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Chapter 1: The Key
"Hey, man, get up! Come on, man!" Larry Cranel said urgently as Mark Dower rolled around in his sleeping bag. Mark groaned.
"What is it?" Mark said, his voice being muffled through the pillow his head was buried in while he lolled in his sleep.
"You've got to see this!" Larry said, his tone sounding serious, although Mark didn't think much of it—he had been around Larry long enough to know that almost every word he spoke was with much more enthusiasm than the average person you talked to. Larry seemed to always like drama, and he had a knack for making the smallest of situations seem like a big issue that must be taken care of right away. Mark unzipped the bag halfway down and slowly got up, feeling a dull ache in his back which he ignored. He was getting used to the back pains that you get after sleeping on the ground now in a sleeping bag—he had done it for 3 nights in a row now.
"What?" Mark repeated after he had got up.
"Check this out!" Larry said. He was on the computer chair that stood to the right of Mark's dresser. Mark didn't like it when Larry used his computer; for some reason Mark always found a bunch of pop-ups to porn websites and a naughty history after Larry was through, and had to spend time clearing it because his parents used his computer from time to time. And Mark was damned if his Mom didn't check it from time to time—he had seen her do it many times, browsing through the history section, looking at anything that looked suspicious, and it was just luck that she had checked at times when Mark had cleared the history recently. Just luck.
"It better not be porn again, Larry," Mark said as he went over to the desk where he had left his glasses.
"It's not," Larry said in an unconvincing tone. As Mark put on his glasses, he had a distinct feeling that, even if what Larry wanted to show him wasn't porn, it was something that was as bad or worse. As mark walked over to the computer desk where Larry sat, he saw a large man carrying a 9 mm fully automatic Uzis in each hand, firing round after round, blowing the heads off of 4-legged dog-like aliens that were charging at him. Mark immediately recognized it. It was from the movie The Depths Beneath—he had seen it 7 times in the past month, 4 with Larry. And right now, nothing could have been duller to Mark. This movie was seriously starting to tick him off now. It was awesome the first time, great the second. The third and fourth time it had been worth seeing, and still fairly enjoyable. But by the time Mark had seen it 5 times, Mark had got to the point where he had memorized practically the whole script, and there were no surprises or hidden messages within the movie that he hadn't uncovered.
"I love this fucking seen!" Larry cried excitedly, turning up the volume on the speaker. The speaker made the familiar crx-crx-crx sound of static electricity as he did so.
Mark was pissed that Larry had woken him up for this—he always got grouchy in the mornings, especially when he was woken up early and hadn't gotten much sleep the night before (which he hadn't), although Mark supposed everyone did.
"Yeah, it was great the first time, man, but now it's kind of boring," Mark replied, but knowing that, to Larry, the movie would never get boring for him. He was obsessed about the movie. In fact, after he had watched it for the first time, he had even tried to adopt the personality of the main character, Col. Anders. He went around with the same narcissistic attitude Anders had—he strutted around School, trying to mimic how Anders walked in the movie (although failing in comparison), and he had stopped doing
any homework for over a week. Mark had started to get worried about his friend, but his worries receded a bit when Larry came, at least in some respects, back to his old self. But, in just the past few days, Larry had seemed to take a turn for the worse and had spent almost every hour awake obsessing over the movie.
"Are you kidding me?" Larry said, sounding as if Mark had insulted Larry in a very offensive way. "How can you get bored of Anders, man? He's so fucking badass! And sequel is coming out next week!"
"Yeah, whatever," Mark said, his grouchiness and anger starting to subside while it was substituted by a wave of excitement. It was the fourth day of summer, and Larry had come over to Marks' house every day to spend the night so far. They had both gotten out their sleeping bags and slept on the floor together, talking about their 3 favorite hobbies—girls, movies (that was Larry's favorite), and video games. Mark was more into games than movies. And so far, there had been plenty of everything, except for the girls. People like Mark and Larry didn't get with many girls, and Mark knew it; Mark had never been with a girl in his 17 years of life. The simple truth was that Mark was very shy around people of the opposite sex (hell, he was even shy around other guy friends—except Larry); he would fumble his words, adopt his brothers' famous broken-up stutter and make himself look like a fool. And, as time grew on, Mark grew less and less confident of himself, and his relationships weakened. Mark knew there were lots of girls who liked shy guys, but he had never found one. And, gloomily, he was thinking more and more that he never would.
"I'm going to go take a pisser," Mark said. "You want to play Dragonair afterward?" Dragonair was the name of Mark and Larry's favorite video game. They had been playing against each other on it for the past few days. Mark had won most the games, to his gloating pleasure.
"Yeah, sure," Larry said, his brown eyes glued to the computer screen on which The Depths Beneath was still playing. Mark, naked except for boxer briefs, walked to the bathroom door and shut it, not bothering to turn the lock.
Mark flushed the toilet and went to the sink, but instead of washing his hands like his ever-so-neat of a mother would want him to, he just stared into the mirror that hung above the faucet. Mark saw a 17 year old boy staring back at him, noticeable white dandruff marks poking out of his hair like a leopard's white spots dotted over its black fur would look. Mark looked into the green eyes of the boy staring at him, noticing how out of place the pair looked in proportion to his hair color. He came closer to the mirror and examined his face up close, seeing little white spots that protruded out of his fat face. He was 17 years old now, but he still got quite a bit of acne for his age.
I'm ugly! Mark thought dourly. I'm an ugly, fat boy who will never kiss a girl. I'm a piece of shit. But that was not completely true, another part of his mind told him. If he only got off his ass and actually did some exercises (and maybe even join a gym) instead of playing video games all day, he might actually look decent. If he took a shower more than once a week and took time to develop a 'style', he might actually be good looking. After all, he was pretty tall and had a unique look of slyness about him, despite his rotund physique. He had those going for him, at least.
