Howard looked at his Casio watch with impatience. Kat was never more than a few minutes late and he didn’t have all day to wait. He looked at the door with intensity, with a will that could cause things to occur. Even as a young boy Howard had thought that if he willed anything enough, this meant staring at it with a force that brought those scary, thick veins to protrude from his forehead, he could make things occur. In a way, he was right; in the way that it always worked.
It’s just that sometimes he simply needed to will things for longer than he liked, like sometimes hours, but how can you be picky when you have been blessed with such mental prowess?
Howard was not a picky man.
After a few more checks of his watch and a lot more staring at the door, Kat appeared. Kat was a rather slight fellow that looked like if he missed any more meals he could walk a runway. To be fair, everyone compared to Howard was skinny, but Kat was on the smaller side when it came to builds. At first, Howard didn’t quite like Kat, but then again, he didn’t quite like anyone. But once he had found a use for Kat, his presence no longer disturbed him as much.
Once he had gotten Kat’s attention he went into his usual routine, this meant lying to Kat about just about anything. In this case, he had given the Vending machine a “gentle” budge which caused a Snickers bar to be placed precariously on edge. This set the stage for him to plead for help. Kat helped like always, and Howard was left with a free snack. Sometimes he liked to follow Kat after he left the office, wait for him to enter a store, and then run up down the street and stage his next scam. Kat always questioned but never pressed. This was why he didn’t mind him. Today he had tried to push his luck and grab an extra treat, but he was stopped by Kat’s impregnable moral code.
Howard didn’t press because he was a smart man and smart men take their victories without losses.
He stood in the hall and quickly ate his Snickers bar before his next victim appeared.
After a few minutes and some intense staring later, Roxy appeared in a rather expensive-looking dress. If Kat was close to runway material, Roxy was a runaway model. Howard had thought about asking her out but then thought better of it. After all, he was a smart man, and smart men don’t affiliate themselves with dangerous women, and Roxy was by trade...a dangerous woman.
Before he could say anything, she did.
“Really, again?”
“I’m sorry to bother you…but I just ain’t got any luck with this damn machine.”
“Ughh, it’s fine.”
Reaching into her leather handbag, which had to be one of those expensive brands like Fucci or Grada that Howard knew little about, Roxy produced a key that she had seduced the janitor of the building for. The key opened everything, including the vending machine.
“Thank you, darling.”
“Don’t call me darling.”
“Sorry, won’t happen again,” Howard responded as he reached into the machine she had just opened and grabbed the bag of chips Kat had denied him.
“I only paid for the bag so I won’t be taking more.”
“I really don’t care,” she responded as she closed the vending machine door, locked it, and went on her way.
“If you didn’t care you wouldn’t lock the damn machine….you little..” Howard mumbled to himself but stopped as soon as Roxy turned around.
“Did you say something?”
“Just thank you,” he laughed nervously.
“Ohh, yeah sure.”
“No thank you back…you little…” but he stopped himself again as she turned once more.
“What was that?”
“Sorry, I was just struggling to open the bag. These paws of mine have trouble…” but she was gone before he could mumble anything else to himself.
Howard quickly scarfed down the chips before they came in.
After a few more minutes and a strained forehead vein, The Twins appeared.
Seeing Howard, they both instantly reached into their pockets.
“Y'all got a buck?”
Before his question was even allowed some time to breathe, they both raced over to his extended hand. The first twin, the one with the green eyes, tripped the other one, the one with the blue eyes, and placed the dollar bill into Howard’s hand.
“I win! I won!” shouted the winning Twin as the other got to his feet.
“Your win is my win!” Replied Howard as he took his newly acquired dollar, uncrumpled it, and began feeding it into the vending machine.”
“No fair you tripped me..” said the blue-eyed twin.
“No one said we couldn’t trip, you should have set the rules. You know he’s always here waiting for a dollar. The only rule was we had to keep the dollar in our pocket.”
“Yeah…next time no tripping..”
“Okay, deal.”
They both spat into their hands and shook on it, solidifying the deal.
Gross…thought Howard as he entered B7 on the number pad and received a Ding-Dong.
“Later, Howard, see you next time.”
“See yah boys, thanks again!”
“No, thank you!” They replied in unison as they ran down the hall, no doubt racing to see who got to their office first.
“Thank God for kids…” Howard said to himself as he wolfed down his Ding Dong.
