Speaking of names, there is ONE name here that you might find familiar. I’ll leave the research to you. I’ll have a few more comments after the fragment.

—

What Ever Happened to Janie Feinburg?

Part 1:

The old Honda sighed as Stan Bailey eased out of the driver’s seat. The uniforms at the front of the alley watched him adjust himself… straightening and redistributing his shirt and jacket across his considerable gut. Then he started toward the alley. The uniforms fell in behind him as he passed.

“What diet you on this week, Slim?” said Jimmy Jones.

“All of ‘em,” Stan grunted as he sauntered past.

“No, really, looks like you lost a few pounds.”

“How can ya tell?” said the other officer.

Stan paused. He licked his lips before turning around and fixing the second officer with a hard stare, one eye wider than the other.

“This your rookie, Jim?”

“Yeah.” Jones replied.

“Tell him he hasn’t earned the right to talk smack to me.”

“Shut the fuck up, Roy,” Jimmy snapped.

“Hey…” The rookie raised his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry.”

Stan grunted and turned around.

“So what we got tonight?”

“You’re gonna love this one,” said Jimmy.

“I love all of ‘em,” said Stan. Ahead, a crowd of officers… some uniformed, some not… gathered around a pair of dark blue dumpsters. They weren’t interested in the dumpsters themselves, but rather something on the ground between them. “Aww, what the hell is this? There’s gotta be thirty cops standin’ around!” Stan growled.

“Crowd control.”

“WE’RE the only crowd out here! I don’t see no press… no looky-loos… just cops stompin’ all over my crime scene.”

“We’re careful-” Jimmy offered, but Stan had already reached the crowd. Officers peeled away at his approach. Some muttered greetings, others merely stepped aside… then stepped aside again to make enough room.

“Comin’ through…” Stan huffed. “…the only guy that actually BELONGS here is comin’ through, so step the hell ba-”

The last word flickered out… becoming an involuntary twitch of the lip as Stan finally saw what had drawn the crowd.

She was beautiful.

She was a wreck, too… someone had worked her over fairly well, even for THIS city.

Stan could feel the men around him trying to do his job… trying to unbreak bones, unbruise tissue, re-locate joints… trying to put this beauty back together. What had she looked like before somebody dumped her naked in an alley?

Her shoulder-length hair would have been blonde if it weren’t for all the blood. Two shockingly blue stars beamed out of the mess that someone had made of her face. Her jaw sat at an slanted angle to the rest of her skull. He couldn’t quite tell what she’d looked like when she smiled, but Stan had no doubt that it was a smile that could stop traffic. If the smile didn’t, then the legs certainly would have.

What had she been? Model? No. She was too short. Straightened out and measured, this beauty would barely reach 5’5″. Dancer, perhaps… exotic or otherwise? No…. as beautiful as she was, she was carrying just a tad bit too much muscle… like an athlete or physical trainer. Whoever she’d been; she’d obviously taken good care of herself… when she was alive to do it. But now, her perfectly-muscled legs lay at angles to her well-toned torso. One arm lay folded behind her back, the other flung out toward the wall. The wrist was broken, hand folded down so her fingers touched her forearm. She wore no rings or jewelry. Stan studied the fingers for signs of what might have been taken. Nothing…. nothing except for the distinct marks of the handcuffs and the unmistakable dark line around the neck.

“Bound, beaten, strangled,” Stan ran the words past his lips almost as one word. “Jesus. Who the hell did YOU piss off?”

—

Stan felt the officers around him stir. When he turned back toward the mouth of the alley, he saw that someone else had joined them.

The man was meticulously shaven, with harsh angular features. He wore a dark brown overcoat that hung open to reveal crisply pressed shirt, slacks, and a tie. He more like a businessman than a cop, although technically he was neither.

“Jimmy, you and the rookie keep this alley secure,” Stan ordered. “The rest of you…”

He didn’t need to finish. The assembled officers were already dispersing. Some did so with reluctance, while others cast anxious glances back at the newcomer.

“Spoonie!” Stan greeted him with an obnoxiously wide smile. “I’m SO glad you’re here.” The stranger’s emotionless expression became a frown as he came to a halt before Stan.

“Stanley,” he sighed. “There’s nothing I can do to make you stop hating me, is there.”

“Oh, I don’t hate you, Spoon. I just don’t like you. So what brings Morgan Scribe out to my crime scene?”

“I should think that’s obvious.” Morgan nodded at the naked corpse.

“Oh, there’s a lot obvious here,” Stan replied. “None of it explains YOU, though. But I ain’t stupid. You being here means there’s somethin’ I ain’t gonna like. About this corpse, or about whoever put it here. Care to fill me in, or are you just gonna stomp all over proper police procedures like your kind usually do?”

Morgan hesitated for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a manila folder. Stan couldn’t see what was written on the tab. Inside the folder was a clear plastic rectangle, slightly smaller and thicker than a sheet of paper. He held it in front of him as if he were about to read it… then glanced expectantly at Stan. Waiting.

“Toys,” Stan grunted.

“It’s just smartpaper; its not going to bite.”

“Riiigh. Today it’s fancy smartpaper. Tomorrow there’s a black flying saucer parked over New York. Oh wait, that’s already happened.”

Morgan waited.

“All right, let’s see.” Stan stood next to Morgan. It wasn’t quite shoulder-to-shoulder, as Stan was a good two feet shorter. “Shoot.”

Morgan ran his finger along the edge of the plastic. The surface went from translucent to solid black, and then flickered a few times. When it stopped, Stan was looking at a replica of a federal identification card. The photograph in the upper left corner was of a smiling blonde girl with bright blue eyes.

“Our corpse-”

“Our?”

“-is Janine Feinburg. Registered Active #0112. Operated under the names ‘BlueJay,’ which she gave up for legal reasons, and most recently as ‘Indigo’.”

“Never heard of her.”

“You wouldn’t have.” Morgan adjusted the position of his finger on the page. The image flickered, changing to a shot of a Janine Feinburg in costume. Blue and white tights with long, flaring sleeves and a star-shaped opening on her chest. She barely had the cleavage to pull it off. The photo was an action shot of her in mid-leap, foot extended in a side kick. “This is Indigo”

“STILL never heard of her.”

“She ran with some big names, but was never one herself. Mostly operated in the midwest.” As Morgan spoke, a series of images flashed across the smartpaper. All featured Indigo/BlueJay either alone, or with any number of other constumed heroes. “Remember the Honor Guard?”

“No.”

“Not many people do. A patriotic group… superpowered militia, more or less. Founding member, but she jumped ship just after they merged with the Justice Wheel. Turned out to be a good move, considering how they ended up.”

Stan watched the images flicker across the page. Action shots. Posed shots. Group shots and solo shots. The uniform was mostly variations of the same theme… showing more skin or less, depending on the fashion at the time. But it was the same girl in all of them. Same blue eyes. Same slightly over-muscled body.

“She went solo, and eventually turned up on the wrong side of the Registration Initiative.”

