Preface and Chapter 1.
*DISCLAIMER*: THIS IS AN ALL ORIGIONAL WORK. ANYONE WHO JACKS IT OR ALTERS IT WITHOUT PERMISSION AND USES IT FOR A PROFIT AT ANY TIME I WILL NOT ONLY SUE YOU BUT KICK YOUR ASS! MKAY? :D
This is the Preface and First chapter to a novel I am currently working on.
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The light of the silver moon illuminated the fair grounds with its glow, in the dark places away from the lights and main attractions, creating a halo of serenity and light around him.
"Beautiful," he whispered, letting the words linger like a passing breeze on his lips as he gazed into the heavens of the night, oblivious to the mirth and merriment going on a few feet from him on the main grounds.
"What’s beautiful?" a musical, female voice whispered into his ear.
"Huh?!"
Startled he turned around and gazed upon those chocolate brown eyes for the first time. The depth of the strangers gaze pulled at his soul, like a chord strung on a harp. He was lost before he even had a chance to save himself. Mystery, depth, love, warmth, power, fear, compassion...everything so right and wrong that could exist in this world clashed in an elegant chaos there in those eyes.
"You’re kind of retarded huh?" the stranger said with a slight breathy laugh.
"Wait, what?" he blurted. The words she said had barley registered in the tangle of thoughts that now consumed his mind.
Taking a step back, he saw the rest of her for the first time. She was short, though not too short. Her face was a light mocha cream complexion, with waves of luscious, dark hair that fell just past her shoulders. The cheeky grin on her face gave her an attitude of tremendous confidence and declared a challenge like a feral animal protecting its nest. The slight nervous twitch at the corner of her lips gave her a sense of shy curiosity as well. She was the most beautiful contradiction he had ever seen.
"I said…YOUR..KIND OF...RETARTED..HUH?"
Each annunciation puckered her juicy, full lips in a way that made his blood boil.
Shaking himself out of his daze, he replied with a raised eyebrow and a look of utter confusion.
"Yup. You’re retarded," she sighed, turning to walk off and began to melt into the merry crowd amid the colourful lights of the grounds.
Startled, but stiff as a board he stared after her, watching as she melted into the crowd.
"Wow she has an amazing body; that ass...and those eyes.." he thought to himself.
Looking down to shake himself out of his own thoughts, he quickly glanced at her for one last look. This time it was her shoes that caught his attention. Black leather Converse. Chuck Taylor's in fact. Looking as fresh as if they had just been bought from an athletic apparel store in a mall. She was dressed like other women around the fair grounds, choosing to adopt the latest fashion trend of the time by wearing men's slacks instead of the equal common but more traditional circle skirt and blouse...but the shoes..
Stark realization spun his head like a fresh blow with a baseball bat. Those shoes did not belong...at least not here...not now.
"She's not from here..." he whispered to the night air.
The simple awareness of his own words made him stare. "How did she get here? Who is she? Where is she from?" he thought. A million and one questions passed through his mind at the speed of light, in those few seconds.
Catching the last glimpse of one of those immaculate shoes disappearing into the crowd spurred him from his moonlit contemplation on the bench he was sitting. Scrambling through the crowd, he pushed through any gaps he could find in the general direction of where her retreating form had been. Angry mutters and muffled curses followed him in his wake. Frantically looking over the heads of all the people that he could around him, he did not notice the goliath shadow bear down on him until he was flat on his ass wondering what had happened.
"Ugh…what the? What's the big deal?"
Looking up from the hard grass he directed his gaze to where the voice had sounded from. There he saw the monster of a man he had crashed into. "He looks like an elephant squished into a teenager’s body, wearing a brunette toupee and whose trunk had never fully managed to develop," he noted to himself, with an amused chuckle as he stared at the man’s stumpy nose.
"A wise guy eh?!" the elephant man exclaimed.
As he started to get up, the form of the mans athletic lettermen jacket materialized clearly into his vision. By his jacket and his build he must have been a football player or a wrestler. Oblivious to the small crowd that was forming around him, he started forward to apologize to the man…when the sledgehammer of a fist connected with his mouth.
Blackness. A sound. Laughter. Groggily he opened his eyes. Something wet on his mouth. Touching his fingers to his lips he saw it was blood…then the pain hit…his own blood.
"Ugh owww.." he groaned.
The crowd that had gathered around him in his brief moment of unconsciousness was dispersing amid chuckles, uproars laughter and jeering. Elephant man was walking away with two young, slender beauties on his arms, one in a yellow dress, the other in a white blouse and dark green circle skirt.
"Fuck" he mumbled in defeat, letting his head fall back onto the sparse, compacted grass of the fair grounds, as he closed his eyes in pain.
"Are you okay, cutie?" a too quickly familiar musical voice said from somewhere up above.
Flames shot into his cheeks as he opened his eyes and saw those miraculous brown eyes staring down at him, with a small amused smile lighting up the rest of her face like the first snowfall of a bright winter morning. There she was; shoes and all, and conveniently at his most embarrassing moment.
"I've been better..." he mumbled in a raspy embarrassed agony, screwing his eyes shut.
"Your eyes are blue." she stated with a hint of curiosity and what sounded like...wonder?
"What?!" he croaked, his head popping up slightly with curiosity; eyes snapping open from his mortified, internal retreat.
She had crouched down low next to him and was wiping the blood of his mouth with a tissue. A small, plastic wrapped travel pack, he realized. Something else that just didnt quite fit.
"I said your eyes are blue, like the colour of a clear sky on a nice day. They were green on the bench back there." she explained nonchalantly.
Closing his eyes, he put his head back down on the grass. He could feel the heat from her body close by. As well as an energy. ..Something electric hung in the small space that separated them.
"My eyes change colour" he managed to say amidst a fit of sudden coughing as breath returned to the rest of his lungs. "They change depending on my mood."
"Mm...Lovely" she whispered sultrily into his ear.
The heat of her breath and the sudden closeness to his ear sent waves of chills and electricity down his spine to his toes. He could feel the blood pumping and rushing from his brain to the lower half of his body.
"Oh shit." he mumbled in shock.
"What's wrong?!" she asked, turning her head to look at him from wiping the blood off of his neck, staring into his eyes with a dangerously knowing and amused look in her eye.
"Don’t worry about it.." he replied in a heated voice as spits of fire flamed his cheeks anew into a bright red.
"Your so cute when you blush" she replied in a low chuckle, turning back to work on the dried blood on his neck.
"Great! I'm a cute blusher!" he thought to himself, making the heat in his cheeks rise even more.
