(no subject)
Story number two here. My least favorite out of this years work, ah well.
Cameron Funk
Ten Page Story
ENGL 4310B/ Josh Russell
Funkrockheaven@yahoo.com
Pooka Day
It was dark out; the clouds from the swiftly growing storm had covered the nearly full moon with an effect that would have been impressively spooky had anyone important been outside to see it. Raindrops were already making themselves known, though it’d be a few hours before the storm really got itself going. It wasn’t a good night for traveling, but inter-neighborhood forays would probably be acceptable for a while. Parents were spared having to console cranky, candy-starved children in half-applied costumes cooped up in the house all night. Instead, they were treated to hyper-active, candy-high children in half-removed costumes who wouldn’t be ready for sleep for hours. Those of an agricultural persuasion had taken in the last of the crops earlier in the day. As the storm started to pick up speed, sensible people were getting warm indoors, or had holed themselves up in parties that would continue well into the next day, November the first.
It would be argued by many who knew him that Doyle was about as far from a sensible person as you could get, and so it would surprise them very little to find him trudging along through an abandoned field in middle Georgia, in the middle of what was now a full on thunderstorm, on Halloween night. He was wearing a heavy oilskin cloak- the kind with a great big hood to keep the rain off- that was just barely appropriate attire considering the holiday. It was clearly giving him trouble. Every few steps the beam of the flashlight he was carrying would become erratic as he raised his hand to push the hood up out of his eyes. His other hand gripped a short knobby walking stick, which he used to frequently test the ground in front of him for rabbit holes. He spent some time walking around the field in a slow spiral, turning his flashlight this way and that until he seemed to be more or less pleased with his progress. Stopping at the center of the field he swung a knapsack out from under the cloak and hurriedly pulled out an over-sized zip-lock freezer bag, a thermos, and a small plastic bowl from inside. He hunched over the bowl, using his body to shield it from the worst of the rain, and filled it with milk from the thermos. Opening the zip-lock bag next, he pulled out a small loaf of bread and began tearing it into pieces, tossing it into the bowl along with the milk. Stowing the knapsack back under his cloak, he sat down on the muddy earth and turned off his flashlight, settling in to wait in the rain-splattered darkness.
After an hour he was still waiting patiently.
An hour after midnight would find him becoming just a little impatient.
The rain started to let up around three in the morning. Doyle frowned and started to reach out to dump the contents of the bowl, when something batted his hand away with a cautioning swat. He stood up, fumbling to turn on his flashlight. Aiming toward the bowl, he scowled at the sight in front of him as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. A young man lounged in the mud of the field, though neither the rain nor the mud seemed able to soil the pirate costume he wore. He seemed to be the center of his own little universe of calm style as he sat there, grinning hugely, picking bits of disintegrating bread from the bowl of milk. A tri-cornered hat was perched on one knee as he ate; exposing perfectly disheveled, black hair that shone in the weak light and slightly pointed ears. The beam of the flashlight caught his eyes just for a moment, causing them to flash catlike, first deep, dark green, then bright yellow under the beam.
“I know that you’re a real stickler for tradition old man, but honestly, if you ever want to get a hold of me in the future, I have a perfectly serviceable cellular plan that went to waste tonight.” The boy shook his head and lapped up a mixture of crumbs and milk from his fingers.
“We both know you wouldn’t have showed up otherwise, Eric. I always have to break out the old tricks with you.” He shifted in back and forth in his seat, clearly uncomfortable in the wet mud. “Just how long were you going to let me sit out here waiting for you to show yourself?”
“Oh, not much longer; just about as long as it took me to get all the way out here. I was in fucking Atlanta, Doyle. At a party. You took me away from good food and excellent drink. And well, even if I did swing that way, your ugly ass is no substitute for the girls I was chatting up.” The young man shook his head and finished off the bread and milk, looking stylishly sullen now that his meal was done. He began to fastidiously lick his fingers clean with a sandpapery sound. “Damn stupid holiday if you ask me. No one over here even leaves out crops for us anymore; you’re stuck in the past man.” He paused, licking his lips. “Nice bread though.”
