Arnold went next door to talk to Miss Hienrichs to say hello to his new ‘neighbor’ for now. He’d tried on several occasions and not once had she answered. “…am I going to have to start singing on your fence?”
Bookworm Hienrichs finally seemed to hear him then, “Just a moment,” she called out, a bit hoarsely. She moved rather sluggishly however, though she opened the door for him after a peek outside to see who it was. “Hello, Arnold.”
“Hello Miss Hienrichs. I just thought I should speak with you since I will be managing the nearby property.”
“Ahh, yes. I received a short note from Mr. Emerson about that. Do you know where he’s going?”
“I know where he is destined as his current stop, and he said I should expect to recieve a telegraph on occasion as to his progress. But I do not know his final destination at the moment.” He didn’t add that it was still his opinion that Emerson didn’t even have one even now, so he hadn’t bothered to ask. “I don’t expect to hear word back. He’s gone to Bump to begin it seems.”
“Oh, dear…well, it’s not an *automatic* death sentence. Let’s hope he’s one of the lucky ones.”
Arnold shrugged, “I’ve only heard the rumors. Is it true we bombed them, or is that more nonsense?”
“No…there were rumblings about doing that, but it didn’t come to anything.” Bookworm explained. “Still, it’s certainly not a place *I* would go to willingly.” Miss Hienrichs chuckled a bit, and then coughed into a handkerchief.
“Are you feeling well Miss Hienrichs?”
Bookworm shook her head ruefully. “Mariah’s come down with influenza, and I do believe I’m developing it as well. I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere for the next few days.”
“I would strongly suggest you come with me to the hospital then,” Arnold said putting strong emphasis on the word would, “But to be honest I’d rather not. I’m on something of a sabatical from it.”
“Oh? Ahh. Your recent…experince has something to do with that?”
Arnold raised an eyebrow, wondering what she knew about it, “Yes actually. That’s part of the reason I agreed to manage the books for Mr. Lighthouse. I wanted a change of scenery to think…and Mr. Harvey agreed it might help.”
Miss Hienrichs nodded, “It should be restful here.”
“I am a nurse though. If you need assistance I’ll provide it if I must.”
“And we’ll consider a move to the hospital, though I don’t think it’s necessary at this point. Mrs. Pritchard, our housekeeper, is taking good care of us. If either of us get worse, though, we’ll let you know.”
Arnold nodded. “Just keep in mind I’m there if she becomes ill as well.”
They soon bid each other goodbye. Arnold didn’t know what else that he had to do with his time…all of the duties had been completed and he didn’t have any desire to take another run around the city. On the way back he did notice a flyer for the new exhibit at the museum. For a moment he considered going there, but then he shook his head. No, he’d had enough of the past for now.
He checked Emerson’s letters for everything he was supposed to do, and then something caught his eye.
Please stay out of the basement of the house next to the clock, it is locked for a reason.
That statement made him more than a little curious. He could definitely go down there and unlock the door, but halfway there another thought occured to him. He had been wondering if he really could walk through walls now. Perhaps he’d take the time that Emerson was gone to try that on this door.
Fourty minutes later he was rubbing his nose angrily at his own stupidity. He wouldn’t try that again any time soon.
***
Beatrixe Rouse pouted on the other side of the asylum cage that they had put her in…again! It was funny the first few times, but now it was getting ridiculous. They’d taken away all her tools and her shoes and now they had told her she couldn’t leave till they’d cured all those plagues she was carrying from swimming in the sewers for years. If she’d had them for years it was obvious they weren’t hurting her! True some of the people she got close to in the past had died, especially when she accidentally caught a case of fleas or gave them a kiss, but that could have been caused by any number of bicycles or totem poles that had wanted to frame her!
***
The snake had finally managed to recover, though it bore even more scars than ever before.
Why did those walkers attack it, it hadn’t done anything to them in a while! Well if they were going to attack him anyways then all bets were off…just as soon as it felt well enough again it would pay them back. There were only two creatures that it could think of that would do this to him…the creature that smelled like fish and that man that put him in that confined space in it’s nest.
***
Dr. Sonnerstein had found several concerning things during Pippy’s diagnosis, and a quick observation of her blood suggested that she was about to go through some kind of mutation at the cellular level, though they had to send her blood off for proper testing to discover more than that. The feathers and scales he had found growing throughout the day had made him take precautions and he attempted to quarantine her away from anything else. Pippy was laying in the bed as the pathogen slowly began to mutate her without her knowledge or awareness. By morning she had no fur left to speak of, and by noon she had grown in size exponentially and only continued to grow. By evening her paws had turned into claws and talons and feathers had started to appear on her arms. Kristos tried to keep her contained but…
When Mr. Harvey entered the hospital late Wed near midnight to check on their tiny patient. he found the iris door had been locked. He opened it, but he had not been prepared to find that the once sweet and tiny purple fox was now a disoriented, hungry raptor whose flesh was falling off. It had caught the scent of the bunny and was now quite hungry.
With a jurasic roar it attacked Mr. Harvey, who paniced but just barely managed to close and lock the door again. He sat against the seats and cushions breathing heavily as the dinosaur was now trying to claw and bludgeon it’s way to the other side.
((From the engenieers notes for Wed released just a short time ago:
Also, the plague is carried by a dinosaur and matured inside a dinosaur,
so it slightly mutated. If you want to become a full blown zombie
dinosaur you can, but please, no 20m high T-Rex avatars, keep it to
raptors or smaller…and make sure their skins can be altered to look
zombiefied, the raptor im using comes from Nargus “Dinosaur Park”, they
sell the common raptor (smaller, more thinner) the Comphisaurus (tiny
little lizard on two legs), T-Rex and Pterodactyl…or, again, you can
try the dinos in Grendels :)
))
ah Mr Arnold! i know what went wrong! it’s walls cats can walk through, not door, find a nice, thick, solid wall, that’d be best……. oh….. an you probably just have ter do it, thinking about it is probably not a good idea…….