Howard knew that within a few more minutes Travis would walk through the door, and he didn’t quite like Travis, but then again, he didn’t quite like anyone, but Travis he didn’t quite like especially. So, he decided he had had enough free snacks and made his way back to his office.
As he walked through the hall, he noticed that Martha was outside Kat’s door not saying anything, simply staring. Getting real close, Howard whispered in her ear,
“Whatcha staring at.”
She didn’t jump or startle like Howard wanted her to, she simply turned to meet his big face, smiled, and said,
“I like watching him when he’s like this. It reminds me of when I was around his age and didn’t know what I was doing, so I just did. Do you know what I mean? When you feel like life is everything right and wrong with the world.”
Howard didn’t know what she meant because Howard knew what life was and it wasn’t right or wrong, it was Howard's to do with as he pleased.
"Yup, I remember those days…ahh yes…the pain, the agony of youth." A part of Howard began looking into himself, searching for the part of his mind that exhibited emotions, the part that caused other men to crack, to reveal, to unravel at the seams, to be human.
He didn't find it.
His ever-elusive emotions escaped erratically.
He wanted to cry; he felt like that would really sell the moment, really capturing that he truly understood what Martha meant by those words of hers.
But, he couldn't.
And he didn't feel bad, if anything he felt good, not being weak and subject to things beyond his control was one of the things Howard prided himself on. Howard was a smart man after all, and smart men don't allow themselves to be swayed by silly things like emotions.
Martha stood in silence as she watched what appeared a grown man, an adult, for lack of a better word, convince another adult that they understood feelings and emotions; almost as if it was a foreign word that was simply understood as an amalgamation of syllables in a language that he understands but does not grasp. She knew that Howard was odd- hell, everyone that worked in the office was tweaked and broken in some direction that wasn’t straight, but Howard was by far the oddest.
This didn’t mean that anything that Howard did was in particular more strange than let’s say, how Kat won’t tell a lie because he fears being a liar, but a killer not so much. But it was the fact that Howard swore that he was an ordinary man; that what he did had no effect on his chemical makeup. Howard would describe himself as the perfect, empathetic man; he would pull a chair for you and bow his head with apologies if he thought he wronged you. But it was all a sham. It was robotic and artificial. And it was always delayed.
He would stare out into space with that forehead vein of his and ponder all the possible avenues of dialogue he could take, as if time stood still. But time didn’t stand still, and you were left waiting in awkward silence as this big, brute of a man contemplates lies in his head. All the while he thinks you none the wiser.
The biggest fool is one who thinks everyone else doesn’t see him for what he is- a fool.
“Just thinking back on those days, the suffering days, the days of youth that are now their opposites, that have flowed through the river of time, lost to the physical world but left its tacks on memory. A flower of my youth is a thorn now, afterward. What was once sweet is now sour….”
Seeing that this monologue would continue for however long Howard wanted to, Martha decided it would be best to leave her message and walk away.
“The boss wants you in the office,” she said to Kat as he stared off into space, then faced the baboon and said,
“Got to go, Howard.”
“Oh, okay.”
Having successfully charmed his way into Martha’s mind, Howard walked across the hall and into his office.
****************************************************************
Howard’s office was everything he was not.
There were posters on the wall that spoke of interests that Howard wasn’t interested in. A photo that one would infer was a family photo: two young sons, a daughter, and a Mother and Father smiling under a tree-The American Dream. And just like most dreams, it was fictitious, bought online, and printed out within seconds. When asked, Howard said it was a photo of his parents, Sue and Jim, his older brother Chad, and his younger sister Gwen. The only truth would be in the fact he did indeed have an older brother named Chad, and if you paid attention to his voice when the name was said you could if you strained your ear, hear a decibel drop, announcing to the world that Chad was not someone Howard thought fondly of.
Then why not use a fictitious name as he had for his parents and sister?
Because Howard knew that his older brother affected him in ways that he didn’t like, so instead of running from the problem, forgetting that he was there; he instead chose to insert him in all places, forcing him to come to terms with that which he hadn’t come to terms with.
Against one wall rested a bookshelf that housed books that were there for what books are not meant for, to be judged by their covers and the authors that wrote them. Howard had an appearance to keep up.
He chose Fawlkner and Wallace and Joyce.