“Count yourself lucky that I haven’t spread word around boy. At least you know that I know what I’m doing. How’d you like to have drunken new age teenagers calling you up all day, asking for all kinds of useless crap?” There was an edge of threat in Doyle’s voice as he sat on the wet ground in front of Eric. The boy held up his hands in mock terror for a moment, then rolled his eyes and put his head on its side.
“Just what exactly has crawled up your ass and died? Not that you were ever Mr. Cheerful at the best of times, but hell. You’re threats are usually a lot more…empty sounding than that. That’s just plain cold.” He recovered his grin quickly enough, and a match flared in the darkness as he lit a battered, hand-rolled cigarette pulled from behind his ear. “Trouble at home is it?”
Doyle ignored the question, pulling his staff from the loose earth. He gathered up his things and watched the boy puff away; both the lit tip of the cigarette and the match glowing warmly despite the rain. “Alright, now you’re just showing off.”
“Hey man, it’s my day. I can’t think of a better time to let everyone know how awesome I am.” Eric laughed quietly to himself as he started to walk out of the field. Though his costume included knee high leather boots, the only tracks he left were large paw-prints in the mud. “Let’s get out of here, ‘s raining cats and other smaller cats, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“My car’s the other way” said Doyle, nodding toward the distant points of light that marked the highway. “You don’t plan on walking to Atlanta, do you?”
“Fuck your car mate; it’ll be here in the morning. And no, I don’t fancy making that walk when I don’t have to. We’re gonna take the fun way.” He grinned, showing pointed canines.
“I can’t help but be reminded of some of your other “fun” ideas in the past. Am I going to regret calling on you tonight?” And yet he followed the other man through other muddy fields, to the edge of the forests that hemmed them in.
“No doubt you will, by the time we’re done with our bargaining. I promise though, that our method of travel will be minimally traumatic. It’s not as if you’re a stranger to poking around old tombs.” He laughed at his own joke, leading Doyle to a massive oak set aside from the rest of the trees, ringed by overgrown toadstools. There was a man-sized hollow set into the western face of the trunk. Scowling, Doyle lifted his flashlight, but the beam did nothing to light the space inside, though it shouldn’t have been more than a few feet across. As the beam moved about, it did pick up on the frayed remnants of knotted ropes than hung from several of the lower branches.
“Christ, you dig up one graveyard and suddenly you’re some sort of ghoul. It was bad luck the guy I was looking for was in the last grave I checked. Not my fault that they hadn’t properly cared for the headstones over the years. I was going to put everything back too…but it was starting to get light out and I almost got caught by the caretaker.” He sniffed indignantly and nodded his head toward the rocks. “Anything guarding this one?”
“Nothing we need to worry about friend, not when you know the right people…and you know me.” He scratched his chin and stared hard at the doorway. “Now if I can just remember how to open the damn thing…”
“See, this is why I like cars. You don’t need a secret word or ritual to start a damn car. They come with their own easily reproducible keys” He shifted irritably, prodding Eric with his walking staff. “Come on boy; let’s hurry it along shall we. Some of us aren’t so lucky as to walk between the damn raindrops. I’m fucking soaked and I want a drink.”
“You don’t happen to know the elvish word for frie- All right all right, only joking. Spoil sport.” The boy stepped up to the hollow and rapped his knuckles on either side three times. The darkness disappeared instantly, replaced by the feint light of a single light bulb that could be seen swinging at the back of the little space between the bark. The bulb swung gently and illuminated what seemed to be a small room containing a bucket and mop, an old step-ladder, and a bit of shelving stacked with cleaning supplies and ancient dried paint tins.
“I have to say,” muttered Doyle, switching off his flashlight, “that I am quite impressed. You’ve managed to find a magical broom closet.” He stepped forward through the hollow to inspect the room and shivered; the single pace between the rocks had been strange, the air had felt thick, offered resistance like walking into a stiff wind. He turned around to comment and was faced with the blank wall of the back of a closet. He tilted his head and turned around again; jumping in surprise as this time he was faced with a grinning Eric, standing in front of the door.
