Die Like A Gentleman [NARRATIVE]
Characters: Odd Thomas, Pascalle’s ghost, an NPC, and some crab parasites. Oh my!
Content: What starts off as a casual stroll and some venting with one of the local spirits turns into a struggle for survival. Odd Thomas’ days are numbered.
Location: From Midtown Center to northern streets of Manhattan.
Time of day: Early-Evening; last day of the week.
Warnings: Violence and crab bite and Odd actually uses a gun. OSHI.
The nippy winter still lingered in the impending air of spring. As the days rolled by, Odd was starting to see more and more the change of the New York seasons, in many ways. Everything changed. It was the nature of not just this city, but the way of life. To endure what Stormy, his beloved lost soul mate, had called Boot Camp, you must also endure change.
Harry and James, Ginger and Rangiku... They were in Service now. Gone invisible. That was the sort of conclusion that Odd could boil down to. Maybe in the end there would be paradise and rapture, a great reward at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe it was just a fable to make themselves feel better about death, rather than to fear the inevitable.
Either way, if it was one thing Odd understood, it was life. Everyone gets through it, one way or another. They share pain and sorrows and joy and happiness all the same. He had his own fill of sorrow. A cup which had its share of overfill. As he always would, he would hold it in, let it boil up inside until he figured out what to do with it.
Or until it drove him mad.
When his days were filled with static and made very little sense, he tried to make sense of them by going there again. The park bench, in a kind of serene location where he could sit and watch the street as people and the local ghosts walked on by. Odd saw them. The ones that hadn’t yet gone invisible. They were everywhere. Sometimes they would sit with him and, yes, sometimes he would chat with them. Even in a public place such as this. Odd figured that, with the congregation of the crazies taking out their prejudice on all outsiders alike, being a crazy who apparently talked to himself in public wasn’t too weird.
The park bench seemed like the place to be that day. It was nice out and the sky was clear. Odd tilted his head back over the bench and closed his eyes for a moment, if only briefly. There were still the crab parasites around here, and from what he’d heard over the network... they were far stronger and faster than usual. It was a good thing that he had helped reinforcing the defenses of the cathedral. Lilia could find refuge in the crypt and be safe.
As for Odd’s own safety... It was probably due to lack of concern for himself that he was even out there that day, and even then without a weapon. He had no intentions of being out here to fight anyone or anything, and he was pretty confident in his agility to be able to avoid assailants should they come by.
Then, he felt something shift next to him. His eyes opened and he turned to see the almost lucid form of Pascalle sitting right next to him.
Spirits, for whatever reason, did not appear as ghostly apparitions as detailed in Hollywood movies and your typical media. They were as real to Odd as anyone else on the living plain were. And in a city like this, Manhattan was full of them.
Odd blinked. He hadn’t seen Pascalle out much these days, and not straying very far from his daughter. The man looked after her, and for what it was worth, Odd couldn’t convince him to leave. He was bound to the girl in this unfamiliar world and era. He felt particularly sorry for him; the stranger in a strange land.
“Good evening, sir.” Odd nodded, though Pascalle didn’t immediately respond. The dead man only nodded very slowly. He never spoke. He couldn’t. And if he did, then the borders between the worlds of the living and the dead weren’t thin enough for Odd to be able to comprehend the limitations.
When you could only carry out a very one-sided with a mute spirit, Odd found ways of being able to communicate with them. However, that day, for whatever reason, there was something indescribable about Pascalle’s features. He was concerned, as he always was. Worrying for his daughter, but also over the overall state of things, which in and of itself weren’t looking so bright...
Suddenly, Odd nodded, as he understood somewhat. “I think I get it. If I die, then there’s no one else to look after your daughter, is there?” The spirit solemnly shifted his eyes behind his glasses. “I’m sorry.” Pascalle looked away, and Odd didn’t say anything else for awhile, because the spirit was right, and had every right to be concerned. Odd wasn’t exactly one to pay much mind to his personal wellbeing, especially right now. Birdman and Parano were still around, and Harry and James weren’t there to help keep an eye out at the cathedral. Maria wasn’t in the best state of mind, either. Who was going to pay attention to Lilia?
Had it seriously come down to the point where Odd has so much on his shoulders now? Was it really fair to let him be the one to tolerate so much alone now?
