Letters From Clenchport

Flash Fiction February (Day 18)

Image: Matthew Smith via Unsplash

I received a letter from my wife Faye the other day. Here's what it said:

Dear Logan,

I know you're in pain, and I'm sorry. I never meant for things to happen the way they did. I miss you so much.

Do you remember that little town in Virginia where we stopped during our road trip to New York City? It was so small that you were convinced it didn't qualify as a town.

I'm waiting for you there, my love. Find me in Clenchport.

With all my love,

Faye

There was no way it was real. It had to be a trick. After all...

My wife died three years ago.

---

---

I tried everything, but I couldn't prove the letter was fake. I even compared it to her handwriting. It was an exact match.

I had no choice. I had to go to Clenchport. I knew it was insane, there was no way she could be there.

And yet, a part of me hoped she would be.

My heart was racing as I drove into the center of the town. It was the middle of the day, but it was deserted. There was not a single car on the streets or people on the sidewalks.

I glanced down at the gas gauge in my car. I was running on empty. I spotted a gas station on the opposite side of the town square. Pump 'n Save. It must have been a local thing, I had never heard of it.

A cartoon logo of a man in overalls holding a red gas container smiled beside the logo. Something about his smile set me on edge.

I pulled into the gas station and shut the car off. My eyes wandered to one of the plastic signs hanging in the convenience store's windows.

You'll keep driving if you know what's good for you! It was yellow text on a red background.

I blinked, and the text suddenly changed. Buy 2 Get One Free on Hot Dogs, it now proclaimed.

It was my mind playing tricks on me. After all, I had made the drive in one day—over twelve hours—and I was delirious.

I climbed out of the car and walked over to the pump. CASH ONLY, the screen read.

I sighed. Thankfully, I had some cash on me, but whether I would be able to find someone to help me was a different story.

I walked over to the convenience store, eyeing the red sign with yellow text as if it would attack me. The message stayed the same. I pulled on the door handle, and it swung open. The stale cold of gas station air wafted over me, and a loud synthetic chime announced my arrival.

I walked up to the counter, looking around for any sign of life amidst the aisles, but I didn't see anyone.

"Hello? Anyone here?" I asked.

A crash came from the hall behind the bathrooms. I walked over, squinting to see into the darkened corridor.

"Hey, if you're back there, I just need to put twenty bucks on pump two," I said.

A low moan came from within the darkness.

"You okay?" I asked.

A voice crashed through the silence, but it was all wrong. The pitch and cadence wavered like they were being played through a broken speaker with a bad Bluetooth connection.

"PUmP N' SAvE! ThE GAs is ChEAp, BuT tHE PrIcEs AReN'T!"

I stumbled backward as a silhouette of a person came into view. Their entire body was devoid of features. They looked like a vaguely human-shaped blob of static.

Their movements were erratic. One moment in slow-motion, the next in fast-forward. Just looking at them made my eyes hurt. I turned away and ran back towards the door. I slammed into it and pushed, but it wouldn't budge.

Did someone lock it?

I spun back around and saw the figure approaching. Slow, then fast, then slow.

"TrY THe NEw DoUbLE DoG! TwIcE THe CAloRIeS, HaLF tHe FlaVoR!"

I heard the door chime behind me and felt a pair of hands on my shoulders.

"Move!" a voice shouted.

The pair of hands threw me to the right. I hit the ground hard as the blast of a shotgun reverberated through the convenience store.

A man in jeans and a hoodie ejected the empty shell from his shotgun with a sharp crack. A white hockey mask covered his face. He looked like a cheap horror movie villain.

He turned toward me and extended one of his hands. I took it and got back onto my feet.

“OuR NeW FrEeZEE FlaVoRs WiLL FReEZE YoUr BraIN, NoT YOuR WaLLeT!”

The man shook his head. “We gotta go now. That your car out there?”

“Yeah, but it’s low on gas.”

The man sighed. “It’ll have to do. Go start it up, I’ll be right there.”

I ran back to my car as another shotgun blast echoed out from within the convenience store.

I fell into the driver’s seat and started the engine, contemplating speeding off without the stranger who had saved me.

Don’t. You owe him one.

I waited for him. He jumped into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

“Drive!” he shouted.

“Where?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter. You’ll see.”

I put the car in drive and slammed the gas pedal. We sped off down the road leading out of town. As soon as we hit the town’s border, everything looped back around. I was back in the center of town again. The Pump 'n Save was back on my right.

I stopped the car. “What the hell is going on? What was that thing?”

The man in the passenger seat reached into a faded blue hoodie pocket and plucked out handful of fresh shotgun shells.

“It’s a person, or, it was. It’s stuck between multiple dimensions. Let me guess: you got a letter from Faye?” he asked, sliding a shell into the gun.

“Yeah, how do you know that? Who are you anyway?” I asked.

The man pulled off his cheap hockey mask and my blood turned to ice.

It was me—an exact copy.

“What the ACTUAL FUCK?!”

He set down his gun in his lap. “I know this is a lot to wrap your head around, but Clenchport is special. Really special. I’m you from another universe, a parallel version of you.”

“So, what, we’re trapped in a parallel reality? And why this town, of all places?”

The man resumed reloading his weapon. “It’s a Nexus. If the multiverse is a highway, this town is an exit. A lot of people and…other things come through here.”

“What does any of this have to do with Faye?” I asked.

The other me cocked the shotgun, his eyes scanned the deserted buildings on either side of the road.

“This Clenchport is the last one in the whole Sprawl where she’s still alive. They’ve got her imprisoned here, deep underground. The sick fucks think they’ve managed to trick fate, but that’s no way for someone to live.” he said.

“Who’s keeping her prisoner?”

He looked at me, and I noticed a difference between us.

His eyes are a different color than mine.

“We are—more of us, from other parallel realities,” he said.

I could see where this was going.

“So, we’re going to get her out?” I asked.

The other me smiled. “Now you’re getting it. You in?”

“Do I have a choice?”

The other me laughed. I guess I had my answer.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m in,” I said.

Hang on, Faye. I lost you once. I won’t lose you again.

---

Thanks for Reading! Here’s Your Musical Pairing

Listen to this after reading, and to learn more about the upcoming animated series set in Clenchport, click here.