GIRL - SLEUTH, DEAD ( ! )

Alice Isn’t Dead is a new serial fiction podcast from the team behind Welcome to Night Vale.

A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.

This sentence meme could not have been complied without the use of @alicescripts.  

THIS SENTENCE MEME IS NOT SPOILER FREE.  And, as always, feel free to edit to better suit your needs.  

part one, chapter four:  the factory by the sea

“I’ll try to forget what I saw there, but…I won’t be able to, will I, ____? I’ll never forget what happened.”

“The sea is crystalline. It’s seductive. But the land feels angry and lost. There is no harmony here. The tranquility of the lapping waves sputters out and the land slumps into place. It’s buggy as hell, too.”

“Goddammit! Ugh.”

[heavy sigh] “Whatever.”

“Weird, right?”

“Is this the world you left me, leaderless and spinning?”

“Sorry, off topic.”

“The farther south you go on this coast, the worse the drivers get. They’re old, and they’re mad down here. Why are they so mad? Why are they in my lane? WHY ARE YOU IN MY—”

“Shit. Sorry, ___. I know you hated it when I yelled. Hate it. You hate it when I yell.”

“I couldn’t tell much from the shape of them.”

“Cool, cool. This is perfect. Hey, help me with this, would you?”

“Come on in, I have to sign off on the delivery inside.” 

“Hmm…tempting, but I am not going to stop.”

“Ooh, the popcorn store! Even more tempting! An entire store of popcorn! Mm-mm. Not gonna stop for that either.”

“I shouldn’t judge. No one should. We all do lots of things we shouldn’t, though.”

“You know that green that isn’t right, that is off from what it should be? It was that green.” 

“Oh, sure, sorry. Just have to get the paperwork settled.”

“I didn’t know what to do, I pinched and pinched, but every time it hurt.”

“I’ve been thinking lately of our pizza nights. Dough from scratch, sauce from scratch, cheese from…well, from the store. Not goin’ that far.”

“I loved the making of bread, the dough for the crust. Flour and water in your hands, first separate and then merging into a silky whole. The yeast and gluten making it a living thing. It moves when you poke it. It breathes into your hands.”

“Our hands covered in flour, we open a bottle of wine, and we eat the pizza we made, and…we just watch whatever’s on TV and fall asleep in a wine and bread coma.”

“I think love is cooking together. I think it’s making something with each other, that’s what I think, ____.”

“I don’t know what you think. Turns out that I didn’t know what you were thinking at all.”

“Metal hands building metal things, and no human beings in sight.”

“Machine after machine, Alice. Imagine the scale of them! Picture it for me.”

“I didn’t say anything more.”

“Only one more stop now. Come on, then.”

“Crossing inland now. Grassland and canals. There are supposed to be alligators here, right? That’s the whole thing with this area, gators, or whatever?” 

“I haven’t seen any alligators, but I saw a cow drinking from a stream, looking like the first part of a scene from National Geographic. The second part didn’t happen. No gator leaping from the water with its jaws open. Cow just drank.”

“What is a cow doing in a swamp? Are there wild cows? There are, right?”

“I stood there watching as it went out further, and further, and then was gone.”

“There was no one in sight. It smelled like the sea, and it smelled like smoke and steel and it smelled like algae and murk.”

“And that’s where I am now. Driving, as I always am when we talk.”

“We?” [Chuckles] “Of course “we” don’t talk. I do. You vanish. You aren’t. You are a – a gap, a nothing. And I talk into that nothing. I let my words float away. I let my words vanish, and I just keep driving.”

“Flour on our hands, sauce on our hands, our hands on our hands, something forgettable on the television, leg upon leg. That was a life! ____, that’s what it’s made of! Hand upon hand upon leg upon heart upon couch upon a day where we made bread together.”

a quiet, scrimpy finger pokes at memories of them both in response. the quips, the laughs, the near-death situations━they all play at once in his mind's eye. is this what he is to dismiss? is this what she dismissed?

when he turns around, bruce catches the end of her smile, already receding into a more neutral expression only a detective could master. “ of course. ” his own lip and brow steadied themselves into a uncannily straight line. although his gaze is locked with nancy's, his eyes still seem as if they were focusing on a point past her and straight into hell.

❝   I'M NOT LEAVING AGAIN. ❞ this time, she speaks matter-of-factly, arms crossing and her weight shifted to one hip -- a mirror image of his stance. defensive, until she realizes, uncrosses her arms and readjusts. selfishly, there's too much danger in this world to leave again. selfishly, she misses the thrill. selfishly, her staying is on her own terms and desires. ❝   don't have a reason to. don't have a want to. i came back 'cause i missed it all too much. ❞