My blog fiction is a week late, but hopefully not a dollar short, whatever that means.
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DARKENGING
STURGEONS
Chapter Fifteen
By John L. Harmon
Chief
Deputy Clyde Woodhouse slumps back in an office chair, located in the back of
Gordon’s bar. He then gracefully fills
the pervasive silence with an F-bomb in all caps.
“Indeed,”
Dr. Samuel Dwyer concurs, nudging up his thick black-framed glasses. He stands to the left of the seated Clyde.
“Single
entity or multiple as one?” Dr. Christine Abernathy speculates out loud. She stands, hands in lab-coat pockets, to the
left of Sam.
Upon the security
camera monitor, they have just witnessed the apparent death of Gordon. The bartender of many years had literally
been polishing his croquet mallet this morning when he noticed something off
camera. Gordon sat his mallet down and
moved to center frame.
That is
when it happened. A darkness emerged
from the side and grabbed him. Lifting
Gordon off the ground, this darkness enveloped him, externally and internally,
until he was no longer visible. Then
nothing. The darkness dissolved or
dissipated into the air, leaving an empty bar.
Clyde
swivels the office chair to his right, “What do you think, Ben?” He is startled to find his superior
absent. For a split-second, he panics
that the unthinkable has happened.
“I noticed
Sheriff Straker head to the restroom,” Christine coolly diffuses a complete
Chief Deputy freak-out.
“This was
probably too much for him to see,” Clyde states, standing up. “He considered Gordon a good friend.”
Sheriff
Benjamin Straker stares blankly in the bathroom mirror at his haggard, dirty,
bloodied reflection. He attempts to
recall what he had been doing Saturday morning, before Bob Kinney had
disappeared. Before any of this
craziness started.
He
remembers he had bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast, but no toast. Then there was a shower and dressing for
work, like clockwork. That was his
morning. Clockwork. Extraordinarily ordinary, everything in its
place.
What was
he thinking about on that ordinary morning, before hell came to Sturgeons? Other than typical thoughts about what little
things needed to be done, he only recalls thinking about Saturday night. How he was planning to watch a movie at home
or finally finish the Dostoyevsky novel that had been holding down his coffee
table for months.
“What is
the point of all of this?” Ben asks his reflection.
Out of
thoughts to think, the Sheriff notices that he continues to wear the hat of
Lawrence. He reaches a hand up and,
without looking, flings the beige across the room.
At the
same moment, the bathroom door creaks open.
Ben turns to the sound, expecting Clyde, but is somewhat startled to
find Dr. Samuel Dwyer standing there.
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