The Cloven Black Part Two

by Adam Steele


This is the next part in The Cloven Black Serialization that I've been working on. Enjoy

Enter the man with the doctor's bag

Victor Mason came into the small town on that morning when he heard about the incident that came to him within one phone call. He took the 3:30 Bus from Allisburg, Wyoming that took him almost three days to get to the Midwest. He kept to himself most of the ride before being accosted by a woman named Sheryl Reese when he looked out the window in the middle of his venture to the small town. She is carrying one large suitcase with some clothes coming out the cracks in stiff bunches when she kept her sunglasses on her face, looking for the best seat on the bus when she came across Victor Mason that wore a light jacket, three gold chains around his neck, and two collar piercings in right ear, turning his head and seeing the beautiful blonde arriving to the empty seat that is next to him.

"Is this seat taken?" She asked for a voice of a woman in her 30's when she bumped the suitcase against her thigh.

"No," Victor Mason replied when he moved his old doctor's bag from under the empty seat to under the seat that he is sitting in as she placed the suitcase on the stowaway over Victor Mason's head.

The bus hissed when she sat down, pulling out her phone when she looked at the front of the bus like it was going to separate from the frame.

"When do you think this bus is going to depart?" She asked Victor Mason when he shrugged, moaning his I-don't know in singularity.

"I have to get to Welling before tomorrow morning." She spoke moreover to herself when Victor didn't pay attention too much. He vaguely kept his attention on the doctor's bag when he looked down from time to time; making sure that it is intact when he started to get into the scene that is unfolding around him.

He saw the small group of people in the back of the bus when he eyed them then saw the little old lady in the front of the bus when he looked at the texture of her fabric that is on her shoulders. She is wearing tatters in sorts when the woman next to him tries to make conversation.

"Are you a little uncomfortable in that chair?" She asked the younger gentleman next to her.

"No, I've been sitting here most of the day." He made eye contact with her when he noticed that she has bi-colored eyes, one blue and the other one green when he made a second look to make sure that his vision is not going.

"Do you live here in Dansburo?" Victor felt the compassion in her eyes.

"I was born here in Dansburo. They have a lot of bars with a lot of men talking how big their sticks are."

"So that doesn't mean that they are nice men?" Victor asked her when he reached into his pocket, fetching his pack of cigarettes when he realized that he is on the bus that is about ready to depart. Damn, he can't smoke in here when he placed his cigarettes back into his pocket.

"Most of the time; this place is only for the people that live narrow lives. I can't take people like that. It always drives me up the wall." She made a disgusting face that made Victor smile by just looking at it upon side-profile.

"Do you come from places like that?" She asked him when he remembered being in the far planes of existence, up in the mountains of the tundra regions of Alaska being taught by the elders on the provocations of his skills of what he must do.

There is a lot of evil in Alaska, so much of it that he cannot talk about for the people that live up there, drinking almost to death on their homemade swill and their depression in the land that is always cloudy and never sunny, always cold and seldom warm. He remembered the cold that chilled him to the bone by just thinking about it.

"I had my time of isolation. Have you ever seen Kung Fu?" Victor Mason smiled when the overweight bus driver hobbled back onto the bus like someone has just stolen the money from the bottom of his pockets. He looked at the people on the bus before sitting down on his springy bucket seat, pushing the button to close the boarding doors when he geared the bus and drove out of the parking spot in the middle of nowhere on a rest stop that could be forgotten in the rearview mirror.

"I didn't know that kind of isolation. I'm talking about the isolation that I want to scream out. No one would hear me though with their own lives. It almost feels like pity when I talk about it, I'm sorry." She shook her head when Victor Mason chuckled a little.

"It's no fuss, I assure you. I have a lot of people in despair in my life but they get over it." He looked out the window when she looked at her with some sort of bemusement on her complexion.

"What about, what kind of despair are you talking about?" She asked him when he thought up a casual lie and thought it up quick.

"I work on the psyche of people. I work on their state of mind to get them back on even keel again." Victor looked at her before looking back out the window again when the bus traveled onto the intersection with all the cars traveling with the bus, slowly going to his destination. He wondered how long does his state of mind could be stable before he gets to Michigan.

"So are you a psychologist or something?"

"That is putting it in vague tones."

"If you are who you say then why you are on this bus then,"

Victor eyed her again, looking at her bi-colored eyes when he made a smile so slightly.

"I work on the road and find the answers along the way. It's better to be on a bus so I can hear stories from others about certain ideals." Victor thought of it, being truthful to the stories of others that he heard that are truth or tall tales - it's always a heads or tails sort of preference.

"So, you do keep certain things confidential."

"For a stranger that is sitting next to you, who else would be interested in one story from one person that they have never met until day one in their lives to speak to other strangers that they've never met."

"Wow, you are smart."

"Thank you but I use a lot of hindsight."

"Okay, so tell me what it is that you do directly?"

Victor thought another lie that came deep within his mind.

"I help people on the road to many roads."