“I don’t know, sir.” Odd sighed, leaning his head back against the upside of the bench. “I’m... I don’t know. My mind’s been in strange places lately. Too much has happened... I just can’t make any promises to you anymore.” He could feel Pascalle glaring at him, although Odd then realized how his words may have been interpreted. “No, I’m not thinking of taking any drastic measures, sir, if that’s what you’re so concerned about. I value life too much to give up on it so easily.” He hesitated for a moment. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m aware that I still have people counting on me.”
How difficult would it be for them to be able to get along without him, though? Surely there were others who could help look after Lilia. Plus, she’d shown that she could handle herself at times as well, no matter how many times he banished the thought of leaving her.
Suicide, much as Odd abhorred the act, had crossed his mind once or twice long ago. Should such a coward’s way out have had any appeal, he may have gone through with the act. But then, he wouldn’t have been here. He wouldn’t have met the people here, shared the same experience with them, no matter how fleeting those memories were.
No good things last forever. Everyone dies in the end. Being able to see the lingering dead almost illustrated a kind of delusion for Odd, in that death was not the end in his light, though he could not belittle the very notion of it.
Odd didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, talking to himself and half-speaking with Pascalle. Suppose he’d lost sight of his surroundings for awhile, so much that it didn’t occur to him when, by the time he looked up, that one of the few bystanders crossed paths with him in that park. It was a man wearing a white hooded jacket, probably a few years older than Odd.
Face turning red, he’d wondered how long the guy had been standing there and how much of his talk of his complicated life he heard. Odd briefly glanced to Pascalle, visible only to him, and back at the young man who gave him a look that you’d reserve for someone who had turned into a half-alligator half-hippopotamus. A sharp swelling tightened around his chest as he slowly rose from the bench.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Since the emergence of the suspicious residents over the message boards began, Odd had been a little more wary of the locals. He delivered a small, hopefully totally not suspicious at all of a simper.
Mouth hanging agape, the man just shook his head.
“Well, guess I’ll just be on my way then.” He chuckled quietly and started to walk away. But then he stopped when, out the corner of his eye, Pascalle was making frantic gestures. Odd shifted between the unseen spirit and the man on the sidewalk, trying not to notice the seemingly invisible man when-
“I’ve seen you around here.” The man’s accent spat out and in an instant, he was grabbing Odd by the collar of his shirt. The guy was fast, he gave him that much. “You’re one of ‘em, aren’t you?”
So much for trying to be casual and not suspicious.
“While I hate to be lumped up in a clique, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
To be fair, Odd was as pretty much as normal as you could get in this city. Appearance-wise, that is. If he bluffed well enough, he just might not run into any problems. “Yeah, I suppose I can’t fool a clever guy such as yourself. Racial Purity, right?” Odd held up his hands in a defensive position. “Really, though, is this at all necessary? I think we can see eye-to-eye on this.”
“Listen buddy, if this is you’re idea of fuckin’ with-”
“Not at all, sir! You misunderstand me. I want to be gone and out of here as much as you want me out, I get that... and I think we can do something to help each other out.”
Bearing his teeth, he growled and tightened his hold over Odd’s shirt, throwing him against one of the park trees. Yeah, that hurt. “What makes you think I even want your help?”
If this guy was human, and Odd suspected that he was, then it would be harder for someone to cut a guy’s throat when he was smiling pleasantly at you about it.
Taking a moment to regain the composure winded from him, he breathed. “Because... you don’t have much of a choice... do you, sir?” Odd waited for his response. There was none. “That’s the thing. If you or any of your friends have some bright ideas on how to get us out, I’m all ears, sir. But if you’re just going to stand there and talk big to me, then I think we’re done.” He started to take the man by the wrists to release his tight grip over Odd’s shirt, when something unexpected happened.
All thoughts considering, it should have very well been expected, not only if you were psychic, but if you’d seen enough movies to have seen it coming.
Odd was suddenly staring down the barrel of the gun. Pistol, to be exact. Nice model.
Well, at least it got the man to let go of him. On the other hand, Odd wasn’t planning on moving from this spot anytime soon.
