1-9
Birdwatching
"No, something wrong?" Casey's voice was barely audible through the grainy microphone he'd planted on Bea.
"I don't know, it's nothing I guess." Meanwhile her voice was nearly unintelligible from how loud and distorted it was.
"Piece of shit." Dima groaned in a Scottish accent. He sat alone in his pitch black apartment, the only light coming from his desktop monitor. The goat took a sip of cold tomato while turning the volume up.
"Are you allri…" The audio feed suddenly transformed into a garbled mess of angry distortion, the microphone must have died. Dima sighed as he took his headset off and leaned back in his chair while his ears softly rang. He'd been listening to that recording for the past several hours, mulling over every line and deciphering anything that puny little microphone didn't pick up properly. He stood up and walked to the wall and flicked the lights on. Their room was a small square with a cut edge that held a dinky window. Against the wall was an ancient TV, above which hung a strange landscape painting of a mountain range, all of which was parallel to a well worn couch. Dima had changed into a baggy dark gray turtleneck and black sweatpants, a far cry from the flashy outfit he wore earlier. He sat back down at his desk and opened up file explorer.
The goat was greeted by a million different folders for a million different things, yet he somehow knew where to go. He entered 'Residents', which had the name of just about everyone who had so much as spit in Possum Springs. There was so much information in these folders that he was sure that if he looked hard enough he'd find a spreadsheet showing the average number of times that Chris Evans shook his penis after taking a piss over the course of a year.
Dima clicked into Bea's file and attempted to drag the file of the recording he'd just been listening to inside, but accidentally opened one that was right next to it. A photo opened up on his screen, it was of Bea and her parents at that 'My Chemical Romance' concert. He'd taken the photo from her wallet and scanned it onto his PC, along with the rest of its contents.
He lingered on it for a moment, it was sweet seeing that girl that happy, and he cracked a small smile himself. He shook the feeling off and closed the window before moving everything into their correct places. Just as he was leaving he glimpsed a folder labeled 'special photos', which was new to him. Clicking on it brought up a barrage of fully or partially nude images of Bea, all of which were taken from a distance through windows and such.
"The fuck?" His face contorted in disgust as he closed the folder and deleted it. The goat groaned as he hit the monitor's power button and leaned back. He pulled his phone out and saw the timer he'd set earlier was about to go off, it was time to go. They stood up and threw on a black jacket, sneakers and stuffed some earbuds into his pocket before leaving.
Dima made sure to exit through the back of the apartment complex, he didn't want to draw any unwanted attention. He opened the door of an old tan Volvo with tinted windows and started her up. He couldn't risk drawing any attention to himself, so he went off road through the grassy fields that surrounded the small town. It was quite rough and bumpy, and could quite possibly cause the car's suspension to bottom out, but it was either that or risk getting spotted.
He eventually arrived at a decrepit gas station near the road that led into town. They parked their car in the back and slunk around the old building until he was in front of a broken payphone which had been shoddily repaired. He took a deep breath and waited for the call while reciting the code in his head. The phone didn't even get to ring for a second before he answered it.
"0-5-6-1-4-8-3-2-3-6-5-0-4-8-2-9-1-5." The goat held his breath as he waited for a response on the other side of the line.
"Welcome back, Prince." He let out a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his brow.
"Elvis." Speaking in that russian accent all day made the Scottsman's mouth feel like a potato, an old, stale potato that had been left out in the sun. It felt great to be able to talk normally for a little while.
"Good job, that was your best one yet." The American said.
"Thanks." He nodded while he leaned against the payphone. "I'm going to have to apologize before continuing, the battery in the microphone died."
"Chinese piece of shit." They muttered. "Just tell me what you got." Prince cleared his throat before continuing.
"Everyone who said they were going to join the meeting did, as well as Jeremy Warton and Lorraine Meyers Jr." He explained. "Kajetan Hartley and Margret Borowski have been confirmed to be Anima and Animus respectively, and as we suspected they both bear the mark. There's something else too, they both appear to have telepathic abilities between the two of them. They convinced everyone present to form a coalition to fight BG except Lorraine, it appears she has doubts."
"Anything else?" Elvis asked.
"There's some disagreement between Kajetan and Beatrice on if they should fight BG or not, otherwise that's all."
"Good work." Elvis's congratulations made him smile a little.
"Thanks."
"I was going to ask you about her, did you like the 'special' photos we sent you?" Prince's smile slipped from him like soup through the fork at the mention of those pictures.