"So can you help me if I ask?"

"I can only give guidance. It is your life that goes with it."

The woman shifted in the seat when she looked at the suitcase that is over Victor Mason's head.

"I haven't given you a name, have I?"


"So can I name myself some name to suit?"

"Go right ahead." Victor shrugged.

"My name is Jenny. Can I talk to you why am I on this bus?"

"Go ahead. I can't tell other people." Victor looked at her before looking at the front of the bus.

"The reason why I am on this bus is because people blame me for something that I cannot control."

Victor sees the old lady sitting near the front of the bus in ratty tatters as the overweight bus driver veered the bus into the lane on the right, gliding the bus like butter across a hot pan. The day is blue and sunny when Victor thought for a couple of seconds before answering very carefully.

"What is it that you've done exactly?" Victor asked her, moving one of the gold chains on his neck when Jenny thought for a moment as well, looking at her feet like they are about to become transparent through the floor.

"They accused me of doing something awful when I was working for a charity drive a couple of months back. I didn't do it when the money came up missing."

Victor didn't say anything when he paid his attention to the back of the bus, thinking of the phone call that he got from one of his higher-ups that are stationed in central Europe from the call that they got to a town that he had never heard about. Victor wondered how he got the information when he thought of the last venture that he had dealt with as he stayed in the cold of Minnesota as the winter winds took the land by force. It was never sunny and it was always cloudy as the sun hid behind it like a trick that won't come into full circle until the dawn of spring when all the snow is swept away in the middle of North America.

He remembered that venture when he had to clear a small town that turned into a ghost town in a week when he arrived. He remembered their faces before he did his rightful duty that is just so.

"It was $627. That's all it is. Every time it happens they always find a way to accuse it on the person that doesn't keep their own weight when it comes to confrontation. I tried but no one believes me. I want to tell them that I am not a thief but they always believe the others that are really stealing from them and blaming it on me." Tears started to fill from her eyes.

"I'm tired of the people in Dansburo. I'm so damn tired of their ways." She started to shiver in the seat when Victor tried not to dig into his nails. He always picked his nails when he is nervous, that is his knack and a bad habit at that.

"Why are you leaving then? Why don't you stand up to them?"

"I'm not strong enough. I never was." She shrugged, not looking at him when somehow she felt less than a woman. She felt like a creature that is casted out from the Land of Oz when Victor tried to find a way to soothe a person that he just met.

He doesn't even know her personality by far which is most troublesome.

Later that night when the bus made a stop in between Dansburo and Juliet on rest marker 87, Victor made an adjustment before he went to sleep (going to the restroom to do his business and buying two bags of Nutter Butters from the vending machine that has seen so much vandalism that he was surprised that it barely works). He wondered back onto the bus when he sighted the woman that he was sitting next to when he made an adjustment with the doctor's bag that is under his seat. He tried his best not to wake her when he sat down and looked at the many streetlights that are coming in through the window from the parking lot that is not so far in distance. The lights are encumbering in blues and oranges through the blissful night when he went back in his dreams to the times that are less pleasurable that coursed through the nightmares that plagued him so.

He went back, hoping to wake up from these dreams when the sound of the horn blurred him out of his troubled sleep altogether.

The morning after the get-together

Cassidy Marco talked to her mother in the early morning hours before the sun came up. Her mother knew about the school closing down when Cynthia Angro - Cassidy's mother explained that she is up to her eyeballs in work that is keeping her up from sleep. There are dark circles under her eyes and the color of her skin is getting a little pegged that is far from being in the color of healthy.

Cassidy on the other hand remembered last night when she kept what she knew about Brad Owens in the back part of her mind, noticing that his skin is ice cold when he said that made her feel impossible of ever hearing about it when she tried to wrap her head around the fact that he is something that is only myth and folklore. When she knew that she heard the truth, she knew that she is in a heap of trouble when she couldn't sleep at all as well when she remembered the first murder, Porter Clancy that was walking his puppy dog in the middle of the night after being woken up from a peaceful slumber.

The puppy dog persisted when he woke up from a comfortable dream, wiping the sleep from his eyes when he arrived to the side of his bed for the last time, looking at the wall with the many lines upon it when he wondered, just wondered where his life is going when the little Doberman Puppy barked to be let out, to walk so he can do his business. Porter hated his job for a young man of 25 after he did his stint in college, deciding he didn't like it too much when he dropped out with a GPA of 3.4. He didn't understand what going to college meant to him when he knew after he graduated; he was going back to his day job working boring jobs for $11.50 per hour. He noticed that there are little strands of gray growing in his hair when he looked into the mirror, seeing the last of his youth drain away in his reflection when he wondered in depression how he is going to get out of this crummy town in one piece.

For that, he realized that he is a loser with no aspiration of anything when he went to work, being bored with the job that he does most of the nights as the minutes ticked down to another day and another way. He bought a dog to keep him company but it is doing very little, so little that he wondered about living in general anymore.