“Told you it was the fun way” the young man chuckled and opened the door, stepping out into a dimly lit dive of a bar. “Come on, you get us a table, I’ll get us drinks.”
Doyle shook his head and stepped out after Eric, closing the door to the closet behind him. It was very late (or very early) and there weren’t many patrons left at this hour. The bartender chatted with Eric amicably, and didn’t seem at all phased by their odd entrance. Doyle wandered toward the back of the common room on instinct, homing in on a table nicely tucked into the corner of the building, near a set of stairs that probably led to an office. He unclasped his cloak and started to shake the rain off. The noise of the rough material flapping and shedding water was fairly loud, and a few of the patrons glanced up from their tables at him. He waved a little stupidly and sat down heavily, waiting for the promised drinks.
The bar was nearly empty, and it was technically past last call anyway, but among the sparse patrons were two dejected looking girls in matching fairy princess costumes, wands laid forlornly on the table, crowns askew. Doyle watched as Eric sent the pair drinks and cheered them up with the usual buckets of charm and compliments. Twenty minutes later he walked back to the table Doyle had picked out with two bottles, and two new phone numbers. Doyle shook his head at him as he grabbed his beer.
“Don’t you ever get tired of doing that? They don’t see you; they just see all that…sly glamour. Hell, they’ll forget about it by tomorrow.”
“Hey man, some of us don’t spend all our time pining over the one that got away…and came back again. Then left, and then came back.” He cleared his throat, pressing on as he received a glare from Doyle. “Anyway, I look at it like this: they’ve had a bad night. Got stood up by a couple of frat boys and are gonna need a cab home at this point with what they’ve drunk so far. I give’em a little magic, a little fairy dust, and they wake up tomorrow with nothing but happy thoughts about tonight.” He shrugged and turned around, tipping his hat at the girls, giving them another wave and a bright, flashing smile. “And later, if I should so feel the urge, I can always give them a call; nothing wrong with that.”
“You know, I’m pretty certain there are some cops out there who would build a date-rape case, if they knew enough.” Doyle smirked at the sudden hunted look in his friend’s eyes. “Relax. Just drop the player act ok, it’s just you and me here…” He smiled a bit. “How is Betsy treating you these days anyway?”
“Short leash man, short leash.” He grinned, holding up his cell phone. “I do love these things, but it’s damn hard to be as lecherous as my nature demands.” He shook his head, his smile softening a bit. “Really though, she’s great. Probably a good influence and all. Angelic really…more or less. She’s dragging me back to school this next spring. I tried to argue that, as a semi-deified personification of folk traditions, I don’t really have any need for a degree. But she seems to think it’ll give me something to do with my free time.”
“She’s a good girl. There are some bets running as to how long it takes her to realize just what a massive project she’s adopted in you. If this goes on much longer though, we may have to change the terms. You’ve got another week and a half to screw up or we all lose.”
“Speaking of inhuman bets on our friends personal lives: if you could schedule a break down sometime early 2008, I’ll cut you in for a third of the profits” Eric sighed, sitting back heavily in his chair. “Seriously though man. Some of us are a little worried. Never seen you like this before. It’s been nearly five yea-“
“She came back.” He shrugged at the look on Eric’s face. “Not on purpose. I moved out of Savannah after she left last time, didn’t want to run into her again. I’m up in Helen now, working with the Forestry Commission.” He drained the rest of his beer, setting down the bottle heavily. “Apparently my son has a great enthusiasm for camping. They were gonna go for a little hike. Their car broke down, and I was at the nearest visitor’s center when the kid showed up asking for help. It was…uh, awkward. Still kinda is. Chris, well, he doesn’t know I’m his dad yet. We have to figure out a way to break it to him.” He looked up to find Eric hunched over the table, jotting down figures on the back of a napkin. After a minute or so he looked up at Doyle.
“Well I’ll be damned. We have got to stop letting oracles in on these pools. The bastard got the thing down almost to the letter.” Having the decency to look at least slightly embarrassed by this, he crumpled the napkin up and tossed it over his shoulder. “But I mean, hey…that’s good, isn’t it? That they’re sticking around?”
