Gorge, a novel in progress by Michael Gullo (2026)
“Okay, okay. I got you.”
“You’re pulling my hair.”
“I’m sorry, Julie. I’m sorry. I was so scared.”
“Okay, let me go – wait, no. Just a little more. I love you too. I’m sorry.”
“I know. Me too.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t. I wasn’t listening. You needed to go do this, and I knew it, and I was distracted, and I’m as sorry to me as I am to you. This was my fault.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. You should have known damned well I was going with Cherry no matter what you said, but you were right to – We didn’t think it through.”
“Yeah. Needs-done got together with explain-later, and they had a lesson-shaped baby. Let’s hear each other better, okay?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. But you’re back now --- Hi Cherry. Welcome back.”
“Hi, Ryan. This was my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was our fault. We’re a little – much – sometimes.”
“Much. Yeah, we should get like a warning t-shirt or something.”
“We’re not old enough to wear matching clothes yet.”
“Did you get everything?”
“Don’t get mad.”
“Julie, I got to the last switchback, and I made the turn, and the sun was bright in my eye, and I almost had a heart attack when I didn’t see you tucked under these trees at first. I mean, like a shocking sound at night adrenaline dump I’ve never felt before. Nothing you say could make me mad.”
“Wanna bet?”
“That bad?”
“Wasn’t my best work.”
“So, tell me.”
“Maybe we should get this car up the road and talk about it inside.”
“Whoa, delayed confession. This is gonna be big, isn’t it? Cherry? What do you think.”
“I think my dad would kill me if he knew.”
“Two dead chicks on one decision…”
“A lot more dead chicks than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s pretty bad down there. Let’s wait until we get inside.”
“So, your tire’s flat.”
“Was it on CNN?”
“Nope. I saw it for myself.”
“Are you going to fix it?”
“Do we have to?”
“I mean.”
“Like, do you have too much stuff to put in Matthew’s car, and get it all up there, or do you…”
“We can fix it later, but that’s the part you’re not going to like.”
“Okay, let’s get the worst of this mystery out before we go any further. What is it that you think is best discussed inside…”
“With you sedated.”
“With me sedated.”
“It’s not really that. It’s what’s out there and the I told you so that’s sure to follow.”
“In your defense, I didn’t tell-you-so anything. Is it that bad out there?”
“We got to Cherry’s. It was easy and eventless. In, pack bags, out. It was like ten minutes.”
“Menutes or womenutes?”
“Womenutes. It was going pretty good, but we needed supplies, so we drove down all the way down to Issaquah because Safeway was - not. It looked anything but safe.”
“It was terrible.”
“Cherry!”
“Wait. What’s that?”
“There was – It was so normal everywhere, like not, you know what I mean. It was just normal. Normal traffic. Normal road rage. Normal neighborhoods. Grocery stores were a little hectic looking --- Julie, I can’t. You tell him.”
“The Walgreens was on fire. There were bodies in the parking lot.”
“On fire, like building burning, or a fire in a gar…”
“Engulfed. We helped a lady out through the drive up window.”
“Wait, why?”
“There wasn’t a cop or a firetruck in sight, and she was screaming.”
“Why… I mean, how did you get her out?”
“We drove into the wall.”
“You did not.”
“We did. That’s how we got whatever the flat tire is.”
“But you hit with the other corner.”
“That was my idea. I thought if we could break the wall with the corner, the car would still be good.”
“Then it’s probably not what got this tire on this side.”
“Home Depot? Is that like a real home depot truck? Like another order?”
“Unless someone else ordered Home Depot.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know, Julie. That’s a lot of lumber --- Why not just break the window?”
“We tried. It was like bullet proof or something. We threw hunks of pavement at it, and it hardly scratched.”
“With all the drugs, I guess that makes sense --- Fact is you’re here now, and you’re right, we should finish this later.”
“Are you going to change the tire?”
“I’d rather limp it up the hill. I saw that log boom place on the way down, and I want to stop in there on the way up.”
“So, we’re driving Matthew’s car, and you’re driving Cherry’s?”
“That’s the plan. You two follow me.”
“Good, Cherry?”
“Yes, you drive this one though. Let’s hit it.”
“Look at this thing. Have you ever seen so much garbage in one car?”
“I can hardly get in.”
“I mean, just throw it in back. I can’t imagine he’d even notice.”
“Look at this, I can’t even touch the floor through all this – What’s a guy like this even have a screwdriver set for?”
“Dude, I just got like jelly or something on my hand moving this seat back.”
“Did you hear the trash behind you when you did? That was Styrofoam take-out, and there’s something oozing out of it.”
“This is so gross.”
“Honk the horn. Maybe your husband’ll stop and let us change cars.”
“He’s outa here.”
“The tire’s flat.”
“I think he watched too many police chase shows.”
“He’s a good guy. I almost fell over when he apologized to you for you taking off on him.”
“It was a bad idea, but we’re a team, and I got so lucky – way better than that Todd guy.”
“How did you know we had dated?”
“I mean, it’s pretty obvious.”
“We broke up when we started working for the Amazon delivery partner – Jenkins.”
“I was right about him, right?”
“Oh yeah. Show of force was the way to go. It was months before he stopped calling me and coming by unannounced. He was almost a stalker.”
“He’s going back to the depot, isn’t he – like to join the hijackers or whatever?”