"What is this?" her musical voice asked, as she began to pull up the thin gold chain from under his now blood stained blue carsica shirt.
"NO!" he roared, as he quickly clamped his hand on hers to stop her from pulling the chain out. Pushing her hand away he quickly stood up off the ground, immediately regretting his actions as the bright lights of the ball toss stand in front of him swam in his vision, and the noise of the fair assaulted his aching head. Turning around slowly, he looked at the strange girl and now saw a mask of icy fury consuming her face that just a moment ago was as warm and inviting as the sun.
"I'm sorry. I cant show you that.." he said slowly, staring into her now frozen brown eyes.
"Fine." she replied curtly.
Taken aback, he quickly replied, "Thanks for your assistance though."
"Whatever." she said, turning to leave.
He caught her arm and was hit with a brick wall, that was her fist connecting with his nose.
Blackness.
Awakening in the dark, his head was pure agony. He was on the hard ground again. The sparse grass added no cushion to his fall. Gingerly he sat up a little, feeling his nose, he remembered the slugger that had connected with his face.
"Oww" he groaned stuffily to himself. "What a bitch. What did I ever do to her? Ugh, at least my nose isn't broken."
Noticing the tissues the strange girl had left on his chest, he sat up and began to clean off the dried blood that now covered his mouth and neck. The late light of the moon illuminated the writing on one of the tissues..though the smears of dried blood had almost made the writing in black ink almost illegible.
"You deserved that, you douche."
- S.
"Who the hell is S?" he thought in anger. "Was it that girl?"
Tucking the tissue into the pocket of his slacks, he stood up and slowly observed the abandoned fair grounds around him. With all the light out, the carnival managed to cast a feeling of ominous quiet around the area. The massive farris-wheel loomed in the far end of the grounds like a overly large insect watching its territory amidst masses of smaller stands and tents.
"Fantastic. All I need now is a creepy clown to jump out at me from one of those stands and my night is complete." he sighed into the crisp late night air.
Suddenly weary of his surroundings, and a head filled with images of clowns wandering the grounds at night like horribly unamusing zombies, he reached for the thing gold chain that hung from his neck. In the moonlight the pendant that hung at the end of the chain gave off a soft golden red glow. It was a small gilded cage, in the shape of a diamond. In the middle hung an even smaller ornate little clock that glowed red with energy that pulsated from its core. The hands were stuck at 6:52. He could never figure out if the clock was pure crystal or made of something else, as its consistency seemed to be changing from crystalline to a suspended liquid and back again as of late. Its red glow sometimes turned murky with a gray tint too. Something else he didn’t quite understand. It had been happening more and more lately. For its fragile look, the pendant was remarkably resilient; withstanding tremendous amounts of abuse in the past. Only the chain was breakable it seemed, bought from a local jewellery store back home.
Home. It felt like a good place to be after the night that had just happened. Hardly the craziest night he had in the past few months, but still..something felt important about tonight.
"Your just being stupid, Gabriel." he thought to himself. "Your making a little encounter with an irrationaly beautiful girl, who incedently kicked your ass, into more than it is."
Fingering the pendant, his mind began to wander to the night all this insanity began..."NO! Best not to think on that too clearly. Bad things happened when you thought to clearly."
Sighing, he thought of his apartment in Edmonton. The black leather couches with thier musty, leathery smell, the red walls of his room. The feeling of his comfortable bed when he was really tired and had just layed down in it. Holding the image in his mind, his finger flicked the glowing red clock through the hole in the back of the pendant, big enough to get a finger through, but not big enough for anything inside to slip out.
An owl stared blinking from the tree that it had been watching from. The man was gone. Hungrily and silently it took flight and dove for the mouse that crossed the spot the man had just been standing in a few seconds ago.
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Ch.1-Shit Happens
2 YEARS LATER.
The morning sun was a liar. Streaming through the bedroom window of the tiny apartment it shone with a glorious radiance and vigor of a star in its prime; giving a subtle promise of a day full of adventure and positive vibes. One look out the window changed all of that.
“Shit,” Gabriel mumbled to himself as he gazed upon the world outside of the apartment, stretching his cramped muscles along to the sound of his sigh of vexation.
On the ground lay what could only be found in Alberta during late March, four feet of snow. Frost covered the surface of the usually fluffy, yet currently unpleasant substance. The surrounding trees of the busy street glittered with a layer of frost like sparkling diamonds in the sunlight, belying the clouds in the distance that looked as if they would bring a fresh serving of the fluffy monstrosity later in the day.
Stepping back from the window he caught his reflection in the glossy, black, thirty two inch LCD T.V. he kept across from the foot of his bed. Reflected back to him was a man of average height with tousled dirty blonde hair, partly grown in stubble that would become a beard in a day or two if left unshaven, a lean muscular build across the chest, shoulders, and down the rest of his body. His eyes were aqua green this morning. They had a strange habit of changing colors depending on his mood. These eyes that attested a piercing gaze back at him in the TV’s surface told a different story than that of an average man. Those eyes shone with a million little sparkles, each containing a memory of the lessons every man learns through his experiences, some harsher than others. Lately, all had been harsher than others.
Turning away from his reflection, Gabriel fingered the thin gold chain that hung from his neck. The chain was nothing special. Hundreds like it could be found at any corner jewelry store in any decent mall in Edmonton. The gilded cage with the red jewel in the shape of a clock was a whole different matter. It was unique. The cage itself looks like a diamond and the clock was suspended in the middle with no visible attachment connecting it to the cage. A finger sized hole in the back of the pendant allowed the wearer to touch the clock suspended inside. The jewel, if that’s what it could truly be called looked like a regular ruby but made of crystal, though it emitted a low red glow of energy from its center. Lately it had been turning murkier with a grey tinge in the center of the clock, during every passing day. The clocks hands were always pointed at 6:52.
“What a terrible time,” thought Gabriel. “That’s when...no. It’s in the past now. I can’t think about that too clearly.”
Letting the pendant drop to rest against his chest, Gabriel looked around the room of his tiny apartment. The red walls were covered with a variety of things from a poster of Tupac, a board with various things pinned to it, a poster of two girls kissing in their underwear. An expansive shelf covered a side wall with a flurry of DVD’s books and ornamental objects which really were just action figures from a youth long gone. The twin size bed took up very little space but in a tiny room, it dominated the center with the T.V. across from it and a small walk in closet on the other wall. The night stand held a small reading lamp that could be found in IKEA for ten dollars and an alarm clock that was flashing 12:00 and his cell phone resting beside it.