“Sir, I think we got off on the wrong foot-”
“Damn fuckin’ right we got off on the wrong fuckin’ foot!” The man screaming wasn’t going to accommodate them from discretion. Odd felt his eyes shift around the park, making sure nothing heard them. Yet. But also didn’t want to look away from the gun that was now pointing right at his face. “D’you have any idea what I’ve gone through since this bullshit began?”
“I have a pretty good idea-”
“My home is gone, my family is gone. My brothers... Your kind fuckin’ killed my brother, and those shit-eatin’ parasites, they just...” He pushed the gun to Odd’s forehead. “I ought to blow your brains out right here!”
“Could you at least not shoot me in the face?”
The man stopped and looked incredulous. “What?”
“Well, you’re trying to make a statement, right? ‘Be gone with ye outsiders’ and all that?”
“So?”
“You shoot my face, it gets blown to bits.”
“What’re you getting at?”
“Sorry.” He smiled slightly. “What I mean is, if you’re trying to make a point, you should make my face recognizable. That way, people will be able to get that you’re serious. Otherwise, it’ll look like just any other domestic dispute, right? People might not know that I’m one of the outsiders as well. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
“I guess...?” The man shifted his eyes.
“Great. Because, you see...” Odd trailed when his glanced over the man’s shoulder. “I think you should put the gun away, sir.”
“You take me for-”
“MOVE!”
In all of Odd’s infinite brilliance, he made the foolish and desperate attempt that was not the first and certainly not the last... to tackle the guy with the gun. Snagging the barrel and aiming it upward, almost jerking it out of his hands entirely. From what the guy probably thinking was an endeavor to disarm him turned into a shoving match to get him out of the way when-
BANG!
The shot rang out in the air, chipping the bark where Pascalle had been standing. The bullet phased through the spirit’s stomach as he stood there, hands in his pockets and unamused as he watched Odd shove the guy out of the way in order to evade one of the leaping crab parasites.
They both hit the ground hard, the gun sliding from their grasps. While the guy started to reach for the gun, Odd lunged forward, grabbing him by his shoulder and hauling him onto his feet. They scrambled out of the park, onto the main street; neither of them bothering to look back at what had just attacked them.
“They’re a hell of a lot bigger than they used to be...” The man heaved from behind Odd, on the near verge of a panic attack. The sounds, heard in the trees, were of their scuffling non-human assailants.
“Get out of here. They’ll come after me instead.” He shoved the guy’s chest, pushing him off the sidewalk. He opened his mouth and started to speak when Odd just burst. “Now!”
Sure, it may have been stupid, risking your life for someone who had no qualms with putting a bullet between your eyes two seconds ago. Still, Odd wasn’t one to hold grudges or anything. And thankfully, with such little time and considering the nature of the circumstances, no one was in any position to argue. The guy booked it. Odd did the same, scooping up the stray pistol deserted on the street. And then he ran. If he did not uphold his word, he would still have much of a head start than Odd did.
If anything, he owed the crab parasites one thing-getting rid of one of the radical Manhattanites which could’ve very well turned this into a messy situation, one which Odd would’ve been keener to avoid. But then it opened up a whole other door of problems. Having to deal with the consequences of the lesser evils...
This wasn’t the first time Odd had found himself on the other end of the crab’s claws, so to speak. He’d encountered several of them by the dozen. Psychic magnetism, or the reverse side of it, didn’t help. Of all the facets of his gift that carried over with him since he wound up in this god-forsaken city, it had to have been the one that drew danger to him like a magnet. On days like these, he cursed his gift and would’ve traded it for anything. Like kangaroo legs.
He didn’t have that option now. Clambering over the hood of the car, he leapt over the top of slid down the rear window. Just in the wake of him were at least two parasites, scampering to catch up with him. In the brief instant that he had the chance to turn and look at one of them; he saw the distinct differences of their shelled friends now. They were hardly anything like the ones Odd had faced. And now, without having someone like Sunderland around to watch his back-or having been so stupid to not ask for anyone’s help... Odd was on his own.
Pistol still in hand, Odd turned to one of them. He tried to aim. His hand wasn’t steady, though. He wavered. He shook. What more, he couldn’t stay still long enough. Had to constantly move, especially with two of them around. In the past, two wouldn’t have been such a big deal at all, but these ones almost made up the entire groups that had chased down both him and Sunderland at the same time.