They were stacked in a way that produced an appearance of frequent use. A stack of books here and there, some bookmarks inserted haphazardly, markers for good measure. Everyone knows that the best readers are also writers, so he has a few books with pens inside of them, followed by notes that he copied from internet forums.
On a shelf, down from his fraudulent library is the trophy shelf. Awards for teams that never existed, for organizations that didn’t hand out awards, were displayed for all to see. No one second-guessed an award for winning the Youth’s Inner City Baseball Championship, because who would ever lie about such a thing, what’s the point?
Howard would that's who, and the point is that he wants you to believe he’s a different man, maybe in a way, Howard wants to believe he’s that man. If he lies to others, he’s also lying to himself, but these are just useless thoughts so Howard swats them away like flies.
Only one person has ever asked Howard about the trophies, to them he said this:
“I know they don’t mean much. In the grand scheme of things small frivolous awards mean nothing more than an event that happened and some people cared about it, but they remind me of times that mattered to me. In a way, they are portals back to that time. Not every time, but sometimes I walk into this office, clouded by the day, my life, and then I catch a glimpse of one of these fake bronze statues.”
In this case, he picked up the Inner City Baseball Championship Trophy.
“Ahhhh, now this brings back a memory that might bring back a tear. The year was 2010 and the team was The Astros. We were a stacked roster of twelve-year-olds that were just on the fringe of the age cap. Teenagers playing against boys is always fun.” Howard laughed.
“I was the starting pitcher that what he lacked in a fastball he made up for in control. You see, most of these kids could throw the ball hard, but they could also beam the back of the fence or your back if unlucky, depending on your batting order, that is. I had myself a high fastball, one that was a foot or so above the strike zone that kids loved to swing at like a pinata. But even this was not as fast as the beamers the other kids would throw, but once again, they lacked control. And just like life, what’s speed without control, what’s momentum without direction, force without a goal?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Howard would take a few seconds to stare at the trophy and ball that came with it, tossing it a couple of times in his palm, making that nice slapping sound that ball, gravity, and hand make when paired together.
“The game was a close one, being limited to the number of pitches able to be thrown per game made it so that I was pulled out at around the bottom of the fourth. Have you ever pitched your heart out, giving up only one run, three base hits, and a single walk, only to have to leave the fate of the game in the hands of some twelve-year-old that picks his nose and worst of all lacks control?”
The visitor who had now taken a seat, choosing to enjoy the story rather than be bored by it, shook his head no.
“Well, it’s hell. This trophy was bittersweet, seeing as that we won- the obvious sweet, but the bitter was sitting at first base as I watched a kid trample over all my hard work every time he extends that arm and stretches that leg giving that ball every possible newton he could create with his erratic, impure pitching form. And all I could do was watch? Was this supposed to be a joke, a test? Did no one see the agony spread across my face? The winces every time the ball went wide and into the backstop.
This pure torture was the slow and inevitable death of my love for the game.”
And with that, his story, which was for the most part true- was over.
The events were strung together accurately, but Howard’s love for the game began to die there, but it wasn’t until his will was tested and defeated, that Howard truly turned his back on the very game that his father, like all American fathers, had imposed upon him young.
With that ending, the man in the chair applauded Howard’s tale of childhood victory, of times sweet and dear and gone, leaving only a trophy and a story to show for it. But it at least left something, most of the time, life leaves you with nothing, or worse, with less than before.
This did not make Howard feel any particular way emotionally, but rather, he simply wished that more people would ask about his trophies, giving him the opportunity to display his storytelling prowess.
The Boss didn’t need a report from Howard, he had had Martha send him a message that he was to simply report through email if he wanted to, a courtesy that seemed to have only been granted to Howard.
But he came in regardless, because after all today was the day in which he could swindle the most snacks from the machine. It wasn’t as if Howard was strapped for money, on the contrary, the job of Hitman is a lucrative occupation, especially in times of political and technological strife. Howard’s various onshore, offshore, and metaverse bank accounts were beginning to paint the picture of a wealthy man with a chance at the carrot that is dangled, but never captured- early retirement, whether that be onshore, offshore, or online, that was up to him.
None of this interested Howard though, after all, Howard was a man of class, and men of class don’t worry themselves over the dreams of the classless.
He didn’t walk himself to work when he needn’t over saving a few dollars on snacks, it was never about the snacks, or the money saved; it was about the ability to do what others couldn’t; it was to get what others had to pay for without paying; it was always about being one step ahead of the rest.