The night wind shook him to the bone when he opened the sliding door on the side of his house, casting his senses to the night where there is not even a cloud in the sky as the temperatures fell into the upper 30's. The dog looked at him with some sight of relaxation when it barked, jumping him out of Porter Clancy's sleep-state when he told the animal to shut up and keep it down. The dog didn't back away in submissiveness when he closed the sliding glass door behind him, leaving his house for the last time as well when the night turns victim to another death with the dog missing and his body found sprawled underneath a tree in the park town commons with no trace of blood left in his body. The meat cutters did their trick on the final examination autopsy that took a long time.

No one ever found the Doberman Puppy again when the doctor at the scene did a brief autopsy on his own, finding that the body was anemic before death. He induced a blood culture on the body that is on ice in the county hospital that hasn't seen funding so much in the last 8 years or so. He couldn't get too much out of the body when he wondered how a person would be alive on so much blood that was lacking. This baffled the doctor that has seen other current cases like this before when he drew out another idea of finding the same marks on the body but in different places that occurred in odd areas. What he found on the first victim, Kim Watson is small protrusions just above her forearm when he concluded that to be some sort of insect bites. From what though, what kind of insects would do that to a person with the bites so lateral in their separation from each point of protrusion?

The doctor spent almost the entire night looking up this similar of occurrence and found nothing that jogs his appetite to conclude the protrusions as much when he went to sleep for about less than an hour and got back up with his back sore from that damn chair that is in his office study that is way beyond comfort in use. He took a shower before heading back to the hospital when it became just another day in this small town, fixing up scraped elbows and correcting bones back in their position of where they were broken as he didn't see another incident like the one that was so bizarre for the next two nights.

In two nights, it happened again when he got the call at 4:22 in the morning, shaking him out of his sleep of a sex dream he was having with one of his co-workers when he forgot about it less than 30 minutes later. He arrived at the scene after the officer arrived in question, casting the same scenario of an end-result that the doctor heard before when the doctor checks the pulse of another victim by the name of Tyler Bonnehue that is found dead in the gutter on Westerdamn Street, overlooking the house that lived Brice Sampson that went crazy one night and killed all of his dinner party friends with an illegal automatic rifle that he purchased on a Black Market Site that has been on the Government's Checklist Radar for quite some time now.

The doctor that is named Dylan Mays felt the presence of evil from that plain two-story house when he couldn't keep his back to it for the longest time, looking at the body of Tyler Bonnehue, shaking his head to the sound of the wind that is catching up a cold spell in the land that is slowly turning over to frost by the end of October. Dylan felt it in the air when he reached to grab a cigarette, forgetting that he stopped smoking four years ago.

Cassidy Marco on the other hand didn't know about the other half of the town's happenings that concurred with similarities that is not revealed to her. However, the other half of the truth is the missing piece to others that have a spout of wind about it and never questioned it any further. They kept their rational fears in check by not talking about it at public places for better most of their sanity.

Cassidy Marco saw the eerie shade of sleepless that is cursing her mother when Cassidy noticed that she was gone again before she even realized it, being left alone as the sun slowly came up over the horizon that made orange, umber, light purple colors on the upper banks of the sun that is slowly peaking over the horizon in a silent hello to a once darken part of the world.

She knew the truth when she asked for proof when she felt like not getting on her computer for today to check the assignments that the school has offered her on a daily basis. She couldn't wrap her head around the fact that Bradley Owens is the creature of the night, the stalker of evil among the living, a damned creature with no soul in question to the need of the living for him to feed off of. She knew that in the first time in her life that she had ever witnessed the dance of the dead upon the ball that happened the night before as her mother asked her where she went last night and why wasn't she at home as this problem in town got more and more maddening to the point that some people are leaving.

"I went over to a school friend's house and talked for a while, nothing more." She lied to her mother with that stern pride of conviction that stabbed her in her own heart when she knew that she lied to her mother with the proof that is not real for anyone to believe it.

The sun came over the horizon which started a new day in a town that is small and meddlesome with some interesting stories that rove around it like a stitch that is hard for it not to become unraveled. These small stories are as follows in the common guarantee that is almost funny and mundane in a small town world.

The Town, the Fang, and the Warrant between the Two

The living wake to the day of many days;

Luna Sangren opened the doors to the Lady Amore Café at 8 o'clock every morning, rain or shine, sleet or mist. She is a woman that is going onto her fifties now when she felt her back taking the toll on her meagerness of getting tasks done that are needing to get done. She dyed her hair four times from red tint, sandy blonde, auburn, and lastly lavender tint that made purplish tendrils on the ends of her hair whenever it shines in the light correctly. The sun came over the land rather slowly when Luna unlocked the door to the café that is in her family name, keeping the door closed since the air is getting colder in the fall that is getting deeper and deeper into the phase of the early burden of coming winter.

