Read Online What You Make It by Michael Marshall Smith - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Michael Marshall Smith
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He was just trying to salve his own pain, and I was trying to help him.
What happened wasn't our fault.
I spent the evening driving slowly down 75, letting the freeway take me down towards the Gulf coast of the panhandle. There were a few patches of rain, but for the most part the cloudsjust scudded overhead, running to some other place. I didn't see many other cars. Either people have given up fleeing, or all those capable of it have already fled. I got off just after Jocca, and headed down minor roads, trying to cut round Tampa and St Petersburg. I managed it, but it wasn't easy, and I ended up getting lost more than a few times. I would have brought a map but I thought I could remember the way. I couldn't. It had been too long.
We'd heard on the radio in the afternoon that things weren't going so hot around Tampa. It was the last thing we heard, just before the signal cut out. The six of us remaining in the facility just sat around for a while, as if we believed the radio would come back on again real soon now. When it didn't, we got up one by one and drifted back to work.
As I passed the city I could see it burning in the distance, and I was glad I had gone the back way, no matter how long it took. If you've seen what it's like when a large number of people go together, you'll understand what I mean.
Eventually I found 301 and headed down towards 41, and the old Coast Road.
Summer of 2005. For Philip and I it was time to make a decision. There was no question but that we would go to college – both our families were book-bashers from way back. The money was already in place, some from our parents but most from holiday jobs we'd played at. The question was what we were going to study.
I thought long and hard, but in the end still couldn't come to a decision. I postponed for a year, and decided to take off round the world. My parents shrugged, said ‘Okay, keep in touch, try not to get killed, and stop by your Aunt Kate's in Sydney.’ They were that kind of people. I remember my sister bringing a friend of hers back to the house one time; the girl called herself Yax and her hair had been carefully dyed and sculpted to resemble an orange explosion. My mother just asked her where she had it done, and kept looking atit in a thoughtful way. I guess my dad must have talked her out of it.
Philip went for computers. Systems design. He got a place at Jacksonville's new centre for Advanced Computing, which was a coup but no real surprise. Philip was always a hell of a bright guy. That was part of his problem.
It was strange saying goodbye to each other after so many years in each other's pockets, but I suppose we knew it was going to happen sooner or later. The plan was that he'd come out and hook up with me for a couple of months during the year. It didn't happen, for the reason that pacts between old friends usually get forgotten.
Someone else entered the picture.
I did my grand tour. I saw Europe, started to head through the Middle East and then thought better of it and flew down to Australia instead. I stopped by and saw Aunt Kate, which earned me big brownie points back home and wasn't in any way arduous. She and her family were a lot of fun, and there was a long drunken evening when she seemed to be taking messages from beyond, which was kind of interesting. My mother's side of the family was always reputed to have a touch of the medium about them, and Aunt Kate certainly did. There was an even more entertaining evening when my cousin Jenny and I probably overstepped the bounds of conventional morality in the back seat of her jeep. After Australia I hacked up through the Far East for a while until time and money ran out, and then I went home.
I came back with a major tan, an empty wallet, and no real idea of what I was going to do with my life. With a couple months to go before I had to make a decision, I went to go visit Philip. I hopped on a bus and made my way up to Jacksonville on a day which was warm and
What happened wasn't our fault.
I spent the evening driving slowly down 75, letting the freeway take me down towards the Gulf coast of the panhandle. There were a few patches of rain, but for the most part the cloudsjust scudded overhead, running to some other place. I didn't see many other cars. Either people have given up fleeing, or all those capable of it have already fled. I got off just after Jocca, and headed down minor roads, trying to cut round Tampa and St Petersburg. I managed it, but it wasn't easy, and I ended up getting lost more than a few times. I would have brought a map but I thought I could remember the way. I couldn't. It had been too long.
We'd heard on the radio in the afternoon that things weren't going so hot around Tampa. It was the last thing we heard, just before the signal cut out. The six of us remaining in the facility just sat around for a while, as if we believed the radio would come back on again real soon now. When it didn't, we got up one by one and drifted back to work.
As I passed the city I could see it burning in the distance, and I was glad I had gone the back way, no matter how long it took. If you've seen what it's like when a large number of people go together, you'll understand what I mean.
Eventually I found 301 and headed down towards 41, and the old Coast Road.
Summer of 2005. For Philip and I it was time to make a decision. There was no question but that we would go to college – both our families were book-bashers from way back. The money was already in place, some from our parents but most from holiday jobs we'd played at. The question was what we were going to study.
I thought long and hard, but in the end still couldn't come to a decision. I postponed for a year, and decided to take off round the world. My parents shrugged, said ‘Okay, keep in touch, try not to get killed, and stop by your Aunt Kate's in Sydney.’ They were that kind of people. I remember my sister bringing a friend of hers back to the house one time; the girl called herself Yax and her hair had been carefully dyed and sculpted to resemble an orange explosion. My mother just asked her where she had it done, and kept looking atit in a thoughtful way. I guess my dad must have talked her out of it.
Philip went for computers. Systems design. He got a place at Jacksonville's new centre for Advanced Computing, which was a coup but no real surprise. Philip was always a hell of a bright guy. That was part of his problem.
It was strange saying goodbye to each other after so many years in each other's pockets, but I suppose we knew it was going to happen sooner or later. The plan was that he'd come out and hook up with me for a couple of months during the year. It didn't happen, for the reason that pacts between old friends usually get forgotten.
Someone else entered the picture.
I did my grand tour. I saw Europe, started to head through the Middle East and then thought better of it and flew down to Australia instead. I stopped by and saw Aunt Kate, which earned me big brownie points back home and wasn't in any way arduous. She and her family were a lot of fun, and there was a long drunken evening when she seemed to be taking messages from beyond, which was kind of interesting. My mother's side of the family was always reputed to have a touch of the medium about them, and Aunt Kate certainly did. There was an even more entertaining evening when my cousin Jenny and I probably overstepped the bounds of conventional morality in the back seat of her jeep. After Australia I hacked up through the Far East for a while until time and money ran out, and then I went home.
I came back with a major tan, an empty wallet, and no real idea of what I was going to do with my life. With a couple months to go before I had to make a decision, I went to go visit Philip. I hopped on a bus and made my way up to Jacksonville on a day which was warm and
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