Fallout Dreams Quotes

“Memories of last night manifested slowly from the back of her brain, every new detail hammering her heart like a war drum: the flowers, the vodka, the persistent dream-like sensation, the closet, the outline of a stranger, the sex... and, most gut-wrenching of all, the sudden realization that he might still be here.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“He smirked. “Decision time, pretty lady... back to reality?”
She touched his cheek. “Or down the rabbit hole?”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“I’m trying to be an adult. I’m trying to be responsible. I’m trying not to call home crying. But it’s hard. It’s hard when every morning feels like a hangover. It’s hard when I hear voices every time I go to sleep. It’s hard when the only thing that would make me feel better is to crawl in bed with the one person who truly knows me, but I’m more afraid of her than the bears or the perverts or whoever the hell visits her when I’m away.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“She was stubborn.
She was evolving.
She needed SOLITUDE like normal people needed exercise.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“The boy was there too, stumbling through the living room horde and passing out magic mushrooms from a paper bag. His eyeballs sparkled inside gaping, play-dough sockets while his limbs hung gaunt and exhausted from eight straight days of self-medicating fear. Another boy in a black tee pinched some mushroom flakes from his bag, nodded his thanks, and mouthed the word “bro” like blowing a man kiss.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“I’m pretty sure your house isn’t haunted,” he said.
She shrugged. “Part of me hopes you’re wrong.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“Foreboding” might have been the appropriate word. “Dread.” The PROMISE of fear. It was tangible fear... smellable... the stale odor soaking into the dirt and lingering in the windless jungle of dead branches and train tracks to nowhere; lovelier than angst, kinder than panic.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“She wondered if she was the only person trying not to imagine what death-by-bear looked like. Would bears pick the bones white? Or would they leave bits of meat for the coyotes to scavenge? The authorities hadn’t actually determined the type of animal that did the mauling, but she couldn’t help but picture a bear.” ”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“The whirlwind in his brain—which had so many times tugged his pituitary in ways that made him TAKE instead of GIVE—
subsided for the very first time.
Tightness in his crotch usually corresponded with a tightness in his gut, making him want to CONTROL, to CHOKE, to SUBDUE... but not this time.
Not ever again.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“She grappled his shoulder and pulled him closer; her nose in his neck and the memory-scent of her very first time; that sickly-sweet stench of day-old sweat and mall cologne... she wondered if he’d showered in the ten months since they last shared a bed.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“She wondered if she was the only person
trying not to imagine what death-by-bear looked like. Would bears pick the bones white? Or would they leave bits of meat for the coyotes to scavenge? The authorities hadn’t actually determined
the type of animal that did the mauling,
but she couldn’t help but picture a bear.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“The search party became zombie silhouettes in shafts of early-morning light, yawning, despondent, and halfway home when a boy’s scream pierced the fog—“OVER HERE!”—and everybody ran.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“New sounds rustled through her anti-depressant haze; a gentle reverberation from the heart of the home... another creek... another thunk... rapid clicking like the wings of a broken cricket. Then, raindrops on metal... the escalating blare of a car horn... the scream of wet tires and the clink clink clink of showering glass.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“The scar rippled from the top of her bikini line down to her thigh. Where normal girls had hair, Ava had a quilt of mangled skin that required tweezers to de-fur. For ten months she tried joking about it (“Turns out sharks really CAN smell menstrual blood a mile away!”). She tried fixing it with a myriad of steroid injections and silicon gels. She even tried ignoring it. Her last hope was to confront it.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“The feeling was FEAR, she realized... but it was a new type of fear; more sincere than the jitters she felt when it rained and not as piercing as the terror of crashing cars. This fear was darker somehow... mysterious... curious like the retracted paws of an alley cat.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“Trevor climbed once again to the land of the living, naked except for an antique gas mask strapped to his face. As he peered through glass eyes like a mutant fly and breathed through the alien snoot, a single thought coiled through the booby-trapped labyrinth of his brain:
I need to be alone.
I need to be alone.
I need to be alone.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams

“Trevor could almost see the invisible gas leaking from the broken furnace, billowing around his body, wafting in his wake from the laundry room to the living room, seeking out the nostrils of the realtor, the yuppies, the toddler, and every other goddamn trespasser before seeping into their bloodstream and infecting their cells until they dizzied, ached, barfed, and fell to the floor like a bunch of—
He caught himself.
He breathed through his nose.
He pushed away the hate, calmed the tornado strangling his gut, and thought of HER.”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams