11-24

ELEVEN

Pain eases with a full stomach.

          By the rising of the next day, he was able to eat, but concerned it would be a time before his sides felt less pain, to enable him to complete the foods journey back to the earth.  But he did eat.  And this was good.  The first day it had been only water.  He had called for something stronger, but in his condition, such imbibing would have eased the pain but prolonged the suffering.  Sometime in this last night he passed his water for the first time without blood.  There was no long-term damage to his interior parts. 

          “I need to get up and move about … body’s getting’ stiff lying on this mat.”  We discussed it at length, he fell asleep again, and once again upon stirring asked to walk about. 

          I told him it was not yet a good idea.  I had not left this place, save to purchase food, since we had entered three nights ’fore, and it was my concern the big Grey, Myron, might be about and tended toward ill will toward our persons. 

          I thought we had agreed to shoot first.  We had, but better avoid the necessity. 

          I’m sure I can still shoot.

          Me too … but we do not know what Myron might have learned from the encounter. 

          Huh? 

          He might have sat in the succor of his w***e and figured out what he will do differently next time.

          Good point. 

          Rest until dark, and then we will see how you are feeling.  Walk around a-bit.

          You really been here the whole time?

          Yup.

          Why?

          It was done for me once.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWELVE

Terror came in hush of night and seized.

          Risk.

          We had done what was said would be, and woke again, with the approach of nightfall.  We walked.  I had to lean some on him, but I was stronger than anticipated.  Probably by either of us.  Each of we two strapped on our short gun before the venture-forth. 

          A good time passed and we returned.  “This place is too small for two men of our … “

          “… age?”

          What passes for the time our bodies have endured, if not our minds. 

          Agreed.  Do we have enough to take lodging elsewhere?  Perhaps.  We might enquire on the morrow. 

          Agreed.

          We drank, ate, imbibed a bit.  I do not know if I fell asleep first; or he.  But he was there and woke me. 

          But it was too late.  For again, the Terror had come, as with each night it had stalked before.  This night though, I knew, the Terror did not lurk at the edge of the darkness of night, but dwelled in my own soul, but yet apart.  The thing from the cave had so devoured my mind, that it had taken residence in the greatest places of inner solitude from where it continues the hunt.  And perhaps that terror, the knowledge of the nature of my Terror, makes it far greater still. 

          The cave is always with me.

          I am always in the cave.  With the Shadows …

          And the Terror is always in the cave and in me.  I never see its form, but its shadow backlit from the faintest light.

          My screams wake Chance. 

          I am awake, and I am screaming.  And the Terror does not abate. 

          He has pulled me from the Terror into wakefulness.  I am shamed and wonder:  is this the first time he has seen my fear at the Terror?  I have shown him so much trust at personal peril, but now he will know.  He will see my lie for what it is and then undo all that time and attempt has attempted to put right.  Can I truly be held into account by whatever accounts the soul for what happened when I crawled from cave?  Who would not done as I, one haunted by the Terror.  I feel its breath �" to this day, I feel its breath and am haunted same by the rash choice it terrorized me into making.  I would undo myself if it offered any chance of change. 

 

 

THIRTEEN

Anxiety overcame caution and healing.

          Three times the Day’s Star and the Night’s exchanged place.  We sat, or lay in the room.  Talked.  Ate. 

There had been trouble.  It passed. There was a flash of trouble again at the edge of sleep, but it was overcome.

          No longer could we remain in the cube, so we departed, and not knowing what to do, decided to reconstruct our circular route around the town.  If only to not be inside for a time.  If only to reclaim our place among the natural order of things.  The horses remained as they had been at the livery.  Our kit stored there, the same.  Time to ride he suggested.  Talked again of heading North.  Always f*****g North.  What the f**k was North?  A direction?  Why not South?  Why not North is the same as Why not South.  Better to decide than to stagnate.

          A decision was made.  Answers has not come in our companion, so we would separate and seek apart.  Plus we had been far too long in each others company, and I offered, with healing accomplished, the action was now allotted to allow for separation. 

          You are not ready.  You cannot walk by yourself … and what of the Grey, Myron?  If’n he comes when neither you and I are together … things could go afoul.  They will go as they go regardless of your unity or separation. 

          You are not strong enough.  He continues to counter all suggestions with a scant reason why I cannot or we should not, and I want to damn him and tell him I should have left him at the side of the f*****g trail.  I hold tongue. 

          “I am well enough.”  I need to move.  You have things you must do … perhaps go and see the Waitress.  Perhaps just be without my presence being at the same time.  You have done much.  But I am well!

          He relented, and we decided, and then hesitated, and then he remarked we should set a time and a point to reacquire one-another.  By dusk, in front of the saloon.  The same saloon as four nights before.  We would eat. 

          He hesitantly walked one direction from the “X” that marked the central area of the town.  Looking back a time or two I waved and indicated I was okay.  In truth I felt that at any moment I would collapse, but the same foolish sense of self and image forced me to stay on my feet.  I walked off.  The town was alive.  Creatures hither.  Yon.  Doing things that the living do.  Very little of it held importance to the do-er or the observer. 

          The idea was simple and stupid.  Two people cover more ground than one.  We walk, listen and see what we find.  I walked and the first moment Chance was out of sight, I sat my tired a*s down on the clapboard and breathed in pain. 

          Someone came up to me then, said something banal.  I looked up.  It was one of the furry creatures.  They talked in this guttural hum, usually in their own language.  This one tried to speak some of the words I knew.  And laughed.  It was happy.  If I understood well enough, Myron �" the big Grey from days before �" had intimidated or wronged this little furry fella.  Fuzz was happy with what had happened, even for my part of getting my a*s kicked.  He thought it was wonderful.  F**k Fuzz.

          But he said it nice, and was excited.  Rubbed up against me … its how they show friendship … and was off.  Little hairs lifted from his body and drifted softly akimbo in the light of a lantern.  He was about two heads shorter than me, broad and squat without being heavy.  Most of his kind were more fur than fat.

          Fuzz was not the first.  Others came by, and within moments, I was sitting with an audience around me, and wishing Chance would return.   I did not care for this newly found aura of company.

          Most of the crowd had not been there; at the saloon.  Most were humanoid.  Different skin colors, but mostly of the same ilk.  All they wanted was to hear the story.  From me.  What was it like?  Was I scared … those sorts of questions.  Soon enough there was a jug, and it was passed, and I drank.  More than the rest.  And soon I was telling the story; despite un-comfort in multiplied presence.  I tried not to embellish and stuck to the parts that did-not-include me getting my a*s kicked. 

          I was uncomfortable at first, with these creatures around.  But they were drawn somehow.  Their emptiness was filled with my presence and my story.  I asked them for their stories.

          “Nuns’us gets’o’story.”  Mine was the only tale to tell.  I asked deeper, and they shied.  It was a touchy subject.  None seemed to want to recall their past.  Only the present, the moment. 

          I asked if they wanted to hear mine.  A woman looked to be on the verge of crying.

          She said mine was the same.  We all start with the same story. 

          ”Excuse me? I’m not sure I reckon …”

          Tears came down her fast in rapid fashion.  Workmanlike.  “We all wake naked and scared.  We all are here, and we all pay the price.  We live in fear for the day when it comes.”  When what comes I wanted to scream!?  What??  Speak �" but I could not, and she did not speak of it further.  One of the older ones set his hand on her shoulder.  A furry one, not Fuzz, made a different sound that sounded remorseful.

          None of this made a damn bit of sense to me, except the waking naked and scared.  Was it not only I?  Not only Chance?  How could we all have come to this place in the same manner?  The crowd no longer stirred with anticipation, but dwelled in an odd place between melancholy and anxiety.  Her words changed the course.    

          They began to shift away.  Scurrying like bugs.  Or Crabs.  Away.  Their eyes looking at me, but not seeing.  Moving sideways, unawares.  She had hinted at some great sadness, and all recalled and knew save for me.  But if I ask, I was exposed as the unknowing. 

          As I sat on my a*s.  On the clapboard.

          A boy passed by.  “Talk to Priest.  He has the story.  He knows.”

          Where.

          He said where.  I waited.  The jug was still there and I thought to drink.  But a greater soul said no.  And I stood to go find the man called Priest. 

 

 

 

 

 

FOURTEEN

Chance

How long could I wander before this world passed by?

          Perhaps if I wandered the town long-enough, I thought, an idea might come to me about how to discover … what?  What am I searching, and what for? … and that was the true problem �" I wanted to ask for answers to questions I could not form.  What if no one had a reference for my particular dilemma?  Would they be as unsure of me, as I am unsure of myself.  I did not trust the skills I was finding held … dropping the Grey.  The things I know to do that I do not know I know.  Without the words, how could I understand my own thoughts.

          I walked on, and nothing came that offered more clarity, or less, but with so little, nothing less meant even less than nothing at all. 

          Many were about, and of the many, a good portion wanted to talk of that night’s happenings.  Many had thought we had taken to the hills, since we had not been about.  We had been run-oft.  I assured them, nothing of the kind had occurred and we had been here, in this place, the whole time.  Just collecting our thoughts …

          "Where yuns bean?”  they would ask.

          I claimed something different, and benign, each time. 

          Work was to be done, regardless of the fight. 

          Been taking in late mornings and early nights since. 

          Had a long time on the trail ‘fore we came to town. 

          Been about, seen you, can’t believe yun didn’t see me!

          Someone grabbed my hand.  The one I had used to strike the Grey; Myron.  There was a scab at the knuckles.  Bluish at the edges.  It still hurt.  But I told them it did not.  They seemed joyed at the sight of the point that had met the beast’s flesh.

          A crowd had gathered to discuss the matter.  We talked.  I left and walked, and soon there was another crowd.  The first time I was embarrassed, the second I liked the recognition, by the third gathering, I was frustrated.  Even though I had nowhere to be other than the place I was, I felt the need to go … somewhere.  Away?  Risk?  It was his name now.  And with him carried my concern.

          But then it came upon me, everyone wanted to talk, perhaps I could keep them talking, if only to get information.  I played affable with the groups, trying to see what they would give, see what I could take, hoping the favor was to me and not they.  Time passed, few questions answered from lack of presentation; so I moved next to one of the saloons.  Not the one we had frequented, but one of much less repair with harder characters within.  It smelled of rotten wood, and that was the good smell. 

          I bought the drinks.  I was the good guy.  I talked of the fight, like they wanted to hear a fight spoken of.  And from nowhere one asked how long it had been since I woke from the sweats.

          “Not long enough I would forget them.”  It seemed the easy answer.  I could not give them information.  I could not renew the forlorn place of the unknowing.

          You aint a new-er though?

          No!  Hell no!  Been going for a few cycles now.  Kind of never started keeping track of the passing of the Day’s Star.  Didn’t see the point no more.”  Heads went up and down.  My words had struck.  These men, they were all humanoid males … very dirty … they had stopped counting too.  I asked who was the newest of the new?  And they laughed.  No one talked about their “second.” 

          No?

          No, no one f*****g cares!

          I laughed - they laughed.  It was funny, sad funny, because no one did care.

          So ya’ll been here in the town … most of yer … uh … second time?

          Heads nodded to the affirmative.  Why not, I asked?  And the sagest turned to me and asked where I was before I was here, and I said East; and he asked about this place in the East … what it had been like �" to wit I responded like here; but smaller.

          And he was quiet, his question having been his response.  If every place was like this, to some degree, why seek divergence?…

          What was the “Second?”

          More rounds were bought, and I felt drunkenness creeping upon me, and with the heat of the day still upon the ground, wanted to avoid its call against the rocks.  An excuse was made, an exit taken.  I walked along.

          A voice said I was in trouble. 

          It belonged to Waitress from the first saloon. 

          I was in the street.  She was not there and then she was.

At my side.  I regarded her anew, not as Waitress but as something that breathed and had existence when my presence was absent. 

          Her words matched thoughts residing in my head for the last days, indeed I was in trouble.

 

 

 

 

FIFTEEN

Sorrow abounds and pervades when despair is the norm. 

Risk

          There was no place, seeming or existing to be, a place one finds a man named Priest.  I looked for the man, and then his likeness seeking the portend of answers or knowledge.  I found little other than the time needed for the search.

          I asked around of all I found, "Priest?"  Eyes smiled with recognition of the name, and its pairing with the individual so called. I was prejudicial and asked only the humanoids.  Was Priest of their ilk?  Was he a form entirely unknown?  Covered with Fur?  Most indicating, or speaking if they could be understood, that the Priest’s exact whereabouts exceeded their knowing.  I depleted the stock of the colored-skins, and asked the first group of Furries I came across.  Humanoids could be fickle, disinterested, false or just plain annoying.  The Furries were always pleasant upon approach.  It was likely false itself, but I preferred a false smile to a true grimace.  They commiserated in their own chirps and mews that made for conversation, sniffed at the air, and led me to an alley. 

          They pointed toward a mass laying in a shadow. 

          "Priest?" 

          They were all smiles of mouths filled with tiny, sharply-pointed teeth.  Furries like to please.  One rubbed up against me as it passed, the patterns in its hide reminded me of the one of its ilk I talked with earlier, so I believed the corporal acted as a tone of the familiar … at least for the one I called Fuzz.  They were all furry and fuzzy so I probably should give him a new name. 

          I was out of names. 

          My left arm and shoulder were covered with its hair.   Wiping it off had no true effect, and tiny hair floated and stuck to me �" Again!

          The form on the ground, in the shadow of a small building, was a pale-skinned humanoid male.  His clothes we either all black or mostly black and completely dirty.  His age was not so much old, as so old to be ageless.  An effigy that had always been and would always be, ancien.  Ages passing innumerable to mine-own.  Skin given way to leather

          I left Chance heading one direction. I took the other.  He walked first, but the choice had been mine. I walked about.  Thinking nothing.  Doing nothing.  Maybe looking for signs?  The recognizable feigned as the shadow of knowing.  And wandering had lead me to this … man in name only for answers.

          There had been eyes upon me.  Everywhere I went, there were stares. 

          And here I was, at this place, staring at this man, turning him into a spectacle to be beheld by mine-eyes, and at this moment, no other set or grouping.  

          My body remained tired and given to slow healing.  I sat in the dirt, in the shadow of the structure, next to the man.   He breathed heavily, asleep, through the mouth, drying the crust of spit at the corners of his mouth. 

          His odor was old, unclean flesh with alcohol.  More unclean than most, not all, and bit more alcohol than average.  The smell of urine was also in the air, but that could be the alley in which he lay and I sat, and not so much the body that was the man.

          After a time, an eye half-opened, with the soul awakened by unknown presence.  The eye be-held me for a short time, closed again, and waited.  The drunk slept more, and the eye cracked anon, unsure of time’s passing - moments - and beheld me again.  Closed. 

          Priest.

          More time passed.  Not moments, not hours, but somewhere between those two states.

          He asked if I was still there.  I replied that I was, using a soft non-threatening tone.  His eyes had not reopened.  Arms stayed akimbo. 

          I abided in being.

          And he abided.  In dirt.

          Go away.  His tone was soft in kind, but direct and full of authority... Go away. 

          I continued were I sat, doing little, waiting.

          There was a reason for me to be there.  I had been led to this place, even if only through a comment.  I looked upon him and felt not pity, but disgust.  One should not foul their for through abuse of any nature.

          God Hates You.

          He does?

          That is the purpose of your seeking.  This question.  They all ask, in their own way.  They talk with the others, and here I know more of the life before, of the second life too!  Why me? I ask myself … why must every fool come to me?

          And you tell them all that god hates them.

          Most.

          To what end? 

          Mostly that they leave, but also that they accept. 

          What is there to accept?

          No, enough!  Leave me be. 

          What is so important you do not want to talk a bit?  What is so much more about talking with you than my just laying here? 

          You have nothing I want .... I have nothing you need.

          I seek only knowledge.

          No you don't.  You seek pardon and solace.  You don't care about the answers!  You only care about how the answers make you feel.  Same with all the rest. Humanoids are the worsen …  Light skins, like me, ...I hate’em

Now please f**k off.

          Priest.

          Things returned to quiet.  His breathing slowed and body moved only with intake of breath.  More time passed, and my patience held.  It was a realization of self.  I could wait.  There was no compunction toward movement or action.  My mind remained free of thought, and I was.  I crossed my legs, one over the other and slowly cycled my breathing, with each breath I gave more of my body over to the air as it left my lungs.  I was and I was not, and it was the greatest peace I had felt in my entire, short existence.

          I was deep in self, and felt life stir.  Breath in.  Recover.  Breath and the soul returns.  Eyes open.  I behold the Priest

before me.  Standing, beholding me.

          "You will not let me be?" 

          I only wish to talk ...

          Why?  Why do you want to know? 

          To know, to understand.  I am in a place, and I am without.

          We walk. 

          No.  I did not want to talk of God, or gods, or the frailty of life.  Yes, I do hate myself.  So whatever divine there is, is free to hate me too. 

          Priest.

          But what measure is someone a priest or no?  The town calls me Priest.  I have never had a name.  Once perhaps, I had works and deeds to go with my words.  But those are all memories gone the way of youth. 

          “Someone called me Priest ... And in the left-behind slush of a mind we hold, that word “priest” connected with an image and that image to thoughts and ideas.  Ah yes, it said, deep down inside that mass of grey jelly this resonates.  So you came here trying to see if that image matches with me.  I offer it does not, and yet you still call me Priest. 

          What would you have me call you?

          I would not.  Have you call me.  I would have you.  Leave.

          But I feel you will not ....

          I think to myself tht you, Priest, are the only one that can explain the things to me. 

          Why? 

          A sense. 

          A sense? 

          No faith.

          To have no faith, is to not know faith.  You understand that?  You understand that … then it all makes sense.  S**t, I don’t understand that … but I know the faith thing …you have it you don’t get it.  Faith … f**k faith!  You see?  Do you see boy!  I ain’t have the answer you need.  You ain’t got a question!  Time ain’t a golddarn cylinder.  It don’t travel round and round and round.  Coming back to the same place.  Replaying for eternity. There is no linear being, A to B and so on in ad infinitum un-so-weite … un-so-weite! Nach Zusammen!  Faith!  Har!  That’s a good one lad.

          I did not follow.

          “I will I’ll be more simple.  Although you dernt car-ry your bones like’n someone in need of simplicity.  I’m called Priest, because unlike most, some of what I once was come over wit me.  M’old life .. the first.  When I woke I could remember large bits of my mind.  And I was indeed a holy man, so you see part of what had made me faithful, in the first life, came over.  Holy man …. F**k ... I know not what upon I worshipped and called Lord?  A demigod that died swimming for a flower at the bottom of the sea that would portend eternal life?  A golden guernsey?  The clay statue of a fat female.  Self?  Tell’me boy!  What the hell did I call Lord in the time’fore?  Tell me!  Call it by its f*****g name! 

          I see.  I did not.  And I let him go on.

          Shut up and listen (I had not spoken).  But I brought sump’in else wit me.  Knowledge!  Not smarts .. but some knowing!  Know!  No?  Know! I KNOW  betrayed my Faith, I KNOW I betrayed my LORD … the one I don’t f*****g know now! and that betrayal is sentenced me here!  I know only I loved a thing I called by the name God, and Lord, and I betrayed self-same.  We all bring something of our old self with us.  Me, I got part m’faith, the part saying once I believed, but it was only through the lens of the betrayal of the same faith.  I am cursed and banished.  By a righteous Lord.  And I believed executed by those I betrayed and called brother.

          The great horror of sentience.  To be aware, is to recognize at one hand what we could be and at the same time what we will never be.  Such is … The Horror.

          And how can we love each other, when we cannot love ourselves?  But the other end of not loving ourselves is the fullest of truths; that we cannot love ourselves because with each waking moment we see how full a’s**t we are.  What is there to love in lies and perverseness? We loathe ourselves and assume the masses are the same, as ourselves.

          We had stood and been walking for some time, and when we stopped walking  I was unsure of where we were, and scanned the buildings looking for the familiar.

          I beheld him.  Waited, and perhaps was beheld by him.  Chance was off on the path he had chosen.  Our first separation since I had drugged him in death.  There were things he should know about that, but how could I bring them up?  The other one.  He had not been alone.  But there was nothing I could do for the other.  I had not understood the words of Priest, but in their speaking I came back to the other one.  The one that died.  The one whose death was on my hands.  Was it?

           I only spoke a short while longer with Priest, then gave him to make his way.  He was becoming sober and angry, and probably angry about being sober.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SIXTEEN

Trouble does not find, trouble seeks.

           She, Waitress, had something more specific in mind - than my general state of being�" when she said I was in danger. 

The Grey.  The big one.  The Alpha.  From the night of the fight … she spoke in staccato … the one who I insulted ...  I did not insult him … it … His w***e … I did not … whatever … The Grey … The big one … she went on ...  Myron …  It was looking for me.

          If Myron was looking for me, it meant he would want to settle things.  That he was probably ready.  He had a plan.  I did not other than to shoot Myron the second I saw him.  I spent time considering … no I didn’t … I had already decided, I said to self … Myron comes for me he dies.  One shot.  Maybe ten? 

          Danger indeed, immediate.  She continued again, retelling the same story in the same fits and starts.  I sensed the gun at my hip and recalled vividly the motions of slipping the leather and shooting. It would be best to just kill it.  Hmph. I shrugged and walked off.  Needed to think.  She matched my gait and fell in with my pace.  Conversant, when conversing was not needed.  Noise was not needed.  Her quiet would have brought a greater sense of calm than her speech. I had not asked for her arrival, warning or company, although the middle of the three was to my benefit.  She chattered-about, commenting on what I should, or should not, do.  I spoke softly giving thanks for the warning, but stating her advice on the matter was not needed.

          Instinctively I started walking toward where I thought Risk might be.  I let my soul seek his ... I needed him … I rely I on him.  What has occurred in this binding of purposes?

          Unasked, she followed in kind.  Perhaps you should leave?  I offered; she declined.  I started to insist but my mind was too preoccupied with other matters.  I roamed a road or two, peered down and alley, and saw not the companion I sought.  Saddled with the one I had not.  Damn.  Fool idea to separate.  I was naive, or had been naive to think the actions of the fight several evenings past would fade like fog under the hot morning Day’s Star.  They fight and the felling of that great, smelly beast were not an action and an ends.

          It was he, the other, whose actions dictated the course of violence I had set upon.  He started this, and then was gone from his results.  I was without his presence.  Violence remained.  And I needed and wanted him at my side.

 

 

 

 

 

SEVENTEEN

Risk.  

          I wandered more; having left Priest.  My presence appeared to be going unnoticed by the passage of time; the Day’s Star climbed with its namesake’s passing, found its apogee wanting, and descended its throne; again casting long lights of fire and essence on the land.

          In the orange glow of the Day Star’s surrender, I spotted a lone Grey.  The Grey.  Not so much creature, but a spreading mass of darkness casting an evil, encroaching shadow.  It, Myron, was to the front of me and turned down an alleyway, the space between buildings creating a thoroughfare.  I followed, at a distance, a tingling in my mind, edging me forward.  A dark stain covered the low part of its pseudo-neck, where the head became back, unprotected.  The damage bruised well. It could not be happy.  Its size … I imagined it a proud-full beast … not common to be bested or even affronted.          

          My motions were smooth; my footfalls silent.  I moved with a new purpose, and the pain that had ached, disappeared in my intense focus on the beast ahead.  My life became the fringe of shadow, perception from above.  Roads became a network of lines, viewed from Priest’s God’s eye view.  I saw the Grey, and made may way corner to corner, darkness onto darkness following the storm.

          My urge to sense almost betrayed the pursuit.

          And then there was a second.  Not as large as Myron, the Alpha, but large enough to occupy most of a large room.  One cannot use words like smaller to compare such masses, only one large and the other not so large.  This other was not as large, and yet greater than most of the creatures of this existence.  The second joined the first, the larger, and they thudded along together, eyes darting in different directions.  Looking to and fro, but not behind.  The tingling in my mind continued and I knew I was witnessing the cusp of untoward action.        

          I was down wind, moving among the long shadows.  I remained unseen and unperceived.  Beasts.  Beasts.  I thought of them as lower than myself … the humanoids … the Furries … the Tripods … the Bugs?  No … not lower than the Bugs.  Being closer to beast than other, perhaps their senses should be those of the beast as well.  Myron had shown to be as such during the fight.  I would guard against their senses of smell and sight for they were likely born for the hunt and for inflicting pain when challenged. 

          Two sickly-yellow-skinned humanoids met the Greys in an alley and the two with the two formed a group of four.  And I, only I for the moment, one.  I could smell them, four all, and they reeked of filth and decay.  Again, I took care to stay downwind.  The group of two and another two who totaled four, talked, but the words did not waft with the smell, and I was left unknowing as to the totality of their schemes.  Yet, knowledge did come as the body language suggested something was at play.  All four doing something, trying to look like they were doing nothing, looking all the while like they were obviously doing something they do not want anyone to view.  This thing they were trying to not-look like they were preparing for was to occur, and they wanted it to be so fast, so they could be about things that were not the thing …

          One of the yellow-skins passed something wrapped in swaddling lesser than the enormity of the Greys.  Not-Myron named.  It moved the cloth-covered object quickly into its jerkin, a skin or cloth, I knew not which, the kind one would wear draped from its shoulder, covering what I assumed to be its private areas and some of the torso. 

          Something flowed back to the two humanoids ... Some form of specie I guessed.  A hand extended, a hand retracted.

          Subterfuge committed in the shadows of a back alley firmly cried danger afoot.  I continued to watch, anticipating the group's parting.  The details were not whole, but I had no doubt, based on Myron's presence, the purpose of this cabal was against myself and Chance.  Perhaps only I, the original offender, perhaps the other, as the one who bested Myron. 

          The group parted.  Quickly.  I went after the Greys.  My sidearm at the ready, not drawn, and with the safety lever I had found on the slides in the "safe" position.  But still it was ready. I knew it would be in my hand with that same lever pushed into the first position before my mind had time to perceive even a mild threat.  I knew this of this gun and of myself.

          The yellow-skins, colored like old paper, went their way, and the Greys the other, into the road, heading toward the Main.  I kept among the crowds and shadows next to the clapboards, following the Greys, for with them was the danger.  Yellow-papered humanoids merely a nuisance.         

          Despite the large craniums of the large brutes, there seemed to be little thought occurring inside their skulls.  Large head, small brain.  They proceeded on a most direct path, counting for no other objects or obstacles.  Creatures of all kinds were forcibly pushed if they did not give way for the passing tide.  Goods, materials overturned.  A brooding malestrom moving through the street. 

          The Greys did not talk.  The smaller of the two rolled its head from side to side.  Flexed its shoulders, sending blood to muscles, like a fighter preparing for melee. 

          Everything stopped.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EIGHTEEN

Chance.       

          I wanted Waitress to go away.  In practical measures, if the Grey was after me, it was a danger for her to be near.

          She would be in the way.  My way.  I cared more for the untoward danger this situation, her presence and obstruction, placed upon me than any potential result unto she.  It would make me less able to do what I must.  She in being could result in me not.

          The distraction was made the more so for her speech did not end.  She would not shut the f**k up, as I had suggested, the chatter droned and perhaps increased with my perception of danger mounting.  The two in kind, she vexed me. 

          I told her again to go�"for her own safety �" but she did not heed. More talk.  More suggestion. 

          If her tongue would not be stilled I decided to guide its direction toward the matters I cared for when I had set out that morning.  I asked about how she had come to the town?  If she would continue presence and voice, perhaps the voice could be made to aid rather than err.

          In response she set to purpose.  She told me she had woken three sets of seasons ago.  In the cool time after the snows.  But before the rains. 

          Woke?  Three sets of seasons?  Years?  What is that word … year … season--year?  Meaning?  Tell me of woke? What do you remember before then?

          “Oh like most.  Almost nothing.  I mean pictures and smells, drift to me, and I know they are from the old life.  Before here.  Yet I can never quite pull them to me.  Some of the others remember more of the old life.  Could be worse.  I don’t have the memes.  Lucky there I guess.  She continued and I lost her voice in the waves of my thoughts regarding what she had already stated.

          Memes?

          Someone found me naked, she continued, took me in with food and warmth.  Brought me here and sold me to the saloon owner.  I could do more than most, so I was a waitress and not a w***e.  Good thing that ..... Bzzzzzz

          Memes?  Bzzzzzz

          "There are those who wake in the middle of nowhere. They die before they have a chance.  Or others who never really wake.  They come here … broken … not really aware."  Bzzzzzz.  “At least that is how I think it goes for the colored-skins, two-leggers.  Some of the three-leggers, same the like.  No one really know 'bout the bugs or the Furries ... theres the other types.  You’n sen most. There are others  not common here that pass through when the snows are not upon us."

          Or the big Greys? 

          Them either.  Some say, the joke. Being a Grey must be like thinking you are still in the first life, you see …

          Tell me about the memes?

          The what?

          The memes.  You said something about memes?  I tried the word a few times on the limps and it would not register among my sense of being.

          “Oh, you know.  Just things from the other side.  People wake here, but they have something �" something they have to do, or they were thinking about in the old life, and when they came over here, it was left with them.  It becomes a ... a  …  force?  All they can do.  All they can think about.  Kills most of them."

          “How so?”

          “Cause they can’t let go.” 

          Chance!  Back to the task at hand.  There’s danger about.  Focus.  These were my thoughts.  Temporarily overcome by curiosity in being.  I now had some information, but danger's presence made it impossible to focus upon presently.  I took the thoughts ... Ideas ... Words and placed them in the back, gray part of my mind. 

          Her talk continued, but I had found the peace that allowed my hearing of it to cease and fix itself upon sensing of danger.  I pushed her, too, to the back of mind.  She had to become something that was part of the tableau.  I had to prepare. 

          Focused vision.

          Calm the heart rate.

          Breath slowly.  At a pass.  Flood the blood with oxygen.

          And Focus d****t!  Focus and feel and see the danger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NINETEEN

Risk.  

          In front of the Grey pair was a large figure. 

          It was the most beautiful thing I had seen, but not the originator of beauty.  Beauty has been placed within.  Beauty poured from its form.

          It was bipedal, perhaps humanoid in character, to the best of my understanding.  Not as tall as either of the great beasts, but taller than Chance or I.  And yet, this being … this creature … had the carriage and presence of enormity and power .. .and control far greater in size and scale that its height or breadth.  It was large, without being massive.  Its features and form were ideally proportioned.  Strong and yet delicate.  Unbreakable. 

          To view upon it, the thing resembled a humanoid-like lifeform with a skin of glass over silvery-metal.   Created more than begotten. The world, all that is true and exists, reflected glass, metal, liquid skin and body - The town and my face, the Gsreys, all echoed back from within its body.  In the reflection cast all before it and all it was.  Had I stared into its face, my own face would have looked back upon me.

           A gossamer cloth draped across it’s torso like a tunic.  

          All watched, none approached.

          It spoke to the Greys.  Their heads were bowed and bodies hunched before this new … thing.  Subservient.  Obedient?  Or just scared?   I could not hear the words.  I was among a crowd, and all were steadfast in fear and did not move.  I watched, still from my shadow.  A bird on the lips of whisper said, “Sentinel.”

          The Greys still could not meet it’s eyes as it spoke.  They too were afraid of this thing, this statue.  This Sentinel. 

          It finished speaking and walked between the Greys and in my direction.  The motions were fluid, organic, not mechanical.  Water flowing over a rock, making no sound.  No one breathed. I watched.  Starred.  The world reflected in its walk, I could not take my eyes away.  It was just so beautiful ... I wanted to follow it and never return to my own life.

          And then it was beside me.  And stopped it’s course.  All parted in haste when it had started walking, leaving me alone were once I was among.

          It looked at me.  Gazed through my eyes with shapes that looked like my eyes … and I stared back, amazed, and in the staring its face became my own in reflection.  It considered me at a distance of centimeters.  It smelled of citrus and talc, and something else I could not quite place, but hinted of familiarity.  The scent too was beautiful.  Grace. Beauty.

          The Sentinel appeared to smile for a moment, it’s features soft and very humanoid, and then, not a word spoken, moved on.      I had indeed seen my own face reflected in it’s own, and cared for the reflection not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWENTY

Chance

          I told her I came from the East, the lie easier with each repetition.   Not truly a lie, for I had come from the East, but the way I meant it a lie all the more.  She had asked, as we walked. 

          For the first time she noticed my furtive movements. The walking from corner to corner, hiding among the shadows of convenience.  The looks in windows and along the rooftops.  She commented again, on the trouble I was in, and I responded again for her departure to commence. The Grey was about.  Where can something as big as that which was angered with me, hide?  Behind a mountain? 

          What had she said?  A meme.  Was that what I had been feeling?  Maybe.  I knew that I was supposed to be going somewhere, that there was something else I should be doing instead of walking from the place I was to the place that was in front of me. 

          Nothing was in my control.  Nothing had ever been in my control and this awareness caused me to burn with anger.  I thought the fight with the Grey had been under my control, but truly it was not.  I did not start the problem.  I did not finish the problem, even through the felling of that ogre, for here I am now in a continuation and escalation.  I stopped.  Looking for trouble.  I was being controlled.  Was that the secret, my lack of knowing a control? The hunt by the Grey?  Was it controlling me too through threat or fear of intense violence, probably death.

          If any of these thoughts were so, nothing was of my own accord.

          I told her again she should go away.  No more chatter.  Leave.  She was going to get herself and me killed!  She spoke ...

          Get the f**k out of here!  I was insistent.  Something had changed inside of my being that had frightened her with the raising of my voice.  This time.  The first time I told her to get the f**k away it was at a normal tone.  I did not wish to scare her so, but she left this time, although walking backward over herself, trying not to fall into the street’s filth.   She began to stumble again, and I knew I should reach out to stop her fall … to tell her not to be afraid of me for she had never crossed me … its just I am being controlled you see … and I have no idea what is going on … and I am getting so angry … I don’t want to be a man whose only skill is violence … these are the things I wanted to say and things I wanted to do.

          Instead I felt a dark presence in my soul.  From the old days?  Unsure, but I wanted to turn toward the violence and not the maiden. 

 

Risk.

          The Sentinel moved on.  My gaze lingered upon it until the form disappeared around a corner.  Should I follow?  Go after it ... follow the light.  The brilliance.  I did not.  There was danger, Chance was in danger … and why did I care?  Was it because I had found him?  And he in a manner like I.  Did I care because he had shown care.

          Returning to the Greys, I found I had lost them for a moment.  They had not been enthralled with a new discovery, as I had, and had moved on again toward purpose.  The track was easily exposed by the trail of damage and turned earth they left in the streets.  They continued down the right side of two streets that formed a V through the town.

          The left part of the V was the Main.  Chance was ahead, coming toward they, and they toward he.  Inertia.  Multiple side streets and alleys ran as capillaries between the legs of the V.  The Greys were too large to skillfully move through one of the alleys, so it would be a side street they would choose for the final approach toward harm.  They would come to his side or perhaps from a flank to the rear. 

          Brutes.

          I, Risk, was the stalker, the hunter, and observed prey that itself was on the hunt.  Crude and without grace.  All saw them coming, and moved.  I passed calmly through humanoid, insect, Furry, all form of genus, xenos, and shadow, with not even the crickets ceasing their chirp as I passed. 

          The Greys.  Their movements.  Not too far in the past of evolution their species were surely quadrupeds.  The hunched-over upper body and giant muscled arms.  The way in which their heads and necks were spread into their shoulders, like a hyena more than a dog or even an ape.  The cognitive functions were minimal.  More beasts of urging than of art.  They did speak to one another, but there was strong body language between them, they reacted to one another with Myron giving all the cues of leadership.

          Animals.  Beasts. Instinct.  Myron was the alpha.  He must avenge his domination by a colored-skinned humanoid. 

          They turned, and flowed into one of the larger capillaries. I stopped.  Went back a few meters.  Crossed the street, ran ahead so that I could approach from a different direction, but maintain my vantage and thus advantage.  The Greys moved not down an alley or small side street, but one of the other major roads that bisected the larger avenues.  Farce and comedy played, as they now decided to be careful and try to advance unseen.  One moved behind a barrel, a fifth of his size.  The other edged down the side of buildings pushing his bulk flat as if this would camouflage him. 

          My movements optimized the cover provided and darkness and forms concealed me well.  The wind stayed against my face.  The brim of my hat caste a shadow across.  My gun hung loose down my leg, but not drawn.  I moved easily.  A desert breeze. 

          Waiting.

          Peace came over me.

          Familiarity. 

          Comfort in action repeated may times. 

          I had done this before.  Tracking man or beast, they intent on violence and I ready to start violence or return it in kind. 

          Quietly following. 

          Observing. 

          Hidden and ready. 

          I like this. 

          And then there were more than two.

          Another Grey was on the roof across the street.  It moved with more ease than the others, but crouched and clamored on all fours like a stalking hill cat. The third.

          A fourth had taken up a position two meters from where I had stopped and encased himself in shadow.  I had barely seen him.  But there was the smell.  It was the fourth's ultimate betrayer.  It was the smallest, but the most adept to the hunt.  It knew thought was the best way to trap pray.

          I am better at this than they. 

          Even number Four.  Four is the best.  One and Two the worst.  I am better than all.  Comfort. 

          Number Four was too close.  I backed away through the shadow.  Made my way slow as the decay of time, until I could take another route. Another alley.  A turn.  Another alley, a turn. 

          I am better than Four, but needed not to lessen the difference.

          I had by then already held a glimpse of Chance.  Approaching the four.  Ready perhaps for one, maybe two, but the minimum was four.  The quick glance had shown he was furtive, ready.  He knew, but did he know all?  He did not see me.  Would he know I was about, or would he believe himself unitary against the foes.

          I had to break from my vantage, having reacquired Chance for the movement, to seek a position better suited for the fight I could already form in my mind.   I moved hurriedly for there were only mere moments before the pending violence.  Chance had bested one, unarmed, but four, likely carrying weapons would prove a strong obstacle.  I jumped from shadow-to-shadow to avoid the stalking Greys, including the alpha, and turned, foolishly running into a form I had not predicted.  F**k.

          That form was the first form of the two forms that were the two yellow-paper skins. 

          Rogues. Ratty clothes and the smell of dirty humanoids forced to sleep with dirtier animals. 

          “Maybe I ain’t that good … if you two f***s found me.”  I spoke to myself.  A warning for my future hunts. 

          One asked why I was following the Greys.  It sounded like he said, “degrees.”

          I met their gaze: “I am going to say this slow and simply.  So you dirty cunnies understand.”  My hands were away from his body, ready for action.  Each was taller than I, but lean.  I had no doubt I could kill them both before a word was spoken. Their crud-teeth smiles went away. 

          “Get out of my way.  Or I will kill you were you stand.  Say one word to me�"ever�"and I will cut your tongues out.  When you are dead, I will desecrate your bodies so your souls will never find peace, but be plunged into the fires of eternity.”

          Neither spoke. 

          Neither moved. 

          Thump. 

          Thump. 

          Thump.

          Blood rushed to my senses, bringing hot skin and adrenaline.  Bring me the fight so I can glory in the spilling of your blood.  I want to kill you.  See you fall from the crushing of a fist against bone, and a cold blade through your dirty flesh.  I had a knife. A quick sliced against the throat of one, a stab into the sternum of the other.  My blade would split through the ribs.  I knew I could do it … I had the power to sink the blade to the shaft.  Two, three seconds.  It would be silent and they would be more occupied with dying than with those left living.  The gun would be quicker.  The noise would attract and distract.  Chance might be able to take advantage of the raucousness, but it was more likely he would be distracted to the disadvantage.  No gun.  Fists.  I would like that … I would really like that … the pleasure at domination of other beings.  Especially after I had had my a*s kicked by Myron a few days ago.  Beating the s**t out of these two could help heal that wound.  Oh, yes, that would be nice.  But it would take to long.  The Knife if they did not move.  The knife.  I still like the knife.

          Blood.

          F**k.

          Death.

          Fly.

          Kill.

          I am full of primordial carnality.  All blended into this sense of being the true Alpha.  The progenitor.  The Killer.  The Protector. 

          Love.

          Passions overwhelming … He could kill an ocean with the passion.

          I moved away.

          Through the alley.  And they just stood there.  Unable to move. 

          Time had become seconds, where once it had been minutes.  Even shorter in a life of days, and not years. 

          I ran.  Leaving them.  Contemplating their deaths or their lives at the whisp of decision.

          Chance had been walking toward the trap.  Did he know, was he aware?  I moved in a fast, fluid run.  My body was around and over obstacles without the frontal mind registering what the sub-being-self instructed the body.

          The W***e. 

          It was her fault blood would be spilled today.  If Chance died, everyone died.  The W***e first.  First after the Greys.  Then the two dirty yellows.

          But first the W***e. 

          He was in the street now.  From his point he could see the four Greys.  There was a woman, who was not the W***e, backing frighteningly away from a man who was Chance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWENTY ONE

Chance turned and saw risk.

          He was approaching at the run.  The look on Risk’s face matched Chance’s own, the face that had scarred Waitress and had her tumbling in the street over her dress hem. 

          The Day’s Star glinted of metal.  Metal in Risk’s hand.  A gun.  A problem.  Trouble.  The games were afoot.

          Chance spun and his instincts and actions moved from an already-heightened state into overdrive.  The gun appeared in his hand, and he went to a low crouch, moving.  The smell.  The Greys.  They had moved from across the street, where they had been waiting for him.  He saw the movement as they approached.  Drawn finally toward a quarry he had sensed but remained absent from view. Myron, with the bruised head.  And another.  Not Myron, but it mattered not. Two.

          Each Grey drew upon something from underneath their cross-shoulder jerkins, weapons, and readied for the fight.  Their actions and movements were direct and linear.  Chance’s movements were seemingly random, jaunty and purposeful.  He placed the white dot on the sighting protrusion at the end of the short gun on Myron, took his bead, and then saw the third. 

          S**t, three. 

          A shot.  Not Chance.  Not the Greys �" all three.

          Risk?  The shot had been aimed high above Chance.  The top of the building underneath of which he now ran.

Four.

Risk.

          The woman backpedaled and fell. She was trying to get away from Chance, who turned and almost stood over her looking down.  And then Chance turned, and his eyes met with Risk’s own.  His Gun was out, he went low and moved powered by instinct toward cover.  The woman was forgotten and lay and dirtied herself.

          He was movement as was Risk, and there was a gun and ,where there had not been, and it sought and found a quarry as Myron and the other entered the street, brutish, and found their own weapons.  Chance’s barrel released from the holster and leveled at the approaching Greys. 

          He only sees the two and not the four!

            The one on the ground, who had been the one from the shadows and numbered the total four, the good one, was the first with a weapon drawn.  Firing crude metal bullets from a crude metal and wood gun.  The bullets scattered mostly randomly in Chance’s direction.  They passed by him, close, but harmless.  He did not see them, but his movements protected.  The first bullet exploded a wooden post across the street.  A few made mushroom clouds of dust as they hit the dirt and mud of the street, more sailed with unknown results.  Then he is aware, and dives behind some  small, wooden cover.  The rooftop Grey was above him and had a clean shot.  Risk fired on the run, quickly.  His first and then second shot missed, but served to distract, it looked at the shooting runner and locked eyes from about 30 meters. 

          I run. 

          My breathing stops. 

          Focus attunes. 

          The distance, the wind, the target, shadows that attempt to fool the eye to placement and range, and degrees�"all taken into account.  Life freezes, and even the clouds stop

 in the sky.  Nothing moves save for the slow deliberate pull of two triggers. 

          The Grey shot first.  Its bullet intended for nothing else other than to be shot.  The metal of Risk’s trigger was smooth and bent easily to his will.  Perhaps all he had done was think shoot, and there was no muscle involved.  There was no “bark” from his weapon�"only a flash as hot plasma leapt, igniting the air with fire and smoke and light.  The bolt of energy and mass erupted and coursed a direct line, sent on a wire, to the target.  Risk’s weapon erupted again. Then a third time.  The universe consisted of him, his target and his gun.

          Each trigger pull created the same micro volcano of flash, fire and smoke.  His eyes remained locked on the target.  No aim, only command as he willed the gun to action. 

          The first moment had not passed. 

          The first bolt flashed at it made contact between the eyes of the Grey�"eyes that had remained fixed on it’s opponent.  On contact, there was an explosion as molten plasma burned through the skin in less than a thousandth of a second, and then proceeded to melt its way through the thick bone of the frontal lobe propelled by velocity and superheated metal.  Before the first plasmoid had vaporized the Grey’s brain matter, the second hit it in the right shoulder, and then too quickly for the humanoid eye to discern the difference in time, the third bolt destroyed the lower left hip.  From afar, it appeared three shots had been one, with three impacts, and three explosions of flesh.

          There was a thousandth of a second of intense pain, and then the Grey was propelled backward, left soulless, dead. 

Risk turned.  Three meters away was the next Grey, it’s weapon coming up from it’s hip.  He too was frozen in time by Risk’s movements.  Two shots to the chest and a third to the head, as quick as the three shots that went before.  The first two doubled the beast over, and the third did not enter through the visage but burned a canyon through the top of its cranium like it had been hollowed out by some macabre tool.

          Another was dead.

          Chance was off the ground, on one foot and one knee as he tried to extend his body from a prone position behind cover into the run and the open.  His world was running in super-fast motion, but he was faster yet. The lead Grey was there, shooting.  He saw the bullets approach, each missing, one coming too close.  Did I move and avoid that round?  I see it in the air, consider it as it passes within centimeters of my face.  How is it I can see a  bullet?   The one from that night-The Grey; Myron.  The one that had started trouble when no trouble was needed or wanted. 

          Chance’s shots were true.  They hit the Grey in it’s extremities, which were vast.  Three, four hits, and it was felled backwards.  None of the shots in and of themselves had been fatal.  A limb had been blasted away and the hand that had held the gun was gone.  It now lay, clutching the weapon out of reach of the intact hand. 

 

 

 

 

 

TWENTY TWO

Chance        

          He was up on both feet now, and running full toward the fight.  There were four.  The one above was dead, because if it were not, Risk would still be shooting at it.  One that had been across was exploding now as the last of Risk’s shots burned through its brain. The big Grey was falling and dismembered.  A fourth remained, unhurt and unseen.

          Chance’s feet within his boots dug deeply into the ground, each step was a laborious movement.  Energy transferred, but was slowed through the dirt that gave way to force rather than push back.

          The lead Grey was no longer a threat.  It was shot in a flash.  The arm flew.  A shot to the torso.  Another, another.  A thought enters from deep within a mind … “how many shots does it take to kill?  … as many as needed sir!”  He keeps shooting.

          Breath.

          Targets.

          Sense and feel.

          Breathe. 

          Shots.

          Movement.

          The Grey, the fourth and last.  The one they would later discuss as having the greatest skill.  Movement from the left quarter, across the street.  A gun looked like a child’s toy in it’s hands, four steps.

          Five steps. 

          More shots, from the last of the Greys, but too far for the small gun to be effective.

          Chance dove while firing, making his target presentation to the assailant smaller.  Even harder to hit with the underpowered gun.

          The last Grey’s body lurched from the side with several small explosions of fire piercing it’s flesh with larger eruptions exploding from their opposite sides.  These shots, not from Chance’s gun.

          He had dove. 

          The first shots missed, but the next two caught the Grey center mass. 

          Tango Down. 

          What had been a single creature was now two bloody masses.

 

 

 

TWENTY THREE

Risk

          “Tango Down.  Clear four.  No targets.”  Risk shouted and took to one knee.  His non-shooting hand was clenched into a fist he held about shoulder level.

          What is a Tango?

          Chance’s words and actions echoed Risk’s own.  “Clear!  No Targets my side!”

          Seconds had played in their minds.  They reversed and occurred again, this time in minutes.  Their souls replayed, reviewed what had occurred.  Was there still danger?  They scan, with their eyes and their weapons.

          “I got one that’s still alive.  For a bit.”  Chance responded.  Both men were on their feet.  Chance walked toward the big Grey.  It lay there, bleeding from everywhere.  Dying.  Three pieces.  A body, an arm piece, separated below what on a humanoid would have been the bicep.  A chunk of leg. The Grey looked up; could not speak.  Gurgles.  Coughs.  Nothing intelligible.  Effluent, a mix of piss and s**t, mixed with its blood, mixed with the dirt.  Myron.

