Bob had filled the last few trapped treats, and began to clean up the porch floor and side table of her detritus, throwing most of the wrappers and canisters into a used grocery bag she brought out just for the occasion.
“Bob, I need to take a quick walk around the block.” He looked down at her as she finished up.
When she looked back up at him, she just shrugged her shoulders, and said, “’Kay…have fun. I’ll be waiting for you, if it helps you to get back up to the bedroom quicker.” This was followed by a quicksilver smile and a rush into the house. He re-pocketed his jump rope, and brushed a hand across the pants pocket by his knee that held his cell phone. David smiled thinking of Bob’s lack of subtlety.
Some things in life are just too grand for me… He thought as he eased out the front door into the chilly January weather.
The smell of death on the street came close to gagging Starr as he breathed in the crisp,
cold night air. It was the worst possible scenario he could imagine. The dead didn’t walk
without help. Never. And the help they needed to move about was expensive. It cost
blood for some, lives for others. And it always cost a part of the soul of those who called
the things up. Death was a common coin used by some of the older, darker Powers that still walked through this world.
Now he knew these things were not the casual Neo-Goths from the university’s art program posing as their weird little dreams of style and daring would allow for an evening of role playing. This was actually dead people, hoisted from graves, and fed blood to animate the remains. Thinking it through now, these things did stand too still for anything living.
The living constantly moved, even when one might think one was being as still as stone, just the act of breathing would give one away if nothing else will.
David slowly sauntered around the block, headed away from the intersection with the eight former people waiting in ragged shadows, he noticed the presence of Amra’s men.
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Having worked with and for Elgin Stark for many years now, since his first turn through graduate school more than a century ago in fact, David would know them anywhere.
The white suits, the tall frames, and the arrogant stance they all took. But… something was off.
Okay…More off than just dead people sauntering about the Fan… very off… he thought to himself.
Now he knew it was just as bad, if not worse, than he might have thought just a few moments before. Reaching for his datpad, David turned the corner away from everything, planning to circle around the block to come up from an unexpected direction. It was a good idea, if he did say so himself. But he started to run down the street to make it back to the action before anything could go too wrong. The line was ringing…
A rich voice came on the line and greeted David as he slowed his pace in order for his boss to be able to understand him. “David…How can I help you tonight?”
He tried to speak as normally as a jogging man could, but it still took on a cadence all its own. “Elgin…I have…a problem. There are…four White…Suits at…the corners…of Grove…and Harvie…they brought…some dead…at least eight other corpse friends along. I mean, the White…suits… they're dead too… and they’re in the Fan…”
Silence on the other end of the line was not total, music played in the background and the buzz and drone of people rose and fell as he moved along the alley between the streets. David thought he might have to repeat himself to be heard, and had readied a breath to do just that when Elgin’s voice broke through his phone.
“Well…Thank you, David. I think I know what they’re after. They’ll be waiting for a while yet. Keep them in sight, I’ll make a call. Don’t get involved until you see Curt. Stay in the shadows until you see Curt. Got that?”
David took another bracing breath before saying “‘M on it, sir! Wait for Curt! \huff\ Okay..!”
“Good boy, knew I could count on you.” Elgin said quickly before hanging up. David was at the point he wanted to be, and stood in the treed shadows by an older row home. He put the phone back into his pocket to wait for Curt to show, and hoped it wouldn’t be long.
He watched from the shadows of the old trees along the street as the things shuffled about in their respective places. From the east came a few more of the tall, white-linen dressed men. They appeared, reluctantly, to help control the recently dead. And time dragged itself almost to a halt before David’s eyes as if he had done Time some insult.
It was infuriating to stand back and count his breaths in an attempt to slow them down from his frantic run. The sudden buzz of his data pad made him jump as if hit with a stun gun, but thankfully he was silent in his surprise.