty urged.

“Have you been arrested before?” DaNiel asked.

“No, and I intend to keep it that way,” Ty replied. “Let’s go!”

“With the way you’re freaking out you’re asking for it,” DaNiel replied. “You’ve checked out, though?”

“Yes,” Ty replied.

DaNiel nodded and started the car, reversing out of the stall. “What happened to the other plates?”

“I put them on the car I got these from,” Ty replied. “Nobody’ll notice.”

“Are you sure?” DaNiel asked.

“There’s, like, twenty different styles of plate that all say Ohio on them, trust me, they won’t notice,” Ty replied.

“Really?” DaNiel mused. “I thought they stuck with consistent designs.”

“Not in Ohio,” Ty replied. “Turn right.”

“But the road to get us back onto the Interstate is to the left,” DaNiel replied.

“So are the cops,” Ty replied.

“But if we look legal and all that,” DaNiel said.

“Says the guy whose face has been plastered all over the news for three days,” Ty snapped.

DaNiel was silent. Ty had a point there. He turned right and looked up to see police lights flashing in the rearview mirror, blue and red.

“So what are the police doing over there?” DaNiel asked. “If they haven’t found you out.”

“I don’t entirely know, but there’s something going on on the other side of the motel and I don’t want to know if they’re going to come around to our side and check anything out,” Ty replied.

“So they didn’t find us out?” DaNiel asked.

“Did you want them to?” Ty asked.

“No,” DaNiel replied. “But if you would’ve woken me up earlier like you were supposed to we wouldn’t have to be fleeing like this.”

“I am not a mind-reader,” Ty spat. “If you want me to do something you have to tell me, you had no trouble telling me to get a hotel room!”

“I’m pretty sure I told you to wake me up,” DaNiel snapped.

“Nope,” Ty replied.

Run: Day 5

Word Count: 30,134

Summary of Events:

DaNiel took the I-495 out of Alexandria, driving in silence until Ty, who'd fallen asleep, was startled by the loud beginning of a song on the radio and became upset that they were heading north; they argued even as DaNiel agreed to head west once they reached the I-66 — even though some state highways would've allowed them to go west sooner. Ty slept off and on throughout the morning and afternoon as they wound their way in and out of West Virginia several times before stopping for fuel in Pennsylvania, where Ty got out and filled the tank while DaNiel waited inside the car and ensured Ty rounded off to the nearest dollar when the tank was full . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Ty stuck the nozzle back in and squeezed it in a short burst several times until he got to just a cent over the next dollar; he then removed the nozzle, giving it a light tap like Grandpa had always done — he’d told Ty he did it to make sure no fuel would drip onto the ground — and set the nozzle back in its cradle before turning the cap back on and closing the little door.

With that, Ty walked back around to the passenger door and opened it.

“Excuse me,” DaNiel said.

“What?” Ty asked.

“You’ve got to pay for the gas,” DaNiel replied.

“It’d be faster if we didn’t,” Ty replied.

“No,” DaNiel said. “Not happening. We are following the law. I don’t want them to have an actual reason to throw me in jail. I want to be free and clear. Go pay for it.”

Ty exhaled resentfully and stalked over to the convenience store, although as he walked he couldn’t really deny that he was actually somewhat grateful, as it was nice to be walking and not sitting.

Seeing all the drinks inside, Ty immediately felt thirsty and decided he wanted to grab a drink, and figured the least he could do was grab one for DaNiel too — not that he knew what DaNiel would want — but he figured DaNiel would be annoyed if he went back and asked.

As he passed through the door he ended up jostling a man; then he spied an ATM in the corner.

Immediately he walked over, keeping his head down, and slipped out the first card, placing it in the slot.

Following the formula, he punched in a code; on the second try he got it right and was able to withdraw the maximum amount the machine let him; he did the same with the second card — which had the same PIN as the first —  and was disappointed to find no other cards, but he shoved everything into his hoodie pocket nonetheless before going over to the drinks and taking one that he liked, as well as a ubiquitous drink, the sort that was sold everywhere and seemed to be appealing to everyone.

He also snuck a couple snacks before pulling his hair down over his forehead in the way of his eyes and stepping in line behind an elderly woman.

She was paying when Ty realised that he didn’t know what pump number DaNiel was parked beside. He swore under his breath, prompting the old woman to turn immediately and look at him with a scandalised expression.

“What did you say?” she demanded.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Ty snapped.

