Free Are You There and Other Stories by Jack Skillingstead

make sense to Kylie but she liked the sounds of the words, the way they were put together. Outside the perpetual storms crashed and sizzled, violet flashes stuttering into the cozy room with the fire.
    In the yellow car, Toby’s hand felt warm. Companionable and intimate.
    “So how are they doing?” he said.
    “They’re happy.”
    “Great. What’s next?”
    “If you knew this was your last day to live,” Kylie asked him, “what would you do?”
    “I’d find a spooky girl and make love to her.”
    She kissed him. “What else?”
    “Ah—”
    “I mean without leaving the city. You can’t leave the city.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because you’d just get stuck in the Preservation Field until the loop re-started. It looks like people are driving out but they’re not.”
    He looked at her closely, searching for the joke, then grinned. “We wouldn’t want that to happen to us.”
    “No.”
    “So what would you do on your last day?” he asked.
    “I’d find a spooky guy who could fix things and I’d get him to fix me up.”
    “You don’t need fixing. You’re not broken.”
    “I am.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Let’s drive around. Then let’s have a really great meal, like the best food you can think of.”
    “That’s doable.”
    “Then we can go back to your apartment.”
    “What about the big countdown?”
    “Fuck the countdown.” Kylie pushed the timing stud into her chronometer. “There,” she said. “No more countdown.”
    “You like pizza?” Toby said.
    “I don’t know. What is it?”
    After they made love the second time Kylie fell into a light doze on Toby’s futon bed. She was not used to so much rich stimulation, so much food and drink, so much touching.
    She woke with a start from a dream that instantly disappeared from her consciousness. There was the sound of rain, but it wasn’t the terrible poisonous rain of her world. Street light through the window cast a flowing shadow across the foot of the bed. It reminded her of the shiny fountain at the waterfront. The room was snug and comforting and safe. There was a clock on the table beside the bed but she didn’t look at it. It could end right now.
    She sat up. Toby was at his desk under a framed movie poster, bent over something illuminated by a very bright and tightly directed light. He was wearing his jeans but no shirt or socks.
    “Hello,” she said.
    He turned sharply, then smiled. “Oh, hey Kylie. Have a nice rest?”
    “I’m thirsty.”
    He got up and fetched her a half depleted bottle of water from the refrigerator. While he was doing that she noticed her locator in pieces on the desk.
    “We don’t need that anymore,” she said, pointing.
    “I was just curious. I can put it back together, no problem.”
    “I don’t care about it.” She lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes.
    “Kylie?”
    “Hmmm?” She kept her eyes closed.
    “Who are you? Really.”
    “I’m your spooky girl.”
    “Besides that.”
    She opened her eyes. “Don’t spoil it. Please don’t.”
    “Spoil what?”
    “This. Us. Now. It’s all that matters.”
    Rain ticked against the window. It would continue all night, a long, cleansing rain. Water that anybody could catch in a cup and drink if they wanted to—water out of the sky.
    Toby took his pants down and slipped under the sheet next to her, his body heat like a magnetic field that drew her against him. She pressed her cheek to his chest. His heart beat calmly.
    “Everything’s perfect,” she said.
    “Yeah.” He didn’t sound that certain.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Nothing,” he said. “Only—this is all pretty fast. Don’t you think we should know more about each other?”
    “Why? Now is what matters.”
    “Yeah, but I mean, what do you do? Where do you live? Basic stuff. Big stuff, too, like do you believe in God or who’d you vote for president?”
    “I want to go for a long walk in the rain. I want to feel it on my face and not be afraid or sick.”
    “What do