“Yeah, I mean, absolutely. They’re renting a cabin right now. I mean, I put them up for a night but that couldn’t last too long without seeming a bit…odd. He’s a smart kid, he’d ask questions.”
“I just hope he doesn’t end up looking too much like his dad.” He saw Doyle’s expression and shook his head sadly. “Poor kid…” He smirked, dodging a wadded up napkin.
“You’re lucky I need you alive kid.” He opened up his knapsack, and riffled through it, pulling out a wide, flat Tupperware container. “Your mom asked for one of these a while back. I was having trouble for a while, but luckily some of my new neighbors were oh so happy to oblige.” He pushed the container across the table; Eric could taste copper through his sinuses even through the sealed container.
“You know, if you’re going to be transporting organs, I find that those little plastic coolers are much better at keeping the smell in.” He opened the container and wrinkled his nose at the bloody woolen cap that dripped continuously into a puddle that never grew large enough to overflow the container. He raised an eyebrow and looked across the table. “How you got one of these off a Red Cap is a story I would very much like to hear.” He frowned a bit, closing the container again. “What did my mother want one of these for?” His voice had suddenly lost much of its playful quality.
“You know I don’t ask questions like that. ‘s bad for business. I know that the esteemed Duchess’ credit is good, that’s all that really matters. Anyway, I really don’t know. I think she’s gearing up for something big- don’t you two talk anymore?”
Eric stood up suddenly, shoving the container under one arm. He drained his beer and backed away from the table. “Look…do you want me to drop you somewhere? I can take you back to your car, or to a rental place, whatever. It’s- it’s late, right? Early maybe? Whatever.”
“That’s alright- I’ll make my own way back.” He watched him walk away, giving him a short nod. “You just get back to Betsy. Get some sleep…but you get that cap to your mother by the end of the week, or I’ll make sure she knows who to blame.” He put some money on the table, watching his friend retreat from the bar at full speed. People could get so touchy about family.
Cameron Funk
Ten Page Story
ENGL 4310B/ Josh Russell
Funkrockheaven@yahoo.com
Pooka Day
It was dark out; the clouds from the swiftly growing storm had covered the nearly full moon with an effect that would have been impressively spooky had anyone important been outside to see it. Raindrops were already making themselves known, though it’d be a few hours before the storm really got itself going. It wasn’t a good night for traveling, but inter-neighborhood forays would probably be acceptable for a while. Parents were spared having to console cranky, candy-starved children in half-applied costumes cooped up in the house all night. Instead, they were treated to hyper-active, candy-high children in half-removed costumes who wouldn’t be ready for sleep for hours. Those of an agricultural persuasion had taken in the last of the crops earlier in the day. As the storm started to pick up speed, sensible people were getting warm indoors, or had holed themselves up in parties that would continue well into the next day, November the first.
It would be argued by many who knew him that Doyle was about as far from a sensible person as you could get, and so it would surprise them very little to find him trudging along through an abandoned field in middle Georgia, in the middle of what was now a full on thunderstorm, on Halloween night. He was wearing a heavy oilskin cloak- the kind with a great big hood to keep the rain off- that was just barely appropriate attire considering the holiday. It was clearly giving him trouble. Every few steps the beam of the flashlight he was carrying would become erratic as he raised his hand to push the hood up out of his eyes. His other hand gripped a short knobby walking stick, which he used to frequently test the ground in front of him for rabbit holes. He spent some time walking around the field in a slow spiral, turning his flashlight this way and that until he seemed to be more or less pleased with his progress. Stopping at the center of the field he swung a knapsack out from under the cloak and hurriedly pulled out an over-sized zip-lock freezer bag, a thermos, and a small plastic bowl from inside. He hunched over the bowl, using his body to shield it from the worst of the rain, and filled it with milk from the thermos. Opening the zip-lock bag next, he pulled out a small loaf of bread and began tearing it into pieces, tossing it into the bowl along with the milk. Stowing the knapsack back under his cloak, he sat down on the muddy earth and turned off his flashlight, settling in to wait in the rain-splattered darkness.