“Wrong side?” Stan frowned sarcastically. “Which side was that, exactly?”

“The side that lost. After that, she ceased all metahuman activities… official and unofficial… and dropped off the radar. Until now.”

—

“Well she was certainly up to SOMETHING,” said Stan as he watched the pictures flicker past. The slideshow had already started to repeat. He studied the images more closely the second trip through. There were lots of faces and costumes, but three or four of them turned up more often than the others. Stan made note of those faces. He also made note that, in all the images, he never saw Janie… or ‘Indigo’… use any sort of ability.

“So what was her deal?” Stan asked.

“Her… deal?”

“Yeah. I see a buncha shots of her jumpin’ around, kickin’ people in the nuts. No eye-beams or whirlwinds or lightning bolts… so, what was her deal?”

“Martial artist. Excellent physical conditioning.”

“What… that’s it? She straps on the spandex with nothin’ ta back it up but good genes and a gym membership?”

“Some people do that.”

“Some people jump out of perfectly good airplanes, too. Hmph. At least THAT’S a lot safer.”

“I thought you’d approve. People need to know that you don’t need powers to make a difference… that not every hero is a freak accident or a mutation. Normal, everyday people-”

“-need to wear normal everyday clothes and have normal everyday jobs. Hang out with normal everyday friends. Not these-” Stan tapped the plastic rectangle, which was at that moment displaying a group shot of heroes, smiling at the camera. “-freaks. Even YOU know better than that.”

Morgan looked at him.

“You don’t know anything about me, Detective Bailey.”

“Somehow I don’t see you swinging from the rooftops in your underwear, Spoonie.”

“We all make a difference in our own way. Powers or not. As for Indigo… have you seen what the average civilian… the average COP looks like these days? Look in a mirror sometime. Compared to you, being able to run two blocks without passing out IS a superpower.”

The two men exchanged hard stares.

“We finished?” said Morgan.

“Yeah,” Stan huffed. “You can leave my crime scene now.”

“You mean OUR crime scene.”

“Says who?”

“Says Trinity City Directive 113. I consult on any homicide involving an metanormal victim.”

“Metanormal? This here is a naked girl in an alley-”

“Her name is Indigo”

“Her NAME is Janie Feinburg. You said yourself she doesn’t have any powers. So she ain’t no metanormal-”

“She was one of us.”

“Hell, YOU aren’t even one of you.”

“When one of us dies, we need to do things a bit differently.”

“Why? Because you’re better than everybody else, or because regular police work is just not good enough?”

“Is this just revenge from an old enemy, or is it the start of something bigger? More anti-hero mob violence or another killer android? We don’t know… and we need to. We don’t want to be caught like that again. Ever. When a hero dies, one of US gets the case.”

“But you ain’t no cop. And you ain’t no flippin’ HERO either.”

“I’m a consultant with the full backing of your employers.”

“But you AIN’T no COP!”

“You’re the only one that seems to have a problem with that.”

“No, not the only one.”

“You implying something, detective?”

“I’m implying that there’s a dead girl here. No tights… no costume… no signs of metahuman activity… just a dead girl. I’m gonna find out what happened to her. ME. Not you.”

“I’ll be working on this with or without your help. Working together will make this go much more smoothly.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible,” said Stan. “Seeing as how we’re on two different cases.”

“What?”

“I wanna know what happened to Janie Feinburg. You? All you care about is Indigo. They’re both dead, but only one of ‘em was murdered. Until I know for sure which one that was… you’d best keep your ‘help’ as far away from my case as possible.”

Part 2: Almost Midnight.

When Trinity City opened its arms to displaced superhumans after the collapse of the Registration Initiative, the ratio of metanormals to normals went from 1 in 50,000… the national average… to 1 in 100. Not all of the newcomers wore masks and brightly colored outfits. Not all of them fought crime. Most wanted to be left alone.

But then there was the NightSide.

An eight block section of city, stretching from Folsom Dr. to Parker Rd, existed in a state of eternal darkness. Even on the brightest of days, the sun barely penetrated the massive shadow that hung over the area like a thundercloud hovering just out of reach of the tallest buildings. After four years, the Shadow remained a permanent fixture of the city, in spite of many attempts to disperse it. And beneath it, the subculture of the superciminal had risen to prominence. The city had given up on the area long before, abandoning its denizens to the street gangs. When the Shadow rose, those gangs either moved away, ‘disappeared’, or became henchmen for new, more powerful masters.

Naturally, there was resistance. Attempts to infiltrate the NightSide and find the source of the black cloud always ended first with failure, then with retaliation. After the riots of ’07, the city made an uneasy truce.. Not a surrender… but a temporary ceasefire pending ‘consideration of options’ by the lawmakers.

Thus far, no viable options had presented themselves.

Morgan Scribe knew most of this only through the newspapers he’d memorized. He was a relative newcomer to Trinity City. But this wasn’t his first time on the NightSide. He knew his way around… where not to go. What not to do.

Sitting in a parked car openly watching people go in and out of Club DarkLight was definitely something NOT to do. The owner of that club… more specifically, the owner of the secret rooms UNDERNEATH the club… did not like being surveilled.

But Scribe had a murder to solve. A hero had been raped and beaten to death. Maybe someone in the club knew something, and Scribe wouldn’t have been at all surprised if his search for the suspect… once he HAD a suspect… lead him back to this place. But that wasn’t why he was there now. He had questions, and the only way to ask them was to use himself as bait.

“C’mon,” he sighed. He looked up at the black miasma overhead. It was just after 10:00am with not a cloud in the sky… anywhere else. But here it looked almost midnight. “I’m on your turf and I know you’re watching. Come get me.”

—

Almost immediately the temperature began to drop. The chill was so sharp and distinct that Scribe could place its location. Behind him, to the right. It had passed silently through the glass of the rear window, and Scribe could feel it settle into the unoccupied passenger seat.

“Hello, Wight,” said Scribe.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The words came in an icy… and somehow distant whisper. Though the voice was clear, its origin less so… it seemed to come from an indistinct area in or near the car. Only the cold placed it exactly.

“Talking to a ghost, apparently,” Scribe replied. He glanced briefly at the passenger’s seat. It was empty, but Scribe filled it with his own mental image. It was not of his new companion, though… not exactly. No clear images of The Wight were known to exist… his very nature made it unlikely that there ever would be. But there WERE images of Franklin Waid in Scribe’s files… and since the voice that addressed him belonged to Waid, it was only fitting that Scribe’s mental picture did as well.

“Or trying to become one. They don’t like heroes here. Neither do I.”

“I had to speak with you. This is the only way to get your attention.”

“Suicide? They’re watching you right now… behind those metal walls. Trying to decide which of them they’ll send out…”

“There was a murder last night.”

“There’s going to be one here soon. Very soon, I think-”

“Indigo. Remember her?”

Icy cold filled the sudden silence.

“One of us,” said the cold. “I knew her. She was… helpful. Once. Long time ago.”