“Your mother must be ashamed of you,” she retorted.

Ty huffed indignantly. Mom wasn’t ashamed of him, she just hated him.

The woman left — but not without another condescending look at Ty — before Ty stepped up.

“Whatever pump is on the end,” he said pointing vaguely toward the car.

The cashier told him the amount and he paid it before walking outside to the car, no one the wiser about what he’d done, not even DaNiel.

Run: Day 4

Word Count: 24,276

Summary of Events:

Corbin spent most of the day doing unexpected work to get the car running, including getting a new battery, helping change the oil, and buying supplies from a long list compiled by DaNiel, who was frustrated by the appalling slowness of the internet, which was preventing him from mapping out their route. Early the following morning Corbin was woken by DaNiel and got ready quickly before discovering, to his shock, that DaNiel meant to delay for breakfast before setting out . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“You’re going to waste all the darkness,” Ty snapped through his teeth.

“Look, it’s four in the morning, we have two and a half hours until the sun rises, we have enough darkness,” DaNiel replied. “We have two hours before it’s light enough outside to see shapes, we will be fine. Now go put your backpack by mine and grab some breakfast.”

“We could still be seen,” Ty hissed.

“The world never sleeps, we’re going to be seen no matter what,” DaNiel hissed back.

“Less people are awake at nighttime,” Ty hissed.

“Just grab some food,” DaNiel swore, turning his attention to his freshly-popped toast.

Ty waited for DaNiel to move to the dining room before preparing his own toast, seething at the thought that they were wasting precious darkness having breakfast when they could always eat some of the snacks they’d packed.

Sure, outside of the granola bars there wasn’t really any wholesome breakfast food among the snacks, but even still, the fact that they were wasting this time was more than a little frustrating to Ty, who felt they’d wasted enough time with all the shopping he’d had to do buying more stuff than he personally thought they’d need for the trip.

The two of them ate quickly before rather quietly rinsing the crumbs off their plates and setting them in the dishwasher — as Ty wouldn’t be around to put them away alter when they were dry and he didn’t want Mom to come into the kitchen and break them randomly — before each taking up their backpack and heading into the garage.

DaNiel opened the trunk and Ty heaved his backpack inside roughly while DaNiel put his down gently before slamming the trunk shut.

Ty went to the front passenger door and slid inside while DaNiel got into the driver’s seat, holding out his flat palm to Ty, who stared at it blankly.

“You have the key I need to drive this thing,” DaNiel said.

Ty pulled the key from his jeans pocket and handed it to DaNiel who, after pressing the button on the remote to open the garage door, inserted the key into the ignition and started the car. Ty felt resentful as he watched DaNiel shift the car into reverse and felt the machine slowly start rolling backwards out of the garage.

They stopped once the car was completely outside the garage and watched as the door slowly lowered, hiding the carless space from sight before slowly reversing, with DaNiel gently turning the wheel so the rear of the car moved to the right as it rolled over the soft curb of sidewalk and onto the asphalt.

Letting the wheel slide with a whispering sound through his hands, DaNiel then shifted the car into drive and they started forward. If only Ty could drive he wouldn’t have needed DaNiel with him and could’ve left sooner, but at least they were finally on their way; all he could hope now was that the killer-lady wasn’t lurking anywhere watching them.

Run: Day 3

Word Count: 18,222

Summary of Events:

DaNiel was seated in the living room trying to map out a route to Seattle on Ty's laptop, but the website wasn't loading nicely, so he gave up and was startled by Ty's strange mother, who wouldn't stop trying to get close to him, prompting him to hide in the guest room. Ty returned from having gone out and stolen some registered license plates for his grandparents' car and installed them before getting his mom to leave DaNiel alone and urging DaNiel to hurry up so they could leave; DaNiel protested a hasty departure, reminding Ty that all he was wearing was a pair of basketball shorts Ty had loaned him . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Ty looked DaNiel over; from what Ty understood, outside of possibly underwear DaNiel was wearing nothing but those shorts. He had no shoes, no shirt, no change of clothes.

“Oh,” Ty said.

“Oh,” DaNiel said, rolling his eyes. “You don’t think about anything, do you?”

“I’m thinking about getting out of here,” Ty replied. “I bet that lady’s been all day looking for us, and who knows if she hasn’t found us and is just waiting for the cover of darkness to come over here and shoot us.”

“You’re thinking about as much as a chicken with its head cut off,” DaNiel spat.