There are light glints of frost on the car windows this morning when the temperatures dropped a little past the freezing point. Luna felt the pain in her back getting close to unbearable when she decided to go to the doctors to have it checked out when she waited for another day as the first hour of operation of her café is always deserted, so deserted that it made her look at her laptop to see what kind of goodies that she can buy on Amazon.

When the first customer came in on this morning with his breath being a little out of sorts, he sat down at the farthest seat from her, keeping to himself when he flipped his attention to his phone with a distasteful look about him, like he ate a bad muffin that is giving trouble with his digestion.

Watch out girl, Luna thought when she sauntered towards that table with her apron wrapped around her waist.

This guy might be a golden ticket asshole.

"What will you have today?" Luna pulled out her ticket book from the depths of her apron pockets. Her expression is a tad pale, like she had been up a couple of night with very little sleep. The man on the other hand looks chipper with a chip on his shoulder though.

"I'll have a Frappuccino with a hint of Pumpkin spice, please." He didn't even look at the little ticket menu that is perched up in a plastic display in the middle of the table when she wrote that down and left the man without speaking anything more.

She went around the bar and peered into the window, seeing Kaila Vans meddling with the bags of coffee styles that are on the pallets in the back part of the kitchen area.

"Kaila, order up!" She spoke in a drone-like voice when she clipped the ticket onto the round-about and twirled it around, leaving the window, feeling her steps being a little light and slow when she felt her back giving her problems more than usual.

There were no other customers for 39 minutes with the man minding his own business, probably working on some organizational plans for an agricultural firm or something in Wabash County that is in the lumber business more than the latter. The sun came up over the horizon now at the same time as Cassidy Marco thought about the actions last night like a revolving door that came around and revealed a horrible scene that she cannot calculate in the inner recesses of her mind. It is shame that Luna Sangren didn't know about the hidden events of truth that were going on around town when she heard from a couple of people that there were too many young deaths happening in town. Then she heard of something else from an elderly couple about a strange town-wide pandemic that is affecting people, making them wonder about the connection to the odd sorts of people that are having odd parties up at the mansion on the hill if that had anything to do with anything at all.

She heard about the out-of-towners up on the hill when she met one of them when she closed up, doing the invoices, paperwork, and till-counts on one register before locking up in the night, going to her car when she spotted someone with clothes that are not varied to be common from around these parts. The person that she spotted wore a top hat with a red band around it, like the people that wore these hats in the most part of the 19th century. The corduroy buttons on the back of his long European jacket design shone little with the black-on-black color as it dangled down to the man's worn-down but impressionable boots. The tufts of white hair puffed from the brim of his top-hat when he looked around for any other signs of life before tipping his hat to her and placing it squarely back onto his head like a greeting that is ancient as time since.

"Gentle and gracious evening to you, gentle soul; do you mind giving me giving your horoscope?" The man cantered with a grin that is charming and odd in a state in the lateness of the hour. Luna realized that it is cold as well when she felt the chill in the air.

"Uh, no;" She says in bleak eeriness, like her voice has somehow morphed into a cat's meow that has the tendency to speak in the correct tones. Why is the man standing there in this late hour? Is he waiting for something or is he another odd person in the night? A lot of creeps come out in small cities by the handfuls. So many that it made her nervous be just even thinking about it.

"Oh you must! It is a charming evening to brighten a soul that is so at hard at work during the day. You must reconsider!" He jumped gaily to the reassurance of his own words. The grin is still there upon his face that is so white upon the night. The brim of the top-hat is casting a dark shadow upon his eyes when Luna felt something that she hadn't felt in a very long time.

I don't feel the pain in my back anymore. I feel great as I was when I was 23. I feel great!

"Okay," She spoke with her heart leaping in her chest; feeling scared of answering this odd fellow.

"I'll bite."

"Oh sure but the answers might bite you if you are not careful." He smiled with slender indulgence when he quietly walked to her with his boots not making a sound on the tarmac of the parking lot. She placed her possessions in her Dodge Intrepid that is rusted around the back wheel wells when the man in the top-hat came forward, tending to the expression of deep thought and sullen happiness, like meeting a lost friend in the middle of this enlarged hustle and bustle world.

"Okay, but first your hand will suffice." He fettered his hand from the darkness that is getting darker indeed. The nights are longer than the days in the Midwest of America during the late fall and winter months. The days last about 9 hours but the night last about 15 hours since the sun goes down quarter to six in the evening and rises around 8:30 in the morning. Luna felt the pressure of handing over her hand when the man in the top-hat caressed it with his spindly hand with his long nails looking sharp at the tips and ivory in the shade of the lights that are burning in the middle of the parking lot tarmac.

He traced his fingernail along the lines are crossed, branched, and mending along her palm when the man's grin broke down into a stony stare that is perplexed in thought with his eyes darting from the edge to the beginning of her wrist when he made a grunt that jumped Luna out of her stare at the man's eyes. His eyes are so dark? Why?

"You are not born from here, are you?" He spoke to her like he is hinting on a very deep secret.