Hating to find out what their bites were like, Odd abandoned any prospect of being able to get a few shots in them to slow them down. Intuition told him that it wouldn’t work so well, anyway. Instead, he shifted and slipped into an alleyway, moving through the narrow passages of midtown Manhattan and making his way down one street to another. However, long as he could not distract himself, psychic magnetism always led his attackers to him. They would not resign so easily.
Odd tried many things during his attempts to escape. He kicked over garbage cans, pulled over dumpsters, tried using abandoned cars as shields. Nothing seemed to stop these two. And before long there was only the one. Assuming that he had lucked out and lost one, he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Already he wore himself out, running much faster and burning so much more stamina to evade these... things. Were they even the same type of creature he had fought months prior?
Along the overpass, Odd skid to a halt. He glanced behind him. The pursing parasite was no longer trailing at his heel. He staggered a bit, his legs feeling like liquid or jelly. Swaying along, side to side, the pistol sweaty and nearly slipping from his grip when he looked down at it. He held it up, seeing the reflection of himself across the barrel. He hadn’t thought to carry one of these in a long time. Never hoped that he would have to... Just seeing it in his possession set an unsettling quake in the pit of his stomach. He felt like he was going to throw up for various reasons.
He looked ahead. The overpass was dark, shadowing the road around him. Seemed abandoned, with signs of construction that had been going on here sometime before the first attack, almost a year ago. It almost dimmed the silhouette of Pascalle, standing next to one of the pillars holding up the overpass. He did not move, neither could Odd make out what he was gesticulating in that moment-
Then, there was a flash of movement. Scurrying overhead. Before Odd had the chance to react, a great weight crushed him. He yelled, hitting the ground with a loud and agonizing thud as something punctured through his shoulder.
Yelling again. Both from himself, as well as the squeal of the creature that held him down. Its claw had completely impaled through his shirt, through his skin and his collar. It jumped back, ripping its claw from Odd’s body entirely as he screamed, rolled, just in time to face the thing that had started to make a great leap towards him. On his back, pistol out, he raised the weapon.
For the first time in several years, Odd Thomas fired a gun, and he fired it with the intent to kill.
The backfire came with a harder punch than expected, but nothing he hadn’t done before. One bullet after another, until he heard the sound of the hollow click. The creature, however, did not go down without a struggle. He had shot off three of its legs, but before one of those bullets could have punctured its mouth and go straight into the brain...
The hot, excruciating pain swelled through as it clamped its jaws over Odd’s abdomen. He screamed; kicking his feet until its claws stabbed through his foot, tearing his shoe off. He tried to shoot again, knowing that the clip was empty but firing in the desperate animal attempt to survive and somehow throw it off. But to no avail. After much stabbing and biting, Odd bled from his shoulders, his chest, his legs and his foot completely useless now.
Without warning, the creature fell limp over him.
Crying out, Odd grabbed the sides of its shell and crudely shoved the thing off of him. The searing hot pain overwhelmed him as he crawled through beneath the overpass, dragging his bloody, battered, beaten form across the concrete and dirt and dust. He coughed. Blood spattered. He choked. More gore dribbled from his wounds. Until he reached a safer corner where he collapsed and laid there. Limp. Throat wet with his own blood. And more of it creeping out from his chest, where the bite swelled.
His head rolled towards where the corpse of the dead crab parasite laid; its form shadowed by the moonlight that fell down over the edges of the overpass. For a moment he half-expected it to spring to life and finish the job, like in the old Dracula flicks. Still, it laid there, dead as dead could be, bleeding out, as much as Odd Thomas was.
Cursing to himself and the world around him, Odd turned slowly. He reached for the radio he had kept at his belt, only to find that it had also been crushed when the parasite fell on top of him. He almost laughed at how typical it was. Here he would lay, injured, crab-bitten, dying in the utmost forsaken part of the city, and he couldn’t even call for help. And then there was Pascalle, just standing over him; his eyes shadowed by disappointment, and Odd couldn’t blame him.
Letting go of the radio, rolling it next to where he had dropped the pistol, he fell limp. He couldn’t even bring himself to care that he bled out as much as he was. If he died, that would be putting a lot of work into bitter efforts of futility. If he survived, he wouldn’t be Odd Thomas anymore. How could anyone live with that?