"Yeah I've got some questions for you about that, like why the fuck you send me that shit?!"
"Hey, easy there boy!" Elvis consoled him. "My guys worked really hard to get those photos, you should appreciate-"
"Oh my god!" He threw one of his arms up into the air in an overexaggerated manner. "I don't give a fuck! I really don't! I feel like a weight has been lifted off my chest by just not giving a single fuck about their hard work at being fuckin creep!" There was an uncomfortably drawn out silence on the other end of the line before Elvis's old voice spoke up once more.
"Oh I see." Prince's face turned to confusion as he leaned in slightly. "You wanna get into her pants yourself." He chuckled.
"You twat." The angry goat shot back.
"Hey I don't judge, I should have known, you're a man of action. I mean you're a little older than her, but-"
"Could you shut it?" The older man laughed through the other end of the line.
"I bet she said she had a crush on you based on how you're taking this." Prince's face turned bright red and he scowled.
"Fuck off."
"So she did!" He laughed. "It's alright, you do you. Just make sure to get some by Friday, if you do a good job we'll be sending the cavalry in."
"Got it, anything else?" He asked in an annoyed tone.
"We've got a job for you, just to warm you up since you got out of cold storage." The goat raised an eyebrow at that.
"Alright, what is it?"
Prince parked his shitbox against the cemetery wall and stepped outside, the frigid night air pecked at his cheeks whilst a light mist covered the ground. He hopped up on the roof of his car and clambered on top of the weirdly tall brick wall that surrounded the graveyard. He looked down, it looked like a nice and flat landing. He took a deep breath and threw himself off the wall, and immediately regretted it as he realized that the ground was, in fact, not flat. Before he could re-adjust his footing he landed on his left foot sideways and a loud cracking sound erupted from it.
"Aaaarrghh! Fuck!" He screamed in agony as he rolled around on the ground, clutching his wounded foot. A flashlight suddenly appeared on the horizon and approached him rapidly, until they were right next to him and shining the blinding light in his face.
"Are you OK?!" The figure called out as they approached his body.
"Aye." He answered in a strained voice as he blocked the light from the flashlight with his arm. Almost immediately they brought the light down as he curled his leg in.
"Jesus Christ, what happened to your foot?" Prince put both hands onto it and snapped it back into place. He let out a short yet loud yelp of pain as the other man cringed.
"I'm fine." He said as he used his still working foot to stand. The other man approached and grabbed his arm to help him stand back up. He was a well aged crocodile drenched in a dark brown trench coat with a concerned look on his face.
"Jesus…" The man muttered. Prince pressed his broken foot onto the ground and brought his weight down on it, cringing as he did so. He shrugged it off and began to limp away from the crash site as the man followed him.
"You've got a bit of an accent, where are you from?" He asked in an attempt to change the subject
"Russia." The man laughed.
"You sure?" Alarm bells began to blair louder than jet engines as he realized just how bad of a mistake he'd made. He'd forgotten to bring Dima into play, and now there was no going back. Prince couldn't ignore it, he was going to have to kill this man.
"Oh, sorry, I think that fall took some of my brain cells." He apologized. "Scotland."
"Oh, I've always wanted to go to Europe, I've heard it's nice." They smiled.
"Not Scotland, it's a shithole." He joked.
"I'll keep that in mind. What's your name?" Prince almost made one up, but he decided to give the man his real name, it was the least he could do.
"Clyde." He replied. High school theater class was the only thing keeping that gravekeeper unaware of just how much dread was building up in his soul from what was to come.
"David, I'm the gravekeeper. Good to meet you." The two shook hands. David's house was surprisingly close to where he'd landed, right next to the gate. The two of them approached the house and the gravekeeper turned to look at him.
"Alright, let me take you inside, I'll see what I can do then you're going down to the station." Clyde stopped in his tracks and looked over at the crocodile.
"You're calling the cops?" He asked in a nervous tone.
"Of course, you broke in, even if you did break your foot." He opened the door to his little shack. "And don't try to do anything funny, please." He moved his coat aside to show his holstered revolver.
"Didn't have any plans to." He lied. David nodded and held the door open for the two of them.
"Make yourself at home, I'll get you a chair." He said as he threw his coat aside. The shack was pleasantly quaint, it only had one room that held a small bed, makeshift kitchen and desk with a shoddy lamp and ancient phone on it.
"You got a cludgie?" The Scotsman asked.
"A what?"
"Toilet."
"Out the back, the place was made before indoor plumbing was a thing." He explained while walking over to the kitchen and bringing a chair over to him.