Doing a quick double take at the clock Gabriel cursed lightly under his breath as he exclaimed to no one in particular “The bloody power must have gone out last night.”
Hustling towards the night stand he picked up his cell phone, flipping it open quickly. The time read 9:00 am.
“Shit I’m going to be late for work!”
Not bothering to shower Gabriel quickly threw on a pair of denim jeans and a black collared polo shirt. Speeding through his island of a kitchen he managed to snag a blueberry bagel from then bread box over the fridge without bringing the rickety thing crashing down on top of his head as it usually did every morning. Being overly broke led ones bread box to suffer the misfortune of being neglected as everything else took priority. Snagging his favorite leather jacket off the hook, bagel in mouth, he ran out the door.
Thirty minutes later amid a mass of crushing bodies he was rumbling along the streets of Edmonton on the local public transit bus. Heading down 97th street, the surrounding area was covered with the snow. And the traffic jam was pure chaos. As soon as snow hit the streets of Edmonton it was as if everyone had forgotten how to drive. Vehicles piled the ditch every few blocks from spin outs and a few cops could be seen tending to disgruntled patrons of the dreaded, icy fender bender collisions.
“Ugh.” A grunt managed to escape Gabriel’s lips as he was sandwiched by the sea of bodies as the bus mad a left turn into Northgate Transit Center.
“Bleh, something smells like a zombie’s ass” he muttered to himself, crinkling his nose in displeasure.
Subtly looking around him he traced the smell to the man by the back pole with the brown, grimy and dirt stained clothes. The man had wispy grey hair plastered to an age lined face that looked like it had seen many a hard winter. He also happened to be forcing his way through the crowd of people packed onto the tiny bus. His beady dark eyes were locked in Gabriel’s direction.
The bus ground to a stop and the doors whooshed open sending a blast of icy but clean air onto the bus. Scrambling through the doors and onto the bus terminal platform to avoid getting crushed by the sea of people all trying to get off at once, as well as to avoid the creepy hobo looking man Gabriel rushed into the adjacent mall heading for work. He was intercepted at the mall doors by the familiar short figure of his store manager. She didn’t look very happy.
“Your ten minutes late” she said in her mousey voice, one which hinted that she was currently unimpressed.
Standing at a dominating five foot two inches, Jessie-Lawrence Tran was a stunning picture of an annoyed Christmas elf with her flushed cheeks and crinkled brow; eyes trying to stare daggers of discipline into Gabriel’s advancing form. Her usually black glossy hair was done up in a disheveled bun today and her south Asian features contrasted greatly with what just could possibly the whitest name for an Asian girl on this side of the city. It was hard to be intimidated by someone so diminutive.
“Have you seen what’s happening on the roads?” Gabriel started to say but he was quickly silenced with an annoyed sound from Jessie’s lips.
“Don’t give me that crap Gabriel. You’ve been late three times this week and it’s only snowed once. I should write you up for this” she threatened.
“Ahh give him a break Jess, he works hard. What’s the big deal if he is late a few times?” sounded a voice from behind the now open mall door.
Illuminated by the light spilling out from the inside of the mall stood Gabriel’s savior and the only guy he could stand to work with that wasn’t totally anal about every single detail of the job. Charlie “chuck chuck” Wilson was the spiting image of a roguish man with a cheeky grin plastered to his narrow face, and mirth lighting up his green eyes. This lighthearted and amusing fun-machine, known as “chuck chuck” around the mall for always speaking in a voice that could only resemble what a woodchuck would sound like if it could speak English, stepped forward to clap Gabriel on the shoulder. Standing a solid six feet but lanky in build, his neatly spiked, thinning brown hair looked like a rigid Nazi standing at attention, greatly contrasting his devilish nature. He also had the misfortune to work under Jessie-Lawrence as her assistant manager. True to his roguish nature he was secretly dating the she-witch. It was one of those company secrets they both tried to hide really hard, but wasn’t really a secret.
“The crazy boss lady is giving you trouble again eh Gabe? Don’t worry. Get her a cookie and she will calm down. She is like a cute puppy that just wants some love.” Charlie said with an amused grin.
Giving Charlie a look of pure evil, Jessie turned to Gabriel and handed him a large envelope, containing what sounded like happily jingling money when she shook it.
“Just take yesterdays deposit to the bank, and don’t waste any time getting back” she spat icily.
Grabbing the envelope, he walked off to the opening mall doors giving Charlie a grin of appreciation behind the jezebels turned back. Charlie was like a furry co pilot who would save the day in the nick of time.
As the door closed behind him Gabriel heard Jessie-Lawrence lacing into poor old Charlie, “You don’t ever undermine me in front of the rest of the employees. I don’t care if he didn’t deserve...” the sound cut off as the door slammed shut.
The mall was already alive with its early morning hustle and bustle as Gabriel made his way towards the bank at the far end. Old ladies could be seen chatting on the scattered benches around the place and young kids were running around in excitement over all the shiny toys and merchandise in the windows. Some kid could be heard crying in the distance. Just another day in the mall it seemed.
Approaching the entrance to the bank Gabriel could see a massive line up already formed. The patrons were all eagerly waiting to be served by two of the available free tellers. The harried look of those two clearly showed the joy of under staffed service industry workers. Luckily for Gabriel the Business Express line was empty of any customers. Giving a jaunty salute to the security officer at the doors he hurried over and set down his deposit bag for the old, bored looking lady across the counter. Without so much as even a grunt of greeting the lady began processing the deposit within the bag, using her teeth to rip open the bag instead of the easily available scissors that were with in arms reach.
Slightly annoyed Gabriel gave her a pleasantly fake smile and said “Good morning. How are you today?”
The teller looked up from her work giving Gabriel an equally fake smile in return and muttered an incoherent response.
“Ok. That’s great.” He replied sarcastically looking around the room to avoid any more pleasantries with the teller. Gazing at the fish tank in the corner behind the teller’s desk, a putrid stench wafted into the room from behind him.
Turning around and gazing toward the entrance Gabriel’s eyes came to rest on those beady dark eyes from the bus. The hobo was back and his glare was turned squarely on him.
The chaos that unfolded next had no rhyme or reason. With a strangled cry the hobo pulled out a gun from underneath his patchy dirt stained jacket and turned and shot the security guard at the entrance square in the face, splattering blood on the ATM machines behind where the security guard had stood and now lay crumpled dead in a bloody heap on the ground.
Then the screaming began.
The hobo cackling with mad glee began to shuffle towards Gabriel with a zombie like slowness firing his hand gun wildly in his general direction, indiscriminately hitting any poor soul who had the misfortune to be standing in the line that blocked the attacker from having a straight line of fire.
