Free The Spaces in Between by Chase Henderson

covered in pins and he concentrated harder. He shouted leave in his mind. His body began vibrating and a ringing started in his ears.
    ZRRRT! ZRRT! Warren’s rope of concentration snapped under the strain of distraction. He sat up and glanced at his cell phone. The glowing LCD on the phone’s faceplate announced that Unkown was calling again. Warren hit the silence button and waited for the light on the Motorola to go out.
    He turned the other way and tried to fall back to sleep. He was wide-awake now and couldn’t concentrate on relaxing. His body was now ready to get up and do something. He considered waking up Janet, his fiancé to see if could help him get back to sleep, but once his eyes were fixed upon her ordinary beauty he couldn’t bring himself to disturb her. It baffled him why a woman of her caliber would stay with him a man that had to grow a beard to create the illusion of having a neckline.
    Clad in a t-shirt proclaiming “Joss Whedon is my Master Now”, boxers, and one sock Warren dragged himself into the dining room. Well, the area of their studio apartment that had a dining room table next to a microwave, sink, and refrigerator. He threw his notepad and mechanical pencil on the table before pulling himself up. He tapped the pencil on the notepad with his right hand trying to pierce the fog that divides dreams and memory in the brain.
    He absently scrawled on the paper while trying to divine any of the details from his brain. Being a very lonely man for a great deal of his adulthood Warren was comfortable at typing with only one hand, but writing with a pencil was a little faster for him. He checked the clock. Thirty minutes had passed and all he had to show for it were strange circles under “Cameron. Zombies.”
    He tried to twirl his Bic mechanical pencil between his thumb and forefinger, but he fumbled due to its awkward weight. His pencil was missing the clip that would allow him to attach the pencil to his clothing- certainly chewed off by Janet in a moment of frustration. He got one of the unsharpened pencils from his stash under the sink for just such an occasion.
    The perfectly balanced pencil spun in a circle between his fingers, and Warren passed the blurred circle from his thumb and forefinger to his forefinger and middle finger then back again with mechanical precision. Watching this was calming, and the hypnotic effect parted the veil in his mind.
    Warren recollected the visage of the Dread Pirate Cameron, the Pirate King and star of his dreams. A lanky young man with an eye patch and red dreadlocks dressed in full pirate regalia crawled out from the tear in the veil. The third eye in the base of Warren’s brain went over every detail until the Pirate King was complete.
    “So what’s the haps, Captain Cameron?” Warren asked the empty room. The spinning pencil went back and forth between his fingers.
    “Same old, same old,” the Cameron in his mind replied, “Just swiped some more tablets like the Mehmet talisman from ship full of zombies. Covered with Creation’s source code I’m sure. Wish I could read it.”
    “I can’t help you there,” Warren said, “That’s quite a story. Mind telling it to me?”
    “Got a pen?” Cameron said, “Before we start. I just gotta say – I’m really sorry about your arm.” Warren nodded and the Cameron in the theatre of his mind’s eye related to him everything. Of the space ship Fillipre, its cargo bay full of the wretched dead between him and the secrets he desired. Of Cameron’s trip to the Underworld, and of Lilith and Adam, the first man and woman’s role in banishing the biological weapon that kept the crew of Fillipre alive long after their deaths.
    Warren only half paid attention to what Cameron said as his right hand wrote furiously every detail Cameron dictated through the whole night.
     
    2
     
    “Wake up or you’ll be late for your interview,” Janet whispered into Warren’s ear and shook him awake. He woke up with a