"What - what kind of horoscope question is that?" Luna felt the chill of worry on the back of her throat that is getting dry with each breath.

"Don't be worried. I will get to your meaning in time. I have to dwell further. Let's see, you were born in Nebraska to a pig farmer that had a nasty temper about him. He liked to drink a lot poison tonics that poison the mind indeed." He was not grinning anymore when he closed his eyes and breathed in like smelling a freshly scented flower in the middle of a field in a New Zealand scene that is close next to heaven.

"How do you know by looking at my hand?" She started to shake in her broken down shoes when the man in the top-hat paid no mind to her quarreling.

"I know. I'm really good at this. You came from there after attending to a two year college and had some trouble keeping a various and sturdy roof over your head. You finally had a lucky break when you found out about a couple of investment bonds that was left in your name that was transferred from out west. The person that transferred them is your best friend by the name of...Corinna Passins. That is her name."

"What is this?" She broke her hand from him.

"What are you selling me for? Why do you know so much about me that only a few people know?" Luna back away from the man with her eyes open wide and her mouth agape by the tremors that are going through her body now in perpetual fright. The man only stood his ground with a stony expression upon him like the wisest of people ever to know way too much than necessary.

"I know something that you don't know. You should really go to the doctor before it is too late. I'm really sorry. However, I can make all of it go away." His grin reappeared slightly when he whisked his hands into the unknown that is in his jacket somewhere.

"You're something sir, but you are nothing more than a bad excuse for a human being!" Luna retreated to her car and jumped in like a cat, starting the engine and speeding away from the man that is still standing there, looking at her taillights with that same expression about him. He still smiled when the car left his vision and his senses altogether.

"Such a shame for a working woman like her to go to waste," He spoke to himself when he waited for his counterpart to arrive from the second floor landing of an apartment. When the man in the top-hat got to the point of boredom, he is accosted to his counterpart that swayed down the steps that are behind the horoscope one in the top-hat in the darkness of the alleyways that serve the arteries of this town and all of its working wonders.

"How goes it, Cossivus?" The man in the top-hat stood high towards the other with a top-hat on his head as well, wearing the same attire as the other that is standing in front of him in eerie reflection.

"The boy put up a fight, Cassivus. But I tamed him. Soon we will have the army that we will pine for." Cossivus granted his stick that is hung to the side of his leg when he gathered it from his clamps and unraveled it like a broken branch that reversed its strain, becoming whole and sturdy with just one flick of the wrist.

"Shall we go see what the night holds, Cassivus?"

"Let's Cossivus,"

They went into the night with their top-hats bouncing upon their merry heads, leaving the lights behind them as the night enfolded them into the scent of gratitude.

Luna kept driving through the night with the stars twinkling overhead and a mild draping of frost on the corners of his windshield when she did a final repose of turning on her defrosters in her car. She looked at the rearview mirror from time to time to see if anyone was following her.

There wasn't but one pair of headlights in the distance that she can make out when she dropped her gaze from the mirror and continued to drive through the scene that she has seen many times before. The pair of headlights followed in the distance when it kept its speed in check as the red followed the living towards home that held no sounds in the late fall months but the sounds of silence in the woods that goes onward into creatures that render there in silence in the eternal night.

Luna in the time of now looked at the dawn that is coming up over the land of the town, seeing it through the windows of Lady Amore when she sees the customer sitting in the table next to the door, doing something on his phone and being out of possibility to the world when the bell dinged at the serving window.

Kaila set the Frappuccino on top of the wood as she disappeared into the darkness where there is no light to be found but the light that is over the table where the drinks are concocted. Luna felt like she was in one of those westerns with the town slowly drying up. She felt like the last establishment in the world in this town that is still running when she brought the Frappuccino to the customer that didn't give a damn if she was there to begin with when he didn't say anything, drinking his cup that he didn't mind when he looked at his phone like he is in a trance.

We leave this scene and go down the road a spell to another place that makes dog food in a little facility that was owned by a cabbage cropper a very long time ago. The place started as a trading outpost for crops that pulled many people from various counties to trade or sell other crops for food or materials to make paper, tables, spoons, etc. etc. The land was young at the time when the cabbage cropper by the name of Paul Vicks kept the invoices on all the trading and selling supplies in his office, locked away by the skeleton keys that dangled on his key ring when he heard about a cave somewhere in the land that is filled with treasures beyond existence in the measure of wealth that he so desires.

Still, he kept his business in check when he found a woman by the name of Winona Breen and had a couple of children that grew into fine men and women when his age got to the best of him in years. When he finally got the courage to find this cave before he got too old to do anything about it, leaving his trading and selling business to his eldest son when he went out to the place that his father talked to him about the cave and all the riches that were left by a couple of bandits that used to roam the land, robbing stagecoaches by swords and pistols to the point that the marshals placed a hefty bounty upon the bandits heads. All of them died with the exception of one - well, that is what the myth calls for it when the man that is now an old man set out to find the treasure in a forgotten place where there is nothing but a cemetery in the midst of all his fruitions.