“I wouldn’t look for any more favors. We found her this morning; beaten to death and dumped in an alley.”

Scribe pictured Frank Waid sighing… shaking his head and turning away for a moment. He’d studied Frank’s mannerisms from before the accident that changed him. The mental image was likely accurate.

“Can’t say I’m surprised,” the cold said after a few moments. “Might even say long overdue.”

“Oh? She have enemies-”

“We ALL have enemies. What she didn’t have was a reason to strap on a mask and pick fights with people who could crush cars with their minds.”

“And by ‘reason’ you mean ‘power’.”

Another awkward, frozen silence… this one was shorter than the last.

“Surprised she lasted as long as she did.”

“Was she active?” Scribe asked.

“Didn’t even know she was in town. Not that I would. Unless she came here. She’s not stupid enough to come here.”

Scribe felt the cold stare at him.

“So you don’t know anything?”

“No.”

“Which, in itself, is something,” said Scribe “No one here had anything to do with it. You’d know.”

“No one in this corner of the Dark. The Russian keeps an orderly house… down there, where I can’t see them. His world and hers wouldn’t mix. Not without my seeing it.”

“This lot goes to the bottom of my list of suspects, then.”

The cold said nothing.

“Any ideas who should take their place near the top?”

“The Dark has many corners… most are not as well-behaved as this. You’ll have to crawl further in.”

“Any place in particular?”

“Abernathy Road has a history of separating men from their secrets.”

“Who am I looking for?”

“Ahh, they’ve decided…”

Ahead, the iron doors of the DarkLight Club swung open, and a single figure stepped out onto the street.

“I’ll leave you to this,” said Wight.

“Wha-”

Scribe felt the cold shift toward the window… then through it. Gone.

“Shit.”

—

Scribe recognized him instantly. He was hard to miss, and harder to forget.

William “Billy” Oberman. aka. “The Ogre”.

Scribe’s files placed Oberman’s exact height at 4’5″. Shoe inserts added another few inches… not that it made much difference. He was in his mid twenties. His height and boyish features made it easy to mistake him for a child. Since relocating to Trinity City, the Ogre had traded in his signature ripped jeans and wrinkled T-Shirt for a tailor-made suit that cost more than Scribe’s car. His normally unkempt hair was dyed black and perfectly styled. He looked like a miniature lawyer.

“Great,” Scribe muttered as he started the car. “Him. They had to send HIM.”

The ignition buzzed, but no sound came from the engine. Something was wrong.

“Ahhhh shit.” He tried again, but knew he’d get the same result. This time, he knew why. It was a new car, and fancy electronics didn’t tolerate Wight’s presence very well.

Outside, Oberman glared at him. He stepped off the sidewalk and started across the street toward Scribe’s vehicle.

“If you’re just gonna watch, DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE!” Scribe hissed, but not at Oberman. “The CAR WON’T START!”

“Hey!” Oberman called. It was the voice of a child trying to sound older than he was. “Hey YOU!”

“C’mon!” Scribe tried the engine again. It started. “Yes!”

Scribe turned the wheel and slammed the accelerator to the floor. The car screamed away from the curb and spun in a tight, screeching arc in the street. Scribe took his foot off the accelerator as the back of the car whipped around… dangerously close to Oberman… then floored it again.

The car shot forward-

“NUH-UH!”

Oberman reached for the trunk. The back of the car was just a foot beyond his fingertips. Smiling, The Ogre curled his fingers as if grabbing the cheap metal frame-

KRRNNNK!

The trunk caved in as if clutched in a pair of massive hands. The car jerked to a halt. Scribe slammed into the steering wheel and recoiled back into the seat.

“GAH! F-”

The back of the car jerked upward. The rear wheels spun uselessly. Then gravity shifted as The Ogre adjusted his “grip” and lifted the ENTIRE car off of the street. He tilted the vehicle so he could look up through the rear window.

Scribe turned and looked back at him. He had a clear view of The Ogre… legs planted firmly and arms outstretched… as if he were holding the car with physical strength instead of telekinesis. Fortunately, Ogre’s power was limited to within a few feet of his body. Inside that range, he was one of the strongest telekinetics on record… a talent that he used mainly to throw heavy objects and smash things with displays of TK-enhanced muscle.

“All Right!” The Ogre shouted up at him. “Who The Fuck Are You!”

—

“Wait…” The Ogre frowned. It made him look even more like a child. …a child holding a car in his hands. “I know you!”

“We’ve met,” Scribe replied calmly, but still loud enough to be heard. He reached into coat pocket and stealthily fumbled through the objects he found there. “Briefly.”

“You’re that guy! Hero-wannabe. Cop-wannabe. You know what happens to heroes and cops out here, right?!”

“I’ve heard. Speaking of which… Remember Indigo?”

“Bitch kicked me in the nuts! TWICE!”

“She did a lot of that.”

“So what does that have to do with me folding this car up like an harmonica with you inside it?”

“I think ‘accordion’ is the one you meant.”

“What -the fuck- ever.”

“Indigo’s dead. Know anything about it?”

“Hmph. Like I said, heroes tend to get dead around here.”

“Actually, they don’t. You spend most of your time killing each OTHER… ever wonder if that’s the real reason they leave you alone in this cesspool?”

Scribe’s fingers found the object they sought. His expression never changed.

“You talkin ta me!? I got your fucking CAR… IN MY HANDS… OVER my fucking HEAD! With YOU in it! And you’re fucking havin’ a conversation!?”

“Speaking of which, you might want to put my car down nice and easy now, Billy.”

“Billy? …the fuck? Its OGRE! OH GEE EEE AR! And FUCK YOU!”

“Fine. Ogre. Just put me down and we’ll call it a draw, okay?”

“Draw!?! I went toe-to-toe with the motherfucking Pinnacle! What are YOU gonna do?”

“Pinnacle kicked your ass. Badly. On national television. I saw it on cable.”

“Well YOU ain’t him! You’re just some spoonbender wants to be a hero. Lemme show you what that gets you around-!”

Scribe couldn’t wait for ‘The Oger’ to start shaking the car, or slamming it into the street, or just tearing it apart with giant, invisible, telekinetic hands. He didn’t really want to wait for him to finish the sentence. He had to act now-

The long, narrow cylinder slid easily out of his coat pocket. It looked like a pen.

It WAS a pen.

But when Scribe aimed the blunt end down the length of the car and pushed the button, the Ogre screamed and dropped the car. The sudden jolt bounced Scribe around in the seat. His head hit the top of the car once… twice. He grabbed the steering wheel…

“AAAGH!” Billy Oberman had clapped his hands… his REAL hands… over his left eye. He was howling in pain.

“You think you’d learn by now,” Scribe said. “Telekinesis requires concentration.”

“THE FUCK!? WHAT THE FUCK!? WHAT THE FUCK!??”

“You just got owned by a laser pointer, kid,” Scribe shouted back the instant before he hit the accelerator and sped away. “Now I got places to be.”

