The Lost Days Read Free

kind of exotic insect exhibit. Underwear from Around the World. Tattoos of the Aborigines. I don’t know. I would’ve even settled for Filthy Cobweb Land. Instead, the staircase leads to a pretty normal-looking hallway with a door that says OLD MUSEUM over it. (Um, also, just to kind of ruin any entertainingly spooky feeling I might have been able to muster up, there’s also a door that says SCHNEIDER.) No one answered my knocks. The calendar of events taped to the door lists an exhibit called “The Art of Direct Mail Advertising,” a private party for Blackrock’s government officials (how much government does a town this size need, anyway?), and some lady’s slide show of her trip to Palm Springs. And five screenings of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot —because the Old Museum is also the movie theater.

    Nitzer

    Cabbage
    Had just walked outside and snapped a picture of the building when a police officer tappedme on the shoulder and wrote me out the stupid $37 ticket. And then he didn’t even ask me for the picture. So here it is.

    McFreely
    UGH. Will continue my search for entertainment somewhere else.

    Later
    Have entertained myself somewhat by drawing a little map of the town. I do mean little. Would never have bothered if it weren’t such a pitifully little town. (Not sure it even deserved two pages, but I turned the next page to start anyway.)

    The town logo.
    Also, here’s the town logo:
    I’m finding it very peculiarthat the town is named Blackrock and even uses this silly logo of a tall mountainous black rock, a rock that has got to be imaginary, since the town seems to be in the middle of flatlands that just go on and on. No mountain or black rock in sight. I mean, Blackrock is actually sitting in a kind of dust bowl. Dust platter. Dust serving tray. Whatever. And not black dust, either, but beige and beiger, like all of the buildings.
    And as if it needed to be any flatter here, that one tree at the minipark seems to be the only tree in Blackrock. Plenty of dead stumps, though. Seriously weird. Did the townspeople go on some kind of tree-killing, beige-painting spree, or what?
    Later
    Have just seen the shows of medicine, dolls, and guns. Mostly for lack of anything better to do. Was not expecting to find a major clue to my amnesia. Here’s what happened. I was sitting in the back row of benches in the big tent where they were holding the demonstration of psychic powers. And this young kid, a little boy, was the psychic. I mean, of course I’m not saying he was actually psychic; those things are all a con. But anyway, he had the audience going. Bunch of rubes. He did some cheap parlor tricks like “Guess My Card” and “Where’s My Snake?” And then his assistant, one of Ümlaut’s fashionable crew, started walking around the audience so they could ask the kid questions about their love lives and “Am I gonna get sick?” and stuff.

    I was just getting up to go when the assistant stuck the mic in my face. I didn’t even say anything, just kept on going. And the next thing I knew, the kid was saying, “You can’t remember a thing past two days ago, can you?”
    Well, I got out of there quick. It was kind of scary. I haven’t told ANYONE about having amnesia, so how else would he know, other than that…HE KNOWS?
    Maybe he saw something happen to me.
    Believe you me, I’m going to find out.
    Am hiding out under the counter at the El Dungeon waiting to see if Ümlaut and his crew show up. Then I’ll go look for the kid.
    Later
    Have talked to the kid. I found him in his trailer playing video games. His name is Jakey and he goes by the Moon Child of the Valley of the Knowing. (!!!) He is nine years old and has been on the road all his life reading minds. He claims that he never saw me before today and that he is really psychic. Itold him I didn’t believe him but he told me the names I gave the cats earlier. Told him I wasn’t convinced and he said that’s cool, he had some high scores to