“We need to get out of here,” Ty swore. “I’m trying to get us out of here.”

“Look, we need to get some stuff together,” DaNiel said. “We need to be a bit more prepared for this; we’re essentially making a break for it. People who break out from prison don’t exactly get the dynamite and run, they monitor guard movements, they pay attention to all the little details that will give them an advantage, we need to do that before bolting like a crazed horse.”

“So what are you saying?” Ty asked.

“I need clothes, we need to be sure we have enough gas to make it a long way, preferably out of state if we can, we need to have a route marked out of where we’re going, and we should stockpile some snacks so that we don’t have to stop for food too much along the way,” DaNiel replied. “In fact, I’ll compile a list.”

“How long is it going to take?” Ty asked.

“I don’t know,” DaNiel replied. “Why?”

“Well, we want to get out of here,” Ty said.

“You’re thinking of leaving tonight, aren’t you?” DaNiel asked.

“Yeah,” Ty replied.

“Nuh uh,” DaNiel replied. “We’re staying the night and leaving in the morning; we’ll look less suspicious that way.”

“Not everyone who drives around at night is suspicious,” Ty said.

“Old people driving around at night is,” DaNiel said.

“Everybody around here knows they’re dead,” Ty replied. “It’d be more suspicious for people to see the car moving. We’re better served to leave at night when everybody around here is sleeping. These are old people who have no jobs to go to for the most part, which gives them all day to sit around and look out windows. They’re going to see us, and they’re going to wonder what in the world is going on. We need to leave in the dark.”

“Predawn them,” DaNiel said.

“Twilight works,” Ty argued.

“No,” DaNiel replied.

“Yes it does!” Ty snapped.

“I want to sleep at night and drive in the daytime,” DaNiel said. “We are setting out predawn then so that we can drive all day before finding a place to sleep at night and picking up where we left off the next day.”

Ty sighed and sagged with frustration. “Why?”

“Because I’m the driver,” DaNiel replied.

Indignation rose in Ty, who swore at DaNiel before pushing to his feet and heading back down the stairs.

Run: Day 2

Word Count: 12,041

Summary of Events:

DaNiel followed Corbin to his house out of a desire to know what the little metal thing was Corbin had shown him and settled into the guest bedroom to spend the night, anticipating getting a look at the object in the morning. Corbin woke up at nearly 14:00 and discovered that DaNiel had taken his laptop and the metal thing and had connected them only to learn that Corbin's laptop couldn't run the full program, so DaNiel launched the Beta version, which, as it loaded, showed them the mark of the US military . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“You’re hacking into Army stuff!” he cried. “We’re going to get killed for sure!”

“I’m not hacking into it, I just turned it on and connected it to your computer by Bluetooth,” the wrong-con* replied.

“Why did you turn it on!?” he cried.

“I saw a button, I pressed it, and it lit up,” the wrong-con replied. “Don’t wet yourself.”

“I’m just supposed to guard it, not play with it,” he snapped. “We’re not supposed to find out what it is. I shouldn’t have even showed it to you.”

The window changed again to show two words: Beta was small and all-caps and positioned between the upper shafts of the L and D of the following word: Latrodectus.

“I wonder what these words mean,” the wrong-con mused.

“They mean get out of here and stop snooping where you don’t belong,” he swore.

“Oh stop Tiny Tim,” the wrong-con replied, clearly annoyed.

“I’m not tiny,” he snapped. “I’m taller than you.”

“Not by that much,” the wrong-con replied, still focused on the screen.

“And my name isn’t Tim either,” he replied.

“Then what is it?” the wrong-con asked.

“It’s Ty†,” he replied.

“I got the right letter,” the wrong-con said. “Do I get points for that?”

Ty set his jaw and glared at the wrong-con before turning his attention back to the screen, which had flashed again and now displayed a window that showed a very beta-looking set of text; it looked more dated than Facebook.

The bottom message was highlighted by a red box and had an old-fashioned serifed font from the days back when personal computers had become a thing screaming in all caps: RED ALERT. Fitting it was red.

VPS0317SEA 

Have reason to believe Removed is headed your way seeking Latrodectus. Removed is unstable, *MU terminated contact. High Risk. Get to safety.

“What does that even mean?” Ty asked, having read the message over several times.

“Well this is Latrodectus,” the wrong-con replied, looking at him and holding up the thing. “And it needs to be taken to safety, gotten away from Removed, whoever that is.”