He was tired. And somehow, he always expected that he would die this way eventually-messily and alone. That was the price he paid for using a gun.
Content: What starts off as a casual stroll and some venting with one of the local spirits turns into a struggle for survival. Odd Thomas’ days are numbered.
Location: From Midtown Center to northern streets of Manhattan.
Time of day: Early-Evening; last day of the week.
Warnings: Violence and crab bite and Odd actually uses a gun. OSHI.
The nippy winter still lingered in the impending air of spring. As the days rolled by, Odd was starting to see more and more the change of the New York seasons, in many ways. Everything changed. It was the nature of not just this city, but the way of life. To endure what Stormy, his beloved lost soul mate, had called Boot Camp, you must also endure change.
Harry and James, Ginger and Rangiku... They were in Service now. Gone invisible. That was the sort of conclusion that Odd could boil down to. Maybe in the end there would be paradise and rapture, a great reward at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe it was just a fable to make themselves feel better about death, rather than to fear the inevitable.
Either way, if it was one thing Odd understood, it was life. Everyone gets through it, one way or another. They share pain and sorrows and joy and happiness all the same. He had his own fill of sorrow. A cup which had its share of overfill. As he always would, he would hold it in, let it boil up inside until he figured out what to do with it.
Or until it drove him mad.
When his days were filled with static and made very little sense, he tried to make sense of them by going there again. The park bench, in a kind of serene location where he could sit and watch the street as people and the local ghosts walked on by. Odd saw them. The ones that hadn’t yet gone invisible. They were everywhere. Sometimes they would sit with him and, yes, sometimes he would chat with them. Even in a public place such as this. Odd figured that, with the congregation of the crazies taking out their prejudice on all outsiders alike, being a crazy who apparently talked to himself in public wasn’t too weird.
The park bench seemed like the place to be that day. It was nice out and the sky was clear. Odd tilted his head back over the bench and closed his eyes for a moment, if only briefly. There were still the crab parasites around here, and from what he’d heard over the network... they were far stronger and faster than usual. It was a good thing that he had helped reinforcing the defenses of the cathedral. Lilia could find refuge in the crypt and be safe.
As for Odd’s own safety... It was probably due to lack of concern for himself that he was even out there that day, and even then without a weapon. He had no intentions of being out here to fight anyone or anything, and he was pretty confident in his agility to be able to avoid assailants should they come by.
Then, he felt something shift next to him. His eyes opened and he turned to see the almost lucid form of Pascalle sitting right next to him.
Spirits, for whatever reason, did not appear as ghostly apparitions as detailed in Hollywood movies and your typical media. They were as real to Odd as anyone else on the living plain were. And in a city like this, Manhattan was full of them.
Odd blinked. He hadn’t seen Pascalle out much these days, and not straying very far from his daughter. The man looked after her, and for what it was worth, Odd couldn’t convince him to leave. He was bound to the girl in this unfamiliar world and era. He felt particularly sorry for him; the stranger in a strange land.
“Good evening, sir.” Odd nodded, though Pascalle didn’t immediately respond. The dead man only nodded very slowly. He never spoke. He couldn’t. And if he did, then the borders between the worlds of the living and the dead weren’t thin enough for Odd to be able to comprehend the limitations.
When you could only carry out a very one-sided with a mute spirit, Odd found ways of being able to communicate with them. However, that day, for whatever reason, there was something indescribable about Pascalle’s features. He was concerned, as he always was. Worrying for his daughter, but also over the overall state of things, which in and of itself weren’t looking so bright...
Suddenly, Odd nodded, as he understood somewhat. “I think I get it. If I die, then there’s no one else to look after your daughter, is there?” The spirit solemnly shifted his eyes behind his glasses. “I’m sorry.” Pascalle looked away, and Odd didn’t say anything else for awhile, because the spirit was right, and had every right to be concerned. Odd wasn’t exactly one to pay much mind to his personal wellbeing, especially right now. Birdman and Parano were still around, and Harry and James weren’t there to help keep an eye out at the cathedral. Maria wasn’t in the best state of mind, either. Who was going to pay attention to Lilia?
Had it seriously come down to the point where Odd has so much on his shoulders now? Was it really fair to let him be the one to tolerate so much alone now?