Over time, the trading outpost changed hands (not in the family affair, the town reminds you) to a textile mill that caught fire and almost burned to the ground in the late 19th century. The building was abandoned for quite some time before the late mayor by the name of Barney Westerny wanted to propose better property tax incentives around town and decided to build the place back up to its prestigious height. It was finished before the fall of the stock market in 1929 when many people out east were falling from their windows to their death from the loss of everything in a gamble that went fast and burned out like a longing star that burned out more than millennia ago before it reached the earth atmosphere. What the place was going to be is a school, provided by the shares in question from certain people that hated to air their dirty laundry in public. Barney Westerny behind the PR smile and all the glamour of goodness was really not a man of living in the moral code when he bribed, swindled, worked with the people that illegally shipped the booze across state and even interstate lines when the money flowed in and all the money that he can assure himself in procuring.

Before he had the tendency to spend that money, he died with a harsh infarction that made him keel over in his three layered cake in his own dining room, leaving the money stored all over the house that no people ever finding it. That is the mysterious burden of possessions that are left behind when people move into old houses - in good or in bad pretenses. Some people find it and some people never have the consideration of ever finding it when they leave the matters to the winds of change as the house settles on the property for a little while longer.

The school was almost 3/4th's of the way completed when the times shift into the seams of industry, changing it into some industries that come and go by the dozens when at this modern time. It has become a dog food making plant where Corky Zuth has worked for quite some time, hating the fact of working in a place like this where it is slower than dirt and he has taken more breaks than ever before in his life. He sat underneath the shade of the exterior awning, smoking a cigarette while watching the swath of cars come into town and out of town when he kept his personal matters to himself. He has been a man of character, a man of honor, and a man of reason. He knew about the inflammation of death that is covering the town like a black veil when he kept that to himself, noticing that Ronald Carmichael hasn't come to work in the past three days, calling him back and getting no pick-ups on his cell phone.

Corky wondered where in the hell he is when Sheryl Durst came out with a cigarette dangling from her mouth with her eyes bloodshot from the lack of sleep she has been having. Her baby has come down with something of a fever for the past couple of days when Corky pulled out his Zippo lighter and accosted her with a flame from it.

"Thank you." She moaned, puffing smoke out of her nostrils when she spat something out of her mouth, probably a tobacco bud or something.

"Warm day," Corky thought when Sheryl nodded her head when an eighteen wheeler came by the place, rattling the windows of the plant like they are about to blow out from the back pressure.

"You said it."

"Makes me feel like gardening," Corky rubbed the bruise on the back of his hand when he stood for the longest time without speaking before finishing.

"It makes me feel like missing home in this place."

Then he figured that Walter Brock didn't come to work either when the leaves on the trees continued to fall in the woods past the town that held only the woodland beasts and the power lines that are so lonely in the middle of the Michigan Woodland that hummed their odd silence in a town that is changing, slowly changing.

The scene changes when it arrives to a run-down car making mail deliveries around the place when it hazily lumbered up the road on its bald tires on the front and a spider crack upon the windshield. It stopped at the secluded spots across from houses, delivering the amassed mail of bills, junk mail, magazines that people subscribed, and some materials that make her shakes her head when she placed the materials in the mailbox with no discrimination and went to the next one that is on her route. She drove down the road with the radio on in mid-volume, counting the beats on the steering wheel when she moved her hand into the bag to place the correct mail in the box that is accounted for the address in the little plastic window of the envelopes. She drove and did her job, drove and did her job, drove and did her job when she came to the house near the end of one road, that being a three-storied house that looks like it hasn't been resided since Ike was president.

The panes on the windows are dirty and the shudders are coming undone from the faded paint that is flaking off the wood when she looked at it, wondering of something that she shuddered when she pulled the mail out of the satchel that is upon the driver's seat when she wondered who is living in the house? The mail is addressed to this house when she placed it into the mailbox with no discrimination as she reads the name that is giving through the plastic window of the envelope, never knowing the name before when she drove in silence, thumbing the radio off when the shocks on the back of the car felt like they are about ready to give out.

The Lady Amore Café closed that night, the dog food place that is built upon criminal intervention worked 24/7 and the person that supplied the mail went home that night to expense a couple of beers while watching DVD seasons of Knight Rider with each belch coming out every five minutes while David Hasselhoff colluded with Kitt about the local intentions of solving the episodes plot in an hour setting that is reduced down to 48 minutes without commercials. The Mailman - or Mail Lady mind you kept to herself when somewhere in the night, a scream erupted in the distance, followed by the barking of dogs that went on before that sound snuffed out as well in a violent squeal like a pig being lead to slaughter.

This is the small happenings of the town as the dead awaken for another night to consume more of the living.

The Family Dinner

Brad told Cassidy. The word is out when he sat down at the table at the head with his mother on one side and his grandmother on the other side. They are not old by mortal sight but young when Rick Anderson sat a little down from the table, the hostess who drove the 1987 Chevy Monte Carlo SS a couple of nights ago with Brad in the backseat and Cassidy in the shotgun seat.