“But where is safety?” Ty asked. “My bedroom?”

“I’d say Seattle,” the wrong-con replied.

“Seattle,” Ty replied. “Where did you pull Seattle from?”

“Sea,” the wrong-con replied, pointing at the last three letters of the alphanumeric code at the top of the message. “In a lot of things that’s the abbreviation for Seattle.”

“But why would it be safe there?” Ty asked.

“Well, it’s not here,” the wrong-con replied. “In fact, it’s about the furthest from here you can get contiguously. I mean, you could always hoof it to Alaska, maybe take a plane to Hawaii,  but without crossing any major water bodies or borders it’s respectably far from here.”

Notes: 

*DaNiel identified himself to Corbin as wrongly convicted when he revealed that he'd escaped from prison; alliteration to ex-con.

†Corbin's nickname, derived from his middle name.

Run: Day 1

Word Count: 6,149

Summary of Events:

Corbin went to a convenience store and pinched some snacks, as well as a wallet; unfortunately the wallet's owner noticed its absence immediately and there was a policeman fuelling up out front who took up pursuit immediately; he managed to evade the policeman before hearing a gunshot and spying a downed man who was dying, but pressed a little metal object into his hand and told him to guard it with his life. DaNiel affixed the last pieces to a teleportation platform he'd scrabbled together and tested that it worked with a square of toilet paper before waiting for the shift change of the guards so he could make his escape. A woman with a gun — whom Corbin suspected had killed the man who'd given him the metal object — chased Corbin into a residential neighbourhood where he found an abandoned house and hid under the sink by the back door while she searched the house for him, but to no avail; after she left the room Corbin crawled out of the cupboard and was startled by a glowing ring of light in the corner of the room . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Suddenly the glow grew and brightened, filling the room with almost-blinding light; he scrambled back from the glow, running his shoulder hard into the narrow edge of the open door.

More suddenly than the glow had grown and brightened it dimmed and decreased until there was just the ring glowing, but more shocking and alarming than before was the fact that a full-grown man in blue-grey pyjamas with his hair sculpted into cornrows was now standing within the ring.

He wanted to scream like a little girl, but yet fear stole any sound from his throat — not that he wasn’t on the wrong side of puberty to be able to hit a glass-shattering note anyways — as he stared at the man before him who stood with his arms crossed over his chest like an Egyptian mummy.

Slowly the figure lowered his arms and opened his eyes; immediately the figure saw him and startled violently for a moment before stepping out of the ring and taking on a savage countenance.

“What are you doing here?” the figure swore through his teeth, which glowed from the light even though the light was behind him.

Quickly he shifted the door with his shoulder and crab-walked back from the figure.

“How did you find it?” the figure demanded.

“Find what?” he asked fearfully. “I didn’t find anything.”

“What do you call that?” the figure spat, throwing an arm behind him to the platform,

“I didn’t know it was there,” he replied. “I was just hiding from the killer lady who wants this.”

He opened his hand to reveal the bloodstained metal.

The figure’s countenance immediately changed as he looked at the shining object in his palm; he looked interested in it.

Suddenly the words of the assuredly now-dead man flashed into his mind: “Don’t show it to anyone.”

He snapped his hand shut and pulled it back against his chest.

“What is it?” the figure asked.

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

A creak sounded above them; she was still in the house.

“We need to run,” he whispered.

Alarm came over the figure’s face and he turned back to the glowing ring; there was a quiet, plastic click before the ring faded into darkness.

He hurried to his feet and watched as the figure reached for the knob.

“It’s locked,” he said.

The figure snapped the deadbolt open and then opened the door before surging outside and to the left.

He followed, discovering concrete stairs that carried him out of the little hole in the ground and up into a backyard that looked more like it’d been seeded to some sort of a grain crop than grass and hurried after the figure, who opened a gate in the fence he didn’t think he would’ve found and slipped through.

Quickly he followed after, wanting to chase the figure down and find out if it was human or some sort of a celestial spectre even though his body was thoroughly weary of all the running and just wanted to go home and go to bed already.

April Novel Essential Information

Novel Title: Run

Time Setting: 2020

Genre: Thriller

Minimum Word Goal: 120,000

Timespan: April–May

Locations: Alexandria, Virginia; Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; other points between Alexandria and Seattle.

Main Characters: Corbin Eastwood, DaNiel Sparling

Background Information: 

Corbin was born a few weeks premature when his mother went into shock at the news of his father’s death while he was fighting as a member of the US Army in Afghanistan.