One bullet made it through the sea of panicked people and grazed the edge of Gabriel’s ear and slamming into the eye of the old teller behind him, splattering her brains and flesh on the back of her chair as the force of the bullet ripped through her skull.
“Ahhh fuck!” Gabriel screamed as he dove to the ground.
Scrambling under the metal bars that made up the business line Gabriel frantically crawled toward the offices in the corner opposite from the now bloody teller’s booth. The hobos mad cackling filled the air as the sounds of a gun being reloaded and shuffling foot steps floated up behind him. Turning around Gabriel witnessed a small of dead bodies flooding the banks pristine white tiled floor with their spilled blood. The hobo still advanced at a shuffle, eyes intent on only him.
Scrambling up and turning to the one of the office doors Gabriel frantically twisted the handle to no avail. It was locked. He tried another. It too was locked. The third door would not budge either though he heard the sound of movement behind the other side.
Pounding the door he screamed “Open the door! For god sakes open the fucking door!”
The sound of a bullet being fired and impacting next to his ear into the wooden frame of the door was his only reply. Jumping back in panic and falling back to the ground he scrambled away from the door as a the splinters of the piece of shattered frame cut into his cheek, causing a small torrent of blood to pour down the rest of his face. Backing against the far office door he looked up to the end of the hall. There stood the grimy man from the bus pointing a greased up, silver revolver at his head with a wicked expression of glee on his face. Blood splatters stained his already disgusting clothes and a mix of the putrid stench and the rustic scent of blood wafted up the corridor to punish Gabriel’s already overtaxed senses. The hobo was standing in front of the only visible exit. He was effectively boxed in.
Violently shaking he screamed at the man who caused all this carnage, “Why are you doing this? What the hell do you want with me?!”
A bullet splintering into the door to the left of his face and a mad cackle were his only reply.
Eyes wide with shock and fear Gabriel froze and looked down the barrel of what was to be the last sight before he died. His clothes clung to him in a sickly sweat, as his body shook violently from the adrenaline and terror, the pendant of his chain feeling hot against his skin. With the sudden idea of what should have sprung into his mind the moment all this madness had started. Finger sliding into place behind the cage he concentrated hard on Jessie-Lawrence’s angry expression just 10 minutes prior. He flicked the little clock inside the pendant…
The hobo cackled with mad triumph as he squeezed the trigger…
Gabriel felt the room lurch and was pulled backwards by a sensation of ripping agony that started from the navel. Screwing his eyes against the pain he let of a silent scream that was lost in the black infinity of agony he was trapped in.
“Why do you have your mouth open like that? Look at me when I am talking to you!” yelled a mousey voice from somewhere below his chin.
Opening his eyes there was Jessie-Lawrence standing in all her short glory, a look of fury on her face.
“Answer me damn it! Why are you so sweaty? You know what never mind! I was saying don’t give me that crap Gabriel. You’ve been late three times this week and it’s only snowed once. I should write you up for this,” she threatened.
“Ahh give him a break Jess, he works hard. What’s the big deal if he is late a few times?” sounded a voice from behind the open mall door behind her.
Out walked Charlie with that exact roguish grin from earlier.
“The crazy boss lady is giving you trouble again eh Gabe? Don’t worry. Get her a cookie and she will calm down. She is like a cute puppy that just wants some love.” Charlie said.
Giving Charlie a look of pure evil, Jessie turned to Gabriel and handed him a large envelope, containing what sounded like happily jingling money when she shook it.
Taking the envelope before she had a chance to open her mouth Gabriel shoved past her exclaiming “Deposit. Quickly. Don’t waste time. On it boss lady!”
With a look of utter perplexity she just handed Gabriel the bag and rounded on Charlie.
Not stopping to listen Gabriel rushed through the mall doors and though frantically. He had about 6 minutes before the gun man showed up and that nightmare was repeated all over again. Running to the bank at the far end of the mall he scrambled to a stop amid dirty looks and the startled security guard.
“Whoa son! What is your hurry?” exclaimed the rumpled security guard.
Breathing heavily Gabriel managed to gasp out, “Evacuate the bank. There is a gun man coming. He will be here any minute!”
“What are you talking about? That’s a pretty serious accusation to make son” said the guard giving Gabriel a stern, fatherly look.
“There’s no time to explain.” He replied. “Just trust me.”
Shaking his head, the guard reached back toward his belt where his cuffs were situated as he said “You’re going to have to come with me and explain what you mean. Until your intentions are clear I am going to have to hold you to make sure you’re not posing a threat to the bank.”
A scent of putrid filth wafted into the bank from behind Gabriel. A scream caught in his throat, he looked around frantically for anything to use as a weapon. His eyes settled on a black metallic garbage can to the side of the ATM on his right as the guard advanced on him. With a scream of terror and rage Gabriel lunged for the garbage can, hefting it up with all his strength and swinging it back to his left, narrowly missing the guards startled face and slamming it into the face of the filthy man coming around the corner. The hobo hit the ground like a ton of bricks dropped from a rooftop. The silver, oily revolver flying from his coat and skirting across the ground to land at the foot of the advancing guard who stared down at it with dumb confusion.
“See! I told you there would be a gun man.” Gabriel panted, from the exertion of his swing.
The jingling of arriving mall security sounded from behind them. Three over weight mall cops with their white collared security uniforms straining across their middles, jogged into the bank.
“What happened here? We heard a commotion and a scream from the store across the way?”
The bank security guard explained the entire situation while Gabriel looked down upon the unconscious form of the hobo, crinkling his nose in disgust as he tried to catch his breath over the stench and stop his body from shaking. This one mad man could have caused the carnage seen only in a movie…with a shudder he thought “and I wouldn’t be here right now…neither would half these people.”
Jostled out of his pensive thoughts by the bank security guard laying a hand on his shoulder, he heard him say “Your going to have to go with them son. I explained to them what happened, but they still have a few questions they would like to ask you.”
Looking at the stern expressions of the fat mall cops, Gabriel just shook his head and muttered a quiet, “Sure.”
“Sorry I didn’t believe you kid. You may have just saved everyone’s lives,” stuttered the bank guard, who was now white as a ghost as the full effect of the situation settled on him.
“Don’t mention it,” Gabriel muttered with a dry throaty laugh as he followed two of the mall security guards who were dragging out the unconscious form of the putrid man amidst startled looks from various bank patrons. He was flanked by the third as they all exited the bank.
