Shared Story: Pain Drive

He watched her as she struggled against the chains that bound her wrist to the support beam, which had still managed to hold the old loft from the ground after all of these years. The scent of her fear had not come along right away, as she had half convinced herself that she was beyond such concerns as that. She had been out and about in the world for some while now, experiencing more in that time that most would ever expect be visited upon them in their whole lifetime.

He had first met her back in 1981, and she really didn't look all that much different now than she did then. There were perhaps a few new scars, evidence that she had been active. That was back earlier in his days, when he mostly resolved to let things be naturally as they were want to be. There was that, as well as some recent memories of when he hadn't necessarily considered that to be the safer, saner, course. The folk around any sort of supernatural event, as they liked to call it, seemed to only be ill served by any acts of kindness one might do to prevent something bad from coming along, and just doing what it was naturally going to do. It was as if they still needed to learn something from it for it to be able to work itself back around into something a little nearer to right. There was also no way back then to know which was she was going to go herself.

She had introduced herself to them, that lived under the international bridge, as Evangeline. He had kind of wondered how it was that she had come by that name, but not enough to know. She was still pretty fresh and skittish from her time before she had shown up there, and any suggestion that he may know a little more about her than most would have likely run her off. He thought it was best to keep an eye on her, from a distance as it were. He was still a bit too cocky back in those days, and felt assured that he could handle whatever may come of presence among those that he, mostly, considered to be friends.

Which was his first mistake, at least in this regard. He'd made plenty-enough of them before, and all of these days in between had not really made him immune to occasionally doing something stupid again. Common sense would have suggested that he run her off, but there wasn't really anyone of the bridgers that seemed too likely to come in too close to her. They were all a wary, though mostly decent enough, sort. Old Charlie may have given him some cause for concern, save that he had been kind of taming him out for years by that time. Still, he kept the spare eye on him, all the same.

"What the hell are you doing Neddie?" She nearly screamed as true panic began to set in. Neddie took the old duster hat off his head and moved over toward an old hay bale that was left sitting next to the door. He took out his long clay pipe and lit it, as he listened to her continued struggles to free herself, and waited for her to become calm again.

"There doesn't seem to be much asylum in the shadows anymore, eh?" He said, with a slim trace of an accent that had seemingly come from parts unknown. Some folk believed he was an Irishman, and others from Canada. At certain times, he even sounded like he was from the south, which was more given to his character mood than any kind of true hint to his descent. He could read and speak several languages actually, some of them had long since become extinct that he was given to a place and time to bother to learn them. "So, how yeh be Evangeline?" He asked as he puffed absently at his pipe.

"I've been better Neddie," she answered from where she had retreated into the dark underneath the shadows of the loft. "I am beginning to think that the same could be said for you."

"Pah! What's to fear froum the laikes of an old devil laike me-self?" He said, as he watched the links in the chain grow taut.

"Why did you bring me here Neddie," the tone of her voice had suddenly changed, with no trace of fear left in it.

"Perhaps to reminisce a t'itch, and maybe to do a little catching up. It has been a good while nouw, hasn't it m'fellow traveler?" Neddie said, and then stopped only to be met with silence. "Did ya hear what happened to ol' Charlotte, Luv?"

"I heard."

"Nouw you're jus' lying to me, though I susp'ct thaht you do knouw she's disappeared."

"He was a degenerate," she growled, and Neddie smiled with his pipe clamped into his teeth before he nodded slowly.

"And there you are. I was woundr'ing thaht you maight choose to try to hide yourself frum me. It may haive passed the taime, buit it wo'ldn't haive gotten us nowhere, nouw wo'ld it." He said as his accent grew thicker, and then just as suddenly changed, as well as the timber of his voice. "Ye art what I wilst Chile, and naught more than my dreams given flesh." He said, chuckling to himself as she suddenly went very still.

"You're one of them," she said, some of the fear returning. "I knew that you would come for me eventually. Are you here to try to destroy me?"

"Now es jus for de best," Neddie said, and then expelled the smoke. "Maybe we can share a few stories, until you are ready."

"Ready for what?"

"To travel on, of course. You can't hardly do anymore damage being here alone with me, and well... I have all of the time in the world, with not much of anything better to do with my time."

"You seem to think that I do not know what you are trying to do. I am not the same mixed up and confused young girl that you met under the bridge in Port Huron." She said, as she stepped out from those shadows that had made her feel safe.

"You seem to think I should probably be worried about that. Maybe I should. Hell, I don't know. What I do know is that if I keep you here long enough, some things never happen." Neddie shrugged after folding his arms across his chest.

"Yours is merely the spirit of an old conjurer-man, and mine"...

"We both know what you are, there'll be no further need for any introductions. Do you want me to go first?" Neddie asked, as he tamped out his pipe with his forefinger. "I could always start by telling you what really happened to your old friend, Charlotte."

"That wasn't his name!"

"And your name wasn't really Evangeline," Neddie shrugged.

"So, what happened to Charlotte"...

**Proposed idea, for those so inclined. I intend to write story or two of my own based on the above premise of the two of characters swapping stories back & forth. But I would also be interested in reading what you all might be able to come with from this. If you do, shoot me a link-- poem, prose, long or short, I really don't care. I just figured that it would not work so well as a contest. Don't worry about trying to match up ideas (to mine, nor anyone else's). Just to have some fun with it is the only actual rule to it at all.

Happy New Year all.**

Uley