After an hour he was still waiting patiently.
An hour after midnight would find him becoming just a little impatient.
The rain started to let up around three in the morning. Doyle frowned and started to reach out to dump the contents of the bowl, when something batted his hand away with a cautioning swat. He stood up, fumbling to turn on his flashlight. Aiming toward the bowl, he scowled at the sight in front of him as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. A young man lounged in the mud of the field, though neither the rain nor the mud seemed able to soil the pirate costume he wore. He seemed to be the center of his own little universe of calm style as he sat there, grinning hugely, picking bits of disintegrating bread from the bowl of milk. A tri-cornered hat was perched on one knee as he ate; exposing perfectly disheveled, black hair that shone in the weak light and slightly pointed ears. The beam of the flashlight caught his eyes just for a moment, causing them to flash catlike, first deep, dark green, then bright yellow under the beam.
“I know that you’re a real stickler for tradition old man, but honestly, if you ever want to get a hold of me in the future, I have a perfectly serviceable cellular plan that went to waste tonight.” The boy shook his head and lapped up a mixture of crumbs and milk from his fingers.
“We both know you wouldn’t have showed up otherwise, Eric. I always have to break out the old tricks with you.” He shifted in back and forth in his seat, clearly uncomfortable in the wet mud. “Just how long were you going to let me sit out here waiting for you to show yourself?”
“Oh, not much longer; just about as long as it took me to get all the way out here. I was in fucking Atlanta, Doyle. At a party. You took me away from good food and excellent drink. And well, even if I did swing that way, your ugly ass is no substitute for the girls I was chatting up.” The young man shook his head and finished off the bread and milk, looking stylishly sullen now that his meal was done. He began to fastidiously lick his fingers clean with a sandpapery sound. “Damn stupid holiday if you ask me. No one over here even leaves out crops for us anymore; you’re stuck in the past man.” He paused, licking his lips. “Nice bread though.”
“Count yourself lucky that I haven’t spread word around boy. At least you know that I know what I’m doing. How’d you like to have drunken new age teenagers calling you up all day, asking for all kinds of useless crap?” There was an edge of threat in Doyle’s voice as he sat on the wet ground in front of Eric. The boy held up his hands in mock terror for a moment, then rolled his eyes and put his head on its side.
“Just what exactly has crawled up your ass and died? Not that you were ever Mr. Cheerful at the best of times, but hell. You’re threats are usually a lot more…empty sounding than that. That’s just plain cold.” He recovered his grin quickly enough, and a match flared in the darkness as he lit a battered, hand-rolled cigarette pulled from behind his ear. “Trouble at home is it?”
Doyle ignored the question, pulling his staff from the loose earth. He gathered up his things and watched the boy puff away; both the lit tip of the cigarette and the match glowing warmly despite the rain. “Alright, now you’re just showing off.”
“Hey man, it’s my day. I can’t think of a better time to let everyone know how awesome I am.” Eric laughed quietly to himself as he started to walk out of the field. Though his costume included knee high leather boots, the only tracks he left were large paw-prints in the mud. “Let’s get out of here, ‘s raining cats and other smaller cats, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“My car’s the other way” said Doyle, nodding toward the distant points of light that marked the highway. “You don’t plan on walking to Atlanta, do you?”
“Fuck your car mate; it’ll be here in the morning. And no, I don’t fancy making that walk when I don’t have to. We’re gonna take the fun way.” He grinned, showing pointed canines.
“I can’t help but be reminded of some of your other “fun” ideas in the past. Am I going to regret calling on you tonight?” And yet he followed the other man through other muddy fields, to the edge of the forests that hemmed them in.
“No doubt you will, by the time we’re done with our bargaining. I promise though, that our method of travel will be minimally traumatic. It’s not as if you’re a stranger to poking around old tombs.” He laughed at his own joke, leading Doyle to a massive oak set aside from the rest of the trees, ringed by overgrown toadstools. There was a man-sized hollow set into the western face of the trunk. Scowling, Doyle lifted his flashlight, but the beam did nothing to light the space inside, though it shouldn’t have been more than a few feet across. As the beam moved about, it did pick up on the frayed remnants of knotted ropes than hung from several of the lower branches.