An office door opened at the end of the hall. Chocolate brown eyes stared intently out of the crack in the door upon the retreating figures of mall security, their captive, and all too familiar looking boy.
“Gotcha,” laughed a musical voice as the door shut closed.
This is the Preface and First chapter to a novel I am currently working on.
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The light of the silver moon illuminated the fair grounds with its glow, in the dark places away from the lights and main attractions, creating a halo of serenity and light around him.
"Beautiful," he whispered, letting the words linger like a passing breeze on his lips as he gazed into the heavens of the night, oblivious to the mirth and merriment going on a few feet from him on the main grounds.
"What’s beautiful?" a musical, female voice whispered into his ear.
"Huh?!"
Startled he turned around and gazed upon those chocolate brown eyes for the first time. The depth of the strangers gaze pulled at his soul, like a chord strung on a harp. He was lost before he even had a chance to save himself. Mystery, depth, love, warmth, power, fear, compassion...everything so right and wrong that could exist in this world clashed in an elegant chaos there in those eyes.
"You’re kind of retarded huh?" the stranger said with a slight breathy laugh.
"Wait, what?" he blurted. The words she said had barley registered in the tangle of thoughts that now consumed his mind.
Taking a step back, he saw the rest of her for the first time. She was short, though not too short. Her face was a light mocha cream complexion, with waves of luscious, dark hair that fell just past her shoulders. The cheeky grin on her face gave her an attitude of tremendous confidence and declared a challenge like a feral animal protecting its nest. The slight nervous twitch at the corner of her lips gave her a sense of shy curiosity as well. She was the most beautiful contradiction he had ever seen.
"I said…YOUR..KIND OF...RETARTED..HUH?"
Each annunciation puckered her juicy, full lips in a way that made his blood boil.
Shaking himself out of his daze, he replied with a raised eyebrow and a look of utter confusion.
"Yup. You’re retarded," she sighed, turning to walk off and began to melt into the merry crowd amid the colourful lights of the grounds.
Startled, but stiff as a board he stared after her, watching as she melted into the crowd.
"Wow she has an amazing body; that ass...and those eyes.." he thought to himself.
Looking down to shake himself out of his own thoughts, he quickly glanced at her for one last look. This time it was her shoes that caught his attention. Black leather Converse. Chuck Taylor's in fact. Looking as fresh as if they had just been bought from an athletic apparel store in a mall. She was dressed like other women around the fair grounds, choosing to adopt the latest fashion trend of the time by wearing men's slacks instead of the equal common but more traditional circle skirt and blouse...but the shoes..
Stark realization spun his head like a fresh blow with a baseball bat. Those shoes did not belong...at least not here...not now.
"She's not from here..." he whispered to the night air.
The simple awareness of his own words made him stare. "How did she get here? Who is she? Where is she from?" he thought. A million and one questions passed through his mind at the speed of light, in those few seconds.
Catching the last glimpse of one of those immaculate shoes disappearing into the crowd spurred him from his moonlit contemplation on the bench he was sitting. Scrambling through the crowd, he pushed through any gaps he could find in the general direction of where her retreating form had been. Angry mutters and muffled curses followed him in his wake. Frantically looking over the heads of all the people that he could around him, he did not notice the goliath shadow bear down on him until he was flat on his ass wondering what had happened.
"Ugh…what the? What's the big deal?"
Looking up from the hard grass he directed his gaze to where the voice had sounded from. There he saw the monster of a man he had crashed into. "He looks like an elephant squished into a teenager’s body, wearing a brunette toupee and whose trunk had never fully managed to develop," he noted to himself, with an amused chuckle as he stared at the man’s stumpy nose.
"A wise guy eh?!" the elephant man exclaimed.
As he started to get up, the form of the mans athletic lettermen jacket materialized clearly into his vision. By his jacket and his build he must have been a football player or a wrestler. Oblivious to the small crowd that was forming around him, he started forward to apologize to the man…when the sledgehammer of a fist connected with his mouth.
Blackness. A sound. Laughter. Groggily he opened his eyes. Something wet on his mouth. Touching his fingers to his lips he saw it was blood…then the pain hit…his own blood.
"Ugh owww.." he groaned.
The crowd that had gathered around him in his brief moment of unconsciousness was dispersing amid chuckles, uproars laughter and jeering. Elephant man was walking away with two young, slender beauties on his arms, one in a yellow dress, the other in a white blouse and dark green circle skirt.
"Fuck" he mumbled in defeat, letting his head fall back onto the sparse, compacted grass of the fair grounds, as he closed his eyes in pain.
"Are you okay, cutie?" a too quickly familiar musical voice said from somewhere up above.
Flames shot into his cheeks as he opened his eyes and saw those miraculous brown eyes staring down at him, with a small amused smile lighting up the rest of her face like the first snowfall of a bright winter morning. There she was; shoes and all, and conveniently at his most embarrassing moment.
"I've been better..." he mumbled in a raspy embarrassed agony, screwing his eyes shut.
"Your eyes are blue." she stated with a hint of curiosity and what sounded like...wonder?
"What?!" he croaked, his head popping up slightly with curiosity; eyes snapping open from his mortified, internal retreat.
She had crouched down low next to him and was wiping the blood of his mouth with a tissue. A small, plastic wrapped travel pack, he realized. Something else that just didnt quite fit.
"I said your eyes are blue, like the colour of a clear sky on a nice day. They were green on the bench back there." she explained nonchalantly.
Closing his eyes, he put his head back down on the grass. He could feel the heat from her body close by. As well as an energy. ..Something electric hung in the small space that separated them.
"My eyes change colour" he managed to say amidst a fit of sudden coughing as breath returned to the rest of his lungs. "They change depending on my mood."
"Mm...Lovely" she whispered sultrily into his ear.
The heat of her breath and the sudden closeness to his ear sent waves of chills and electricity down his spine to his toes. He could feel the blood pumping and rushing from his brain to the lower half of his body.
"Oh shit." he mumbled in shock.
"What's wrong?!" she asked, turning her head to look at him from wiping the blood off of his neck, staring into his eyes with a dangerously knowing and amused look in her eye.
"Don’t worry about it.." he replied in a heated voice as spits of fire flamed his cheeks anew into a bright red.
"Your so cute when you blush" she replied in a low chuckle, turning back to work on the dried blood on his neck.
"Great! I'm a cute blusher!" he thought to himself, making the heat in his cheeks rise even more.
"What is this?" her musical voice asked, as she began to pull up the thin gold chain from under his now blood stained blue carsica shirt.
