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*work in progress. no current title* chapter 5 |
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~I walked out to find Celeste working on what appeared to be her fourth cigarette. She was leaned against her truck and trying not to look at anything. I was sincerely hoping she wouldn't smoke on the way to Mary's house, but I couldn't stop her if I wanted. She was doing me a favor so I had no right to complain, but I'll be damned if it wasn't going to suck. ~"What took you so long?" She didn't even look up from whatever she wasn't staring at. ~"Well, you did tell me to get cleaned up." ~She made one of those exhasperated sighs and flicked her cigarette away. ~"Get in the truck." ~I got in the truck. She closed her door a little too hard and started the engine. The truck quivered to life and started it's gentle chugging. Celeste backed up and sprayed gravel as she pulled out. ~"Alright, Browning, spill it." ~Myself, being as confused as I'm sure I looked, replied with a witty, "Huh?" ~Her patience was riding thin with me. It showed when she nearly yelled back, "The People of Sekhmet, you idiot!" ~There are a lot of weird things in the world. Some have been hinted at in modern mythology and horror films, but not the things that can be really scary. The mummies weren't one of the scary ones. Mummies didn't eat human flesh or drink blood. The didn't try to steal your mind or consume your soul. All they really wanted was to be left alone so they could deal with being the risen dead. I was about to make that very difficult for them. ~Mummies in general aren't too bad to be around as long as you can stand the smell. The conversational gaps from their memory loss can be funny sometimes, but the mummies probably won't get it. Compared to the darker things, mummies were downright friendly. ~The list of dark things I was aware of was relatively short, but the ones I'd heard about made me want to curl up in a ball and cry for my mommy. ~By the time we'd arrived at Mary's place, I'd told Celeste the greater majority of what the mummies had been up to. I threw in some false leads and half truths, but I doubt Celeste knew the difference anyways. ~The house we pulled up to was beyond abandoned. Apparently the record keeper of Mary's file had neglected to mention the lifestyle Mary Shepard followed. It was a one story derelict structure with naked trees in the front. The roof had caved in on the left side of the house. Every window had been boarded over and painted blue. ~Painted blue? Why paint the window boards blue? Interesting. ~I got out of the Toyota with a could of secondhand smoke following my departure. The front door had dry vines growing over it, and there was a bare patch of oak where the knocker had fallen off. The crunchy leaves that strew about the yard seemed to have piled up and taken refuge here in the shelter of the door's shadow. ~I knocked as loudly as I could, three sharp raps on the door itself. I listened as I waited. There was a cat inside. Three rats, too many insects to really count, and one rattling, creaking, old human. I drew in the world through my nose and found that the front door was also blue, but it had been painted over with white. The cat was black and had mated recently. She'd be having kittens in a few months. ~The old human was female. Gray hair turning white. She had an oxygen tank somewhere that wasn't on, and she was a smoker too. Two in one day; this was ranking right up there with a prostate exam. ~One of the rats defecated and I nearly gagged on it. Damn rodents never did know any decency. ~I heard the chain on the door and a heavy bolt sliding out of the frame port before the knob turned and the door cracked open. It was dark inside, but I could see her eyes, fading with glaucoma, just below the matte that was supposed to pass for hair. Her voice was cracked and didn't want to be used. ~"Whaddaya' want?" ~"Hello, my name is Simon Browning. I'm a private investigator. I'd like to ask you a few questions about Mary Shepard." ~Her eyes widened with surprise, and the the anticipation came thick in my nose. Anxiety and anticipation are similar, but I'd learned the difference between them. ~"Didja' find Mary, mah Mary?" ~She knew who Mary was. That was a step in the right direction. ~"No ma'am, I haven't found her. I've been hired to find her, and I need to talk to you so I'll know where to look for her." ~A breath escaped her lips in a rattle as I watched her fighting not to cry. After a minute or so, she sniffed and invited me in. ~"I'm sorry, ma'am, I've got a personal rule to never enter anyone's home while I question them. No offense meant, it's not your fault." ~The truth was, every time I went in someone else's house, I felt a need to mark the territory as mine. People find it real odd when I get up to pee every five minutes. ~"Okay, just lemme' get mah gown." ~She vanished into the blackness behind the door only to return a moment later with a shoddy blue robe wrapped around her aged frame. She was shorter than me by half a foor at least. Her gray hair going white was tied back, and hadn't been washed in days. She smelt of dried tears and corn chips with a slight undertone of peppermint. ~I got my notebook out and opened it to a semi-clean page. The grocery list I never had enough money to finish buying stared up from the opposite page. Damn. ~She lit a long thin cigarette I didn't know the name of. It smelt of peppermint, assuming you could smell past all the smoke. ~"So how's this gonna' work?" ~I pulled my pen from my pants pocket. ~"Well, I'll ask you a question and then you answer as best you can. I'll write down everything I think will be helpful. When I'm done asking questions, I'll say thank you and leave. Is that okay?" ~I sounded so official I shocked myself. It's kind of hard to be official dressed in dickies and a t-shirt. ~"That's fine." ~"Okay. What's your name?" ~"Beverly Christine Shepard." ~"What is your relation to Mary Shepard?" ~"She's mah daughter." ~"Do you know a Mr. Edward Long?" ~"Yeah, I know 'im. That a*****e's the one that took mah Mary, I jus' know it! He was pissed when he found out she din' keep his kid." ~"What happened exactly?" ~"He found out somehow that Mary had aborted the kid. Well he comes over here an' tears mah place up, screamin' and yellin'. Kept sayin' he was gonna' kill'er. He beat her 'til I had ta' call the cops and then he ran off. Ain't seen 'im since. Then two weeks ago she disappears. Called the cops, and they ain't doin' anything. Damn pigs." ~"Do you know where Edward lives? I'd like to have a word with him." ~She told me. It would be a five minute drive, so I doubted Celeste would object too much. I was betting Edward wouldn't be home. ~"Do you have a phone number where I can reach you if I have any other questions?" ~"Yeah, but they cut it off yesterdee. I been puttin' all my money into findin' Mary, and I ain't paid the bill. I'll go do that t'morrah so you can call me if ya' need. Here's mah business card." ~She handed me a 'Mary Kay Cosmetics' card. I never would have guessed she'd be selling make-up. I took the card and put it in my notebook. ~"Thank you for your time." ~And I left.
LifesEndlessSorrow · Wed Oct 11, 2006 @ 12:56am · 0 Comments |
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