A rare enough occurrence I know. Pigs are flying and other improbable things are happening. The Mayans were right. I was wrong. Well actually they weren’t quite right since the world is apparently ending almost a year before they projected.

Anywho don’t expect me to admit that often. But there it is. Its been said so reflect in it now. I’ll write this blog post quickly since the world will be ending soon.

What was I wrong about? My imaginary audience apparently. A friend has located them and they are far from docile. As my friend informs me they are now throwing chairs, various domesticated pets are raining from the skies and horses are doing vile and unspeakable things.

I had hoped that things had improved with them. I brought them cake (courtesy of our friend, Frostius), I brought them words and, when they needed it most, I brought them comfort. The ungrateful ingrates! I’ll bring me and my chair elsewhere.

I scoot off in a random direction. My face grows more morose. A sad montage of me crying alone in the rain while the Imaginary Audience celebrates (read: riots) plays for a little while. Then, a eureka moment!

The chair rolls back to the very room I had left. My eyes have been opened and there they are: my beautiful Imaginary Crowd. I open my arms beneficently, ready to forgive them of all their egregious transgressions.

The only thing I receive in return are rotten tomatoes.

This is not going well.

Ignoring the cloying reek of decaying fruit and gobs of moldy tomato oozing down my face, I begin to speak.

Well I would, if I had anything to say today. Which I don’t. Sorry.

Still here? Damn.

Better think of something quick. I plaster a saccharine and sycophantic smile on my face (the image somewhat broken by aforementioned rotten fruit).

Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to post a follow-up to an excerpt I wrote. This is a continuation of the Dreaming Dead  (which can be found here: http://captainofchickens.com/?page_id=66 for those of you who haven’t read it yet).

Enjoy:

Kurtz stepped out into the night. He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes haunted and betraying the exhaustion of his work. He tightened his great coat around him to ward off the frigid chill of the night air.

Lowering his fur hat, he hurried away from the colossal building of the Library of Souls. Even though the hour was late, Shack’s streets were far from deserted. Its dark streets played host to the petty drama of human life in all its myriad forms. There a night soil collector embarked on his disgusting, but necessary task. In a shadowed alley, the sounds of a mugging could be heard. Nearby citizens lowered their heads and strode onwards, not willing to intervene. A woman berated her husband as he stumbles home drunk from a night out at the taverns.

The cobbles of the city, slick with mist-born vapors, have seen the same scenes repeated for centuries. This night, however,  seemed to hold a pregnant promise. There was an unconscious furtiveness in the actions of Shack’s denizens and prompted them to hurry home to shelter from the darkness.

The moon stared down balefully from the firmament. Its pockmarked surface leered at the goings on of the mortals down below. Kurtz glanced up at it for a moment and took little stock of his surroundings. His next step faltered as his boot sunk into a freezing puddle of some unidentifiable liquid. Icy fluid poured in over the lip of his boot and made a bad night worse.

Headache pounding and now his woes were compounded with a soggy and half-frozen foot, he cursed fluidly and with a vehemence that no doubt shocked the sensibilities of passerby. 

“Reason bless it! Could this night get any worse?”

Yes it could.

He stumbled down the aptly named Damp Street, barely noticing the graffiti and other examples of discontent.

He barely noticed as he stumbled into a woman. Kurtz turned to mumble an apology when he noticed something was off. His attention was captured. While nothing appeared outwardly wrong, he felt a very odd sense of disquiet emanating from the woman. She slowly turned to face him. A rictus grin plastered its way across her face and her eyes were luminous pits of onyx. No breath misted from her mouth. The Adjutant recognized the signs. He had never seen one up close but he knew her instantly for what she was: a thrall.

This poor woman, knowingly or unknowingly had become host to a spirit. Her soul eaten as fuel by this foul perversion and now the only part of her  existence that remained was her corporeal form. Nothing of the woman that had been glimmered behind those too dark eyes as the ruthless and malign intelligence now puppeted her flesh.

The grin grew wider as it beheld Kurtz. He fumbled at his belt, searching for the flintlock pistol he kept in a loose holster there.

He pulled it just as the thrall approached. The trigger depressed.  The hammer struck down. The powder ignited and a blue blur shot out in a plume of smoke. The crack resounded through the street and smoke obscured his view. A blast of frigid air swirled the smoke and through it a black shape moved with an oddly swaying gait.

He had missed.