"NO!" he roared, as he quickly clamped his hand on hers to stop her from pulling the chain out. Pushing her hand away he quickly stood up off the ground, immediately regretting his actions as the bright lights of the ball toss stand in front of him swam in his vision, and the noise of the fair assaulted his aching head. Turning around slowly, he looked at the strange girl and now saw a mask of icy fury consuming her face that just a moment ago was as warm and inviting as the sun.
"I'm sorry. I cant show you that.." he said slowly, staring into her now frozen brown eyes.
"Fine." she replied curtly.
Taken aback, he quickly replied, "Thanks for your assistance though."
"Whatever." she said, turning to leave.
He caught her arm and was hit with a brick wall, that was her fist connecting with his nose.
Blackness.
Awakening in the dark, his head was pure agony. He was on the hard ground again. The sparse grass added no cushion to his fall. Gingerly he sat up a little, feeling his nose, he remembered the slugger that had connected with his face.
"Oww" he groaned stuffily to himself. "What a bitch. What did I ever do to her? Ugh, at least my nose isn't broken."
Noticing the tissues the strange girl had left on his chest, he sat up and began to clean off the dried blood that now covered his mouth and neck. The late light of the moon illuminated the writing on one of the tissues..though the smears of dried blood had almost made the writing in black ink almost illegible.
"You deserved that, you douche."
- S.
"Who the hell is S?" he thought in anger. "Was it that girl?"
Tucking the tissue into the pocket of his slacks, he stood up and slowly observed the abandoned fair grounds around him. With all the light out, the carnival managed to cast a feeling of ominous quiet around the area. The massive farris-wheel loomed in the far end of the grounds like a overly large insect watching its territory amidst masses of smaller stands and tents.
"Fantastic. All I need now is a creepy clown to jump out at me from one of those stands and my night is complete." he sighed into the crisp late night air.
Suddenly weary of his surroundings, and a head filled with images of clowns wandering the grounds at night like horribly unamusing zombies, he reached for the thing gold chain that hung from his neck. In the moonlight the pendant that hung at the end of the chain gave off a soft golden red glow. It was a small gilded cage, in the shape of a diamond. In the middle hung an even smaller ornate little clock that glowed red with energy that pulsated from its core. The hands were stuck at 6:52. He could never figure out if the clock was pure crystal or made of something else, as its consistency seemed to be changing from crystalline to a suspended liquid and back again as of late. Its red glow sometimes turned murky with a gray tint too. Something else he didn’t quite understand. It had been happening more and more lately. For its fragile look, the pendant was remarkably resilient; withstanding tremendous amounts of abuse in the past. Only the chain was breakable it seemed, bought from a local jewellery store back home.
Home. It felt like a good place to be after the night that had just happened. Hardly the craziest night he had in the past few months, but still..something felt important about tonight.
"Your just being stupid, Gabriel." he thought to himself. "Your making a little encounter with an irrationaly beautiful girl, who incedently kicked your ass, into more than it is."
Fingering the pendant, his mind began to wander to the night all this insanity began..."NO! Best not to think on that too clearly. Bad things happened when you thought to clearly."
Sighing, he thought of his apartment in Edmonton. The black leather couches with thier musty, leathery smell, the red walls of his room. The feeling of his comfortable bed when he was really tired and had just layed down in it. Holding the image in his mind, his finger flicked the glowing red clock through the hole in the back of the pendant, big enough to get a finger through, but not big enough for anything inside to slip out.
An owl stared blinking from the tree that it had been watching from. The man was gone. Hungrily and silently it took flight and dove for the mouse that crossed the spot the man had just been standing in a few seconds ago.
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Ch.1-Shit Happens
2 YEARS LATER.
The morning sun was a liar. Streaming through the bedroom window of the tiny apartment it shone with a glorious radiance and vigor of a star in its prime; giving a subtle promise of a day full of adventure and positive vibes. One look out the window changed all of that.
“Shit,” Gabriel mumbled to himself as he gazed upon the world outside of the apartment, stretching his cramped muscles along to the sound of his sigh of vexation.
On the ground lay what could only be found in Alberta during late March, four feet of snow. Frost covered the surface of the usually fluffy, yet currently unpleasant substance. The surrounding trees of the busy street glittered with a layer of frost like sparkling diamonds in the sunlight, belying the clouds in the distance that looked as if they would bring a fresh serving of the fluffy monstrosity later in the day.
Stepping back from the window he caught his reflection in the glossy, black, thirty two inch LCD T.V. he kept across from the foot of his bed. Reflected back to him was a man of average height with tousled dirty blonde hair, partly grown in stubble that would become a beard in a day or two if left unshaven, a lean muscular build across the chest, shoulders, and down the rest of his body. His eyes were aqua green this morning. They had a strange habit of changing colors depending on his mood. These eyes that attested a piercing gaze back at him in the TV’s surface told a different story than that of an average man. Those eyes shone with a million little sparkles, each containing a memory of the lessons every man learns through his experiences, some harsher than others. Lately, all had been harsher than others.
Turning away from his reflection, Gabriel fingered the thin gold chain that hung from his neck. The chain was nothing special. Hundreds like it could be found at any corner jewelry store in any decent mall in Edmonton. The gilded cage with the red jewel in the shape of a clock was a whole different matter. It was unique. The cage itself looks like a diamond and the clock was suspended in the middle with no visible attachment connecting it to the cage. A finger sized hole in the back of the pendant allowed the wearer to touch the clock suspended inside. The jewel, if that’s what it could truly be called looked like a regular ruby but made of crystal, though it emitted a low red glow of energy from its center. Lately it had been turning murkier with a grey tinge in the center of the clock, during every passing day. The clocks hands were always pointed at 6:52.
“What a terrible time,” thought Gabriel. “That’s when...no. It’s in the past now. I can’t think about that too clearly.”
Letting the pendant drop to rest against his chest, Gabriel looked around the room of his tiny apartment. The red walls were covered with a variety of things from a poster of Tupac, a board with various things pinned to it, a poster of two girls kissing in their underwear. An expansive shelf covered a side wall with a flurry of DVD’s books and ornamental objects which really were just action figures from a youth long gone. The twin size bed took up very little space but in a tiny room, it dominated the center with the T.V. across from it and a small walk in closet on the other wall. The night stand held a small reading lamp that could be found in IKEA for ten dollars and an alarm clock that was flashing 12:00 and his cell phone resting beside it.
Doing a quick double take at the clock Gabriel cursed lightly under his breath as he exclaimed to no one in particular “The bloody power must have gone out last night.”
Hustling towards the night stand he picked up his cell phone, flipping it open quickly. The time read 9:00 am.