—

Part Three:

Janie Feinburg lived at the top of a nondescript apartment building on the east end of downtown. Detective Bailey studied the view from her living room window.

“Well this is underwhelming,” he said. “Crappy apartment with a view… of better places you’ll never afford.”

“I think its amazing,” said Annette. She pushed her thick glasses back into place with one dainty finger, then continued to gawk at the mundane apartment’s contents. Annette was taller than Stan, but thin and wiry. Stan was grateful that the uniforms milling around in the hallway were too young to know who Laurel and Hardy were.

Ann Newton was a CSI technician, but that wasn’t why Stanley had asked her to accompany him to the victim’s apartment.

“Look-Look!” Annette stepped lightly over to a scratched coffee table. “Magazines!”

“So what did Janie spend her free time reading?”

“Masks!” Annette jabbed a finger at the oversized photo-magazine on top of the stack. An overly-muscled man in a royal blue and majestic gold uniform stared out from the cover. The man looked in his forties, with the stern, sad eyes of a man twice his age. The squat, triangular symbol that should have been on his chest had been replaced with a stylized question mark.

“Ohhh, I love that picture” She wanted to pick it up. Stan could tell she wanted to… but Annette was too good of a technician to touch it, even with the medical gloves she insisted they both wear. Besides, she probably had that same magazine on her own coffee table. Along with other, less artsy fare. “I always wondered if they… you know… read their own press.”

“‘Masks’ ain’t press, it’s a vanity-rag for freaks.”

“Oh, hush you.” Annette chided. “I can’t believe we’re actually in her apartment! Indigo’s apartment!”

“You mean Janie Feinburg’s apartment.”

“Secret lair!”

Stan grunted.

“Here’s some trivia,” said Annette. “Heroes with apartments almost always live in the top floor. Or the bottom floor.”

“That’s very useful, Ann,” said Stanley. “So, this ‘Indigo’… what do ya know?”

“Ohhh, so you want to hear about Indigo now? On the way here it was ‘Janie Feinburg this..’ and ‘Janie Feinburg that…’ You don’t even like to say their names, do you?”

“Yeah, sure. Only her NAME was-”

“Everyone ELSE knew her as Indigo. The name you choose is more important than the name you’re given. Desert Son said that.”

“Mmhmm. Indigo?”

“Yeah…” Ann’s frown was in her voice more than on her face. She’d moved away from the stack of magazines and was slowly stalking the perimeter of the living room like a patron at a museum. “… I dunno…”

“What don’t you know?”

“She was never a major name, but she was always… there… ya know? Always in the picture somewhere, but usually by accident. Never the center of attention.”

“Some of ‘em like that.”

“But I don’t think this was by choice, ya know? I don’t think the other heroes liked her very much.”

—

“Oh?” Stan replied. He joined Ann in her slow tour of the apartment. “I seen pictures that say otherwise.”

“Oh come on, detective. Despite what they can do… have done… they’re people just like us. Well, most of them. They can put on an act just anyone else.” Ann chuckled. “Probably better. Definitely better. I mean… you could be working right next to one and never know it, right? Lots of people have.”

“That makes ‘em all borderline psychopaths to me,” said Stan.

“Well…” Ann had reached the hall closet. She opened it and peered inside. “Hmph.”

“Anything?”

“Nice shoes. She had big feet, though.” Ann appeared to be looking for something, but she moved on after a few seconds, leaving the closet door open. Stan followed her into the bedroom. He’d already been through the entire apartment, but he watched her take it in for the first time.

“Wow, she slept here.”

“You wanna roll around in the bed?”

“Huh? Why would I wanna do that?”

“Nothing. You were saying she mighta had enemies.”

“Well, I mean… the others just kept their distance, that’s all. They didn’t hate her. Supposedly she didn’t have any powers, right? I mean… totally normal. Not a spark; not a glimmer. Sooo… yeah, she didn’t quite fit in. But it made her stand out, ya know? I mean… she was one of US… but one of them, too.”

“If you say so.”

Ann got down on her knees and looked under the bed.

“We didn’t find any uniforms or contraband technology, if that’s what yer hunting for”

“Oh, Pshh…” Ann stood. “She wasn’t a techie. And she hadn’t worn the uniform since… the unpleasantness.”

Stan chuckled. Hero-worshippers always referred to the Registration Initiative as “the unpleasantness.”

“If they didn’t care for her before, she didn’t make any friends then.”

“She didn’t fight, though. I got that much outta spoo- uhh, Scribe.”

Annette grunted and eyed the assorted combs, bottles, and aerosol spray cans arranged before Janie Feinburg’s mirror.

“Look, Ann, I asked you out here so you could tell me something useful… not so you could hunt for souvenirs.”

“I’m not-”

“Not telling me anything useful, yeah, that’s right.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Some of this girl’s dirty secrets. That’s what you do, right?”

“Well that’s the thing about not being popular, believe me. Your secrets tend to say secret… because nobody cares enough to pry.”

“Somebody cared enough to kill her.”

“So you think Scribe is right; this is about Indigo and not Janie Feinburg?”

“I’m not stupid, Ann.”

“So why not let HIM investigate it his way?”

“Because I’m not stupid, Ann. HIS way doesn’t involve legal process… forget it. Just forget it. Look around all you want. Take pictures for your scrapbook. I’ll be outside.”

“I think you’re both right,” said Ann. Stan halted. “Indigo’s dead. But from what I can see… she didn’t die last night.”

—

“This some kinda stupid metaphor or something?”

“Kinda. But no, not really. Indigo hasn’t been seen since before the… before Pinnacle retired. This apartment isn’t a hero’s secret lair. It looks just like MINE, only cleaner. And bigger.”

“If there’s a point somewhere-”

“She was a fighter. Not even a fighter with superpowers, like SilverFist. She was just a regular person, but she was out there running with the likes of Desert Son and Lady Arc… fighting the same enemies…. being a real metahuman without an ounce of ‘meta’. You have to be in top physical condition to pull that off. You have to train constantly. You see any exercise or martial arts equipment in here? No. No weights… no home gym. There’s not even a thighmaster tucked under the bed.”

“So she worked out somewhere else.”

“No, she didn’t. Masks don’t hang out at Gold’s Gym. Here, I can prove it… watch this.” Ann’s long strides carried her out of the bedroom. She made a sharp right into the apartment’s kitchen, where she yanked open the refrigerator. By the time Stan joined her, she had the freezer open as well. “Mmhm. See?”

“What, it’s a refrigerator. So?”

“Yeah, but what do you SEE?”

“That has to do with this case? Nothing!”

“Chocolate milk… Soda…. Hot Dogs… French Fries. Ice Cream Sandwiches?! C’mon, Stan! The owner of this refrigerator hasn’t given a damn about their health in YEARS. Nobody who eats this crap is gonna last two seconds against somebody like the Harpy… let alone actually BEAT her in a fight! Do you know what happens to physically active people when they stop being active and start eating like… this?”

