Digging Down

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Digging Down
Chapter of Under A Killing Moon
Chapter 2 of Under A Killing Moon
Chronology
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Welling Up -

-

What Happened

Earlier: Michael

Dewhurst Library. A relic of a dream of a brighter and better city. Like many others, Michael found it somewhere to stay relatively warm and dry without having to justify his existence or pay for the privilege. He spent the afternoon in the reading room, leafing through a few books that caught his interest to kill time until the alarm went and it was time to head to work. He tried not to watch the clock, that bred anxiety and ate the little time he had to himself, but he couldn't help himself. Ten minutes left, just enough time to finish the chapter. The guy on the next table over checked his watch. Then the girl on the other side. Then the people beyond them, and the ones beyond them, radiating out like a wave of anxious clock-watching until it filled the room and they all turned as one to stare at Michael. He slunk down, buried his head in the book and pretended not to see it, and when he glanced again the room was as it was before. No stares, only the uneasy memory of dozens of eyes boring into his soul. The alarm could not go off quick enough, and he headed to work with his head down.

It was sometime after midnight when Michael got out of Oasis. The bar was still open but the crowd was thin due to the season and management decided to reduce costs by cutting hours from surplus staff. That suited him fine. The incident at the library had left him on edge and he had felt eyes on him all night. He needed to clear his head and decided on some retributive violence against the system. With spray paint and collapsible baton in hand, he started on a circuitous walk to psyche himself up and to approach the parking lot by a different direction. Halfway there, he heard a scream and saw a junkie attacking a doctor. His grip on the baton tightened. Maybe it wouldn't be glass getting broken tonight...

Earlier: Jerome

A few hours after sunset Jerome made his way from the Fixit Shop to the club. He headed for an inconspicuous basement doorway tucked between a payday loan shop and a palm reader on Franklin street, a sign on the door read “Chakri Herbery, Authentic Thai Remedies” under a logo of a golden disc. Jerome greeted and was ignored by the guys behind the counter as he walked past the displays of herbal supplements and through an unmarked door. Down a flight of well-worn stairs was the gym, racks of weights and equipment sitting against bare brick walls with the fighting ring sitting at the heart of it all. He tried to keep to his usual corner and work through his reps out of the way of the more serious types, but Mr King laid an arm on his shoulder and smiled in a way that brooked no argument. Reps and working punchbags could only go so far, it was time to get into the ring.

Jerome found himself set up against one of the meatheads, a tanned heavyweight with frosted tips called Chet who insisted the swastika on his shoulder was a manji. The fight went better than he expected, blocking his opponent’s attacks and hesitant to strike back until something caught his eye. Among the dozen people watching the fight was someone Jerome had never seen before - an older man with steel-grey hair and black eyes, dressed in a grey tracksuit with creases so sharp it seemed to have been ironed. He was milling about the crowd, moving through it without noticing the existence of anyone else, unblinking black eyes set on the fight. On Jerome.

Chet took advantage of Jerome’s distraction to get around his guard. Jerome instinctively slipped around the strike and retaliated with a fierce strike that sent Chet sprawling and shook himself out of the daze. He froze, realised what he had done and immediately tried to apologise. Chet ignored him and instead laid into Jerome with a chain of powerful blows. The last thing Jerome saw before his head hit the mat was the black-eyed man leering close to the ring, lips split into a wide grin that showed far too many teeth.

Mr King helped Jerome to his feet, checking him over to make sure nothing was broken and chiding him only a little for letting his guard down. Good hit, mĕe, do that more often... Of Chet or the black-eyed man, there was no sign. Jerome spent another hour at the club trying to burn off the adrenaline, but no matter what he did he could not wind down. He was still wired when he got home and decided to take a run to try to try and clear his head. And there he heard the altercation

Choosing Violence

Ethan was trying in vain to flee from the man whose teeth were closed about the meat of his forearm. A cry of “what the fuck, Jacob?!” came from an alleyway he had passed earlier. Anabell, who had been tracking her friend down to give him another dose and keep him from going cold turkey, had just seen him go for Ethan like a starving man for a steak. Most of the few other people on the street were keeping their distance, better to not get involved and who knew what diseases the junkie was carrying. But not all of them. Michael tightened his grip on his collapsible baton and steeled himself to mete out furious anger, but before he could do so chaos ensued.

Anabell crossed the road at a sprint and slammed into Jacob to the sound of a scream that she didn’t even realise was coming from her own throat. He shuddered back from the impact and she froze, she had been aiming just to separate him from the doctor, she thought she had been... Taking advantage of this moment of confusion, Jacob wheeled around and turned on Anabell, eyes like pinpricks, Ethan’s blood about his mouth and flecks of skin and muscle between his crooked teeth. Before she could react, he launched himself at her, spindly hands closing about her like a vice and his teeth digging into her flesh.

Jerome saw all this from half a block away and dithered until the urge to act overcame his learned instincts to not get involved. He tried to get between the brawlers and separate them just as Michael moved to strike Jacob. In the chaos, Michael’s baton was knocked from his grip and Jerome took an elbow to the temple, sending him staggering back in pain. Anabell tried to wrench herself free from Jacob’s iron grip to no avail, as he started to drag her with him toward an alleyway, aware he was outnumbered. In between the sharp mumbles of hungry and cold was an alien word that rumbled like a growl deep in his throat: “uu-raa-tha”

Michael grasped for a weapon and found one of his cans of paint, which he promptly turned on Jacob as improvised bear spray. Half-blind and choking on paint, Jacob staggered on still. He dragged Anabell into the alleyway one-handed, feeling and flailing his way to a door which he wrenched open with a squeal of half-rusted metal.


People Appearing (in order of appearance)

Locations

Notes

  • Experience: 5 beats each.
  • Breaking Points faced:
    • Anabell: attacking her friend, .
    • Ethan:
    • Jerome:
    • Michael: the event at the library, .
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