“Shit I’m going to be late for work!”
Not bothering to shower Gabriel quickly threw on a pair of denim jeans and a black collared polo shirt. Speeding through his island of a kitchen he managed to snag a blueberry bagel from then bread box over the fridge without bringing the rickety thing crashing down on top of his head as it usually did every morning. Being overly broke led ones bread box to suffer the misfortune of being neglected as everything else took priority. Snagging his favorite leather jacket off the hook, bagel in mouth, he ran out the door.
Thirty minutes later amid a mass of crushing bodies he was rumbling along the streets of Edmonton on the local public transit bus. Heading down 97th street, the surrounding area was covered with the snow. And the traffic jam was pure chaos. As soon as snow hit the streets of Edmonton it was as if everyone had forgotten how to drive. Vehicles piled the ditch every few blocks from spin outs and a few cops could be seen tending to disgruntled patrons of the dreaded, icy fender bender collisions.
“Ugh.” A grunt managed to escape Gabriel’s lips as he was sandwiched by the sea of bodies as the bus mad a left turn into Northgate Transit Center.
“Bleh, something smells like a zombie’s ass” he muttered to himself, crinkling his nose in displeasure.
Subtly looking around him he traced the smell to the man by the back pole with the brown, grimy and dirt stained clothes. The man had wispy grey hair plastered to an age lined face that looked like it had seen many a hard winter. He also happened to be forcing his way through the crowd of people packed onto the tiny bus. His beady dark eyes were locked in Gabriel’s direction.
The bus ground to a stop and the doors whooshed open sending a blast of icy but clean air onto the bus. Scrambling through the doors and onto the bus terminal platform to avoid getting crushed by the sea of people all trying to get off at once, as well as to avoid the creepy hobo looking man Gabriel rushed into the adjacent mall heading for work. He was intercepted at the mall doors by the familiar short figure of his store manager. She didn’t look very happy.
“Your ten minutes late” she said in her mousey voice, one which hinted that she was currently unimpressed.
Standing at a dominating five foot two inches, Jessie-Lawrence Tran was a stunning picture of an annoyed Christmas elf with her flushed cheeks and crinkled brow; eyes trying to stare daggers of discipline into Gabriel’s advancing form. Her usually black glossy hair was done up in a disheveled bun today and her south Asian features contrasted greatly with what just could possibly the whitest name for an Asian girl on this side of the city. It was hard to be intimidated by someone so diminutive.
“Have you seen what’s happening on the roads?” Gabriel started to say but he was quickly silenced with an annoyed sound from Jessie’s lips.
“Don’t give me that crap Gabriel. You’ve been late three times this week and it’s only snowed once. I should write you up for this” she threatened.
“Ahh give him a break Jess, he works hard. What’s the big deal if he is late a few times?” sounded a voice from behind the now open mall door.
Illuminated by the light spilling out from the inside of the mall stood Gabriel’s savior and the only guy he could stand to work with that wasn’t totally anal about every single detail of the job. Charlie “chuck chuck” Wilson was the spiting image of a roguish man with a cheeky grin plastered to his narrow face, and mirth lighting up his green eyes. This lighthearted and amusing fun-machine, known as “chuck chuck” around the mall for always speaking in a voice that could only resemble what a woodchuck would sound like if it could speak English, stepped forward to clap Gabriel on the shoulder. Standing a solid six feet but lanky in build, his neatly spiked, thinning brown hair looked like a rigid Nazi standing at attention, greatly contrasting his devilish nature. He also had the misfortune to work under Jessie-Lawrence as her assistant manager. True to his roguish nature he was secretly dating the she-witch. It was one of those company secrets they both tried to hide really hard, but wasn’t really a secret.
“The crazy boss lady is giving you trouble again eh Gabe? Don’t worry. Get her a cookie and she will calm down. She is like a cute puppy that just wants some love.” Charlie said with an amused grin.
Giving Charlie a look of pure evil, Jessie turned to Gabriel and handed him a large envelope, containing what sounded like happily jingling money when she shook it.
“Just take yesterdays deposit to the bank, and don’t waste any time getting back” she spat icily.
Grabbing the envelope, he walked off to the opening mall doors giving Charlie a grin of appreciation behind the jezebels turned back. Charlie was like a furry co pilot who would save the day in the nick of time.
As the door closed behind him Gabriel heard Jessie-Lawrence lacing into poor old Charlie, “You don’t ever undermine me in front of the rest of the employees. I don’t care if he didn’t deserve...” the sound cut off as the door slammed shut.
The mall was already alive with its early morning hustle and bustle as Gabriel made his way towards the bank at the far end. Old ladies could be seen chatting on the scattered benches around the place and young kids were running around in excitement over all the shiny toys and merchandise in the windows. Some kid could be heard crying in the distance. Just another day in the mall it seemed.
Approaching the entrance to the bank Gabriel could see a massive line up already formed. The patrons were all eagerly waiting to be served by two of the available free tellers. The harried look of those two clearly showed the joy of under staffed service industry workers. Luckily for Gabriel the Business Express line was empty of any customers. Giving a jaunty salute to the security officer at the doors he hurried over and set down his deposit bag for the old, bored looking lady across the counter. Without so much as even a grunt of greeting the lady began processing the deposit within the bag, using her teeth to rip open the bag instead of the easily available scissors that were with in arms reach.
Slightly annoyed Gabriel gave her a pleasantly fake smile and said “Good morning. How are you today?”
The teller looked up from her work giving Gabriel an equally fake smile in return and muttered an incoherent response.
“Ok. That’s great.” He replied sarcastically looking around the room to avoid any more pleasantries with the teller. Gazing at the fish tank in the corner behind the teller’s desk, a putrid stench wafted into the room from behind him.
Turning around and gazing toward the entrance Gabriel’s eyes came to rest on those beady dark eyes from the bus. The hobo was back and his glare was turned squarely on him.
The chaos that unfolded next had no rhyme or reason. With a strangled cry the hobo pulled out a gun from underneath his patchy dirt stained jacket and turned and shot the security guard at the entrance square in the face, splattering blood on the ATM machines behind where the security guard had stood and now lay crumpled dead in a bloody heap on the ground.
Then the screaming began.
The hobo cackling with mad glee began to shuffle towards Gabriel with a zombie like slowness firing his hand gun wildly in his general direction, indiscriminately hitting any poor soul who had the misfortune to be standing in the line that blocked the attacker from having a straight line of fire.