“I don’t know, sir.” Odd sighed, leaning his head back against the upside of the bench. “I’m... I don’t know. My mind’s been in strange places lately. Too much has happened... I just can’t make any promises to you anymore.” He could feel Pascalle glaring at him, although Odd then realized how his words may have been interpreted. “No, I’m not thinking of taking any drastic measures, sir, if that’s what you’re so concerned about. I value life too much to give up on it so easily.” He hesitated for a moment. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m aware that I still have people counting on me.”
How difficult would it be for them to be able to get along without him, though? Surely there were others who could help look after Lilia. Plus, she’d shown that she could handle herself at times as well, no matter how many times he banished the thought of leaving her.
Suicide, much as Odd abhorred the act, had crossed his mind once or twice long ago. Should such a coward’s way out have had any appeal, he may have gone through with the act. But then, he wouldn’t have been here. He wouldn’t have met the people here, shared the same experience with them, no matter how fleeting those memories were.
No good things last forever. Everyone dies in the end. Being able to see the lingering dead almost illustrated a kind of delusion for Odd, in that death was not the end in his light, though he could not belittle the very notion of it.
Odd didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, talking to himself and half-speaking with Pascalle. Suppose he’d lost sight of his surroundings for awhile, so much that it didn’t occur to him when, by the time he looked up, that one of the few bystanders crossed paths with him in that park. It was a man wearing a white hooded jacket, probably a few years older than Odd.
Face turning red, he’d wondered how long the guy had been standing there and how much of his talk of his complicated life he heard. Odd briefly glanced to Pascalle, visible only to him, and back at the young man who gave him a look that you’d reserve for someone who had turned into a half-alligator half-hippopotamus. A sharp swelling tightened around his chest as he slowly rose from the bench.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Since the emergence of the suspicious residents over the message boards began, Odd had been a little more wary of the locals. He delivered a small, hopefully totally not suspicious at all of a simper.
Mouth hanging agape, the man just shook his head.
“Well, guess I’ll just be on my way then.” He chuckled quietly and started to walk away. But then he stopped when, out the corner of his eye, Pascalle was making frantic gestures. Odd shifted between the unseen spirit and the man on the sidewalk, trying not to notice the seemingly invisible man when-
“I’ve seen you around here.” The man’s accent spat out and in an instant, he was grabbing Odd by the collar of his shirt. The guy was fast, he gave him that much. “You’re one of ‘em, aren’t you?”
So much for trying to be casual and not suspicious.
“While I hate to be lumped up in a clique, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
To be fair, Odd was as pretty much as normal as you could get in this city. Appearance-wise, that is. If he bluffed well enough, he just might not run into any problems. “Yeah, I suppose I can’t fool a clever guy such as yourself. Racial Purity, right?” Odd held up his hands in a defensive position. “Really, though, is this at all necessary? I think we can see eye-to-eye on this.”
“Listen buddy, if this is you’re idea of fuckin’ with-”
“Not at all, sir! You misunderstand me. I want to be gone and out of here as much as you want me out, I get that... and I think we can do something to help each other out.”
Bearing his teeth, he growled and tightened his hold over Odd’s shirt, throwing him against one of the park trees. Yeah, that hurt. “What makes you think I even want your help?”
If this guy was human, and Odd suspected that he was, then it would be harder for someone to cut a guy’s throat when he was smiling pleasantly at you about it.
Taking a moment to regain the composure winded from him, he breathed. “Because... you don’t have much of a choice... do you, sir?” Odd waited for his response. There was none. “That’s the thing. If you or any of your friends have some bright ideas on how to get us out, I’m all ears, sir. But if you’re just going to stand there and talk big to me, then I think we’re done.” He started to take the man by the wrists to release his tight grip over Odd’s shirt, when something unexpected happened.
All thoughts considering, it should have very well been expected, not only if you were psychic, but if you’d seen enough movies to have seen it coming.
Odd was suddenly staring down the barrel of the gun. Pistol, to be exact. Nice model.
Well, at least it got the man to let go of him. On the other hand, Odd wasn’t planning on moving from this spot anytime soon.
“Sir, I think we got off on the wrong foot-”
“Damn fuckin’ right we got off on the wrong fuckin’ foot!” The man screaming wasn’t going to accommodate them from discretion. Odd felt his eyes shift around the park, making sure nothing heard them. Yet. But also didn’t want to look away from the gun that was now pointing right at his face. “D’you have any idea what I’ve gone through since this bullshit began?”