When Mark came back from the bathroom a few minutes later, Larry had turned off the computer and was already starting up the X-box 360 they owned.
"You want to be Togar or Gremlin?" Larry asked.
"It depends on if we are fighting with or against each other," Mark said.
"I want to show you who's boss at this game," Larry said, smiling.
"Gremlin, then."
It was Mark who turned out to be the boss at the game. Larry pressed the power button on the X-box halfway through the third game, which he was losing. Mark couldn't help but award himself a victory smile.
"That game sucks anyway," Larry said. "And I was getting bored. Want to watch Depths?" Fuck no, not Depths, anything but that! Mark thought fervently.
"Not right now," Mark said, a little louder and tersely than he intended. "I feel like going outside. It's too hot in this room." And it was hot, despite the fact that he was clad only in his boxer briefs and had the fan in the living room spinning like a top.
Larry stared at Mark blankly.
"It's going to be hotter outside," he said. "And my boots are still wet from last night when we were down at the creek, remember?" Mark did remember; they had gone down to his creek by his house the night before and had made a game out of trying to cross to the other side without getting wet. Both of them had ended up with soggy shoes that they had to leave outside to dry overnight.
"They're probably dry already." Mark said. And that would most likely be true, judging by the temperature outside, which had to be over one-hundred degrees. The water hole that they had swam in yesterday was still deep enough to dive into, even in the summertime—the creek that was next to Mark's house traveled for miles down the mountains northwest of his house. And it would just be the right temperature, too—heated by the sun, but not too hot that it would be mucky.
"I guess it would be colder down there, next to the water," Larry agreed, starting to feel hot himself. "I'd want to bring a soda or something down there to drink, though."
"All we have is bottled water in the fridge outside in the garage," Mark replied. But that was a lie—Mark actually had a never-been-opened 24-pack of root beer in the dry foods cabinet in his kitchen. But Mark preferred that Larry didn't know, as Larry often drank 2 or 3 sodas in one day, and sodas were a rare commodity when you lived in Mark Dower's house.
"Sure, that's fine," Larry said. "Do you know where my swimming trunks are?" He asked, looking around Mark's room.
"Yeah, my mom put them in the dryer. It should be in there."
"Alright, I'll check," Larry said. While Larry looked for his swimsuit, Mark went outside in his garage to get the water bottles. Mark's house had 4 bedrooms: one where relatives stayed, one where his brother, Anthony, used to stay; one where his mom slept, and one where he slept in. The garage was through the backdoor of his house, connected to the kitchen. The garage had three doors in it: an outside bathroom, the door that led to Anthony's room, and the one that led into the kitchen. Overall, Mark was pretty proud of his house that his parents owned. It was a fairly new house, built thirteen years ago back in '95, and the previous owners had kept a pretty good job of keeping the house in good shape.
After getting two frozen water bottles out of the refrigerator, Mark went into the laundry room (which was connected to the kitchen) to check on Larry, but didn't find him.
"Larry?" Mark called. No answer. It was dead silent in the laundry room, and Mark's voice seemed much louder than he intended. He must be outside already Mark thought. Mark was turning to go out the backdoor to the laundry room (which led outside) when he saw something flicker on the washing machine. It looked like a coin. Mark stepped forward for a closer look, not taking his focus off the object. As mark neared it, he noticed that it was not a coin at all: it was a key.
A small, but very shinny, silver key that blended in so well with the washing machine's silver paint that Mark was amazed that he had even noticed it. But, all the same, the key seemed to stand out, as if in importance. It flaunted itself at Mark, beckoned for him to pick it up. Mark did just that. As he
grabbed it, he was struck with a sudden feeling of belonging. This key had been waiting just for him. He felt as if he had a connection with this key, as if the key was a part of him that had gone missing long ago.
The key was not more than two inches in length, and looked very small in comparison to the keys' to Mark's house, which were at least 4 inches. It felt extremely light and heavy at the same time to Mark; it felt light in the sense that it was a small object, but heavy because of its great importance. Mark looked closely at it and noticed that there was no inscription or engraving on either side. It was just a plain, silver white key with 3 blades at the tip; there was nothing physically unique about it, no special marks or engravings. And yet it drew him, somehow. It drew him in a way that he had never been drawn to anything else before in his life.
Mark wondered if his mom had put it there for him to use for something, like a key to a mailbox or something. Either way, Mark figured that it was important enough to keep, and, pocketing it, he told himself that he would have to remember to take it out of his pants before he took them off for bed that night, but knew that he would probably forget. Mark had a knack for being irresponsible like that. He knew because his step-dad badgered him about it every day, telling him to be more organized, do his own chores, and do better in school. You'd like that, wouldn't you, you big fuck Mark would think. He hated his step-dad, hated the son of a bitch ever since he first laid eyes on him. He was a big man—somewhere between six and seven feet tall and over two hundred pounds—and Mark had never known a bigger asshole in his life.
He was nice to his mom. He treated her like a princess, a queen, a Goddess. But it was not the same for Mark.
Mark then remember what he had been doing in the laundry room in the first place, and set off looking for Larry, who, when Mark found him, had been outside already, with his swimming trunks on, and was holding another pair.
"I got yours, too," Larry said as he handed the swimming trunks to Mark.
"Should I go back in the house and put them on?" Mark asked.
"Naw, it's alright, you can change when we get to the water hole," Larry said. "We're all men here," he said, passing a smirk at his own joke.
"Yeah," Mark agreed. "We're men."