“Hmph…” Stan nodded. “I see your point. But there’s a big hole in your theory there, Ann. I saw the body. YOU saw the photos. That was a very healthy corpse… and that’s putting it mildly.”

“Okay,” said Ann. “Then THAT corpse didn’t live in THIS apartment.”

“Well somebody did. This place isn’t a set; somebody ACTUALLY lived here… slept in that bed, watched TV on that couch, read those magazines. That person’s name was Janie Feinburg. That’s a REAL name of a REAL person with a REAL history. People knew her. She had friends, neighbors and coworkers that cried real tears when we told ‘em what happened. This is real. The body was positively identified.”

“By who?”

Stan blinked as if struck.

“The way I see it, you’ve got a corpse, Janie Feinburg, and Indigo. Three different people. Who said they were all the same?”

“Scribe,” he growled. “Scribe connected those dots and I didn’t think twice about it. Him and his damned fancy paper. I knew it! I KNEW he wasn’t on the level! DAMN him!”

“Anything else I can help you out with, detective?”

“Yeah. Pass me one of those ice cream sandwiches.”

—

Abernathy Road was a narrow, almost-hidden spur off of Crown Blvd. The intersection was unmarked, unlit, and quite forgettable. Scribe spotted it a block away. He drove past and ditched his car in an alley. The car… or perhaps even the alley he’d parked it in… might not be there when he got back, but that was acceptable.

He slipped into the darkness and made his way back to the almost-hidden road.

It wasn’t quite deserted.

A few shapes moved along the cracked sidewalks. Those entering from Crown Blvd walked with quickly… not furtive, but clearly not wanting to be out in the open for any longer than necessary. Those returning from whatever lay at the end of Abernathy shuffled lazily… almost reluctantly. Some of them were drunk, but there was something else, too.

Scribe didn’t bother staying in the shadows. In NightSide, EVERYTHING was in the shadows, and every third person could see in the dark. He stepped onto the sidewalk. A few heads turned to regard him with suspicion… but no one stopped or spoke.

“Interesting,” Scribe muttered. He started down the road, heading away from Crown Blvd.

After one block, he heard music. Loud and boisterous with far too much bass. After another block, the number of people on the street doubled… but still wasn’t enough warrant the label of ‘crowd’. People loitered in front of a five-story building that sat at the end of Abernathy road. The building had obviously gone through several incarnations… starting as low-rent, low-capacity apartments. Some time in the past, the floor had been gutted and turned into a store or restaurant of some kind. The burnt, unreadable remnants of a sign still clung to the unlit facade.

Now it was something else.

The lower two floors were lit so brightly that they illuminated the street in front of it, turning it into a courtyard of sorts. The upper floors were… a bit too dark. More than a simple lack of lights, the windows had been boarded up or bricked over entirely.

Women in various states of undress wove through the not-quite crowd. Some carried trays of drinks. Some carried only themselves. All of them moved with an odd confidence… a fearlessness that didn’t fit the NightSide. Scribe spotted a few familiar faces among the patrons. Metahumans from his files. Some were minor criminals, others were simply… minor. None had any significant power to speak of, but even a level one could spark chaos in a gathering like this. Especially with any number of OTHER metahumans waiting to play hero. Or villain.

Scribe wondered just who or what was keeping the order here. If there were any guards, they were exceptionally well-hidden. He approached the building, wondering just how this was going to play out.

THE END (of the fragment)

—

Yes, that’s where I stopped writing. Why?

I think I started writing too soon… which is a very odd thing to say considering how much effort I spent coming up with backstory for this. But that was the problem: I know a LOT about the history of this particular world, but I knew JACK about this story.

Scribe and Stan were clearly investigating the same crime using different methods, and eventually they were going to come together and find out something shocking. I knew Scribe’s portion of the journey pretty well. He had the most interesting part. But I was seriously stalled with Stan. I BARELY got that scene in the apartment out. It said everything I wanted it to say, but it took way too much effort. Meanwhile, Scribe’s adventures flowed like water. So something was clearly wrong, and I didn’t want to proceed with what was bound to become a severely unbalanced story.

Also, I had some reservations about the world itself. If you’ve read comic books recently you’ve probably picked up on one of the recent events in the this tales’ backstory that is analogous to something that Marvel comics did not too long ago (The Superhero Registration Act, leading to the Civil War and the death of Captain America, blah, blah, blah…). That, and the plotline of the story, and even the title just seemed too derivative of comics that I had read recently. Some things needed to be re-worked or presented in different ways. That, combined with my uncertainties about half of the plot, lead me to shelve this piece.

Oh, and the name that you might have found familiar? I won’t tell… but if you go looking around the Library for it, you won’t find it. Or rather, you shouldn’t. ;)

Hope you enjoyed it, or at least found it interesting.

That’s unfortunate, as it means that there is an entire novel out there that none of you have read. Yet!

Over the years Danny and I have mentioned publishing the thing ourselves, but neither of us put any serious time or effort into it. Last year, after rescuing the files from a failing hard drive, I asked my co-author if I could just package the text in a PDF and sell it as an ebook via Paypal. We’d split the proceeds of course. He agreed, and now I’m finally bringing the (almost) lost novel to you. It’s had one final round of editing by one of the authors (me!), and it is as close to a finished product as it will ever be.

This link is to a PDF file containing the first 35 pages (or 4 chapters) of The Coming of Three. If you’ve been around this blog for a while, you my remember this previous post with an excerpt linked in it. Ignore that old link. THIS excerpt (from the post you’re reading right now) is both longer and more recent, so you should be able to get a better idea whether you want to read the rest of the novel or not. If you do, the price is just $5.00.

I haven’t set up a proper storefront or sales page yet, but I didn’t want to delay the release any further for something that I may end up taking weeks or months to do. The paypal link works, and that’s all you need.
After purchase, just follow the link back to darkicon.com, and you’ll arrive at the page where you can download the full PDF. If that doesn’t work, just email me (darkicon AT bookofdarkplaces DOT com) and I’ll send the PDF to you.

And be sure to let me know what you think of the story. If there is enough interest in the book, I’ll create a special page on the Asylum Walls for it, but until I do that you can just leave comments here.

I cannot claim 100% ownership of this one. The words are, of course, my own work. However, the story was told to me by a friend years ago. He, in turn, heard it from another friend, who claimed it was part of some government test. Supposedly, if you could guess WHY the woman killed her sister, then you would either make an excellent criminal profiler, or you were a psychopath. I have not verified the existence of such a test or the presence of this question on it, so I’m going to call it an urban legend until proven otherwise. Meanwhile, I wrote it up as a piece of flash fiction.

Just for fun, take out the last part and ask your friends if they can guess why the girl killed her sister. If they can, and they’re not a criminal profiler… umm… run?

Journal of Emile Thare of Filmon’s Field, Watchlands – Final Entry.
Town discovered abandoned two days after this entry was made.
Homes were abandoned; The streets were filled with ash.

Fewer words (35), yet this is one of the creepier ones I’ve done.