She smelled so sweet which made Rick almost sore of not sharing her. He didn't even fang her yet, turned her into one of them. Rick wondered what in the hell is going on with such a Risk when he drunk his wine that is imported from Amsterdam that was bottled over two hundred years ago. Rick felt the twinge of nothingness on the mind when he finally asked Brad.

"So, what is the deal with the human girl anyway? You know it's risky on our plan to take this town for ourselves."

Brad didn't say anything when he looked at him across the table and drunk his own portion of wine while the clock behind him still ticked on this endless life. Mother looked at Brad then looked at Richard when she smiled at the sight of this pressure. His grandmother on the other hand kept her leisurely pleasures to herself when she piddled with her steak that is on her plate.

"We don't have to worry about her. She made a promise." Brad replied after a long pause when he started in on his own steak tar-tar. The knife that he has is ever so sharp when he cut into it.

"Promises to a bunch of creatures like us; I don't believe that for a thousand years." Rick nimbly narrowed his eyes to the dark corner of the dining area when Brad laughed a little, dropping his attention to his grandmother that is sitting on the left of him when she asked her if she is okay.

"Good as ever. I can't believe where you got this steak from." She spoke like a person who is excited for having such a treat, even though she is lost in her own world.

"I got it in town with that guy - I can't remember his name. What is it - his name has some weird slur to it. I think its Norwegian but I cannot for the life of me remember." Brad cocked his head when he cantered to waive his hand in the air, ceasing all existence of remembrance when he waited for the next indication to come out of Rick's mouth.

There is nothing else to be said between them on this subject. However, his mother brought up something that made Brad's eyes raise worries about Cassidy.

"Why don't you bring her over for dinner sometime? We should have a talk about her and her interests after school."

"I told her that she should talk to you and grandma. She could learn a lot about us and our affairs being here." Brad placed his hand under her chin when he thought about it for the longest time.

"If that is the case then I want you to promise me that no harm will come to her."

His mother and her own mother looked at each other, probably talking about it in the senses of their minds before finishing it and then looking at Brad with both of their heads nodding almost simultaneously.

"Okay, then I'll set up the arrangements."

Rick on the other hand made an expression at him before finishing off his drink, setting the glass down next to the plate that is already cleaned off. The room is dark and the night is still young. It is the night of terrors and evil. It is the night of darkness that is plagued upon the land.

Later on, Brad stood at the open window with the curtains fluttering, casting the full moon into the room when he asked upon Cassivus and Cossivus that slid through the open window like shadows upon the night that is so light and the land that is so miasmic.

"What news do you have with the extensions in Europe?" He asked Cossivus with the top hat perched upon his head.

"Only the reports that we get through the mailbox, we try to get the news out through the net but some twerp in Asia likes to hack into anything we throw in cyberspace. We have to keep in the wind for now." Cossivus started to look worried when he looked down on the tips of his boots.

"There is a mass coming and it is darker than anything we've seen before."

"Right so, I can see it for miles around." Cassivus added in when he flushed his hand into his pocket and retrieved a blunt that he lit with the influx of his mind doing the work of the flame. He has the fire and Cossivus has the intellect. They too are a working pair in progress.

"I know. He has awakened. It is time to get to work." Brad sighed when the wind blew over the land, rocking the bald limbs a little when the night is so long and the world is so black.

They too don't know even the half of it.

Victor's Odyssey

This is the events in Victor's course, keeping a journal in check while writing this down on a date basis:

March 21

Got off the bus from Allisburg, Wyoming and departed the woman by the name of "Jenny". Took the bypass by foot and came into a restaurant named, "Homer's". Ordered a double cheese and bacon and talked to the guy who owned the place behind the counter. I saw no residuals or anything out of the ordinary with the guy so I "kicked the can" with him before paying the tab. I couldn't believe the bill for bacon, double cheese. What are the odds that franchises are killing off the small business world with prices like those? I continued to walk from town, passing by a homeless man with bloodshot eyes.

I didn't know if he was homeless so I gave the man $5. It's more than the price of a wooden stake. That is the cost of being in a new land with no reason to be here in the first place with the exception of the phone call that I got from one of my council people that keep tabs with the world order.

I heard there has been a disturbance in the Midwest and I need to find the exact point of when this happening has taken place.

I have the funds of finding a Motel somewhere to get some sleep after cleaning the fabrics on the bed at the laundry mat so I can sleep in peace. Somehow, I can't get to sleep with the horrors that happened in Alaska when I was a teenager. I can't find the peace to sleep.

March 23rd

Went to the pool table hall on a street place named Crawley, dealed a guy for a ten spot to see who will come up on top. Not a bad match actually but I did get some insightful news about a new group of people that moved into town that goes by the name of The Blake's. Now I was figuring that the Blake's are some sort of name that I rendered back in the passing discretions of my mind. I came up with nothing though when the game concluded and I had to pay up with the ten-spot.