This was what life was about for Howard. Some see life as a game in which you accumulate shinier and shiner materials until you die and you leave them to children that love you for what you leave them. Others see the soul as the shiniest thing of all, and they spend their years cultivating their insides, numbing themselves to the outside.
Who is to say which is right and which is wrong?
Howard is to say.
And he says they are both missing the bigger purpose.
The point of life, according to Howard, is to be ahead of the point; to not catch yourself chasing, but to have it always in your rearview. You wouldn’t want life sneaking up on you, when that happens you do things that you wouldn’t otherwise do. Like buying a house you can’t afford, or working a job that kills you from the inside out. That’s why you have to stay one step ahead of everyone and everything- including life itself.
Or so, that’s what the man with the dull features, in a tracksuit that is a size too big, with a haircut that is a bit too high on the sides, and gifted with a knack for treason, believes.
But at the very least he believes.
Believing is a virtue that is going, going, and will eventually, like a boy with no control, and no finesse for the game, be off the mound and gone from the game.
Howard sits at his desk fiddling his thumbs; he is waiting for someone to come in and start something. Whether that be conversion or conflict, it didn’t matter. Anything happening was better than nothing.
No one ever walked in; no one usually ever does.
This doesn’t bother Howard, but he waits nonetheless. You never know who will come knocking, and it pays to be prepared.
He waits and he waits and strains his big old vein for an audience that wouldn’t come.
With a deep sigh that moves his entire body up and then down again, he gets up and says to himself,
“I guess it’s time to get to work, Howy…I guess it’s time to get to work….”
Howard when talking to himself called himself Howy. It was a cute nickname given to him by himself. He didn’t know why or when he started doing it, he simply did.
And Howard is a smart man, which meant that he didn’t go looking for meanings to things that didn’t need them.
*****************************************************************************
Howard watches the man from a window across the street.
He doesn't think much of the man, but to be fair, he doesn't think much of anyone. The man he watches is of medium build, the kind that worked out sporadically, on a whim, the kind of man he hates the most; the ones who lack discipline and drive; the kind of man who reminds him of his spineless father.
The kind of men who remind him that he hates his father anger him the most because he hates being reminded, so now he's even madder because he’s being reminded of his hatred.
He's happy he gets to remove this man from this world. If anything, it's a double hit. The first is for the company and his job; the second is for himself.
You can’t have too many men out there that remind you of hate, it’ll make the world a very, very ugly place.
His hands begin to tighten into little balls of iron and his ugly forehead veins begin to bulge.
Taking deep and laborious breaths, he calms himself. Settling the capricious storm that rages within.
"Calm yourself little boy…easy fellow easy…" he whispers to himself as if he was a horse and his words were the reins.
From across the street Howard peers from a vantage point, watching with a stony glare, this proclivity to watch from high above paired with his stony expression, is what lead to the nickname given to him by anyone in his line of work, “The Gargoyle.”
The man has been Howard’s mark for a few weeks now, unlike Kat, it’s not that Howard procrastinates, but rather, he tends to wait for his moment. This moment was marked by a visceral feeling or the simple fact that no one walked in and asked him about his trophies at a time when he wanted nothing more than to talk about them.
In a sad and reductive way, this man’s life could have been extended a few more days or even weeks if someone would have simply walked in and asked Howard anything, but they didn’t, as they hardly ever do.
So, for that reason, and that reason alone- the man dies today.
The mark is sitting at a bar with a posture that tells of a few too many, but you could never be too sure, and it was best not to assume the target is drunk and easier for that, just for the opposite to be true and the whole ordeal turns messier than it already needed to be. His clothes say businessman; his report tells of another story.
A businessman that entangled himself with a family that clips off loose ends for good. Certain companies fire you, others retire you, and the worst kind expire you.
Howard had read what he feels is all too common; an accountant in charge of managing fraudulent books decides that life is unjust and that he must harmonize it, he must take a piece of the pie for himself. Obviously, never anything noticeable, but a slim margin that would be more than enough to feed his growing appetite.
This hadn't been the first accountant gone rogue that he’d been contracted to squeeze to death and, looking at the meek man, as he waved his hand in the resignation of his sobriety; he knew that it wouldn’t be the last.
