Page 110 of Two for Joy

Three days after he’d seen Chad. Three days after his ‘suicide’.

He’d been the farmer. The Suited Businessman. And the Homeless Guy. All disguises he’d donned to help the monster.

The farmer stood out with his rural clothing, muddy boots, and flat cap.

The suited man stood out with his tailored clothes, his stylish taste, and good looks.

But the homeless guy faded into the background. He always had, and always would.

Brown loose pants he’d found in someone’s trash. A well-worn jacket he stole from someone’s shed. Gloves he found in a skip that looked like they’d been chewed by rats. His face was dirty, his stubble wild, and his hair clumped with grease.

He didn’t have to avoid people, he could walk right up to them, they avoided him. Hurried across the street to get away, didn’t make eye contact, and pretended he was invisible. The ones that didn’t, threw money into his pot to spare their own guilt.

Romeo, the countdown killer, was right there, but no one suspected a thing.

****

Another dream.

He didn’t kill the magpie.

He let it go.

The magpie was rejected by its own kind, looked on with fear and suspicion.

It flew.

But was caught by Marc Wilson.

Marc Wilson who broke its wings with a sadistic smile on his face. Marc Wilson who asked Romeo to join him, to pull the magpie apart together.

He turned to Romeo, grinning with glee, triumphant in his brutality. Romeo felt weak, defeated, helpless, he couldn’t get to Chad in time, he couldn’t save him.

The nausea in his stomach changed to fire, to an intense anger that fed into his veins.

The monster tore free from Romeo’s mind, hideous, evil, hard to even look at. It sunk its fangs and claws into Marc, growled and roared as it devoured him. His life, the energy the monster craved, longed for, wished to possess spilled out of Marc into the monster.

It was killing Marc and enjoying every second.

Romeo stumbled towards the magpie on trembling legs and picked the broken bird off the ground.

He had hold of it, promised to fix it again, but this time he’d never let it go.

****

Romeo didn’t wake shouting or covered in sweat. He slowly opened his eyes, then looked up at the light flickering above him, literally a spotlight showing him to the world.

Seven days since he’d seen Chad. Seven days since his apparent suicide at the jumping hotspot.

Romeo had moved.

Hitchhiking, and the small change from strangers had moved him across the country, back to the county of his crime.

“You done with that?”

He looked to his left, a man limping towards him, sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders, gesturing to the paper on the floor next to him. The man wore gloves like Romeo, worn down clothes like him, too. He had a piece of cardboard asking for any spare change.

Romeo opened the paper, took out the center puzzle page, then stretched out his arm to hand the rest over. “Nothing interesting, still on about Marc Wilson, and that countdown killer bloke.”

---