That hurt my wallet a little bit when I looked at the man, trying not to see a flake of him being controlled. God only know what is going on in this town or how much this happening has spread. I could only go back to the motel and think this through. Who is the Blake's really? They did move into town when I got the report from some advisor that is in town - being stuck here, somewhere in this small hick place. I tried to call him on a pay phone that I found in a foyer area of a store and got back with nothing but a call not being re-routed. Where in the hell is the guy anyway?

He's probably been made and that will get really difficult for a man in a position like this one. The Blake's is living in a three story house somewhere here in town. I have to know more without someone hinting me off that I'm in town.

For an association that has been hunting their kind since the death of Jesus Christ when their existence has begun, it is hard to get around without prying into businesses where they could be watching.

They use humans to spy on other humans that don't like their kind. That is why they still exist.

I went to sleep and took two tablets of Melatonin and it took almost two hours to kick in, watching the many lights come into the room from the headlights that beam outside that dance on the ceiling like the imagining inscription of The Northern Lights in the regions of Alaska that dance along the winter nights that is the longest night in the history of the year.

I remember the thirty days and remembered the bag that I stowed away in the closet for such little time when I used it on those nights when the certain happenings went up in the many small outpost divisions in Alaska. I used the bag and did not weep when it is done. Then the pills kicked in and I was off in a daze before realizing that I was asleep for such little time.

March 24th

Came across a mail lady driving a real P.O.S. that she uses for her mode of service; she asked me that she had never seen me before and I told her the truth of my whereabouts, coming from out west when I was working in one of those textile mills to pay the normal bills, working a normal life with the consequence of horror that drove me to drink until I blacked out from time to time. She is a sweet thing, moving her hair over her ears when I wondered if she wanted me sexually before I came to the point that I thought maybe, "What the hell, I could use a good lay in a place that snows six months out of a year."

I took her out to drink that night and she is really desperate for it when we arrived back to her place and started in what she wanted from some man for so long. She got down on her knees and took no hesitation of unbuckling my belt when one thing led to another and one thing led to another. I left her house in the middle of the night, only wanting to get a lay so she can kill off her depression for another couple of months. I moseyed back to the motel, remembering to flush the used condom down her toilet in retrospect, proceeding to mark another name on the town that is slowly widening in the gap that is getting less space on the paper and more space of gaps that are filling in my head. I remember a game that I used to play when I was a child called, "Connect Four" where you place little checker pieces in a plastic, hollow contraption and see if you can connect the same color that of the pieces that is being used. If that person wins then the board is wiped clean with the slider on the bottom of the plastic contraption when it is triggered, dropping the checker pieces all over the table. I lost some of those checker pieces when I used to play, wondering where the hell they went. I would go through the entire room trying to find that one colored piece like an obsession, forgetting to look into the vents. I keep the lamp light burning on the table that is serving my source of investigation, along with the crossbow that I bought at Gander Mtn. for about six hundred dollars.

It's a little down-gradable but what in the hell. I could do nothing better than a crossbow that I've used for a very long time now. It is better than a rifle and a lot lighter too. I wonder if the landowner at the front desk knows that I have a string compressed weapon in my room.

Just to be sure to hide the crossbow and this journal from now on so no one could find it.

March 25th

Still searching though like the lost cookie in the back of the cupboard. Still searching and looking for answers while I put little on his entry as possible. Came across a girl one night when I strolled for answers while he hung around with a man of her age and another man driving a late cheese grater of a Monte Carlo - you know those SS ones before they dropped the Chevrolet Line for a few years before picking it back up again in the late 90's.

I knew the two men from here when they casted their eyes of red all over the place, making their mark true for their kind to be here in the Great Lakes Region. So it is really true when I went back to my motel, thinking of getting one of those storage containers so I can set up a milling station, a stash locker, and all my entire possessions of hunting inside of it. I shouldn't procrastinate soon for there is work to be done. But what bothered me is the girl when I saw her, hoping that she noticed that they are the children of the night when she jumped in the car in the back seat while the other gentleman that didn't hold the ownership of the "whip" jumped in the shotgun seat when I felt the slight thrill of wind on my face as the tree limbs cracked and crossed each other overhead.

I knew she is a human when I see no trace of red in those eyes; the redness of lust and bloodletting that struggles for hunger that is bled upon the land for those creatures.

That night, I went to sleep like a baby when I posted a cross at the head of the bed that I nailed. Where the nails go are the same nine-inch nails that are emplaced on the Savior when he was nailed to that cross against sin that is only questioned by the eyes of two religions that killed a person out of the sake of being a "third" in the world.

They didn't succeed as the religion is formed as I go to sleep, noticing that the headlights blurred into the window of this long night. I only had nightmares that are unfolded onto me when the ball got rolling for this town that is in much trouble as I feared.

(Conclusion of Part Two)

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