"Here, take a seat." He placed the chair next to Clyde and he nearly broke it from how hard he collapsed onto it. He sighed and let his head hang off the end of the edge of the chair for a moment before getting to work. The goat began to examine his surroundings, looking for a way to do the deed. Making it look like suicide would be best, but he could make just about anything work. As long as he picked something quickly he wouldn't have time to think about what came next.
"Want one?" David asked as he pulled an orange out of a glass bowl. "They're fresh."
"I'll pass." Clyde spoke, his voice hollow.
"Your loss." He took a kitchen knife and peeled the skin off of it before taking a chunk out of it and throwing it into his mouth. That would work, but he'd have to be fast or else he'd get a lethal injection of lead from the gravekeeper, and his broken foot disagreed with anything to do with speed. The goat's eyes darted over to David, who was standing above that old rotary phone and ringing up the police. Clyde gulped hard, he had to do something now or he knew he wouldn't have the courage to, no matter what his left foot said. The boy took the earbuds out of his pocket and began to play 'No Surprises' in his ears. He then quickly shot up from his chair and darted over to the counter, nearly stumbling over his own feet.
Before they even knew it he'd picked up the knife and was lunging at him, knocking the oranges off the table and making the bowl shatter onto the ground. David quickly pulled his revolver out but he wasn't quick enough, he pushed him against the wall and grabbed him from behind. He brought the knife to his throat and began to cut lengthwise, tendons popping and flesh ripping. The man desperately tried to bring his gun against his attacker, but the goat used his other hand to hold the gun high above his head. Clyde kept his eyes glued to that gun and tried his best to just focus on the music while his face twitched and his breath grew heavy. After what felt like years the man's grip listened and his gun clattered to the ground, David was dead. He let out a deep and shaky sigh as he looked down at the corpse.
It was Bea.
He had ripped her jugular wide open, blood drenched her dress and dripped between her legs. Her head barely was able to stay attached to the rest of her body, he could see the taught flesh on her neck as her mouth hung agape. She was staring up at him, her eyes wide and glazed over yet screaming 'Why, why me?!'. Clyde dropped the knife and took a step back from the body, and it collapsed onto the ground. It had transformed back into David, but that image of Bea had been branded in his mind. He felt an indescribably strange sense of being sick, as if his soul had been ripped from his body and was following him around like a balloon tied to his waist.
He turned the volume up as high as his phone would allow, anything to drain the thoughts out. Clyde limped outside, a dazed expression on his face. No matter how many times he was forced to do this he never got used to it, yet he had to keep going, he had a job to do after all. He slowly limped away and was soon descending down the hill that Elvis had mentioned, and he was soon at the bottom. There were 2 graves there, neither of which he bothered to read. Clyde got down onto one knee and moved the shrubbery aside to reveal a black briefcase, he pulled it out and entered a code into the lock and opened it. Inside was a customized Colt Woodsman, which he'd affectionately named 'Woodie' back when he first got it. Just a few minutes ago he would have appreciated seeing his old gun again, but now it felt like a sick joke.
He shut the lid of the case and stood up, his body struggling to stand not only because of his broken foot. He took the case and began to trek up the hill, passing by the gravestones once more. His gaze slipped and he peaked at them, and his heart stopped. Written on the one closest to him was 'Mia Santello', and its twin said 'Robert Santello'. The gravestones were the straw that broke the camel's back, his weakened body collapsed in front of Mia's grave and began to sob uncontrollably. Clyde didn't know why, maybe it was because of what he did to David, or his vision of her daughter, but he couldn't stop it. He held onto the gravestone like a child holding their parents as his tears streamed down it.
"P-please keep Bea sa-safe…" Was all he could sputter out through the thick wall of tears that covered his face. For whatever reason a feeling of comfort washed over him, like she had a hand on his shoulder and was there for him, or maybe it was his own mother. He started taking deep breaths and tried to calm his quivering body, but it did little to help. Clyde wanted to melt away into a puddle, drain into the sewers and dissipate into the ocean.
End
We got a new follower, you know who you are and I thank you for taking the time to read my lil fic! I hope you stick around, I've got a lot planned. We also hit the 100 visitor milestone recently (I've been made aware that views don't matter.) I sadly can't get any art done yet as the person I got the last pic from is busy, but as soon as they're available I'll get some. Be sure to follow if you liked it, and if you didn't leave a review saying why. Have a great day/night!
P,S,: And if there were any errors then please let me know!