By my count, only three of you know what this one means. The rest of you… well, you’ll find out sooner or later.

The idea was for a series inspired by shows like Doctor Who and Sliders: A person or group of persons traveling to alternate universes and/or timelines. In my version, the poor main character is inexplicably drawn from one doomed universe to another. Every version of Earth (or other planet) that he visits is on the verge of destruction and, contrary to the way things turn out on TV, he is completely unable to stop it from happening. He just goes from one apocalypse to another, eventually figuring out how to “rescue” people by taking them with him, and further along he figures out just why it is happening: he is gathering resources to save his OWN world from annihilation.

Heck, with a build-up like that, you’re probably expecting a lot, but really all I’ve got is this fragment of him arrival at the next doomed Earth, after narrowly escaping the previous doomed Earth:

——–

He was flying.

The shockwave threw him forward in a surge of ash and heat. He screamed, and burning dust seared his throat as his eyes revolted at the impossibly bright light behind him. First red… then white… then a muffling blackness married to a sound so loud that his mind shut it out to keep itself whole for just a few seconds longer.

He couldn’t hear the screams. Not his. Not theirs.

And if oblivion meant that he would keep on NOT hearing them, then he would welcome it. He wanted it to take him. He wanted the blast to take him and chew him to burning cinders because at least then…

…at least then, he could be sure.

And as the heat tore at his back, his final thought wasn’t of the screams, or the blast, or the horror he was leaving behind.

He… was…flying…

Flying!

And then he was somewhere else.

The ravenous heat yanked back suddenly like a dog at the end of its leash. Blind, deaf and breathless, the stranger was on the ground for several seconds before he realized he wasn’t moving… wasn’t dead.

Wasn’t flying.

Blistered fists clawed at the grass. Grass? What madness was this!? What… MADNESS!?

As the black silence receded and the sleek, mechanical shapes slid toward him from beyond the hill, the stranger knelt in the grass, raised his head to the sky and screamed.

[END]

Not much, I know, but I figured I’d share it anyway. For the record, in the world he just left, humanity was being systematically hunted down and annihilated by their own war machines (Robots evolved from smart-bombs. Cross a Dalek with a Terminator and put a nuke in its chest. I called them Incinerators.). The world he just arrived on was due for an alien invasion.

I gave up the idea the first time because it was TOO much like Sliders (although much darker). I gave it up the second time because I just had other stuff to work on.

…Oh, what’s it about?

Well, the entire series is a pretty heavy epic involving three main characters. Each is a member of one of the three main “factions” of their kingdom: Warrior, Mage, and Cleric. The interplay between these factions forms the basis of society, and there are certain matters of history that some (or all) of these factions would do anything to keep hidden. The characters, unintentionally at first, and then on purpose, start getting involved in some of these secrets and pretty soon there are a lot of people (and other things) that want them dead.

That’s the gist of the series as a whole. The one novel that we completed is an introduction to the world, the factions, and the characters. The three characters become members of their respective factions, and, like the factions themselves, find their paths interwoven as they are forced to deal with a common threat: A horde of invading dragons.

The Salesman

It was the car that caught her eye. Mercedes. One of the old ones… from back when they were the domain of people who actually WERE rich, rather than those who were merely trying to look the part. This one was in remarkably good condition… at least as far as she could see in the dimly lit hotel parking lot. It was evening, and the car had just rounded the corner from the hotel lobby. There was only one passenger that she could see.

The man who got out of the car was likewise of classic vintage, although he had apparently taken better care of the car than he had of himself. He was tall, but the beginnings of an old man’s stoop had lopped half a foot off of his stature. He didn’t walk with a cane, but the distinct limp in his gait told her that he’d be using one in just a few more years. His hair was white and thin… he’d held onto it longer than a lot of other men, but now age was snatching it away in fistfuls every year. What he had left was styled conservatively.

Amanda watched the man wrestle an overnight bag and a garment bag from the back seat. He’d parked right in front of his room, avoiding the need to drag his belongings across the parking lot. Still, he didn’t seem to be having any trouble with them until he reached the door. There, he dropped the bags and launched into a brief fit of coughing… covering his mouth with one hand while fishing the plastic key-card from his shirt pocket with the other. The dry coughs ended with a loud, wet hack… a contemplative frown… and then a smack as he swallowed down what he had coughed up, licking his lips afterward as if he’d enjoyed a tasty snack.

She watched his face as he fumbled with the keycard. It was a soft face. Old and wrinkled, but it was the face of a nice man… a mama’s boy all grown up and on his own.

His eyes, though… his eyes were a different story. They were small and sunken, like two black marbles dropped into flesh-colored pits.

Those eyes gave her pause, but when the plastic keycard slid into the slot, she saw her opportunity slipping away. She looked behind her, nodded, and then moved in.

“Hey mister,” she said as she stepped out into the open. She hadn’t been exactly hiding, but she doubted the old man had seen her as he drove past the dark rear corner of the hotel. She announced her presence before she got close so as not to spook the old mama’s boy. “Mister?”

The old man turned and squinted at her.

“Hmm?” he said. Friendly… not suspicious. Good. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah,” said Amanda. She turned up her natural southern drawl. This man was from out of town. Out-of-towners loved the accent. “Look, I’m really sorry to be approaching you all sudden-like. I don’t mean you know harm; I’m here with my little girl.”

Amanda moved to one side so the old man could see the girl standing a few yards behind her.

“My name’s Amanda and that’s Lucy. She’s ten. She’s my little angel.”

“Hi,” said the child. She gave a very slight, very brief smile, then averted her eyes. Perfect. The old man stared past Amanda, but couldn’t possibly have seen her daughter clearly… not from the way he was squinting.

“Me an’ my girl been livin’ on the streets since Katrina,” Amanda proceeded.

“Ahhh,” the old man interrupted. “I’m sorry; I don’t give money. I’m really sorry.”

Amanda paused… not because she wasn’t expecting this; she’d heard it a thousand times. But because the old man actually sounded genuinely apologetic. He really WAS sorry.

That was so… rare.

“I don’t want yer money, mister,” said Amanda. “I’d take it if ya offered; I won’t lie about that. But that’s not what I’m askin.’”

The old man looked at her expectantly, glancing past her at Lucy every few seconds. The girl hadn’t moved, but Amanda stepped closer… well within touching distance.

“Look, we just wanna use your room,” she whispered.

“P-pardon?” the man said, half-shocked.

“Not to stay,” Amanda added. “Just the shower and the nice soaps they put in there. Just a shower for me and my girl, that all. Then we’ll be gone and won’t ask for nothin’ else, I swear.”

“That’s…” the old man thought for a moment… and then a few moments more. He wanted to do it. He just had to convince himself that it was all right. “…I don’t think so,” he said, tentatively.

“I tell you what,” said Amanda. “You let me and my daughter clean up nice in your room…” she continued in a whisper. “…and I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Worth… my… ?”