“They were serious. They almost didn’t let our cars leave, but there were so many of us. You gotta explain this to me – you didn’t order all of that stuff?”
“No. It was the Ai that ordered it all.”
“Like on its own?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s so cool.”
“Cool? Are you serious?”
“Well, yeah. If what you’re saying is real, think about it – Open Optics sees that the world is, like about to end or whatever, and it starts ordering thousands of things for the humans that are in the, like warehouse or whatever with it. That’s Fire!”
“Fire? Where?”
“Okay, okay. So you’re saying that you have been taking orders all morning – orders placed by Open Optics – and you’re not, like, okay with that?”
“Where’s he going?”
“He said he’s stopping into some log place.”
“Log boom.”
“What’s a log boom?”
“That’s one of the things that Chipshit ordered.”
“Wait, what’s Chipshit.”
“It’s what we call the Ai. I actually call it Fullofshit.”
“And it, like answers to that name?”
“It’s weird. Ryan, we are in a rolling garbage can here. Get this thing and let’s get out of here.”
“It’s not really a fit in car kind of item – I think this is it right here.”
“Is the gate locked?”
“It’s closed, and I don’t see any cars.”
“Those trucks.”
“They’re company trucks. I’ve worked on this dam for five years, and I’ve never even noticed this place.”
“Wait. Open Optics just came out like last year. I literally started using it for school the first like month.”
“The dam was here long before the Ai came.”
“So you don’t work for Open Optics?”
“I do. They bought the dam and the reservoir – they own almost this whole mountain. I stayed on when they took over.”
“So, nobody’s home?”
“Don’t look like, but I think this is our boom right here – like they left it outside the fence for us.”
“That thing’s huge.”
“Like I said, it’s not a car carrying thing.”
“So?”
“So, let’s head up. I’ll try and come get this later.”
“Awesome. First one there gets out of the rotten egg.”
“Sorry. I actually didn’t touch anything but the door, the gear shift, and the steering wheel.”
“Byeee.”
“So, he’s like the dam mechanic, or whatever?”
“Yeah, he’s like the guy that knows the dam.”
“How do you get a job as a dam knowing guy?”
“He started out working on the dam construction actually, and he was part of the commissioning crew.”
“So, he like rose up through the ranks.”
“Sort of, yeah. He took a lot of classes and stuff while he was on the construction crew – like electricity classes. The big one was a certification called NERC.”
“What’s that stand for?”
“No clue. It’s a framed certificate on the wall – he got it framed, and he put it in our little office nook at home.”
“Must be a big deal if it’s like framed and stuff.”
“It is. I don’t know about power companies or whatever, but that’s what it’s for – like he can run a power plant.”
“I mean, a dam. I guess that’s a power plant.”
“Oh, it is. He’s legit. I just don’t know about electricity stuff.”
“For me it’s whether my hair dryer works or not. What do you do?”
“I was a… I’m a paralegal.”
“Am - Was --- Were you like in the city?”
“Not like in one of those big city firms, no. Kind of like a neighborhood attorney. We did everything from criminal law to contract law.”
“Like, lawsuits?”
“We do those. Divorces. That’s where I met Ryan. He was working for a private investigator, and he hated every minute of it. People are so – unfaithful…”
“Treacherous?”
“Diabolical – Chipshit said diabolical today, and I thought about the divorces immediately. They’re unwell is what they are.”
“That names it. Now what do we do with it?”
“They made me feel dirty, those divorces.”
“I am dirty. I wish I had electricity while we were at my place. I could have took a quick shower.”
“You’ll miss that more and more.”
“Wait. There’s electricity here, there – there’s a dam.”
“That Matthew guy hasn’t showered in days.”
“Yeah, but look at this car.”
“Fair. I mean, there might be hot water?”
“At least in the sinks, I guess.”
“Did you ever watch those police shows?”
“The investigation stuff, yeah.”
“No. I mean the actual cops shows. Todd was obsessed with them. He was always rooting for the criminals, like yelling at the TV how the cop had no right to stop that guy or whatever. He loved it when they’d take off.”
“He was a creep.”
“He’s a creep alright, but look – that tire’s about to come off. Pretty soon it’ll be all sparks and he’ll have to slow down.”
“We’re almost there. I can’t believe he made it up the hill.”
“Do you have food up there?”
“Not much. There were these frozen dinners in one of the deliveries.”
“Like.”
“I know. Ryan’s a smart guy. He knows about that stuff.”
“One day at a time.”
“Jesus. What’s this guy up my ass? Where’d he even come from?”
“Like, what’s – It’s one of those delivery bike things.”
“It’s one of those assholes you used to wish to see pulled over a couple miles up the road. Go around me, asshole!”
“Did he just flip you off?”
“He did. He’ll shit himself when we get around this curve, and we’re at the dam.”
“That’s my luck, right there. I get my rage on, and then we’re stuck next to each other at the next light.”
“I’ll miss road rage.”
“That’s nuts! What the hell’s with all the boxes.”
“I guess they ran out of room.”
“I mean, where did they – Are you telling me the computer ordered all of this stuff – is that a fish tank?”
“It looks like a – I don’t even know what it looks like. There must be two hundred boxes.”
“Look at my little car! Like, did we do all that damage on one trip to the city for tampons?”