Disclaimer: I do not own Watchmen.
***
The other was newer but not by much. A stone angel watched over the site as an everlasting guardian. It was there. It would always be there unless the carving met an end similar to the man. Dashed to pieces by good-for-nothings looking for entertainment; Hollis Mason did not deserve such an end.
Under the Hood rested on my bookshelf well-read but carefully taken care of. It had been kept in a paper bag. I finished a chapter a night.
It had left me feeling warm and a little sad. I thought of the ad for Nostalgia. I'd smelled it once and bought a small bottle. It was all I needed. I was wearing it now visiting the graves.
Nite Owl had been a man. One we needed dearly. He was honest and showed the simple truth. He fought for something he believed in and people saw all he did. There wasn't anything deceptive but the mask.
It was almost a year since the alien dropped into New York City. I had been upstate visiting a friend when it'd happened.
When the news came over the radio we got into a car and drove over. Her boyfriend had been yelling at her to not do it. Driving down the freeway with the wind teasing our hair through the open windows had been one of the best feelings we could've ever had. It had been so right. It had been what we'd needed to do.
It had killed us.
Something in us died that day in that city and we buried it with every piece of alien flesh and human corpse we threw dirt over.
I took another swig and held the bottle to my forehead. Geez. I was losing it. I used my wrist to wipe away the tears forming. There was still some coolness left in the bottle despite the heat from the sun and inside my own body radiating outward. I fled to its refuge.
Even as it was dying away.
I placed the bottle with a sound 'clink' against the headstone. It stood there beneath the angel. It would stand there for that is what I needed it to do.
Goodbye, Hollis Mason.
***
There will be one more chapter. There is one bottle left.