Amanda undid the top two buttons on her dirty blouse and pulled it open just enough to display her smallish breasts. She wore no bra, and there was a chill in the air.

“I know I don’t have much,” she said, “But I can make it real nice for you while my daughter’s in your shower.”

“I see,” said the man. He glanced only briefly at her exposed assets.

“I see yer travelin’ by yourself; you must be lonely. Just this once and nobody needs to know. What happens in New Orleans stays in New Orleans, you know how they say. Just let us use your room.”

“I’m… not interested,” said the old man.

Amanda pulled her blouse closed and looked away, embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, I thought… you bein’ by yourself. I’m… I’ll leave you alone.” She started to turn-

“You misunderstand.” The old man’s voice halted her. He hadn’t said much, but Amanda had grown accustomed to the soft, apologetic mama’s-boy voice that he wielded with such charm. But that had changed… now he addressed her in a hard whisper that was almost… sinister. “I’m willing to help… but you’re not offering what I want in exchange.” She watched the old man’s sunken eyes glide to one side until he was looking past her left shoulder. She glanced back to see what…

Lucy.

—

She apologized to her daughter.

Told her that this wasn’t what she wanted… wasn’t the way it was supposed to work…

But it was necessary. People in their situation did things they didn’t want to do all the time because they had no choice.

It would be over soon. And she would be there. Mother would be right there the whole time.

The old man… his name was Claude… made Amanda carry his bag into the room, then closed and locked the door behind them.

“Bathe,” he said, giving a dismissive wave in the general direction of the bathroom. “Girl first.”

Amanda glanced at Lucy, and nodded. The little girl scurried away.

“You didn’t seem surprised,” said the old man as he unbuttoned his shirt. “Must not be the first time.”

“Yes,” Amanda snapped. “It is.”

“Not mine,” he replied. Claude wore a plain white T-shirt beneath it, which he pulled over head. “Guess you can tell that.” He undid his belt and pulled it completely out of his pants, the trailing end making a flapping sound as it came free of the loops. He dropped the leather strap on the floor in front of him, then looked around the room.

“Small room,” he said. “I’ve stayed in hotels where the rooms were larger than most people’s houses.”

“I’m happy for you,” said Amanda. She sat down in an uncomfortable chair against the wall. On the other side of the wall, the shower began to run. Lucy was getting cleaned up. Getting ready. Amanda’s eyes never left the old man’s. “Must be nice to be rich.”

“It is,” he replied. “Although, the illusion still gets in the way sometimes.”

“What illusions?”

“This notion that some people have… especially in ‘civilized’ countries… that not everything is for sale. Clearly it is. Although not always for money. That little illusion gets in the way of so many things. It’s very annoying. That’s why I prefer the third-world countries. THEY see things a bit more clearly.”

“That why you come here? Hurricane turned New Orleans into a playground for rich sickos?”

“This place always HAS been a playground,” said Claude. He undid his pants and let them slide to the floor. “Your little hurricane didn’t change things as much as you like to think. Another little illusion.”

Claude hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his undershorts, then paused, smiling.

“Tell me honestly,” he said. “Is this really the first time? HER first time?”

Amanda didn’t answer.

“You have the demeanor of someone who’s going to back out at the last minute,” said Claude. “The outrage… is that an illusion, too?”

“Money and a room for the night. Cash. That’s the deal, right? Cash and the room?”

Claude nodded. Still standing by the bed with his thumbs in his shorts, he looked like a kid striking the “Superman” pose for his smiling parents. But instead of an “S,” Claude’s chest was inscribed with liver spots and wild white hair. It was hideous.

The shower in the other room stopped.

“So, about that cash…” said Amanda. She stood up. “Show me, or she comes out of that room full clothed.”

“Of course.” Claude picked up his overnight bag and dropped it onto the bed. As he rummaged through it, Amanda stepped around behind him.

“Here-“ he pulled his hand out of the bag just as Amanda pressed the stun gun against his pale, mottled hide and hit the button.

The metal prongs latched onto Claude’s flesh with 15000 volts of low-amperage agony. His whole body spasmed, and the roll of 100 dollar bills he’d been retrieving from his bag went flying across the room.

“AGG!” Claude tried to scream. Amanda kept her finger on the button, and the stunner continued to bark a rapid “clack-clack-clack-”… each sound sending another jolt into the old man’s kidney.

Claude’s ancient knees gave way and he hit the floor. He was still jerking and spasming… and pissing in his shorts… when Amanda hit him with the stunner again.

Again, the old man tried to scream, but couldn’t quite pull it off. His body was trying to move in eight different directions at once… and it was trying very, very hard. All control over-ridden by the random shocks from the device, Claude’s muscles contracted and released with no pattern or coordination.

When Amanda took the stunner away, he kept trying to move… but it was obvious that he wouldn’t be able to for some time. He couldn’t even breathe… and his attempts to do so were growing weaker instead of stronger. It looked like he was dying.

Amanda hoped so. It would save her the trouble.

“You think I’m stupid?” Amanda spat. “You think I’m gonna whore my baby out… or myself… for a goddamn shower!?” Amanda knelt beside the old man and held the stun gun in front of his eyes. “Not ALL of us were looting televisions and sixpacks. Some of us were thinking ahead. And to think… I was gonna let you go. I liked your face; you looked like a nice man. A mama’s boy. But you wanted to deal. For a KID!? For a little GIRL!? MY little girl!? Uh-uh. No. No free pass for you; you get the same as everybody else… only worse.”

Amanda stood up and kicked the man in the face. She didn’t expect her sneakers to do much damage, but she did feel the man’s teeth give way. Either that, or she’d kicked his dentures loose. She rolled the old man over and brought her foot down on his windpipe in a hard stomp…

…and she kept her foot there, putting all her weight on it. She was a small woman, but he was old and was half-dead already. His sunken, perverted eyes glared up at her and then rolled up in his skull. She applied her weight for a few more seconds, then stepped back.

Lucy came out of the bathroom. She paused when she saw Claude. She took a step back, then stared at her mother.

“I’m sorry you had to see it,” said Amanda. “But like I said: some things can’t be helped. I’m sorry.”

Lucy shuddered. This was her first time. Usually she waited outside while her mother took care of things… but this time the man had wanted HER. And there he was. Dead. Right there on the carpet.

“Snap out of it and get that money,” Amanda pointed to the roll of bills resting on the floor near the foot of the bed. Near the body. “Get it.”

Amanda dumped the contents of the old man’s bag out onto the bed and began searching through them. She tossed the clothes and toiletries aside, but there was another roll of bills which she quickly pocketed.

“Damn, no laptop!” she hissed. “Who doesn’t have a laptop!? Stupid old man!”

She eyed the garment bag on the floor. If there was an expensive suit in it, she could sell it for more money. But was that worth the effort? Probably…

She stepped over Claude as Lucy knelt down beside him and reached under the bed.

