Free The Spaces in Between by Chase Henderson Page A

start at the dining room table. His eyes darted to the clock on the wall’s arms that pointed to 8 and 1.
    “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” Warren was a late riser by nature and liked having a few hours of hitting snooze on the alarm clock before properly getting up.
    “Well I thought you needed the rest. Especially when you decided to pull an all-nighter on a new story instead of resting up for your interview.” Today was Warren’s first job interview after his accident. Since he had accidentally called his client, the Australian porn king with a fancy for Ostriches, he was technically on the job so worker’s comp has been sending him a meager stipend.
    “How long have you been working on this?” Janet said.
    Warren was about to say since last night, but stopped himself once he realized she was holding over twenty pages in her hand. Could I have really written that much last night? Was that even possible? Maybe if it was being dictated to me, but still.
    “It’s pretty creepy,” Janet said, “I really liked Adam, but this might be a bit much.” She held up the last page; which only contained a drawn picture of a head shaped like a reverse teardrop, two huge black wells of eyes, and a tiny slit for a mouth. The whole head was shaded with sloppy lines of pencil maybe to show that the creature had grey skin. It most likely did since it bore a striking resemblance to the probe happy gray aliens that abductees on TV would suddenly “remember.”
    He couldn’t quite remember what the people on TV had called them. Was it Zeta Rectus? That seemed oddly appropriate, but one name suddenly came bubbling to the front of his mind from behind the veil.
    Lam .
    “I’ve got to get to work,” Janet said. She put some more food pellets in the cage for the pile of rodents that was currently residing in the wheel. It was a gift from Warren with the lump of change that he got from the Cameron short story that some Sci-Fi rag she couldn’t remember printed. She never bothered reading it, because she was the one he dictated it to as soon as he regained consciousness. It was full of horrible memories for her.
    After he cashed the check Warren insisted on picking her up a pet. At the pet store in either the hamster or the mouse pen – it didn’t really matter which – she immediately wanted the little plastic house that was full of rodents. She named this pile of rodents Steve, and treated it as if it were one creature.
    “Don’t be late for that interview.” Janet returned the stack of papers to the table. “I had to pull some favors to get it for you.”
    “I won’t.” Warren lied without knowing it yet. She kissed him on the lips.
    “I love you.”
    “I love you, too.”
    Then Janet walked out the door and into harm’s way.
     
    3
     
    Warren charged down the street as fast as his doughy legs attached to his disproportionate programmer’s ass could take him. Which happens to be not very fast at all. Wolfmother blaring in his ears dulls the pain in his legs courtesy of the Zune he purchased with the most of his short story money. Anything to stick it to Steve Jobs.
    Much like Janet prophesized he was running late. If he didn’t make it to the bus stop in five minutes he’d miss the bus for the Inner Harbor. Putting this into perspective it was usually a ten-minute walk from Warren’s apartment.
    Their apartment was near the cemetery where Poe was buried, but he couldn’t remember the name. They had no interest in visiting it, because they had not interest in getting shot. In Baltimore once you lieave the strip of city that the Inner Harbor lies on you’ve fallen into the Ghetto.
    After the H1 model Hummer, the insurance money he got for his car was just enough to replace his laptop. This lack of a car forced him to walk everywhere he needed to go when Janet wasn’t available to chauffeur. This has lost him twenty pounds, but sadly no one has really noticed. Warren was jerked by into reality by a man