          Four?

          Yes.  I counted four.  Killed three to your one.

          2 ½.

          Whatever. 

          They laugh.

          They watched as the Grey bled-out and died.         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWENTY FOUR

Cacophony begat silence, the end of violence begat cacophony.

            Pulses began to lower.  Acid crept into blood and the soul was heavy from life’s’ taking.  Dispersed crowds reemerged and talked in hushes.  Low tones of fear and wonder.  They stirred about. 

          All were waiting … the crowd was a single organism observing the spectacle of death.  Faces, but no single face.  All waiting …

          Neither Chance nor Risk believed they were the ones who should be about taking order upon the carnage.  They had asked not, only been given the worse of choices, to act in peril of death or surely be handed death. 

          Drink. 

          Yes.

          More’n one.

          Probably.

          They entered the nearest saloon and ordered whatever libation the establishment had.  It was the same saloon as the first day and the second. The barman told them they needed to holster their guns if they wanted to drink.  Each looked down; unaware of what his hand held.  They holstered; drawing up to the bar.  Each wanting the hard brown stuff that burned the most. 

          The Waitress, the one who had tumbled in fear, was working hurriedly.  Chance wondered how she had gone from falling down in the middle of the street to hurriedly serving.  But he realized his entire sense of this day’s time was askew, and could not be trusted.  She had likely been brought here the same way as the throng now entering; brought riding on the wave of excitement that had filled the life of the town.  The Bugs the Furries and the humanoids.  Others too, but no Greys.  All within were hot to the touch on the excitement of the melee; all were drinking merrily, smiling.  None talked to them, the Two.

          Why the f**k they so happy?

          Not sure.  Something going on in the town.

          “Yous-r.”  Said the barman.  “Yous.  Ehrboodty tahx b’yous.”  And perhaps they were.

          You think they’d all had a hand in it! 

          In moments, the third drink that was a function probability related to the task behind them, was now in front of them, accompanied by the Waitress.  She said the barman thought it might be a good idea for them to go, he did not want any trouble tonight.  She bent close, to whisper the words.  Her intent was to carry more of important than just the thing stated.  There was a silence that spoke of things she dare not utter, but was lost on the newly-born. 

          He never seems to want trouble.  Tell him, he wants we will take our trouble elsewhere … Course, most these merry friggin happy people will likely follow.

          She said there was not a problem, just his way of saying he did not want any shooting or fighting. 

          She could not look into Chance’s eyes.  She was still afraid.  Afraid of him.  Probably afraid of what had occurred and what he had done in measure of the occurrence. 

          But she could not stay away.  She kept coming back.  To refill a drink.  Or whatever.  Even those near the two benefitted from the better service proximity brought, as she would turn and serve in kind with each reappearing.  She only talked if it was about the job of serving drinks.  There was no thank the gods or fortune you're alive … nothing idle or paltry.  Only work on the tongue and fright in the eyes.

          I don’t want her to be afraid of me …

          The crowd carried into another thirty moments or so, and the barman got twitchier.  He left and came back.  Left and came back.  Each time through a door to the back of the place.  Another room that had not existed previously as anything other than a door.  The barman would enter looking worried, exit for the worse, and continue to dart his eyes in that direction.  He is concerned.  He needs help deciding what to do.  And does not like the answers he gets from the asking for direction.  Perhaps the bar had a more senior proprietor.  Perhaps he dwelled in the realm beyond that door.  Perhaps that was a privy and the barman just kept tending to his water, suffering from greater discomforts?

          They drank again.  He left again, and this time returned with a lean, bald man dressed better than most.  The proprietor indeed.  He regarded them for a second as the barman spoke.  He listened.  The barman said something and the bald man waived a hand and shook his head in the affirmative.       

          Barman left again, this time through the front door.  He returned a drink later with a handful of local looking toughs.  They looked like they often thought of themselves as the local toughs, and they wanted to look tough now too, but instead were mostly nervous.  Each was healed with a gun like the ones used by the Greys.  Local workmanship.  Crude.

          We got better guns’n everyone in town.

          I noticed.  Kinda nice.

          Yes.

          The barman walked over with the five behind him, and then looked to the one who was the lead dog.  He was a Furrie.  Two were  Furries.  Three humanoid.  One with strange ears and a wide mouth.  The others no different than what was common.  The lead mutt approached and said with everything that had happened with us since the other night, the fight, and then the shootout, it was not gonna be long before something else occurred.  The five acted, with the barman in kind, like they knew what the something was, and in fact it was something more than one thing.  They intended violence of their own and of another kind, and Chance and Risk were unaware of the later.  Once finished speaking, the mutt looked over at the one assumed as proprietor with a looked that petitioned for whether or not he had done as was supposed to be done.  The proprietor gave the slightest of nods to the affirmative.  The gaze no returned.

          They, the Two, had been there more than an hour.  The drinks came and went easily.  Their hands and minds were slower, but not slow to the point this band could really, truly tell them what to do with any threat of harm.

          Risk knew what was up, the bar had opened long enough to reap the benefit of their presence, and now as the crowd faded so did the welcome.  Before too long, someone would come looking to make a name, and then there would be another body.  A stain to be scrubbed out of the wood.  He said he did not feel like leaving. 

          None of the toughs were ready to lean on them.  The words caused the Barman to again a-flutter; speaking insensibly in a different language than was common.  They had to go, he said, or at least that is what they thought he said.

          Why?

          The Sentinel! It was the proprietor who spoke the word.  All eyes went to him.  The words hung in the air.  And the air did not move.  The Barman stared at his employer in disbelief at the sound.

          Chance asked what that was, he had not seen.  Risk's frame of reference was ripe, and he wanted to explain but could not, for he had seen and heard, but had not understood.  This being was the incarnate second threat of violence hinted at by the Waitress and the bearing of the toughs.  The one the five had wanted to prevent.

          The beauty and simplicity of the form.  The memory glowed in the light of the Day’s Star.

          The words were said, The Sentinel.  Everyone acknowledged, even the toughs looked less tough.  The lead of the toughs saying, “Please.  It’s for the best.  No’un wants ‘it’ here.  Just go before it comes.”  It was pleading. 

          A Waitress and a Barman and Bar Proprietor.  Five wanna-be toughs.  And the Two.  There was not a soul other than they in the bar.  The word had cleared the house. 

          “You think this thing, this Sentinel, is gonna come for us?”

          “No one knows why it comes, but it might, and that is enough.”  The Furrie in the lead spoke for all.

          Enough to run us out? 

          Yes. 

          You know you can ask us to leave, but you cant make us leave?

          They knew.  And they asked. 

          And the Two left, not because of the request, but because of the interest.  The five toughs parted.  They knew they were only there for support and the promise of free drinks.  If all had drawn down, the five and the Barman (not that he would have fought, but he probably would have died) would have gone down, and the Two would have stood tall, having dispatched another grouping of life, and they would then drink for free.  But there would have been no purpose to the fight, and even less to the deaths.