In the contract, the hiring company mentioned that they were not quick to pull triggers, and they understood that when normal people are given access to accounts that seem mythical in nature and more importantly, in numerical value, saliva begins to form and it's not soon after that greedy little fingers spring out and into what does not belong to them. If they hired hitmen every time this happened, they would need to pay the contractors to create a graveyard, not another parking lot. They had their numbers figured out, and gave every employee a number; this number was what they called “crumbs”. No employee other than the respected and required knew of the “crumbs”, but it was essentially this: they were allowed to take, an amount that they felt was reasonable, this was a “crumb” here and there, but the moment the crumbs became a slice, that’s when the hitmen or their own internal forces were contacted and the individual was terminated.
Howard thought it wasn’t that bad of a system, but he could see how it would always end up with a hitman needing to be involved. If you don’t tell them of a system in place, there will always be those select hotshots that think they’ve pulled a fast one over them, that he’s smarter, more clever than he really is.
Then he begins to take more, and more, and more; until he begins to make the stark realization that he now has more money than he’s bargained for and that buying a nicer house or car would bring in a level of attention that he doesn’t dare call down.
So, what does he do?
He can’t return the money, he’s already taken it, and there is no putting it back. Plus, he knows that it’s not about the money, but that he’ll have his head placed on the chopping block purely on principle. So, he decides to stop stealing altogether, maybe, just maybe, they did find out, but now they’ve noticed that he’s stopped and they are willing to let it go as long as he just puts his head down and keeps his grubby little hands in his pockets. But, that’s not enough, there is still the worry, so he begins to drink every day, in hopes of forgetting his worries.
“You were right little man, it is all about the principle. You should have gone with option B, taken as much as you could have in one go, and fled to some remote island, where you jump from location to location, changing your hairstyle and clothing attire each time you go. Become Carmen San Diego, a game of Where’s Waldo, Marco without the Pollo,” Howard said to himself as he watched the worried, little man down a tall lager without a moment's hesitation.
"That won't help, it only makes you that much more of a coward. Don't run from your troubles, face them even if that means being destroyed by them.”
Howard sighed as he continued to watch the man drink himself into a hole. What he had thought would be a quick afternoon drink, began to creep into the night; the whole time Howard watched from his perch, judging the man he thought he knew.
Drinking was a pastime that Howard, like most men his age, had gone through, or gone through him. He was one of the lucky few that could drink when he wanted to and keep it at that. Being a bigger guy gave him a bigger cushion for failure, but it also meant that Howard became a danger when drunk.
A hulking figure that forgets he weighs two buck fifty wakes up from blackouts feeling blessed if no one is dead, if the worse outcome is a ripped-off car bumper, then that man with the nice tie and the big old fancy words should consider himself lucky and be on his way, not sending lawyers to his place of work. And that is exactly what Howard had told the man as he held him up against the wall by the shoulders, his feet kicked at Howard as a child would do, and after a bit of rattling, they both agreed that it was best to leave it in the past, without lawyers.
Just a night that had gone too far on both their parts.
Other than those few nights, that hardly ever occurred, Howard was straight with his alcohol. He prided himself on his equanimity, and drinking was chaos in a bottle.
Howard’s reminiscing of drunken bar fights and times in which he gave himself more leeway to act like the very same people he sneers at with an upturned nose, was cut short by the slumping of a man who has decided to begin his perilous journey home.
The bar was a real man's joint, so no one asked if the man had keys, wanted a cab, or needed help with the stairs that lead to the back exit; they were men and figured another man would handle himself or he wouldn’t.
Either way, it didn’t pertain to them.
Howard hurried his way out of the building and into the dark entry of the bar. Right on walking in you are met with a left turn that takes you into what looks to be a supply closet; Howard having blacked out and awoken in the said supply closet, knew it to be the case.
Howard placed himself at the opening of the hall, just in front of the supply closet door; that way when his target stumbles his way down the stairs he isn’t scared away by a hulking figure below. Some drunks still have sense enough to see obvious danger and stray away. Howard decided he wouldn’t like to gamble and find out if his mark still had some sense, so he hid. But it wasn’t hiding to Howard, in Howard’s mine he was laying in wait, stalking his prey.
Only cowards hide, and above all else- Howard was no coward.
Even if it rhymed.