Amanda felt her ankle snap at the exact instant that Lucy screamed. For an instant there was a surreal juxtaposition… as if Lucy’s scream was her OWN. But it wasn’t-

Reality returned as a waves of razor-sharp pain jolted up her thigh. She looked-

Claude’s fingers were wrapped around her ankle… or what was left of it. He had squeezed it with such force that the bone had not just snapped, but had SHATTERED in his hand like a glass vase. Her dainty foot dangled loosely to one side, connected to the rest of her leg by pulped tendons and screaming nerve endings… both being shredded by shards of bone stabbing outward from the old man’s iron grasp.

Amanda inhaled to scream, but the old man twisted and pulled. Hard. What little breath she had managed to draw left her lungs as soon as she hit the floor. Hard carpet over concrete didn’t make for a soft landing, but all Amanda could feel was her foot being pulled OFF of her body with a wet crackle.

The world turned red. …then white… then she was looking across Claude’s almost-naked body at her daughter, also on the floor… also with one of the old man’s impossibly strong hands clamped to her leg. He had grabbed her right calf, and naked the ten-year-old was kicking him in the face with her bare left foot as hard as she could, as fast as she could.

“Mama! Mamaaaaaa!” she screeched.

Strength surged back into Amanda’s body. She couldn’t stand, but she didn’t need to. All three of them were still on the floor, and she managed to throw herself toward Claude. An instant later she was on top of him, clawing at his back. Claude jerked his elbow back-

CRACK!

And suddenly Amanda was looking at the hotel room from very far away. Dazed, but still awake, her attempts to peel the skin off the old man’s back became a meaningless finger massage. He shrugged her off.

Helpless, she watched as Claude sat up. He released Lucy, who immediately tried to scramble away… but he suddenly lunged forward, like an alligator surging out of the water to catch its prey.

He threw himself across the girls’ body; his hairy chest smashed against her face pinning her down. Lucy’s screaming continued, but they were muffled and weak. Sticking out from under Claude’s side, Lucy’s legs kicked frantically. The old man didn’t move. It looked as if he’d died on top of her, and for a second Amanda thought that he had. His head, shoulders and legs drooped as if his entire body had just let go.

But they KEPT drooping…

Amanda watched the old man’s back grow wider, the flesh of his belly unfolding around Lucy’s struggling form. His shoulders snapped and fell out of place, moving to either side as his chest caved inward, forming a yawning mouth that stretched from the bottom of his throat to the middle of his gut. The old man’s white boxer shorts split down the back as his buttocks went the way of his shoulders… spreading and flatting until they were just lobes of flesh fluttering down around Lucy’s legs.

Too dazed to feel either pain or horror, Amanda watched the scene… and Claude… unfold before her with just the barest hint of nascent curiosity. Something deep inside her was still trying to fight its way back to reality, but if THIS was what was waiting for her there…

Lucy began to twist, scream, and fight-

Then Claude’s body pulled itself back into shape with a sudden snap. Lucy…. who’s upper body had been engulfed in that horrible second mouth… suddenly stopped moving.

And then started again, legs kicking weakly as she tried something… anything…

Claude relaxed once more, his body spreading out around her… and then-

CRUNCH!

A shape leapt out from Claude’s back. At first it looked like he was spawning some kind of tentacle, but no… it had fingers. It was Lucy, reaching out from inside the man-thing’s torso. The fingers spread, the arm jerked back and forth as a mewling animal sound began to rise-

Amanda reached out… but she was too far away to do anything but look at her own bloody hand.

“Noooo…”

CRUNCH!

Lucy’s struggling died instantly amidst the cracking and snapping of bones.

The thing that had identified itself as Claude continued to expand and contract sharply… a motion that Amanda, to her horror, realized was… chewing. The Claude-thing lurched upward once, and Lucy’s legs were sucked underneath him, where they too vanished into the vertical mouth that had sprang open along his torso.

Trembling… Amanda just watched.

—

Later, when “Claude” finally stood, there was nothing left of Lucy except a pool of blood and bits of flesh on the carpet around his feet. The mouth that had consumed Amanda’s little girl was gone. In its place was a ridge of bulging, misshapen flesh. Claude was a good ninety pounds heavier now, and the stomach that contained his latest meal was stretched to such a capacity that it stretched his entire torso like a giant tumor. Claude himself looked younger…. His face had regained the mama’s-boy look that his older self had only hinted at, albeit strongly. His hair was brown now… not white. Liver spots and wrinkles were replaced with young skin covered with smears of even younger blood.

The eyes were the same, though. Sinister eyes. Inhuman.

Claude looked down at himself and was apparently not pleased with what he saw. As he frowned, the bulging gut pulled itself in with a long gurgle and a series of wet crackles, restoring his torso to something close to human proportions.

Then he began to get dressed. The clothes he had taken off no longer fit… so he donned new, larger clothes that he’d brought with him in the garment bag.

“You saved me a lot of trouble,” said the Claude thing as it pulled on its trousers. “And for that, I thank you. Walking the streets… finding a whore with a child… convincing her to take me to her home, or to bring the child to me. That’s how it has to be done these days. At least here, it is. All of that takes time. Time that I can now use for other things, thanks to you.”

Claude didn’t bother buttoning his outer shirt. He left it open as he gathered the contents of his bag that lay strewn across the unused bed.

“That was not the way I prefer to feed,” he said as he packed. “But you did take me by surprise. No one has managed to do that in a very long time. I wonder what that means…”

“You… you… ate… my baby…”

“Oh yes. I did tell you, didn’t I? Outside? I told you that I wanted to eat your lovely daughter. But you probably mistook my meaning for… something else. But then, you had no intention of fulfilling EITHER meaning, did you? There was a time when a whore was content to be a whore. Now they aspire to be bandits and brigands. Still…”

Claude looked around and found the roll of hundred dollar bills that Lucy had been trying to retrieve when she… when he…

He picked it up and tossed it in Amanda’s direction. Amanda was laying on her side, weeping, bleeding and trembling as she settled deeper into shock. The money landed on the carpet near her face, just below her chin.

“Payment in full, as promised” said the thing. Claude picked up his bags and walked out. “Do enjoy the shower.”

————–

So what do you think? Too dark?
Nah, I can definitely do darker, especially given my state of mind in recent years, but it didn’t quite fit with the REST of what was to follow.

And was WAS to follow?

I had an idea for either a novel or a series of short stories about a group of immortals. Each one was immortal in a different way. One guy just lived forever. Another one was reborn as an infant when he died. Another just hopped into the closest fresh corpse whenever his current body died. This guy here had conscious control over his body and could make it do whatever he wanted (like live forever), but the power was fueled by feeding on children. Literally. There were quite a few others, but I can’t remember them now. I don’t know what the actual STORY was going to be about, but it involved these immortals plotting against each other.

Incidentally, the guy in this story is not a new character. I’ve had him in my head for years. He appeared briefly in Crusade, and has been mentioned once or twice in that series. Although I don’t remember what I called him there, in my head, he’s simply the called the Pedophage.

Now you know why, when people ask me what I’m thinking about, I just shake my head and change the subject.