“Christ, you dig up one graveyard and suddenly you’re some sort of ghoul. It was bad luck the guy I was looking for was in the last grave I checked. Not my fault that they hadn’t properly cared for the headstones over the years. I was going to put everything back too…but it was starting to get light out and I almost got caught by the caretaker.” He sniffed indignantly and nodded his head toward the rocks. “Anything guarding this one?”
“Nothing we need to worry about friend, not when you know the right people…and you know me.” He scratched his chin and stared hard at the doorway. “Now if I can just remember how to open the damn thing…”
“See, this is why I like cars. You don’t need a secret word or ritual to start a damn car. They come with their own easily reproducible keys” He shifted irritably, prodding Eric with his walking staff. “Come on boy; let’s hurry it along shall we. Some of us aren’t so lucky as to walk between the damn raindrops. I’m fucking soaked and I want a drink.”
“You don’t happen to know the elvish word for frie- All right all right, only joking. Spoil sport.” The boy stepped up to the hollow and rapped his knuckles on either side three times. The darkness disappeared instantly, replaced by the feint light of a single light bulb that could be seen swinging at the back of the little space between the bark. The bulb swung gently and illuminated what seemed to be a small room containing a bucket and mop, an old step-ladder, and a bit of shelving stacked with cleaning supplies and ancient dried paint tins.
“I have to say,” muttered Doyle, switching off his flashlight, “that I am quite impressed. You’ve managed to find a magical broom closet.” He stepped forward through the hollow to inspect the room and shivered; the single pace between the rocks had been strange, the air had felt thick, offered resistance like walking into a stiff wind. He turned around to comment and was faced with the blank wall of the back of a closet. He tilted his head and turned around again; jumping in surprise as this time he was faced with a grinning Eric, standing in front of the door.
“Told you it was the fun way” the young man chuckled and opened the door, stepping out into a dimly lit dive of a bar. “Come on, you get us a table, I’ll get us drinks.”
Doyle shook his head and stepped out after Eric, closing the door to the closet behind him. It was very late (or very early) and there weren’t many patrons left at this hour. The bartender chatted with Eric amicably, and didn’t seem at all phased by their odd entrance. Doyle wandered toward the back of the common room on instinct, homing in on a table nicely tucked into the corner of the building, near a set of stairs that probably led to an office. He unclasped his cloak and started to shake the rain off. The noise of the rough material flapping and shedding water was fairly loud, and a few of the patrons glanced up from their tables at him. He waved a little stupidly and sat down heavily, waiting for the promised drinks.
The bar was nearly empty, and it was technically past last call anyway, but among the sparse patrons were two dejected looking girls in matching fairy princess costumes, wands laid forlornly on the table, crowns askew. Doyle watched as Eric sent the pair drinks and cheered them up with the usual buckets of charm and compliments. Twenty minutes later he walked back to the table Doyle had picked out with two bottles, and two new phone numbers. Doyle shook his head at him as he grabbed his beer.
“Don’t you ever get tired of doing that? They don’t see you; they just see all that…sly glamour. Hell, they’ll forget about it by tomorrow.”
“Hey man, some of us don’t spend all our time pining over the one that got away…and came back again. Then left, and then came back.” He cleared his throat, pressing on as he received a glare from Doyle. “Anyway, I look at it like this: they’ve had a bad night. Got stood up by a couple of frat boys and are gonna need a cab home at this point with what they’ve drunk so far. I give’em a little magic, a little fairy dust, and they wake up tomorrow with nothing but happy thoughts about tonight.” He shrugged and turned around, tipping his hat at the girls, giving them another wave and a bright, flashing smile. “And later, if I should so feel the urge, I can always give them a call; nothing wrong with that.”