“I have a pretty good idea-”
“My home is gone, my family is gone. My brothers... Your kind fuckin’ killed my brother, and those shit-eatin’ parasites, they just...” He pushed the gun to Odd’s forehead. “I ought to blow your brains out right here!”
“Could you at least not shoot me in the face?”
The man stopped and looked incredulous. “What?”
“Well, you’re trying to make a statement, right? ‘Be gone with ye outsiders’ and all that?”
“So?”
“You shoot my face, it gets blown to bits.”
“What’re you getting at?”
“Sorry.” He smiled slightly. “What I mean is, if you’re trying to make a point, you should make my face recognizable. That way, people will be able to get that you’re serious. Otherwise, it’ll look like just any other domestic dispute, right? People might not know that I’m one of the outsiders as well. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
“I guess...?” The man shifted his eyes.
“Great. Because, you see...” Odd trailed when his glanced over the man’s shoulder. “I think you should put the gun away, sir.”
“You take me for-”
“MOVE!”
In all of Odd’s infinite brilliance, he made the foolish and desperate attempt that was not the first and certainly not the last... to tackle the guy with the gun. Snagging the barrel and aiming it upward, almost jerking it out of his hands entirely. From what the guy probably thinking was an endeavor to disarm him turned into a shoving match to get him out of the way when-
BANG!
The shot rang out in the air, chipping the bark where Pascalle had been standing. The bullet phased through the spirit’s stomach as he stood there, hands in his pockets and unamused as he watched Odd shove the guy out of the way in order to evade one of the leaping crab parasites.
They both hit the ground hard, the gun sliding from their grasps. While the guy started to reach for the gun, Odd lunged forward, grabbing him by his shoulder and hauling him onto his feet. They scrambled out of the park, onto the main street; neither of them bothering to look back at what had just attacked them.
“They’re a hell of a lot bigger than they used to be...” The man heaved from behind Odd, on the near verge of a panic attack. The sounds, heard in the trees, were of their scuffling non-human assailants.
“Get out of here. They’ll come after me instead.” He shoved the guy’s chest, pushing him off the sidewalk. He opened his mouth and started to speak when Odd just burst. “Now!”
Sure, it may have been stupid, risking your life for someone who had no qualms with putting a bullet between your eyes two seconds ago. Still, Odd wasn’t one to hold grudges or anything. And thankfully, with such little time and considering the nature of the circumstances, no one was in any position to argue. The guy booked it. Odd did the same, scooping up the stray pistol deserted on the street. And then he ran. If he did not uphold his word, he would still have much of a head start than Odd did.
If anything, he owed the crab parasites one thing-getting rid of one of the radical Manhattanites which could’ve very well turned this into a messy situation, one which Odd would’ve been keener to avoid. But then it opened up a whole other door of problems. Having to deal with the consequences of the lesser evils...
This wasn’t the first time Odd had found himself on the other end of the crab’s claws, so to speak. He’d encountered several of them by the dozen. Psychic magnetism, or the reverse side of it, didn’t help. Of all the facets of his gift that carried over with him since he wound up in this god-forsaken city, it had to have been the one that drew danger to him like a magnet. On days like these, he cursed his gift and would’ve traded it for anything. Like kangaroo legs.
He didn’t have that option now. Clambering over the hood of the car, he leapt over the top of slid down the rear window. Just in the wake of him were at least two parasites, scampering to catch up with him. In the brief instant that he had the chance to turn and look at one of them; he saw the distinct differences of their shelled friends now. They were hardly anything like the ones Odd had faced. And now, without having someone like Sunderland around to watch his back-or having been so stupid to not ask for anyone’s help... Odd was on his own.
Pistol still in hand, Odd turned to one of them. He tried to aim. His hand wasn’t steady, though. He wavered. He shook. What more, he couldn’t stay still long enough. Had to constantly move, especially with two of them around. In the past, two wouldn’t have been such a big deal at all, but these ones almost made up the entire groups that had chased down both him and Sunderland at the same time.