Moments passed, and the bar’s monotonous low jazz was beginning to pull at Howard’s sobriety; it was like a siren's call for drunks. The atmosphere for anyone looking to knock a few back was that of disinterest. It was as if the place didn’t care if you drank or not, it was simply there, with their chipped glasses that matched the painting on the walls, telling you that just like no one cares that the place is more dump than decent; no one cares that you’re not capable to last even one day without that numbing agent. The little man behind the door that rests inside your mind, the door that can only be opened when you’re wasted and gone, is knocking at the door.
"Let me out," he says, "go to sleep and let me run free, even if it’s only for the night."
He’s got the tongue of a car salesman that man behind the door does. And just like a used car salesman, he usually has you waking up and regretting what you once thought was a half-decent idea.
The stumbling of a man cautiously maneuvering his limbs from one step to the next, the grunts and moans, and the silent pleas for help that never go answered, break Howard from his thoughts of drinking. Reaching into his back pocket, Howard produces a pair of black latex gloves, the kind trash collectors wear, and slides them on his bearish hands.
They don’t fit like a glove; they fit like skin.
Howard stretches his fingertips out, adjusting to the new layer that’s been added on. Inside his mind, a switch has been flipped, one that is triggered when his hands go black and tight; one that knows that the very fabric of life will be altered.
Even if it’s the loss of one life; one life still has its own ramifications.
Opening one finger, extending it, curling it back, and repeating with the rest. He would crack his knuckles before, but now he views it as bad luck, so he stops himself. Howard is not a superstitious man, he doesn’t believe in luck, the stock market, or crypto. He believes in men that reside behind the scenes with ulterior motives that are working towards a direction that usually never coincides with his own, directions that often run in the opposite direction, making his own direction that much worse, his losses that much grander, and his hole, that much inescapable.
But, The knuckle cracking, is the one logicless caveat he allows himself.
Sometimes life works in ways that are beyond comprehension, beyond coincidence and happenstance; for that reason, he sits there and forces himself not to crack his knuckles.
The stumbling drunk finally made his way to the last step, probably thinking to himself he had survived to tell the day, every step could have been a trip and a fall and an end. But he hadn’t. Now, on his face, beaming with sweat, was a plastered grin that told of a man who was beginning to believe in himself again. A man that could possibly make it past the darkness, take the turn at the corner and see his way back into the light.
A man with hope.
Before the man's thoughts could stretch any further, two huge blacked-out hands grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back into the darkness.
In the darkness the hopeless man could only make out a pair of stone gray eyes and pale yellowed teeth that glinted through, straining as they produced the force to steal a man's life away.
The hopeless man clawed at the attacker’s hands frantically.
Scratching.
Pleeing.
Dying.
He forced himself to make a sound, to use his words to set him free. But his words were caught upon the hands that crushed his windpipe, leaving him speechless at a time that demanded words. His eyes were more animated than they had ever been. In the irises, Howard saw a fear that is indescribable. In the tears he saw a hope that was slowly dripping down his face, leaving marks of white across his face, drying with a harrowing realization. Howard knew that if the man could sing he would offer the world. It was like crushing a bird that had just left the cage. The bird wanting nothing more than freedom, than open air, would give it all away, return to the iron cage if it meant saving itself.
“I know you want to live. I can see it in your eyes. And I’m going to give you the chance to.”
Howard tightened his grip, preparing for the final squeeze.
“All you have to do is will it,” Howard whispered in the hopeless man’s ear like cold air let in through a creak in the window. The hopeless man shivered.
“Just will it.”
“Will the strength to pry my hands open.”
“Will something to intervene.”
“Will a force greater than your own.”
“Just will it to happen.”
Howard began the final squeeze.
“What are you waiting for….”
“Will it.”
“Wil it.”
“Will it.”
Howard repeated the words frantically, with an intensity that truly wished for the man to prove him wrong, to bring forward the strength needed. To show Howard that sometimes will is enough.
The hopeless man’s eyes bulged, strained, giving everything he had into his will, pulling with all his force at the hands that held his life in them.
It wasn’t enough.
His will was not enough.
The man died between Howard’s hands.
Howard let him go, allowing him to slump down, slide down the wall, and hit the ground with an insignificant thump.
“Will is not enough,” Howard whispered to the corpse, as he wiped at the sweat that had formed across his brow, patted down his jeans, adjusted his shirt, and walked out into the light in search of a drink