“You know, I’m pretty certain there are some cops out there who would build a date-rape case, if they knew enough.” Doyle smirked at the sudden hunted look in his friend’s eyes. “Relax. Just drop the player act ok, it’s just you and me here…” He smiled a bit. “How is Betsy treating you these days anyway?”
“Short leash man, short leash.” He grinned, holding up his cell phone. “I do love these things, but it’s damn hard to be as lecherous as my nature demands.” He shook his head, his smile softening a bit. “Really though, she’s great. Probably a good influence and all. Angelic really…more or less. She’s dragging me back to school this next spring. I tried to argue that, as a semi-deified personification of folk traditions, I don’t really have any need for a degree. But she seems to think it’ll give me something to do with my free time.”
“She’s a good girl. There are some bets running as to how long it takes her to realize just what a massive project she’s adopted in you. If this goes on much longer though, we may have to change the terms. You’ve got another week and a half to screw up or we all lose.”
“Speaking of inhuman bets on our friends personal lives: if you could schedule a break down sometime early 2008, I’ll cut you in for a third of the profits” Eric sighed, sitting back heavily in his chair. “Seriously though man. Some of us are a little worried. Never seen you like this before. It’s been nearly five yea-“
“She came back.” He shrugged at the look on Eric’s face. “Not on purpose. I moved out of Savannah after she left last time, didn’t want to run into her again. I’m up in Helen now, working with the Forestry Commission.” He drained the rest of his beer, setting down the bottle heavily. “Apparently my son has a great enthusiasm for camping. They were gonna go for a little hike. Their car broke down, and I was at the nearest visitor’s center when the kid showed up asking for help. It was…uh, awkward. Still kinda is. Chris, well, he doesn’t know I’m his dad yet. We have to figure out a way to break it to him.” He looked up to find Eric hunched over the table, jotting down figures on the back of a napkin. After a minute or so he looked up at Doyle.
“Well I’ll be damned. We have got to stop letting oracles in on these pools. The bastard got the thing down almost to the letter.” Having the decency to look at least slightly embarrassed by this, he crumpled the napkin up and tossed it over his shoulder. “But I mean, hey…that’s good, isn’t it? That they’re sticking around?”
“Yeah, I mean, absolutely. They’re renting a cabin right now. I mean, I put them up for a night but that couldn’t last too long without seeming a bit…odd. He’s a smart kid, he’d ask questions.”
“I just hope he doesn’t end up looking too much like his dad.” He saw Doyle’s expression and shook his head sadly. “Poor kid…” He smirked, dodging a wadded up napkin.
“You’re lucky I need you alive kid.” He opened up his knapsack, and riffled through it, pulling out a wide, flat Tupperware container. “Your mom asked for one of these a while back. I was having trouble for a while, but luckily some of my new neighbors were oh so happy to oblige.” He pushed the container across the table; Eric could taste copper through his sinuses even through the sealed container.
“You know, if you’re going to be transporting organs, I find that those little plastic coolers are much better at keeping the smell in.” He opened the container and wrinkled his nose at the bloody woolen cap that dripped continuously into a puddle that never grew large enough to overflow the container. He raised an eyebrow and looked across the table. “How you got one of these off a Red Cap is a story I would very much like to hear.” He frowned a bit, closing the container again. “What did my mother want one of these for?” His voice had suddenly lost much of its playful quality.
“You know I don’t ask questions like that. ‘s bad for business. I know that the esteemed Duchess’ credit is good, that’s all that really matters. Anyway, I really don’t know. I think she’s gearing up for something big- don’t you two talk anymore?”
Eric stood up suddenly, shoving the container under one arm. He drained his beer and backed away from the table. “Look…do you want me to drop you somewhere? I can take you back to your car, or to a rental place, whatever. It’s- it’s late, right? Early maybe? Whatever.”
“That’s alright- I’ll make my own way back.” He watched him walk away, giving him a short nod. “You just get back to Betsy. Get some sleep…but you get that cap to your mother by the end of the week, or I’ll make sure she knows who to blame.” He put some money on the table, watching his friend retreat from the bar at full speed. People could get so touchy about family.