Traumatised by her husband’s death, Corbin’s mother immediately accepted the offer from her mother to move from where she’d been living with her husband in California to her parents’ home in Virginia.

Because Corbin was a son who bore a strong resemblance to his father even as an infant, his mother found it hard to have anything to do with him, and left his care in the hands of his grandparents, who took it on willingly.

As a result of their efforts he had a fairly normal childhood, including taking up — and becoming fairly good at — baseball in the summers, while being academically average.

His mother had formed a dependency on the pain medication she was given after having experienced a minor tear while giving birth to Corbin and when doctors cut off her prescription refills she started stealing money from her job — aided by the fact that she was a cashier — to buy it off the street, and thus has developed such a laundry list of aliases Corbin’s hard-pressed to remember what her actual name is.

When he was twelve years old his grandfather died of age; the loss was hard for Corbin, leading to him quitting baseball because he couldn’t stop crying when he looked up to the seat where his grandfather had always sat and cheered him on from.

Three years later his grandmother also died, and because they were both cremated Corbin keeps their remains — among other things precious to him — hidden in his bedroom so they’re safe from his mother, who was also hit hard by the death of her parents and became destructive in her grief.

Because of his mother’s drug dependency Corbin’s three uncles had come to have little to do with Corbin and his grandparents, as they disagreed with how Corbin’s mother was being treated by his grandparents.

When his grandparents died Corbin’s uncles merely came to the house, claimed what they wanted, and left, never to be seen again.

Thus, for the past two years Corbin has been fending for himself, becoming an adept pickpocket and hacker of debit and credit cards, as well as a decent shoplifter; the speed he developed through baseball helping him to evade law enforcement when he runs the risk of being caught.

Although he makes enough by stealing wallets and hacking into the bank accounts of the victims to drain the accounts dry, Corbin dropped out of school so as to have more time in which to pick pockets, and thus actually has almost a small fortune, but no idea what he would want to spend it on.

In fact, even though he has a small fortune he continues to pick pockets and steal as much money as he can, not content that the money he has will ever be enough.

Born the youngest of three children to a real estate agent and a luxury car dealer receptionist, DaNiel has been well provided for throughout the course of his life, including being given a good education.

From a young age he took an interest in technology, and was soon taking apart household appliances to see how they worked, and sometimes even to snitch parts to make his own little devices.

Seeing futuristic technologies in Science Fiction movies prompted DaNiel to ask his dad why he hadn’t seen them in real life, and was informed by his father that many of the technologies depicted didn’t actually exist, but were made to seem real by animation, camera tricks, and other sleights.

DaNiel was disappointed by this news, but was encouraged by his dad to see if he couldn’t make some of them real, and since then DaNiel has endeavoured to do so, winning prizes at science fairs and other things for his real-life working replicas of well-known film technology.

The one technology he’s been most interested in creating is teleportation, and he’s been working on it for years at the Test House, an abandoned house in a rough neighbourhood that he decided would be a suitable location for him to work in secrecy, as well as to do tests to see if he could teleport things through walls or over decent distances.

He started small, making devices capable of teleporting pennies and marbles, then getting bigger; his first living test was a trapped rat, which survived a couple trips through the device as he tested different distances.

During his last year of high school DaNiel started building his largest teleportation device yet, capable — he hopes — of transporting a full-grown adult, which he meant to continue working on even as he went to college on a tech-related scholarship.

However, not long after he graduated, while heading home from the Test House, where he’d just completed one half of his large teleportation device, he was accosted, beaten, and arrested by a policeman for murder.

Although he had no connection with the victim, and DNA and several other usually-weighty evidences pointed to his innocence, he was convicted of the crime to life in prison, which he believes occurred purely because of his skin colour, and the fact that he was unwilling to provide an alibi, not wanting to reveal his teleportation technology to the world just yet.

Since his conviction his parents have been desperately appealing to higher and higher courts for the other evidences to be considered over his skin colour and lack of alibi and his sentence to be overturned in favour of convicting the real criminal, while DaNiel himself has been snitching parts from his cell and elsewhere in the prison to assemble the other half of his teleportation device in a bid to either get out of prison or die trying, and at the moment he is getting close to completing the platform, which he’s deliberately making so that it will self-destruct as soon as it sends him to freedom.

Pronunciation:

DaNiel: dahneel