Hating to find out what their bites were like, Odd abandoned any prospect of being able to get a few shots in them to slow them down. Intuition told him that it wouldn’t work so well, anyway. Instead, he shifted and slipped into an alleyway, moving through the narrow passages of midtown Manhattan and making his way down one street to another. However, long as he could not distract himself, psychic magnetism always led his attackers to him. They would not resign so easily.
Odd tried many things during his attempts to escape. He kicked over garbage cans, pulled over dumpsters, tried using abandoned cars as shields. Nothing seemed to stop these two. And before long there was only the one. Assuming that he had lucked out and lost one, he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Already he wore himself out, running much faster and burning so much more stamina to evade these... things. Were they even the same type of creature he had fought months prior?
Along the overpass, Odd skid to a halt. He glanced behind him. The pursing parasite was no longer trailing at his heel. He staggered a bit, his legs feeling like liquid or jelly. Swaying along, side to side, the pistol sweaty and nearly slipping from his grip when he looked down at it. He held it up, seeing the reflection of himself across the barrel. He hadn’t thought to carry one of these in a long time. Never hoped that he would have to... Just seeing it in his possession set an unsettling quake in the pit of his stomach. He felt like he was going to throw up for various reasons.
He looked ahead. The overpass was dark, shadowing the road around him. Seemed abandoned, with signs of construction that had been going on here sometime before the first attack, almost a year ago. It almost dimmed the silhouette of Pascalle, standing next to one of the pillars holding up the overpass. He did not move, neither could Odd make out what he was gesticulating in that moment-
Then, there was a flash of movement. Scurrying overhead. Before Odd had the chance to react, a great weight crushed him. He yelled, hitting the ground with a loud and agonizing thud as something punctured through his shoulder.
Yelling again. Both from himself, as well as the squeal of the creature that held him down. Its claw had completely impaled through his shirt, through his skin and his collar. It jumped back, ripping its claw from Odd’s body entirely as he screamed, rolled, just in time to face the thing that had started to make a great leap towards him. On his back, pistol out, he raised the weapon.
For the first time in several years, Odd Thomas fired a gun, and he fired it with the intent to kill.
The backfire came with a harder punch than expected, but nothing he hadn’t done before. One bullet after another, until he heard the sound of the hollow click. The creature, however, did not go down without a struggle. He had shot off three of its legs, but before one of those bullets could have punctured its mouth and go straight into the brain...
The hot, excruciating pain swelled through as it clamped its jaws over Odd’s abdomen. He screamed; kicking his feet until its claws stabbed through his foot, tearing his shoe off. He tried to shoot again, knowing that the clip was empty but firing in the desperate animal attempt to survive and somehow throw it off. But to no avail. After much stabbing and biting, Odd bled from his shoulders, his chest, his legs and his foot completely useless now.
Without warning, the creature fell limp over him.
Crying out, Odd grabbed the sides of its shell and crudely shoved the thing off of him. The searing hot pain overwhelmed him as he crawled through beneath the overpass, dragging his bloody, battered, beaten form across the concrete and dirt and dust. He coughed. Blood spattered. He choked. More gore dribbled from his wounds. Until he reached a safer corner where he collapsed and laid there. Limp. Throat wet with his own blood. And more of it creeping out from his chest, where the bite swelled.
His head rolled towards where the corpse of the dead crab parasite laid; its form shadowed by the moonlight that fell down over the edges of the overpass. For a moment he half-expected it to spring to life and finish the job, like in the old Dracula flicks. Still, it laid there, dead as dead could be, bleeding out, as much as Odd Thomas was.
Cursing to himself and the world around him, Odd turned slowly. He reached for the radio he had kept at his belt, only to find that it had also been crushed when the parasite fell on top of him. He almost laughed at how typical it was. Here he would lay, injured, crab-bitten, dying in the utmost forsaken part of the city, and he couldn’t even call for help. And then there was Pascalle, just standing over him; his eyes shadowed by disappointment, and Odd couldn’t blame him.
Letting go of the radio, rolling it next to where he had dropped the pistol, he fell limp. He couldn’t even bring himself to care that he bled out as much as he was. If he died, that would be putting a lot of work into bitter efforts of futility. If he survived, he wouldn’t be Odd Thomas anymore. How could anyone live with that?
He was tired. And somehow, he always expected that he would die this way eventually-messily and alone. That was the price he paid for using a gun.