One bullet made it through the sea of panicked people and grazed the edge of Gabriel’s ear and slamming into the eye of the old teller behind him, splattering her brains and flesh on the back of her chair as the force of the bullet ripped through her skull.
“Ahhh fuck!” Gabriel screamed as he dove to the ground.
Scrambling under the metal bars that made up the business line Gabriel frantically crawled toward the offices in the corner opposite from the now bloody teller’s booth. The hobos mad cackling filled the air as the sounds of a gun being reloaded and shuffling foot steps floated up behind him. Turning around Gabriel witnessed a small of dead bodies flooding the banks pristine white tiled floor with their spilled blood. The hobo still advanced at a shuffle, eyes intent on only him.
Scrambling up and turning to the one of the office doors Gabriel frantically twisted the handle to no avail. It was locked. He tried another. It too was locked. The third door would not budge either though he heard the sound of movement behind the other side.
Pounding the door he screamed “Open the door! For god sakes open the fucking door!”
The sound of a bullet being fired and impacting next to his ear into the wooden frame of the door was his only reply. Jumping back in panic and falling back to the ground he scrambled away from the door as a the splinters of the piece of shattered frame cut into his cheek, causing a small torrent of blood to pour down the rest of his face. Backing against the far office door he looked up to the end of the hall. There stood the grimy man from the bus pointing a greased up, silver revolver at his head with a wicked expression of glee on his face. Blood splatters stained his already disgusting clothes and a mix of the putrid stench and the rustic scent of blood wafted up the corridor to punish Gabriel’s already overtaxed senses. The hobo was standing in front of the only visible exit. He was effectively boxed in.
Violently shaking he screamed at the man who caused all this carnage, “Why are you doing this? What the hell do you want with me?!”
A bullet splintering into the door to the left of his face and a mad cackle were his only reply.
Eyes wide with shock and fear Gabriel froze and looked down the barrel of what was to be the last sight before he died. His clothes clung to him in a sickly sweat, as his body shook violently from the adrenaline and terror, the pendant of his chain feeling hot against his skin. With the sudden idea of what should have sprung into his mind the moment all this madness had started. Finger sliding into place behind the cage he concentrated hard on Jessie-Lawrence’s angry expression just 10 minutes prior. He flicked the little clock inside the pendant…
The hobo cackled with mad triumph as he squeezed the trigger…
Gabriel felt the room lurch and was pulled backwards by a sensation of ripping agony that started from the navel. Screwing his eyes against the pain he let of a silent scream that was lost in the black infinity of agony he was trapped in.
“Why do you have your mouth open like that? Look at me when I am talking to you!” yelled a mousey voice from somewhere below his chin.
Opening his eyes there was Jessie-Lawrence standing in all her short glory, a look of fury on her face.
“Answer me damn it! Why are you so sweaty? You know what never mind! I was saying don’t give me that crap Gabriel. You’ve been late three times this week and it’s only snowed once. I should write you up for this,” she threatened.
“Ahh give him a break Jess, he works hard. What’s the big deal if he is late a few times?” sounded a voice from behind the open mall door behind her.
Out walked Charlie with that exact roguish grin from earlier.
“The crazy boss lady is giving you trouble again eh Gabe? Don’t worry. Get her a cookie and she will calm down. She is like a cute puppy that just wants some love.” Charlie said.
Giving Charlie a look of pure evil, Jessie turned to Gabriel and handed him a large envelope, containing what sounded like happily jingling money when she shook it.
Taking the envelope before she had a chance to open her mouth Gabriel shoved past her exclaiming “Deposit. Quickly. Don’t waste time. On it boss lady!”
With a look of utter perplexity she just handed Gabriel the bag and rounded on Charlie.
Not stopping to listen Gabriel rushed through the mall doors and though frantically. He had about 6 minutes before the gun man showed up and that nightmare was repeated all over again. Running to the bank at the far end of the mall he scrambled to a stop amid dirty looks and the startled security guard.
“Whoa son! What is your hurry?” exclaimed the rumpled security guard.
Breathing heavily Gabriel managed to gasp out, “Evacuate the bank. There is a gun man coming. He will be here any minute!”
“What are you talking about? That’s a pretty serious accusation to make son” said the guard giving Gabriel a stern, fatherly look.
“There’s no time to explain.” He replied. “Just trust me.”
Shaking his head, the guard reached back toward his belt where his cuffs were situated as he said “You’re going to have to come with me and explain what you mean. Until your intentions are clear I am going to have to hold you to make sure you’re not posing a threat to the bank.”
A scent of putrid filth wafted into the bank from behind Gabriel. A scream caught in his throat, he looked around frantically for anything to use as a weapon. His eyes settled on a black metallic garbage can to the side of the ATM on his right as the guard advanced on him. With a scream of terror and rage Gabriel lunged for the garbage can, hefting it up with all his strength and swinging it back to his left, narrowly missing the guards startled face and slamming it into the face of the filthy man coming around the corner. The hobo hit the ground like a ton of bricks dropped from a rooftop. The silver, oily revolver flying from his coat and skirting across the ground to land at the foot of the advancing guard who stared down at it with dumb confusion.
“See! I told you there would be a gun man.” Gabriel panted, from the exertion of his swing.
The jingling of arriving mall security sounded from behind them. Three over weight mall cops with their white collared security uniforms straining across their middles, jogged into the bank.
“What happened here? We heard a commotion and a scream from the store across the way?”
The bank security guard explained the entire situation while Gabriel looked down upon the unconscious form of the hobo, crinkling his nose in disgust as he tried to catch his breath over the stench and stop his body from shaking. This one mad man could have caused the carnage seen only in a movie…with a shudder he thought “and I wouldn’t be here right now…neither would half these people.”
Jostled out of his pensive thoughts by the bank security guard laying a hand on his shoulder, he heard him say “Your going to have to go with them son. I explained to them what happened, but they still have a few questions they would like to ask you.”
Looking at the stern expressions of the fat mall cops, Gabriel just shook his head and muttered a quiet, “Sure.”
“Sorry I didn’t believe you kid. You may have just saved everyone’s lives,” stuttered the bank guard, who was now white as a ghost as the full effect of the situation settled on him.
“Don’t mention it,” Gabriel muttered with a dry throaty laugh as he followed two of the mall security guards who were dragging out the unconscious form of the putrid man amidst startled looks from various bank patrons. He was flanked by the third as they all exited the bank.
An office door opened at the end of the hall. Chocolate brown eyes stared intently out of the crack in the door upon the retreating figures of mall security, their captive, and all too familiar looking boy.
“Gotcha,” laughed a musical voice as the door shut closed.
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