He spent the first few days becoming familiar and reacquainting himself with the dark stoned city. Wheatstone. The canals. Long walks that tired him but left him with a sort of satisfaction. He had even come upon what’d looked to be the emptied shell of somewhere he knew he’d never be able to name. A place with dark and obscure marks upon its wall that’d made him think of the mysterious 13. He’d taken a photo there, narrowly avoiding the event of its floor boards opening immediately after. Urchins. He’d smiled and ducked aside on the exterior of the building, trying to stay clear of its windows. He wasn’t out to disturb that layer of clandestine mystique that rested over Babbage like a silk blanket around its beloved child. He* was* however curious about what exactly had happened to Arnold, the cat, and why the papers sounded as if the reason for the murders did not end with the death of Mr H. Cortman.
It was with that in his mind that he’d spent yet *another* day -today- probing around Babbage’s storehouses of knowledge; its library and then its archives inside theCity Hall.
Well, he’d almost made it to the archives; having seen the room before he presumed it would be easy enough to find again. That’s what he had thought, that he would not get lost. But he had, and right inside the building no less; upstairs or downstairs and through which door he wasn’t sure.
And that was when he saw it.
Entirely by accident and through a window on the second floor.
It was large and black and stood on two legs, at least the height of a tall man, covered in long black fur, and with large sharp teeth.
He seemed to lose the power of speach right then, followed within seconds by thought. Thought though returned first.
[i]A wolf?[/i]
It looked like a wolf for all the world.
But it stood on two legs. And moved in a way that made him think it was something other than wolf.
“There is no such thing as werewolves. There is no-such-thing as werewolves“, a piece of his consciousness needed to believe that.
His impulse was to run. He started to. He would have. Pieces of words thrown into the newspapers and gossip mixed together in his mind like an ill matched jigsaw puzzle.
Claw……blood…..body.
He had to get out of there.
Two thoughts though slowed his exit; “What will I tell people to get them to believe me”. and “You *have* to tell somebody.
He recalled the camera in his coat folds then; the same one he’d used to capture the wall with the scriblings.
“Please God don’t let this thing see me, catch me, or kill me”, he prayed fervently, forcing himself downstairs to the door it stood beyond.
He would take the picture, run inside, and…..and what?? The door flew open then, his hand on the knob opening it contrary to the uncertain plan he still contemplated.
Click
Slam
He had it! He’d seen *something* and he had proof. He also knew that any second the thing would be reacting to having seen him take that very picture and it would give chase. He fumbled in his deciding of where exactly to run to, and hid -ironicly- in the recruitment office of the militia, wanting for all the world to climb inside one of its many slender drawered cabinets, while the source of his fear vanished outside.
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/92339743@N08/8385176337/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8051/8385176337_191b076921.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/92339743@N08/8385176337/]Snapshot _ City Hall , Babbage Square (133, 165, 115) – Moderat[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/92339743@N08/]MBlackwell000[/url], on Flickr
(Comments welcome -edit has decided not to cooperate for me)
What a frightful creature; I mean to warn as many as I can.